PSYCHIATRY AND "MENTAL HEALTH" ARE ALL ABOUT POWER, MONEY AND POLITICS, NOT ABOUT HEALTH AND MEDICINE
by Justice Lover
Big Pharma and psychiatry have been presented to the public by the media as the medical
saviours of people, thus making those monsters the holy cows of Capitalism for many years
now. Yet, in reality , both have been the ruthless killers and torturers of countless thousands of people during that time. Both the false propganda and the harsh reality have been created at the behest of the entire ruling class : the owners of the transnational huge corporations. Zionism and the zionist apartheid regime of Israel have been acting as the spearhead for those monstrous corporations worldwide. Hence the dominating influence of the zionist apartheid regime of Israel on the entire poltical scene in the USA, including the aggressive
inroads by APA inside the USA medical profession.
The following article, albeit confined to the narrow sense of internal USA politics, is an eye
opener which helps to dispel the capitalist propaganda lies. However, it should be emphasised to readers that the ruling gang headed by the current USA President, and its criminal activities are only a small part of the plot, although the Bush family happens to be a large share holder in Big Pharma.
Here it is as published by counterpunch.org on the 17th of July, 2007 :
"When Regulators Become Enablers
Inside Bush's FDA
By EVELYN PRINGLE
Americans need to stop and consider how many consumers will be killed and injured by
dangerous drugs by the time George Bush heads back to Texas at the end of his Presidency, as a direct result of his allowing the interests of the pharmaceutical industry to take control of the FDA.
For nearly 70 years, the common-law tort systems in the individual states have provided a
remedy for citizens injured by prescription drugs. However, in one of the most blatant paybacks for political contributions in US history, in January 2006, Bush-appointed officials at the FDA announced that the agency's approval of a drug and its labeling acts to preempt product liability lawsuits filed by patients against the pharmaceutical giants.
On February 23, 2006, Democratic lawmakers Rep Henry Waxman, of the Committee on
Government Reform, and Reps John Dingell and Sherrod Brown of the Committee on Energy
and Commerce, sent a letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and voiced their
outrage. "The announcement," the lawmakers wrote, "provides unfortunate evidence that the Bush Administration is more committed to protecting drug industry profits than to building a sound system for ensuring drug safety."
"The FDA's preemption announcement," the letter said, "is particularly troubling at a time when FDA's own ability to protect Americans from unsafe drugs has been called into question by a series of cases in which the FDA was slow to warn consumers of significant drug risks."
The new rules went into effect on June 30, 2006, and preemption is now being used in litigation all over the country in an attempt to dismiss lawsuits filed by private citizens against drug companies.
Unbeknown to average Americans, the administration's gift of preemption is not limited to
industries regulated by the FDA. Bush-appointed officials in all federal regulatory agencies are working in concert to ensure that major corporations subject to product liability lawsuits can claim that federal regulation of their products preempts any recovery for consumers harmed, whether the injury involves defective automobiles, pesticides or whatever.
In return, the major corporations are ganging up on private citizens by filing amicus briefs in support of pharmaceutical companies involved in litigation. For instance, the drug giant Wyeth is arguing preemption in a petition currently pending before the US Supreme Court in a case involving one lone woman in Vermont, in an attempt to overturn a jury verdict that was affirmed by the Vermont Supreme Court.
Amicus briefs to support Wyeth's preemption argument are piling up, including one filed by the Product Liability Advisory Council on behalf of just about every major product manufacturer in America.
The plaintiff, Diana Levine, a professional musician, has the support of the Public Citizen
Litigation Group. Ms Levine went to the hospital to seek treatment for a headache and left with injuries that led to the amputation of her arm after the drug Phenergan was administered by IV to alleviate the nausea associated with a migraine headache.
Specifically, her arm had to be amputated because the drug reached Ms Levine's arteries, and he lawsuit alleges that Wyeth was aware of the risk of arterial contact when the drug was
administered by IV and failed to warn against using a method to administer Phenergan that
caused the injury.
In the petition, Wyeth does not dispute that Ms Levine's arm was amputated because the
company failed to warn about using this method. Its sole argument is that she is not entitled to damages because the FDA did not require Wyeth to warn about the danger of administering the drug his way.
The Vermont Supreme Court rejected this argument. The agency's claim of conflict with federal law, the Court held, did not warrant deference because it was flatly at odds with both the FDA's regulation permitting manufacturers "to add or strengthen a warning 'to increase the safe use of the drug product' without prior FDA approval," and with Congress' express directive that state law concerningprescription drugs be superseded only when it poses a "direct and positive conflict with federal law."
On May 21, 2007, the Supreme Court invited the Solicitor General to file a brief to express the views of the government, which will no doubt add support for a favorable preemption ruling for Wyeth, potentially affecting tens of thousand of private citizens with cases pending all over the country.
A favorable ruling on preemption could provide an escape hatch for GlaxoSmithKline in
lawsuits filed by patients injured by the diabetes drug Avandia (rosiglitazone), even though the FDA is aware of the fact that Glaxo concealed the serious cardiovascular risks known to be
associated with the drug for years.
Medical experts are now predicting another Vioxx-like disaster with Avandia. In May 2007,
prominent cardiologist Dr Steven Nissen, of the Cleveland Clinic, reported a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that found the drug to be associated with a 43% increase in heart attacksand possibly a 64% increase in cardiovascular death.
In a May 26, 2007, speech on the Senate Floor, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said that
the actual number of heart attacks possibly linked to Avandia may be as high as 20 a day.
Since the drug came on the market about 8 years ago, he said, tens of millions of prescriptions have been written, and Medicare and Medicaid have paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the drug.
At a June 6, 2007 hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to
review the FDA's failure to warn the public about Avandia, Chairman Waxman (D-Cal) began the meeting by pointing out: "It is not Congress' role to adjudicate these medical issues."
"But it is our role," he noted, "to ensure that the Food and Drug Administration is taking these concerns seriously and providing doctors and patients with the guidance they need to makeinformed decisions."
"Although Avandia has been on the market for eight years and has been used by millions of
Americans," Rep Waxman said, "the post-market studies have not been done to say
conclusively whether Avandia increases or decreases the risk of heart attacks."
"That's a major failure of our system," he said. "And it is what is causing so much confusion and worry among the patients who are taking Avandia today."
Another FDA failure that will surely lead to many lawsuits was allowing Permax (pergolide), a drug used by Parkinson's patients, to remain on the market until March 29, 2007, long after its link to valvular heart damage was known.
Eli Lilly gained approval for Permax in 1988 but, at the time of the recall, the drug was
manufactured by Valeant Pharmaceuticals and generics were sold by Par and Teva.
As early as December 2002, doctors at the Mayo Clinic reported that 3 Permax patients had
developed heart valve disease similar to that caused by the Fen-Phen diet combination. In
2004, HealthDay News reported that a study had confirmed earlier findings that Permax was
linked to heart valve damage which required surgery to correct.
On January 4, 2007, two studies in the New England Journal of Medicine said that the number of patients developing valve damage was higher than expected. One study found moderate to severe valve problems in more than 23% of the patients on Permax, compared to less than 6% in the comparison group.
The second study found Permax users were 5 to 7 times more likely to have leaky heart valves than patients taking other Parkinson's drugs, and patients taking the highest doses of Permax were at a 37 times greater risk.
The FDA's preemption policy has the potential to benefit every major drug company. Johnson & Johnson's SEC filings show that the company is currently facing hundreds of lawsuits over the deaths and injuries linked to the Ortho Evra birth control patch in women all over the country who have suffered blood clots, heart attacks and strokes.
Legal analysts predict that many more lawsuits will be filed due to the wide use of the device and as women realize that their injuries are due to the patch. In 2005 alone, there were more
than 9.4 million prescriptions issued for the Ortho Evra patch, according to IMS Health, an
industry-tracking firm.
A preemption ruling in this litigation would be especially onerous in light of the fact that the
injuries are clearly due to the patch, because blood clots, heart attacks and stroke are almost
unheard of in the age group of women who use this device.
This is another case where FDA officials knew of the health risks before the drug was
approved. Agency records show that in 2000, the FDA scientist in charge of reviewing the
preapproval trials submitted, warned that blood clots could occur and recommended that the
information be included in the prescribing information for the patch.
The new drug application for the antibiotic, Ketek, marketed by Sanofi-Aventis, was rejected
twice, in 2001 and 2003, before FDA management approved the drug on April 1, 2004, based
on fraudulent studies, and over the objections of the FDA's own scientists.
Many patients have been harmed because doctors trusted the FDA's approval of Ketek.
According to a review of the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System, by the staff of the
Senate Finance Committee, between July 2005 and September 2005 alone, there were two
deaths, 35 liver adverse reactions, 44 cardiac events, and 80 visual events in Ketek patients.
In addition, internal FDA emails obtained by staffers, prove that top FDA officials were aware of the problems with Ketek before it was approved, and that FDA scientists, Dr David Ross, Dr David Graham, Dr Charles Cooper, and Dr Rosemary Johann-Liang, all warned FDA management about the serious adverse effects associated with the drug.
A May 16, 2006, FDA memo authored by safety reviewers said Ketek was linked to 12
reported liver failures including 4 deaths, 23 reports of serious liver injury, and a higher rate ofadverse reaction reports than other antibiotics on the market, and the reviewers recommended a black box warning for the Ketek-related liver injury.
However, Sanofi-Aventis and FDA officials disregarded the recommendation and announced
that only a new bolded warning would be added.
In addition to the massive Vioxx litigation, Merck is facing a large number of plaintiffs in lawsuits over the osteoporosis drug Fosamax, alleging the drug causes jaw-bone death, which is an extremely rare condition.
Kenneth Hargreaves of the University of Texas, discussed the increasing cases of ONJ in the
April 3, 2006 LA Times. "We've uncovered about 1,000 patients in the past six to nine months
alone," he said, "so the magnitude of the problem is just starting to be recognized."
Oral surgeon, Dr Salvatore Ruggiero, one of the first doctors to notice the increase in 2001,
told the Times, "Even though the chances of getting this are small, considering there are 23
million women taking this drug, we could be talking about a significant number of people."
The FDA approved Fosamax in 1995, and because it is a relatively new drug, unreported cases OJN may be higher than expected because doctors may attribute the pain caused by the condition to osteoporosis, according to Diane Wysowski of the FDA's Office of Drug Safety in the Times.
Here again, the FDA and the drug maker were aware of the link between OJN and Fosamax
but failed to warn the public until after the drug was prescribed to tens of millions of patients.
The man most credited for the creation of the preemption policy is the FDA's former Chief
Counsel, Daniel Troy, who plays for the opposite team in private practice. Prior to his
appointment as Chief Counsel, Mr Troy was a partner at Washington's Wiley Rein & Fielding,where he filed lawsuits against the FDA on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry to loosen restrictions on off-label prescribing and advertising of prescription drugs.
In fact, critics say, it was Mr Troy's loyalty to the industry, demonstrated by years of legal
battles against FDA regulations, that earned him the appointment by the Bush administration as the industry's inside legal counsel.
Mr Troy himself bragged about his part in implementing the preemption policy in an article he wrote in the October 9, 2006, Legal Times stating: "I was also at the FDA while January's
Physician Labeling Rule, which contains a statement in its preamble about the FDA's pre-
emption authority, was written."
"And I now," Mr Troy states, "advise and represent companies confronting state-law claims that implicate the pre-emptive effect of FDA requirements."
But the fact is, Mr Troy was testing the viability of the preemption argument with judges in state and federal courts long before the new policy was announced in January 2006, by filing amicus briefs on behalf of drug companies and against private citizens in cases involving the new classof selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants (SSRI's) back in 2002.
Critics say it's a toss-up between Vioxx and the SSRI's when it comes to the number of deaths and injuries that could have been prevented if the information about the serious health risksknown to the drug makers had not been concealed.
Over the last 2 decades, SSRI's, which include Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac, Celexa, Luvox and
Lexapro, have been prescribed off-label for uses not approved by the FDA more often than
any other drugs in history. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that 75% of SSRI
prescriptions were written for unapproved uses in June 2005.
Critics say that the profits that have resulted from the massive off-label use of SSRI's, and
especially with children, are a direct result of their illegal promotion by the drug makers. The
success of the off-label marketing of SSRI's is evidenced by a June 29, 2007, report by Reutersthat found the most commonly prescribed drugs in the US are antidepressants.
While most of the focus has remained on the risk of suicide, SSRI's have also been linked to
extreme violence, including homicides, several life-threatening birth defects, abnormal uterine orgastrointestinal bleeding, a decrease in bone mineral density, sexual dysfunction, fertility problems and a severe withdrawal syndrome.
In September 2002, Mr Troy filed the FDA's first brief in support of preemption in the Zoloft
suicide case of Motus v Pfizer, based on a request by Pfizer attorney Malcolm Wheeler. In the
brief, Mr Troy claimed that warnings of a causal relationship between Zoloft and suicide wouldhave misbranded the drug and that "any warning, no matter how worded, that could reasonablyhave been read as describing or alluding to such a relation would have been false or misleading, and therefore in conflict with federal law."
Baum Hedlund partner, Attorney Karen Barth Menzies, has been battling the SSRI makers in the legal arena for more than a decade in representing plaintiffs with claims involving Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft.
Ms Menzies says Mr Troy's argument is absurd because Wyeth strengthened the warning aboutsuicidality on the label of Effexor in August 2003, without obtaining prior FDA approval, and the FDA did not sanction Wyeth or claim the label was false and misleading.
Ms Menzies has defeated the preemption arguments by Mr Troy offered in support of Pfizer
and GlaxoSmithKline in a number of cases. The court never reached the preemption issue in
Motus because the case was resolved on other grounds, but in September 2002, Mr Troy tried
to use the same argument in a lawsuit that alleged Glaxo had failed to warn about the withdrawal effects of Paxil, and the judge stated the argument "contravenes common sense" and "vitiates,rather than advances, the purpose of protecting the public."
Pfizer also submitted Mr Troy's brief from Motus to support a preemption in the case of
Witczak v Pfizer. In rejecting the argument, the court pointed out that: "State consumer-
protection law compliments, rather than frustrates, the FDA's protective regime."
"This is especially apparent," the court said, "when one considers that prescription drugs were once marketed primarily to trained health care providers -- sophisticated and discerning
intermediaries."
"Today, on the other hand, pill-rolling apothecaries and the mortar and pestle have
disappeared," he stated. "They have been replaced by drug manufacturers who urge the use of their drugs in mass-market print and television advertisements targeted directly at the public," hesaid.
As an example, the judge noted that Glaxo had advertised the drug Paxil, "by personifying it as a happy, bouncing-oval cartoon character."
After effectively allocating the power of FDA to drug companies, in 2004, Mr Troy went back
to representing the pharmaceutical industry with the preemption policy tucked in his back
pocket.
But his departure did not stop Pfizer from trying to use the FDA preemption argument in the
Zoloft suicide case of Cartwright v Pfizer, decided in 2005, in which the court rejected Pfizer's preemption argument, finding that Texas tort law "compliments and is parallel to the FDA's
regulations regarding safety warnings and, thus, does not interfere with the objectives of the
FDA."
The court further noted that the FDA mandates that "manufacturer[s] issue a warning whenever there is 'reasonable evidence of an association of a serious hazard with a drug; a causal relationship need not have been proved.'"
The truth is that the FDA knew about the risk of suicidality in children taking Zoloft, because the agency's review of Pfizer's clinical trial data in 1996 showed the risk to be five times that of adults on Zoloft and caused enough concern that FDA reviewer Dr James Knudsen wrote to Pfizer asking for an explanation.
The FDA's new preemption policy also purports to immunize doctors. "Pre-emption would
include not only claims against manufacturers," the FDA states, "but also against health-care
practitioners for claims related to dissemination of risk information to patients beyond what is included in the labeling."
Critics say this language is absurd because it extends protection to all the doctors who are
boosting sales for the drug makers by prescribing drugs off-label, and the FDA labeling carries no prescribing information for an unapproved use and no warnings about the risks that may be associated with a drug in treating patients for an off-label condition.
"The unqualified language of this statement," Mr Waxman's letter states, "would appear to
preempt cases against physicians for failure to warn a patient of risks associated with an off-
label (unapproved) use, since, by definition, such risks rarely appear in the approved drug
label."
However, drug companies have been immunizing doctors who prescribe their drugs off-label for years. For instance, in Eli Lilly's first out-of-court settlement with 8,000 plaintiffs in litigation involving the off-label marketing of the antipsychotic Zyprexa in late 2004, the settlement agreement included a ban on suing the doctors who prescribed Zyprexa off-label, according to a plaintiff involved in the case.
A July 7, 2003, Lilly document entitled, "Diabetes Update," recently made public as a result of
litigation, describes a plan to immunize doctors so they would continue to prescribe Zyprexa
off-label when Lilly learned that the warning about high blood sugar levels and diabetes was
about to be announced by the FDA and the American Diabetes Association.
"We must embrace the fact that many physicians are curtailing their use of Zyprexa (particularly in the moderately-ill patient and in the maintenance phase)," the Lilly memo states, "solely on the basis of personal fear (of being sued)."
"Indemnification," the document notes, "represents the most meaningful demonstration of
confidence in Zyprexa--both with our customers and with our employees."
The memo brags about the success of the scheme when used with doctors prescribing the
company's SSRI. "Our experience with Prozac," it states, "confirms the impact and goodwill of such an initiative."
The drug makers are well aware that the steady flow of profits from off-label marketing
schemes would come to a screeching halt without the participation of the prescribing doctors.
However, the termination date for the immunization coverage extended to the doctors
prescribing Zyprexa by Eli Lilly or the FDA is right around the corner, because the fraudulent billings that have resulted from off-label prescribing of the new class of antipsychotics are bankrupting state Medicaid programs all over the US.
Also, state officials are zeroing in on the money paid to the prescribing doctors. On June 26, in the New York Times, Gardiner Harris reported that states are finding that psychiatrists earn more money from drug companies than doctors in any other specialty, and the psychiatrists who receive the most money from antipsychotic makers prescribe antipsychotics like Zyprexa to children most often.
In the Times, Mr Harris noted that Vermont officials reported that drug company payments to Vermont psychiatrists more than doubled last year, from an average of $20,835 in 2005, up to $45,692 in 2006, and that antipsychotics were among the largest expenses for the Vermont
Medicaid program.
He also reported a similar pattern in Minnesota where psychiatrists earned the most money,
with payments ranging from $51 to $689,000, and the psychiatrists who took the most money
from the makers of antipsychotics prescribed the drugs to children most often.
The atypical antipsychotic makers are currently under investigation by congressional committees and federal and state law enforcement agencies for defrauding public health care programs by marketing the drugs off-label to kids as young as toddlers, as well as elderly citizens in nursing homes, and causing serious injury and death to many patients.
However, Lilly recently purchased a new insurance policy of sorts to keep federal regulators at bay, in hiring Alex Azar II, the former Deputy Secretary of the US Health and Human Services Department, who quit his government job in February 2007 and became a senior vice president at Lilly in May 2007.
According to Lilly's press release, Mr Azar formerly supervised all operations at the HHS, and one of the agencies under his direction was the FDA.
When considering the tens of thousands of lawsuits that have been filed by plaintiffs injured by the new antipsychotics, a favorable ruling on preemption could be worth billions of dollars to thedrug makers.
Persons seeking legal advice regarding Avandia can contact the Baum Hedlund Law Firm at:
(800) 827-0087; http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/ "
Evelyn Pringle is an investigative journalist. She can be reached at:
evelyn-pringle@sbcglobal.net
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
ON MICE, SCHIZOPHRENIA, AND THE SHRINKS' COLLABORATORS
by Justice Lover
When I first saw the following article's headline,How Schizophrenia May Start in Womb, I could not believe my own eyes. I looked up the calendar to see if it is the 1st of April, because the headline read like a hoax ! No, it is dated 16th of July, and it is reported by the media as a "scientific discovery".
How can it be a "scientific discovery" when the purported scientist made his experiments on laboratory mice ? Do mice get "mentally ill" too ? What if the "schizophrenia illness" exists only in the minds of the shrinks but not in reality ( which is the case for sure because nobody has ever proven scientifically the existence of such a disease) ? Was that conference in Melbourne, and/or the "scientist's research" financed by Big Pharma, like so many previous psychiatric conferences and Psychiatric "research projects" ?
It would have been a hilarious joke if it were not for the horrendous sufferings inflicted by the shrinks on their victim-patients whom the shrinks label as "mentally ill" or as "schizophrenics" , to suggest that people are born "mentally ill". Yet the shrinks argued that before. Only that in the past they claimed that "mental illness" is hereditary, and with no scientific proof of their
delusions ! Indeed, why should they bother to prove their delusions if the state empowers them to impose their delusions on innocent people arbitrarily !
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/how-schizophrenia-may-start-in-womb/2007/07/16/1184438160506.html
How schizophrenia may start in womb
July 16, 2007
SCIENTISTS have discovered why mothers-to-be who catch influenza during pregnancy can trigger schizophrenia in their unborn babies.
The breakthrough, revealed at a brain conference in Melbourne, brings US researchers closer to developing a therapy that could reverse the harmful effects of viruses on foetuses.
Women who get respiratory infections such as influenza in the second trimester of pregnancy are up to seven times more likely to have a child with schizophrenia. There is also a higher risk of autism.
A neuroscientist from the California Institute of Technology, Paul Patterson, said this risk was much greater than any known genetic influence.
Professor Patterson believes the virus is able to trigger a mental "switch" that permanently alters and inflames the brain of the foetus, setting the child up for mental illness in later life.
But until now little was known about exactly how the virus caused the change.
In tests on mice, the research team gave pregnant rodents the flu virus and watched the effect on the young mice after birth.
"The offspring had strikingly abnormal behaviour consistent with things that have been seen in schizophrenia and autism, like disrupted social behaviour, fear of novel situations and increased anxiety," Professor Patterson told delegates at the World Congress of Neuroscience yesterday.
The researchers discovered that rather than the virus directly triggering the brain change, it was the mother's immune response to the bug that caused the problem.
"The proteins produced by the mother's immune system to fight the infection seemed to be linked to the problem," he said.
+
"We found that if you block one protein in particular, then the offspring seem to be completely normal, and presumably their pathology will be too."
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)
by Justice Lover
When I first saw the following article's headline,How Schizophrenia May Start in Womb, I could not believe my own eyes. I looked up the calendar to see if it is the 1st of April, because the headline read like a hoax ! No, it is dated 16th of July, and it is reported by the media as a "scientific discovery".
How can it be a "scientific discovery" when the purported scientist made his experiments on laboratory mice ? Do mice get "mentally ill" too ? What if the "schizophrenia illness" exists only in the minds of the shrinks but not in reality ( which is the case for sure because nobody has ever proven scientifically the existence of such a disease) ? Was that conference in Melbourne, and/or the "scientist's research" financed by Big Pharma, like so many previous psychiatric conferences and Psychiatric "research projects" ?
It would have been a hilarious joke if it were not for the horrendous sufferings inflicted by the shrinks on their victim-patients whom the shrinks label as "mentally ill" or as "schizophrenics" , to suggest that people are born "mentally ill". Yet the shrinks argued that before. Only that in the past they claimed that "mental illness" is hereditary, and with no scientific proof of their
delusions ! Indeed, why should they bother to prove their delusions if the state empowers them to impose their delusions on innocent people arbitrarily !
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/how-schizophrenia-may-start-in-womb/2007/07/16/1184438160506.html
How schizophrenia may start in womb
July 16, 2007
SCIENTISTS have discovered why mothers-to-be who catch influenza during pregnancy can trigger schizophrenia in their unborn babies.
The breakthrough, revealed at a brain conference in Melbourne, brings US researchers closer to developing a therapy that could reverse the harmful effects of viruses on foetuses.
Women who get respiratory infections such as influenza in the second trimester of pregnancy are up to seven times more likely to have a child with schizophrenia. There is also a higher risk of autism.
A neuroscientist from the California Institute of Technology, Paul Patterson, said this risk was much greater than any known genetic influence.
Professor Patterson believes the virus is able to trigger a mental "switch" that permanently alters and inflames the brain of the foetus, setting the child up for mental illness in later life.
But until now little was known about exactly how the virus caused the change.
In tests on mice, the research team gave pregnant rodents the flu virus and watched the effect on the young mice after birth.
"The offspring had strikingly abnormal behaviour consistent with things that have been seen in schizophrenia and autism, like disrupted social behaviour, fear of novel situations and increased anxiety," Professor Patterson told delegates at the World Congress of Neuroscience yesterday.
The researchers discovered that rather than the virus directly triggering the brain change, it was the mother's immune response to the bug that caused the problem.
"The proteins produced by the mother's immune system to fight the infection seemed to be linked to the problem," he said.
+
"We found that if you block one protein in particular, then the offspring seem to be completely normal, and presumably their pathology will be too."
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)
Thursday, July 12, 2007
http://www.newstarget.com/021932.html
FDA tyranny to become law (in USA)
by Mike Adams
Thursday, July 12, 2007
On July 11, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 2900, blocking debate on the law and preventing the introduction of any amendments that might have provided meaningful drug safety protections for consumers. This action demonstrates that the House of Representatives, much like the Senate, is utterly controlled by Big Pharma and has abandoned any responsibility to defend the interests of the voters. Drug companies now have complete control over the U.S. Congress, and through a campaign of intense lobbying and financial influence, they have managed to easily water down a law that once proposed to end the American monopoly on pharmaceuticals and ban advertising on new drugs.
Instead of placing new restrictions on Big Pharma and the increasingly dangerous power of the FDA, this new law (a combination of HR.2900 and S.1082, when it is hammered out in conference) grants more power to the FDA while deepening the financial ties between the agency and drug companies. The law effectively surrenders America to a system of medical tyranny under which a criminally-operated FDA will continue to promote pharmaceuticals, censor nutritional education and discredit alternatives that threaten drug company profits. Nothing in the new law protects consumers' access to dietary supplements or natural medicine.
Got a law? Make it weaker
The House version of the bill is stronger than the Senate version in terms of drug safety issues, but these differences could easily disappear in conference, leading to a final signing of a useless, watered-down "FDA safety" bill that is actually nothing more than an FDA corruption rewards program. (It's better than a frequent flyer program because the miles never expire and there are no blackout dates...)
While the House version would require the publishing of a clinical trials database (which shouldn't even be debatable, it should be full disclosure by default) and limit the number of bribed FDA officials who can sit on a drug decision panel to one, even these provisions are laughable in the fact that none of them actually require drug companies or the FDA to act with integrity or defend the health and safety of the American public.
The great Congressional sellout
Congress had the potential to pass a really good law here -- one that would have ended direct-to-consumer advertising, banned conflicts of interest at the FDA, required the open source publication of drug trials and ended the U.S. monopoly on pharmaceuticals. Instead, Congress chose to do none of these things. It staged a song and dance about "FDA reform" while selling out the future of America's health to a tiny but powerful group of ultra-wealthy corporations that now virtually rule this country. There is nothing in the new law worth celebrating unless, of course, you are the CEO or major shareholder of a Big Pharma corporation, in which case you will like be stunned at just how cheaply and easily U.S. lawmakers can be bought.
Notice, too, that this sellout crosses party lines and involves both Democrats and Republicans. Only one Congressman, Rep. Ron Paul (a Libertarian-leaning Republican), was attempting to introduce meaningful amendments that would protect the interests of the people. His efforts were blocked by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.
FDA reform legislation is not about Democrats vs. Republicans. It's about the wealthy elite vs. the People. Not surprisingly, the People have once again been screwed by the representatives they foolishly voted into office. If anything, this event proves that U.S. lawmakers have no interest in protecting America's future. They are only interested in the next election, the next career move or the next power play.
In a nation devastated by degenerative disease and intoxicated by the chemicals being pushed to manage those diseases, there is no longer anyone left in power with enough sanity to reason with. The President is clinically insane, the FDA is criminally insane, and the Congress is for sale, cheap! The country has become an absurdity, where lawmakers actually bicker about how much bribery and corruption should be allowed in the FDA drug approval decision process rather than simply agreeing to ban all bribery and conflicts of interest, which is what sane lawmakers would do.
Stand back and watch the bonfire
Over the last few months, I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer worth attempting to stop American's self-destruction at the hands of Big Pharma, corrupt politicians and greedy fractional reserve bankers. America is destroying itself, and there is no one left who's willing to stand up and try to stop it (except, perhaps, for a few individuals like Rep. Ron Paul, but he's effectively censored by the powers that be).
My advice to readers is to start thinking very seriously about getting out of America. What's coming over the next 5 - 25 years will not be pretty, and I now believe the collapse of America as we know it today is inevitable. The 2008 elections will change nothing, as either party will only deliver a different form of tyranny in the end. America has devolved into a modern mirror image of the Roman Empire in its last dying days -- steeped in corruption, abandoning its citizens, arrogant beyond all reason, oblivious to the world around it and wholly committed to destroying itself from within.
Congress has become a circus, and the U.S. government, through agencies like the FDA, has become the leading threat to its own people. The nation is steeped in irreversible debt, diseased, terrified, bankrupt and addicted to oil that's running out. On top of that, thanks to Bush-contrived military imperialism, it has alienated every other nation in the world and has now become the most-hated nation on the planet. (If you don't believe me, just travel outside the U.S. and ask practically anybody you meet. Everybody hates the U.S.) It is now only a question of how long the current crippled facade of political power will last.
The passage of this FDA reform law is merely one more sign of how thoroughly committed the U.S. Congress is to creating a future of death, disease and bankruptcy for the American people. You gotta give 'em kudos on consistency, however. At least the lawmakers are predictable.
Welcome to the United States of Big Pharma.
Comments by Byron Richards
On Wednesday, July 11, 2007 the House passed HR.2900 without allowing the Ron Paul (R-TX) amendments to protect dietary supplements. Representatives Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), John Dingell (D-MI), Henry Waxman (D-CA), and others falsely proclaimed that they were doing America a favor by passing this sweeping FDA-supported legislation that grants the rouge agency more power and money, and even transforms it into a quasi drug company.
Both the House and Senate (S.1082) have made the fatally flawed assumption that the reason for so many deaths and injuries from drugs was due to the FDA's lack of resources. In reality, it is the INTENTION of FDA management that is the problem, combined with the simple fact that multiple drugs are extremely toxic and don't work as advertised. Giving the FDA more power and money will only cause the agency to speed more drugs onto the market faster with even less safety testing -- while abusing its power and actively stamping out competition to drugs.
FDA management is in bed with Big Pharma and this new legislation makes matters significantly worse through the creation of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA.
This new entity places the FDA in charge of drug design, drug patents, drug licenses, and the creation of new marketing entities/companies. Such a relationship with private industry is an unprecedented conflict of interest, totally at odds with drug safety. The current commissioner of the FDA, Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D. is little more than a Big Biotech sales rep with massive industry connections.
The House, like the Senate, will continue to allow direct to consumer advertising of new drugs with unknown risks -- a flagrant safety risk that will cost many people their lives. Congressional leaders said they couldn't prevent this advertisement for fear of violating the first amendment rights of drug companies. What a joke. The FDA routinely squashes the first amendment rights of American citizens to understand natural health options and the science that explains how they can prevent and treat disease. Thus, the first amendment argument is simply a matter of convenience. The FDA wants to actively suppress information that will help people, yet allow highly risky and misleading promotion of toxic substances often for untested uses. The FDA even wants to prevent citizens from suing drug companies when they are injured, thus protecting Big Pharma. FDA tyranny, based on this type of arbitrary and unrestrained exercise of power, is used to promote and protect the pharmaceutical industry while at the same time undermining the dietary supplement industry.
Both the House and Senate think it is completely fine that the drug industry pay the FDA fees so that the FDA can approve new drugs faster. Indeed, the FDA and Big Pharma met 112 times to work out their partnership before the FDA let Congress know what it wanted to see in HR.2900 and S.1082. This is like paying the mob for protection. A careful look at the history of the FDA shows it is little more than a bully that protects vested interests at the expense of human health. It is a pitiful agency. It is little wonder than the majority of Americans don't trust the FDA.
Big Pharma owns the FDA and Congress. The drug industry sees FDA management and Congressional leaders as a training pool for future Big Pharma jobs -- based on how well Big Pharma is supported. There will certainly be plenty of rewards to pass out after this legislation becomes law.
It is a sick situation that this new fake safety legislation provides the FDA with unprecedented new power to stamp out competition to drug companies as well as expose Americans to far greater safety risks than ever before. Provisions within the legislation that creates the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA will allow the FDA to remove any dietary supplement from the market based on its whim.
It is now only a matter of time and a formality before HR.2900 and S.1082 become law. There will be a little bit of haggling in the conference committee, as Big Pharma will takes its last chance at watering down any meaningful reform (of which there is very little). Big Pharma will whine that this legislation is too tough on them, which is a fallacy. This legislation is the Big Pharma dream come true. In a football analogy the only question is the final score. Will Big Pharma win by 28-7 or will it win by 42-7. Big Pharma has just cleaned the clock of Americans. We should not forget the gutless Congressional puppets that made it happen.
A new tone has been set. A new chart has been plotted. Congress has transformed the FDA into a quasi drug company with unprecedented new regulatory power to control all health options in America. How many deaths and injuries will it take for a comatose and medicinally-overdosed public to wake up?
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)
FDA tyranny to become law (in USA)
by Mike Adams
Thursday, July 12, 2007
On July 11, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 2900, blocking debate on the law and preventing the introduction of any amendments that might have provided meaningful drug safety protections for consumers. This action demonstrates that the House of Representatives, much like the Senate, is utterly controlled by Big Pharma and has abandoned any responsibility to defend the interests of the voters. Drug companies now have complete control over the U.S. Congress, and through a campaign of intense lobbying and financial influence, they have managed to easily water down a law that once proposed to end the American monopoly on pharmaceuticals and ban advertising on new drugs.
Instead of placing new restrictions on Big Pharma and the increasingly dangerous power of the FDA, this new law (a combination of HR.2900 and S.1082, when it is hammered out in conference) grants more power to the FDA while deepening the financial ties between the agency and drug companies. The law effectively surrenders America to a system of medical tyranny under which a criminally-operated FDA will continue to promote pharmaceuticals, censor nutritional education and discredit alternatives that threaten drug company profits. Nothing in the new law protects consumers' access to dietary supplements or natural medicine.
Got a law? Make it weaker
The House version of the bill is stronger than the Senate version in terms of drug safety issues, but these differences could easily disappear in conference, leading to a final signing of a useless, watered-down "FDA safety" bill that is actually nothing more than an FDA corruption rewards program. (It's better than a frequent flyer program because the miles never expire and there are no blackout dates...)
While the House version would require the publishing of a clinical trials database (which shouldn't even be debatable, it should be full disclosure by default) and limit the number of bribed FDA officials who can sit on a drug decision panel to one, even these provisions are laughable in the fact that none of them actually require drug companies or the FDA to act with integrity or defend the health and safety of the American public.
The great Congressional sellout
Congress had the potential to pass a really good law here -- one that would have ended direct-to-consumer advertising, banned conflicts of interest at the FDA, required the open source publication of drug trials and ended the U.S. monopoly on pharmaceuticals. Instead, Congress chose to do none of these things. It staged a song and dance about "FDA reform" while selling out the future of America's health to a tiny but powerful group of ultra-wealthy corporations that now virtually rule this country. There is nothing in the new law worth celebrating unless, of course, you are the CEO or major shareholder of a Big Pharma corporation, in which case you will like be stunned at just how cheaply and easily U.S. lawmakers can be bought.
Notice, too, that this sellout crosses party lines and involves both Democrats and Republicans. Only one Congressman, Rep. Ron Paul (a Libertarian-leaning Republican), was attempting to introduce meaningful amendments that would protect the interests of the people. His efforts were blocked by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat.
FDA reform legislation is not about Democrats vs. Republicans. It's about the wealthy elite vs. the People. Not surprisingly, the People have once again been screwed by the representatives they foolishly voted into office. If anything, this event proves that U.S. lawmakers have no interest in protecting America's future. They are only interested in the next election, the next career move or the next power play.
In a nation devastated by degenerative disease and intoxicated by the chemicals being pushed to manage those diseases, there is no longer anyone left in power with enough sanity to reason with. The President is clinically insane, the FDA is criminally insane, and the Congress is for sale, cheap! The country has become an absurdity, where lawmakers actually bicker about how much bribery and corruption should be allowed in the FDA drug approval decision process rather than simply agreeing to ban all bribery and conflicts of interest, which is what sane lawmakers would do.
Stand back and watch the bonfire
Over the last few months, I have come to the conclusion that it is no longer worth attempting to stop American's self-destruction at the hands of Big Pharma, corrupt politicians and greedy fractional reserve bankers. America is destroying itself, and there is no one left who's willing to stand up and try to stop it (except, perhaps, for a few individuals like Rep. Ron Paul, but he's effectively censored by the powers that be).
My advice to readers is to start thinking very seriously about getting out of America. What's coming over the next 5 - 25 years will not be pretty, and I now believe the collapse of America as we know it today is inevitable. The 2008 elections will change nothing, as either party will only deliver a different form of tyranny in the end. America has devolved into a modern mirror image of the Roman Empire in its last dying days -- steeped in corruption, abandoning its citizens, arrogant beyond all reason, oblivious to the world around it and wholly committed to destroying itself from within.
Congress has become a circus, and the U.S. government, through agencies like the FDA, has become the leading threat to its own people. The nation is steeped in irreversible debt, diseased, terrified, bankrupt and addicted to oil that's running out. On top of that, thanks to Bush-contrived military imperialism, it has alienated every other nation in the world and has now become the most-hated nation on the planet. (If you don't believe me, just travel outside the U.S. and ask practically anybody you meet. Everybody hates the U.S.) It is now only a question of how long the current crippled facade of political power will last.
The passage of this FDA reform law is merely one more sign of how thoroughly committed the U.S. Congress is to creating a future of death, disease and bankruptcy for the American people. You gotta give 'em kudos on consistency, however. At least the lawmakers are predictable.
Welcome to the United States of Big Pharma.
Comments by Byron Richards
On Wednesday, July 11, 2007 the House passed HR.2900 without allowing the Ron Paul (R-TX) amendments to protect dietary supplements. Representatives Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), John Dingell (D-MI), Henry Waxman (D-CA), and others falsely proclaimed that they were doing America a favor by passing this sweeping FDA-supported legislation that grants the rouge agency more power and money, and even transforms it into a quasi drug company.
Both the House and Senate (S.1082) have made the fatally flawed assumption that the reason for so many deaths and injuries from drugs was due to the FDA's lack of resources. In reality, it is the INTENTION of FDA management that is the problem, combined with the simple fact that multiple drugs are extremely toxic and don't work as advertised. Giving the FDA more power and money will only cause the agency to speed more drugs onto the market faster with even less safety testing -- while abusing its power and actively stamping out competition to drugs.
FDA management is in bed with Big Pharma and this new legislation makes matters significantly worse through the creation of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA.
This new entity places the FDA in charge of drug design, drug patents, drug licenses, and the creation of new marketing entities/companies. Such a relationship with private industry is an unprecedented conflict of interest, totally at odds with drug safety. The current commissioner of the FDA, Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D. is little more than a Big Biotech sales rep with massive industry connections.
The House, like the Senate, will continue to allow direct to consumer advertising of new drugs with unknown risks -- a flagrant safety risk that will cost many people their lives. Congressional leaders said they couldn't prevent this advertisement for fear of violating the first amendment rights of drug companies. What a joke. The FDA routinely squashes the first amendment rights of American citizens to understand natural health options and the science that explains how they can prevent and treat disease. Thus, the first amendment argument is simply a matter of convenience. The FDA wants to actively suppress information that will help people, yet allow highly risky and misleading promotion of toxic substances often for untested uses. The FDA even wants to prevent citizens from suing drug companies when they are injured, thus protecting Big Pharma. FDA tyranny, based on this type of arbitrary and unrestrained exercise of power, is used to promote and protect the pharmaceutical industry while at the same time undermining the dietary supplement industry.
Both the House and Senate think it is completely fine that the drug industry pay the FDA fees so that the FDA can approve new drugs faster. Indeed, the FDA and Big Pharma met 112 times to work out their partnership before the FDA let Congress know what it wanted to see in HR.2900 and S.1082. This is like paying the mob for protection. A careful look at the history of the FDA shows it is little more than a bully that protects vested interests at the expense of human health. It is a pitiful agency. It is little wonder than the majority of Americans don't trust the FDA.
Big Pharma owns the FDA and Congress. The drug industry sees FDA management and Congressional leaders as a training pool for future Big Pharma jobs -- based on how well Big Pharma is supported. There will certainly be plenty of rewards to pass out after this legislation becomes law.
It is a sick situation that this new fake safety legislation provides the FDA with unprecedented new power to stamp out competition to drug companies as well as expose Americans to far greater safety risks than ever before. Provisions within the legislation that creates the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA will allow the FDA to remove any dietary supplement from the market based on its whim.
It is now only a matter of time and a formality before HR.2900 and S.1082 become law. There will be a little bit of haggling in the conference committee, as Big Pharma will takes its last chance at watering down any meaningful reform (of which there is very little). Big Pharma will whine that this legislation is too tough on them, which is a fallacy. This legislation is the Big Pharma dream come true. In a football analogy the only question is the final score. Will Big Pharma win by 28-7 or will it win by 42-7. Big Pharma has just cleaned the clock of Americans. We should not forget the gutless Congressional puppets that made it happen.
A new tone has been set. A new chart has been plotted. Congress has transformed the FDA into a quasi drug company with unprecedented new regulatory power to control all health options in America. How many deaths and injuries will it take for a comatose and medicinally-overdosed public to wake up?
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)
Monday, July 9, 2007
Posted by: "Lynn Michaels" Lynn Michaels
FROM THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN MERHAV
Sun Jul 8, 2007 2:53 pm (PST)
http://www.geocities.com/bmerhav/C14.htm
CHAPTER 14 : INVESTIGATING THE TRAP OF PSYCHIATRY WHERE THE ZIONIST GESTAPO STILL HAS MY DAUGHTER AND MY SON CRUSHED BY THE SHRINKS
The June 1996 issue of my newsletter is titled,The Deliberate Crushing of My Family By The Zionist Gestapo and The Failed Attempts By The Zionist Gestapo To Stop Me Exposing Zionist Crimes, and it includes brief accounts of the background and the events which led to the crushing of my daughter first, and then of my son. My attempts to get my daughter and my son out of the psychiatric trap have been going on, simultaneously, together with my study and investigation of psychiatric theory and psychiatric practice, and I came up with some very disturbing and very alarming conclusions.
If I am to present my conclusions on my own, by myself, I would have a very scant chance of persuading anybody or of being believed. Therefore, I need to bring the testimony of qualified and experienced psychiatrists from the USA, and that of a doctor of science from Australia, and to present their conclusions in their own words. Let us begin with Dr. Loren R.Mosher (visit his website: www.moshersoteria.com/bio.htm), a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine, University of California at San Diego, USA. In a letter dated 12/4/1998 to the President of the American Psychiatric Association, the professional body to which all USA psychiatrists belong , Dr. Mosher opens with the following words :
"After nearly three decades as a member it is with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment that I submit this letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association."
He then proceeds with an attack on the American Psychiatric Association (APA) as follows :
"This is not a group for me. At this point in history, in my view, psychiatry has been almost completely bought out by the drug companies."
Then his conclusion :
"So, do I want to be a drug company patsy who treats molecules with their formulary ? No, thank you very much. It saddens me that after 35 years as a psychiatrist I look forward to being dissociated from such an organisation."
The next American psychiatrist to be quoted here is Dr. Peter Breggin who describes the link between the psychiatric profession, the drug corporations, the government, and even the parents of the patients as follows :
TOXIC PSYCHIATRY, by Peter Breggin, HarperCollins, London, 1993 at p. 451 :
"What we have been examining is a giant combine similar to the military-industrial complex and involving the psychiatric profession (APA), government (NIMH and FDA), private industry (drug companies and health insurers), education (medical schools),and organisations representing the parents of patients (NAMI and other family groups)."
Here is what he says about the psychiatric profession there at p. 453 :
"Implicit in all this is the reality that organised psychiatry is big business more than it is a profession. As a big business, managed by APA and NIMH, it develops media relationships, hires PR firms, develops its medical image, holds press conferences to publicise its products, lobbies on behalf of its interests, and issues 'scientific reports that protect its members from malpractice suits by lending legitimacy to brain- damaging technologies."
In his book, Your Drug May Be Your Problem (Perseus Books, Massachusetts, 1999) Dr. Breggin describes the role of the media in promoting and protecting psychiatry as follows :
YOUR DRUG MAY BE YOUR PROBLEM, by Peter Breggin, Perseus Books, Massachusetts,1999, at p. 108 :
"The media have become very protective of psychiatry - especially of psychiatric drugs. Except for occasional exposes...the media tend to publish testimonials to drugs while omitting their hazards. Books critical of psychiatric drugs are rarely reviewed in major newspapers and magazines and rarely discussed on television...In 1998 alone, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent over $ 1.3 billion for direct-to-consumer advertising in television, magazines, and newspapers. We anticipate that the total will continue to increase and that the media will become increasingly protective of their benefactors."
"Doctors fail to inform patients about the dangers of medications in part because they themselves are not fully informed. Many doctors rely too heavily on biased drug company advertising and sales representatives, and even the more skeptical among them are bombarded with information skewed in favour of drugs. Furthermore, medical educational and scientific programs are almost always funded by drug companies and, not surprisingly, tend to promote their drug products."
Dr. Richard Gosden, an Australian scientist, in his book, PUNISHING THE PATIENT How Psychiatrists Misunderstand and Mistreat Schizophrenia (at page 184) mentions the use of psychiatry as a punishing or harassing tool . As an example he brings up the harassment of whistleblowers in Australia as follows :
"An investigation into the harassment of whistleblowers in the Australian Federal Police (AFP) found 'four relevant instances since 1992 where the AFP has arranged for officers to undergo inappropriate psychiatric assessments, either under duress, or without their knowledge and consent.'
The support group Whistleblowers Australia is conducting a continuing survey of its members to discover how many have been treated in this way. It has found that many of them have received psychiatric diagnoses, ranging from non-specific conditions such as cognitive dysfunction to personality disorders and schizophrenia."
As for the psychiatric profession, and especially its links with the drug corporations, here are Dr. Gosden's findings in his above book (Scribe Publications, Melbourne, 2001) at pp. 92 - 93 :
"Like the psychiatric profession, the pharmaceutical industry has strong commercial interests in ensuring the continued dominance of the medical model for schizophrenia. The medical model provides the rationale for drug therapy and ,in turn, the pharmaceutical industry provides an extensive range of neuroleptic drugs from which prescribing psychiatrists can choose. In the United States the pharmaceutical industry openly funds the main psychiatric professional organisation, the American Psychiatric Association, which receives '30% of its total budget from drug company advertising in its many publications' :
'Pharmaceutical companies pay through the nose to get their message across to psychiatrists across the country. They finance major symposia at the two predominant annual psychiatric conventions, offer yummy treats and music to conventioneers, and pay $ 1000- $2000 per speaker to hock their wares. It is estimated that, in total, drug companies spend an average of $10,000 per physician, per year, on education.'
The pharmaceutical industry also selectively funds scientific research into the side effects of neuroleptic drugs, as well as research and development of new products. Drug company sponsorship of clinical trials is a major source of revenue for many psychiatric researchers. This flow of Money provides strong incentives for further promotion of the medical model, but it also casts doubt on the quality of the findings :
'This spring, the New York Post revealed that Columbia University has been cashing in. Its Office of Clinical Trials generates about $10 million a year testing new medications - much of which is granted to the Columbia Psychiatric Institute for implementing these tests. The director of the institute was being paid $140,000 a year by various drug companies to tour the country promoting their drugs.'
Pharmaceutical companies advertise their products in psychiatric journals, often alongside scientific research reports in the same areas of treatment for which their own drugs are being recommended. Because these drug companies are being driven by the normal market concerns for the promotion of product sales, there is often a certain amount of confusion concerning the difference between scientific findings and sales promotion."
In his above book he Dr. Gosden points out the role of the relatives of the patients in the promotion of drug treatment by psychiatrists as follows ( at pp. 94-95 ) :
"The importance of relatives as an interest group lies in their closeness to the problems that rise when a person manifests unusual thoughts and beliefs. It is usually the relatives who are the first to know when a family member begins to experience unusual mental phenomena. They are often alarmed at a sudden change in the person, and frequently become confused and fearful about the situation - fearful both for themselves and for the person displaying the symptoms. The first inclination of relatives is to seek help and advice, and this is readily available from the medical profession. Relatives usually see themselves as managing a crisis situation, and medical treatment can be highly attractive because it quickly pacifies the person and provides a casual explanation of 'disease' which satisfies normal scrutiny.
In the United States, the consumer lobby is well organized, and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) operates nationally and has more than 220,000 members. Name's enthusiasm for lobbying on behalf of the medical model is encouraged by large donations from drug companies :
'The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, which is pushing to have mental health laws rewritten so that people can be involuntarily hospitalized for refusing to take their medications, received nearly $1 million in 1995 from more than 13 drug companies.'
Since 1995, Nami's drug company funding has increased dramatically. The magazine Mother Jones recently did an expose' of this development :
'According to internal documents obtained by Mother Jones , 18 drug firms gave NAMI a total of $11.72 million between 1996 and mid-1999. These include Janssen ($2.08 million), Novartis ($1.87 million), Pfizer ($ 1.3 million), Abbot Laboratories ($1.24 million), Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceuticals ($658,000), and Bristol-MyersSquib ($613,505).
Nami's leading donor is Eli Lilly and Company, maker of Prozac, which gave $87 million during that period. In 1999 alone, Lilly will have delivered $1.1 million in quarterly installments, with the lion's share going to help fund Name's 'Campaign to End Discrimination' against the mentally ill.' (Emphasis added)
Dr. Gosden points out that the situation in Australia is very similar to that in the USA, if not worse than there, because Australia is being used as testing ground for the USA market. Here is what his above book states at p.238 :
"...early-psychosis research and intervention programmes are driven by funding and lobbying from the pharmaceutical companies that have recently launched atypical neuroleptics onto the market (the neuroleptic drugs are dubbed by the shrinks as "anti-psychotic medications", and they carry very heavy health risks for the patients who are forced to take them - B.M.). The objective of these pharmaceutical companies is to expand the market for their new drugs. The size of the existing market for palliative treatment of the psychotic and post-psychotic stages of schizophrenia is limited by diagnostic conventions. But the size of the market for prophylactic treatment of pre-psychotic schizophrenia is open-ended. Australia figures prominently in this strategy because it is being used as a testing ground for the idea of preventive medicine for schizophrenia. This is in preparation for the introduction of full- scale preventive medicine campaigns in the much larger markets of North America and Europe."
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)
Thursday, July 5, 2007
DO THE SHRINKS RUN THE ENTIRE USA MEDICAL PROFESSION ?
by Justice Lover
Last month's alarming news about the appointment of a shrink as the leader of the American Medical Association (AMA) in the USA should not have come as a surprise to any informed person. It certainly did not surprise the APA (American Psychiatric Association) leaders. They have been working on taking control of the AMA for the past 4 years at least, and in the open : with unprecedented impunity !
The present shrink who was last month appointed the AMA leader was officially greeted with jubilation by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) already 4 years ago, when he was appointed Vice Speaker of the AMA House of Delegates. A photo of another shrink job holder hugging the new one appeared on the APA website with the following caption : "Jeremy Lazarus, M.D. (left), is congratulated by John McIntyre, M.D., on his election as vice speaker of the AMA’s House of Delegates. McIntyre is chair of the AMA Section Council on Psychiatry, and Lazarus is a former speaker of APA’s Assembly." So there it is officialy, namely, the former shrinks leader becomes the leader of the medical profession (the AMA).
Here is THE FIRST PART OF that greeting article , http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/38/14/1 :
"Psychiatric News July 18, 2003
Volume 38 Number 14
© 2003 American Psychiatric Association
Professional News
Psychiatrist Wins AMA Leadership Post
Kate Mulligan
Psychiatrist Jeremy Lazarus, M.D., is on track to be a future president of the AMA.
Jeremy Lazarus, M.D., won an upset victory at the June AMA meeting to gain one of the top positions in the association.
In his new role as vice speaker of the House of Delegates (HOD), Lazarus will assist the speaker in directing the HOD’s activities and will also sit as a nonvoting member on the AMA Board of Trustees.
The House of Delegates is the AMA’s policymaking body.
Lazarus told Psychiatric News, "This is an important victory for psychiatry because it shows the respect that our AMA colleagues have for our specialty. It also is a reminder of the value of our section council’s long history of working within the AMA to put forth the issues that affect psychiatrists and their patients."
Lazarus said the AMA has been particularly helpful in supporting efforts to secure parity for mental health in private insurance and the Medicare program and about issues affecting scope of practice.
John McIntyre, M.D., APA’s senior delegate to the AMA, told Psychiatric News, "This is the most important position within the AMA that a psychiatrist has ever held."
He added, "It was not an easy victory. Dr. Lazarus’s opponent, Dr. John Fagg, a plastic surgeon from North Carolina, has a long and distinguished history within the AMA. Last December he was identified by many delegates as the clear front runner."
Lazarus’s energy, enthusiasm, progressive message, and history of leadership in psychiatry and medicine were key factors to his success, according to McIntyre.
Alternate APA delegate Jeffrey Akaka, M.D., told Psychiatric News, "The size of the delegation and increased influence of psychiatry within the AMA were important to the victory. Each of us could turn to friends and allies in other section councils and state societies to make the case for Jeremy."
Delegate Carolyn Robinowitz, M.D., said, "This was an uphill battle that represents politics at its best. Our job was to help give delegates a chance to know Jeremy. He did the rest. His competence is apparent immediately."
Robinowitz is a member of the AMA Council on Scientific Affairs (CSA).
APA Medical Director James H. Scully Jr., M.D., told Psychiatric News, "Jeremy’s victory was first a recognition by his colleagues of his capability as a leader in medicine and of the respect they have for him. That he is a psychiatrist and a leader in APA reaffirms the role of psychiatry as a medical specialty and shows continued reduction of stigma toward the field."
Lazarus is chair of APA’s Council on Advocacy and Public Policy and has chaired APA’s Investment Oversight Committee and the Ethics and Managed Care committees. He is a former speaker of APA’s Assembly. In addition, he is president of the Colorado Medical Society and chair of the Colorado AMA delegation.
Lazarus said that being vice speaker of the House of Delegates will enhance his ability to do advocacy work on behalf of APA and the rest of organized medicine. "In turn, I bring experience about managed care, ethics, parity, and scope of practice to the AMA," he added.
Last January Lazarus was a featured speaker at a roundtable discussion on scope-of-practice legislative initiatives at the AMA State Legislative Conference in Tucson, Ariz.
Members of APA’s delegation and other psychiatrists also gained new influence and visibility. APA Trustee-at-Large Patrice Harris, M.D., recently was appointed to the Council on Legislation and elected co-chair of the AMA’s Women’s Caucus. Emmanuel Cassimatis, M.D., was re-elected to the Council on Medical Education. Dudley Stewart, M.D., was appointed to the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA).
In another upset, John C. Nelson, M.D., a Salt Lake City obstetrician-gynecologist, became the new president-elect of the AMA’s Board of Trustees. He defeated John Knote, M.D., speaker of the HOD..."
Three years later, the President of the APA called on all the USA shrinks to join the AMA so to allow the complete takeover of the medical profession by the shrinks. Here is his call as published by the official website of the APA :
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/41/17/3
"Psychiatric News September 1, 2006
Volume 41, Number 17, page 3
© 2006 American Psychiatric Association
From the President
Join AMA and Increase The Power of Your Voice
Pedro Ruiz, M.D.
Many of our colleagues ask why should they belong to the AMA? Why is it worth joining a second organization when APA already does so much to further the interests of psychiatrists?
The answer resides in simple democracy. A single voice is more powerful when echoed. Like APA, the AMA has respect and clout on Capitol Hill. APA has the Assembly to bring forth members' issues. The AMA has a House of Delegates (HOD). Delegates from many specialty societies, including APA, and 50 states across the nation participate in the AMA's HOD.
Each specialty has a unique voice within the HOD. Once AMA policy is adopted by the HOD, the AMA becomes an advocate on that issue. For psychiatry, the AMA has been a strong advocate for nondiscriminatory health insurance and has partnered with APA and others in coalitions working to achieve insurance "parity." In addition, the AMA has organized the scope-of-practice partnership to oppose nonphysician scope-of-practice initiatives in legislatures throughout the country.
APA has gained strength and presence in the HOD through the combined forces of several groups of psychiatrists.
APA's Section Council on Psychiatry, chaired by John McIntyre, M.D., APA's senior AMA delegate, and with David Fassler, M.D., serving as vice chair, creates an impressive presence. The section council comprises psychiatrists from APA's 14-member delegation, Young Physician Section (YPS), and Resident-Fellow Section (RFS). Other members of the Section Council are representatives from the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL).
Current members of APA's delegation are Drs. Jeffrey Akaka, Don Brada, Kenneth Certa, Joseph English, Patrice Harris, Saul Levin, John McIntyre, Rodrigo Muñoz, Constance Powell, Carolyn Robinowitz, Nada Stotland, John Wernert III, and Paul Wick.
Members of APA's YPS are Drs. Karen Gennaro and Jerry Halverson. APA's RFS members are Daniel Chrzanowski and Nakia Scott. AACAP's delegation is composed of Drs. David Fassler, Louis Kraus, Jeremy Veenstra-Vander Weele (RFS), Tanya anderson (YPS), and Shiraz Butt (YPS). AAPL delegates are Drs. Robert Phillips and Howard Zonana.
Some APA delegates have dual roles as chairs or members of various AMA councils or components that develop policy, conduct studies, and advise the AMA on actions to benefit physicians and patients. For example, APA President-elect and AMA delegate Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz is on the Council on Science and Public Health, Dr. Saul Levin is on the Council on Long-range Planning and Development, Dr. Patrice Harris is on the Council on Legislation, and Dr. Joseph English is the AMA commissioner to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
APA members who are not part of APA's delegation also serve the HOD. These members include Dr. Jeremy Lazarus, vice speaker of the HOD; Dr. Jo-Ellen Ryall, immediate past chair of the Council on Constitution and Bylaws; Dr. Priscilla Ray, immediate past chair of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs; and Dr. Dudley Stewart Jr., a member of the Council on Ethical and Judicial affairs. Altogether, there are approximately 60 psychiatrists in the HOD.
Our delegation comes from a wide variety of states and is diverse. Working as a team on the Section Council on Psychiatry, our delegates can accomplish a great deal. For example, the section council members worked with the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs and Section Council on Federal and Military Medicine to help shape a final report on the issue of physicians' participation in the interrogation of detainees. As APA president, I was very impressed to see this teamwork, which resulted in a mutually acceptable report that was ultimately adopted by the house.
Your delegation, in coordination with AACAP and AAPL, regularly submits resolutions and cosponsors others on a wide range of topics relevant to psychiatrists and their patients. Recent examples are Medicare Part D drug access, buprenorphine scheduling, treatment of eating disorders, and the use of SSRIs during pregnancy.
APA members' participation in AMA advocacy, especially in the HOD, clearly sends the message to hundreds of other physicians that psychiatric issues are relevant and important to everyone. APA's agendas intersect largely with the AMA's, including access to Medicare benefits, electronic health records, reimbursement, scope of practice, and health insurance coverage...
I am confident that psychiatry's efforts with the AMA are positive and help link our specialty even closer with all other branches of medicine. APA will continue lobbying efforts with the AMA on a host of issues.
You have the opportunity to make a difference by joining the AMA and adding your voice to our important mutual advocacy endeavors."
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)
by Justice Lover
Last month's alarming news about the appointment of a shrink as the leader of the American Medical Association (AMA) in the USA should not have come as a surprise to any informed person. It certainly did not surprise the APA (American Psychiatric Association) leaders. They have been working on taking control of the AMA for the past 4 years at least, and in the open : with unprecedented impunity !
The present shrink who was last month appointed the AMA leader was officially greeted with jubilation by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) already 4 years ago, when he was appointed Vice Speaker of the AMA House of Delegates. A photo of another shrink job holder hugging the new one appeared on the APA website with the following caption : "Jeremy Lazarus, M.D. (left), is congratulated by John McIntyre, M.D., on his election as vice speaker of the AMA’s House of Delegates. McIntyre is chair of the AMA Section Council on Psychiatry, and Lazarus is a former speaker of APA’s Assembly." So there it is officialy, namely, the former shrinks leader becomes the leader of the medical profession (the AMA).
Here is THE FIRST PART OF that greeting article , http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/38/14/1 :
"Psychiatric News July 18, 2003
Volume 38 Number 14
© 2003 American Psychiatric Association
Professional News
Psychiatrist Wins AMA Leadership Post
Kate Mulligan
Psychiatrist Jeremy Lazarus, M.D., is on track to be a future president of the AMA.
Jeremy Lazarus, M.D., won an upset victory at the June AMA meeting to gain one of the top positions in the association.
In his new role as vice speaker of the House of Delegates (HOD), Lazarus will assist the speaker in directing the HOD’s activities and will also sit as a nonvoting member on the AMA Board of Trustees.
The House of Delegates is the AMA’s policymaking body.
Lazarus told Psychiatric News, "This is an important victory for psychiatry because it shows the respect that our AMA colleagues have for our specialty. It also is a reminder of the value of our section council’s long history of working within the AMA to put forth the issues that affect psychiatrists and their patients."
Lazarus said the AMA has been particularly helpful in supporting efforts to secure parity for mental health in private insurance and the Medicare program and about issues affecting scope of practice.
John McIntyre, M.D., APA’s senior delegate to the AMA, told Psychiatric News, "This is the most important position within the AMA that a psychiatrist has ever held."
He added, "It was not an easy victory. Dr. Lazarus’s opponent, Dr. John Fagg, a plastic surgeon from North Carolina, has a long and distinguished history within the AMA. Last December he was identified by many delegates as the clear front runner."
Lazarus’s energy, enthusiasm, progressive message, and history of leadership in psychiatry and medicine were key factors to his success, according to McIntyre.
Alternate APA delegate Jeffrey Akaka, M.D., told Psychiatric News, "The size of the delegation and increased influence of psychiatry within the AMA were important to the victory. Each of us could turn to friends and allies in other section councils and state societies to make the case for Jeremy."
Delegate Carolyn Robinowitz, M.D., said, "This was an uphill battle that represents politics at its best. Our job was to help give delegates a chance to know Jeremy. He did the rest. His competence is apparent immediately."
Robinowitz is a member of the AMA Council on Scientific Affairs (CSA).
APA Medical Director James H. Scully Jr., M.D., told Psychiatric News, "Jeremy’s victory was first a recognition by his colleagues of his capability as a leader in medicine and of the respect they have for him. That he is a psychiatrist and a leader in APA reaffirms the role of psychiatry as a medical specialty and shows continued reduction of stigma toward the field."
Lazarus is chair of APA’s Council on Advocacy and Public Policy and has chaired APA’s Investment Oversight Committee and the Ethics and Managed Care committees. He is a former speaker of APA’s Assembly. In addition, he is president of the Colorado Medical Society and chair of the Colorado AMA delegation.
Lazarus said that being vice speaker of the House of Delegates will enhance his ability to do advocacy work on behalf of APA and the rest of organized medicine. "In turn, I bring experience about managed care, ethics, parity, and scope of practice to the AMA," he added.
Last January Lazarus was a featured speaker at a roundtable discussion on scope-of-practice legislative initiatives at the AMA State Legislative Conference in Tucson, Ariz.
Members of APA’s delegation and other psychiatrists also gained new influence and visibility. APA Trustee-at-Large Patrice Harris, M.D., recently was appointed to the Council on Legislation and elected co-chair of the AMA’s Women’s Caucus. Emmanuel Cassimatis, M.D., was re-elected to the Council on Medical Education. Dudley Stewart, M.D., was appointed to the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA).
In another upset, John C. Nelson, M.D., a Salt Lake City obstetrician-gynecologist, became the new president-elect of the AMA’s Board of Trustees. He defeated John Knote, M.D., speaker of the HOD..."
Three years later, the President of the APA called on all the USA shrinks to join the AMA so to allow the complete takeover of the medical profession by the shrinks. Here is his call as published by the official website of the APA :
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/41/17/3
"Psychiatric News September 1, 2006
Volume 41, Number 17, page 3
© 2006 American Psychiatric Association
From the President
Join AMA and Increase The Power of Your Voice
Pedro Ruiz, M.D.
Many of our colleagues ask why should they belong to the AMA? Why is it worth joining a second organization when APA already does so much to further the interests of psychiatrists?
The answer resides in simple democracy. A single voice is more powerful when echoed. Like APA, the AMA has respect and clout on Capitol Hill. APA has the Assembly to bring forth members' issues. The AMA has a House of Delegates (HOD). Delegates from many specialty societies, including APA, and 50 states across the nation participate in the AMA's HOD.
Each specialty has a unique voice within the HOD. Once AMA policy is adopted by the HOD, the AMA becomes an advocate on that issue. For psychiatry, the AMA has been a strong advocate for nondiscriminatory health insurance and has partnered with APA and others in coalitions working to achieve insurance "parity." In addition, the AMA has organized the scope-of-practice partnership to oppose nonphysician scope-of-practice initiatives in legislatures throughout the country.
APA has gained strength and presence in the HOD through the combined forces of several groups of psychiatrists.
APA's Section Council on Psychiatry, chaired by John McIntyre, M.D., APA's senior AMA delegate, and with David Fassler, M.D., serving as vice chair, creates an impressive presence. The section council comprises psychiatrists from APA's 14-member delegation, Young Physician Section (YPS), and Resident-Fellow Section (RFS). Other members of the Section Council are representatives from the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL).
Current members of APA's delegation are Drs. Jeffrey Akaka, Don Brada, Kenneth Certa, Joseph English, Patrice Harris, Saul Levin, John McIntyre, Rodrigo Muñoz, Constance Powell, Carolyn Robinowitz, Nada Stotland, John Wernert III, and Paul Wick.
Members of APA's YPS are Drs. Karen Gennaro and Jerry Halverson. APA's RFS members are Daniel Chrzanowski and Nakia Scott. AACAP's delegation is composed of Drs. David Fassler, Louis Kraus, Jeremy Veenstra-Vander Weele (RFS), Tanya anderson (YPS), and Shiraz Butt (YPS). AAPL delegates are Drs. Robert Phillips and Howard Zonana.
Some APA delegates have dual roles as chairs or members of various AMA councils or components that develop policy, conduct studies, and advise the AMA on actions to benefit physicians and patients. For example, APA President-elect and AMA delegate Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz is on the Council on Science and Public Health, Dr. Saul Levin is on the Council on Long-range Planning and Development, Dr. Patrice Harris is on the Council on Legislation, and Dr. Joseph English is the AMA commissioner to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
APA members who are not part of APA's delegation also serve the HOD. These members include Dr. Jeremy Lazarus, vice speaker of the HOD; Dr. Jo-Ellen Ryall, immediate past chair of the Council on Constitution and Bylaws; Dr. Priscilla Ray, immediate past chair of the Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs; and Dr. Dudley Stewart Jr., a member of the Council on Ethical and Judicial affairs. Altogether, there are approximately 60 psychiatrists in the HOD.
Our delegation comes from a wide variety of states and is diverse. Working as a team on the Section Council on Psychiatry, our delegates can accomplish a great deal. For example, the section council members worked with the AMA's Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs and Section Council on Federal and Military Medicine to help shape a final report on the issue of physicians' participation in the interrogation of detainees. As APA president, I was very impressed to see this teamwork, which resulted in a mutually acceptable report that was ultimately adopted by the house.
Your delegation, in coordination with AACAP and AAPL, regularly submits resolutions and cosponsors others on a wide range of topics relevant to psychiatrists and their patients. Recent examples are Medicare Part D drug access, buprenorphine scheduling, treatment of eating disorders, and the use of SSRIs during pregnancy.
APA members' participation in AMA advocacy, especially in the HOD, clearly sends the message to hundreds of other physicians that psychiatric issues are relevant and important to everyone. APA's agendas intersect largely with the AMA's, including access to Medicare benefits, electronic health records, reimbursement, scope of practice, and health insurance coverage...
I am confident that psychiatry's efforts with the AMA are positive and help link our specialty even closer with all other branches of medicine. APA will continue lobbying efforts with the AMA on a host of issues.
You have the opportunity to make a difference by joining the AMA and adding your voice to our important mutual advocacy endeavors."
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
DANGER ALERT : A SHRINK IS NOW IN CHARGE OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (AMA)
CHICAGO, June 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire
"The American MedicalAssociation (AMA) announced during its Annual Meeting today the election ofDenver psychiatrist, Jeremy A. Lazarus, M.D., to speaker of the AMA Houseof Delegates (HOD). In this new position, Dr. Lazarus will preside overAMA-HOD meeting proceedings.
"As I move into this new role, I am honored to help guide the AMA and proud to represent the views of so many physicians," Dr. Lazarus said.
As speaker of the AMA, Dr. Lazarus plans to focus on three key issues: providing health care for all, protecting the patient-physician relationship, and improving the functionality of the AMA House of Delegates (HOD).Dr. Lazarus's experience with the AMA is extensive, and he most recently served as vice-speaker. He has also chaired the AMA Board TaskForce on Health System Reform and served as vice-chair of the AMA NationalAdvisory Council on Violence and Abuse, and chair of the AMA Foundation"Uniting for the Future of Medicine" Campaign steering committee.
This year, Dr. Lazarus has helped lead the AMA's advocacy to cover the uninsured as the AMA's principal spokesperson for the Health Coverage Coalition for the Uninsured (HCCU). He represented the AMA in the 2007 Ridefor World Health, speaking about the need to make covering America's uninsured a top national priority. In addition, Dr. Lazarus provided AMA testimony against predatory contracting practices at the National Conference of Insurance Legislators. In addition to his thirty-five years in private psychiatric practice,Dr. Lazarus serves as a professor at both the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and at the University of Miami School of Medicine. He also is an accomplished author and lecturer. His most recent book is Entering Private Practice: A Handbook for Psychiatrists."
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)
CHICAGO, June 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire
"The American MedicalAssociation (AMA) announced during its Annual Meeting today the election ofDenver psychiatrist, Jeremy A. Lazarus, M.D., to speaker of the AMA Houseof Delegates (HOD). In this new position, Dr. Lazarus will preside overAMA-HOD meeting proceedings.
"As I move into this new role, I am honored to help guide the AMA and proud to represent the views of so many physicians," Dr. Lazarus said.
As speaker of the AMA, Dr. Lazarus plans to focus on three key issues: providing health care for all, protecting the patient-physician relationship, and improving the functionality of the AMA House of Delegates (HOD).Dr. Lazarus's experience with the AMA is extensive, and he most recently served as vice-speaker. He has also chaired the AMA Board TaskForce on Health System Reform and served as vice-chair of the AMA NationalAdvisory Council on Violence and Abuse, and chair of the AMA Foundation"Uniting for the Future of Medicine" Campaign steering committee.
This year, Dr. Lazarus has helped lead the AMA's advocacy to cover the uninsured as the AMA's principal spokesperson for the Health Coverage Coalition for the Uninsured (HCCU). He represented the AMA in the 2007 Ridefor World Health, speaking about the need to make covering America's uninsured a top national priority. In addition, Dr. Lazarus provided AMA testimony against predatory contracting practices at the National Conference of Insurance Legislators. In addition to his thirty-five years in private psychiatric practice,Dr. Lazarus serves as a professor at both the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and at the University of Miami School of Medicine. He also is an accomplished author and lecturer. His most recent book is Entering Private Practice: A Handbook for Psychiatrists."
(Emphasis by Justice Lover)
Thursday, June 28, 2007
MORE ON THE GENEROUS BRIBES BIG PHARMA PAYS THE SHRINKS
by Justice Lover
Evidently, psychiatry has nothing to offer to its victim-patients but ever more deadly psychiatric drugs (apart from electric shocks torture and brain butchery,of course). Yet its practitioners, the shrinks, have got the temerity to continue to dub their psychiatric poisons as "medications". But what is really amazing is that they have got almost the entire medical profession keeping silent about this outrageous misuse of medical terms under the cover of a "Medical Specialty" by a profession which has no scientific basis whatsoever. However, Big Pharma, the transnational drug corporations, are very happy apparently, as their multi-billion dollars industry continues to return fabulous profits to its shareholders, as a direct result of the shrinks' prescriptions. Which is why it makes sense for Big Pharma to spend heavily on the psychiatric profession by increasing their generous bribes for the shrinks, as the following article/report proves.
"Posted by: "Lynn Michaels" Lynn Michaels
on SSRI-Research Digest Number 1577
Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:28 pm (PST)
June 27, 2007
Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts
by GARDINER HARRIS
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/gardiner_harris/index.html?inline=
WASHINGTON, June 26 - As states begin to require that drug companies disclose their payments to doctors for lectures and other services, a pattern has emerged: psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty.
How this money may be influencing psychiatrists and other doctors has become one of the most contentious issues in health care. For instance, the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved.
Vermont officials disclosed Tuesday that drug company payments to psychiatrists in the state more than doubled last year, to an average of $45,692 each from $20,835 in 2005. Antipsychotic medicines are among the largest expenses for the state's Medicaid program.
Over all last year, drug makers spent $2.25 million on marketing payments, fees and travel expenses to Vermont doctors, hospitals and universities, a 2.3 percent increase over the prior year, the state said.
The number most likely represents a small fraction of drug makers' total marketing expenditures to doctors since it does not include the costs of free drug samples or the salaries of sales representatives and their staff members. According to their income statements, drug makers generally spend twice as much to market drugs as they do to research them.
"For the fourth year in a row, our analysis shows that there is a great deal of money being spent in our small state on marketing pharmaceutical products," said William H. Sorrell, the Vermont attorney general.
Endocrinologists received the second largest amount, according to the Vermont analysis, earning an average of $33,730. Since the state identified the specialties of only the top 100 earners, these averages represent the money earned by only some of the state's specialists. There were 11 psychiatrists and 5 endocrinologists in that top group of 100.
Still, a similar pattern was evident in a Minnesota database that was the subject of a series of articles in The New York Times this year. As in Vermont, psychiatrists earned on aggregate the most in Minnesota, with payments ranging from $51 to $689,000. The Times found that psychiatrists who took the most money from makers of antipsychotic drugs tended to prescribe the drugs to children the most often.
These and other stories have helped to fuel a growing interest among state and federal officials to document and restrict payments to doctors from drug makers. At a gathering last month at Columbia Law School in New York, state attorneys general from across the country discussed ways to get similar data for their states.
And today, the Senate Special Committee on Aging, which is led by Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, will hold the first of a series of hearings on the issue, which could lead to legislative proposals to restrict and require disclosure of payments and gifts to doctors from drug companies nationwide.
Several lawmakers on Capitol Hill have expressed interest in such legislation, including Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. "A federal law requiring public disclosure of payments to doctors could be very effective if it was carefully monitored and consistently applied," Mr. Grassley said.
Efforts to require disclosure of payments to doctors began almost by happenstance in 1993, when The Minnesota Legislature passed a law that restricts drug companies from giving doctors gifts valued at more than $100 in any given year. The legislation also required companies to report and make public any consulting fees paid to doctors.
Lee Greenfield, a former state representative in Minnesota and one of the law's authors, said it passed with little fanfare or debate after legislators heard stories about doctors accepting gifts of great value from drug makers.
"Why do we want them bribing doctors to use what may not be the best or most cost-effective drug for the patient purely to get some hand-held TV, we all asked," Mr. Greenfield said.
Still, compliance with the law has been spotty. Some companies never responded to the board's requests for disclosures. Others did so fitfully. A few sent letters saying they did not collect that information and thus could not provide it.
Minnesota officials never cracked down. Such reports were put in file drawers and largely forgotten until this past year, said Cody Wiberg, executive director of the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy. Mr. Wiberg said he planned this year to pursue companies that fail to report.
Besides Vermont and Maine, more than a dozen other states have or are now considering similar legislation, said Sharon Anglin Treat, executive director of the National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices.
Officials in Maine and Vermont said they would try to compare reports of payments to doctors with Medicaid records to explore how marketing practices might influence prescribing by doctors in ways that increased costs to taxpayers.
"What we want to be able to do is overlay the prescribing information that we have with the drug detailing information," said Jude Walsh, special assistant to the governor of Maine, John E. Baldacci. "If we see that doctors in a certain southern county in the state are prescribing a lot of a drug and getting a lot of detailing for that drug, that could lead to some record reviews to see what's happening."
(emphasis by Justice Lover)
by Justice Lover
Evidently, psychiatry has nothing to offer to its victim-patients but ever more deadly psychiatric drugs (apart from electric shocks torture and brain butchery,of course). Yet its practitioners, the shrinks, have got the temerity to continue to dub their psychiatric poisons as "medications". But what is really amazing is that they have got almost the entire medical profession keeping silent about this outrageous misuse of medical terms under the cover of a "Medical Specialty" by a profession which has no scientific basis whatsoever. However, Big Pharma, the transnational drug corporations, are very happy apparently, as their multi-billion dollars industry continues to return fabulous profits to its shareholders, as a direct result of the shrinks' prescriptions. Which is why it makes sense for Big Pharma to spend heavily on the psychiatric profession by increasing their generous bribes for the shrinks, as the following article/report proves.
"Posted by: "Lynn Michaels" Lynn Michaels
on SSRI-Research Digest Number 1577
Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:28 pm (PST)
June 27, 2007
Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts
by GARDINER HARRIS
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/gardiner_harris/index.html?inline=
WASHINGTON, June 26 - As states begin to require that drug companies disclose their payments to doctors for lectures and other services, a pattern has emerged: psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty.
How this money may be influencing psychiatrists and other doctors has become one of the most contentious issues in health care. For instance, the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved.
Vermont officials disclosed Tuesday that drug company payments to psychiatrists in the state more than doubled last year, to an average of $45,692 each from $20,835 in 2005. Antipsychotic medicines are among the largest expenses for the state's Medicaid program.
Over all last year, drug makers spent $2.25 million on marketing payments, fees and travel expenses to Vermont doctors, hospitals and universities, a 2.3 percent increase over the prior year, the state said.
The number most likely represents a small fraction of drug makers' total marketing expenditures to doctors since it does not include the costs of free drug samples or the salaries of sales representatives and their staff members. According to their income statements, drug makers generally spend twice as much to market drugs as they do to research them.
"For the fourth year in a row, our analysis shows that there is a great deal of money being spent in our small state on marketing pharmaceutical products," said William H. Sorrell, the Vermont attorney general.
Endocrinologists received the second largest amount, according to the Vermont analysis, earning an average of $33,730. Since the state identified the specialties of only the top 100 earners, these averages represent the money earned by only some of the state's specialists. There were 11 psychiatrists and 5 endocrinologists in that top group of 100.
Still, a similar pattern was evident in a Minnesota database that was the subject of a series of articles in The New York Times this year. As in Vermont, psychiatrists earned on aggregate the most in Minnesota, with payments ranging from $51 to $689,000. The Times found that psychiatrists who took the most money from makers of antipsychotic drugs tended to prescribe the drugs to children the most often.
These and other stories have helped to fuel a growing interest among state and federal officials to document and restrict payments to doctors from drug makers. At a gathering last month at Columbia Law School in New York, state attorneys general from across the country discussed ways to get similar data for their states.
And today, the Senate Special Committee on Aging, which is led by Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, will hold the first of a series of hearings on the issue, which could lead to legislative proposals to restrict and require disclosure of payments and gifts to doctors from drug companies nationwide.
Several lawmakers on Capitol Hill have expressed interest in such legislation, including Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. "A federal law requiring public disclosure of payments to doctors could be very effective if it was carefully monitored and consistently applied," Mr. Grassley said.
Efforts to require disclosure of payments to doctors began almost by happenstance in 1993, when The Minnesota Legislature passed a law that restricts drug companies from giving doctors gifts valued at more than $100 in any given year. The legislation also required companies to report and make public any consulting fees paid to doctors.
Lee Greenfield, a former state representative in Minnesota and one of the law's authors, said it passed with little fanfare or debate after legislators heard stories about doctors accepting gifts of great value from drug makers.
"Why do we want them bribing doctors to use what may not be the best or most cost-effective drug for the patient purely to get some hand-held TV, we all asked," Mr. Greenfield said.
Still, compliance with the law has been spotty. Some companies never responded to the board's requests for disclosures. Others did so fitfully. A few sent letters saying they did not collect that information and thus could not provide it.
Minnesota officials never cracked down. Such reports were put in file drawers and largely forgotten until this past year, said Cody Wiberg, executive director of the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy. Mr. Wiberg said he planned this year to pursue companies that fail to report.
Besides Vermont and Maine, more than a dozen other states have or are now considering similar legislation, said Sharon Anglin Treat, executive director of the National Legislative Association on Prescription Drug Prices.
Officials in Maine and Vermont said they would try to compare reports of payments to doctors with Medicaid records to explore how marketing practices might influence prescribing by doctors in ways that increased costs to taxpayers.
"What we want to be able to do is overlay the prescribing information that we have with the drug detailing information," said Jude Walsh, special assistant to the governor of Maine, John E. Baldacci. "If we see that doctors in a certain southern county in the state are prescribing a lot of a drug and getting a lot of detailing for that drug, that could lead to some record reviews to see what's happening."
(emphasis by Justice Lover)
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