the pill merchants: the relentless and tragic marketing of...

The Pill Merchants: The Relentless and Tragic Marketing of Psychiatric Drugs

Written by John Breeding, PhD & Amy PhiloWednesday, 01 June 2011 00:00 - Last Updated Wednesday, 25 February 2015 11:37

In our work, we strive to alleviate distress and to support and enhance people’s personalgrowth, transformation, individua- tion, self-determination, and clear and expanded awareness.Necessity dictates that we also spend a lot of time challenging aspects of the mental healthprofession that do the opposite— creating more distress, suppressing growth andtransformation, violating self-determination, and dulling and blinding awareness. We call itpsychiatric oppression—the systematic, institutional- ized mistreatment of those judged“mentally ill.”

This essay focuses on the ever expanding encroachment of psychiatric oppression to more andmore of the population, to people of all ages and to individuals who are less and less in need ofactual help. This encroachment takes the form of mass marketing for psychiatry and thepharmaceutical industry. The elders are covered already, as it appears that at least half of nurs-ing home residents are on psychiatric drugs (as shown in John Breeding’s book The Necessityof Madness and Unproductivity: Psychiatric Oppression or Human Transformation). We willexam- ine the expanding movement downward, from the grave to the cradle, so to speak.

One key aspect of oppression theory is the claim to virtue. For psychiatric oppression, that claimis the notion that mentally ill people need their treatment. Now pharmaceutical marketing isexpanding into the concept of prevention—that potentially mentally ill people need treatment, aswell!

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Appearing in Issue #30. Order A Copy Today

Disability and Disease: Measures of Failed Development

In 2005, investigative journalist Robert Whitaker analyzed adult psychiatric disability in theUnited States. The data is incredible. A century ago, one in 500 people was considered“disabled” by mental illness and in need of hospitalization. By 1955, with the advent ofThorazine, that number reached nearly one in 300. Over the next 50 years, as psychiatric drugsbecame the primary treatment, the disability rate climbed steadily. Today, nearly one in 50 U.S.adults receives Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income(SSI) for psychiatric disability.

The data on schoolchildren eligible for special education am- plifies the Whitaker data. Asdescribed in my book The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses, the number of children labeledas learning disabled (LD) or diagnosed with “disruptive behavior disorders” has increaseddramatically. Federal legislation in the 1960s spurred the growth of special education, and in1991, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was expanded to includeso-called Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) as a qualifying disability, it sparked tremendousgrowth. It is not unusual for a school district to have one in four of its students in specialeducation.

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About 60 percent of children qualifying under IDEA have no physical disability. These childrenare given labels such as LD, ADD or ED (emotionally disturbed). Could it be that these “diag-noses” are a modern way of “blaming the victim?”

Pathways readers know that we are clearly failing in prevention of real illnesses such ascancer, diabetes and asthma, including with our children. The situation in so-called mentalhealth may be even worse. Childhood “mental illness” is now virtually pandemic in the UnitedStates, as an estimated 1 out of 7 school-age children is on at least one psychotropic drug, andmany are on several. Our analysis showed an estimated 40-fold (4,000 percent) increase in thenumber of children on psychiatric drugs between 1970 and 2000. It is a fair estimate that atleast 12 million young people are on psychiatric drugs in the U.S. today.

Pseudoscience and the Creation of Imagined Disease

The drugging of our nation’s children is utterly tragic because of the very dangerous, toxicnature of these substances. But it is beyond tragic when one confronts the fact that these“illnesses” are only alleged or imagined diseases. Real diseases are discovered—confirmedby objective physical or chemical ab- normalities such as a cancer tumor or a blood sugarimbalance. Alleged disease is proclaimed by fiat. The American Psychiatric Association decidesthat certain behaviors (“symptoms”) are abnormal and votes these sets of behaviors intoexistence as diseases. For example, ADD was voted into existence in 1980, and ADHD in 1987.

It is difficult enough to prevent unnecessary physical diseases among our nation’s children.When one truly understands that childhood “mental illnesses” are imagined, then how in theworld can they be prevented or treated? Well, just as the government claims it can detain andtorture a man it thinks is a terrorist (not always using those words), our society claims the rightto select, label and drug a child we deem mentally ill. The difference is, terrorists do exist, whileADHD does not. As hard as they may be to accept, the words of retired neurologist FredBaughman Jr. are nonetheless absolutely true: “ADHD is a total, complete 100 percent fraud.”

You cannot prevent ADHD because it is not real. But you can prevent stigmatizing children withthe label, and you can certainly prevent drugging them with addictive stimulants, commonlycalled speed.

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Further into the Abyss: The Creation of Real Disease

Columbia University’s Dr. Mark Olfson analyzed national outpatient records and found anotherincredible 40-fold increase, this time in the diagnosis of “bipolar disorder” in youth (0 to 19 yearsold) within a 10-year period (1994–2003). The numbers increased from roughly 20,000 suchdiagnoses in 1994 to about 800,000 in 2003. The primary treatment of so-called bipolar disorderis psychotropic drugs—mood stabilizers like Depakote, and antipsychotics like Abilify orZyprexa. Olfson’s study also found that “nearly one in five psychiatric visits for young peopleincluded a prescription for antipsychotics.”

Antipsychotics are powerful and highly toxic, even more dangerous than stimulant speed. Theyhave caused probably the largest epidemic of neurological disease in history—tardivedyskinesia—in millions of adults around the world. There is a nationwide trend of “skyrocketingnumbers” in drugging our children with neuroleptics. The St. Petersburg Times reported a 250percent increase in Florida between 2000 and 2007.

“Bipolar disorder” is a prime example of a fictitious medical disease used to justify givingpoisoning drugs like Zyprexa to our precious children. A closer look shows that a tremendouspercentage of children diagnosed bipolar started off with an ADHD label. Typically, these kidstook stimulants for years before they were diagnosed as bipolar. Given that psychosis, agitation,anxiety, mania and cognitive and mood deterioration are all effects of stimulant drugs, it is easyto see that the end result is a tragic and pathetic example of an iatrogenic disease (a diseasecaused by medicine or medical doctors). As the above analysis reveals, there is one way toprevent many of the behaviors that psychiatry uses to justify its creation of the budding epidemicof “bipolar disorder”—simply do not put young children on toxic stimulant drugs.

Universal Mental Health Screening and Suicide Prevention

A storm of controversy surrounded the recommendation of Presi- dent Bush’s 2003 NewFreedom Commission for universal mental health screening, and the suggestion that the 56million young people in the nation’s public schools would be a great place to start. We slowedthem down in Texas, defeating the push for New Freedom–type mental health screening in the2005 and 2007 leg- islative sessions. The Texas 2009 marketing push had morphed into

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screening for suicide prevention, and we defeated that, also.

Teen Screen and other programs that claim to prevent suicide by identifying at-risk youngpeople have incredibly high rates of false positives. In a 2004 article published in the Journal ofthe American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Dr. David Shaffer, the Columbiapsychiatrist who developed Teen Screen, acknowledged that it “would result in 84 non-suicidalteens being referred for evaluation for every 16 suicidal youths correctly identified.” A primeexample of the problems that can arise with a false positive is the nightmare that Aliah Gleasonwent through in Austin, Texas. Aliah ended up taking at least 13 different psychotropic drugs.That is what happens to children targeted by screening in our system today.

These types of suicide prevention programs do not work. The United States Preventive ServicesTask Force found in 2004 that screening for suicide risk does not reduce suicide attempts ormortality. What these programs do is select more children to be labeled, pathologized andpoisoned with psychotropic drugs. They are very effective marketing campaigns for thepsychophar- maceutical industry.

Infants and Toddlers: Targeting Younger and Younger Children

In the 1980s the pharmaceutical industry recognized a market, and with the launching of ADD in1980 and ADHD in 1987, its ex- pansion into schools was underway. With the inclusion ofADHD as an “other health impaired” category in the IDEA in 1991, the numbers really exploded.Kindergarten and first grade became main entry points into psychiatry. Now there is anexponential increase in the numbers of drugged preschoolers and toddlers. Even infantssometimes get drugged!

The ethical corruption is significant. For example, a 2008 New York Times editorial titled“Hidden Drug Payments at Harvard” revealed that Harvard psychiatric researcher JosephBiederman and two of his colleagues took millions of dollars in undisclosed drug companymoney while acting as public relations point men for children’s “bipolar.” Boston Globe report- erCarey Goldberg reported: “Newly disclosed court documents portray Dr. Joseph Biederman, aleading Harvard child psychiatrist, as courting drug company money by promising that his workat Massachusetts General Hospital would help promote the use of antipsychotic drugs foryoungsters diagnosed with bipolar disorder.” (Italics ours.)

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Researchers from Rutgers and Columbia Universities found that antipsychotic prescriptionswritten for privately insured children aged 2 to 5 years doubled between 1999-2001 and 2007.Children covered by Medicaid are more likely than privately- insured children to be prescribedantipsychotic drugs, and have a higher likelihood of being prescribed antipsychotics even if theyhave no psychotic symptoms. Recall that antipsychotic drugs cause permanent neurologicaland metabolic damage in most people who take them for very long.

Whitaker notes in his new book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, that this system of “treatment”disables 850 adults and 250 children every day. He reports that in 1987, there were 16,200children under 18 who received an SSI payment by virtue of disabling “mental illness”—5.5percent of the 293,000 children on disability rolls. In 1990, the numbers began to dramaticallyrise. The number of children under 6 receiving SSI tripled to 65,928 between 2000 and 2007. Bythe end of 2007, there were 561,569 “mentally ill” children on the disability rolls, a 35-foldincrease, becoming the leading “cause” of child disability and 50 percent of the total number.That’s 250 children every day, enough to fill an elementary school auditorium.

The Mothers Act

The MOTHERS Act is a new federal law that seeks to increase screening of all new moms forperinatal mood disorders (during and after pregnancy), and which promotes public awarenessand “research” on postpartum depression.

This law was allegedly inspired by the story of Melanie Block- er Stokes, a pharmaceutical salesrep who became extremely dis- tressed after the birth of her daughter in 2001. Melanie’sdoctors gave her four different cocktails of antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds andanti-psychotics, as well as repeated electroshock sessions. She jumped from a 12th-story hotelwindow when her daughter was only 3- months old. Some time before her suicide, Melanie toldher husband that the treatments were killing her. It only took 3- months for psychiatry to destroythis woman and devastate her family forever, yet our government offers more psychiatry as its“answer” to emotional problems after birth—in the name of Melanie Stokes.

If the government were to initiate a “Take Your Zoloft” awareness campaign, we wouldunderstand that it is merely for the benefit of Pfizer. Yet somehow, many have been fooled intobuy- ing the notion that a screening program for some “mental illness” like depression is forpublic health.

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Screening is considered a medical diagnostic procedure, which requires the due process ofinformed consent. This due process right cannot legally be ignored without an emergencymental health situation (which gives authority to a doctor to screen), or when a court determinesa person is incompetent to consent to screening. Because mothers as a group cannot beconsidered incompetent to consent, nor can their collective due process rights be bargainedaway by Congress, mass screening programs without individualized mandatory informedconsent and refusal procedures are not only a bad idea, they are constitu- tionallyimpermissible.

New Jersey’s 2006 mandatory postpartum depression screening law implements the use ofthe Edinburgh Postnatal Depres- sion Scale (EPDS). In practice, the EPDS has beendemonstrated to triple the number of women diagnosed with postpartum depression. Due to itssubjectivity, almost anyone can be termed depressed or at risk of depression and treatmentwould be rec- ommended. Swedish researchers Ingela Krantz et al examined the subjectivity ofthe EPDS and found:

Routine EPDS screening of Swedish postpartum women would lead to considerable ethicalproblems due to the weak scientific foundation of the screening instrument. Despite amultitude of published studies, the side-effects in terms of misclassifications have not beenconsidered carefully. The EPDS does not function very well as a routine screeninginstrument…. Public health authorities should not advocate screening of unproved value.Screening is not just a medical issue but also an ethical one.

Advocates of this instrument have even admitted that based on screening results, categories ofvarying risk are established such that 100 percent of new mothers are at risk of depression andcandidates for treatment!

Postpartum depression is not a distinct disease of its own; even the preamble to the MOTHERSAct states that we don’t know what causes PPD. Rather, it is a convenient label for widelyvarying circumstances. The label is used by doctors to excuse their lack of investigation intopossible underlying physical diseases, and by society to absolve us of our responsibility tosupport new mothers, many of whom will undoubtedly have significant difficulty adjustingwithout proper support.

So many factors can cause a mother’s sadness. How much of so-called postpartum depressionis the effect of a stressful, un- supported pregnancy, or of a birth with labor-inducing drugs and

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painkillers, or unnecessary Cesarean deliveries with anesthesia and forced separation from thebaby, and on and on? This is not to say that moms don’t get depressed. But you can’t “treat”something with medicine if you don’t know what’s causing it— and simply giving someone anaddictive psychiatric drug is not going to treat depression. Rather than “cure” depression, thisdrugging can sometimes lead to tragedy or devastating injury of our babies, as in the cases ofMatthew Schultz, Manie McNamee and Indiana Delahunty (see sidebar).

Drug company funding of “educational” activities on perinatal depression and other mooddisorders has resulted in misinformed doctors placing pregnant and breastfeeding mothers ondrugs toxic enough to cause fatal serotonin syndrome in adults. These can cause such effectsin breastfeeding babies as exces- sive vomiting, seizures, coma and death.

In a recent article titled “Prescription Drug Epidemic Spreads to Babies,” Dr. Mary Newportstated that the number of babies being treated for prescription drug withdrawal in the past twoyears exceeded the number she had seen in the past 25 years combined. Prescription drugwithdrawal treatment for babies involves more medication than for heroin or cocaine. In addition,sudden withdrawal of a drug during the pregnancy can lead to miscarriage, or the baby couldhave a seizure and die.

According to the FDA, from 2004 to 2008 more than 7,000 cases of birth defects, spontaneousabortions and intra-uterine deaths, heart disease and premature births were reported as linkedprimarily to exposure from psychiatric drugs during pregnancy.

Acting for Mothers

In the world of modern mental health treatment, “at-risk” labels assume a biological or geneticdefect, which means drug treatment. It is astounding how many mothers already get“treatment.” The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists esti- mates that onethird of pregnant women are exposed to psychotropic drugs at some point during pregnancy.In addition, at least 13 percent of U.S. women take antidepressants during pregnancy. This isdue in part to unplanned pregnancies, but many women continue consuming medications whilebreastfeeding or pregnant. Drug companies ensure increased profits by drugging toddlers forso-called ADHD when these children grow up and become labeled with “bipolar disorder,” andthey further ensure increased profits when the administration of antidepressants, stimulants,

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mood “stabilizers” and neuroleptic drugs results in increasing cases of diabetes, for which thedrug companies have treatments. Likewise, drug companies will benefit exceedingly from theMOTHERS Act. The MOTHERS Act is not really for Melanie Stokes. Nor is it for moms andbabies. It is for pHARMa.

The Ability to See and Act

Valid answers to the question of prevention can only come from the ability to see past thesmokescreen and translate the Or- wellian language that perverts reality and results inpoisoning our children. Here is an example of that translation:

Treating a mentally ill child with medicine for ADHD. This means…

- Drugging a child judged as behaving poorly to control or alter his or her behavior. - Labeling and drugging a child to reduce adult discomfort. - Labeling children to create product points, to sell a product for profit. - Drugging a child to sell a drug.

Hopelessness into Hope

The rhetoric of psychiatric treatment of children and their mothers purports to offer hope. Butthe reality is that such pathologiz- ing and “treatment” undermines hope and causes damageand disability. Real hope for babies and moms lies in reclaiming the sacredness of motherhoodwith full-on support of pregnancy, childbirth and early parenting.

We love the title of Alice Walker’s book, Anything We Love Can Be Saved. It is culturalmadness to think that salvation of our glorious mothers and precious babies lies in psychiatric

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labels and drugs. The solution lies in a much more beautiful realm. Walker quotes Samuel Zan,General Secretary of Amnesty International in Nigeria and activist for the abolition of the genitalmutilation (female circumcision) of women: “If the women of the world were comfortable, thiswould be a comfortable world.” Walker points to the solution by amplifying Zan’s words: “LikeZan, I believe that if the women of the world were comfortable, so would the world be. In fact, Iknow this in my bones. Out of a woman’s security— which always means free agency insociety, sexual and spiritual autonomy, as well as the well-being of her children and the sanctityof her home—comes ultimate security for the world.”

This we can create.

Closing Thoughts on Prevention: The True Nature of Children

The title of John Breeding’s earlier book, True Nature and Great Misunderstandings: On HowWe Care for Our Children According to Our Understanding, is based on the premise, attributedto Anaïs Nin, that “We see the world not as it is but as we are,” and act accordingly. As long aspeople are so confused and misinformed that they think challenges with children are due tobiological or genetic defects in the children, then children (or mothers) will be blamed and hurt.

Our view on the true nature of children is that we are born with brilliant intelligence, tremendousenergy and zest, and intense relational desire. We also think that we can trust in the naturaltrajectory of human development, and do not need to tame and suppress our children.Breeding’s “21st Century Manifesto for Parenting” [Pathways 25] makes clear, however, that weare also regrettably aware that we live in a highly disturbed society, one not structured to meetwell many of the developmental needs of our children nor the safety and support needs ofpregnant and new mothers. Blaming moms or children by labeling them defective and thensuppressing, controlling and subduing them with drugs may provide a temporary falseabsolution of adult responsibility.

The bottom line, however, is that such practice is pathetic, cruel and tragic. Let’s stop it now.The challenge is doing what- ever it takes to be clear and strong enough as adults to fiercelydefend children from unnecessary harm, and simply to enjoy and take delight in our beloved,spirited children, and the sacred experience of pregnancy and birth.

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How Psychiatric Drugs Nearly Turned Me into a Murderer

by Amy Philo

Because of my experience on Zoloft, I can put myself in the shoes of Andrea Yates, MelanieStokes and all the moms you hear about who kill their kids or commit suicide, when it seemedlike they had everything to live for. I know what it’s like to have thoughts in your head “telling”you what to do, thoughts that are not yours, thoughts that do not belong. I never had mentalhealth problems in my life before I was on Zoloft, and I never have since. It’s been six yearssince my last pill.

In July 2004, I had my first baby, Isaac. At three days old, he nearly choked to death on somepartially digested formula while trying to vomit. We had checked into the emergency room ofChildren’s Hospital only moments before this occurred, and the staff saved his life. Had we notnoticed something wasn’t right and taken him to the hospital, Isaac could have died in hisbassinet that night as we slept.

A home health nurse who visited me two days later told me I was at “high risk” of postpartumdepression and needed drugs immediately. She even set up an “emergency” appointment withmy OBGYN. My OB gave me Zoloft samples and told me to start taking them right away, as-suring me that the drug was safe for me and Isaac, who was only 6 days old. Three days later, Istarted hallucinat- ing and having homicidal thoughts and suicidal urges.

I was involuntarily hospitalized for two days and had to fake a miraculous “stabilization” in orderto be released. Twice an outpatient psychiatrist raised my dose, and both times my homicidalthoughts worsened. On 150mg of Zoloft I was overcome with intrusive thoughts of killing mymother, husband, son, cats and neighbors before killing myself.

During the time I was on Zoloft, the FDA issued a black box suicide warning on antidepressants.As a result, I did some research of my own for the first time. I later went against medical adviceand tapered off Zoloft with the help of my husband and parents. By Thanksgiving I was off Zoloftand able to be alone with Isaac for the first time since he was 9 days old.

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My brief experience with psychiatry was the worst time in my life—during what should havebeen the great- est and most beautiful time in my life. Because my experience was soemblematic of everything that is wrong with the MOTHERS Act and screening of mothers forso-called “risk factors,” I decided not to sit idly by and watch the MOTHERS Act ruinmotherhood—not without a fight, anyway. The stories of those I meet in this cause continue tospur me on as an activist in an effort to educate, and thereby save, as many others as possible.

Excerpted from a longer piece by Amy Philo. For her full story, go to tinyurl.com/amypvid ortinyurl.com/amypstory.

This article appeared in Pathways to Family Wellness magazine, Issue #30.

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