Dr.Baughman: Anti-Psychotic Drugs risks not justified

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FRED A. BAUGHMAN, JR. M.D.

NEUROLOGY AND CHILD NEUROLOGY (Board Certified)

FELLOW, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY

 

_fredbaughmanmd_ (fredbaughmanmd)

1303 HIDDEN MOUNTAIN DRIVE

EL CAJON, CA 92019

 

Tele:(619) 440-8236

Fax: (619) 442-1932

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Ann Wells

 

Agency for Health Care Administration

Bureau of Pharmacy

2727 Mahan Drive Mail Stop 38

Tallahassee, Fl 32308

 

_wellsa_ (wellsa)

 

Dear Ms. Wells,

 

In a report from the World Parkinson Congress (April 18, 2006, page 36),

Caroline M. Tanner, MD, PhD, reported that the risk of Parkinson disease

(PD)/Parkinson’s syndrome (PS) is twice as high in people exposed to

pesticides and

herbicides, such as rotenone, paraquat, and diquat than in those not exposed.

Only one toxin, she said--MPTP

(1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine), has been proven to cause PD/PS.

Not so! Dr. Tanner failed to mention that the most common cause of

extrapyramidal syndromes, drug-induced PD/PS included, are the antipsychotic

drugs,

typical and atypical alike. They commonly cause a form of PD/PS

indistinguishable from natural-occurring PD, usually seen in the middle aged

and elderly.

Additionally, these drugs cause an endless variety of involuntary movements

including acute, subacute and permanent dyskinesias, dystonias, dysphagia,

oculogyric crisis, torticollis, and retrocollis, as well as akathisias, and the

oft-fatal neuroleptic malignant syndrome.

We should be outraged about the increasing use of such toxic, injurious

drugs as the antipsychotics in children and adolescents in the US, none of it

justifiable. One survey found a nearly six-fold increase in the number of

prescriptions of antipsychotic medications for children between 1993 and 2002

(Arch Gen Psychiatry 2006:63:679-685). Eighteen percent of visits to

psychiatrists by children resulted in their being prescribed an antipsychotic

medication.

Ninety percent of these were for one of the atypicals: clozapine,

risperidone, olanzapine, and quetiapine. None of these drugs are approved for

adolescents or children, and virtually all are prescribed for behavioral

disorders,

none of them actual diseases having a defined, diagnosable, physical

abnormality. With no physical abnormality for a drug to target, we are left

with

symptomatic treatment--giving a drug to see how it alters subjective emotional

feelings and behaviors.

The psychiatric drugging of millions of children in this country for

psychiatric “disorders,†none of them actual diseases, is a monumental

fraud and a

national disgrace. Imagine if you can, entirely normal toddlers,

school-children and teens with psychiatric labels such as “bipolar†and

“ADHD†with

the stigmata of drug-induced Parkinsonism or permanent, life-long tardive

dyskinesias. This is not “treatment†it is criminal.

No physician on the payroll of a pharmaceutical company is free to be a

patient advocate and should excuse themselves from such roles. The same

applies

to academic psychiatrists who might be called upon to function as

patient-examiners. It has become clear that virtually all academic departments

of

psychiatric are industry supported and industry controlled.

The neurological side effects of typical and antipsychotic drugs mentioned

here constitute a partial list of side effects of these drugs and reason

enough for them to be considered unfit for human consumption, regardless of

age.

In all age groups they also cause diabetes, metabolic syndrome, high

cholesterol, obesity, hyperprolactinemia, pituitary tumors, gynecomastia,

hypertension, neuroleptic-malignant syndrome (usually fatal), bulbar paralysis,

aspiration pneumonia and death. It has been proved that in the elderly,

morbidity

and mortality is much increased. Additionally, hundreds of all ages die in

our state mental hospitals across the country with most of this morbidity and

mortality a product of chronic antipsychotic exposure. As if this was not

enough, evidence has surfaced that returning Iraq veterans diagnosed PTSD are

dying from psychiatric drug cocktails, always containing antipsychotics.

Medicaid is being plundered to pay for these poisonous drugs that can never,

by any scientific yardstick, be shown to be safe and efficacious for any

patient group under 18 years of age. It is this consideration not the cost of

these drugs that should lead you to strike both the typical and atypical

antipsychotics from your formulary for all patients under 18 years of age.

If you doubt what I say about psychiatric diagnoses not being actual

diseases in a physical or medical sense, I suggest you write Dr. the president

of

the APA, Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, (American Psychiatric

Association, 1000 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1825, Arlington, VA 22209) and, to

the current director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas

Insel, (National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 6001 Executive Boulevard,

Room 8184, MSC 9663, Bethesda, MD 20892-9663) and ask them for proof that

ADHD or any of their psychiatric diagnoses or " disorders " are actual diseases,

having, as they must a confirming, objective, physical abnormality, gross

(visible to the naked eye), microscopic -- as in a Pap smear or biopsy, or,

chemical -- as in the chemical abnormalities of diabetes, galactosemia, gout

or phenyketonuria. They should be able to cite/reference the one article

regarding each that describes the proof that diagnostic entity in question is a

bona fide disease. There are none. If you get an affirmative response

from either, I would like to see it.

Sincerely,

Fred A. Baughman, Jr., MD

Author: THE ADHD FRAUD--How Psychiatry Makes " Patients " of Normal Children

_www.Trafford.com_ (http://www.trafford.com/)

p.s. please also place on record my statement to the Parliamentary Assembly,

Council of Europe, November 23, 2001

 

 

 

 

 

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