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Psychosis Cured with Vitamin Therapy: Nutrition Protocols and Case Histories of

Dr. A. Hoffer

 

http://www.doctoryourself.com/hoffer_psychosis.html

 

Megavitamin Therapy for Psychosis

by Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.C.P.S. (Can.)

 

Schizophrenia remains one of the most serious chronic diseases, attacking 1 to

2% of the population. Forty years ago patients suffering from schizophrenia

occupied half of all the mental hospital beds and one-quarter of all hospital

beds. Today, most of the mental hospitals have shut down but they have not

disappeared. By refusing to accept patients, and by discharging them before they

are ready for independent living, they converted the community into the new

mental hospitals. About half of the homeless people on our streets are

schizophrenics, many of whom have been treated in mental hospitals or

psychiatric wards, placed on tranquilizers, and then discharged to fend for

themselves.

The main difference is that formerly they were treated in inadequate hospitals,

which provided shelter, food, nursing care and some medical care. Patients were

protected from society and society was protected from the more violent

aggressive psychotic patients. These patients had little personal freedom.

Today, the modern mental hospital, which is the streets with their rundown

hotels, nursing homes, foster homes and so on, provides tranquilizers for some,

pays no attention to food, provides little shelter and provides no protection

for patients and for society. But they do have much more freedom to be sick, to

roam, to refuse medication, to prey upon others, to be preyed upon by others.

The end results are the same. Patients do not recover. The recovery rate today

is certainly under 15% which is one-third of the recovery rate achieved in 1850

in England and in the USA in the Dorothea Lynde Dix hospital in the eastern part

of the country. In my opinion, the street schizophrenics today are no better off

than they were in 1950. They suffered tremendously then from psychiatric

ignorance from this socially rejected disease, and they suffer today from

psychiatric refusal to examine a much better treatment called orthomolecular

therapy.

Modern drugs, primarily tranquilizers, are very helpful in ameliorating the

symptoms of the disease, but by themselves they can not and do not lead to

recovery. Psychiatric chemotherapy is equivalent to chemotherapy practiced by

oncologists for most forms of cancer, they do little good and cause a lot of

harm. Psychiatric chemotherapy leaves the unfortunate patients with a dismal

choice: (1) to remain naturally psychotic without the benefit of these drugs in

reducing suffering or, (2) suffering the iatrogenic organic disease, the

tranquilizer psychosis.

Tranquilizers, no matter how helpful, create a major dilemma for patients and

their psychiatrists. Given to patients, they help reduce the frequency and

intensity of the symptoms, but given to normal people they make them sick. Under

the communist regime in Russia, dissidents were locked up in mental hospitals

and given tranquilizers. They were using their peculiar definition of mental

illness, i.e. a person who disagreed with the system. These people were made

psychotic by the tranquilizers. When patients are given the same drugs they

begin to get better, their symptoms are alleviated to some degree, they are more

comfortable and their families being to feel hopeful again that they will

recover. But as they become better or more normal, they begin to respond to

these drugs as if they were normal, i.e. they become sick.

The tranquilizer psychosis created by these drugs includes psychiatric and

physical symptoms. The psychiatric symptoms are apathy, disinterest, poor

concentration and memory problems so they can not study and learn, personality

deterioration, and inability to function without supervision. On the physical

side they develop tardive dyskinesia, other types of neurological conditions,

impotence, obesity, and skin problems. Patients are no more fond of these latter

symptoms than they are of their natural schizophrenia, and many prefer to be

psychotic rather than suffer the ravages of this iatrogenic disease.

Orthomolecular therapy provides patients with a third choice, to become normal

and stay well.

The importance of clinical diagnosis

Early during my career as Director of Psychiatric Research I became aware of the

need to diagnose schizophrenia accurately and reasonably quickly. Our research

psychologists had spent at least $50,000 (in 1955 pre inflation dollars) and

after examining the psychological and clinical literature had concluded that

there was no accurate test for this disease. They also concluded that this was

due to the fact that psychiatrists would not agree on a definition and stick to

it. The clinical expression of the disease was so variable that it was extremely

difficult to sort it out from other conditions. This has been true of medicine

in general. The great disease, syphilis, had a similar wide spread set of

symptoms and signs and until the serological tests were developed there was the

same degree of uncertainty. The situation has not changed over the past forty

years. We still do not have any good generally used tests. The MMPI, in my

opinion, is clinically of little value for the clinical psychiatrist even though

it is used widely by psychologists. And the criteria laid down in the American

Psychiatric Diagnostic Manuals seem to be ignored.

I had decided to use the criteria, described so eloquently, by John Conolly, the

superintendent of a mental hospital in England. He wrote the book Indications of

Insanity. His definition was clear and elegant and is the best working

definition of this condition. It was, he wrote, a disease of perception combined

with an inability to tell whether these perceptual changes were real or not. I

have used this definition since and I have found it most valuable. But

unfortunately American psychiatry did not know about this definition and was

raised on the definition described by E. Bleuler. Dr Bleuler's definition

depended upon the presence or absence of thought disorder with very little

emphasis given to perceptual changes. This still remains a basis for diagnosing

except that a whole host of other factors have become operative, probably

because it is so difficult to define accurately when thought disorder is

present.

I also became aware many years ago that the diagnosis, like changes in clothing

fashions, changed with the prevailing attitude toward this condition. Thus, in

the early 1950's psychiatrists under the sway of psychoanalysis would not

diagnose it unless there was evidence of latent homosexuality. I remember that

at one clinical conference the psychiatrist presenting the case had diagnosed

the patient schizophrenic and then added that he was homosexual. During the

discussion I asked him whether in fact his patient had ever actually been

homosexual. He replied that he had not, but he added he must be a latent

homosexual since Freud had declared that this was the basis for paranoid

schizophrenia.

When we were conducting the double blind experiments to test vitamin B-3 for

treating schizophrenics I discovered that for a while we were no longer

admitting any schizophrenic patients to the Munro Wing, the psychiatric ward of

the General Hospital in Regina, Saskatchewan. However as the study ran for

several years this dearth of patients that I could enter into the study was

replaced by a shower of patients. I soon realized that there was enough

resistance among the clinical staff to allowing their patients to be included in

the study that they initially preferred to diagnose them depression or anxiety

or psychopathy . But since these patients did not recover and relapsed after

discharge, on readmission they were forced to make the correct diagnosis.

Another factor was the knowledge that schizophrenics did not respond to

psychotherapy. Knowing this, psychiatrists, if they wanted to give psychotherapy

and believed it had a chance would not diagnose their patients. I recall one

patient, whom I interviewed after the resident had been treating her with

psychotherapy for several months. As I was talking to her she kept on looking

over my shoulder into the corner of the room at the ceiling. I asked her what

was she looking at. She replied that her sister, who lived in Edmonton, was in

the corner of the room at the ceiling level and she was looking at her. A few

days after I informed the resident that she was hallucinating he changed the

diagnosis and sent her to the closest mental hospital. Today psychiatrists know

that psychotherapy alone is of little value. But they also know that drugs,

although very helpful, do not really make schizophrenic patients normal. If,

therefore, they have a patient that they really want to treat they will diagnose

them as bipolar (manic-depressive), or depressed which most of them are, and can

then use lithium or anti depressants. If they don't want to treat them, if they

are especially difficult, or troublesome, or have a dislikable personality they

will diagnose them as personality disorders. In any event the result is that

patients who are schizophrenic, and who would respond to some treatment are

ignored and banished to the modern mental hospital of our large cities, the city

streets.

This case represents one such case.

Elizabeth came to see me December 18, 1995. Her family practitioner wrote in his

letter referring her to me " She is a 28 year old with a long history of

psychiatric illness with varied diagnosis including anorexia nervosa, borderline

personality disorder, multiple personality disorder and these associated with

suicide attempts and multiple hospitalizations " . She had also been diagnosed

depression.

About mid 1992 she began to suffer severe headaches, about two to three times

per month, unrelated to her periods, often preceded by nausea and vomiting. She

was given the usual variety of headache medication without any response,

including fiorinal, demerol, gravol, tylenol, Imitrex by injection. Her general

practitioner had reported to the neurologist that she was working as a nurse's

aid, was a good worker, and hated missing work.

Early in 1993 a consultant reported that she had had an eating disorder which

was not responding to treatment. For over three weeks she had fasted and had not

drunk any fluids. She felt faint, had palpitations and was very tired. She had

been a member of an Eating Disorder support group. When she was sixteen she

would starve herself for up to 6 weeks. When she gained some weight she would

resume her fasting. She had also used laxatives. Later she began to use

medication such as ionamine to control her appetite. She would binge and vomit

3-4 times per week. Sometimes two times each day. She had been a very good

student making A's and B's, a good athlete, was happy with school and with her

family. There was no improvement in the hospital.

She was admitted again. In the meantime she had spent four months at a private

facility for anorexics. She was committed with severe depression, auditory

hallucinations and suicidal ideation. This admission she admitted she had been a

victim of child sexual abuse, by her step father. She continued to hear voices

but the psychiatrist in charge interpreted these as a projection of her own

thoughts. He began to indulge in psychoanalytic speculations about the causes of

her voices which he denied were hallucinations. For the first time the term

personality disorder began to appear in her record. This is in striking contrast

with the opinion of her general practitioner who had seen her as basically a

normal, achieving person. She was diagnosed depression and placed on anti

depressants.

April 7 to 20, 1995, she was assessed by psychologists, She reported hearing

derogatory voices inside her head which had become louder in the past few years.

She also heard voices from outside calling her and saw faces in several

different places e.g. in flowers, in food and in a window. She reported she had

been in four motor vehicle accidents from December to January 1994 due to

blackouts when driving. It was suggested that she suffered from dissociative

reactions but no diagnosis was made.

During my first interview, she complained she had been depressed and agitated

for four years. She was less depressed while on Prozac but was still having

problems with her eating disorder. A mental state examination revealed a large

variety of perceptual symptoms including hearing voices, seeing visions. There

were voices of several men. There was also a change in taste perception. She

could not tell the difference from the hallucinations and real phenomena. She

was also very paranoid and suspicious of her family and friends. I disregarded

all the previous diagnoses which totally ignored her main symptoms and diagnosed

her schizophrenia. The mean score for schizophrenia is around 65. Few patients

with other diagnoses score over 30 and all normal people score less than 20. On

the HOD test she scored extremely high, as follows Total 152, Perceptual 36,

paranoid 9, depression 16 and short form 14. The odds she was schizophrenic were

over 90%. I started her on niacin 500 mg tid, ascorbic acid 1 G tid, pyridoxine

250 mg od and zinc citrate 50 mg od. Orthomolecular therapy includes the

combined use of diet, nutrients in optimum amounts and drugs as needed.

Three months later she was free of voices. A month later I heard from the

referring physician to express his pleasure at seeing how well she now was. He

added " She is almost unrecognizably improved " . June 11, 1996 she and I estimated

she was 80% better. She stated that she felt normal for the first time in five

years. In July she continued her improvement. She had visited her mother with

her three children and had enjoyed the visit. When she had been depressed and

paranoid her psychiatrist had stated that she had a poor relationship with her

parents. This was apparently not the case. Her HOD scores were now normal. She

was still on niacin 4.5 G od, Prozac 20 mg od and the rest of the vitamin

regimen.

From the time I had first seen her there was one more visit to the Emergency

Department of the Hospital. In 1992 she was seen in the Emergency 6 times. In

1993 she was seen 12 times with one after an overdose of drugs. In 1994 she was

seen 16 times after 9 overdose attempts and spent 95 days in hospital. In 1995

she was seen 16 times with 2 overdoses. (Fifty visits to Emergency Services over

a four year period with 12 suicide attempts and a total of 101 days admitted to

hospital.) She started orthomolecular treatment on December 18, 1995. So far

(November 1, 1996) she has been seen once in the emergency services.

Conclusion

Assuming that each day in hospital costs $1000 and that each visit to the

Emergency cost $100, the total cost of hospital care, not counting payment to

physicians for services rendered, was $106,000, over a four year period. After

these numerous admissions to hospital, after extensive treatment, she had not

shown any improvement. But after she was properly diagnosed which led to the

correct orthomolecular treatment, she was almost normal in a few months. From a

person declared inadequate (personality disorder), who had suffered severe

depression and migraine headaches she became the normal person she had been

before she became ill, free of Migraine, free of depression. She is once more

able to look after her children. She will probably remain well as long as she

remains on the regimen.

Scientifically, when a phenomenon (this patient’s history of illness and

repeated admissions) suddenly changes direction after a new variable has been

added, one must assume that the change in direction arose from the application

of the new variable. Consider the course of her illness as an object moving in a

straight line. Several pressures are applied but the object remains on course.

However when the course is abruptly altered after the application of a new force

then one can conclude there has been a true effect of the new force on the

course of the illness i.e. that orthomolecular treatment caused her marked

improvement.

Literature Cited

Conolly, J. An Inquiry Concerning the Indications of Insanity (1830), Dawsons of

Pall Mall, London, 1964

Hoffer A, Kelm H & Osmond H: The Hoffer-Osmond Diagnostic Test. RE Krieger Pub

Co. Huntington, New York, 1975.

Hoffer A: Orthomolecular Medicine for Physicians. Keats Pub., New Canaan, CT,

1989.

Hoffer A & Osmond H: How To Live With Schizophrenia. University Books, New York,

NY, 1966. Also published by Johnson, London, 1966. Written by Fannie Kahan. New

and Revised Ed. Citadel Press, New York, NY, 1992.

Hoffer A: Chronic schizophrenic patients treated ten years or more. J.

Orthomolecular Medicine, 9:7-37,1994.

Hoffer-Osmond Diagnostic Test (HOD) for Orthomolecular Therapy

This is a simple test we developed for assisting in the diagnosis of the

schizophrenias. It is based upon the perceptual theory of schizophrenia. It

consists of 145 cards, each containing a question, to which the patient replies

by placing the cards in a true of false category. The true questions are scored.

Schizophrenics score high, usually over 50, while all other persons tested score

low, usually under 30. The magnitude of the score indicates the probability one

has schizophrenia. This test has been found to be very useful in rapidly

reaching a diagnosis and in accelerating the proper treatment. It is also

available for computer scoring and analysis.

Hoffer A, Kelm H & Osmond H: The Hoffer-Osmond Diagnostic Test. RE Krieger Pub.

Co., Huntington, NY, 1975.

The HOD Test Kit is available (in English only) from Behavior Science Press,

Institute For Social and Educational Research, 3710 Resource Drive, Tuscaloosa

AL 35401-7059, USA.

A Chronic Schizophrenic Woman Comes Back to Life

Chronic patients respond more slowly to treatment. It may take up to ten years

before the maximum benefit is seen. Following a recent survey of a small sample

from about 500 chronic patients under my care, I concluded that the major

recovery occurred about 5 to 7 years after treatment was initiated (Hoffer,1994)

If, therefore, treatment is discontinued too soon the optimum therapeutic effect

will not be seen. One of my complaints about psychiatric hospitals is that, on

the rare occasion when my patients are admitted, they promptly stop my whole

program, place them on other medication, take away their vitamins and when they

are discharged and return to me, I have to start them all over again. A few

determined patients have had their families smuggle the vitamins to them and a

few patients have surreptitiously taken them on their own. One of the patients

hid them in his boots so that he could take them when alone. This interrupts the

treatment of these patients and retards their recovery. This case history,

anecdote, illustrates the slow pace of recovery and the happy final outcome.

Lena came to see me in October 1988 with her father. When they walked into my

office my first impression was that she was either severely retarded or a

chronic deteriorated schizophrenic. I obtained the first history from her

father, as she was not able to tell me anything. She sat looking to one side the

whole time. Her father complained that she suffered unusual blotchy skin, and

her hands became very sweaty when she became excited. Her parents were surprised

when in grade 6 they were told that she was not able to learn. From then on she

went to special classes. About one month before she came to see me she had

fallen asleep in her chair and had spent the night there. Her parents awakened

her. She accused them of trying to drown her and ran away. The police picked her

up, called her parents and she went home with them. The mental state examination

revealed only that she was paranoid believing people were saying nasty things

about her. I concluded that she was an adult learning-disordered person which

had been present from childhood.

I started her on niacinamide 1 gram after each meal, the same amount of vitamin

C, pyridoxine 250 mg each day and zinc gluconate 50 mg each day. Six months

later her skin was normal, she was less depressed, had more confidence in

herself and found it easier to communicate. She was no longer paranoid. But

during July 1988 she had to be admitted to hospital. This time she complained

about hearing the voices of her father or mother when they were not present. I

rediagnosed her chronic schizophrenic.

She was started on small doses of thioridazine and in a few days discharged. She

was admitted again in March 1990 after her mother had advised her to stop the

tranquilizer. She was admitted for the last time March 1990 for 7 days. She was

discharged on the same vitamin program with thioridazine 300 mg daily, This is

the average dose for this tranquilizer. She no longer heard the voices of her

parents. By the end of 1990 I was able to reduce the drug to 100 mg daily. By

the end of 1991 she was getting along well and working part time. She had been

free of the voices. April 1992 the drug was decreased to 75 mg. She was

cheerful, on the same job, getting along well with her fellow workers.

January 1993 she was on 25 mg of the drug plus the same vitamins. She was less

sleepy, cheerful and much more communicative. I kept on reducing the drug but in

the end of 1994 had to increase it back to 50 mg. Early in 1996 the drug was

down to 25 mg. She came to see me July 1996 very excited. She was free of all

symptoms. She brought along her math test results and had made 100 percent. She

proudly showed me the certificate she had received for her scholastic

performance. She was a better reader than the other patients in her class and

was not afraid to read in front on them. She told me that she was very happy

because for the first time in many years her parents who had not been getting

along had reconciled and they were enjoying each other's company again.

The woman I had seen 8 years earlier no longer existed. She had been transformed

from a sick looking woman who had the appearance of a retarded person as used to

be portrayed in old text books of psychiatry to a young woman who dressed well,

and spoke freely to me. When I first saw her, and for several years, she would

always talk in response to my questions but would look off to the side. She

enjoyed coming to the office, and especially enjoyed saying hello to my

secretary and getting a hug from her. I wrote to the referring physician " It is

always a delight to see how much improvement Lena is showing as I continue to

see her. Today she was feeling really good, was very cheerful and she was

especially delighted because her parents, who apparently had not been talking to

each other for years are getting along very much better. I think she is doing

great. "

My criteria for recovery are very simple (1) There must be no symptoms and

signs, (2) The patient must be getting on well with family (3) The patient must

be getting on well with community and (4) The patient must be employed i.e.

paying income tax. Lena has achieved all four but does not earn enough to pay

tax. She has been sick so long that the handicap of those lost years has not yet

been resolved. But she is learning more skills in a fine program designed to

rehabilitate patients. Without the vitamins she would have remained the same

dowdy, retarded appearing women with no hope of ever getting any better.

Lena is one out of several thousand I have seen. Why are chronic patients

elsewhere denied the opportunity to get well?

One of the advantages of the orthomolecular regimen is that patients are more

compliant since they do not suffer major side effects and when they have to take

drugs the dose is so small that for this reason side effects are minimized or

avoided.

Side effects may have been a main factor in Manley Eng's criminal career and

will force him to remain in prison for 11 years. Mr. Eng was found guilty of

arson and was found to be schizophrenic. He refused to take medication because

it left him feeling lethargic and stupefied, (Wested, 1996.) I have seen

numerous patients who could not remain on the medication because of severe side

effects.

This anecdote illustrates the following points

1) Chronic patients must be treated patiently and continuously with adequate

support.

2) A combination of medication and nutrient therapy combines the advantages of

the rapid effect of the drugs and the slow curative effect of the nutrients.

This permits a gradual reduction of medication until the dose is so low the drug

no longer creates its own psychosis - the tranquilizer psychosis.

3) Schizophrenia in children may take the form of a learning disorder so that

normally intelligent persons appear to be retarded. Lifting the psychosis by

means of orthomolecular therapy will remove the apparent learning difficulty.

Literature Cited

Hoffer A: Chronic schizophrenic patients treated ten years or more. J.

Orthomolecular Medicine, 9:7-37, 1994.

Wested, K. " Unrepentant arsonist gets stiffer sentence. " Times Colonist,

Victoria June 25, 1996.

Twenty Years On Orthomolecular Therapy

November 11, 1996

On December 8, 1976 Mr. CR, age 25, arrived in my office. He complained that he

was much better than he had been but that there were days when he was nervous

and depressed. Six years earlier he had become very depressed. He was treated

with electroconvulsive therapy receiving about 11 treatments. His memory had

been bad before the treatment and was worse afterwards so that he could not

remember what he had been like. But most of his depression had been lifted. He

married a few years later. His wife told me that his episodes of depression had

been getting worse. During these he would become quiet, and obsessive. He was

still taking Haldol regularly. He added that he had, in the past, believed

people were staring at him, had suffered visual hallucinations and had heard

voices but had not experienced these perceptual changes after his treatment. He

had been started on large doses of the B vitamins, with zinc gluconate and

brewers yeast. I added niacin 500 mg three times each day after meals and

advised him to remain on his Haldol 2 mg daily. One month later he was normal.

April of 1977 he had suffered an infected finger requiring 7 days in hospital

and two operations. He had also broken a bone in his heal. He had not been

taking his Haldol and he began to hear himself think. (This is a classic

schizophrenic symptom). One month later, back on Haldol 2 mg, he was well. By

the end of the year the Haldol was decreased to 1 mg daily. In March 1978 I

increased his niacin to 1000 mg three times daily. July he was normal but still

needed tiny amounts of Haldol. I increased his niacin to 1500 mg three times

daily. By February 1983 he was normal and no longer needed any medication. In

January 1983 he became depressed again and had to resume his Haldol which he

maintained for a couple of years. I also added 25 mg of amitrytiline and 2 mg of

perphenazine to his program. May 1989 he was normal. He was a very busy

contractor building houses and had moved to an acreage. October 1960 he came to

see me. He was worried that he was not facing stress adequately. But he had

observed that whenever he ate sugar he became worse. He still needed to take

small amounts of the combination of the anti depressant and the tranquilizer. He

was normal, very busy as a contractor and looking after his family and his aged

parents. He had built a house for them on his property so that he and his wife

could look after them properly. He meets my criteria for recovery in spite of

the fact that now and then he needs some help with medication. In this he does

not differ from patients with other chronic diseases. Patients on megavitamin

therapy usually require much lower doses of tranquilizers and thus can avoid

most of the side effects associated with the usual dosages that are in use

today.

Had he not been placed on vitamins by the first psychiatrist who treated him and

which I continued and modified there is little doubt he would be receiving

welfare, on a variety of major drugs and not a major contributor to Canadian and

BC government coffers. A small investment in vitamins converted him from a

chronic schizophrenic consumer of everything to a major contributor to society.

Patients Not Schizophrenic Also Respond to Orthomolecular Therapy

Orthomolecular Medicine is not limited to the treatment of schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia was the first disease that was treated, beginning with our six

double blind controlled experiments that we started in Saskatchewan in 1951. But

this treatment has expanded into the rest of psychiatry and medicine. I will

demonstrate this by describing the last four patients I saw last week after the

coffee break, none of them were schizophrenic, all of them recovered within four

months of starting this treatment.

Lorraine, born in 1961, suffered from restless leg syndrome present for two

years. Neurological examination showed no reason for this. She suffered from

weak legs, unsteadiness and if she walked a lot extreme fatigue. Mainly she

suffered from an uncontrolled urge to move her legs when awake. This made it

very difficult for her to fall asleep and she suffered from sleep deprivation.

She was given several diagnoses including chronic fatigue syndrome. On her own

she began to take small amounts of a few vitamins and believed this had been

helpful. I advised her to take niacinamide 500 mg after meals, vitamin C 1000 mg

after meals, folic acid 15 mg daily, vitamin B-12 l mg sublingually daily,

lysine 1000 mg after each meal, vitamin E 400 iu daily and zinc citrate 50 mg

daily. November 18, 1996 she was normal. An anti depressant, Paxil, she had been

taking two years had not helped and she had to discontinue it because of side

effects.

Lee, born in 1963, was very anxious and tense. For years he had controlled this

by using alcohol. He would binge every three to four months for one day. He

suffered blackouts and often committed irrational acts that he did not remember

later. I started him in niacin 500 mg after each, meal twice as much ascorbic

acid and folic acid 5 mg twice each day. I have been using niacin for alcoholics

for the past 30 years. This treatment was first widely publicized by my good and

close friend Bill W. Co founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. He circulated a

treatise called The Vitamin B-3 Therapy to physician members of AA. I had

advised Bill to take niacin 3 grams daily to control his severe tension, fatigue

and insomnia. Within two weeks he was well. When I saw Lee for the second time

in mid November he was almost normal and no longer needed to be seen.

Frank, born in 1962, had three complaints when he saw me September 30, 1996. He

was very anxious and fearful, was unable to stick to any particular line of

activity and could not cope with stress. During his teens he had experimented

with LSD, with pot, mushrooms, cocaine and alcohol. At age 17 he began to

consult various therapists and take many self help courses, spending about

$30,000. I found that depression and anxiety were the main features. I started

him on niacin 500 mg after each meal, on twice as much ascorbic acid, and on

folic acid 5 mg once daily. By mid November he was nearly well. He was able to

concentrate better, was better focussed, his mind was clearer and his mood was

better and level. I then doubled his niacin amd folic acid for maintenance. He

no longer needed to be seen.

Marion, age 32, consulted me October 2 because she suffered from chronic fatigue

and was unable to cope with recurrent infections. She had been diagnosed bipolar

psychosis (manic depressive) and had been on and off lithium for 13 years. When

on lithium her mood cycled very rapidly. In mid July she was diagnosed

depression and started on an antidepressant which was very helpful. But when I

saw her she told me about the voices she had heard in the past, about her

paranoia, poor memory and difficulty with concentration. I started her on a

dairy free diet with ascorbic acid 1 gram after each meal, pyridoxine 250 mg

daily, zinc citrate 50 mg daily, selenium 200 mcg daily and a B complex 50's

once daily. By November 18 she was well. She had started to improve about ten

days after starting on the program. She was not able to tolerate the selenium.

These patients had been referred after they had been examined by their general

practitioners who had not found any physical basis for their complaints. I did

not give them any dynamic psychotherapy but did give them the kind that should

be used by every physician. After presenting their history they were told what

my diagnosis was, how I would treat it and about how long it would take to get

well. Each nutrient was described and the reason for the diet.

Seeing four non schizophrenic patients in one afternoon who had gotten well or

nearly well after two visits reminded me that orthomolecular therapy should be

made available to all psychiatric patients.

March 4,1997.Last week I discovered that I had saved British Columbia and

Saskatchewan piles of money by practicing orthomolecular medicine. I concluded

this after hearing from four patients I had treated in the past.

1) During July, 1996, I saw a young woman, born in 1968 who had suffered a post

partum depression for which she was treated in hospital on two occasions. She

was treated with risperidal, one of the three most modern tranquilizers. She

heard voices when she was pregnant, still heard her own thoughts and was

delusional believing that her four year old son was an Antichrist. She was also

preoccupied with the death of her brother who had been killed in a car accident.

He had been my patient in 1972 and had recovered from his schizophrenia. She was

also very depressed and fatigued. I advised her to eliminate sugar from her

diet, to take niacin 1 Gram after each meal, vitamin C 1 Gram after each meal,

folic acid 5 mg after each meal, pyridoxine 250 mg daily, zinc citrate 50 mg

daily and a B complex 50's once daily. She remained on the risperdal 6 mg daily.

In March I doubled her niacin dose and in July increased it again to 3 Grams

after each meal. The following November her local psychiatrist decreased the

drug to 4 mg. February 26,1997 she called. She was well but was worried about

her son who was typically hyperactive with a short attention span. I advised her

to put him on a sugar and dairy products free diet and to add a simple B complex

preparation for children. She had observed that a Coke would drive him wild.

Had she remained on the drug only the odds are over 90% she would have remained

permanently ill and would cost British Columbia $2 million over the next forty

years.

2) The same morning I received a call from Saskatchewan from a woman born in

1924. I had seen her in Saskatoon many years ago. She had been suffering from

severe Meniere's disease which had not responded to any medication nor diet. On

her own she had started taking small amounts of niacin and for the first time

began to get better. She came to Victoria in December 1987 with her husband and

consulted me about her orthomolecular program. Both were normal. I suggested she

remain on the niacin 1 gram three times daily, the same amount of vitamin C,

some vitamin E and B complex 50's. In 1993 she reported that she was normal but

she was worried about her husbands arthritis. He was two years older. He too was

started on a vitamin program. February this year she called again and told me

how pleased and delighted she was at their good state of health. Both were

symptom free, They were both leading a wonderful life, she said. That last call

saved Saskatchewan the cost of two consultations but even more saved the cost of

recurrent consultations at home with their family doctors and specialists if

they had not started on the megavitamin regimen.

3) An elderly man called from Victoria where he had been visiting his family. He

had wanted to see me but his wife died suddenly and he could not. He reminded me

that I had treated his daughter between 1970 and 1972 for schizophrenia with the

vitamin program. She had recovered, got better each year. Her two children were

attending University. He was delighted with her recovery. Her recovery saved

Saskatchewan $2 million. She has been well and productive for 25 years and there

is every indication she will not relapse. On tranquilizers alone she would still

be ill, a burden to herself, to her family and to her society.

4) A former patient I had treated in Saskatoon 25 years ago wrote about his

mother-in-law and her identical twin sister, He gave me a progress report on his

own recovery every year end. The twins were born in 1910. They married brothers

when they were 25. His mother-in-law was financially better of and her lifetime

diet was more nutritious. In 1966, following a series of difficulties and

frequent moves the sister began to show signs of psychiatric illness. She

fabricated stories for example. Four years later she left her husband and

worked. By this time her diet had deteriorated even more and she basically lived

on tea and toast. Eventually she had to be admitted to a nursing home and was

diagnosed Alzheimer's disease. She died in 1981.

As soon as this sister was diagnosed my informant became worried about his

mother-in-law because of the hereditary factor and started her on a good

multivitamin multimineral program, including the B vitamins and vitamin C and E.

She remained well on this program. Today her son-in-law describes her as an

alert eighty-six-year-old person.

....If these women had been fraternal i.e. not identical twins, this comparison

experiment would not mean much. However because they had the same genetic makeup

and because it is recognized that Alzheimer's disease has a powerful genetic

component the results are very persuasive, In animal comparison experiments one

identical twin pair is equivalent to 40 pairs of non identical twins. This is

why there is so much excitement about the identical twin monkeys just born in

the United States. They grew from two cells taken from an eight-cell embryo and

have the same genetic make up. I doubt there is another identical twin pair with

a similar history, one on a good orthomolecular program, the other on a poor

program. It suggests to me that if everyone were to start on a good nutritional

program supplemented with optimum doses of vitamins and minerals before age

fifty and were to remain on it the incidence of Alzheimer's disease would drop

precipitously. By keeping his mother-in-law well my informant has saved

Saskatchewan a lot of money,

Today, March 11, 1997, a ninety-four-year old woman came to see me. I had been

seeing her since 1992 because of her anxiety over breast cancer. This time she

had been experiencing a lot of difficulty from congestive heart failure which

was improving. She had been driven to my office by a patient of mine who had

been a chronic paranoid schizophrenic. And this is the point of this anecdote.

She told me how kind he was to her, that he took her for walks, drove her around

and was very supportive and helpful. He represents a patient who had been very

sick, had been fired from his job as a nurse twelve times, and even after his

recovery could not get a job because the hospitals judged him only on the way he

had been, and refused to accept my opinion that he had recovered and was able to

work. He is a normal man who has been on permanent pension, even when he did not

have to be, because of the popular view that no schizophrenic can ever recover.

Of course this is true if tranquilizers alone are used. I saw him first in 1983

when he brought with him a list of 52 problems. By then he had been ill for

several years and had been in hospital two years before for three months. He

told me about his visual hallucinations. Once he awakened at night and found two

men in his room who were trying to awaken him, and they were both ice cold. He

heard his own thoughts and felt unreal. He was extremely paranoid, felt people

wanted him to kill himself, there was a lot of blocking and his memory and

concentration were very poor. No wonder he was so depressed. I assumed he was

potentially violent although he had not been violent but he had written

threatening letters. I started him on treatment. By 1984 he had recovered. He

wanted to go back to work at the hospital but the hospital would not take him

after another psychiatrist had maintained that he was still not fit to work. His

behaviour had been so paranoid they refused even to consider him. Since then he

has been well. He is kind, considerate, helpful to his neighbors. He travels

each year with individual members of his family with whom he has a good

relationship. He does a lot of volunteer work. Still it is sad that the services

of this good man have been rejected simply because he had been so sick in the

past. My 93 years old patient is very grateful and appreciates his help. I doubt

she knows anything about his previous history. He meets my criteria for recovery

i.e. he is free of symptoms and gets on well with his family and with the

community and he would be paying income tax if his past had not been used to

prevent him from ever working again.

The 26th Annual International Conference. Nutritional Medicine Today (April

18,19,20. Royal York Hotel, Toronto) was a very successful conference with over

150 participants including 100 physicians. We discussed the treatment of

depression and schizophrenia the first half-day session. Dr. Sherry Rogers gave

us a remarkable outline of the causes and the treatment of depression. She is a

specialist in environmental medicine in private practice in Syracuse, N.Y. Her

books are excellent and she is a very skillful informative lecturer.

Then Dr. J. Smythies outlined the modern view of the relation of the

aminochromes to normal and schizophrenic brains. The original transmethylation

hypothesis developed by Dr. H. Osmond and Dr. J. Smythies in 1952 led to the

adrenochrome hypothesis of Hoffer, Osmond and Smythies. Dr. Smythies was

Chairman. Department of Neurosciences, University of Alabama, for many years. He

is retired but is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Neurology in

London and is in the Brain and Perception Laboratory, Department of Psychology,

U.C.S.D., La Jolla, CA, and very active in continuing his writing for medical

and psychiatric journals. I was delighted to see John again after about a ten

years hiatus. In his lecture he outlined the massive evidence that these

aminochromes (adrenochrome is one a number of similar compounds) are intimately

involved in the functioning of the brain. Some of this is discussed in his

report " On the Function of Meuromelanin " Proceedings of the Royal Society

(London) B, 363, 491-496,1966. Also in the Journal of the Royal Society of

Medicine, " The Role of ascorbate in brain: therapeutic implications " . May 1996,

Volume 89, Page 241.

I wound up this first session with my report on " The Optimum Treatment for the

Schizophrenias " . I told the meeting of a discussion I had with a couple and

their daughter the night before at the reception. The couple were friendly and

relaxed and the girl was cheerful and interested. Father reminded me that he had

written to me a half-year earlier about his daughter and I had referred her to a

Toronto Orthomolecular Psychiatrist. She had not responded to any treatment for

the ten years of her chronic schizophrenia including huge doses of

tranquilizers. On one occasion her parents complained that 70 milligrams of

stelazine was of no help and was causing severe side effects. The psychiatrist

told them to increase it to 80 mg. They dismissed him. She was started on the

vitamin program and by the time I saw her she was normal. While she was very ill

they had arranged for her to be seen by the schizophrenic clinic of one of the

local psychiatric hospitals, the best in Toronto. By the time she met with this

clinic she had already shown marked improvement. During the intake conference

the attending staff were very busy taking notes and showing great interest in

her history. Toward the end of the session father told the group that his

daughter had started on a vitamin program and was very much better. There was a

sudden hush, the notebooks snapped shut, interest dissipated and a chill

descended on the meeting. The chief of the clinic remarked that they should stop

the vitamin program in order to test whether they were effective. She did not

give the same advice for the tranquilizers which she knew was the only

recommended treatment. Apparently the worst sin in orthodox medicine is to see a

recovery for the wrong reason. The schizophrenia clinic knew that vitamins could

not ever help anyone. The patient was not invited to participate in the clinic

program, nor of course, would her parents have allowed her to do since she was

already well on the way to recovery and on a much lower dose of tranquilizer. I

am puzzled by the callous advice given so freely to stop the program that had

gotten her well after ten years of illness. Obviously this psychiatrist is

overly impressed with double blind therapeutic trials during a time when this

particular way of studying response is sinking into the dust bin of history

because it is inappropriate for testing multiple programs.

Dr. David Horrobin Is President of the Schizophrenia Association of Great

Britain, Founder and Research Director of Efamol Professor at Wolverhampton

University and the University of Dundee and one of the foremost experts on the

essential fatty acids. In his discussion he referred to a new finding which will

markedly simplify the recognition that schizophrenia is present. This ought to

introduce some diagnostic clarity and prevent many of these unfortunate patients

from being labeled incorrectly as bipolar or borderline personality disorders.

He has developed a simple skin test. An adhesive strip containing four different

concentrations of niacin is placed on the skin and left there five minutes. The

strip is removed. Normally the niacin in the patch will cause some reddening; a

mild flush or dilatation at the point of contact. Non schizophrenic people are

much more sensitive to this effect while schizophrenic patients are not. About

70% of the schizophrenic patients will not flush at levels which will flush

normal people. This test may soon be available commercially. His report created

great interest at a previous meeting in the USA where he presented this finding.

For more information:

The Canadian Schizophrenia Foundation, 16 Florence Avenue, Toronto, Ontario,

Canada M2N 1E9 Fax 416 733 2117, Telephone 416 733 2352

E Mail: center

Schizophrenia and Crime in Victoria

July 5,1997. Recently a twenty two-year-old man killed his mother. He was

schizophrenic and found unfit to stand trial. Until he is fit he will remain in

a mental institution. His father demands an inquiry and a coroner's inquest will

be held. A few days earlier a patient walked out of the local psychiatric

hospital, got on a bus, and when his transfer was challenged hit the driver. He

was eventually subdued and taken into custody by the police. These are a few of

the anti social acts committed by schizophrenic patients. The Times Colonist,

Victoria July 4, 1997 reported that in March Aaron was charged with mischief and

he was held in jail. He was assessed in jail by a psychiatrist who concluded

that although he had no violent thoughts and no prior history of violence he

should be in hospital. However the hospital was full. Rather than have Aaron in

jail his mother agreed to take him home on bail on condition he take his

medication and attend at the outpatient forensic clinic. His father commented

" No family in this province is equipped to provide home care for someone as sick

as my son. Leaving him in the care of family is like sending someone who needs

heart surgery back to his parents house for treatment " . Aaron had stopped taking

his medication two weeks before. But he continued seeing a psychiatrist and

probation officer once a week and they noticed nothing wrong, according to his

father. Neighbors had been calling the police for weeks before the killing

because of his bizarre behaviour.

Rick Cooper of the B.C. Schizophrenia Society said there are few supports for

these sick people, that there is no one responsible for ensuring that they take

their medication regularly, that there is almost no treatment provided for

patients not in hospital. The chief of police reported that crime by mental

patients had increased from about 200 each year to around 250 in 1996.

The Times Colonist, July 5, 1997 carried more information. The paper quoted the

father " During the past few weeks I have heard dozens and dozens of real-life

stories from strangers and friends alike about other families of schizophrenics

who were at their wit's end, abandoned by a health system that had little to

offer unless a crime had been committed " .

In their communications with the public the mental health associations and the

professional people involved in the care and treatment of schizophrenics have

maintained that these patients are as law abiding as the general population.

There are two aspects to the crime problem; these are the quantity and the

quality of the crime. It is true that schizophrenic patients are not more prone

to commit crime than are the average population but it is also true that

schizophrenics are much more apt to commit strange, bizarre and totally

illogical crimes than are the rest of the population. That is because they

commit their crimes in response to their hallucinations and their thought

disorder. Thus, many years ago a man was committed to hospital in Regina because

he was chasing a young girl on the main street. When I examined him he told me

he had seen a vast illumination in the heavens as we was walking west in the

late afternoon and that from this illumination he heard a voice say " You have

syphilis and to be cured you must have intercourse with a virgin " . He had both a

visual and an auditory hallucination and he thought the voice was the voice of

God and must be obeyed. He recovered on megavitamin therapy and remained well

thereafter.

Another case was the Hoffman, case in northern Saskatchewan, Kahan (1975). A

schizophrenic young man was in the Saskatchewan Hospital, North Battleford on

medication. In hospital he described his hallucinations to his psychiatrist. He

heard and saw both the Devil and his guardian angel. They were fighting with

each other. The angel wanted him to be good and the Devil tempted him with the

world's riches if only he would kneel before him. His psychiatrist ignored these

symptoms. He was discharged and given a months supply of medication. A few weeks

after he ran out of the drug the Devil came to him at night, following a

splitting headache. He described him as a 6-foot 2-inch huge man with the face

of a pig who ordered him to get into his car, to drive exactly 60 minutes and

wherever he then was to kill. He stopped at the Hoffman farmhouse, and shot and

killed every member of the family except a baby who was crawling on the floor.

By then, he told me, he was too tired of killing. He was found not guilty by

reason of insanity and was committed to a mental hospital.

The criticism hurled at the community mental care supports and facilities are

always directed against those matters which appear to be most important such as

not enough beds, not taking ones medication, not enough community supports. They

can all be described as factors which can be healed by throwing more money into

the system. With more money there would be more psychiatrists, more beds, more

community support nurses, more follow-up workers, better shelters and so on.

While these are all needed one of the most important aspects of the problem is

totally ignored. That is the need for more effective treatment. The situation

can be blamed squarely on the psychiatrists who insist that the only treatment

of value is the use of drugs. But these drugs, while controlling symptoms, do

not lead to recovery. On the contrary, it is impossible to be well while on

tranquilizer medicine. The side effects are so troublesome that too many

patients refuse to stay on the medication unless they are forced to in hospital

or by injection. If we are going to have any impact on the intensity and quality

of the crimes we must improve the quality of treatment. Psychiatrists must be

made more accountable for the results they are getting. Psychiatric Institutions

must be made forced to release annual reports showing what proportion of their

schizophrenic patients have recovered and why they are not doing any better.

They must be forced to examine seriously at orthomolecular psychiatry which

yields results very much better.

Around 1968 a young man took his rifle, went to his parent’s bedroom and fired

the gun at the pillow between their heads. No one was hurt. He ran from the room

and out into the mid winter snow and cold (forty below) in his bare feet. I

found him to be schizophrenic. I described the situation to the judge who

released him to my care at City Hospital in Saskatoon. I treated him with

megavitamin therapy. He recovered and when I last heard from him, he was happily

married living somewhere in Northern Canada. A second example was a graduate

student in physics at the University. He was shooting at cars driving down the

road. He was referred to me. I found him schizophrenic. He had a history of

illogical, silly and dangerous acts. For example on one occasion he hid in the

stacks of the public library in Washington D.C. and when everyone had gone home

he enjoyed himself by pushing all the stacks over. I started him on vitamin

therapy. Three months later he was in a cold sweat with anxiety. He told he had

just realized that he might have killed someone. He continued treatment, was

released by the court on condition he return to the US. Last I heard he was a

professor in physics in one of the mid-west Universities in the US.

I do not claim that every patient will be treated as successfully as this. But I

do claim that many more will and that we have to improve the quality and

quantity of treatment for all patients so that the proportion of the crimes

committed by them will vanish. Every person charged with a crime which contains

the elements of the bizarre, the difficult to understand, the illogical acts,

should be examined to find out what the determinants of that behaviour were so

that appropriate treatment can be started and combined with punishment in most

cases. Punishment alone is of little value. Treatment without punishment is

better but best of all would be good treatment program combined with minimum

punishment.

Kahan, F.H. Schizophrenia, Mass Murder and the Law. J. Orthomolecular

Psychiatry, 2,1256-146, 1975.

Today (July 5, 1998) Sixty Minutes described the tragic story of a New York

family who adopted a son from a respected, not-for-profit adoption agency. He

was intelligent, fit, interested in sports and loved by his family as he in turn

loved them. In his mid teens he began to skip classes, later became clearly

paranoid and eventually was admitted many times to New York hospitals for

treatment of his schizophrenia. After several years the family and especially

the adopted son tried to obtain information about his parents, especially his

mother but the institute would, at first, not release anything and later under

pressure informed the son that his mother had episodes of depression. It was

common policy for adoption agencies everywhere not to release information about

the parents of the children they placed. In many areas this is now mandatory.

The family sued the institute and after seven years it has still not been

settled. But the court ordered the institute to release their file. The file

reported that his mother had been a chronic schizophrenic patient, that she had

been lobotomized, and had spent time in hospitals. They also found that the

father had been classed as mentally ill. In the mean time their son continued to

suffer, continued to have treatment and eventually died at age 29, from a drug

reaction. The name of the drug was not given. I would guess it was clozapine

because it is used for refractory patients and it does kill a very few patients.

The Sixty Minutes report concentrated on the tragedy and the loss of the son to

his family as a result of the failure of the institute to provide the essential

information. However one must ask What difference would it have made? Suppose

the institute had given them the information that his mother was schizophrenic,

that 10% of children of one schizophrenic parent will become schizophrenic, that

if both parents are ill half the children will become ill. The parents might

have decided that since there was a 90% chance the child would not become

schizophrenic that they could live with these odds. But in either case, knowing

the odds, or not knowing anything about the mother the outcome would have been

exactly the same for with orthodox, xenobiotic treatment there is no way by

which they could have prevented the illness or treat it properly. This is the

real tragedy of this very sad anecdote. But it could have been different. The

parents should have been advised of the mother’s illness. They should have

provided information that if there was any significant change in behaviour or

learning ability of their child they should promptly seek help from an

orthomolecular psychiatrist who could start the correct treatment and that this

is the only way this tragedy could have been avoided. In New York City, The

Fryer Research Center, at 30E 55th St, 10016, 212 808 4940, has been treating

schizophrenic and other patients with success for at least the past 25 years.

This center might have helped this desperate family seeking help for their son.

The following anecdote illustrates an entirely different outcome. In 1960 Bill

W., the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, asked me to see a girl, seven years

old. Anabel was adopted by her grandfather and his second wife. Anabel's mother

was a chronic schizophrenic patient, in a chronic back ward of one of the mental

hospitals. I knew Anabels mother having treated her at University Hospital in

Saskatoon for a couple of months. She was well after discharge but could not

find anyone in Washington D.C. who would continue the program. She eventually

relapsed and went back to hospital. Anabel's adopting parents were very worried

because she had been diagnosed retarded, and it was very difficult to deal with

her behaviour. She was being prepared to go to a special school in New York City

for the retarded. Knowing the odds she might be showing the earliest

manifestations of her mothers illness I advised them to start her on

niacinamide, 1 gram three times each day after meals. For two years there was no

change and then she began to get well. She graduated from university on the

Dean's Honor list. Later she married, raised a family. She became a piano

teacher. I was in contact with her a few months ago. She is still well. Had

Anabel not been treated with this B-3 vitamin I have no doubt she and her family

might have suffered the same fate that enveloped the family of the young man who

was killed by a drug. By the way each year, in the United States and Canada,

over 110,000 patients die from the proper use of drugs in hospitals. I think it

would be logical for the family also to sue the hospitals who did not treat

their son with the most modern and most effective treatment. Antipsychotic

drugs, used alone, do not allow schizophrenic patients to become normal.

Starting a Schizophrenic Patient on Orthomolecular Treatment.

Today, July 6, 1998, I interviewed K.J., just turned 20, with his mother. They

were both very concerned about the side effects he suffered from Olanzapine. He

was taking 20 milligrams daily. K.J. was well until one night in January, 1998,

he suffered a horrible nightmare, ran out of his room because he believed the

devils were chasing him. The next day he remained terrified and quiet. Over the

next few days his behaviour was bizarre and he was admitted to the local

psychiatric hospital for about 2 weeks. He was treated with fluanxol but serious

side effects after discharge forced him back into hospital for one month. This

time he was given Olanzapine. With this medication he was quiet and was able to

get along in the community in a special home. For the previous ten days before

he saw me he was with his mother. He was given his diagnosis but no further

explanation was offered.

With his mother's assistance I completed a mental examination. He had perceptual

changes including visions of the Devil. He did not hear voices but did hear

himself think. He was paranoid although it was not as bad now as it had been. He

had believed he would be poisoned, that the Devil was after him and he believed

people were staring at him. He had been very depressed, and still was very

tired, sleeping 16 hours each day. He also gained 50 pounds while on Olanzapine

and was beginning to look very pudgy. I advised him to follow a dairy free and

low sugar diet. To this he was to add niacinamide 1 gram after each meal, the

same amount of vitamin C and one B-Complex 50's tablet each day. This was added

to the Olanzapine. During the interview I outlined for him my version of what I

think schizophrenia is, why I was advising him to take these nutrients and why I

wanted him on this diet. His mother told me that as a child he had been very

allergic to milk. In the hospital he drank three glasses of milk each day and

continued to do so at home. Also in hospital he learned how to become a heavy

smoker. The psychiatric ward had the only smoker’s room in the whole hospital.

He will be seen again in about three months. He can not come more frequently

since he lives too far away from Victoria. His treatment will be monitored by

his local psychiatrist and by his family doctor. Every time I see him I will add

a progress note to this report. This running report will illustrate the process

of orthomolecular treatment. October 7, 1998. His mother called to cancel his

appointment. She reported that he was going to school and did not want to miss

classes and that they would call again for another appointment. This indicates

to me that he is already substantially better since he is now able to

concentrate on his studies and felt this was more important than visiting me

many miles from his home.

July 14, 1998 I interviewed a 24 year old woman, N.S. For the past two years she

suffered from intense fear and panic in the presence of people. She could barely

cope having to interact with one, but with more than one the anxiety was

intense, often leading to panic. For this reason she had been too fearful to

even consult a psychiatrist. Her family doctor had prescribed the anti

depressant, Zoloft, 25 mg daily, a month earlier and this has been helpful in

decreasing the level of anxiety. She was forced to leave her mother who she

described as insanely jealous, difficult and hostile and lived with her father

for two years. Since then she was on her own and when I saw her was unemployed

and living on pension. Her mother’s behaviour was typical of schizophrenic

behaviour. My patient suffered from the two sets of symptoms characteristic of

this disease. She had perceptual changes such as feeling unreal, hearing her own

thoughts, and believing people were staring at her. She was paranoid with some

insight but believed people were talking about her, in a derogatory way. She was

also depressed, very anxious and fatigued. I diagnosed her as suffering from

schizophrenia and when I discussed this with her she agreed and said she had

thought the same thing earlier and wondered whether she had gotten it from her

mother.

I asked her to eliminate sugar from her diet, to add niacin, 500 milligrams

after each meal, and eventually to increase it to 1 gram three times daily. To

this I added vitamin C 500 milligrams after meals, folic acid 5 mg after meals,

pyridoxine 250 mg each day and finally zinc citrate 50 milligrams each day. I

reassured her that if she followed this program her chances were very good that

she would be much better within 6 to 9 months. Her intense anxiety and panic

arose from her intense paranoid ideas. She came again with her father February

15, 2000. Her father told us that he had seen tremendous improvement in two

years, much more than she herself felt had occurred. She knew she was getting

better steadily but she was still concerned about anxiety which was not as bad

as before and she was worried that she found it difficult to interact with more

than one person at a time. She also had more insight and became aware that

during childhood she had major problems controlling her thinking. She wanted

reassurance that she would eventually become normal. I assured her that I

thought this would occur over the next year or two during which time she would

continue to improve. She spoke about her family and how she felt inferior and

strange because she could not think as quickly as they could and that she felt

comfortable only with her close friend. This is a phase that patients with

schizophrenia often have to go through. They are much better and realize how ill

they have been. Support and counseling are very helpful during this phase as is

understanding from family and friends.

She came back October 5, 1998. She was significantly better, felt less unreal,

was less paranoid, had more insight and was beginning to regain social skills

that her disease had removed from her. Her artistic skills were coming back. She

had gone off her antidepressant and vitamins for a week and during that week

suffered a relapse with severe fatigue and more difficult paranoid ideas. In the

past when, on occasion, she smoked pot she would become catatonic. This time

when she smoked pot once this did not happen. I estimate that she is about 25%

better. She was pleased as was I. I did not change the program.

February 1, 1999 she told me that two weeks ago she became aware that she was

beginning to recover. Her thinking had become more organized, her mood was

level, she had more energy. She had developed severe side effects to the anti

depressant she had had to take before. She discontinued the medication and

continued to improve, She suffered much less pain and had fewer perceptual

abnormalities. She still had a major problem. She was too jealous but she

recognized this was a problem. This is called being paranoid with insight. She

was troubled by this and I reassured her that this too would gradually

disappear. I increased the niacin to 1.5 grams after each of three meals. She

was concerned about her partner and had arranged that he too would be referred.

She came again in October, 1999. Her schizophrenia was much better with a major

decrease in all the symptoms but she was still too depressed and did not sleep

well. I added 25 milligrams of amitriptyline combined with 2 milligrams of

perphenazine. These are very low doses but I have found them to be very

effective for many patients who need very little medication. For many of my

patients they are better than the hot shot new tranquilizers now available at

exorbitant costs. She was still taking the vitamins and was on niacin 2 grams

three times daily (6,000 mg total) in spite of her family doctor who advised her

that this would cause liver damage. This is an idea, a myth, so well engrained

in the medical profession that it is a major factor in preventing them from

giving their patients adequate doses. She had been through three very stressful

months because her partner was not well and his behaviour kept her under

constant stress and uncertainty. But in spite of this major stress she continued

to improve.

February 24, 1999 I saw her partner. His main complaint was that he could not

think clearly, that he suffered from irrational ideas, that his short term

memory was non existent and that he had zero concentration. As a result he had

to be supervised by NS even to minor matters such as reminding him to eat. She

had advised him to start on vitamins and he took niacin 1 gram each day for the

month before I saw him. In that month he improved significantly, found his brain

was coming under his control. I increased his niacin to 1 grams three times

daily and asked him to continue the program NS had advised him to follow.

When seen last in November there was no doubt NS was better, was better able to

function. I increased her niacin again to 2.5 grams, three times daily (7,500 mg

total) and added one gram of salmon oil, for its omega three content, three

times daily.

Murder in Washington, D.C.

July 31, 1998 Russell Eugene Weston Jr. forced his way in and killed two Capital

policemen. This tragedy raised the usual questions about this event. Why did he

do it? Was he mentally sick? Did his background have anything to do with it? Was

it due to the availability of guns? Could it have been prevented? And so on. In

this case it is clear that he was schizophrenic, that he had been treated in a

mental hospital, that he must have been given medication (tranquilizers) at one

phase of his illness and that those who knew him appear not to have been

surprised. One psychiatrist stated that he was not taking his medication. This

was probably true. But no one asked the most important question of all; Why was

he not treated successfully. There is no doubt that he shot the policemen

because he was suffering from a paranoid delusional state and that this may have

been in response to hallucinations. He may have thought that he must bring down

the government, either to save his own life or to save society. He may have been

given a mission by his voices. There is no end to the type of bizarre ideas he

acted out. We will never know unless his psychiatrists actually ask him why he

did what he did and whether or not he did suffer hallucinations. But if he had

been treated successfully he would have lost his delusional state and he would

not have shot the policemen. If he had received orthomolecular treatment, he

probably would not have shot these two men. Not only are the results of

treatment so much better, it is also easier for patients to remain on the

program because the severe side effects, which patients object to, are avoided.

In future, as these schizophrenic criminal acts continue to plague society, the

family, the press, the society, the criminal investigative team should always

ask this very important question. Was the criminal ever given psychiatric

treatment and what was the response and why was the best available therapy not

used. It is time psychiatry took some responsibility for these major, tragic,

criminal events.

Psychiatrists report that patients with schizophrenia are as law abiding as the

general population. This is true. The same percentage of each group will commit

antisocial acts. But there is a major difference. The schizophrenic criminal is

most apt to act out bizarre delusions or fantasies and, therefore, when s/he

does commit a crime it will be more bizarre and much more difficult to

understand. It is, in fact, easily comprehensible if the criminal will tell what

the hallucinations and delusions were.

According to an Associated Press report, Democrats and Republicans in Congress

asked the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill to draft suggestions on

improving mental-health care. I doubt NAMI will ask the right question. NAMI

appears to be content with the psychiatric treatment offered by psychiatrists

and they devote their attention to other matters such as a having facilities

available. In any treatment program the following measures are important (1) the

medical treatment -- this includes good nutrition and psychiatric care, (2) the

site of the treatment, the shelter i.e. hospital, home, the streets (3) the

ancillary care i.e. from nurses, social workers, psychologists and so on. I

found many years ago that of these, the most important was the medical

treatment. In other words, orthomolecular treatment, even in a very low quality

hospital or home is better for the patient than standard tranquilizer treatment

in the best possible psychiatric ward. About 30 years ago, I found that the

response to my treatment of a large number of schizophrenic treatment-failures

from all over North America was the same when they were housed in a nursing home

for $20 per day, compared to my results with similar patients treated in a

University Hospital, for $80 per day. From over 100 chronic patients who came to

Saskatoon to the nursing home, half returned to their homes in USA and the rest

of Canada much improved. They were in the nursing home less than three months.

They had previously failed to respond to many admissions to the mental hospitals

from their own region including the Menninger Institute, then considered one of

the best.

October 8, 1998. Three years ago Max arrived in my office from the mainland. He

was 18 years old. He complained that he could not concentrate, had very poor

recall and was very tired. He became depressed two years earlier and had to drop

out of grade 11. After that he began to neglect himself, lost interest in his

peers. The anti depressant Paxil did not help, nor did Manerix. At the end of

1994 he was in hospital. After discharge he deteriorated further. He drank

excessively, began to hallucinate voices and visions and on one occasion was

found confused and disrobing on the street. He was admitted for two months. This

time he was placed on resperidone, 6 milligrams daily, the modern tranquilizer

and surmontil one of the older anti depressants. His first diagnosis was bipolar

later changed to schizo-affective. His mental state was fairly typical with

hallucinations which be believed to be real, severe paranoid and grandiose

delusions and a lot of anxiety with depression. I started him on niacinamide 3

grams daily, ascorbic acid 3 grams daily, pyridoxine 250 milligrams per day,

zinc citrate 50 milligrams daily, selenium 200 micrograms daily and vitamin

B-complex 50's one each day. He remained on his medication as well. In August of

1997 he was started on lithium carbonate, 900 milligrams each day.

I saw him in October 1998 for the twelfth time, (in three years). In the

meantime he or his family had called me about six times. During this last visit

he happily told me he had graduated from Grade 12 with a ninety average and was

planning further studies. He was free of perceptual complaints, and his thinking

was good although he still found it difficult to concentrate. His mood was level

but a bit too flat. He was on niacin 2 grams per day as he could not tolerate

any more. His resperidone was down to 1 mg daily and he planned to decrease it

to 0.5 mg.

December 1999 he had improved even more. He was taking post grade twelve courses

and making a B average. He had been able to deal with a moderate depression

starting about two months earlier and ending one month later. His resperidone

was down to 0.25 mg daily and Paxil 30 milligrams daily. I added salmon oil, 3

grams after each meal, to help stabilize his mood even more. He was relaxed,

alert, communicative, free of symptoms; in fact he was normal.

Assuming he remains as well, or even better, his recovery will save the province

of British Columbia 2 million dollars over a forty year life span. But like most

psychiatrists the province refuses to take this work seriously. His family are

very pleased.

Edmond Yu, born Oct 2, 1961 was killed by police bullets, February 20, 1997.This

is another tragedy which could have been avoided had Edmond been treated for his

schizophrenia using Orthomolecular Methods. The Toronto Star, October 3, 1998

under its Insight Section Headed the story " Edmond Yu's mental illness killed

his dreams. But it was the way we treat the mentally ill that eventually killed

him " . But the writer, Scott Simmie, was not being critical of the psychiatric

treatment offered this young patient. The tenor of the report is that society

somehow failed by not paying enough attention, by not providing enough support,

by not providing enough of the psychosocial supports that could have been

provided. Perhaps had the supports been better he might not have been killed but

it is certain he would not have gotten any better because the fault lies, not in

the community, but in the psychiatric community which depended solely on the use

of drugs, the modern standard treatment for this disease.

Edward was a brilliant student, tops in his classes , who in his second year in

medical school became psychotic. He became seculsive, irritable, paranoid and

his behaviour became antisocial. His family and friends made strenuous efforts

to have him admitted to hospital for treatment but it was difficult because of

the illogical mental health laws in Ontario. The authorities decided that he

could not be admitted even though he needed help because he was not dangerous to

himself or to others. It turned out that he was in fact dangerous, mostly to

himself, and to others and that he should have been treated adequately in

hospital long enough to stabilize his condition and started on the path to

recovery. Eventually he was in the Clarke Institute several times and given the

usual tranquilizers. But he would not take them because of the severe side

effects including tardive dyskinesia, weight gain and it was impossible for him

to study. He could never complete medicine while on tranquilizers. He is

described as non compliant, a very common problem when only drugs are used.

Eventually he drifted downward and downward ending up in the new mental

hospitals of this age, the streets of downtown North America. In Toronto it is

the city surrounding the mental hospital on Queen street. He was shot by the

police in self defense when they tried to apprehend him.

This is how he should have been treated. When he first became ill and this

should have been recognized by the professors of medicine at the college, he

should have been seen by a psychiatrist who would have diagnosed him properly

and started him on proper treatment using nutrition, medication and supplements.

At this stage he would have been much more cooperative and would have stuck to

the regimen. As he began to improve he would not have needed so much drug and he

would have been spared the side effects which prevented him from staying on the

medication. If he had been too ill to cooperate as an out patient he should have

been admitted and then placed on the proper orthomolecular program and kept in

hospital until he had regained his insight. Then he would have been followed as

an outpatient. Had be been given the benefit of this treatment the odds are

great that he would have graduated and become a useful physician. I know of 17

young men who became schizophrenic in their teens. They were treated properly,

became doctors and went on to have successful practices. Several became

professors at medical colleges and one became President of a very large

psychiatric organization. But Edward was denied his chance to recover. The fault

lies not only in the community but mainly in the psychiatric profession, which

stoutly refuses to look at anything but drugs as if they were beholden to the

drug companies who make these drugs. The community must be blamed because it did

not ask the right question and demand the right answer. The right question is

Why do you psychiatrists not do a much better job of treating these patients.

J.B., Born in 1970, came to see me with his parents in August, 1998. He told me

that five years earlier he suddenly became catatonic and was admitted to

hospital for one month. Since then he was in hospital for twelve admissions,

each lasting one to two months, except for the last one when he was admitted to

University Hospital for 3 months and then transferred to the closest mental

hospital for 7 months. Since then he has been living in a group home on

medication.

He had suffered from hearing voices were most often derogatory about him but

occasionally he found them helpful. They were not troublesome at the time of my

examination. He had thought he was being poisoned in the past and had been very

depressed. I started him on niacin 1 gram, three times daily after meals, the

same amount of vitamin C, folic acid 5 milligrams after meals, zinc citrate 50

milligrams daily and B Complex 100's, one daily.

He and his parents came into my office two months later. I knew immediately that

he was better because all three were smiling broadly. He told me he had more

energy, felt better, and a noted a return of a sense of well being. He had

started taking courses to complete his high school and in the few examinations

made grades over 90%. I increased the niacin to 1.5 grams, after meals, added

selenium 300 micrograms twice daily, Evening Primrose Oil 2 capsules daily and

increased the B complex to 100's, one daily. Patient and both parents were much

more optimistic and we discussed realistically what he would do after he

recovered. He considered the idea that he might become a doctor. For readers who

think this is a pipe dream, I know personally 17 men who became ill in their

teens, recovered and became physicians, some achieving very high professional

status. I will add to this report in three months.

He came with his parents on February 24, 1999. He was more relaxed, the voices

were less troublesome and he felt better. His psychiatrist in his home town had

decreased his clozapine. His mother told me that this was the first time in five

years that he had been able to write examinations without decompensating with

the stress. His marks ranged in the high A's. He planned to review more of his

high school subjects in order to refresh his memory and then to get back to

University. He spoke about becoming a psychiatrist. I encouraged him to think

this way. We need as many orthomolecular psychiatrists as we can get. All three

were pleased with his response. He smiled frequently.

My book " Vitamin B-3 and Schizophrenia " is now available from Quarry Health

Books. Quarry Press, P.O. Box 1061, 240 King Street, Kingston, Ontario, Canada,

K7L 4Y5. E Mail info Its subtitle is " Discovery, Recovery,

Controversy " This book contains much of the original data from our double blind

controlled experiments conducted in Saskatchewan between 1952 and 1960. The

material was too voluminous to be published in medical journals. How To Live

With Schizophrenia, will be published in a new edition from the same publisher.

" Dr Hoffer's Guide to Natural Nutrition for Children " is through the proof

state. Same publisher. It is an answer to the Ritalin craze now sweeping North

America. If you value your own health and the health of your family you must

read these books.

The 28th Annual International Conference of the International Society of

Orthomolecular Medicine (ISOM) on Nutritional Medicine Today was held in Ottawa,

Ontario, Canada at the Chateau Laurier Hotel, April 16 to 18, 1999. People who

profit from and enjoy these conferences include physicians, other healing

professional persons and intelligent lay persons. Seventeen countries are

represented in ISOM. " Superman " Actress Margot Kidder was the keynote speaker.

She narrates and appears in the film " Masks of Madness: Science of Healing " It

is produced by Sisyphus Communications. In this excellent film physicians who

treat patients with schizophrenia and patients who were treated successfully

appear and tell their story. They pay income tax, one of my hallmark

characteristics of recovery. These patients, on drugs alone, would still be

languishing in their illness with no hope of recovery. This video is available

for sale from the Canadian Schizophrenia Foundation. For more information about

the film, contact CSF at centre.

May 6, 1999. Yesterday, while I was shopping with my wife, a man came up to me

and greeted me as if he knew me. He told me I had seen him many years earlier

and he added he had not had a drink in 16 years. He was well and neatly dressed

and buying groceries as my wife and I were. He was still taking three grams of

niacin which he thought was great and we discussed the best way to take it. This

morning I looked up his file. I first saw him in 1976 in the intensive care unit

of the psychiatric hospital. He had suffered from mood swings all of his life.

His diagnosis was chronic schizophrenia. He was admitted to a chronic mental

hospital in 1970 following abuse of amphetamines. After that he was admitted to

many hospitals. He suffered from hallucinations, voices and visions, paranoid

ideas, mood swings and was often hyperexcitable. He was very depressed. He had

been in several fights, I considered him either suicidal or homicidal. He was

admitted again in 1977 to another service and was not given any vitamins. Of

course he had also been diagnosed bipolar. He drank a lot and used street drugs.

After I saw him again I started him on niacin 1 gram after each meal, and

ascorbic acid the same dose. I saw him last August 5, 1981. He had been

abstinent for 17 days. His response to niacin and ascorbic acid illustrates once

more what can be achieved with chronic patients if they continue to remain on

these vitamins for many years.

December 3rd, 1999 Susan Sachs, New York Times, reported in the Globe and Mail,

Toronto, the death of Gidone Busch in Brooklyn, New York. A grand jury will

begin hearing evidence. The most important question will not be asked. Why was

this young man, at age 21 a promising medical student, not treated successfully

so that his psychotic actions led to his death. His history as described by Miss

Sachs is typically the history of an intelligent schizophrenic person. His

father, a retired dentist, described him " He had a mental illness; no question

about it " " But he was not a violent person. He was never violent " . He was

committed to psychiatric hospital three times and there diagnosed paranoid

schizophrenia. Will the psychiatrists who treated him be invited to talk about

his illness, about the tranquilizers they gave him, about his failure to get

well and will they be asked why they did not give him orthomolecular treatment

which had a much greater chance of restoring him to normal. I doubt it. Isn't it

about time that psychiatry is asked these difficult questions. When surgeons

botch up their surgery they are soon called to task by the pathologists. Should

we not have the same system for psychiatric failures. Should not psychiatrists

use the best treatment, not the most popular ones.

Dr. Miriam Shuchman, Globe and Mail, Toronto, August 24, 1999, in discussing

medical mistakes referred to the suggestion by Dr. Don Berwick and Dr. Lucian

Leape published in the British Medical Journal that medicine needs to learn from

the aviation industry. In the aviation industry the fatality rate has fallen

significantly despite increases in volume and complexity. Every major crash is

followed by an investigation to consider the causes and how to prevent similar

accidents. This I think is a great idea. Every time a schizophrenic patient

kills or is killed after treatment there should be a similar intense

investigation to consider the causes, and how it might have been prevented by

better treatment. About 50 years ago at a clinical meeting for residents and

staff I, then one of the professors of psychiatry, made the same suggestion. We

were discussing the fact that some patients returned to hospital very soon after

discharge. I suggested that we ought to examine every failure to determine why

whether it was the difficulty in treating that patient, was it that the wrong

treatment had been used, was it anyone of many psychosocial factors. This I

explained would allow us to learn much more about treatment and might decrease

the number of readmissions. The revolving door policy in psychiatry was just

beginning to flower. I was greeted by a sudden chill, a cold silence, not a word

of criticism nor support and the discussion continued as if I had not been

there.

This is another anecdote describing two female schizophrenic patients, one sick

for a short time and the other sick for many years. Mary, born in 1976 , became

depressed five years ago and responded well after 2.5 weeks in hospital to

antidepressant medication. She remained well until three months before I saw

her. This time her depression did not lift even with the same medication. She

described it as much more severe. But her clinical diagnosis was schizophrenia

since she heard voices which were very real with some insight that they were not

real, she suffered shadow illusions, heard herself think, had many nightmares,

was unreal and believed that people were staring at her. Often during the day

she was disoriented, often paranoid even about her husband, her memory and

concentration were very poor and she was very depressed and tired. Her HOD

scores were all very high, within the high schizophrenic range. They were total

score 105, perceptual score 21, paranoid score 8 and depression score 16. The

normal scores are under 30, under 3, under 3 and under 3 respectively. I started

her on niacin 1 gram three times each day after meals, the same amount of

vitamin C, folic acid 5 milligrams after each meal and zinc citrate 50

milligrams once each day. At that time she was also taking luvox, an

antidepressant 150 milligrams , pindolol 2.5 milligrams three times daily,

valium 10 milligrams daily and halcion for sleep 0.5 milligrams at bedtime. I

saw her two months later and she was normal. She had weaned herself off all the

medication. Her scores were 10,2,1 and 1, all normal. She was delighted with her

recovery as was her husband. This will be her lifetime program. The other

patient, Alice, was born in 1944. She suffered her first depression when she was

seventeen and was committed to a mental hospital for three months. She was again

in hospital when she as nineteen. I saw her for the first time in 1984 By that

time she had been in various hospitals at least eleven times, each admission

ranging from 1.5 to 4 months. She had spent 11% of her life in hospitals. Since

I first took her on she has been in hospital twice, in 1987 and in 1991 for 2

months each. She remained on the orthomolecular program faithfully and is well.

She is now making strenuous efforts to complete grade 12 and later will take a

secretarial course. She free of schizophrenic symptoms, gets on well with her

family and the community and would be paying income tax if she had not been

struck so severely by this chronic illness and if she had been treated properly

when she first became ill when she was 17 years old. She does community

volunteer work while pursuing her studies. She has been under my care for 15

years. Mary will not repeat Alice’s history because she is being treated with

orthomolecular methods.

December 17th, 1999: A young woman brought her psychotic mother. Her mother was

guided by her daughter and walked with her eyes closed. I though she was blind

and retarded. She was neither. She first became sick in 1960 following a

stillbirth and a hysterectomy. Since then she was been in a mental hospital more

than half of the time, continually since 1990. Her current diagnosis was bipolar

psychosis but not having access to her first admission records I do not know

what she was then diagnosed. She was on a two week leave from the hospital so

that her daughter could bring her to see me. She had several series of

electroconvulsive treatments in the past and was on five different modern drugs

currently. But in spite of at least 5 million dollars worth of treatment in the

hospital she was just as sick as she had ever been. The new drugs cost at least

twenty times as much. Eventually she opened her eyes and spoke briefly to me

admitting that she was always hearing voices who told her she was a very bad

person and that she had killed people, referring to the still birth. Her

daughter had read Miss Margot Kidders account of her recovery, was inspired and

became determined to help her mother. Had she been started on niacin in 1960 she

surely would have been well in a few years and her life and that of her family

entirely different. She was schizophrenic. I do not accept that bipolar patients

hear voices all the time and see visions. This is characteristic of

schizophrenia with mood swings. But she could have been labeled schizo-affective

and the treatment would have been the same. She represents the best that modern

psychiatry can do, and it is not good enough. Unfortunately because she has been

sick so long and exposed to the sick atmosphere and attitudes of the chronic

mental hospital it will take a long time, perhaps up to ten years or longer. But

her daughter was determined she would help no matter how long it took. The

psychiatric care given to her by the Province of British Columbia so far cost

about three million dollars. She is worse today than she was so many years ago

because her life has been destroyed by the kind of care given her, by the

disease itself unchecked and by the medication she is now on. The retail price

of the five modern drugs she is on cost about 450 dollars each month. This

should be contrasted with the story of my patient Mary, not her real name,

described in How To Live With Schizophrenia. In 1953 after 14 years in a chronic

mental hospital she was started on niacin 3 grams each day and we took her into

our home for about 2 years. She recovered and has worked since. She retired

several years ago on full pension. She was one of the best workers on the

cleaning staff of the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The

cost of treating her after we took her into our home has been well under 1000

dollars for the niacin and vitamin C. These two cases represent the real cost of

sloth and inertia in the psychiatric profession. When they recover they pay

income tax. When they are treated with or without drugs only they do not.

Tranquilizers cause brain damage. The amount of the damage depends on the total

dose in grams. Thus if a patient takes 100 milligrams each day of one of the

older drugs for 1000 days, the total dose is 100,000 milligrams or 10 grams. One

multiplies the daily average dose by the number of days on that drug. On the

internet, L. Stevens, a lawyer, described the tranquilizer psychosis as follows.

" These major tranquilizers cause misery - not tranquility. They physically,

neurologically blot out most of a person’s ability to think and act, even at

commonly given doses. By disabling people, they can stop almost any thinking or

behaviour the therapist wants to stop. But this is simply disabling people, not

therapy. The drug temporarily disables or permanently destroys good aspects of a

person’s personality as much as the bad. Whether and to what extent the

disability imposed by the drug can be removed by discontinuing the drug depends

on how long the drug is given and at how great a dose. The so-called major

tranquilizers antipsychotic/neuroleptic drugs damage the brain more clearly,

severely and permanently than any others used in psychiatry. Stevens referred to

Professors Joyce G Small and Iver F Small, Indiana University, who criticized

psychiatrists for using psychoactive drugs known to have neurotoxic effects. He

also referred to Professor Conrad M Swartz, Chicago Medical School, who reported

that neuroleptics relieve psychotic anxiety but blunted fine details of

personality, including initiative, emotional reactivity, enthusiasm, sexiness,

alertness and insight. In addition to side effects which may be permanent.

Professor Jon Franklin in Brave New Science of Molecular Psychology observed -

This era coincided with an increasing awareness that the neuroleptics not only

did not cure schizophrenia - they actually caused damage to the brain: In severe

cases, brain damage from neuroleptic drugs is evidenced by abnormal body

movements called tardive dyskinesia. However this is only the tip of the iceberg

of neuroleptic caused brain damage. Higher mental functions are more vulnerable

and are impaired before the elementary functions of the brain such as motor

control. Without doubt Stevens has captured the essence of the tranquilizer

psychosis. In a recent report Madsen and colleagues found a significant

association between the amount of tranquilizers taken over years in grams and

cerebral cortex atrophy, (The Lancet, 352, page 784,1998).

We are preparing the ground for the next major pandemic of illness with millions

of chronic schizophrenic patients becoming more and more brain damaged as they

are forced to remain on their drugs. And when it is fully upon us how are we

going to deal with brain damaged schizophrenic patients, taken from the

mainstream of life which passed them by. We will have a permanent core of

helpless people with hardly any hope they will ever recover. Are we looking

forward to the greatest mass action suit of all time?

March 7th, 2000: I received the following letter. It speaks for itself. " My

name is ....You probably receive a lot of letters like this. I wanted to write

and thank you for all your research and work in the area of schizophrenia and

niacin. Your work really changed my life. A year and a half ago when I was 26, I

began hearing voices and experiencing paranoia and panic attacks. I quit my job

because of this and quit school where I was working on a second degree in

chemistry; because I was losing control. I ended up in the hospital where I

started treatment with risperdal. I tried to commit suicide and ended up in the

hospital again. The only way I could pay my bills was by the generosity of

people from church. For a year I tried risperdal, zyprexa and others. The

results were minimal in controlling the symptoms. I also became like a zombie. I

could barely work and had trouble walking or doing physical exercise . I gained

50 pounds. I couldn’t support myself and relied on the Center for Human Services

to provide the $80-a-pill medication. While starting on a new medicine seroquel,

I happened to find a reference to niacin for mental illness in a diet book. I

looked up the reference and your book How To Live With Schizophrenia. I decided

to try the treatment although honestly I didn't believe it would work because

nothing else had. After taking niacin in the doses you recommended for a month,

against the advice of my doctor, I found while the seroquel was reduced the

niacin totally eliminated the symptoms. I could listen to noise again without it

overwhelming me and quit having panic attacks. I could think clearly and read

normally. The voices are virtually gone. I went off the medication and am doing

great, as long as I take the niacin. I did this against the advice of my doctor

with his warning. Thank you for all you have done!! I have my life back! I am

finishing my degree and thinking of going into further education. I don't

understand why this information and treatment isn't made available to others

with mental illness and it makes me very angry. Destroyed lives are being

wasted. I sent for the medical research you did for my doctor and for myself. If

there is anything I can do I would love to. Thank you. "

Orthomolecular treatment for the schizophrenias includes optimum doses of

vitamin C. These range anywhere from 500 milligrams three times daily to many

grams taken after each meal. Patients on this program may be fearful of

continuing with their vitamin C following a news report linking vitamin C with

clogged arteries. I have already had many calls from my patients after this

first report was redigested and puked out on the airwaves with dire warnings of

the dangers involved. The Vitamin C Foundation contacted the investigators who

read this report at a meeting and discovered that they had measured only one

variable instead of the usual three required to shows interference in arterial

blood flow. They measured the thickness of the carotid artery wall, but did not

measure plaque formation nor for the actual rate of flow through the vessels.

The last measurement is the most important one. However they suggested that

there was in fact hardening of the arteries and that people with heart problems

should avoid taking this vitamin. So here we have another nascent factoid. The

facts are that vitamin C decreases plaque formation according to many clinical

studies, that clinicians such as Dr Robert Cathcart have not seen any evidence

for this in over 30,000 patients. They also ignored the knowledge that thickened

arterial walls in the absence of plaque formation indicate that the walls are

becoming stronger and therefore less apt to rupture. The original report by Dr

James Dwyer, USC was submitted for publication and was not yet reviewed by his

peers. Perhaps these peers will persuade the authors to change their conclusion,

to simply report what they found and not make these unwarranted recommendations

to the public at large. I have not seen any evidence for the Dwyer conclusion in

the past 45 years that I have given large doses of vitamin C to perhaps 10,000

patients and at age 82, have been on large doses since 1960. My cardiovascular

system seems to be working pretty well. Scientists should avoid the hubris of

extrapolations of simple and inadequate laboratory data to the clinical world at

large.

The Nutritional Medicine Today, 29th Annual International Conference, Vancouver

April 6-9, 2000 was great. Audio Tapes are available from the Canadian

Schizophrenia Foundation, 16 Florence Ave, Toronto, ON, Canada,M2N 1E9 416 733

2117, Fax (416) 733 2352 E Mail centre See also www.orthomed.org

Orthomolecular treatment of cancer was discussed by John Hoffer and Hugh

Riordan. Vitamin C played a major role in these discussions. David Horrobin

reported the results of a double blind controlled study, using 2 grams daily of

eicosapentaenoic acid, which showed that it was more effective than

tranquilizers and much less toxic. This important essential fatty acid should be

incorporated into the treatment of every patient with schizophrenia. Dr.

Horrobin developed the niacin skin test for diagnosing schizophrenia.

Klaus-Georg Wenzel reported that the orthomolecular method, following Carl

Pfeiffer’s classification of the schizophrenias worked well in Germany. He hopes

he can complete a double blind study that was interrupted by government

interference. David Kennedy reviewed the toxic impact of fluoride especially in

children were it caused learning disorders while in sharp contrast to this real

and dangerous use of fluoride, Patrick Bouic showed that certain plant sterols

improved the function of the immune system. Richard Kunin spoke about ischemia

induced apoptosis (cell death) and Tory Hagen showed that dietary supplements

could reverse the mitochondrial decay of aging. Mikhael Adams combines

nutritional and homeopathic therapy with standard cancer treatment and Isaac

Lesser reviewed his new classification of mental patient types and the brain

chemistry diet. We were all pleased to hear Stephen Lawson of the Linus Pauling

Institute, located in Oregon at the University, bring us up to date on this

important institution. It is following in the grand footsteps originated by

Linus Pauling. The Vancouver Premier of the film " Masks of Madness; Science of

Healing " featuring Miss Margot Kidder was wonderfully well received by a full

house. I followed with a discussion again pointing out that schizophrenic

patients on tranquilizer medication alone seldom pay income tax; they do not and

can not become normal.

Copyright C 2000 and prior years Abram Hoffer, M.D. Reprinted with permission.

 

 

 

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