The Anti-Depressant Fact Book: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You

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The Anti-Depressant Fact Book: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You

JoAnn Guest

Jan 07, 2005 23:12 PST

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The Anti-Depressant Fact Book

What Your Doctor Won't Tell You

About Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Luvox

Perseus Publishing - Cambridge, Massachusetts

copyright 2001, paperback

by Peter R. Breggin, M.D.

 

reviewed by

Douglas A. Smith

 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book because it says so clearly and

convincingly what I have believed for a long time about the myth of

biologically caused depression and about so-called antidepressant drugs

and so-called electroconvulsive " therapy " (ECT).

 

Of the idea of biologically caused depression, the author, psychiatrist

Peter Breggin, says " It is a mistake to view depressed feelings or even

severely depressed feelings as a 'disease' " (p. 14) and " There is still

no reason to define grief, dejection, or melancholia as a 'disease'

simply because it is severe or lasting " (p. 19). He says " ...in

psychiatry, none of the problems are proven to originate in the brain "

(p. 169) and that " Depression is never defined by an objective physical

finding, such as a blood test or brain scan.

 

.... Attempts have also been made to find physical markers for

depression, the equivalent of lab tests that indicate liver disease or a

recent heart attack. Despite decades of research, thousands of research

studies, and hundreds of millions of dollars in expense, no marker for

depression has been found " (pp. 18 & 22).

 

Of the theory behind the so-called SSRI or selective serotonin reuptake

inhibitor " antidepressants " Dr. Breggin says " In reality, science does

not have the ability to measure the levels of any biochemical in the

tiny spaces between nerve cells (the synapses) in the brain of a human

being. All the talk about biochemical imbalances is sheer speculation

aimed at promoting psychiatric drugs. ... science has almost no

understanding of how the widespread serotonin system functions in the

brain. Basically, we don't know what it does. " (pp. 21 & 42).

 

Of drugs used to " treat " this nonexistent disease called depression he

says " The term 'antidepressant' should always be thought of with

quotation marks around it because there is little or no reason to

believe that these drugs target depression or depressed feelings " (p.

14).

 

He says " Impairing our emotional awareness and our intellectual acuity

with psychoactive drugs such as SSRI antidepressants [including Prozac,

Paxil, and Zoloft] tends to impede the process of overcoming depression "

(p. 26).

 

About the foolishness of the beliefs of most people about psychiatric

drugs he says:

 

Overall, we're a rather sophisticated citizenry with a fairly high index

of suspicion about the products we buy and the corporations that

influence our lives. But something happens to us when we are dealing

with companies that make prescription medicines. Perhaps it's the aura

of FDA approval. Perhaps it's the passage of these drugs through the

trusted hands of our physicians. Perhaps it's the cleverness of the ad

campaigns. Perhaps we just can't believe that anyone would sell poison

as if it were a miracle cure. [p. 2]

 

That's right: He said " poison. " Psychiatric drugs are poisons. In a

chapter titled " Damaging the Brain with SSRI Antidepressants, " Dr.

Breggin says " the evidence is piling up that SSRIs cause permanent brain

damage " (p. 3.

 

Let's stop concealing or minimizing this truth as we do when we call

psychiatric drugs " medications " or say they are merely " ineffective " or

" harmful " or even " neurotoxic. " Lawyers trying to defend us from

outpatient commitment laws (as they are called in the USA) or laws

authorizing " community treatment orders " (CTOs) (as such laws are called

in Canada) should stop accepting the terminology of those advocating

forced psychiatric drugging.

Lawyers trying to defend us from forced psychiatric drugging should not

go into court and say the so-called patient should not be ordered " to

take his medication. "

 

Because psychiatric drugs are poisons, and because most that are

administered by force cause permanent brain damage, lawyers representing

people threatened with forced psychiatric drugging should tell it like

it is and say, " Judge, the question presented for your decision today is

whether my client should be ordered to swallow poison - poison that is

known to cause permanent brain damage. "

 

Letting advocates of forced psychiatric treatment get away with calling

brain-damaging poisons " medications " is hurting our cause. It has been

said: Whoever controls the language controls the perceived reality of

those who have it. Let's not let the advocates of forced psychiatric

" treatment " and those who would persuade gullible people to take harmful

drugs win because they use deceptive semantics.

 

In the Introduction Dr. Breggin reveals why pharmaceutical companies

would do something as evil as hoodwink people into believing poisons are

in fact miracle cures. He says: " In the previous year [1999], Prozac had

generated more than one-quarter of the company's [Eli Lilly & Company's]

$10 billion in revenue " and that " Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil are among

the top-selling drugs in the United States, with total sales exceeding

$4 billion per year " (p. 1).

We apparently can't expect pharmaceutical companies to bypass enormous

profits just because the drugs they sell are hurting people.

 

Throughout this book Dr. Breggin points an accusing finger at the USA's

Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is given the responsibility of

keeping harmful drugs off the market in the USA. After reviewing how the

FDA had to accept misleading, manipulated data to approve SSRI

antidepressants as safe and effective, and after reviewing the harm done

by these drugs, he says " If the FDA had been more responsible, these

continuing tragedies could have been avoided.

 

.... When I began my review of FDA documents as a medical expert in

product liability suits against Eli Lilly and Co., I was shocked and

disillusioned by what I found. Until that time, I had not fully

confronted the willingness of the FDA to protect drug companies, even at

the cost of human life. " (pp. 78-79).

 

He says " The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has forsaken its

watchdog role. Instead, FDA officials climb like puppies into the laps

of drug company executives who might some day hire them at enormous

salaries " (p. 181).

 

One of the reasons I like this book is in it Dr. Breggin is as bold as

he has been in any of his previous books when describing the

pseudoscience called biological psychiatry and the harm done by its

so-called treatments. For example, speaking of psychiatric drugs he says

-

 

" If a drug has an effect on the brain, it is harming the brain.

 

Science has not found or synthesized any psychoactive substances that

improve normal brain function.

 

Instead, all of them impair brain function.

 

.... antidepressants are typically prescribed in doses that cause a wide

variety of adverse effects in most patients and significantly harm a

great many people " (p. 168).

 

" FDA approval by no means indicates that a drug is truly effective. ...

the combined efforts of the drug company and the FDA could not come up

with even one good study that unequivocally supported the value of

Prozac in comparison to placebo " (p. 151).

 

" Overall, the results suggest that placebo is actually much better than

an antidepressant " (p. 145).

 

" If anything, as I've already indicated, antidepressants worsen severe

depression and suicidal tendencies " (p. 170).

 

" Nothing reinforces depression more than having your brain befuddled by

psychiatric drugs, unless it is having your mind befuddled by false

ideas about the biological or genetic origin of your suffering " (p.

189).

 

" Lithium, for example, is a toxic element that suppresses over-all brain

function... " (p. 125)

" There are so many potential hazards involved in taking SSRIs that no

physician is capable of remembering all of them and no patient can be

adequately informed about the dangers without spending days or weeks

reviewing the subject in a medical library " (p. 107).

Of electroconvulsive " therapy " (ECT) he says -

 

 

" Damaging the brain to impair brain function lies at the heart of all

the physical treatments in psychiatry. Shock and lobotomy are merely the

most egregious examples " (p. 155, italics in original).

He deplores " the willingness of psychiatry to defend its treatments no

matter how obviously damaging to the brain " (ibid).

 

" In my clinical and forensic experience, patients and their families are

never told the truth about how dangerous shock is; otherwise they would

not consent to it.

 

Shock advocates tend to tell patients that memory loss is temporary and

surrounds the treatment time only, when in reality the memory loss can

wipe out years of educational and career knowledge.

 

.... Nurses, teachers, and other professionals may never again be able to

function in their jobs. Like head injury patients from other causes,

such as automobile accidents and lighting strikes, general mental

function is often impaired for the rest of their lives.

 

Advocates [of ECT] ignore this by chalking it up to the patient's

'mental illness.' " (pp. 160-161).

 

 

" Electroshock treatment causes brain damage and, in my clinical

experience, can cause lasting depression " (p. 141). This of course is in

contrast to psychiatry's claim that by some unknown means ECT relieves

depression.

 

" The question is not 'Does shock treatment cause brain dysfunction and

damage?' A series of shocks to the head sufficient to cause convulsions

will always produce brain dysfunction and damage. The real question is

'How completely can a person recover from shock?' " (p. 162).

 

Advocates of shock claim that newer methods make it safer. ... Instead,

it's more dangerous. ... modified ECT requires the use of higher amounts

of electrical charge than were used in the early animal experiments that

showed brain damage and cell death " (p. 163).

" In my clinical experience, the brain damage [caused by

electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT] makes people feel more hopeless and

resentful, and hence more suicidal " (p. 164).

 

" Several state legislatures have passed laws banning shock treatment for

children. It's now time to ban it for adults a well " (p. 165).

This book is a fairly short (200 page), recent (2001) book that neatly

summarizes many of the best arguments against biological psychiatry. I

recommend it highly.

_________________

 

JoAnn Guest

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