Bush-Backed Drug Marketing Schemes

[Guest guest]

The complete proposal is to " screen " every man, woman, and child in the USA. By

most of the telltale markers, Bush should be one of the first to be examined or

screened for mental illness.

 

 

 

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/042505HA.shtml

 

Bush-Backed Drug Marketing Schemes

By Evelyn Pringle

YubaNet.com

 

Monday 25 April 2005

 

At an FDA hearing on the safety of psychotropic drugs on Feb 2,

2004, dozens of tortured parents testified that their children had

committed suicide or other violent acts after being prescribed the

same drugs that are being marketed in the Bush-backed pharmaceutical

industry schemes aimed at recruiting the nations 52 million school

children as customers.

 

In July 2003, the Bush appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental

Health (NFC) recommended screening all children for mental illness and

designated TeenScreen as a model program to ensure that every student

receives a mental health check-up before finishing high school.

 

The NFC also has a preferred drug program in place modeled after

the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), that lists what drugs

are to be used on children found to be mentally ill.

 

The list contains every drug that people complained about at the

FDA hearing, including Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Wellbutron, Zyban,

Remeron, Serzone, Effexor, Buspar, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroqual,

Geodone, Depakote, Adderall, and Prozac.

 

There is little if any evidence that these drugs work on children

but nevertheless, an estimated 10 million children in the US are now

taking these mind-altering drugs even though they have documented

side-effects including suicidal ideation, mania, psychosis, and future

drug dependence.

 

According to a May 2003 report in the New York Times, national

sales of anti-psychotics reached $6.4 billion in 2002, making them the

fourth highest-selling class of drugs which proves the drug companies

are already making a killing by drugging our kids.

 

Experts against Screening

 

Dr Jane Orient is an internist and executive director of the

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. She offered a few

words to the wise in United Press International's " Outside View " on

December 16, 2004.

 

In regard to TeenScreen, Orient says parents ought to be asking

some very serious questions before the government experts interview

the first child such as:

 

What are the credentials of the screeners? What are the criteria

for possible abnormality? What is the scientific validation? Will you

be allowed to get a second opinion? Can you see the record and enter

corrections if indicated? Will the record at any point be destroyed,

or will the stigma of a diagnosis such as " personality disorder "

follow the child throughout life?

 

What will happen if your child fails the screen? What sort of

treatment will be given? Who will supervise it? What if you don't

approve of it?

 

Do drug companies expect to have a large number of new consumers

of their psychoactive drugs? Who might profit from the program

(perhaps discoverable by asking who lobbied for it)?

 

Bingo, right question Dr. Who stands to profit?

 

In 2003, Medico Health Solutions, reports that the use of

behavioral drugs for children topped all other types of drugs at 17%

of total spending. In the year 2003, the market research firm, IMS

Health, calculated worldwide sales of antidepressants at $19.5

billion, up 10% from the year 2002.

 

Phyllis Schlafly, author of " No Child Left Unmedicated, " raises

several valid questions. What are the rights of youth and parents to

refuse or opt out of such screening? Will they face threats of removal

from school, if they refuse privacy-invading interrogations or

medications? How will a child remove a stigmatizing label from his

records?

 

Psychiatrist Peter Breggin, a court-qualified medical expert, and

author of books, Talking Back to Prozac and The Anti-Depressant Fact

Book, warns about the life-long damage a label of mentally illness can

cause.

 

" There is nothing worse that you can do to a human being in

America today than give them a mental illness kind of label and tell

them they need drugs and these children are 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 years-old

being treated in this manner, " Breggin reports, " I then see them

coming to me as adults saying I'd like to be a doctor but how can I

when I have crossed wires in my head, " he warns.

 

In a report, Allen Jones, former investigator Penn Office of

Inspector General Bureau of Special Investigations, points out that

there has been a 500% increase in children being prescribed drugs

during the past 6 years.

 

Jones says the NFC call for mandatory screening of all students,

with follow-up treatment as required, translates into putting more

kids on mind-altering and potentially lethal drugs.

 

" TeenScreen is purely and simply a marketing scam to sell

psychotropic drugs, " according anti-child drugging advocate, Ken

Kramer, " When they use " even if we save one life " as an argument to

arouse emotions in parents that truly care, they are lying, " he warns.

 

Bush Promotes Dangerous Drugs

 

The truth is, with full support from Bush, the pharmaceutical

industry is using TeenScreen as a vehicle to push dangerous drugs on

children who in the eyes of many experts are already being overmedicated.

 

Despite that the fact that SSRI antidepressants are banned for use

with children in the UK and despite the FDA " black box " warning label

now required on all SSRIs that the drugs increase suicidal thinking

and behavior in kids, the NFC not only recommends that the same drugs

be prescribed to children, it promotes the very schemes that will

increase the number of kids on these drugs in schools and other public

institutions.

 

According to a report by the Florida Statewide Advocacy Council,

posted on Ken Kramer's website, an investigation in Florida found that

of 1,180 kids in foster care, 652 were on one or more psychotropic drugs.

 

In Texas, Dr John Breeding, an Austin psychologist, has seen cases

where some foster children were placed on as many as 17 drugs and says

drugs are being used as chemical restraints in Texas. He wants all

SSRIs and neuroleptic drugs banned from use on children " The SSRIs are

extremely harmful and addictive; and can cause or exacerbate suicidal

or homicidal tendencies; withdrawal is painful and dangerous, "

Breeding warns.

 

Dr Ann Blake Tracy is the Director of the International Coalition

for Drug Awareness, holds a doctorate in biological psychology, and is

a specialist in the adverse reactions to SSRI medications. Tracy

claims the whole hypothesis of SSRIs is " backwards. " She says the

drugs increase serotonin while decreasing the metabolism of serotonin,

especially in the 7 to 10% of the population that studies have shown

don't have the proper enzyme to metabolize SSRIs in the first place,

according to the Aug 22, 2004 Desert Morning News.

 

Dr Tracy can recite hundreds of horror stories involving violence

by people taking the same drugs that TeenScreen is marketing to more

children.

 

She told the Morning News about, " the professor on Prozac who bit

her mother to death; the Stanford graduate on Paxil who stabbed

herself in the kitchen while her parents slept; the mother who

bludgeoned her son and then drank a can of Drano; and the 12-year-old

girl who strangled herself with a bungee cord she attached to a plant

hanger on the wall. "

 

" Most of these drugs are not approved for children, but it doesn't

stop doctors from prescribing them, " Tracy points out.

 

Turning People into Psychotic Murderers

 

Besides causing suicide, enough evidence now exists to prove that

psychotropic drugs have played a major role in the senseless acts of

violence by school-age children in this country in recent years.

 

Dr Breggin, is against the use of psychotropic drugs in children,

and has testified in civil and criminal cases numerous times about the

link between SSRIs and suicide and other acts of violence.

 

On April 15, 2001, 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his

High School in Washington State and held 23 classmates and a teacher

hostage. Cory sat in jail for 14 months before finally being released

based on expert testimony by psychiatrists that his behavior was an

adverse reaction to the drugs he was prescribed.

 

Cory has no memory of his actions at the school that day. 21 days

before the event, he had been taken off Paxil and prescribed a high

dose of the drug Effexor.

 

Cory's father Jay told Insight News, " They always talk about how

the kids who do these things are the ones who get picked on by the

jocks and stuff, but Cory was a jock. He was on the varsity basketball

team, played football and golf, and was very popular in school.

 

Jay wants the media to warn people about the dangers of putting

kids on these drugs, " If Cory had been on PCP the media would say 'Oh,

he needs drug rehabilitation,' but because these were prescribed

medications they say 'Oh, it can't be that,' but now we know it can

be, " he said.

 

" The morning that Cory went to school and did what he did, my wife

and I just knew that it had to be something with the drugs, " Jay

reports. One of Cory's friends described the incident to Jay, " Cory

was yelling and then he just stopped, looked down and saw the gun in

his hand and woke up, " he said.

 

Cory recently made an unlikely new friend in Colorado, when he met

Columbine High School shooting victim, Mark Taylor, who is suing the

manufacturer of the antidepressant that Eric Harris was on when he

opened fire at Columbine.

 

Kelly Patricia OMeara interviewed Mark Taylor, and recounted his

description of the shooting incident in a report for Insight on Sept

2, 2002.

 

Taylor told Kelly, " I was sitting on a hill outside the school

eating lunch with my best friend when Eric Harris came over and

started shooting me, " Taylor recalled, " I was shot between seven and

13 times. No one really knows the exact number because there were so

many bullet tracks. Most of the bullets just went right through me.

After I was shot I just lay there, playing dead, and could see others

being shot, " Taylor recalled.

 

It has never been revealed if Dylan Klebold was on any legal drugs

at the time of the shootings, but an autopsy revealed that Harris was

on the psychotropic drug Luvox, a selective serotonin reuptake

inhibitor (SSRI).

 

Taylor's attitude toward the teen who nearly killed him is

surprising. He told O Meara, " I'm suing Solvay because I believe that

Eric Harris did what he did because of this drug. "

 

Taylor's suit claims the drug made Harris manic and psychotic and

as a consultant in the suit, Dr Tracy agrees. " All you have to do is

read the Luvox package insert to see that Eric's actions were due to

an adverse reaction to this drug, " she told Insight News, " Show me a

drug anywhere that has listed mania and psychosis as frequent adverse

reactions. That is what the insert says for Luvox. There is no doubt

in my mind that Luvox caused Eric Harris to commit these acts, " she

explained.

 

Gary Null & Associates of New York is filming a documentary called

" The Drugging of Our Children, " that will feature interviews with both

Cory Baadsgaard and Mark Taylor, and will chronicle the long history

of tragic events that have resulted from the use of these drugs on

children.

 

A little known fact is that a few days before the Columbine

tragedy, Eric Harris had been rejected by the Marine Corps

specifically because he was taking the drug Luvox.

 

In 2001, 18-year-old Jason Hoffman, shot five students and

teachers at a California High School, while on the drugs Celexa and

Effexor, and he too was rejected by the Navy one day before he went on

his rampage, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

 

In a letter to his mother, Hoffman said, " I want people to know

that what happened was not the real me, I was just angry, maybe my

medication. It was a fluke of the moment. The person was not the true

Jason Hoffman, " he wrote.

 

On Oct 29, 2001, Jason Hoffman killed himself by hanging from a

vent screen in his jail cell, the Tribune reported.

 

Kip Kinkel was 15 on May 21, 1998, when he murdered his parents,

and then went to Thurston High School in Springfield, OR where he shot

and killed 2 students and injured 22 more. Kinkel was on Ritalin and

Prozac at the time of the killings even though Prozac was not approved

for pediatric use.

 

Seven years after the senseless killings by Kinkel, on December

18, 2003, Eli Lilly sent letters to British healthcare providers,

warning that Prozac was not recommended for any use in children.

 

14 year-old Elizabeth Bush was on antidepressants when she took a

gun to school and wounded another student in Williamsport, PA in 2001.

 

12-year-old Christopher Pittman was on Zoloft when he shot his

grandparents and set their house on fire, and says his violence was

caused by the drug he was. Before Zoloft, he had been on Paxil.

 

According to court records, the doctor who prescribed the drug to

Christopher mentioned no problems in his medical notes. A few days

before the murders, the doctor wrote: " Lots of energy. No plans to

harm self. Not flying off the handle. "

 

Christopher now sits in prison.

 

His father, Joe Pittman, testified about the effects of the drugs

on his son at the FDA Hearing and read a letter Christopher wrote that

described how he felt when he committed the murders, " Through the

whole thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show, " he wrote,

" You know what is going to happen but you can't do anything to stop it. "

 

Dr Tracy explains how this happens. SSRIs suppress " the REM state

or dream state [of sleep] ... These drugs allow a person to be awake

but at any time they can slip into the REM state. This is why people

often discuss how they couldn't tell the difference between the dream

and reality. These drugs are horribly damaging to the entire system, "

she warns.

 

Even the people closest to Jeff Weise are at a loss to say what

led to the deadly killing spree by Weise in Minnesota, where the

16-year-old shot his grandfather, his companion, and then went to the

high school and shot 5 students, a teacher and a security guard before

killing himself. According to school employee, Gayle Downwind, Weise

was on Prozac at the time of the shootings.

 

Dr Tracy has consulted on many cases where children engaged in

violent behavior including a 15-year-old boy on Zoloft who shot and

killed a woman and is serving life in prison; a 17-year-old boy on

Paxil for three months who jumped off an overpass into the path of a

trailer truck; a 14-year-old girl prescribed Paxil to deal with the

suicide of her father (who was on Paxil before killing himself) drank

Drano in a suicide attempt; and a 16-year-old boy on Paxil who stabbed

a woman over 60 times, drove his car into a cement abutment in a

failed suicide attempt, and is now serving life in prison.

 

" In each of these cases, " Tracy told Insight News, " individuals

close to them were shocked at the violent and destructive behavior

because it was so out of character for them. "

 

Courts Starting to Get It

 

Drug companies are finally starting to be held responsible for

violent behavior associated with these drugs. A jury in Cheyenne,

Wyoming recently determined that Paxil, " can cause some individuals to

commit suicide and/or homicide. " The jury decided Paxil caused Donald

Schell to shoot his wife, daughter and granddaughter before killing

himself after being on the drug only two days.

 

The jury allocated 80% of the fault on Paxil drug maker

GlaxoSmithKline and awarded the surviving family members $8 million in

damages.

 

On June 18, 2003, GlaxSmithKline issued a warning to British

physicians against the use of Paxil in children, acknowledging failure

of clinical trials " to demonstrate efficacy in major depressive

disorders and doubling the rate of reported adverse events - including

suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts - compared to placebo. "

 

In Bismarck, ND, 10 days after Ryan Ehlis began taking Adderall,

he shot and killed his 5-week-old baby and then turned the gun on

himself. He survived and was tried for the murder but was acquitted

after the Judge agreed with psychiatrists who testified that the

murder resulted solely from a psychotic state caused by the drug.

 

In February 2005, Canadian regulators ordered Adderall off the

market after the drug was linked to 20 sudden deaths and a dozen

strokes. Of the 20 deaths, 14 were children.

 

There has been a lot written about the increase in teen violence

and school shootings but no one has identified a common denominator in

the lives of these kids with one exception, the drugs. If we allow the

Bush-backed marketing schemes to succeed in recruiting more kids as

customers for these dangerous drugs, according to Tracy, we had better

prepare for more of the same.

 

" We've got a nightmare on our hands with these drugs, an absolute

nightmare, " she warns, " We've got kids on these drugs that are ticking

time bombs in every school in America. "

 

" When all of this is over and we count up the dead, we're going to

be in shock, " she adds.

 

Evelyn Pringle is an investigative journalist focused on exposing

government corruption.

 

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