Vera- Chemical Imbalance--Scientifically Debunked but Commercially Profitable

[Guest guest]

Please keep in mind the potentially mandatory mental screening programs

planned by " our " government --- in fact, if you haven't already done so , click

below and sign the " teenscreen " petition. (if you are reading this, Thank you

very much for being intelligent and brave enough to still see and act on what's

happening around you-- folks like you, likely less than 1% of the population,

have led to them being forced to scrap-- or at least delay-- many planned

intrusions, constitutional revisions.) We have made excellent progress thanks

to you and other like minded folks-- seems like just yesterday the signers of

this petition totalled less than 3000

 

President George Bush personally backs a drive to mentally screen the entire US

population, beginning with WHO's in school and including preschool children, for

undiagnosed mental illness. Like the " patriot act " , this program bears an

Orwellian ID--ridiculous---New Freedom Initiative. Thousands of schools are

already participating in screening their pupils. Some states require parental

consent, but, you can imagine what the default solution is on lost, illegible,

no response to authorization forms---keeping in mind that government bureaucrats

and subsidized pharmaceuticals are involved.

 

 

 

Could anything be more ironic-- Pharma//Bush and his crew of pond scum

predator nut cases planning to test YOU (and everyone, beginning with school age

and pre school kids, seniors who use " healthcare " , military, " drug war "

prisoners) for mental " normalcy " and labeling this project President's

" Freedom " Commission on Mental Health --- and this after he has basically cut

off freedom of information re: scientific research, results of which are now

considered a government owned " product " ? Dorothy/Toto and Alice in Wonderland

visited saner, more real places than the world in which your grandkids may live.

 

Two Out of Three Foster Children in Texas on Psychotropic Medication

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en & q=New+Freedom+Initiative++mandatory & btnG=Sear\

ch

 

http://tinyurl.com/2zeyyp //// Proceed to this site.

 

The Parental Consent Act of 2007 can be found here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h2387_ih.xml

Sponsor

Rep Paul, Ron, Texas

 

22,541 petition signatures against TeenScreen:

http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html Video:

(now--23833 Total Signatures,Check out some of the signee's comments-- most

could have been made by you or me)

Stop TeenScreen's Unscientific and Experimental " Mental Health ...

PetitionOnline http://www.PetitionOnline.com/

www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html

http://www.teenscreen-locations.com/photos.htm (bravo! photos)

other " good " links-- informative, anyway.

Bush's Mental Illness Screening Squad On the Move

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0607/S00120.htm

What Teenscreen Doesn't Want You to Know about Parental Consent

Teenscreen: Adolescent suicide and mental health screening programs

Is your child being " mentally screened " at school

 

Psychiatric Drugs: TeenScreen Draws Criticism, Legal Challenge ...

TeenScreen, a program to screen America's school children for " mental

illness " to be

www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/06/17/

psychiatric_drugs_teenscreen_draws_criticism_legal_challenge.htm

President's " Freedom " Commission on Mental Health = MANDATORY screen

 

 

TEENSCREEN) Shock Treatment; they're doing it on kids in Florida.

YouTube - Electro-Convulsive Therapy Day 3

it has been documented that ECT has been given to 15, 16, and 17 year old girls

paid by Medicaid in Florida (your tax dollars) It is literally as scientific as

sticking one's head in a light socket. Do it often enough and you will become

disoriented, confused, lose your memory or even die. Are lobotomies next?

 

THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND MENTAL DISORDERS

 

The drugs don't work, warn top psychiatrists

 

After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay

Veterans= Next Target for Mental Health Screening

 

other Vera posts-- thank you Rose and AnDrea

http://tinyurl.com/37nqao

 

Keep the faith, and please remember RON PAUL in your thoughts!

 

VERACARE <veracare wrote:

 

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION

Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability

http://www.ahrp.org <http://www.ahrp.org/> and

http://ahrp.blogspot.com

 

FYI

 

" The Media and the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression " by

Jonathan Leo & Jeffrey R. Lacasse is a follow up to their seminal article in

PLoS Medicine (2005), in which they debunked the " chemical imbalance "

theory of depression.

 

The " chemical imbalance " theory in psychiatry rests on the

observation that mood could be artificially manipulated with drugs-those which

raised monoamine levels improved mood, while those which lowered amine levels

led to depression, but it remained to be seen if naturally occurring

fluctuations in neurotransmitter levels were responsible for, or

caused, the ebb and flow of mood levels. As the authors point out, in spite

of the enormous amount of money and time that has been spent in the

quest to confirm the chemical imbalance theory, direct proof has never

materialized. Moreover, during the past several decades, a significant amount

of evidence has accumulated which calls the theory's validity into question.

 

Of particular note, in the two years since publication of their

PLoS

article, not a single scientific article challenged their

conclusion.

Indeed, the chairman of FDA Psychopharmacology Advisory Committee

acknowledged that the " chemical imbalance " theory was but a

" useful

metaphor " --as opposed to a valid hypothesis.

 

Another credible, evidence-based assessment of the " chemical

imbalance "

theory is to be found on the website of The Mental Health Service

at McGill

University:

" The term 'chemical imbalance' is thrown around a lot these

days. True

conditions caused by chemical imbalances are relatively rare. All

thoughts,

feelings

and motions in the brain are mediated by the release of chemicals

in brain

pathways. Every person's brain is unique, leading each of us to

have

different traits and abilities. Just because your brain works in

a

particular way does not mean that you have a chemical imbalance.

A certain

amount of sadness, anxiety or other emotional upset is normal,

and though we

may be able to block these feelings by chemicals, this would tend

to

dehumanize us. Even when we use medication to help an individual

with

overwhelming emotions, most of the time this is not to repair a

'chemical

imbalance' but simply to help contain symptoms. "

http://www.mcgill.ca/mentalhealth/medication/

 

However, invalid thought it may be, as Drs. Leo and Lacasse point

out the

" chemical imbalance " theory has had extraordinary commercial

value for both

the pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry:

" With the advent of the chemical imbalance theory, the companies

were no

longer just providing soothing tonics, they were now providing

medications

to treat diseases, as exemplified by an early SSRI advertisement

stating:

" When serotonin is in short supply, you may suffer from

depression. " The

wording here is all-important. The advertisement takes a

correlation between

serotonin shortage and psychological stress-and even this is

highly

questionable and unverifiable in any individual case-and makes a

leap of

faith to the conclusion that depression is caused by a serotonin

imbalance,

not that psychological stress impacts the serotonin system.

And the marketing did not stop with depression; eventually we

were told that

whatever our problems might be, whether anxiety, excessive

shyness,

depression, or the inability to pay attention, the underlying

cause was a

faulty transmitter level which could be rectified with a pill. A

2005 survey

from the Harvard School of Public Health reported that nearly

half of all

Americans will at some point develop a mental illness, presumably

from a

chemical imbalance, with 29% developing an anxiety disorder and

20% a mood

disorder. "

 

The " chemical imbalance " theory has provided promoters of

psychoactive " feel

good " prescription drugs with the means for distancing their

products from

illicit street drugs whose chemical action is almost

indistinguishable.

Whereas drugs used to " take the edge off " stress are typically

considered

street drugs and are consumed by " users " or " addicts, " substances

used to

rectify a " chemical imbalance " can be called medications--and

these are

legitimately consumed by patients.

 

A fly in the ointment occurred when Ricky Williams, the star

running back

for the Miami Dolphins who had been " diagnosed " with Social

Anxiety

Disorder, and for several years was paid by GlaxoSmithKline to

promote Paxil

for anxiety disorder, was described in 2002, by People magazine,

as

suffering from a " depression-like chemical imbalance that affects

roughly

three million Americans. " Williams tested positive for marijuana

on several

occasions. But while his marijuana use was frowned upon, his use

of Paxil

was considered acceptable. One was a medication supposed to treat

a chemical

imbalance, while the other was a drug signaling a lack of

willpower.

 

However, Williams' contract with Glaxo came to a sudden halt in

2004, when

he stated that marijuana was ten times better than Paxil.

What got him into hot water, Drs. Leo and Lacasse, note, was not

so much

praising the competition, but rather putting his sponsor's

" medication " in

the same category as an illicit drug. Williams threatened the

assumption

underlying the conventional unsupportable divide between legal

and illegal

drug use. His juxtaposition threatened the most powerful

industries--including professional sports, the pharmaceutical

industry,

psychiatry, and the mass media.

 

Another fly in the ointment raising questions about the validity

of the

dividing line between prescribed and illicit psychoactive

substances, is a

recent controlled clinical trial conducted by researchers at

Johns Hopkins.

The researchers ostensibly tested the " Mystical " effects of

psilocybin, the

active ingredient in mushrooms which is an illegal drug that

causes

hallucinations. However, two months after the trial they found

that " 79% of

those prescribed psilocybin reported moderately or greatly

increased levels

of life satisfaction compared with those given a placebo. A

majority said

their mood, attitudes and behaviors had changed for the better. "

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2006/07_11_06.html

No SSRI clinical trial had that high a rate of long-lasting

improvements in

mood, attitude and behavior.

 

The authors sent inquiries to reporters who mentioned the

" chemical

imbalance " theory as if it had been proven, asking for citations

of such

proof. The responses--or lack of responses--and the biased,

pro-industry

reporting about mental health treatments, are no less troubling

than the

biased reporting in the New York Times about the events leading

up to the

Iraq War.

 

" In hindsight, as the Times editors now acknowledge (5/326/04),

Judith

Miller's war coverage was overly one-sided. Her fundamental flaw

could be

described as a lack of professional skepticism toward the Bush

administration, as she willingly parroted what those pushing for

war were

saying, while giving little credence to the stance of the other

side.

Writing in the New York Review of Books, Michael Massing

commented that the

Times and Miller's reporting were examples of media

" submissiveness. "

 

This depiction could just as well apply to the media's reporting

of mental

health issues. As just one example, in some cases, the media

still go to the

people responsible for the original problems. For instance,

several of the

researchers involved with the studies of SSRIs in children are

still cited

in the press even though the following information has come out

about their

published studies: they downplayed the suicide risk; they

exaggerated the

benefits; and the papers published under their names were

actually written

by ghostwriters paid by the pharmaceutical industry.

 

The Times editors have acknowledged both the problems with

Miller's

reporting and their own lack of editorial oversight of her. It

remains to be

seen if members of the

media will ever look inward and reflect on their role in the

promotion of

the chemical imbalance theory. (For those familiar with the New

York Times'

coverage of mental

health issues over the past 10 years, it is refreshing that after

a series

of health reporters who essentially abdicated their role as

investigative

journalists, there is a newer group of Times reporters with more

skeptical

inclination... "

 

 

Both articles by Jonathan Leo and Jeffrey Lacasse are freely

accessible.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/u37j12152n826q60/fulltext.pdf

and

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document & doi=10.1371/

journal.pmed.0020392

 

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav

veracare

212-595-8974

 

 

 

 

 

Never miss a thing. Make your homepage.