THE 16th BLOG FOR THE OUTLAW OF PSYCHIATRY NOW !

2008-12-20T16:46:00.001-08:00

Thursday, July 31, 2008

THE OUTRAGE OF COMBINED PSYCHIATRY (APA) BIG PHARMA CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY CONTINUES UNABATED WITH COMPLETE DISREGARD FOR THEIR VICTIMS
by Justice Lover

The following article was downloaded from Daniel Carlat, M.D. blog, a psychiatrist's blog. He correctly complains about the corrupt practices of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) of collaborating in the perpetration of crimes against humanity and of deceiving the public by Big Pharma.

However, as a practicing psychiatrist his basic assumption is that psychiatry, and the APA with it, can be reformed, and then all would be fine. Moreover, his wish to have an honest form of psychiatry, does not encompass the abolition of coercive psychiatric treatment (much less the "treatment" itself); does not include exposing the fundamental fraud of "mental illness", and does not include the outlaw of the fascist quackery called psychiatry, of course.

http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2008/07/eli-lilly-and-physician-malpractice.html

Eli Lilly and Physician Malpractice Education: The Outrage Continues

Eli Lilly & Co. is continuing to pay a major insurance company to provide sham education to psychiatrists about the liability risks of prescribing potentially toxic medications like Zyprexa.

The courses, entitled "GET THE FACTS: Understanding Professional Liability Risk Associated with Prescribing Medications,” are being heavily promoted to thousands of U.S. psychiatrists via mailings, and are offered both online and in the context of lavish free dinner programs. Although funded by Lilly, they are taught by PRMS, Inc. (Professional Risk Management Services), a risk management company that manages The Psychiatrists’ Program, a malpractice insurance policy tailored for psychiatrists.

The central message of these “educational” programs is that psychiatrists are unlikely to be sued for prescribing medications that may have toxic side effects. According to the course, “there are effective ways to decrease risk related to prescribing, and if a lawsuit is filed, the risk of a plaintiff prevailing is low.” While Zyprexa is never actually mentioned in the programs, it is clear that the intent of the courses is to convince psychiatrists that they are unlikely to be successfully sued by patients claiming that Zyprexa has caused obesity or diabetes.

There are numerous veiled allusions to Zyprexa in the course. In the introductory section, for example, they state that “Advancements in medicine usually add to the complexity of treatment and at the same time increase patients’ unrealistic expectations about treatment outcomes. Patients may be less likely to accept that unexpected and adverse outcomes are a part of treatment. Even in the absence of negligence, there are always risks of medical treatment that must be weighed against the benefits.” This mirrors the common theme of Eli Lilly promotional material for Zyprexa, namely, that it is more important to focus on the clinical benefits of the medication rather than the risks associated with it.

Lilly’s extraordinarily deceptive marketing tactic takes on new relevance with the unsealing two days ago of internal company documents in the State of Alaska’s suit against the drug-maker. According to Bloomberg News, an instruction sheet given to Lilly sales reps in 2002 stated that: “We believe it is essential to weaken this link to neutralize the diabetes/hyperglycemia issue. Neutralizing any concern from our customers will be essential to the future growth of Zyprexa in the marketplace.” Meanwhile, the company’s own data showed that patients taking Zyprexa had 3.5 times the rate of high blood sugar as patients taking a placebo.

PRMS’s psychiatry insurance program is the only malpractice program receiving an official endorsement from the American Psychiatric Association. While the APA neither endorses nor participates in this educational exercise, the fact that it endorses PRMS means it may have leverage in curtailing the company’s unethical activities. Psychiatrist and APA member Dr. David Port originally alerted me to these shenanigans, and we have jointly sent a letter to the APA requesting that the organization ask PRMS to cease this program immediately. I will keep you informed of any developments.

Friday, July 25, 2008

http://theplazoid.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/is-psychiatry-a-crime-against-humanity/

Is Psychiatry a Crime Against Humanity?

That slimy little psychiatrist from Columbia University, who “ethnic cleans[ed]” over 100,000 Muslims and Croats, Radovan “the Butcher of Bosnia” Karadžić, finally got caught. If you want more info on the history of this matter here’s the crimes, but I don’t really want to say anymore then to point out the fact that Karadžić was, is and, probably will again be a psychiatrist.

Hitler had them, Pinochet had them, and Bush has them. Hitler’s genocide campaign started out with psychiatrists secretly killing mental patients, and falsifying death certificates. They would take family members deemed “mentally ill” to “special treatment” centers and ship them off to be killed, then tell the family they died of some other cause. Germans in the town of Hadamar complained of the stench of burning bodies.

Psychiatry played the lead roll in every genocide campaign - every. In fact if they had had the term psychiatry way back in the day then we would most likely say today, “psychiatry invented genocide.” This engineered, Malthusian, Darwinist, Eugenics, genetic bullshit, is packaged all together by a so-called “science profession,” which can’t empirically prove anything, called psychiatry. Every dictator uses psychiatry to silence dissent.

To today’s psychiatrists “special treatment” is the psychiatrists giving a pill that will sterilize, make people easy to control, kill people sooner rather then later, and leave no stench. And just as the nazi psychiatrists diagnosed people as unworthy of life because of their race, today’s psychiatrist’s diagnoses is just as questionable, and statistically just as racist.

The psychiatrist Ernst Rudin, co-founder the German Eugenics Society, president of the worldwide Eugenics Federation, and head of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Eugenics and Human Heredity, created “empirical genetic prognosis” of mental disorders, which led directly to today’s “diagnostic and statistical manual” of mental disorders.

It’s nothing more than a T4 project, based on bullshit theories, enforced with guns.

love eternal
tad

Saturday, July 19, 2008

UPDATE : THE MINISTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH IGNORES THE ONGOING PSYCHIATRIC ATROCITIES AGAINST REBECCA MERHAV, AND IGNORES THE COMPLAINTS ON HER BEHALF BY HER FATHER
by Justice Lover

The following letter was emailed today by Rebecca's father on her behalf under the Subject :

The very urgent case of Miss Rebecca Merhav, my daughter .

Hon Lisa Neville, MP
Minister for Mental Health
Melbourne, Victoria.

Dear Minister,

I have had no reply to my previous letter, emailed to you on the 10th of July, 2008. The Subject of the letter : IS THE CHIEF PSYCHIATRIST OF VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, NOT ACCOUNTABLE ?‏ In it I quote the Mental Health Act, 1986, provisions which protect the human rights of people under psychiatric treatment, as well as the provisions which demand : that such treatment would not harm the patient; consider the patient's own will and opinion (including the opinion of the patient's relative appointed by the patient as representing the patient);demand that the treatment would take place within the community rather than in any institution; promote and encourage the patient's self confidence, self esteem and self reliance; fully inform the patient not only of the proposed treatment (including its dangers and risks) but also of any alternative treatments available.

All these protections and guarantees by the law have been denied to my daughter for over 30 years now by the various treating psychiatrists, including the current one at Junction Clinic. My numerous complaints to the treating psychiatrist, to the Director of Psychiatry at the Alfred Hospital, and to the Chief Psychiatrist have been completely ignored , and no reason was ever given even in the very rare occasions that I had a reply to reject my complaints.

As you know, I then complained to you as the Minister to whom the Chief Psychiatrist is answerable and accountable, but you too chose to ignore my complaints, referring me back to the Chief Psychiatrist, rather than demanding of him a detailed investigation and a point by point reply to my scientifically supported complaints.

In my letter to you I have quoted the provisions in the Mental Health Act which authorize the Chief Psychiatrist to investigate thoroughly, and to take decisive action to remedy the wrong treatment, but again you, like him, chose to ignore that, although you are aware that my daughter continues to suffer under the compulsory daily administration of the most dangerous drug in the arsenal of psychiatry, and risking irreversible damage to her brain, and even risking her life.

Shortly after emailing you my above letter on the 10 of July I phoned your office. Mr. Mem Suleyman, the manager of your office confirmed to me receiving my letter, and promised a reply as soon as my complained would be investigated by yourself. My repeated phone calls to him got his same reply, except that he added that there is a panel of advisers who are investigating my complaint for the Minister, and I would sure get your written reply as soon as they complete their investigation.

However, Mem went for holiday, and the employees in your office (Rebecca and Ann) denied his promise, and referred me instead back to the Chief Psychiatrist, adding that Mem had misinformed me.In my above letter I have emphasised that all my complaints have been within psychiatric standards and within the law. Rebecca's case rests within the law, and the psychiatric atrocities perpetrated against her are in flagrant violation of the Mental Health Act, 1986, and even of acceptable psychiatric standards. Therefore I did not seek to challenge psychiatry, nor did I request it of you.

Obviously, psychiatry should be challenged - with or without the atrocities against my daughter under the pretext of "medical treatment" - and the article below does it accurately, albeit briefly . At the end of the article there is a link to a YouTobe video, which provides the opinions of a renowned American neurologist,Dr. Fred Baughman, of Prof. Thomas Szasz,a Professor of Psychiatry, and of a number of other USA practicing psychiatrists. They all challenge the validity of the psychiatric dogma of mental illness.

I therefore ask you to immediately order the Chief Psychiatrist to immeciately stop the psychiatric torture of my daughter before it is too late !

Sincerely, Benjamin Merhav

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread372872/pg1

Psychiatry Exposed? - Doctors claim psychiatry is a HOAX

Topic started on 18-7-2008 @ 07:29 AM by True Light

It has, at least for a while, occurred to me that there may be a little more to these drugs prescribed for mental illness than meets the eye. The short video clip below,I think, nails the entire situation.

There is no blood test to prove a chemical imbalance, therefore where is the proof of a chemical imbalance? Exactly, there isn't. So where to we get the term chemical imbalance? It appears psychiatrists meet up and actually MAKE UP new illnesses! This is truly the REAL insanity.

How can someone fabricate an illness, fabricate a non scientific method for discovering an illness, and then prescribe drugs for that illness. Which in the Doctors own words, not only have no curative effort on a patient, and actually have a detrimental effect on the person they are administered to.

That in itself causes one to ask the question (as per the clip) who benefits?Well first lets see the results of mass medicating people with poison they don't need. The main two that spring to mind are:

Scandalous profits made by the pharmaceuticals

Innocent peoples emotions and mental faculties suppressed

A rational person can understand (although not agree with) how large pharmaceutical companies would wish to rake in obscene amounts of cash.But who benefits from suppressing and causing harm to innocent everyday persons mental faculties? How exactly are these people a threat to society? Or is it simply the case, as I speculate, that this is an abominable attempt by the world elite to stop persons waking up and realising their divine power within.

That would certainly fit the modus operandi of what we see in the everyday push for the new world order.

I am not suggesting that the symptoms ill persons are experiencing are not real or trivial, what I am suggesting is that there may be a better way to treat someone than chemically castrating their freewill. There are many alternative therapies that work very nicely for victims of suppression (depression) meditation is just one of them. Diet also plays a prominent part in ones health.

Think about the term mental disease. DIS-EASE, a mind that is ill at ease, or not at ease. Given the negative filth that is pumped into peoples subconscious on a daily basis, how can any rational and loving human being not feel sad at the state of the world. As for persons suffering from psychosis, is it not possible that they are sometimes experiencing supra-normal abilities, seeing extra dimensions, spontaneously remote viewing things.

Is it not possible that schizophrenic persons are experiencing some sort of inter dimensional obsession, and that the voices they are hearing are very real. I think in these days of expanded awareness we should stop trying to force the innocent to chemically conform into thinking the way of the collective sheep, there has to be a far more humane and loving way to treat humans who are suffering.Here is the short clip I found. I welcome your considerate views.Psychiatry Exposed on Youtube

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2008-12-12T02:27:00.001-08:00

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread372872/pg1
Psychiatry Exposed? - Doctors claim psychiatry is a HOAX

Topic started on 18-7-2008 @ 07:29 AM by TrueLight

It has, at least for a while, occurred to me that there may be a little more to these drugs prescribed for mental illness than meets the eye. The short video clip below, I think, nails the entire situation.

There is no blood test to prove a chemical imbalance, therefore where is the proof of a chemical imbalance? Exactely, there isn't. So where to we get the term chemical imbalance? It appears psychiatrists meet up and actually MAKE UP new illnesses! This is truly the REAL insanity.

How can someone fabricate an illness, fabricate a non scientific method for discovering an illness, and then prescribe drugs for that illness. Which in the Doctors own words, not only have no curative effort on a patient, and actually have a detrimental effect on the person they are administered to.

That in itself causes one to ask the question (as per the clip) who benefits?

Well first lets see the results of mass medicating people with poison they don't need. The main two that spring to mind are:

Scandalous profits made by the pharmaceuticals

Innocent peoples emotions and mental faculties supressed

A rational person can understand (although not agree with) how large pharmaceutical companies would wish to rake in obscene amounts of cash.

But who benefits from suppressing and causing harm to innocent everyday persons mental faculties? How exactely are these people a threat to society? Or is it simply the case, as I speculate, that this is an abominable attempt by the world elite to stop persons waking up and realising their divine power within.

That would certainly fit the modus operandi of what we see in the everyday push for the new world order. I am not suggesting that the symptoms ill persons are experiencing are not real or trivial, what I am suggesting is that there may be a better way to treat someone than chemically castrating their freewill.

There are many alternative therapies that work very nicely for victims of suppression (depression) meditation is just one of them. Diet also plays a prominent part in ones health. Think about the term mental disease. DIS-EASE, a mind that is ill at ease, or not at ease. Given the negative filth that is pumped into peoples subconscious on a daily basis, how can any rational and loving human being not feel sad at the state of the world.

As for persons suffering from psychosis, is it not possible that they are sometimes experiencing supra-normal abilities, seeing extra dimensions, spontaneously remote viewing things. Is it not possible that schitzophrenic persons are experiencing some sort of inter dimensional obsession, and that the voices they are hearing are very real. I think in these days of expanded awareness we should stop trying to force the innocent to chemically conform into thinking the way of the collective sheep, there has to be a far more humane and loving way to treat humans who are suffering.

Here is the short clip I found. I welcome your considerate views. Psychiatry Exposed on Youtube

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080105140107.htm
Big Pharma Spends More On Advertising Than Research And Development, Study Finds

A new study by two York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development, contrary to the industry's claim. (Credit: iStockphoto/Marcelo Wain)

ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2008) — A new study by two York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development, contrary to the industry's claim.

The researchers' estimate is based on the systematic collection of data directly from the industry and doctors during 2004, which shows the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spent 24.4% of the sales dollar on promotion, versus 13.4% for research and development, as a percentage of US domestic sales of US$235.4 billion.

The research is co-authored by PhD candidate Marc-André Gagnon, who led the study with Joel Lexchin, a long-time researcher of pharmaceutical promotion, Toronto physician, and Associate Chair of York's School of Health Policy & Management in the Faculty of Health.

"In our paper, we make the case for the need for a new estimate of promotional expenditures by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry," says Gagnon. "We then explain how we used proprietary databases to construct a revised estimate and finally, we compare our results with those from other data sources to argue in favor of changing the priorities of the industry."

The study is important because it provides the most accurate image yet of the promotional workings of the pharmaceutical industry, says Lexchin.

The authors examined the 2004 reports of IMS Health (IMS) and CAM Group (CAM), two international market research companies that provide the pharmaceutical industry with sales/marketing data and consulting services. IMS obtains its data by surveying pharmaceutical firms, while CAM surveys doctors, which explains important discrepancies in the data they provide.

The researchers used 2004 as the comparison year because it was the latest year in which information was available from both organizations.

CAM reported total promotion spending by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry as US$33.5 billion in their 2004 report, while IMS reported US$27.7 billion for the same year. The authors observed, however, important differences in figures according to each promotion category. By selectively using both sets of figures provided by IMS and CAM, in order to determine the most relevant data for each category, and adjusting for methodological differences between the ways IMS and CAM collect data, the authors arrived at US$57.5 billion for the total amount spent on pharmaceutical promotion in 2004. The industry spent approximately US$61,000 in promotion per physician during 2004, according to Gagnon.

"Even our revised promotion figure for 2004 is apt to be understated, as there are other promotion avenues that are not likely to be taken into consideration by IMS or CAM, such as ghost-writing and off-label promotion," says Gagnon. "Also, seeding trials, which are designed to promote the prescription of new drugs, may be allocated to other budget categories."

IMS and CAM data were used for comparison purposes because data from both are publicly available, both operate globally and are well regarded by the pharmaceutical industry, and both break down their information by different promotion categories. Most importantly, the two organizations use different methods for gathering their data, allowing the researchers to triangulate on a more accurate figure for each promotion category.

The authors focused their study on the United States because it is the only country in which information is available for all of the major promotion categories, and it is also the largest market for pharmaceuticals in the world, representing approximately 43% of global sales and global promotion expenditures.

Gagnon's and Lexchin's new estimate of total promotional costs is also consistent with estimates of promotional spending by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry from other sources they scrutinized, including reports by Consumers International, a non-governmental organization which represents consumer groups and agencies worldwide; Office of Technology Assessment, which extrapolated results from the cost structure of Eli Lilly, a global pharmaceutical company; Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, who extrapolated data from Novartis Inc., a company which distinguishes marketing from administration expenditures in its annual reports; and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

As well, note the authors, the number of meetings for promotional purposes has dramatically increased in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, jumping from 120,000 in 1998 to 371,000 in 2004, further supporting their findings that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is marketing-driven.

Thus, the study's findings supports the position that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is marketing-driven and challenges the perception of a research-driven, life-saving, pharmaceutical industry, while arguing in favour of a change in the industry's priorities in the direction of less promotion, according to Gagnon and Lexchin.
Their study, "The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States," appears in the January 3, 2008 issue of PLoS Medicine, an online journal published by the Public Library of Science.

(Emphasis by Justice lover)

DOES THE USA RULING CLASS TURN ITS BACK NOW ON ITS BIG PHARMA MEMBERS ?
by Justice Lover

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article4339849.ece
From The Times

July 16, 2008

Barack Obama and John McCain go to war with Big Pharma

Carl Mortished: World business briefing

America has declared war on drugs, an industry that is bleeding the nation dry. The drug kingpins are running scared and, for the first time, the political mood on both Right and Left is in favour of taking action. The presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain have drugs at the top of the agenda and the stock prices of the drug merchants are crumbling.

These are the legitimate drug barons - Pfizer, Merck and Britain's GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Selling lifestyle drugs and medicines to alleviate the diseases of America's affluent society made pharmaceutical companies rich.

But now the pool of available private cash is diminished - drained by the credit crunch and real estate collapse. Government is feeling the pinch and, for the first time since President Johnson signed the original Medicare Bill in 1965, a serious discussion about socialised medicine is beginning in the United States.

It is hardly surprising, because, despite what you may have heard, the US Government is already the biggest buyer in the US pharmaceutical market. Americans spend about £140 billion annually on medicine, compared with £11 billion in the UK. According to World Health Organisation statistics, American expenditure per head on healthcare is double the amount in Britain and a large part of that higher investment is related to the cost of drugs.

On average, for the same drug, an American pays twice that paid in the UK. American insurers pick up a great deal of the bill and their lack of efficiency is a big bone of contention, but the heaviest burden falls on the taxpayer because 45 per cent of total expenditure on healthcare in America is borne by government.

It's a colossal bill, but the American taxpayer doesn't get any pricing power for his dollar. In Britain, most other European countries and Canada, national agencies, such as the NHS, negotiate with the pharma giants, bully suppliers and set tariffs for a list of approved drugs.

In the US, such intervention is anathema - the US Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) approves drugs for their safety, but price and availability are market-driven and the drug barons argue that freedom leads to choice, a multiplicity of products and more rapid introduction of new medicines.

Into this jungle of corporate lobbyists, union activists and consumer firebrands, the presidential candidates are taking their first, tentative steps. Healthcare reform is dangerous territory. Hillary Clinton failed at her first attempt, but the costs have risen since - drug prices are rising at a rate of 7 per cent a year at a time when Americans are feeling poorer.

According to polls, healthcare costs are a bigger issue than Iraq for most Americans, hardly surprising given that it affects a greater number. Still, it is alarming for the pharma bosses to hear the Republican candidate bashing their industry, even supporting the direct importation of cheap drugs from abroad.

Many pensioners fly to Canada in search of cheaper prescription medicine and there is a continuing legal battle between state and federal government as state employee health benefit organisations seek to tap sources of cheap medicine north of the border.

Senator Obama also supports imports, but he wants to go further and grasp the nettle of pricing. He wants Medicare to negotiate directly with the drug giants, much as the NHS fixes drug prices in Britain.

This would be a disaster for Big Pharma - a federal agency setting discounted drug prices for senior citizens, the disabled and the poor. According to the Obama camp, it might save $30 billion (£14.9 billion) for the nation's taxpayers, a huge bite out of the industry's earnings - and it would not end there.

If Medicare patients were able to secure supplies of Lipitor, the bestselling Pfizer anti-cholesterol drug, at half-price, legions of middle-class and middle-aged taxpaying Americans would ask themselves why they were paying double.

The argument in favour of free market pricing in medicines would be shredded on the rack of fairness and a host of employee benefit organisations would combine forces and demand similar discounts. The Obama cheap drugs plan would open a crack in the foundations of Big Pharma's tower of cash and quickly bring it tumbling down.

It will happen, it is just a question of when. Monopsony power has already taken root in the healthcare markets of most OECD countries.

You can see faith undermined in the share prices of the drug giants: in the UK, AstraZeneca has lost a third of its value since October 2006, while GSK has shrunk by a quarter. Over the same period, Pfizer has tumbled by 38percent and since December Merck has shrunk by 40percent.

In vain, the drug giants argue that without their US profits, the research that brings new medicines to market would not be possible. It is true that scientific research follows the money.

A big new drug is reckoned to cost $800 million in research and development and Europe has been losing its pharmaceutical edge to US labs, which generated two thirds of the new drugs launched in the world over the past five years.

The problem is that the pipeline is thin and the blockbusters are not emerging. This industry needs a new business model and, in the absence of self-generated ideas, someone in the White House might soon impose one.

carl.mortished@thetimes.co.uk

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2008-07-31T22:30:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Mothers Tell Harry Reid To Read Up On FDA Antidepressant Warnings

	from	Amy Philo
to		Amy Philo
date		Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 2:33 PM
subject :		FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Mothers Tell Harry Reid To Read Up On FDA Antidepressant Warnings

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mothers Tell Harry Reid to Read Up On FDA Antidepressant Warnings

by Amy Philo, amy@uniteforlife.org, 214-705-0169, 817-793-8028

The Food and Drug Administration has issued 25 warnings concerning the use of antidepressants ranging from the increased risk of suicide to the danger of premature births, birth defects, and giving birth to babies with respiratory problems. Existing studies show a doubled rate of suicide, spontaneous abortion, and stillbirth, a five times higher rate of preterm birth, six times higher rate of persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN), and similar increases in heart defects and other life-threatening complications. Based on MedWatch data, over the past four years an estimated 2,900 babies died via spontaneous abortion caused by SSRI exposure during pregnancy, 4,360 were born with birth defects, 3,000 were born prematurely, and 4,160 developed heart disease. MedWatch reports also include sudden infant death as a consequence of antidepressant exposure via breast milk alone.

On July 28, the U.S. Senate convened for a showdown on the so-called “Coburn Omnibus,” considering Majority Leader Harry Reid’s motion to invoke cloture on the 398-page bill. The vote would set a precedent demonstrating the relative importance of the Constitution over special interest groups’ priorities. Senator Reid (D-NV) urged Republicans to vote against deliberating on the package, which contains 35 bills and at least $10 billion in potential taxpayer expenditures.

Reid had sought to hotline the majority of the bills in the package and therefore pass them with no debate or formal vote, which Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) objected to. As reported by the New York Times, Reid stated, “Not a single one of the 35 bills in this package are partisan or controversial,” He went on to remark that anyone voting “no” would have to explain to his or her constituents. “These bills have been passed by the House of Representatives and their respective Senate committees with overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans.”

Section D of the omnibus bill is The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act, which has never even been discussed in a Senate committee, much less approved by the majority of Senator Kennedy’s HELP committee, where it has stalled since February.

There has been ongoing public outcry regarding new efforts by drug makers to expand their market for antidepressants and other top-selling psychotropic medications by pushing to enact laws requiring screening for mental illness on all sectors of the population from newborns to school children, on up to the military and elderly. But this outrage has been especially vigorous with regard to the hotly contested Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act, which would increase the number of pregnant and new mothers taking these drugs.

Critics of the bill fear what repercussions there would be for everyday Americans if the bill were ever to pass, and many expressed vehement objections to Reid’s statement that not one of the bills was controversial. Perhaps Senator Reid can explain to the American people why he supported a bill that would increase cases of spontaneous abortions and fatal birth defects while causing more mothers to kill themselves or their children.

Neglecting to mention The MOTHERS Act during his speeches Monday, Reid emphasized the need to pass some of the most sympathetic-sounding bills in the package, such as paralysis and pornography legislation. Yet in a comment given to the Washington Post, Reid accused the Senators who had shot down the cloture motion of voting against mothers suffering from postpartum depression. Reid’s seemingly intentional failure to bring up The MOTHERS Act during the debate and his false statements that the bills in the package are all non-controversial and that they have all passed the appropriate Senate committees should arouse much suspicion.

On the floor, MOTHERS Act cosponsor Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) alluded to the bill but incorrectly described its background, stating that Melanie Stokes had killed herself just a few days after giving birth. Durbin also said, “This bill really tries to help women with postpartum depression.” In fact, Melanie Stokes took her life 3 ½ months after her daughter Sommer was born, but only after she was given four successive cocktails of antidepressant, anti-anxiety, and antipsychotic drugs as well as electroshock.

Melanie Stokes is not alone. The FDA issued the first-ever black box warning for suicide on antidepressant drugs in September, 2004. The warning stated that antidepressants double the risk of suicide according to clinical trial data. Since 2002 there has been a 6,300% increase on antidepressant warnings from drug agencies around the globe. Mathy Milling Downing, whose 12-year-old daughter Candace hanged herself from the valance of her bed in 2004 after being placed on Zoloft for test anxiety, told the FDA at their hearing immediately preceding the issuance of the suicide warning, “The blood of our children is on your hands.”

Downing objected to Reid’s recent tactics, stating, “It’s deplorable that Congress continues to support the drug companies over constituents. In no way should Congress be involved in medical decisions. That should be between the doctor and the patient.”

Numerous media stories have surfaced about objections to The MOTHERS Act and controversy surrounding it. The bill’s lead sponsor Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who accepted more than $300,000 from pharmaceutical donors during the last election cycle, even went so far as to tell a reporter from the New Jersey Record that he considers the opposition “wrong-minded.”

At least for now, the “Coburn Omnibus” seems less of a threat, since Dr. Coburn’s hold could not be overcome by Senate Democrats. They fell eight votes short of the required 60 to break the filibuster. But victims and survivors are left wondering if Senators Reid, Durbin, and Menendez intentionally disregard matters of life and death for everyday Americans who are vulnerable and uninformed about the FDA-documented risks of antidepressants, or whether these Congressmen are simply ignorant and out of touch.

Julie Edgington’s son Manie turned blue at birth and had to be transported by helicopter to a hospital with facilities equipped to give him life-sustaining treatments. One procedure involved ripping a hole in his heart with a catheter and balloon inserted through an artery in his leg. Manie almost had to have his leg amputated, but on day eight doctors detected a pulse in his foot just before starting a twelve-hour open heart surgery to correct a condition called Transposition of the Great Arteries, in which the aorta and pulmonary arteries in the heart are switched. Manie scraped through with his life, his leg, and lasting physical and emotional scars.

According to FDA MedWatch data from the past four years, Paxil use during pregnancy was reported as the primary suspect cause of approximately two thirds of all drug-precipitated cases of Transposition of the Great Arteries. It wasn’t until Manie was about two years old that Julie finally discovered the Paxil-TGA link. She now has a lawsuit against drug maker GlaxoSmithKline.

Edgington said, “I want Senator Reid to think about how he would feel if he were in my place or Manie’s place. Manie will have to suffer for the rest of his life. I think if you were to ask Manie how he felt about this legislation, if he were old enough, he would consider this far worse than simply controversial.” Julie doesn’t understand why Congress would want to do anything to the people that could result in more birth defects and death. “The guilt and the heartache I feel is unbelievable. Sitting there looking at your baby and wondering if he is going to live or die, I don’t think a person can feel any worse. The way I felt when I was popping Paxil while I was pregnant was nothing compared to this. Nobody should ever take these pills, not even as a last resort.”

Kim Witczak, founder of WoodyMatters.com found Reid’s attempt to slip the MOTHERS Act through without hearings, discussion, or debate “insulting.” Kim has made more than 30 trips to Washington, D.C. in an effort to educate Congress and reform policy on drug safety. Her late husband Woody hanged himself after taking Zoloft for insomnia for a total of five weeks.

Witczak said she wonders why the same Congress that appeared concerned about drug safety during last year’s hearings on the PDUFA legislation would attempt to pass a bill like The MOTHERS act without any consideration for the effects it could have on the public. “This bill would really set new mothers up for depression by convincing them it’s likely to happen. As a woman, if someone offered me this sort of screening, I would say ‘No way,’ and ‘No thank you.’ I feel very strongly that with the potential effect of death, this sort of legislation deserves serious investigation.”

Kim Crespi, whose husband David killed their twin daughters in 2006 after taking Prozac for seven days, called the actions of the cosponsors who tried to bypass normal procedure irresponsible. Kim said she feels Prozac caused David’s psychotic break, and she doesn’t think that our current mental health system takes the adverse effects of the available medications into account at all. “Without acknowledging these effects, we are treating people beyond their level of control and then holding them completely responsible when all hell breaks loose. Congress needs to carefully pursue and consider the truth before even thinking of passing The MOTHERS Act."

Caroline Gammell, who had suicidal thoughts after three days on Celexa, contacted various government agencies and officials including members and committees in Congress after her drug reaction in 1999, but has never received any response. She said she is worried about anything that could enable someone to pump her full of drugs that could be deadly, adding that since she hasn’t yet had children, she considers the proposed legislation especially scary.

Drug-sponsored groups have worked hard for the past several sessions of Congress trying to pass The Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act via deceptive P.R. and pharmaceutical contributions to members of Congress, and are likely to continue their efforts indefinitely. With the demonstrated lack of concern from so many doctors over the recent revelation that antidepressant effectiveness is no greater than that of a placebo, patients are left all too often ignorant and accepting of medical advice to use these drugs. When politics and profits take precedence over human life, and drugs that can kill are pushed on patients like candy, it becomes the responsibility of the public to protect themselves.

harryreid.pdf
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2008-07-31T17:50:00.001-07:00

Eli Lilly Corrupt Practices: Alaska Documents Unsealed _ Phony CME_Metabolic- Hormonal Effects in Children

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org/ and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

FYI

Bloomberg News reports some of the incriminating content documented in the
Eli Lilly's Zyprexa documents that have just been unsealed in Alaska.
Contradicting Lilly's and FDA's denial about the high risk of diabetes and
obesity-triggered serious health hazards posed by Zyprexa, the documents
reveal that:

Lilly's research showed some patients on Zyprexa gained as much as 80 pounds
and that the incidence of high blood sugar at diabetes levels was 3.5 times
higher than for placebos. Lilly sales reps were told that doctors had
recognized the relationship between acute weight gain and diabetes, so the
strategy was to downplay the risk in order to protect sales: ``We believe it
is essential to weaken this link to neutralize the diabetes/hyperglycemia
issue. Neutralizing any concern from our customers will be essential to the
future growth of Zyprexa in the marketplace.''

Furthermore, even in the knowledge of likely harm, Lilly aggressively
marketed Zyprexa to primary care physicians and promoted the drug for use in
nursing home patients:
According to a recording provided for the Alaska lawsuit, Alan Breier,
then-Eli Lilly team manager for Zyprexa enthusiastically promoted Zyprexa
for Alzheimer's patients, stating that Zyprexa's ``attributes line up so
beautifully in the elderly. The need for better treatment in Alzheimer's and
other elderly conditions is so paramount and so key,'' Breier said.

In his sworn deposition, Sidney Taurel, the current chairman of Lilly's
board and then-chief executive officer, played the fool when he defended
Breier's illegal promotion for an unapproved use in Alzheimer's patients by
claiming ``[Breier] is talking about the characteristics of the molecule....
He was not giving them instructions as to what to do the next day in the
field.''

An illuminating post by Daniel Carlat, MD, a psychiatrist who shuns industry
funds, should be of interest to Congress as well to Judge Jack Weinstein:

Lilly's corrupt practices continue as the company protects its sales of a
drug that undermines the health of those who ingest Zyprexa.
Lilly is paying a major insurance company to provide sham education to
psychiatrists about the liability risks of prescribing potentially toxic
medications like Zyprexa.

The courses, entitled "GET THE FACTS: Understanding Professional Liability
Risk Associated with Prescribing Medications,” are being heavily promoted to
thousands of U.S. psychiatrists via mailings, and are offered both online
and in the context of lavish free dinner programs.
http://www.pvupdate.com/prgs/plr11/FPM.pdf

Although funded by Lilly, they are taught by PRMS, Inc. (Professional Risk
Management Services), a risk management company that manages The
Psychiatrists’ Program, a malpractice insurance policy tailored for
psychiatrists. http://www.psychprogram.com/

These courses are aimed at reassuring psychiatrists NOT to worry about being
sued--plaintiffs rarely win. Psychiatrists are encouraged to continue
prescribing a drug that is linked to diabetes.

Evidence continues to confirm that children are at even higher risk than
adults if exposed to Zyprexa.
A new study examining the metabolic and hormonal effects of three different
antipsychotics (second generation) in children found that 38% taking Zyprexa
were risk for adverse health outcome:

After the 6 months, BMI z ( body mass index) scores increased significantly
in patients receiving olanzapine and risperidone. At the 6-month follow-up,
33 patients (50.0%) showed significant weight gain. The number of patients
at risk for adverse health outcome increased from 11 (16.7%) to 25 (37.9%)
(p=.018). The latter increase was significant only in the olanzapine group
(p=.012). Total cholesterol levels increased significantly in patients
receiving olanzapine (p=.047) and quetiapine (p=.016). (Below is the
abstract)

Prior to enrollment in the study, patients were either antipsychotic-naive
(37.9%, N=25) or had been taking an antipsychotic drug for fewer than 30
days.

Dr. Carlat notes that PRMS’s psychiatry insurance program is the only
malpractice program receiving an official endorsement from the American
Psychiatric Association. While the APA neither endorses nor participates in
this educational exercise, the fact that it endorses PRMS means it may have
leverage in curtailing the company’s unethical activities.
http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

2008-07-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

Grassley, Dingell Lead Calls For Overhauling FDA_WSJ

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org/ and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

http://www.ahrp.org/ and http://ahrp.blogspot.com/

FYI

The Wall Street Journal reports (below) that Sen. Charles Grassley and Rep.
John Dingell are taking the lead in calling for revamping the FDA which is
recognized as being "too cozy with the companies they regulate."

"The lawmakers say an FDA restructuring should build a much taller wall
between the agency and the industry it regulates. The FDA would gain
authority to recall drugs, which it can't do today, and to impose
significant fines on drug companies for safety violations. The lawmakers
also want the FDA to inspect generic-drug makers before approving a new
product. Perhaps most importantly, they want the next president to appoint a
tough FDA commissioner completely independent from the industry."

An indication that there is a groundswell of support for major reform of the
agency:
Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), usually sympathetic to the agency, called the
FDA "a joke."
Senate Appropriations Chair Herb Kohl (D., Wis.) upbraided Dr. von
Eschenbach after he had to be dragged to join DHHS secretary in a night time
news conference to announce a request to Congress for additional funds for
overseas inspections after the disastrous Chinese heparin blood scandal.

And, even Billy Tauzin, president of the drug industry's lobby, PhRMA
(Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) acknowledged that he
has warned members about what may lie ahead in the way of tighter
regulations.

"It's an accumulation of things some companies did over the years. Now it's
death by a thousand cuts," he said in an interview. "We gotta stop the
bleeding."

Indeed, as the St. Petersburg Times reported in May, 2007:

Between 1989--1991: 1.56 Percent of newly approved drugs pulled from market;

Between 1997-2000: 5.34 Percent of newly approved drugs pulled from market;

In 1998, the number of complaints to the FDA about clinical drug trial
irregularities = 10;

In 2006, the number of complaints to the FDA about clinical drug trial
irregularities = 350.

See:
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/05/27/Worldandnation/Drug_s_chilling__path.shtml

AHRP believes that no meaningful reforms are possible until FDA officials
who have been "cozy with companies"-- are replaced with independent
professionals the public can trust. The current FDA top brass has lost
public trust--they cannot, therefore, remain in their positions of
authority.

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

2008-07-28T17:43:00.001-07:00

Vote on "Cloture" Re: S. 3297--Mother's Act--Fails

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and
http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI
The attempt to bypass Senate debate on S. 3297 failed.

S. 3297: Advancing America's Priorities Act, an Omnibus composite
legislative group that includes the Melanie Blocker Stokes Mother's Act
pathologizing women's normal mood swings following giving birth.

The Mother's Act is named for a woman who was TREATED with one after another
mind altering psychotropic drug--including antidepressants, anti-anxiety
drugs, and antipsychotics as well as electro-shock (ECT) --BEFORE she took
her life.
She was 3 1/2 months postpartum when she jumped from a 12-story hotel window
in Chicago after her fourth psychiatric hospitalization.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/chi-030216postpartum,0,6318205.
story

We believe, it is reasonable to conclude that the treatments provided to
Melanie Stokes--which are current best practice in psychiatry--failed.

How wise is it, then, to introduce mass screening of women followed by
treatments such as Melanie Blocker Stokes received, treatments whose
outcomes are demonstrably unsuccessful?

The bill's sponsors claim Melanie Stoke's treatments for postpartum
depression were "too little, too late."

The bill's sponsors attempted to invoke "Cloture," a formal method of
cutting off debate on a bill in the Senate and forcing a vote without
debate.

What in feature in this bill do its proponents wish to hide that they fear a
debate might bring to public knowledge?
Why else has the Mother's Act never been discussed or brought to a vote by
the appropriate Senate committee?

The bill's supporters failed to get 60 Senators to agree to invoke cloture.

The vote today, reflected strict party partisanship:
52 Democrats for and 40 Republicans against, with 8 not voting.
Of note: neither presidential contenders, Sen. Barak Obama nor Sen. John
McCain, voted.

See roll call:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm
?congress=110&session=2&vote=00189

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

2008-07-28T17:18:00.001-07:00

American Children's Health in Acute

CRISIS

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI
American children's health is in a state of acute crisis--and children are
the fastest growing market for the pharmaceutical industry.

Indeed, "an unparalleled rise in adolescent girls (aged 10--19) using
prescription drugs to teat diabetes, sleep problems, and psychological
disorders."
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/07/medco-report-girls-at-risk.html

The New York Times reports (below) that 30% of American children are
overweight--in some regions 45% are obese. According to data tracked by
Medco Health Solutions, Express Scripts and Verispan, reveals that a growing
number of American children--more than 600,000--are taking drugs for a wide
range of chronic conditions related to childhood obesity.

An alarming increase in pediatric prescriptions--between 2001--2007:
Type 2 diabetes drugs prescribed off-label for children, jumped 151%;
heartburn (acid reflux) prescriptions jumped 136.5%; high blood pressure
drugs increased 18.4%; and, high cholesterol increased 11.6%. All these
drugs are prescribed for "problems linked to obesity that were practically
unheard-of in children two decades ago."

The Times quotes several concerned physicians: "We were amazed at how
quickly the rates of drugs used have climbed," said Dr. Donna Halloran of
St. Louis University. And a recognition that the problem is systemic: "Some
experts have expressed concern that the increases in many of these
obesity-related drugs reflect a systemic failure, with doctors and parents
turning to them because they find life-style changes too difficult to
implement or enforce."

Dr. David Collier, director of a pediatric weight management center in
Greenville, N.C. is among doctors who support the controversial
recommendation by the American Academy of Pediatrics to use statins to lower
children's cholesterol. One of his patients prescribed statins is a 6 year
old girl.

Dr. Francine Kaufman, a pediatric endocrinologist, recalls a 13-year old
teen age girl whose weight increased to 267 pounds. Dr. Kaufman prescribed 5
drugs.

An astronomical increase in U.S. pediatric prescriptions for powerful
psychotropic drugs never before prescribed for children was also documented
by Medco.
The company's chief medical officer, Dr. Robert Epstein, expressed concern:
"While drug therapy is essential for certain patients, the risks and
benefits must always be weighed and, when clinically appropriate, non-drug
treatments should be the initial approach."

Unfortunately, American medical practice is no longer governed by evidence
and the precautionary principle. Instead, American medicine is governed by
industry influence and profits, for corporations and (so-called)
non-profits. Thus lack of efficacy and evidence of harm are disregarded:
"Even in clinical trials where adult pills were crushed and such, you often
can't even demonstrate that the medication works," said Dr. Stephen
Spielberg, former dean of Dartmouth Medical School.

Surely, history will not deal kindly with a society that sacrifices its
children's health for corporate wealth.

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

2008-07-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

THE COMBINED ASSAULT BY BIG PHARMA AND PSYCHIATRY ON MOTHERS AND INFANTS CONTINUES UNABATED FOR THE SAKE OF COLOSSAL PROFITS
by Justice Lover

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org <http://www.ahrp.org/> and http://ahrp.blogspot.com
<http://ahrp.blogspot.com>

FYI and ACTION

Despite the serious economic crisis in the US, Congress is poised to pass a
series of laws that would HUGELY expand the pharmaceutical-dominated mental
health industry.

In the Senate, majority leader Harry Reid (D - NV) has slipped a
controversial bill called The MOTHERS Act into an omnibus package called
"Advancing America's Priorities Act" (S. 3297). The legislation, first
enacted in New Jersey would require pregnant and new mothers across the U.S.
to be screened and treated because they are deemed to be at risk for mental
disorders.

The following is NOT something from Monty Python, but rather from the words
of Senator Robert Menendez (NJ):
"We must attack postpartum depression on all fronts with education,
screening, support, and research so that new moms can feel supported and
safe rather than scared and alone." Menendez said.

Aside from the intrusion into women's right to privacy, the distinguishing
feature of mental screens is their extraordinary high rate of
false-positive. These entirely subjective screens falsely designate healthy
people as depressed-- for which they are predictably prescribed
antidepressants -- despite the fact these drugs carry a suicide warning.

S 3297 stalled in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP)
committee for months. The Mothers Act is supported by a powerful drug-funded
coalition, including The Guttmacher Institute/ Planned Parenthood.
http://www.cogforlife.org/ppsupporters.htm ; Postpartum Support
International, National Mental Health Association, The National Alliance for
the Mentally Ill (NAMI), Illinois Academy of Pediatrics, Illinois
Psychiatric Association...

In the House, preschool children are the target of mental health legislative
initiatives: HR 3289 "Providing Resources Early for Kids" and HR 2343
"Education Begins at Home" target preschool children and their families. The
titles camouflage the real purpose which is to expand the client base for
the pharmaceutical-dominated mental health industry.

Below is a post by AHRP board member, Dr. Karen Effrem, a pediatrician,
researcher, and conference speaker, who has been closely following covert
legislative efforts that would expand the number of ever younger children
as "mentally ill" thereby justifying government-mandated intrusion into
their lives.

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

US House Democrats Work to Mentally Screen Babies & Toddlers
Nanny State Bills Expand Government Control Over Families
By Dr. Karen Effrem
July 17, 2008

Two bills which recently passed the U.S. House Education and Labor
Committee and are headed for floor debate clearly illustrate the insatiable
appetite that the radicals in charge of Congress have for control over the
hearts and minds of our nation's youngest children. HR 3289, the Providing
Resources Early for Kids Act of 2008 (PRE-K Act), puts the federal
government in charge of what children will learn in preschool programs. HR
2343, the Education Begins at Home Act, sets up invasive home visiting
programs.

These bills put the government in control as both parent and educator for
children from birth to age 5. Both focus on poor families who have the
least wherewithal to resist this government intrusion, but they also extend
to military families. The home visiting bill calls for developmental
screening, which includes mental screening, and the Pre-K Act promotes
mental screening of all the children and their families in these programs.
And of course, parental consent, choice, and control are never mentioned for
any aspect of these bills.

The Pre-K Act and its focus on the mental screening of young children is
ironic from at least two standpoints. First, despite claims of its
proponents, early childhood programs are not effective and several studies
have shown evidence of academic and or emotional harm. For instance,
illiteracy rates have actually increased in New Jersey where preschool for
poor children was court ordered. And, data from several national studies
and surveys performed by the federal government have shown very significant
increases in defiant, disobedient, and aggressive behavior, as well as
impaired social skills in children who are attend preschool and child care
compared to children raised at home.

So, it appears that rather than improving academic and social skills,
preschool programs are actually creating the problems they purport to be
fixing. These programs don't help children, but instead create permanent
employment for mental health professionals and increased profits for the
pharmaceutical industry for the myriad harmful and ineffective psychotropic
drugs that are being prescribed to children at alarmingly younger ages.

Now, as is happening in Minnesota and states around the nation, these
subjective screening results are going into children's records, falsely
labeling them as academically, socially, or mentally defective even before
they begin their academic careers. This has the potential of affecting
college, military service and employment and expanding the rolls of the
overburdened special education system and government control in the schools.

The second irony is that while Congress is promoting increased mental
screening of young children, at least one member of New Freedom Commission,
the group that first started publicly promoting the unscientific and
dangerous idea of mentally screening young children, is having second
thoughts. Dr. Daniel Fisher stated in a letter to the Boston Globe dated
10/3/07:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2007/10/
03/screening_kids_poses_risk_of_harm/

However, screening Medicaid-covered children for mental illness is
not the answer. In fact, this approach has been rejected by Congress. A
superficial screening by overworked pediatricians would likely result in
many false positives with devastating consequences for the children and
their families. These quick-fix screening tests invariably end up with quick
fixes of kids by labeling them and placing them on medication, without a
comprehensive psychosocial evaluation and assistance to the children and
their interpersonal environment. As a psychiatrist who has evaluated
children in schools, I know that myriad factors can cause what appear to be
symptoms of mental illness.

Dr. Fisher is totally correct about the high number of false positives in
mental screening tests. One commonly used screening instrument has a 73%
false positive rating, meaning that for every 27 children supposedly
correctly identified as having an emotional problem on this screening test
that follow admittedly "subjective" criteria that are "value judgments based
on culture" according to the Surgeon General, 73 other families are falsely
told that something is wrong with their child and referred for further
evaluation and treatment which more and more commonly involves ineffective
and sometimes lethally dangerous drugs.

It is too bad that members of the new Freedom Commission are not seeing the
dangers and problems of home visiting programs they promoted in their report
and that are laid out in the Education Begins at Home Act. National studies
in 1999, 2004, and 2005 showed that home visiting programs did nothing to
decrease child abuse rates.

The 1999 study had services costing up to $47,000 per family in 1999 dollars
and doing nothing to improve the cognitive development of the children.
Studies of the model home visiting program touted in the New Freedom
Commission report, the Nurse Family Partnership, while showing some
improvement in maternal behavior towards their babies, actually showed no
improvement in any of the following parameters:

* "Children's behavior problems" or "emotional regulation"
* "Maternal-child interaction"
* "Children's mental development"
* "Maternal educational achievement or employment"

In addition, concerns have been raised about all of the following:

* Consent for medical record review of the families
* Data collection
* Consent for participation and potential coercion with loss
of their children or loss of services
* Poor training of the visitors
* Unscientific or biased information presented to families
* The duplicitous role of the home visitor as both a helper
and a mandated child abuse reporter
* Loss of fourth amendment protections.

For a detailed discussion of the many problems with home visiting programs,
please see Dr. Karen Effrem's written testimony to Congress about this bill.
http://www.edwatch.org/pdfs/102306-Response.pdf

Finally, this bill also gives grants to "train" (i.e. indoctrinate) new
parents in the hospital with the government's view of proper parenting.
These includes getting babies into government early childhood programs as
soon as possible. The attitudes, values, and beliefs of the children can
then be shaped by the government's view of issues such as feminism, gender
and gender identity, multiculturalism, environmentalism and careers and as
discussed above, may actually lead to emotional and academic problems.

Parents, even low-income parents, and certainly not our military families,
do not need the government to visit their homes to tell them how to raise
their children or to tell them what their children should be taught before
entering kindergarten. Government should limit itself to promoting two
parent families which is the greatest, most effective mental health and
social program available. Taxing families less would allow families to
afford to have one parent at home to raise the children. Increasing the
domestic supplies of oil would keep food and fuel affordable for families.

HR 3289 and HR 2343 are two examples among many as to why congressional
approval ratings have dropped to single digits in the last two years.

Dr. Karen Effrem, is a pediatrician, researcher, and conference
speaker. Dr. Effrem's medical degree is from Johns Hopkins University and
her pediatric training from the University of Minnesota. She has provided
testimony for Congress, as well as in-depth analysis of numerous pieces of
major federal education, health, and early childhood legislation for
congressional staff and many organizations. Dr. Effrem serves on the boards
of four national organizations: EdWatch, the Alliance for Human Research
Protection, ICSPP, and the National Physicians Center.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&
orgId=574&topicId=100007427&docId=l:826870020&start=8

Christian Newswire
July 24, 2008
Omnibus Package Laced with Psychotropic 'MOTHERS Act'
by Senator Harry Reid

WASHINGTON, July 24 /Christian Newswire/ -- Senate majority leader Harry
Reid (D - NV) has slipped a controversial bill called The MOTHERS Act into
an omnibus package called "Advancing America's Priorities Act" (S. 3297)
which is scheduled for a vote July 26. The MOTHERS Act, a bill to screen and
treat pregnant and new mothers across the U.S. at risk for mental disorders,
has stalled in the Senate HELP committee for months. The abortion rights
groups NARAL Pro-Choice America, The Guttmacher Institute, and Planned
Parenthood publicly support The MOTHERS Act.

Reid will move to invoke cloture and pass the $11.3 billion omnibus bill
this Saturday without debate.

Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R - OK) criticized Reid's plan, stating, "What the
staff members are saying is we want to bring a bill, but we don't want to
debate it. We don't want to vote on it. We don't want to have it amended. We
don't want the American people to know what we would rather do in secret."

Citizens Against Government Waste commented, "If the legislation is worthy
of taxpayer money, surely the Senate should have no problem spending time to
debate the individual bills."

Ironically, The MOTHERS Act is named for Melanie Stokes, who committed
suicide in 2001, following postpartum psychiatric treatment including four
separate drug cocktails and electroshock therapy. Many of the groups backing
the bill also receive funds from or have high-ranking members working for
pharmaceutical companies, or stand to profit from treating troubled women or
off of babies needing extensive medical care for birth defects and other
complications.

In January 2008, the New England Journal of Medicine published suppressed
data from drug companies that proved antidepressants work no better than a
placebo. The FDA warned repeatedly that antidepressants double suicides and
issued numerous warnings concerning the use of antidepressants during
pregnancy. According to data from the FDA MedWatch system, from 2004-2007,
an estimated 2,900 babies died via spontaneous abortion because of SSRI
antidepressants given to pregnant women. Studies demonstrate that
antidepressants double spontaneous abortions and stillbirths and quintuple
preterm births. Babies exposed to SSRIs in pregnancy have a six-fold
increased risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN), a potentially
fatal lung problem. Nearly one third of women who take SSRIs during
pregnancy have a baby who dies, is premature or underweight, or who has
seizures.

For more on the efforts to stop The MOTHERS Act and the Reid omnibus package
(S. 3297), go to www.uniteforlife.org.

CONTACT: Amy Philo,
July 24, 2008

2008-07-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

"Improper rewards of research"

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI

Dr. Arnold Relman, professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School, and
distinguished former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, is a
foremost critic of those who have derailed American medicine from its focus
on the public good, transforming medicine into a commercially driven
venture.

Prompted by the financial conflicts of interest uncovered by Sen.
Charles Grassley, Dr. Relman takes aim at the culture of greed exhibited by
Harvard psychiatrists who promote the experimental use of the most toxic
psychopharmaceuticals for preschool children--including powerful
neuroleptics (atypical antipsychotics)--even as they document the adverse
effects produced by these drugs.

"This prospective open study suggests that treatment with risperidone or
olanzapine may result in a rapid reduction of symptoms of mania in preschool
children with BPD. Because of substantial residual symptomatology and
adverse effects, however, a pressing need exists to identify additional safe
and effective treatments for the management of BPD in this high-risk
population." [1]

In an opinion piece in the Boston Globe (below) Dr. Relman notes, "this
case involves more than nondisclosure. These psychiatrists are nationally
known for advocating the "off-label" use of powerful antipsychotic drugs in
the management of children believed to have childhood bipolar disorder, a
new but controversial diagnosis that they themselves have done much to
publicize. The Federal Drug Administration approved these drugs only for the
treatment of adults, but physicians can prescribe approved drugs for any
use, and the Harvard psychiatrists are recommending these antipsychotic
drugs as safe and effective in children with cyclic mood swings they claim
are "bipolar disorder." Not surprisingly, some other psychiatrists are
dubious."

Indeed, in an OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle, Dr. Lawrence Diller,
chastised the leadership of Harvard's psychiatry department for remaining
"strangely silent" or even defending Dr. Joseph Biederman, chairman of child
psychiatry, who is the champion promoter of psychopharmacology for children.
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2008/07/pediatrician-lawrence-diller-chastises.html

An excerpt of Dr. Biederman's presentation before the President's Council on
Bioethics (Feb. 2006) provides the flavor of Dr. Biederman's promotional
skills.
He recommends increasing the number of US. child psychiatrists ( currently,
6,300) to 50,000.

He focuses entirely on promoting the field while trivializing evidence of
serious risks posed by psychotropic drugs:
"There is very poor public acceptance of the use of medications in children.
There is an enormous amount of bad faith... every week there is some kind of
poisoning of the children, over-medicating, and so on and so forth. And
periodically we are dealing with this alarming statistics about bad things,
and some of these alarming statistics led to, I believe, all psychotropics
having black boxes. "

Might the financial interests of Harvard be the reason that we hear not a
word from its Provost, neuroscientist, Dr. Steven Hyman, who knows the
irrefutable scientific evidence showing greater harm than benefit produced
by antipsychotic drugs ?

References:

1. Biederman J, Mick E, Hammerness P, Harpold T, Aleardi M, Dougherty M,
Wozniak J. Open-label, 8-week trial of olanzapine and risperidone for the
treatment of bipolar disorder in preschool-age children. Biol Psychiatry.
2005 Oct 1;58(7):589-94. The study was sponsored by Massachusetts General
Hospital, and conducted just as these drugs were being aggressively promoted
by their manufacturers (2001-2004)

For a current list of Dr. Biederman's clinical drug trials, numbering 26,
See: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=biederman
For example, Quetiapine for Mania In Preschool Children 4 to 6 Years of Age
With Bipolar Disorder
This study is currently recruiting patients. (2005--) Sponsored by:
Massachusetts General Hospital
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00181883 See:
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00181883?term=biederman&rank=4

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/07/12
/improper_rewards_of_research
THE BOSTON GLOBE
ARNOLD S. RELMAN
Improper rewards of research
July 12, 2008

THREE prominent psychiatrists on the staff of Massachusetts General Hospital
recently made headlines when Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, ranking
Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, announced that they had
underreported income they had received from drug companies.

Why all the fuss? It is because the public is getting angry about
revelations that doctors are being secretly paid by the companies that sell
the expensive drugs these doctors prescribe. At the least, the public should
know about such payments.

But this case involves more than nondisclosure. These psychiatrists are
nationally known for advocating the "off-label" use of powerful
antipsychotic drugs in the management of children believed to have childhood
bipolar disorder, a new but controversial diagnosis that they themselves
have done much to publicize. The Federal Drug Administration approved these
drugs only for the treatment of adults, but physicians can prescribe
approved drugs for any use, and the Harvard psychiatrists are recommending
these antipsychotic drugs as safe and effective in children with cyclic mood
swings they claim are "bipolar disorder." Not surprisingly, some other
psychiatrists are dubious.

Grassley's report was not about this medical controversy. He was focusing on
the money paid to the MGH psychiatrists by the manufacturers of these drugs.
He wanted such payments fully disclosed to the medical schools and hospitals
they work for, to conform with current federal and local institutional
regulations. He and Democratic Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin have
introduced a bill requiring drug and device manufacturers to report all
payments to doctors in excess of $500 a year.

The problem cuts much deeper and broader than that. Academic physicians
exert great influence through their writings and lectures over the way
practitioners prescribe drugs. The public expects that this teaching will be
unbiased and evidence-based, because they want their own doctors to be
dispensing reliable advice. But when medical teachers take payments from
drug manufacturers their recommendations must be questioned.

Defenders say that without financial rewards academic physicians would not
be motivated to do clinical research or collaborate with companies in the
pursuit of new and better treatments. They say that industry should reward
faculty for their collaboration, so long as these rewards conform with
institutional guidelines and are fully disclosed.

Medical research can certainly be advanced by collaboration between academic
clinical investigators and industry, but that does not mean that industry's
payment for such collaboration should go directly to the investigators
rather than to the medical schools and teaching hospitals that employ them.

These investigators should be well paid by their institutions, and they
should have the time and resources needed to do their research, but they
should not expect to be personally enriched beyond that.

Clinical researchers in academic institutions, like Harvard Medical School
and the MGH, should be committed to serving the public interest first, not
the commercial interests of pharmaceutical corporations. Rewards to
researchers from these corporations weaken that commitment and contribute to
the growing public distrust of all clinical research sponsored by industry.

If leading medical schools and teaching hospitals cannot meet their
responsibilities by enforcing rigorous conflict of interest guidelines for
their clinical faculty, then they must expect that government will do it for
them.

Dr. Arnold S. Relman is professor emeritus of medicine and social medicine
at Harvard Medical School and former editor in chief of the New England
Journal of Medicine.
C Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.bioethics.gov/transcripts/feb06/session5.html
In a presentation Dr. Joseph Biederman gave to the President's Council on
Bioethics (Feb. 3, 2006) he informed them:

"the scope of mental disorders affecting children is extraordinarily large.
It is maybe between 12 and 22 percent of children in this country and
perhaps all over the world have major mental illnesses. This translates
into seven and a half to 40 million children affected. About ten percent of
those children are thought to have severe functional impairment. Those are
children that are institutionalized in foster placement, require massive
amounts of psychosocial and psychoeducational interventions.
However, less than 20 percent of these children receive any mental health
services, and they never see a child or adolescent psychiatrist.
Many of these children, of course, would benefit from a treatment that may
enhance their ability to be in a less restrictive environment, and so if you
have a major psychiatric illness and the only intervention is
institutionalization, it may not be the best service that the child can
receive.

There is a serious problem in our field regarding manpower. There are less
than 6,300 trained child and adolescent psychiatrists currently practicing
in this country, and we estimate that probably by the amount of children
that are affected with mental illness is that we may need at least 30,000 to
meet current demand.
So I would like to say to you that of those 6,300 not all practice child
psychology. Many just do psychotherapeutic interventions and do not take on
the medical aspects of the profession. This need is projected to greatly
increase over the years. So we probably will need something like 50,000.
We probably are never going to get there.

I suggested when I was invited to focus on one neurobiological problem like
ADHD as the model of the problem of linking behaviors with the brain. In
pediatric psychiatry we have very little approved medications beyond the
treatment of ADHD. This has changed somewhat in the last few years, but not
dramatically. In the last few years not only that we don't have approval
for many drugs, but we have black boxes for all of them that create issues
that I would like to make you aware of - what is the impact in our society
and in the minds of the clinicians practicing out there.

So there is a vicious circle that immediately has created concerns about
children, creates a bad climate to do research on children that is
considered perhaps not ethical. So if we don't have evidence, what is more
ethical, not to treat? We still have to treat. To treat in the absence of
evidence or to do the studies that would allow us to have the evidence to
treat ethically? So that's the dilemma.

There is also an enormous amount of prejudices and misconceptions in our
society about psychopathology in children. There is some kind of naive
belief that all children are angelical, and there is something wrong to the
child. Somebody is doing something bad to the child. So there is no
recognition of the fact that children, like adults, have bona fide
psychopathology disorders that translate in aberrant behaviors, and the
assumptions that it's just all psychosocial and if every child were to have
loving parents and loving teachers, no child would be affected is really
extraordinarily naive.

There is very poor public acceptance of the use of medications in children.
There is an enormous amount of bad faith... every week there is some kind of
poisoning of the children, over-medicating, and so on and so forth. And
periodically we are dealing with this alarming statistics about bad things,
and some of these alarming statistics led to, I believe, all psychotropics
having black boxes.

I would like to address two of those alarming statistics: This issue about
suicidality and suicidal behaviors with the use of serotonergic
antidepressants - as a context I would like to say that the serotonergic
antidepressants provided the field of psychiatry in general and child
psychiatry with very safe medicines, medically speaking. Before that we had
tricyclic antidepressants and drugs like imipramine or amitriptyline or
desipramine drugs that had very narrow margin of safety. Overdoses could be
lethal. They require a high level of monitoring. These drugs could be
arrhythmogenic. So the advent of the serotonergic drugs from the strictly
speaking medical context provided a very safe environment.

As you know, these drugs over time became useful to treat an enormous chunk
of psychopathology, not only the patient, but anxiety, obsessive-compulsive
disease, social anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorders, eating disorders.
So it provided a very safe environment to treat children. So this data that
started with paroxetine, then extended to venlafaxine, included all under
the present, particularly as its rise led the British regulatory agency to
proscribe altogether the use of SSRIs in the end. The FDA took a less
drastic position that has changed now over time and has been softened in
light of evidence that has emerged. "

Dr. Biederman dispenses with the lack of efficacy shown in clinical trials
testing antidepressants:
"the placebo effect that has been so high did not permit the separation of
the active ingredient from the placebo. It's not that the drug did not
work, but it did not separate from placebo. The magnitude, the absolute
magnitude of effect, was as high as in adult depression, but the placebo was
higher...."

FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (C ) material the use of which
has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such
material is made available for educational purposes, to advance
understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and
social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair
use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C.
section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without
profit.

2008-07-23T15:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/92264/has_big_pharma_corruption_suppressed_effective_treatment_options/

Has Big Pharma Corruption Suppressed Effective Treatment Options?

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
Posted on July 23, 2008, Printed on July 23, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/92264/

American psychiatry has been rocked by Congress. Congressional investigators first exposed the financial relationships between high-profile psychiatrists and drug companies. "But now the profession itself is under attack in Congress," reported the New York Times on July 12, 2008.

Specifically under attack is psychiatry's premier professional organization, the American Psychiatric Association. The New York Times stated, "In 2006, the latest year for which numbers are available, the drug industry accounted for about 30 percent of the association's $62.5 million in financing. About half of that money went to drug advertisements in psychiatric journals and exhibits at the annual meeting, and the other half to sponsor fellowships, conferences and industry symposiums at the annual meeting."

The American Psychiatric Association is, as the New York Times notes, "the voice of establishment psychiatry." It publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is the standard diagnostic manual. It also publishes influential professional journals. And it is the primary lobbying organization for American psychiatry.

The president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association is Alan Schatzberg of Stanford University, and his $4.8 million stock holdings in a drug development company raised a red flag for Congressional investigators. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, informed the American Psychiatric Association, "I have come to understand that money from the pharmaceutical industry can shape the practices of nonprofit organizations that purport to be independent in their viewpoints and actions."

One example of how psychiatric treatment practices are corrupted by drug-company money was revealed in a 2007 analysis of Minnesota psychiatrists. The analysis showed that psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from makers of newer-generation antipsychotic drugs wrote, on average, three times as many prescriptions to children for these drugs as psychiatrists who received less money or none.

The New York Times did track down one psychiatrist in private practice not on the take from drug companies, William Niederhut. Niederhut said that studies have shown that researchers who are paid by drug companies are more likely to report positive findings when evaluating that company's drugs. Niederhut was upset that drug company influence has pushed psychiatrists to prescribe expensive drugs rather than the off-patent inexpensive ones.

While the truly anti-psychiatry establishment psychiatrists were not quoted by the New York Times, reporters Benedict Carey and Gardiner Harris did provide an important service by using the term establishment psychiatry, which at least gives a clue that there are anti-establishment psychiatrists. Among this group of anti-establishment psychiatrists, two of the most well known are Peter Breggin and Grace Jackson, both of whom have testified at Food and Drug Administration advisory meetings. Breggin and Jackson, for several years, have been reporting that the dangers of psychiatric drugs are downplayed or ignored by establishment psychiatry, that many blockbuster psychiatric drugs are no more effective than sugar pill placebos, and that the chemical imbalance theories that sell these drugs are based on drug-company marketing rather than legitimate science.

Prior to exposing the American Psychiatric Association's financial dependency on Big Pharma, Congressional investigators had focused on individual establishment psychiatrists' financial relationships with drug companies. One high-profile example being Joseph Biedeman, about whom the New York Times reported: "A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007." Biederman and two of his colleagues in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School (who received an additional $2.6 million from drug companies from 2000 to 2007), by failing to report income from drug companies while at the same time receiving federal funds from the National Institutes of Health, violated rules designed to police conflicts of interest, according to Sen. Grassley.

I can only hope that Congress and the mainstream media will get around to the most important issue of all: How Big Pharma corruption of psychiatry has eliminated options for people with severe emotional problems who have been failed by establishment psychiatric treatments. One such option that was eliminated is Soteria House, the creation of psychiatrist Loren Mosher.

Loren Mosher (1933-2004) was chief of the National Institute of Mental Health's Center for the Study of Schizophrenia from 1968 to 1980. Mosher wanted to create an effective and more humane way to help psychiatry's most seriously troubled patients. Using National Institute of Mental Health funds, Mosher opened the first Soteria House in Santa Clara, California in 1971.

Mosher's Soteria House experiment is detailed by former Boston Globe reporter Robert Whitaker in Mad in America. In Soteria House, newly diagnosed schizophrenic patients lived medication-free with a young, nonprofessional staff trained to listen to and understand them and provide companionship. Mosher tested his idea that "schizophrenia can often be overcome with the help of meaningful relationships rather than with drugs, and that such treatment would eventually lead to unquestionably healthier lives."

The Soteria House experiment worked better than Mosher had expected. Over the initial six weeks, patients recovered as quickly as those treated with medication in hospitals. Whitaker notes, "Even more striking, the Soteria patients were staying well longer. Relapse rates were lower for the Soteria group at both one-year and two-year follow-ups. The Soteria patients were also functioning better socially -- better able to hold jobs and attend schools."

Mosher's success with nonprofessional caregivers and without drugs embarrassed establishment psychiatry. The National Institute of Mental Health choked off funding causing Soteria House to close down. By 1998 Mosher was so disgusted with establishment psychiatry that he wrote a widely publicized letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association. Establishment psychiatry, which in recent times usually ignores anti-establishment psychiatrists such as Mosher, had to respond and did so by accusing Mosher of wanting to abolish drug treatments. However, abolishing the option of drug treatment was never Mosher's goal.

Loren Mosher remains a hero for many anti-establishment consumer- and patient-rights organizations such as MindFreedom. MindFreedom also does not advocate for abolishing the option of drug treatment but instead advocates for truly informed choice as well as for alternatives beyond establishment psychiatric treatments -- alternatives such as Soteria House. I recently spoke with two members of MindFreedom, a married couple. Both wife and husband had been diagnosed in the past with schizophrenia. The wife chose to stay on psychiatric drugs, while the husband -- who had especially debilitating adverse effects with his psychiatric drugs -- chose to go without drugs. Their different paths initially created tension in the marriage but both ultimately quite graciously accepted each other's decision.

These are the true issues: Do Americans have mental health treatment choices that are informed choices? Why, when Big Pharma corruption has long been known, does it take Congressional investigations for the mainstream media to inform Americans of the financial relationships that drug companies have with high-profile psychiatrists and major psychiatry institutions? And most importantly, when will Americans get real choices when it comes to their mental health?

A real choice is not a choice between Prozac or Zoloft, not between Zyprexa or Risperdal. One example of a real choice is the choice between establishment psychiatry or Soteria House.

Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green, 2007).

2008-07-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

URGENT! "MOTHERS Act" Bypasses Committee - Set to pass this Saturday

Amy Philo

to madnap, uniteforlife, babywhys, wildestcolts, ProzacAwareness, Atypical_Antip., SSRI-crusaders, ssri-research

Please forward to anyone you can! We need help!!!

URGENT!!!! URGENT!!! The MOTHERS Act to pass

July 26 if we do not stop it! ! Action needed NOW!

7/22/08 9:48 PM

Dear Friends,

Politics being what they are, a development has just arisen which will put The

MOTHERS Act to a vote in the US Senate THIS WEEK. The bill will be

introduced this Friday with an anticipated vote this Saturday.

Here is the story in brief: the majority leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, has

bundled up a large number of pending bills into one package (referred to as an

"omnibus bill") and is seeking to get a vote on the whole package of bills under

the name of the “Coburn Omnibus Bill” (that’s the unofficial name, officially

the bill is known as the “Advancing America’s Priorities Act”).

Even though the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act is named for a

woman who was put on a cocktail of mind altering psychiatric drugs and also

electro-shocked BEFORE she took her life, and even though the bill has never

been brought before the appropriate Senate committee for discussion and

committee vote, this bill has been included, with others, in the packaged

"Omnibus" bill.

To bring the Coburn Omnibus bill to a vote on the Senate floor, the sponsors of

the bill must invoke "Cloture."

Cloture is a formal method of cutting off debate on a bill in the Senate and forcing

a vote on it.

To invoke cloture - to force a vote on the bill - 60 Senators must agree - 60

Senators must vote yes to invoke cloture.

We are opposed to a procedure that denies any discussion of a bill before it is

voted on.

But more importantly, we are opposed to The MOTHERS Act itself, which has

been packaged with this larger bill. The reasons for this opposition are set forth at the

following links: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-the-dangerous-and-invasive-

mothers-act

http://www.uniteforlife.org/paxilinfantdeaths.pdf

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5035F0873A36F493

and http://www.uniteforlife.org/implications.pdf

But in brief, it denies informed consent to the countless number of mothers (and

their children) who will be placed on suicide and homicide-inducing

antidepressants as a result of this legislation.

Call your Senator's office and voice your opposition to the cloture vote.

The message to your Senator's office should be clear and simple: tell them that

you are opposed to cloture on the “Coburn Omnibus Bill” (or

the Advancing America’s Priorities Act).

That's the message.

To find the phone number to your Senator's office, go to

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

or see this list below… If you have time please call and fax as many Senate

offices as you can!

Do this NOW. We have two days!!

(this phone list from Excel looks neater on the PDF - please see attachment or view it on the yahoo group for UNITE: http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/sJ6GSONS6yFV5cbcuiBH7KZ75F_-EPIE68qhV564WxysIq8ZFRMLr_1Lo4gApZ0rhJ8ILzG-01nbM7ekU7Brjg/URGENT.pdf)

Home

State First Last DC Phone DC Fax

District

Phone1 District Fax1

AK Lisa Murkowski 202-224-6665 202-224-5301 907-271-3735 907-276-4081

AK Ted Stevens 202-224-3004 202-224-2354 907-271-5915 907-258-9305

AL Jeff Sessions 202-224-4124 202-224-3149 334-244-7017 334-244-7091

AL Richard Shelby 202-224-5744 202-224-3416 205-759-5047 205-759-5067

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AR Mark Pryor 202-224-2353 202-228-0908 501-324-6336 501-324-5320

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IA Tom Harkin 202-224-3254 202-224-9369 515-284-4574 515-284-4937

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IL Richard Durbin 202-224-2152 202-228-0400 312-353-4952 312-353-0150

IL Barack Obama 202-224-2854 202-228-4260 312-886-3506 312-886-3514

IN Evan Bayh 202-224-5623 202-228-1377 317-554-0750 317-554-0760

IN Richard Lugar 202-224-4814 202-228-0360 317-226-5555 317-226-5508

KS Sam Brownback 202-224-6521 202-228-1265 785-233-2503 785-233-2616

KS Pat Roberts 202-224-4774 202-224-3514 913-451-9343 913-451-9446

KY Jim Bunning 202-224-4343 202-228-1373 859-341-2602 859-331-7445

KY Mitch McConnell 202-224-2541 202-224-2499 502-582-6304 502-582-5326

LA Mary Landrieu 202-224-5824 202-224-9735 504-589-2427 504-589-4023

LA David Vitter 202-224-4623 202-228-5061 337-262-6898 337-262-6373

MA Edward Kennedy 202-224-4543 202-224-2417 617-565-3170 617-565-3183

MA John Kerry 202-224-2742 202-224-8525 617-565-8519 617-248-3870

MD Benjamin Cardin 202-224-4524 202-224-1651 410-962-4436 410-962-4256

MD Barbara Mikulski 202-224-4654 202-224-8858 410-962-4510 410-962-4760

ME Susan Collins 202-224-2523 202-224-2693 207-945-0417 207-990-4604

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MI Carl Levin 202-224-6221 202-224-1388 313-226-6020 313-226-6948

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MO Claire McCaskill 202-224-6154 202-228-6326 816-421-1639 816-421-2562

MS Thad Cochran 202-224-5054 202-224-9450 601-965-4459 601-965-4919

MS Roger Wicker 202-224-6253 202-224-2262 601-965-4644 601-965-4007

MT Max Baucus 202-224-2651 202-228-0515 406-657-6790 406-657-6793

MT Jon Tester 202-224-2644 202-224-8594 406-449-5401

406-449-

5462

NC Richard Burr 202-224-3154 202-228-2981 336-631-5125 336-725-4493

NC Elizabeth Dole 202-224-6342 202-224-1100 919-856-4630 919-856-4053

ND Kent Conrad 202-224-2043 202-224-7776 701-258-4648 701-258-1254

ND Byron Dorgan 202-224-2551 202-224-1193 701-250-4618 701-250-4484

NE Chuck Hagel 202-224-4224 202-224-5213 402-758-8981 402-758-9165

NE Ben Nelson 202-224-6551 202-228-0012 402-441-4600 402-476-8753

NH Judd Gregg 202-224-3324 202-224-4952 603-225-7115 603-224-0198

NH John Sununu 202-224-2841 202-228-4131 603-647-7500 603-647-9352

NJ Frank Lautenberg 202-224-3224 202-228-4054 973-639-8700 973-639-8723

NJ Robert Menendez 202-224-4744 202-228-2197 973-645-3030 973-645-0502

NM Jeff Bingaman 202-224-5521 202-224-2852 505-988-6647 505-992-8435

NM Pete Domenici 202-224-6621 202-228-3261 505-346-6791 505-346-6720

NV John Ensign 202-224-6244 202-228-2193 702-388-6605 702-388-6501

NV Harry Reid 202-224-3542 202-224-7327 702-388-5020 702-388-5030

NY Hillary Clinton 202-224-4451 202-228-0282 212-688-6262 212-688-7444

Rodham

NY Charles Schumer 202-224-6542 202-228-3027 212-486-4430 212-486-7693

OH Sherrod Brown 202-224-2315 202-228-6321 216-522-7272

216-522-

2239

OH George Voinovich 202-224-3353 202-228-1382 614-469-6697 614-469-7733

OK Tom Coburn 202-224-5754 202-224-6008 918-581-7651 918-581-7195

OK James Inhofe 202-224-4721 202-228-0380 918-748-5111 918-748-5119

OR Gordon Smith 202-224-3753 202-228-3997 503-326-3386 503-326-2900

OR Ron Wyden 202-224-5244 202-228-2717 503-326-7525 503-326-7528

PA Bob Casey 202-224-6324 202-228-0604 717-231-7540

PA Arlen Specter 202-224-4254 202-228-1229 215-597-7200 215-597-0406

RI Jack Reed 202-224-4642 202-224-4680 401-943-3100 401-464-6837

RI Sheldon Whitehouse 202-224-2921 202-228-6362 401-453-5294 401-453-5085

SC Jim DeMint 202-224-6121 202-228-5143 864-233-5366 864-271-8901

SC Lindsey Graham 202-224-5972 202-224-3808 864-250-1417 864-250-4322

SD Timothy Johnson 202-224-5842 202-228-5765 605-332-8896 605-332-2824

SD John Thune 202-224-2321 202-228-5429 605-334-9596

TN Lamar Alexander 202-224-4944 202-228-3398 615-736-5129 615-269-4803

TN Bob Corker 202-224-3344 202-228-0566 423-756-2757

TX John Cornyn 202-224-2934 202-228-2856 512-469-6034 512-469-6020

TX Kay Bailey Hutchison 202-224-5922 202-224-0776 214-361-3500 214-361-3502

UT Robert Bennett 202-224-5444 202-228-1168 801-524-5933 801-524-5730

UT Orrin Hatch 202-224-5251 202-224-6331 801-524-4380 801-524-4379

VA John Warner 202-224-2023 202-224-6295 804-739-0247 804-739-3478

VA Jim Webb 202-224-4024 202-228-6363 804-771-2221

VT Patrick Leahy 202-224-4242 202-224-3479 802-863-2525

VT Bernard Sanders 202-224-5141 202-228-0776 802-862-0697 802-860-6370

WA Maria Cantwell 202-224-3441 202-228-0514 206-220-6400 206-220-6404

WA Patty Murray 202-224-2621 202-224-0238 206-553-5545 206-553-0891

WI Russell Feingold 202-224-5323 202-224-2725 608-828-1200 608-828-1203

WI Herb Kohl 202-224-5653 202-224-9787 414-297-4451 414-297-4455

WV Robert Byrd 202-224-3954 202-228-0002 304-342-5855 304-343-7144

WV John Rockefeller 202-224-6472 202-224-7665 304-347-5372 304-347-5371

WY John Barrasso 202-224-6441 202-224-1724 307-261-6413 307-265-6706

WY Michael Enzi 202-224-3424 202-228-0359 307-682-6268 307-682-6501

Sincerely,

Amy Philo
214-705-0169 home
817-793-8028 cell

URGENT! Sign the petition against the MOTHERS Act at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-the-dangerous-and-invasive-mothers-act
Visit www.uniteforlife.org

2008-07-19T13:39:00.001-07:00

Federal Judge Reverses His Preemption Ruling in Indiana Paxil Suicide Case

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI

Preemption

Judge David F. Hamilton, Chief Judge of the United States District Court,
Southern District of Indiana, reversed his preemption ruling in a Paxil
suicide case, stating that in his prior ruling, he "failed to appreciate []
the fact that the ongoing ability, authority, and responsibility to
strengthen a label still rest squarely with the drug manufacturer."

In his 28 page ruling he noted that: "The FDA's current position on
preemption is not 'long standing' but is in fact a '180-degree reversal'
from its earlier stance."
http://www.pharmalot.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/tucker-paxil-case.pdf

Indeed, FDA's position on preemption-- was articulated by former FDA Chief
Counsel, Porter MJ in 1997: " FDA product approval and state tort liability
usually operate independently, each providing a significant, yet distinct,
layer of consumer protection." The 180-degree reversal occurred during the
Bush Administration when (then) chief counsel, Daniel Troy, a former and
current defense attorney for industry, sought to provide pharmaceutical
companies (his clients) with a shield against product liability.

In his ruling on July 18, Judge Hamilton affirmed that "drug manufacturers
have the authority to strengthen warnings without the advance permission of
the FDA." And "failure to warn litigation can serve to reinforce the FDA's
regulations, which already place the obligation to strengthen the warnings
on a drug's label squarely on the shoulders of the drug's manufacturer."

A persuasive source that led Judge Hamilton to reverse his earlier ruling is
a law review article by former FDA Commissioner, David Kessler, in which he
articulated the need for judicial review:

"The most fundamental problem is that drugs are approved on the basis of
clinical testing that cannot, and is not designed to, uncover risks that are
relatively rare or have long latency periods. Legislation cannot solve this
problem ... Top-down surveillance is no substitute for failure to warn
litigation, which provides the FDA, doctors, and patients with information
about new risks that is otherwise unavailable to the agency."

The plaintiff in the case, Debra Tucker, the disabled younger sister of
Father Tucker, a Catholic priest who had served as a priest for over 26
years. He had no prior history of suicidal ideation or behavior. On August
28, 2002, he was prescribed Paxil which he took for 22 days until his death
on September 18, 2002.

On the morning of September 18, 2002, Father Rick celebrated St. Mary's
morning mass. Sometime between the end of mass and 8 p.m. that evening (when
he was found), Father Rick shot himself in the head with a .25 caliber
pistol. He was 55 years old.

Attorneys for the plaintiff, Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, PC of
California, who have extensive experience litigating suicide and suicide
attempt cases involving SSRI antidepressants. The firm's lead attorney in
this case, Bijan Esfandiari, stated:

"Winning a motion for reconsideration is an extremely rare event - it
happens in less than 15% of cases, so we are extremely gratified that Judge
Hamilton had the temerity to really look at the preemption issue again and
reverse his prior ruling. You have to seriously admire a judge who is
willing to do this. In the prior ruling, we didn't think the court fully
appreciated certain points, which resulted in an adverse decision , so we
asked the court to reconsider. In granting our motion for reconsideration,
Judge Hamilton held that preemption does not apply because 'drug
manufacturers have the authority to strengthen warnings without the advance
permission of the FDA' and that drug manufacturers (as opposed to the FDA)
have 'the ongoing ability, authority, and responsibility to strengthen a
label.'

Judge Hamilton's ruling ensures that injured victims will be able to seek
redress against negligent drug manufacturers. This is a victory for all
consumers and we hope Judge Hamilton's ruling will be used as a model by
court's in other jurisdictions. When we told our client about the ruling,
she cried. This is one hurdle crossed on the road to seeking redress for
Father Tucker's death."

The Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on two cases invoking FDA preemption
and involving Philip Morris and Wyeth. Each company argues that its product
should be shielded from personal injury suits because they were approved for
use by a federal agency.

The preemption argument suffers from (at least) three fundamental flaws:
First, the argument presumes that FDA surveillance alone provides adequate
safety and that FDA opinion is infallible. Second, it overlooks the fact
that an ESSENTIAL part of the scientific process is analysis of all the
evidence by independent scientists with different points of view. Third,
immunity from liability is a radical departure undermining the foundation of
a democracy whose citizens have the right to judicial review.

See: Why Doctors Should Worry about Preemption by Gregory D. Curfman, M.D.,
Stephen Morrissey, Ph.D., and Jeffrey M. Drazen, M. NEJM, July 3, 2008
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/359/1/1

See also: No Court of Last Resort? FDA Preemption Removes Fear of Liability,
Likely Increasing Risks of Harm by Vera Sharav, The Monitor, (pub.
Association of Clinical Research Professionals), June, 2008. [copy upon
request]

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@ahrp.org
212-595-8974

(Emphasis by Justice Lover)

2008-07-16T15:33:00.000-07:00

http://bipolar.about.com/b/2008/07/16/are-drug-industry-psychiatry-ties-huge.htm

Bipolar Disorder Blog

By Kimberly Read & Marcia Purse, About.com

About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by Steven Gans, MD

Are Drug Industry-Psychiatry Ties Huge?

Wednesday July 16, 2008

At first the probe of financial ties between pharmaceutical companies and psychiatric researchers focused on individual doctors, uncovering some very troubling circumstances. But now Congress is pointing fingers at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) itself.

Watchdog and anti-psychiatry organizations have long been saying that researchers and practitioners are hand-in-glove with "Big Pharma," and it appears that at least in some cases this is true. Limited data shows that drug companies tend to pay psychiatrists more than they do other doctors, and that those who receive money may tend to write more prescriptions for medications made by the companies who paid them. Expect this investigation to continue for a long time.

“With every new revelation, our credibility with patients has been damaged, and we have to protect that first and foremost,” Steven Sharfstein, a former president of the APA and now president of the Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore, told the New York Times. “I think we need to review all arrangements between doctors and industry and be very clear about what constitutes a conflict of interest and what does not.”

Pending in the US Senate is the Physician Payments Sunshine Act that would require drug and device manufacturers to publicly disclose anything of value given to physicians, such as payments, gifts, honoraria or travel above certain amounts. The currently amended bill has the support of major drug manufacturers and pharma associations. It certainly seems like a big step in the right direction.

Does all this worry you? If you are taking prescribed psychiatric medications, does this make you wonder whether your doctor chose your meds because of drug company incentives? For me personally, it doesn't - my psychiatrist has always shown that his primary concern is to find the right meds that work for me. But I know people who say their pdocs won't change their meds no matter what, and that, combined with this probe, does make me wonder about those doctors. What's your opinion? Leave a comment.

~Marcia

THE 16th BLOG FOR THE OUTLAW OF PSYCHIATRY NOW !

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Eli Lilly and Physician Malpractice Education: The Outrage Continues

Friday, July 25, 2008

http://theplazoid.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/is-psychiatry-a-crime-against-humanity/

Is Psychiatry a Crime Against Humanity?

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Barack Obama and John McCain go to war with Big Pharma

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Mothers Tell Harry Reid To Read Up On FDA Antidepressant Warnings

Amy Philo

Vote on "Cloture" Re: S. 3297--Mother's Act--Fails

American Children's Health in Acute

Has Big Pharma Corruption Suppressed Effective Treatment Options?

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNetPosted on July 23, 2008, Printed on July 23, 2008http://www.alternet.org/story/92264/

URGENT! "MOTHERS Act" Bypasses Committee - Set to pass this Saturday

Amy Philo

Federal Judge Reverses His Preemption Ruling in Indiana Paxil Suicide Case

http://bipolar.about.com/b/2008/07/16/are-drug-industry-psychiatry-ties-huge.htm

Bipolar Disorder Blog

Are Drug Industry-Psychiatry Ties Huge?

By Bruce E. Levine, AlterNet
Posted on July 23, 2008, Printed on July 23, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/92264/