Susan wrote
.
>Other than the fact that you hate psychiatry and science, I don't see what
>your problem is here. Shall we not diagnose and treat people who are ill?
>Should we just take schizophrenics off their meds and stuff them into
>padded rooms?
Hi Susan,
Just because something is labeled "science", doesn't make it valid. Even
doctors are becoming disenchanted with psychiatry, which in my opinion rivals
Neo Darwinism for pseudo science. Following are excerpts from one such
doctor to the Surgeon General concerning his recent Report on Mental Health.
Dear Dr. Satcher,
Releasing your Report on Mental Health (December 13, 1999), you
alleged:
"Mental illness is no different than diabetes, asthma or other physical
Ailments. Mental illnesses are physical illnesses . We know the chemical
disorders we are treating."
Having gone to medical school and studied pathology--disease, then,
diagnosis, you and I, and all physicians, know that the presence of any
bona fide disease, like diabetes, cancer, or epilepsy is confirmed by an
objective finding--a physical or chemical abnormality. No demonstrable
physical or chemical abnormality: no disease! You also know, I am
sure, that there is no physical or chemical abnormality to be found, in
life, or at autopsy in "depression, bipolar disorder and other mental
illnesses." Why, then, are you telling the American people that "mental
illnesses" are "physical" and that they are due to "chemical disorders"?
Patients with psychological/psychiatric symptoms, some needing referral
to a mental health professional, are derived from among those determined
by non-psychiatric physicians to have "no disease"; no physical or
chemical abnormality. Psychiatrists do not perform physical
examinations or neurological examinations (that by which disease of the
brain and nervous system is determined to be present or absent). That
this is the case, makes their claims of diagnosing and treating
"biologically based brain diseases", all the more unbelievable.
Psychiatrists and psychologists, using interviews and pencil-and-paper
psychometric tests, who tell patients they have diagnosed a physical
state or disease, are charlatans.
In what appears to be a further attempt to represent mental disorders as
actual diseases, you say:
"Mental disorders are not character flaws but are legitimate illnesses
that respond to specific treatments, just as other health
conditions. Mental illness includes a variety of disorders characterized
by alterations in thinking, like Alzheimer's disease; in mood, like
depression, or in behavior, like hyperactivity."
Here, you disavow that our character and our emotional selves are
shaped by parents, teachers, peers, hunger, want, fun, kindness,
discipline, and whether or not we are given the essential tool of
reading. You seem to be saying that however we misbehave or whatever
painful emotion we experience, we have a disease, and there is medical
treatment for itÑa drug.
What is your purpose in co-mingling AlzheimerÕs disease, an actual
disease with known microscopic abnormalities of the brain with
"depression" and "hyperactivity" which are normal occurrences in normal
children and adults? It is a common semantic strategy, of modern-day
psychiatry to co-mingle actual brain diseases, like AlzheimerÕs and
HuntingtonÕs diseases with mental conditions, in hopes that the public
will view all of them as diseases in need of medical treatmentÑdrug
treatment.
Further, you propose:
"that people with mental health problems and mental illnesses
can live happier, more productive lives with the help of therapy and
medication."
Surely you noticed, as you reviewed the psychiatric drug literature,
that there is virtually no such thing as a long-term study. Most drug
trials last just a few weeks to a few months. And yet they give the
impression that safety and efficacy are assured. Psychiatric research
does not address the long term. Whether or not any psychiatric drug, or
combination of drugs, makes us more adaptable and efficient over the
long-term, or the life-span, is simply not known and should not be urged
upon the public as though it were. All such drugs are brain-altering
and brain-damaging and cannot but have a damaging, deleterious effect
over the long term. Consider the 10 percent brain atrophy in children
on long-term Ritalin/stimulant therapy. And this is not to mention the
invariable, stigmatizing effects of psychiatric labeling and life as a
psychiatric patient-in-perpetuity.
You add:
"My hope is that the report will be a turning point in how this nation
views mental illness."
You would have the nation believeÑas is totally inconsistent with
medical science-- that mental illnesses are due to demonstrable
physical/chemical abnormalities of the brain and that medical treatment,
that is, psychiatric drug treatment, is the only logical remedy.
Remarkably enough, this message corresponds with the lynch-pin of
psychopharm cartel marketplace propaganda.
An ad placed by "America's Pharmaceutical Research Companies," in
Newsweek, October 7, 1996, reads:
"A chemical that triggers mental illness is now being used to stop it.
Drugs that act on this chemical in the brain are used to treat
schizophrenia and psychosis."
Such is the "big lie" of biopsychiatry, weaving illusions of diseases of
the brain (pathology--objective abnormalities of organs, tissues, cells
seen by microscope, electron microscope) and biochemistry (high blood
sugar in diabetes, galactose in galactosemia; phenylalanine in
phenylketonuriaÑbona fide chemical imbalances).
The ad continues:
"A chemical that triggers mental illness. Drugs that act on this
Chemical. Scientists now know the causes of schizophrenia and psychosis
are often rooted in powerful chemicals in the brain called
neurotransmitters. One of these neurotransmitters is dopamine.
Schizophrenia and psychosis can result when the brain has abnormal
dopamine levels. Because of recent advances, drugs that are able to alter
dopamine levels free many patients from the terrible effects of mental
illness."
Herein the psychopharm cartel claims that schizophrenia and psychosis
can result from abnormal levels of dopamine, also that they have drugs
that can preferentially alter dopamine levels and "free many patients
from the terrible effects of mental disease". They have the audacity to
blatantly lie to the American peopleÑwould-be patients, consumers of
their drugs, even though no confirmatory, characteristic, physical or
chemical abnormality is known to exist, in schizophrenia, or in any
psychiatric disease; even when the specific brain chemicals effected by
their drugs, remains wholly theoretical and unproven.
Having failed to prove or verify a biologic/organic cause for
schizophrenia, organic or any pure "mental illness", why are they
allowed to persist with their claims of "disease"?
Having claimed a chemical "imbalance," they, just as quickly, claim to
have the "chemical balancer".. This is the "line" of biopsychiatry--in
bed with the pharmaceutical industry. Without an illusion of a disease;
a chemical imbalance, they would have nothing for which to prescribe
their "chemical balancer", their drug.
Not having proven that mental illnesses are anything biologic/organic,
i.e., real diseases, they have failed at the same time to prove that the
symptoms of the "mental illnesses" or which they speak are other than
situational or environmental in origin, the result of the rigors of
life, at home, at school and on the job. With no proof whatsoever they
tell you "it is in your brain" it isnÕt your fault, your boss's,
teacher's or your parent's fault. Doing so, in the interests of selling
their pills, they dissuade troubled persons from looking at and
addressing lifeÕs real problems. What a truly duplicitous, evil,
undertaking. It is a prescription which, if followed to the letter, is
guaranteed to do net damage.
(snip)
Your role in this deception and victimization is clear. Whether you are
a physician, so unscientific, that you cannot read their contrived,
"neurobiologic" literature and see the fraud, or whether you see it and
choose to be an accomplice--you should resign.
Truly yours,
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
The entire letter can be read at:
http://www.egroups.com/group/criticalpsychiatry/308.html?
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