MAD IN AMERICA.

Psychiatric Drugs: An Assault on the Human Condition.

Street Spirit Interview with Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America.

"Investigative reporter Robert Whitaker, author of the groundbreaking book Mad In America, is now pursuing a fascinating line of research into how the mammoth psychiatric drug industry is endangering the American public by covering up the untold cases of suffering, anguish and disease caused by the most widely prescribed antidepressants and antipsychotic medications.

Whitaker exposes the massive lies and cover-ups that have corrupted the Food and Drug Administration's drug review process, and co-opted research trials in order to spin the results of drug tests and conceal the serious hazards and even deadly side-effects of brand-name drugs like Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and Zyprexa.

The story becomes even more frightening when we look at the aggressive tactics these giant drug companies have used to silence prominent critics by defaming them in the press, and by using their money and power to have widely respected scientists and eminent medical researchers fired for daring to point out the hazards and risks of suicide and premature death caused by these drugs.

Whitaker starts by debunking the effectiveness of these massively hyped wonder drugs -- antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil, and the new atypical antipsychotic drugs like Zyprexa. His research shows how they often are barely more effective than placebos in treating mental disorder and depression, despite the glowing adulation they have received in the mainstream media.

But he goes on to make the startling claim that these new psychiatric drugs have directly contributed to an alarming new epidemic of drug-induced mental illness. The very drugs prescribed by physicians to stabilize mental disorders in fact are inducing pathological changes in brain chemistry and triggering suicide, manic and psychotic episodes, convulsions, violence, diabetes, pancreatic failure, metabolic diseases, and premature death.

Whitaker originally was a highly regarded science reporter for the Boston Globe. When he began to research a series on psychiatric issues for the Globe, he was still a believer in the story of progress that psychiatry has been telling the public for decades.

He said, "I absolutely believed the common wisdom that these antipsychotic drugs actually had improved things and that they had totally revolutionized how we treated schizophrenia. People used to be locked away forever, and now maybe things weren't great, but they were a lot better. It was a story of progress."

That story of progress was fraudulent, as Whitaker soon found out when he gained new insight from his research into torturous psychiatric practices such as electroshock, lobotomy, insulin coma, and neuroleptic drugs. Psychiatrists told the public that these techniques "cured" psychosis or balanced the chemistry of the brain.

But, in reality, the common thread in all these different treatments was the attempt to suppress "mental illness" by deliberately damaging the higher functions of the brain. The stunning truth is that, behind closed doors, the psychiatric establishment itself labeled these treatments as "brain-damaging therapeutics."

The first generation of antipsychotic drugs created a drug-induced brain pathology by blocking the neurotransmitter dopamine and essentially shutting down many higher brain functions. In fact, when antipsychotics such as Thorazine and Haldol were first introduced, psychiatrists themselves said that these neuroleptic drugs were virtually indistinguishable from a "chemical lobotomy."

In recent years, the media have heralded the arrival of so-called designer drugs like Prozac, Paxil and Zyprexa that are supposed to be superior and have fewer side effects than the old tricyclic antidepressants and the first antipsychotics. Millions of Americans have believed this story and have enriched drug companies like Eli Lilly by spending billions of dollars annually to purchase these new medications.

Whitaker's research into the tragic cases of disease, suffering and early deaths caused by these drugs shows that millions of consumers have been misled by a massive campaign of lies, distortions, and bought-and-paid-for drug trials. Eminent medical researchers who have tried to warn us of the perils of these drugs have been silenced, intimidated and defamed. In the process, the Food and Drug Administration has become the lapdog of the giant pharmaceutical industry, not its watchdog.

Street Spirit interviewed Robert Whitaker about this new "epidemic" of mental disorders, and how the giant drug companies have profited from selling drugs that make us sicker."

More> http://thestreetspirit.org/August2005/interview.htm

good post . too bad nothing is done .
12 years later and the mental health business keeps making billion$
money n power vs. sick people

PSYisaSCAM wrote:good post . too bad nothing is done .
12 years later and the mental health business keeps making billion$
money n power vs. sick people

This is the way psychiatry dies, not with a bang but with a whimper...

They are dying but so slowly, the truth about psychiatry is easily found on the internet but if you talk to the average person most people still believe things like the low serotonin lie.

It is because the fake news "ask your doctor" US corporate state-run media refuses to inform the public. The media is owned by 5 or 6 mega-media companies run by corporate advertising executives and Washington.

Even Google is burying anti psychiatry links in search results now.

I think we will beat them anyway, it only takes one view of a webpage or video explaining the lies of biological psychiatry for a person to be woken up and be forever immune to psych industry propaganda.

Don't get discouraged, keep pasting and posting the truth online anywhere and everywhere where people will see it.

They may have money and power but we have the truth and that scares them.

I was given a first generation anti psychotic in a mental hospital and then for months afterwards.




It felt like a chemical lobotomy. yes. i struggle to get back to where I was before.




If you are a parent you should be very concerned what your kid is given and especially in places where you have no control over whats happening to them such as a mental hospital.


I was threatened and I believe they messed with me quite a bit when I was in one.

Don't get discouraged, keep pasting and posting the truth online anywhere and everywhere where people will see it.

They may have money and power but we have the truth and that scares them.

Amen.

Advocate anywhere for that matter.

I was extremely shocked to learn what power psychiatrists gained in the US. It seems absolutely unbelievable.
But since you guys, the Americans, have developed democracy you should use all democratic mechanisms to stop psychiatry growth. You have a lot of options to attract public attention to the phenomena, you can expose downsides of psychiatric medication in media. Don't hesitate to write to some state and fed congressmen who in your view can support anti-psychiatric movement, ask Trump via his Fox news channel what he thinks about that total medication of adults and particularly the children.
I may have some idealistic and wrong understanding of the American political system, this is the view of a stranger, but why not to try?

Polozker wrote:I was extremely shocked to learn what power psychiatrists gained in the US. It seems absolutely unbelievable.
But since you guys, the Americans, have developed democracy you should use all democratic mechanisms to stop psychiatry growth. You have a lot of options to attract public attention to the phenomena, you can expose downsides of psychiatric medication in media. Don't hesitate to write to some state and fed congressmen who in your view can support anti-psychiatric movement, ask Trump via his Fox news channel what he thinks about that total medication of adults and particularly the children.
I may have some idealistic and wrong understanding of the American political system, this is the view of a stranger, but why not to try?

The power psychiatrists hold, at least in some states, is profound. They can literally commit you without evidence, without a lawyer- and without any rights. Their word in court is taken as that of God.

Most people would think this is not a problem if the patient is actually a danger to himself/herself or to others- and its not- until said power is abused to commit those who are not a threat or in any actual danger.

Psychiatry in the US has always been about instigation and committing all people no questions asked. Its very profitable, and adding an element of instigation grantees patients appears certifiable to the rest of the world. Any type of abuse or malpractice- and I mean any abuse or malpractice that takes place behind locked doors goes unpunished.

Speaking out is key IMO. Its the key to giving the most vulnerable and helpless a voice including those who may become so in the future. I've seen many anti-psych and psych reform people on line being discredited (accused) by others as knowing nothing about psychiatry or simply holding such opinions through You Tube videos, but in truth I've started to see that the majority of these people are in fact patients or ex-patients. I can't think of something that would hold more weight to getting the truth out.

Riccola wrote:The power psychiatrists hold, at least in some states, is profound. They can literally commit you without evidence, without a lawyer- and without any rights. Their word in court is taken as that of God.

Sad to read that. It is terribly dangerous to put the entire nation in the hands of the people who represent social institution having as you've once said "grotesque of history of human rights abuse". It is terribly dangerous to put the nations in the hands of the people who use extremely questionable theories to classify and cure their patient, who prescribe to millions of people medications which have horrendous adverse effects.
What will happen if the situation will last for a few generations? Do all these phycotich drugs influence reproductive systems of medicalised children, teens, and adults?
Can the psychiatrists garante that the children of the medicalised will be healthy?
If the psychiatrists don't use the ancient medical principle "Primum non nocere"! "Make no harm"! prescribing all those chemicals indiscriminately, the society must take the action and stop that very dangerous affaire.
Future historians will have to investigate how the psychiatrists gained such incredible power in the US. Philosophers can already try to discover the reasons why that has happened. It seems that the problem has already attracted mass attention. Public discussions rise everywhere in the world. I found a lot of brilliant movies explaining the situation.
I think democratic societies should not only stop mass medicalisation but go further and also rethink the anti-phyciatric ideas and close mad houses, release its prisoners, because the educated, ethical people can tolerate all kinds of un-habitual behaviour performed by some individuals.
There is no place in the developed societies for labels, for violence, for coercive treatment. We, as the civilised people can tolerate others.

PS. Here is a very interesting discussion about the issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlFbuqunb1I&t=4137s

Polozker wrote:I think democratic societies should not only stop mass medicalisation but go further and also rethink the anti-phyciatric ideas and close mad houses, release its prisoners, because the educated, ethical people can tolerate all kinds of un-habitual behaviour performed by some individuals.
There is no place in the developed societies for labels, for violence, for coercive treatment. We, as the civilised people can tolerate others.

I fully agree, especially when a large number of those un-habitual behaviors are iatrogenically created by the institutions themselves. Sanctioning non dangerous people away from society is the epitome of social engineering. Only the most fascist regimes in history would commit people simply for holding differing views or religious beliefs. With psychiatry doing as it pleases, the US is far from a free nation.

most people in psych prisons are drug addicts .

shrinks use drug laws to get power over them .

so maybe the first step would be to change the drug laws .

drug addiction should not make someone a criminal