** Rob, you don't think the use of psychiatric drugs is
necessarily bad?? Have I missed something? Isn't Paxil a psychiatric
drug?
What has happened that you won't take a stand now about these drugs
when you once did?
Do you think it's just Paxil that's a problem? Well, it isn't.
Drugs that alter brain structure in order to alter brain chemistry
(most psychotropic drugs) are just another cash cow for the
pharmaceutical industry. It has been accepted to not know the
mechanisms by which these drugs "work" (look at the clinical
pharmacology of any of them in the PDR). Because of this, drug makers
can make drugs for which they don't have to be accountable. The
psychiatric classes of drugs are rife with drugs designed not for
efficacy, but for profit.
Have you not read Peter Breggin's books? Dr. Healey's? What
about Ann Tracy's book? John Abramson's? Dr. Glenmullin's? Marcia
Angell, MD, former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of
Medicine has a book titled "The Truth About the Drug Companies". Did
you read this one? How about the list of books on your very own
website?
http://paxilprotest.com/page31.html
How about the now regular exposes about the lies and deceits of the
drug industry? Have you read any of those? Do you not read the vast
number of articles written every month about the shambles made of
people's lives by these drugs? The medical journals have even begun
publishing articles that cast a negative light on these drugs and/or
the drug industry? Did you miss those, Rob?
The articles in the papers are only about those who committed
heinous crimes while on these drugs. There are thousands more who
will never be the same after being seduced by the promise of relief
from depression, anxiety, mania, and psychosis only to find that even
if they suffered only a few mild "side effects" (they're in the
minority) they will never be able to connect emotionally again as they
once did because of the chemical lobotomy they received from these
drugs. Don't forget the physical damage caused by them (adrenal
system, thyroid, circulatory system, hormonal system, etc.).
What about all the people who struggle to stop taking these drugs?
Most go through hell, some have to quit school, some have to leave
their jobs. Some lose their spouses, some their children, some their
friends. Some kill their spouses, children, or friends.
How about the children? 30% of young people entering the more
exclusive colleges in the U.S. are on psychiatric drugs. Fully 50% of
them are talking these drugs by their senior year.
Infants are now being diagnosed with psychiatric disorders and
drugged. Most young children taking psychotropic drugs now are taking
2,3, or 4 of them. This happens because the drugs don't work for what
we are told they work for. Parents note their children are no better,
and often worse and complain to their physicians. The physicians, who
have been lied to just as much as the lay public, mindlessly write for
yet another drug to be added to the drug regime because when they
phone the pharmaceutical companies to tell them the drug is not
working as intended, they are told that the child has a
"treatment-resistant illness and advise physicians to add a drug,
often one of their own. They have no evidence that this combination
works to resolve the child's "mental illness" but they don't need it
because of people who can be so easily convinced that these drugs ARE
efficacious and it must be a problem with the patient if they don't
work.
Here is an example of one of the latest excuses told by
pharmaceutical companies to physicians when physicians, who are
beginning to doubt these drugs, seek their "expertise" in sorting out
why the child (or adult) has not improved:
TJ - aged 10. On psychotropic drugs since the age of 5. 1st
diagnosis -- ADHD. When the entire drug selection targeted for this
alleged disorder had been tried with poor results and TJ was
deteriorating from having his young, developing brain assaulted by
amphetamines, TJ was given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Gee,
could it have been the rapid withdrawal from all the amphetamine-based
drugs given to him that made his behavior and moods unpredictable?
After being treated with more than 14 drugs, including
anti-psychotics, for this alleged disorder and being worse off than
ever, TJ's "specialists" from a large, well respected psychiatric
hospital in NY phoned one of the drug companies. They were told that
TJ's problem was that his "illness" was "progressive" and that's why
the drugs weren't working for him. A recommendation was made for a
chemical straitjacket of 5 drugs, 2 of which were anti-psychotics.
This did the trick. TJ is so drugged he can no longer participate in
school, has seizures several times a day, is unable to complete a
sentence any time he tries to talk, and is often found in the yard
sleeping on the ground while his siblings play around him. When his
parents question any of this, they are reassured that although this is
a progressive illness and TJ will always be ill, the doctors will keep
trying until they find something that "works" for TJ. The parents go
home relieved, and glad that the doctors care so much and are taking
such good care of TJ.
There are hundreds of thousands of TJs out there today, Rob, not to
mention all the adults. Do you think your comments helped or hurt
those who are trying to help them?
Did they put something in the water in your hotel that's affected
your memory, Rob? It makes absolutely no sense to me that you would
defend psychiatric medicine the way you did when you had the
opportunity to be heard.
Frankly, I believe you are currently more of a liability than a
help to the movement that wants psychiatry and drug companies to stop
injuring people with psychotropic drugs. Until you find again what
you once knew and are willing to stand up and speak out about it, I,
for one, am boycotting your website, and I am suggesting to the 530
members of my psychotropic drug recovery group that they do so also.
A most puzzled and disappointed,
Catherine Creel
(Withdrawal_and_Recovery)
Entire article
Protest at GSK Criticizes Drug
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/12749439.htm
Protest at Glaxo criticizes drug
Demonstrators, who planned a 3-day vigil, were demanding recall of
antidepressant Paxil.
By Thomas Ginsberg
Inquirer Staff Writer
A handful of protesters began a three-day vigil yesterday outside the Center
City offices of GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., calling on the global drugmaker to
recall its controversial antidepressant, Paxil.
"I felt like I was used by GlaxoSmithKline as a disposable lab rat to feed
their multibillion-dollar revenue stream," said Rob Robinson, the
Tennessee-based protest organizer, who contends that Paxil is addictive and
gave him anxiety attacks and violent thoughts.
GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman Mary Anne Rhyne said the company had no plans to
recall the drug, as the protesters demanded.
"While we sympathize with anyone facing health challenges, we do not believe
science supports the claims voiced by the individuals involved in this
event," a company statement said.
Last October, the Food and Drug Administration ordered makers of all
antidepressants to label them with bold-faced warnings about the risk of
suicide and depression for children. Last year, GlaxoSmithKline said it paid
$2.5 million to settle a New York state lawsuit alleging the company hid
studies showing negative effects of Paxil. It also agreed to post on the
Internet all studies about Paxil, which was approved by the FDA in 1992.
The fine equaled about one day's worth of Paxil's annual sales revenue,
which was $950 million worldwide last year. Sales of most antidepressants
known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, have slumped
from fear of suicide and addictiveness.
Similar drugs include Prozac, made by Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly & Co.;
Zoloft, made by New York-based Pfizer Inc.; Forest Laboratories Inc.'s
Celexa and Lexapro; and Effexor, made by Wyeth, with pharmaceutical
headquarters in Collegeville.
Robinson, who is a member of a federal class-action lawsuit against
GlaxoSmithKline, said he broke his four-year addiction in 2002 and began
organizing the protest four months ago, starting in Philadelphia because
"this is their corporate castle in the U.S."
Standing with his wife in front of the drugmaker's 16th Street offices,
Robinson, 45, a former general contractor from Chattanooga, Tenn., said he
was not opposed to prescription drugs or to psychiatry overall. He rejected
the actor Tom Cruise's well-publicized criticism of psychiatry as
"pseudoscience."
"I don't think the use of psychiatric drugs is necessarily bad," Robinson
said.
Ryan Yorke, 17, a protester and former Paxil user from Clark, N.J., blamed
Paxil for episodes of rage and depression he said he felt since first taking
the drug following an anxiety attack. "Drugs, they're not all bad. But you
see the money the companies are making and putting money before human life,"
he said.
Robinson, with about 10 protesters supporting him, said he planned to remain
outside GlaxoSmithKline until tomorrow and has rented an airplane to fly
over the area trailing a banner opposing Paxil.
Joseph Rogers, executive director of the Mental Health Association of
Southeastern Pennsylvania, faulted drug companies for withholding negative
data, but said many people still benefited from the drugs.
"What we need is psychiatrists who are trained in these drugs," Rogers said,
"and we need consumers who have information" to make better decisions.
Read what GlaxoSmithKline, the Paxil protesters and the Food and Drug
Administration have to say about the antidepressant at
http://go.philly.com/paxil.
--
Regards,
Catherine
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