blogs created to prevent or detect a crime http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1997/ukpga_19970040_en_1

This blog is brougt to you consistent with subsection 3 of the Protection from Harassment Act - i.e. blogs created to prevent or detect a crime http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1997/ukpga_19970040_en_1



Monday 27 February 2012

3 weeks after killer Shane Clancy struck - Scientology / CCHR exploited the tradgedy & FIDDAMAN continues to this day

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/city-news/scientologys-drugs-message-after-bray-murder-1880108.html








By Claire Murphy



Monday September 07 2009



Quote>>>>A Church of Scientology-backed organisation has distributed free DVDs about anti-depressant drugs in the area where killer Shane Clancy lived.



The group, called the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), has given out copies of a documentary to residents in the Dalkey area, just weeks after the tragic murder-suicide in Bray.



Reports have indicated that gardai are investigating whether Shane, who murdered Seb Creane (22) before killing himself, may have misused anti-depressants that had been prescribed for him a week before the tragic night.



The DVD, which is also available online, details interviews with psychiatrists, psychologists, and journalists, exposing what it calls "psychiatric violations of human rights."



Making A Killing: The Untold Story Of Psychotropic Drugging is made in the US, but has been distributed in Ireland by a branch of the CCHR.



The DVD's tagline says it tells the "story of big-money drugs that fuel a $330bn psychiatric industry, without a single cure."



But since its release, one professional involved with the DVD has distanced himself from the CCHR.



Professor Howard Brody said that he believes anything produced by this organisation requires independent confirmation.



He said: "I regret very much allowing myself to have become involved in this project and would like it to be known that I disown and disapprove of the final product and the way that it has been disseminated."



One expert witness at the Columbine shootings has contacted the Herald to say that Shane Clancy may have reacted negatively to anti-depressants, affecting his state of mind at the time of the attack.



The executive director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness, Dr Ann Tracy, believes that Shane may have lacked vital liver function necessary to metabolise anti-depressants. <<<<



ethercat:

The rest of the article:

Quote>>>>The US-based doctor pointed out that if levels of anti-depressant in Shane's blood were high, it does not necessarily mean that he was taking more than he should have.



She said: "It can mean that he, like seven to 10pc of the population, lacked the liver function necessary to break down the drug causing it to build to toxic levels."



CCHR spokesman Brian Daniels said the DVD was intended to "let the public know what is going on."



He said: "There are undiagnosed physical conditions which can manifest as mental illness."

http://forum.reachingforthetippingpoint.net/index.php?topic=713.0;wap2

clairemurphy@herald.ie





GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) has the right to sell an authorized copy of its Paxil CR antidepressant to Apotex - FIDDAMAN blog has NO influence - cringe

GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK) has the right to sell an authorized copy of its Paxil CR antidepressant to Apotex Inc., a U.S. judge ruled, denying a bid by Mylan (MYL) Inc. to block such sales.




Mylan (MYL), the generic-drug company which signed a two-year licensing agreement in 2008 to market a copy of Paxil CR, claimed that Glaxo breached that contract by working with Toronto-based Apotex to sell a copy of the drug. U.S. District Judge Joel Pisano ruled that the agreement allowed Glaxo to sell generic Paxil CR to Apotex.



The license was “clear and unambiguous” and that let London-based Glaxo choose whomever it wanted to work with, Pisano ruled yesterday in federal court in Trenton, New Jersey.



“The language plainly states that GSK may commence marketing and selling of authorized generic Paxil CR after Mylan’s two-year period of exclusivity,” Pisano ruled. “GSK did exactly that. It marketed and sold authorized generic Paxil CR to Apotex.”



The case is Mylan Inc. v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 10-cv- 4809, U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey (Trenton).



To contact the reporter on this story: David Voreacos in Newark, New Jersey at dvoreacos@bloomberg.net.



R v Smallshire - NOT influenced by Citalopram - evidence of Dr Herxheimer is not evidence that should be received on the appeal - discredited like FIDDAMAN

R v Smallshire -  extract




[18] It is against this background that we turn to the question as to whether Dr Herxheimer's evidence is capable of belief and whether it affords grounds for allowing the appeal on the basis of a defence of automatism. The account given by Mr Smallshire to the police who went to his house on 16 December 2008, after the incident, was that after the trouble between the dogs, he “went inside my house and took a knife from the kitchen drawer. I went outside and stabbed the man who was with the dogs. The knife broke and I had no idea where it is.” He said after arrest: “I know I have
done wrong. What I have done is totally out of proportion to what happened.”


[20] In his interview on 19 December 2005, he said that he “just went absolutely berserk”. Again, there is nothing that would amount to an assertion of automatism. He described choosing the knife as “a split second decision” and that he ploughed into the bloke because: “I saw the situation that I had got to get the upper hand.” He spoke of his intention being to get Mr Oakley away from his wife.

He said that when he struck with the knife: “My main concern was to get the situation under  control.”

[21] These are not accounts that amount to an assertion of automatism or state anything indicative of the loss of voluntary control that would amount to a defence of automatism. Dr Herxheimer's opinion that Mr Smallshire's actions are more likely than not the result of automatism do not explain these accounts of what happened. Without that, we are unable to accept that the evidence affords any grounds to allowing the appeal. The bald assertion that Mr Smallshire was more likely than not in a state of automatism is not, without attributing to Dr Herxheimer any intention to mislead
whatsoever, capable of belief. The question is not whether the effects of Citalopram are capable of giving rise to a state of automatism in other circumstances, but whether there is a credible evidence that they did so in this case. Dr Herxheimer's reports do not provide credible evidence that they did.


[22] In these circumstances the evidence of Dr Herxheimer is not evidence that should be received on the appeal. Without it, the appeal is hopeless. The application for leave to appeal against conviction is, for that reason, refused.

source - http://leoniefennell.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/r-v-smallshire.pdf

Sunday 26 February 2012

seroxat claims - new web site - Specialist seroxat claims compensation solicitors throughout the UK

Specialist seroxat claims compensation solicitors throughout the UK

Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence Claims News from gocompensate.com






http://www.seroxatclaims.co.uk/

Dr Peter Breggin on ECT Electroconvulsant Therapy promoting FIDDAMAN friend Dr David Healy - FACEBOOK link

Electroconvulsive ECT is the most effective treatment for severe depressive disorder - David Healy FIDDAMAN

CARDIFF – No medical therapy is treated more differently by countries, regions, hospitals, and doctors than electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). This is surprising in an era when treatments that work should supposedly be used with some uniformity. In fact, despite a consensus that ECT is the most effective treatment for severe depressive disorder, it comes at the bottom of the list in most treatment regimens for mood disorders.




Some of the unease about ECT stems from psychiatry’s dark past, when patients in many countries had fewer legal rights than prisoners. Not so long ago, physical treatments such as lobotomy and ECT could be inflicted on patients without their consent, and sometimes for punitive purposes.



But there is no comparable protest against the use of antipsychotic drugs, which have similarly been forced on people – and even used to torture prisoners. And, whereas few people now get ECT involuntarily, and in all cases consent is sought, a large and growing number get antipsychotic drugs under false pretences, including children, vulnerable adults, patients with Alzheimer’s, and a host of others whose lives are shortened by treatment, with no effort undertaken to seek their consent.



Although ECT’s opponents believe that it causes brain damage, this is difficult to prove. Like antipsychotic drugs, antidepressants, and tranquilizers, ECT has an immediate organic effect. But, while ECT rarely, if ever, causes clear clinical evidence of brain damage and has not been shown to do so in animal studies, antipsychotic drugs regularly do, in the form of tardive dyskinesia and other syndromes. The same is true of antidepressants.



There is no dispute that ECT can cause short-term memory loss. But critics have found it difficult to demonstrate memory or other cognitive problems that endure beyond three months. Nor can enduring autobiographical memory disturbances and inability to remember lists be readily attributed to ECT, because ECT is rarely given on its own.



Indeed, very few of those who receive ECT do not also receive benzodiazepines, which do cause significant autobiographical memory problems when given alone, and antipsychotic drugs, which cause difficulties with lists of names or telephone numbers, and other comparable problems. Yet these drugs are rarely, if ever, blamed for cognitive disturbances following psychiatric treatment.



The failure of ECT’s critics to demonstrate what to them seems obvious indicates an active conspiracy to minimize treatment-induced problems and to block those who have been injured by treatment from seeking redress. In fact, at recent guideline meetings in the United Kingdom on the issue of ECT, there have been no representatives from psychiatry, but many from patient groups. Organized psychiatry appears to have little interest in ECT, or is scared of harassment from patient advocates.



As a result, even evidence that a person’s mood and clinical state has been significantly improved after ECT can be transformed into evidence of brain damage. When patients come forward to say they were helped by ECT, or a patient’s medical record points to clinical improvement with treatment, the apparent improvements are read as indicating the disinhibition and vacuousness that accompanies brain damage.



There are better targets in mental health than ECT. Where is the concern about the millions who are becoming physically dependent on antidepressants? Where are the protests about the one-year-olds being treated with antipsychotic drugs? How is it possible that, because no company with currently patented drugs is campaigning to help medical and nursing staff recognize the catatonic features displayed by one in ten patients going through a psychiatric unit – features that could be treated rapidly with benzodiazepines or ECT – these features are missed completely? Why is it all but impossible to find anything but vilification of ECT on the Internet, and anything but glowing testimonies about drug treatments?



ECT’s critics seem to think that if they do not protest against its use at every opportunity, its advocates will inflict it on people who do not need it. But, in contrast to psychotropic drugs, there are no marketing departments geared to maximizing ECT.



This visceral focus on ECT has almost certainly led to ever more people ending up on drugs, and ever more brain damage and memory problems as a consequence. It sometimes seems that the critics are behaving according to the romantic illusion that if they can just abolish ECT, mental illness will disappear with it. Sigmund Freud would have been fascinated.



David Healy is Professor of Psychiatry in Cardiff University; he has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving SSRI drugs, and in bringing these problems to the attention of American and British regulators.



Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2008.

www.project-syndicate.org



David Healy kite flying? did the lay media blow it out of all proportion - Healy proposed a debate FIDDAMAN

If the issues have been blown out of all proportion by the lay media, I would imagine it should be pretty clear at the end of the evening that this was the case and that this might dispel undue media frenzy. I agree fully that, if I am wrong on the issues, dispelling misconceptions would be for the best.






extract from - http://www.healyprozac.com/ re - Goodwin Healy Debate.doc





Department of Psychological Medicine
Hergest Unit
Ysbyty Gwynedd
BANGOR
Gwynedd LL57 2PW
Tel : (01248) 384452
Fax : (01248) 371397

12th October 2004







Professor Guy Goodwin
WA Handley Professor of Psychiatry
University Department of Psychiatry
Warneford Hospital
Headington
Oxford
OX3 7JX


Dear Guy







In the wake of the recent Panorama programme the BMJ ran an editorial by John

Geddes, as it has previously run commentaries by Phil and others after previous

programmes. The editorial, and a further piece in that edition of the BMJ by

Patrick Waller, suggests that the harm the media may be doing in this area may

outweigh any good.







The problem, John’s editorial suggests, if it exists at all, is small. However, even

a very small problem multiplied up by 50-100 million people can become the

biggest drug problem of all time. It is a matter of some importance therefore to

establish whether there is a problem or not, or perhaps a problem on balance or

not.







Patrick Waller’s piece complained that distinguished voices gave rise to concerns

but no data was presented. Programmes like Panorama however are not well

suited to the presentation of data. They do not pretend to offer an academic

forum.







To this end I am writing to you to propose a public airing of the issues. A debate

is one format but the volume of available data that needs to be presented may

make this unrealistic. Also, my experience of other debates in this area is that

this format can become quite ad hominem, owing to canvassing by some of the

companies who have attempted to cloud the issues by planting questions aimed

at impugning my motives and otherwise throwing sand in the eyes of any

audience.







A better format might involve a somewhat lengthier exposition of the clinical trial

and epidemiological evidence than a debate would allow in a manner that might

manuscript and slides.







Whatever format, it would be a good idea if the audience included

representatives of the major academic media such as the BMJ, the Lancet and

the British Journal of Psychiatry. It would also be useful to have representatives

of Panorama, the Guardian and other media of your choosing, as well

representatives from the regulatory apparatus and even formal company

representation. If the issues have been blown out of all proportion by the lay

media, I would imagine it should be pretty clear at the end of the evening that this

was the case and that this might dispel undue media frenzy. I agree fully that, if I

am wrong on the issues, dispelling misconceptions would be for the best. For

this reason I would invite you to set up a presentation/encounter. Editorials and

comments even in the BMJ are no substitute for a proper and open debate.







I will also be writing to Robin Murray on this issue, as even before this latest fuss







I had proposed such an idea to Simon Wessely.







Yours sincerely







Dr David Healy







Director of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine







cc.







Professor John Geddes, Senior Clinical Research Fellow, Dept of Psychiatry,
University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Headington, Oxford OX3 7JX
Dr Kamran Abbasi, Acting Editor, British Medical Journal, BMJ Publishing Group,
BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JR
Dr Richard Horton, Editor, The Lancet, The Lancet Publishing Group, 32
Jamestown Road, London NW1 7BY
Professor David Weatherall, The Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine,
John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford OX3 9DS
Dr M Shooter, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 17 Belgrve Square, London SW1X 8PG
Professor P Tyrer, Editor, British Journal of Psychiatry, Royal College of
Psychiatrists

Sarah Boseley, Health Correspondent, The Guardian, 119 Farringdon Road,
London EC1R 3ER

Saturday 25 February 2012

GlaxoSmithKline GSK prevented from saving lives - thoughtless idiots like FIDDAMAN condem cancer patients to the grave

Ministers have rejected claims by the UK's biggest drug firm GlaxoSmithKline that new cancer treatments are being delayed to save money.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17163958




"Strategic thoughtfulness" was being lost in the "stampede" to cut costs, GSK chief Sir  Andrew Witty said.



It was a Europe-wide problem as governments coped with austerity and got more anxious about debts, he added.



But the Department of Health said the approval process was getting faster and it had increased spending on new drugs.



Mr Witty, the head of the pharmaceutical giant, told the BBC: "We're seeing oncology drugs being systematically delayed from introduction and reimbursement.



"We're seeing a variety of the more innovative, and yes more expensive medicines, being delayed in a whole series of different diseases across Europe."



"Ultimately it's one of those situations where the drift will be imperceptibly happening, but when you look back in five or 10 years, a huge gap will have opened up."



He also said the government had cut prices by 5% a year as it got more and more anxious about its debt position - costing the firm £300m a year.



New drugs are referred to the National Institute for Clinical Health and Excellence (Nice) by the government, where their cost-effectiveness are assessed.



'Increased health spending'



The DoH said the government had increased spending on health, including new drugs, with thousands more patients getting access to the most advanced treatments.



"The need for careful assessment of drugs' effectiveness by Nice is particularly important for patients and taxpayers during a time of economic austerity," it said.



"The government has not changed any assessment processes relating to cancer drugs.



"Furthermore, drug companies need to look hard at the high costs they are asking of the health service for their latest treatments."



But Prof Jonathan Waxman, professor of Oncology at Imperial College London, said Nice had blocked a number of new cancer drugs offering "significant benefits" to patients.



"Unfortunately, the committee that regulates their availability in the UK has ruled against many of them," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.



"And they've ruled against them on the basis of what many oncologists, many doctors, many cancer doctors believe are unfair grounds."



However, Alan Maynard, a professor of health economics, argued drug firms were demanding much higher prices than were reasonable, and the economies were justified.



"Nice are looking for good evidence and the industry is rather poor in doing good trials and telling us about the full effectiveness - which is often marginal," he said.



"I think it's quite inevitable that in a period of austerity there will be downward pressure on the introduction of new drugs that are not demonstrably good in terms of improving patient health and which are extraordinarily expensive."



GlaxoSmithKline reported pre-tax profits of £1.9bn during the three months to the end of December 2011, up from a £193m loss during the same period in 2010.



For the whole year, the firm reported pre-tax profit of £8.2bn, up from £4.5bn in 2010.

Antidepressants help Osteoarthritis patients like FIDDAMAN - The Evidence is Clear ...

Duloxetine Added to Oral Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs for Treatment of Knee Pain Due to Osteoarthritis: Results of a Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial


Frakes EP, Risser RC, Ball TD, Hochberg MC, Wohlreich MM

Curr Med Res Opin. 2011;27:2361-2372



Study Summary

In a randomized, double-blind, flexible-dose study of duloxetine 60/120 mg/day that enrolled 524 adult outpatients (mean age, 61 years) who had persistent moderate pain due to osteoarthritis of the knee, despite optimized therapy with oral nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, duloxetine-treated patients had significantly greater pain reduction than placebo recipients. Moreover, at week 8, duloxetine-treated patients had significant improvements in physical function and Patient Global Impression of Improvement scores. Finally, significantly more duloxetine recipients than placebo recipients reported nausea, dry mouth, constipation, fatigue, and decreased appetite, and discontinuation due to adverse events occurred more commonly in the duloxetine group than the placebo group.



Viewpoint

Antidepressant treatments have long been used to manage pain syndromes. Duloxetine is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for chronic musculoskeletal pain, including osteoarthritis. The mechanism of action is thought to be related to the amelioration of central pain pathway dysfunction.



It is common for patients to receive a combination of medications for osteoarthritic pain. In this study, 40 of 264 patients (15.2%) receiving adjunctive duloxetine vs 23 of 260 patients (8.8%) receiving adjunctive placebo discontinued therapy because of an adverse event, for a number needed to harm of 16 (95% CI, 9-130). However, moderate improvement in pain (defined by ≥ 30% improvement in the diary-based measure of pain severity) was observed in 139 of 259 patients (53.7%) in the duloxetine group and 86 of 255 patients (33.7%) in the placebo group, for a number needed to treat of 6 (95% CI, 4-9). Although the study was short, it provides a signal that adjunctive duloxetine (and perhaps other antidepressants with similar mechanisms of action on serotonin and norepinephrine receptors) may be useful to consider when treating osteoarthritic pain.



Abstract



source - http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/758616

The Evidence, However, Is Clear...FIDDAMAN had developed an illness, Osteoarthritis

The Evidence, However, Is Clear...The Seroxat Scandal - Google Books Resultbooks.google.co.uk/books?isbn=1849911207...


Bob Fiddaman - Medical

... to a 'Long Term Absence Register' because I had developed an illness, Osteoarthritis of the hips, [1] that didn't allow me to perform the job I was employed for.

Thursday 23 February 2012

Dr Steve Wiseman on CASPER - child/adolescent suicide are highly influenced by the challenges faced by the aboriginal population - FIDDAMAN

Thank-you for your email and for drawing this to my attention. Clearly, this process follows Scientology's/CCHR's typical modus operandi of creating a legitimate-sounding front group, enlisting the help of bereaved or distressed members of the public (and probably putting them in a propaganda video at some point), and cherry-picking / misinterpreting a piece or two of real research to provide a patina of "science" to the whole enterprise.


http://forum.reachingforthetippingpoint.net/index.php/topic,5453.0/prev_next,prev.html#new

The subject of suicide, suicide risks and rates, and suicide prevention is incredibly complex; pulling one or two papers and interpreting them to suit your own needs is not demonstrating any type of understanding of this area. Also, the 2004 study quoted, as it mentions in its own abstract, cannot be used to make conclusions about causation...only correlation, which may be on account of many different factors. CCHR/Scientology makes this mistake over and over again, probably in a very cynical fashion, when it presents stories of people committing suicide or homicide while receiving psychiatric treatment and then concluding the treatment CAUSED the action. And then they call psychiatry a "pseudoscience"?



Suicide rates vary across the lifespan, and in general, older folks (particularly men) end their lives far more frequently than others. So, in an aging population, you will see rates increase even if measures are put in place to reduce them. As there is no control group in this type of study, one simply doesn't know what would happen if the intervention programs DIDN'T exist. Changing rates and trends re: substance abuse are also key factors and need to be considered.



New Zealand figures for child/adolescent suicide are highly influenced by the challenges faced by the aboriginal population, and here one must agree with CASPER in that solutions must be found not only from the perspective of mental health programs, but from larger social and societal changes as well. One cannot separate illness from social conditions/circumstances in this struggling population; to twist this fact into a club by which to strike psychiatry, as CCHR is doing, is as usual both perverse and odious.



The best part of all of this remains the charge that psychiatry is a pseudoscience, when it is an article, or articles, published by mental health professionals in psychiatric journals, that is identifying the issue jumped upon by the CCHR. One of the hallmarks of true science is that a scientist looks long and hard in the mirror, and asks herself the difficult questions, and does not hold on to beliefs in the face of evidence to the contrary. The fact that psychiatry is looking at, and publishing on the surface negative results about, suicide prevention programs is not an example of psychiatry's failure, but of its honesty, courage, and success as a science.



Can you imagine Scientology supporting research and then publishing results identifying situations and circumstances in which auditing has been shown to be entirely unsuccessful? Or journals of homeopathy publishing results suggesting that their methods do not beat a credible placebo in virtually any circumstance? Or an astrology publication letting us know just how many predictions they are failing to make when they look up at the planets?



Finally, CASPER asserts that current methods of reducing suicide rates "cannot work". How do they reach this conclusion? Again typically, what they seem good at is attacking and trying to tear down psychiatric practice...but what do they offer in the alternative? What, specifically, are they suggesting WILL work?



Psychiatry, as a science dedicated to helping people, would love to see CASPER be able to come up with an idea, direction, or program ultimately able to meaningfully reduce suicide rates in children and adolescents. This would be something to be celebrated, applied universally, and "owned" by none. What, specifically, do they propose? And, importantly, how do they propose to measure the results and compare them to the status quo so that we all can know indeed if the new ways are truly effective? This is the standard by which every aspect of psychiatric practice is measured. Of course, it is not perfect, and the desire over time is always to improve.



So, CASPER, the ball is in your court. How do you propose to proceed?



Kind regards,



Steve Wiseman



If CCHR / Scientology are experts on suicide why are these people dead FIDDAMAN?

If CASPER is a CCHR front, and we already know that CCHR is a scientology front, and if CASPER, CCHR, and scientology have the answers to reducing the suicide rate, then one would expect that there wouldn't be any suicides among these people with the answers, right?




Oh really? No suicides? Wait, what are these:



Noah Lottick: http://www.whyaretheydead.info/Noah_Antrim_Lottick_24/index.html

Greg Bashaw: http://www.rickross.com/reference/scientology/scien453.html

Patrice Vic: http://www.whyaretheydead.info/Patrice_Vic_31/index.html

Albert Jaquier: http://www.whyaretheydead.info/krasel/diary_ot7.html

Dale Bogen: http://www.xenu-directory.net/accounts/mary2006.html

John Buchanan: http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/debt.htm

Kaja Bordevich Ballo: http://synthesis.net/2008/04/15/scientology-kills-norwegian-girl/

Philip Gale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Gale



and there are many, many more.



Philip Gale's mother, Marie Gale, was "director of the Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) in the Carolinas and chief national spokeswoman for CCHR." If that doesn't say something about the qualifications and ability of CCHR (and CASPER, as well as scientology) to provide any answers about suicide, I don't know what does.



And we haven't even gotten to the attempted suicides and murders, yet. Logged Why do people join Scientology? Why do they leave?

http://ThroughTheDoor.net



Have you been to Narconon? Please consider taking the Narconon Survey at:

http://reachingforthetippingpoint.net/narcononsurvey/.

Wednesday 22 February 2012

SCIENTOLOGY - CCHR UK front group - list of directors ...no knowledge of mental health - FIDDAMAN blog

CASPER, (Community Action on Suicide Prevention, Education & Research), Maria Bradshaw - another Scientology front



Pt 1 of 8: Maria Bradshaw of CASPER Talks About NZ Suicide Rates & Prevention Strategies, Nov 2 2010



This is part of a talk given by the spokesperson for CASPER, (Community Action on Suicide Prevention, Education & Research), Maria Bradshaw, on November 2nd, 2010. It was given in collaboration with Steve Green of the CCHR, (Citizens Commission on Human Rights) at the Old Library in Whangarei.


Maria, whose son committed suicide while on Prozac, states CASPER was launched earlier in 2010 as they are tired of the sympathetic noises and lengthy statements of commitment to suicide prevention which occur simultaneously with government action which contributes to suicide.

"The Ministry of Health in 2007 published research showing increases in anti-depressant prescribing result in increases in serious suicide attempts, it is aware of research published this year which shows those on antidepressants are five times more likely to commit suicide than those not on the drugs. " A government committed to reducing the suicide rate would not be making these drugs more widely available to a greater number of people." she said.



CASPER website:

http://www.casper.org.nz/home



Monday 20 February 2012

NOCEBO - The pill may be inactive, but the side effects are real - it's all in your head FIDDAMAN

The nocebo response


The pill may be inactive, but the side effects are real.



(This article was first printed in the March 2005 issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter. For more information or to order, please go to http://www.health.harvard.edu/mental.)



About 20% of patients taking a sugar pill in controlled clinical trials of a drug spontaneously report uncomfortable side effects — an even higher percentage if they are asked. These effects are one kind of nocebo — a word that means in Latin “I will harm,” as placebo means “I will please.”



A placebo makes patients feel better for reasons unrelated to the specific healing properties of the treatment. A nocebo makes patients feel worse (or does other harm) in the same way. Common symptoms are drowsiness, headache, mild dizziness, difficulty concentrating, and stomach upset. Many health professionals are not aware of nocebos, yet the reaction can cause patients to drop out of clinical trials, stop taking drugs they need, or end up using other drugs that complicate their treatment.



The nocebo effect can result from conditioning, as when patients become nauseated or even vomit on entering a room where they have recently received chemotherapy. Medications and other treatments take on symbolic features that can have nocebo effects. Red is associated with stimulation, blue with sedation, so red and blue pills may produce those responses as unwanted side effects. Contagious rumor is another source of nocebo responses. Many people who have heard about penicillin allergies, wrongly think that they are allergic to penicillin, and report reactions.



Experiments show the potential of explicit suggestion in medical treatment for good or ill.



Volunteers were told that a mild electrical current would be passed through their heads and might cause a headache. No electrical current was actually passed, but two-thirds of them developed a headache.

Patients with asthma were divided into two groups. One was given a bronchoconstrictor, which ordinarily makes asthma symptoms worse, and told that it was a bronchodilator, which normally improves the symptoms. This placebo suggestion reduced their discomfort by nearly 50%. The second group was given a bronchodilator and told it was a bronchoconstrictor. The nocebo suggestion reduced the drug’s effectiveness by nearly 50%.

The same treatment can work as both a nocebo and a placebo. Experimenters gave subjects who believed they were allergic to various foods an injection they were told contained the allergen. It was only salt water, but it produced allergic symptoms in many of them. Then the experimenters injected salt water again, this time saying it would neutralize the effect of the previous injection — and in many cases it did.

An active drug has more nocebo power than a mere sugar pill. In one study, experimental subjects were divided into four groups. The first was given a muscle relaxant, described correctly; the second group was given the same muscle relaxant but told it was a stimulant; the third group received a sugar pill described as a muscle relaxant, and the fourth received the same inert pill described as a stimulant.

To no one’s surprise, subjects who thought the pill was a stimulant were more likely to say they felt tense. But the muscle relaxant caused more reports of tension when described as a stimulant than the sugar pill did. Blood levels of the muscle relaxant were lower in people told it was a stimulant than in those told the truth. They may have absorbed less of the drug because the false information activated the sympathetic nervous system, which slows down movements of the intestinal tract.

Anyone can experience a nocebo effect, but it appears that the same people respond strongly to both nocebos and placebos. In one experiment, subjects in three groups were asked to keep a hand in ice water as long as they could. One group was told that this could have beneficial effects for a period of up to five minutes (placebo instruction). The second group was told that it could be harmful, so the experiment would be stopped after at most five minutes as a precaution (nocebo instruction). The third group was told only that their responses to cold were being tested (neutral instruction). People who indicated high anxiety about pain on a questionnaire before the experiment had the strongest responses — as measured by the time they kept their hands in the cold water — not only to the nocebo instruction, but also to the placebo instruction.



Anyone who is anxious, depressed, or hypochondriacal runs the risk of developing further symptoms in response to attempts at healing or comforting. In this case, the nocebo effect is related to somatization, the expression of emotional disturbances in the form of physical symptoms. Somatoform disorders, identified by recurrent medically unexplained physical complaints, have many sources in mood, personality, and social circumstances. Somatoform reactions may also be provoked and perpetuated by what some see as the advantages of being treated as an invalid. This so-called secondary gain is sometimes regarded as another form of nocebo response.



Patients need help in understanding and tolerating, minimizing, or ignoring nocebo and other somatoform responses. These responses may be at work whenever the side effects of a medication or other treatment are vague and ambiguous or the patient has been expecting it to cause problems. Patients can be asked about earlier disappointing experiences with medical procedures. If a patient says he or she is especially sensitive to drugs, the physician might point out that anticipating bad effects can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It may help to emphasize the limits of medicine and explain the close relationship between emotions and physical sensations, especially as it involves stress hormones. Above all, in prescribing any drug or other treatment, physicians must act in a way that establishes trust and promotes the patient’s participation and cooperation.



References

Barsky AJ, et al. “Nonspecific Medication Side Effects and the Nocebo Phenomenon,” Journal of the American Medical Association (Feb. 2002): Vol. 287, No. 5, pp. 622–27.



Benedetti F, et al. “Conscious Expectation and Unconscious Conditioning in Analgesic, Motor, and Hormonal Placebo/Nocebo Responses,” Journal of Neuroscience ( May 15, 2003): Vol. 23, No. 10, pp. 4315–23.



Hahn RA. “The Nocebo Phenomenon: The Concept, Evidence, and Implications for Public Health,” Preventive Medicine (Sept.-Oct. 1997): Vol. 26, No. 5, pp. 607–11.



Spiegel H. “Nocebo: The Power of Suggestibility,” Preventive Medicine (Sept.-Oct. 1997): Vol. 26, No. 5, pp. 616–21.







Antidepressants and the nocebo effect: people's negative expectations can undermine treatment - especially litigious FIDDAMAN

The nocebo effect: people's negative expectations can undermine treatment. Photograph: Alamy


Can just telling a man he has cancer kill him? In 1992 the Southern Medical Journal reported the case of a man who in 1973 had been diagnosed with cancer and given just months to live. After his death, however, his autopsy showed that the tumour in his liver had not grown. His intern Clifton Meador didn't believe he'd died of cancer: "I do not know the pathologic cause of his death," he wrote. Could it be that, instead of the cancer, it was his expectation of death that killed him?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/13/nocebo-pain-wellcome-trust-prize

This death could be an extreme example of the "nocebo effect" - the flip-side to the better-known placebo effect. While an inert sugar pill (placebo) can make you feel better, warnings of fictional side-effects (nocebo) can make you feel those too. This is a common problem in pharmaceutical trials and a 1980s study found that heart patients were far more likely to suffer side-effects from their blood-thinning medication if they had first been warned of the medication's side-effects. This poses an ethical quandary: should doctors warn patients about side-effects if doing so makes them more likely to arise?



The nocebo effect can also be highly infectious. In 1962, 62 workers at a US dressmaking factory were suddenly stricken with headaches, nausea and rashes, and the outbreak was blamed upon an insect arriving from England in a delivery of cloth. No insect was ever found, and "mass psychogenic illnesses" like these occur worldwide, usually affecting close communities and spreading most rapidly to female individuals who have seen someone else suffering from the condition.



Until recently, we knew very little about how the nocebo effect works. Now, however, a number of scientists are beginning to make headway. A study in February led by Oxford's Professor Irene Tracey showed that when volunteers feel nocebo pain, corresponding brain activity is detectable in an MRI scanner. This shows that, at the neurological level at least, these volunteers really are responding to actual, non-imaginary, pain. Fabrizio Benedetti, of the University of Turin, and his colleagues have managed to determine one of the neurochemicals responsible for converting the expectation of pain into this genuine pain perception. The chemical is called cholecystokinin and carries messages between nerve cells. When drugs are used to block cholecystokinin from functioning, patients feel no nocebo pain, despite being just as anxious.



The findings of Benedetti and Tracey not only offer the first glimpses into the neurology underlying the nocebo effect, but also have very real medical implications. Benedetti's work on blocking cholecystokinin could pave the way for techniques that remove nocebo outcomes from medical procedures, as well as hinting at more general treatments for both pain and anxiety. The findings of Tracey's team carry startling implications for the way we practise modern medicine. By monitoring pain levels in volunteers who had been given a strong opioid painkiller, they found that telling a volunteer the drug had now worn off was enough for a person's pain to return to the levels it was at before they were given the drug. This indicates that a patient's negative expectations have the power to undermine the effectiveness of a treatment, and suggests that doctors would do well to treat the beliefs of their patients, not just their physical symptoms.



This places a spotlight on doctor-patient relationships. Today's society is litigious and sceptical, and if doctors overemphasise side-effects to their patients to avoid being sued, or patients mistrust their doctor's chosen course of action, the nocebo effect can cause a treatment to fail before it has begun. It also introduces a paradox – we must believe in our doctors if we are to gain the full benefits of their prescribed treatments, but if we trust in them too strongly, we can die from their pronouncements.



Today, many of the fastest-growing illnesses are relatively new and characterised solely by a collection of complaints. Allergies, food intolerances and back pain could easily be real physiological illnesses in some people and nocebo-induced conditions in others. More than a century ago, doctors found they could induce a hay fever sufferer's wheezing by exposure to an artificial rose. Observations like these suggest we should think twice before overmedicalising the human experience. Our day-to-day worrying should be regarded as such, not built up into psychological syndromes with suites of symptoms, and the health warnings that accompany new products should be narrow and accurate, not vague and general in order to waive the manufacturer's liability.



As scientists begin to determine how the nocebo effect works, we would do well to use their findings to manage that most 21st-century of all diseases – anxiety.



Sunday 19 February 2012

CCHR Jan Eastgate condems psychiatric rape - but condones Scientology child sex abuse - FIDDAMAN !!

SCIENTOLOGY child rape - Carmen Rainer photo as 11 year old, covered up by CCHR Jan Eastgate - where is your outcry FIDDAMAN?


Ms Rainer's mother, Phoebe, says when she learned of her daughter's abuse she decided to speak to somebody that could help. "My first thought was the chaplain in Scientology," she told ABC TV. But Ms Rainer says the Sydney church told her she was to blame "because I'd been bad in a past life".







"I believed them. I was eleven and that's what I knew, I grew up believing what they believed." Ms Rainer said Ms Eastgate told her to lie to police and community services about the abuse, which occurred some 30 years ago. She was told to tell the police she didn't want her stepfather to go to jail.



"The church got involved and sent Jan Eastgate over to drill me and tell me what to say to the police and DoCS," MS Rainer said,"She kept repeating 'Just say no'. You can't tell them ... because otherwise you will be taken away from your parents and you'll never see your family again'."



http://offdainnertube.blogspot.com/2010/05/top-cchr-scientologist-accused-of-child.html

whilst FIDDAMAN rides in Travolta's jet his blog promotes antidepressants

@Fiddaman just so you are aware...one of the ads running on your blog.... http://pic.twitter.com/lhdAge0q








Saturday 18 February 2012

FIDDAMAN new drink?

Bob Fiddaman Out of Control - check out The Social Activists

Mr. Fiddaman,"Leaving the dream." Really? Living the dream! Don't flatter yourself. Because you had a drink with a rapper struggling to regain footing in his career and were flown to Los Angeles does not qualify you with celebrity status.



http://ssocialactivism.blogspot.com/2012/02/bob-fiddaman-out-of-control.html

SCIENTOLOGY quackery invades N Zealand schools - FIDDAMAN blog ** Exclusive

A controversial Church of Scientology drug-awareness programme has received government funding to spread its unorthodox views through schools and community groups.


http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/6443638/Drugs-education-link-to-Scientology-church

In the past six months, drug-free ambassadors linked to the church have circulated 130,000 drug education booklets around New Zealand, paid for in part by the Department of Internal Affairs' Community Organisations Grant Scheme.



The ambassadors claim at least 18 community groups – including their "partners" the Maori Wardens – plus at least seven high schools, endorse and use the materials.



Advice offered in the pamphlets is based on research by Scientology's controversial founder, LRon Hubbard, who did not believe in medical drugs or psychiatry but instead in purging oneself of painful experiences to gain immortality.



Ross Bell, executive director of the New Zealand Drug Foundation, warned that the group's information was flawed pseudo-science and could prove harmful to youth.



"This kind of quackery should not be in our schools – we are talking about young people's lives," he said.



"Drug and alcohol issues are complex and therefore we need well-qualified, proper, evidence-based support advice and information."



Bell said Scientology's views on mental health were not based on science, and had been discredited "time and time again" in the countries they worked in.



Other critics, including former Scientologists, say the drug-free ambassadors are also a front group aimed at recruitment which does not openly disclose its ties to the church.



The group, which has various aliases, has also come under fire overseas, including in Australia where its links to the government were described as "worrying".



However, the Church of Scientology New Zealand says its anti-drug group is not aimed at recruitment, instead wanting only to arm young people with factual information about drugs.



"We promote good educational materials on the drugs in use on the streets that people of all ages can relate to and decide for themselves whether or not to start using," said Mike Ferriss, head of Scientology in New Zealand.



He said the booklets were based partially on Hubbard's teachings, plus using local statistics and information.



Only some of the money came from government, Ferriss said. The International Association of Scientologists also made a grant. "As a group we believe that something effective can be done about any problem and it does not have to cost a lot of money."



Several groups of Maori Wardens, which are mainly volunteer organisations funded by the taxpayer, have partnered with the drug-free ambassadors.



One of the group's leaders, Rita Peters, is a warden, a Scientologist and an ambassador. She spends much of her time handing out the booklets in places like Otahuhu and Mangere in South Auckland.




Mangere ward leader Thomas Henry said he talked with the group after its members consistently approached him with their pamphlets. He said drugs and alcohol were a problem in South Auckland and there was a need for the material.



"For us, it was free information. We don't have money to pay for these resources so we were thankful that we were able to have a relationship with them," Henry said.



Figures show that during 2011 the Church of Scientology New Zealand, a registered charity, listed its income for 2010 as $1.2 million. Drug-Free Ambassadors, also a registered charity, had an income of approximately $6700, of which $6500 was grants.



Green MP Kevin Hague said any funding given to a group that was a front for the church should be stopped.



"In the case of someone who is struggling with drugs, they are very vulnerable. So their exploitation by the church for their own ends is despicable."



King's College principal Bradley Fenner took up an invitation to speak at an event run by the drug-free ambassadors last year, only to find out afterward it was linked to Scientology. "I was disappointed. In general we would not align ourselves with a group like that," he said.



The drug-free ambassadors programme was launched by one of Scientologist actor John Travolta, more than 10 years ago. In 2003, actor Tom Cruise donated $1500 to the Auckland branch

untreated maternal depression impact infant language development - FIDDAMAN blog ** Exclusive

Maternal depression and bilingual households can impact infant language development


While babies are born ready to learn any of the world’s languages, the crucial developmental period when they attune to their native languages can change due to environmental influences such as maternal depression or a bilingual upbringing, according to new University of British Columbia research.



The findings, presented today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Vancouver, B.C., is among the first to explore the impacts of maternal mental health and antidepressant exposure on the mechanics of early language acquisition. The preliminary findings provide important new insights into early childhood development and mother’s mental health and will inform new approaches to infant language acquisition, the researchers say.



Previous research by UBC Psychology Prof. Janet Werker has found that during the first months of life, babies rapidly attune to the language sounds they hear and the sights they see (movements in the face that accompany talking) of their native languages. After this foundational period of language recognition, babies begin focusing on acquiring their native tongues and effectively ignore other languages.



However, in findings from two studies, Werker reports that this key developmental period – which typically ends between the ages of eight and nine months – can change. In one study, Werker finds the period lasts longer for babies in bilingual households than in monolingual babies, particularly for the face recognition aspects of speech.



In another study, Werker and collaborators at the Child & Family Research Institute (CFRI) at BC Children’s Hospital and Harvard University find that maternal depression and its treatment with common antidepressant medication – serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SRIs – can also affect the timing of speech perception development in babies. The team’s preliminary findings suggest that SRI treatment may accelerate babies’ ability to attune to the sounds and sights of the native language, while maternal depression untreated by SRIs may prolong the period of tuning.



“At this point, we do not know if accelerating or delaying the achievement of these milestones of early infancy has any consequences on later language acquisition,” says Werker, noting that she aims to address such questions in future studies. “However, these preliminary findings highlight the importance of environmental factors on infant development and put us in a better position to support not only optimal language development in children but also maternal well-being.”



This study followed three groups of mothers – one being treated for depression with SRIs, one with depression not taking antidepressants and one with no symptoms of depression. By measuring changes in heart rate and eye movement to sounds and video images of native and non-native languages, the researchers calculated the language development of babies at three intervals, including six and 10 months of age. Researchers also studied how the heart rates of unborn babies responded to languages at the age of 36 weeks in the uterus.



“Poor mental health during pregnancy is a major public health issue for mothers and their families” says co-author Dr. Tim Oberlander, a professor of developmental pediatrics at UBC and CFRI. “Non-treatment is never an option. While some infants might be at risk, others may benefit from mother’s treatment with an SRI during their pregnancy. We are just not sure at this stage why some but not all infants are affected in the same way. It is really important that pregnant women discuss all treatment options with their physicians or midwives.”



N.B. Werker will participate in a AAAS press briefing (9-10 a.m. PST, Vancouver Convention Centre room 223-224) and symposium (1:30-4:30 pm) on Friday, Feb. 17. She is available for interviews 10-11 a.m and 4:30-5:45 p.m on Friday or by appointment Sat-Mon. To download high resolution photos of Werker reading to children visit: http://www.aaas.ubc.ca/media-resources/photos/. On Twitter, follow @ubcnews and hashtags #AAASmtg and #UBC.





The maternal depression and language acquisition study was co-authored by UBC post-doctoral fellow Whitney Weikum at CFRI and Tim Oberlander, CFRI, UBC Department of Pediatrics and BC Children’s Hospital and BC Women’s Hospital & Health Centre (agencies of the Provincial Health Services Authority). Takao Hensch, a professor of neurology at Harvard University, was a collaborator on the research.



This program of research was funded by agencies including the Canadian Institutes for Advanced Research (CIFAR), the Human Frontiers Research Program (HFSP), the Michael Smith Foundation, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), with the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) funding the bilingual and broader language acquisition work.



Scientologists waterboarded and beat me, says former church official - it's a blast says FIDDAMAN

Scientologists waterboarded and beat me, says former church official


Torture claim includes being locked in ant-ridden 'Hole' at 106F and being forced to lick dirty floor
 
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4135513/Scientologists-waterboarded-and-beat-me-says-former-church-official.html
 
 
A TOP scientologist has claimed she was waterboarded as part of the cult's twisted bid to control members.


A court heard that she was locked up and beaten in a squalid torture chamber called The Hole.



Members of the weird "religion" — followed by A-listers such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta — are allegedly forced to endure "horrific" abuse as part of a warped exorcism-like "auditing" process.



Former scientologist Debbie Cook, 50, lifted the lid on the "terror and tyranny" she witnessed during 17 years as head of the church in Florida.


read on - http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4135513/Scientologists-waterboarded-and-beat-me-says-former-church-official.html

Friday 17 February 2012

Older drivers on benzos crash risk worse than on antidepressants - FIDDAMAN blog

Over 60s car accident rate five times higher on benzos



Print


Written by Chris Thomas Friday, 17 February 2012 06:00


http://www.sciencewa.net.au/3897-over-60s-car-accident-rate-five-times-higher-on-benzos.html


“Older drivers exposed to benzodiazepines were five times as likely to be involved in a hospitalisation crash, and almost twice as likely for drivers exposed to antidepressants.”— Prof Meuleners.

PSYCHOACTIVE medications used by drivers older than 60 makes them five times more likely to have an accident, according to new research from the Curtin Monash Accident Research Centre.



Psychoactive Medications and Crash Involvement Requiring Hospitalisation for Older Drivers: A Population-Based Study found the impairment caused by benzodiazepines and antidepressants used by this age group was comparable to drinking alcohol.



Primarily acting upon the central nervous system, psychoactive drugs affect brain function causing changes in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition and behaviour.



Associate Professor Lynn Meuleners headed the study and believes licensing authorities should develop better policies to manage older drivers.



“Inclusion of such medications on medical reporting forms for older drivers would enable ongoing surveillance, providing a more comprehensive evidence base of the need for stricter regulatory policies,” she says.



“Pharmacists and doctors should warn patients of the side-effects of these medications and how it may impact on their driving ability, and there should be better labelling of medications.



“Older drivers exposed to benzodiazepines were five times as likely to be involved in a hospitalisation crash, and almost twice as likely for drivers exposed to antidepressants.”



More than 600 people aged 60 or older who were hospitalised after a motor vehicle accident in WA between 2002 and 2008 formed the basis of the research, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. This group had been prescribed 6671 psychoactive medications.



“Data was obtained from hospital records to identify those who were involved in a crash and hospitalized. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme database was also to identify medication that each participant was taking at the time of the crash,” Associate Professor Lynn Meuleners says.



“Our results are consistent with other studies undertaken in other countries. But our study uses objective data, is population based and does not rely on self-reporting.”



The study did indicate it was difficult to specifically establish whether crash risk was greater because of psychoactive medication or the underlying health condition for which it was prescribed.



But it noted: “…the strength of the association, particularly for benzodiazepine usage, was high. The results are also plausible because the usage of medications, particularly benzodiazepines and antidepressants, may contribute to a longer reaction time when faced with the unexpected while driving.”



The study also indicated there was a need for more information about chronic conditions, medication use and its effect on the over-60 age group to establish a definitive link.



New guide to safe antidepressant prescribing - has no input from FIDDAMAN


The Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine has approved a new Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) learning module on the safe prescribing of antidepressants.

http://www.onmedica.com/newsarticle.aspx?id=c0646dda-6abb-4a4e-ac72-fb111af3646d

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) form the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants in the UK. The module identifies the most important hazards of SSRIs and informs on actions that health professionals should take in order to minimise and manage the risks.



The MHRA recommends the training module for the medical, nursing and pharmaceutical professions. It is suitable for those nearing the end of their formal training or those who have recently completed such training. The MHRA indicates that health professionals may find the module a helpful refresher, for example, at the start of a posting in clinical psychiatry.



It examines the common adverse effects as well as rare but serious risks and side effects of SSRIs, use in pregnancy and breastfeeding and how to protect against and manage overdose and shows how the risks can be minimised and managed.



The MHRA says completing the module will take about two hours; answering the self-assessment questions will take about 30 minutes and the module has CPD credits with the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians.

Top Scientologist tells how she was 'beaten and tortured

Dothiepin masking the depression of clowns like FIDDAMAN



OK, I use a CPAP Machine to 'aid' me when I'm sleeping. I average about 4 hours sleep per night!!!!!






"I take 40mg of Paroxetine (Seroxat) per day for depression.50mg Tramadol per day for my arthritis.75mg Dothiepan just before bedtime (another anti depressant though my GPsays it should help me get a better sleep)15mg Zoton (Reflux Osophugus)"





source



http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk.people.disability/browse_thread/thread/b0ba9fc3e9295d81?hl=en-GB&q=fiddaman+benefit



see also -



http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/criticalpsychiatry/message/63577

Thursday 16 February 2012

SCIENTOLOGY & fraud - Miami dentist Dr. Rene Piedra back in business - see FIDDAMAN fraud exposed blog

A well-known Miami dentist, who says he was forced to lose his practice in 2008, is back in business.



http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Dentist-Back-in-Business-Past-Patients-Claim-He-Owes-Them-Money-139373808.html


Dr. Rene Piedra’s bankruptcy case is wrapping up. Meanwhile, dozens of patients claim they are still owed money for dental work that was incomplete or never started.



Five years ago Piedra’s sedation dentistry practice in Coral Gables had thousands of patients and was taking in millions of dollars.



“In ’05 he did 7.2 million, in ’06, he did 8.6 million, in ’07 did almost $8 million and then everything started collapsing,” said bankruptcy trustee Barry Makumal.



In response to written questions, Piedra wrote he was “unprepared for the dramatic turn the economy would take” and “would have liked nothing more than to continue that practice providing exceptional dental care.”



A former patient, Rolando Barrero, said “I feel that I was not only robbed, I feel I was violated.”



Barrero went to see Piedra in 2005. He has a copy of the check he gave the dentist for more than $19,000 before starting an extensive treatment plan that called for scaling and crowns. Barrero said none of this was done. “No. Nothing, nothing.”



Barrero claims he repeatedly tried to make appointments with Piedra but was only given excuses.



“You can see the letter my attorney sent him requesting the return of money. We never receive the money we never receive any answer” said Barrero.



Barrero is among the many creditors listed in Piedra’s bankruptcy case.



Arising from that bankruptcy came a claim against the Church of Scientology , related enterprises and high ranking church officials, according to the court appointed trustee and his attorney.



“The business side of the practice was encouraged by the church and its affiliates and obviously there was a deep connection between the two,” said Makumal.



That connection was discovered when financial documents were pulled, specifically for years 2005 to 2008, by the bankruptcy trustee.



“In the midst of all this we find out that a certain amount of money over the course of that fraudulent transfer period was paid to Church of Scientology entities,” said the trustee’s attorney Frank Terzo.



That is the crux of the complaint. The trustee states Piedra’s practice “perpetrated a scheme to defraud patients,” and in the four years prior to the bankruptcy filing approximately $2.2 million were transferred from the practice to various Church of Scientology-related entities.



“We did settle with the church for almost, with all the affiliates approximately $400,000,” said Makumal.



The Church of Scientology wrote NBC Miami: “These defendants were not involved in the management of Dr. Piedra’s practice . They were innocent third parties drawn into a controversy they did not create.”



Regarding the accusations in the complaint, Piedra said a trial “ would ultimately have proven the trustee’s allegations incorrect. I chose instead to reach a settlement with the trustee.”



Now the trustee is looking into claims from disgruntled former patients like attorney Monica Albarello. In 2006 she was approved for a $5,000 line of credit for Invisalign to straighten her teeth, which was never completed.



“I got one filling and three trays out of twelve” said Albarello.



She stopped going to Piedra’s practice after he suggested additional treatments were required before continuing with Invisalign



“So I called Dr. Piedra’s office and told them my second opinion dentist told me that I have nothing that you guys are finding. I asked for a refund but they refused because we had started treatment so I didn’t get my money back,” Albarello said.



Meanwhile, Piedra has opened a new practice in Pinecrest.



“To know he’s practicing again it’s upsetting. I don’t think he should,” said Albarello.



“People that took less money than him has been in jail for a long time. I don’t understand how he can do what he is doing now,” said Barrero



Piedra said he is no longer associated with the Church of Scientology. Once the bankruptcy proceeding is completed, he claims he will work with each patient to verify what they paid, what treatment was received what they are owed and how he can make it right.



Wednesday 15 February 2012

SCIENTOLOGY degrades children whilst Bob Fiddaman looks on

In the middle of suburban Australia is a secret compound that's labelled 'degrading' and  'inhumane', with allegations of keeping children prisoner.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/latest/article/-/12905379/australia-s-child-labour-camp/

Right in the middle of a quiet suburb is a place where children are separated from their parents, and forced to work full time for no pay, and live in squalid conditions.




Those who've survived this place say they were brainwashed into believing they could not leave, and that they deserved the shocking treatment dished out.



A young man who escaped the place with the help of his father, Shane Kelsey says “I lived in that garage for about a year and a half, maybe two years.”


read on http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/latest/article/-/12905379/australia-s-child-labour-camp/

FIDDAMAN drinks in Scientology adulation as they abuse Australian children - video







In the middle of a suburban Australia is a secret compound that's labelled 'degrading' and 'inhumane', with allegations of keeping children prisoner.




Men, women and children are being kept as virtual prisoners, working full-time and living in appalling conditions.



Now those who've escaped are speaking out.



BRYAN SEYMOUR REPORTING



http://au.news.yahoo.com/today-tonight/lifestyle/article/-/12905379/australia...



Tuesday 14 February 2012

CCHR Exposed - blog link on FIDDAMAN exposed blog

http://cchr.blogspot.com/


Scientology's "Citizens Commission on Human Rights" Exposed


The infamous Jan Eastgate aka Jan Meyers, executive director of the Church of Scientology front group Citizens Commission on Human Rights, is once again in the news, being charged a second time for her crimes related to talking a child and her mother into not going to the authorities to report a scientologist relative who sexually abused the child.




While the wheels of justice turn slowly, they are headed in the right direction. Even though Meyers was ok'd to be in the USA, she failed to appear as required for the hearing today on the first charge. Perhaps she knew there was to be a second charge.... In any event, charged in absentia, she's in hot water and will have to appear eventually. Let us hope the USA extradites her as soon as possible. Here's the latest on that hearing.



Transcript - Lateline- Australian Broadcasting Corporation


Broadcast: 07/02/2012




EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: One of the Church of Scientology's senior international figures, Jan Eastgate, has been charged for a second time in Sydney today.



Last year, Ms Eastgate was charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to allegations that she coached an 11-year-old girl to lie to police and community services about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her Scientologist stepfather.



The allegations were raised publicly for the first time on Lateline in 2010.



Today, she was charged with another offence relating to perverting the course of justice.



Ms Eastgate is the international president of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, an organisation founded by the Church of Scientology. She was awarded the Church's Freedom Medal for promoting human rights in 1988.



Jan Eastgate is due to appear at a committal hearing at Sydney's Downing Centre on May 15. She has yet to enter a plea.



For the latest news on this story, visit Ex Scientologist Message Board

CCHR 43rd Anniversary & Awards Banquet Los Angeles Saturday, 11 February 2012 - SCIENTOLOGY & FIDDAMAN

CCHR 43rd Anniversary & Awards Banquet


The Westin Bonaventure
Los Angeles Saturday, 11 February 2012

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/guest_bloggers/5688/rough_week_for_scientology/


Sunday 12 February 2012

SEROXAT - BBC Panorama led to 61% increase in adverse reactions - feeding FIDDAMAN delusion

Panorama programme lead to significant increase in adverse paroxetine reports


• Antidepressants • Feb 15, 2006


http://www.health.am/psy/more/panorama_programme_lead_to_significant_increase_in_adverse_paroxetine_repor/






The number of adverse reactions reported by UK doctors to the antidepressant paroxetine - often know by its brand name Seroxat - rose by 61 per cent after three editions of the BBC’s award-winning current affairs programme Panorama explored increasing concerns about the drug.




Research just published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology shows a sudden increase in reports immediately after each of the three programmes were aired in the UK in October 2002, May 2003 and October 2004.

Five regulatory announcements made in the UK during the same period resulted in a much smaller five per cent increase in reports of adverse reactions.


The research team from the Department of Social Medicine at Bristol University, UK, explored prescribing patterns and adverse drug reports for paroxetine, which is part of a group of drugs called SSRIs (selective serotonine reuptake inhibitors).


“Our analysis of adverse drug reports made by doctors suggests that negative publicity, particularly the three Panorama programmes, were associated with marked, short-term peaks in reporting” says lead author Dr Richard Martin.


“In the months before and after the three Panorama programmes were aired adverse reports went up from 8.3 to 13.4 per 100,000 prescriptions. The change before and after regulatory announcements went from 7.6 to 8.0.”

SSRI’s are used to treat patients with depression. They work by raising levels of the important chemical serotonin which helps to regulate communications (electrical activity) in the regions of the brain thought to be affected by depression.

The initial Panorama programme followed two announcements by the US Food and Drug Administration. The first announcement, in January 2002, warned of severe withdrawal symptoms from paroxetine and the second, in October 2002, suggested links between the drug and suicidal behaviour.

“Overall prescribing of paroxetine started to fall gradually after the FDA’s warning was publicised in the UK” adds Dr Martin. “Prescribing patterns were not as obviously affected by media attention and regulatory announcements as the reporting of adverse drug reactions, but they may have helped to maintain the decline.”


Panorama is the BBC’s award-winning flagship current affairs programme. First broadcast in 1953, it is the longest-running public affairs TV programme in the world.

The programme has won numerous awards, including a Mental Health Media Award in 2003 for its first two investigations into the safety of paroxetine (Seroxat).

“The documentaries showed just how powerful the voice of mental health service users and survivors can be, fuelling furious public and media debate whilst demonstrating that broadcasters can both sensitively and successfully reach and touch the lives of the wider public” said the Mental Health Media Award.

Dr Martin agrees that the programmes had an impact and says that the research carried out by the team at Bristol University shows clearly how the programmes had a marked effect on the reporting of adverse effects of paroxetine.

However, the effect of the programmes on reporting was only short term, highlighting the importance of continued efforts to improve the way adverse drug reactions to widely prescribed drugs are monitored.

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/



Read more: Panorama programme lead to significant increase in adverse paroxetine reports -Antidepressants- http://www.health.am/psy/more/panorama_programme_lead_to_significant_increase_in_adverse_paroxetine_repor/#ixzz1mAhWm0sv

Saturday 11 February 2012

FIDDAMAN parody from June 2001

"capn plectrum" wrote in message






news:3b2fc4b9.79024513@news.earthlink.net...





> You've been off work for 2 years and already you are slacking off

> playing on your computer while you should be working?





ROVER SUPERVISOR: Fiddleman, have you finished collating those documents?



BOB: Umm...oh yes, I was just getting to those. And it's Fiddaman, sir.





ROVER SUPERVISOR: Right. And just what *have* you been doing the past

three hours, Fiddaberg?





BOB: Oh.....well I've been, umm....





ROVER SUPERVISOR: I say, what's that you're writing there?





BOB: That? Oh it's nothing.......nothing, really.





ROVER SUPERVISOR: Why it looks.....It looks like some sort of poetry,

Fiddenhoff!





BOB: It's Fiddaman, sir.





ROVER SUPERVISOR: Right.





BOB: You see, these chaps in the AC/DC newsgroup have been having a go at

me...questioning my work ethic and such.





ROVER SUPERVISOR: Well, I can't imagine why....





BOB: And I thought this poem might be a good way for me to publicly

humiliate myself even more egregiously than I already have.





ROVER SUPERVISOR: So, Fiddenowski, why exactly do you talk about your work

troubles in an AC/DC newsgroup. Isn't that some sort of rock band?





BOB: I do it because they talked about hockey once.





ROVER SUPERVISOR: You mean to tell me you've been on hiatus two years, and

you're composing poetry on company time halfway through your third day back

on the job? And look, it's not even any good.....it barely rhymes and your

structure is heinously amateurish. Fiddenstein, I'm going to have to

discuss this matter with Mr. Rover himself at the corporate offices. We may

have to place you on the Long-Term Please-For-The-Love-Of-God-Go-Away

Register.





BOB: I'm sorry sir, but if you continue to mispronounce my name, I'm going

to be forced to sue you, your entire family, and everyone you've ever met

for the heinously abusive mental anguish you're presently inflicting upon

me. And for good measure, I'll go home and pout for 10 years. Just watch

me.





ROVER SUPERVISOR: Fuddleman, I would advise you to collate those documents

with great brevity, as I've eight inches of dick-tation I need you to take

after that.





BOB: Could you just call me Poetboy?





ROVER SUPERVISOR: Oh shuttup, Fingleman

THE CLIQUE by Bob FIDDAMAN who said "Written whilst at work on my woman's job"

Written whilst at work on my woman's job.     june192001




THE CLIQUE





If you ever feel the need
to kick someone when they're down.
Or to jump on to the bandwagon
of the posting of a clown.





Then hop aboard this newsgroup
be patient for a while.
Wait until the Pot Head
posts his venomous vile.





Join in with the rest of them
as they single out their source.
If you have a disability
you'll be victimised, of course.





No matter what you tell them
you'll find they deaf an ear.
Facts of course mean nothing
let me make that clear.





The ladies of this newsgroup
have hearts all made of gold.
Dave's apostles, on the other hand
all do as they're told.





The Eurobods are friendly
they make you feel at home.
Even though you're far away
you never feel alone.





If you've ever had to suffer
*take note* Thou shall not post.
'Cos if you do you'll be ridiculed
by the drug induced pot host.





Your Country Laws mean nothing
for Dave - Miss Bo Peep.
He's right even when he is wrong
and so are his sad sheep.





Doof will give you advice
"Stop posting to a thread."
Then continue to berate you,
no truth in what he said.





Name calling is 'childish'
say's Nate the newsgroup Whip.
A guy who has a problem,
on his shoulder grows a chip.





Tops, he knows no better,
only money is his aim.
He'll fuck you over backwards
to get financial gain.





There's other sheep of course
with no mind of there own.
Who lay in wait for Dave's response
as their brains are just on loan.





So if you're browsing through here
just lurk for a few days.
And you will see how this works
from the Pot Head's evil ways.





Don't post about your problems
Don't post about your past.
Don't post with a point of view
'cos it will be your last.





'Congratulation' posts
mean nothing come what may.
'Cos most will all withdraw them
once Dave has had his say.





If you ever post a reply
defending your good name.
Wait for direct responses
from the Pot Head Posse train.





If you've suffered with some trauma
or tried to end your life.
Don't tell Dave's Apostles
you'll get nothing back but strife.





Flame Away - Filter me





You can dish it out but you CANNOT take it.





--

And Remember......





KEEP IT STIFF





BOB 'CHAINSAW' FIDDAMAN UK





Breggin - Healy described as Trojan Horse - biological psychiatrist ...behind barbaric practices in psychiatry today


Stan February 6, 2012
5:38 pm

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-dr-peter-breggin-hour/ Peter Breggin commenting upon David Healy today on his radio show “a biological psychiatrist that has stands behind some of the most barbaric practices in psychiatry today” shared this interesting & critical point of view when answering questions about the big picture of creating positive solutions & change.



I would really like to see Micky, Peter, Bob Whitaker, and David have a public sit down or broadcast radio show of shared discussion/chat with us all. Just maybe the world renowned & influential Micky can do a little arm twisting and make it happen….:)



Where is the common ground of formulating a platform of effective change to what we have today?












Ginger Breggin February 8, 2012
9:23 pm

http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2012/02/06/wisdom-in-his-pages/

This is Ginger Breggin. Folks, I was not criticizing Stan or anyone else other than Dr. Healy. Dr. Healy is the first person that I have criticized who presents himself as a part of the psychiatric reform movement. However, when he acts like he is a trusted reformer, it is important that people understand that in his heart and in his daily actions as a psychiatrist he implements the darkest side of the profession, brain damaging ECT. Further more he has a long history of attacking other reformers. It would be nice and indeed I have tried to simply ‘get along’ but Dr. Healy is a Trojan Horse. Let him inside our walls and at night the shock docs will come sneaking out and fall upon the people. Please see my more expanded remarks, with increased links, below. And please remember there are millions of people walking this earth with brain damage from electroshock.



Dr. David Healy calls for “making sure that action is curbed until one is sure that the action does no harm, now and in the future” but he does not take his own advice concerning shock treatment. He is a shock doctor, has run a shock ward in Wales, and wrote a glowing tribute to shock (2007). Healy has also attacked the psychiatric reform movement for years. David Healy’s ultimate solution (for depression for instance) is ECT, a treatment my husband Dr. Peter Breggin has documented as being closed head injury and an electrical lobotomy.



See:



Healy attack of psych reform movement, for example”

1. “there is no comparable protest against the use of antipsychotic drugs”

2. “seems that the critics are behaving according to the romantic illusion that if they can just abolish ECT, mental illness will disappear”



There has been a long and detailed attack by psychiatric reform figures against antipsychotics, antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs including Dr.Peter Breggin who published first medical text detailing documented damage by psychiatric drugs 1983, resulting in black box labeling of antipsychotics for Tardive Dyskinesia



Other major psychiatric reform figures documenting damage done by psychiatric drugs have included Dr. Loren Mosher, Dr. Joseph Glenmullen and more; including protracted reform work by many psychiatric survivors of ECT, insulin shock, involuntary confinement and psychiatric drug treatment. These survivor advocates have included Judi Chamberlin, Rae Unzicker, Leonard Frank, to name a few. Many professionals and reform advocates from the earlier years are documented by Dr. Breggin in his book Toxic Psychiatry: Why Empathy, Therapy and Love must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock, and Biochemical Theories of the “New Psychiatry”



Healy’s ECT book is a glowing tribute to shock within which he recommends shock for depression.



Breggin (and other published resources) documenting damage of ECT: http://breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40&Itemid=52

Video of invited presentation by Dr. Breggin on the damaging effects of ECT at the NIH Concensus Conference on ECT.



Dr. Breggin’s most recent medical text (2008) on damage of ECT as well as damage of psychiatric drugs and role of FDA documents the damaging effects of electroshock including examination of animal studies that do show damage is done by ECT.