Duane

Thanks for being bold enough to use the term ‘chemical straightjackets’ - that’s exactly what these meds are.

Constantly amazed at the denial involved - can parents not see their own children turn into ‘zombies’ - or are they so convinced that medical doctors know best, they are unwilling to believe what they see with their own two eyes.

Regarding ’schizophrenia’ - a collection of symtpoms does not a disease make - in spite of what our conventional medical model insists. Individuals recover from these symptoms all the time - in various ways - depending on the source of the symptoms. There can be trauma behind these symtpoms, along with an inability to properly absorb various amino acids, and/or specific vitamins. Many times, when the trauma is dealt with, and/or the underlying physical condition, recovery is possible.

We are afterall, talking in large part about the human ‘pscyhe’ - Conventional medicine may have cornered the market and created a monoopoly on a large part of our medicine, but not on the The Pennsylvania Gazette’spirit’ of an individual, nor that person’s ability to rise to the challenge of even such horrific symptoms as ’schizophrenia’.

Duane

Nothing changes - over a hundred years ago, charlatan salesmen drove their
horse driven wagons to small towns and sold bottles of snake oil. If you rubbed it on your head, it grew hair.; on body joints, it took care of arthritis
and sore muscles. If you applied to your skin, it cured the heart-break of
psoriasis.

The FDA should be sued for approving PHARMA chemically developed drugs
whose therapeutic effectiveness is suspect and cannot show vast improvement over older drugs.
Sam R.Ph.

The problem with each of these meds is how short the clinical trials are - some are only for weeks, or perhaps a couple or few months.

But, we are talking about giving people medication with addictive properties that are surreal.

How many people ever get off of them? Very few, and it’s life-threatening to do so any faster than 10% at a time - most doctors don’t know this.

The other problem is that people are routinely given one drug, only to have it replaced with another. According to Wolfgange Saddee with Ohio State Medical - by the time we know about the efficacy of a drug - ‘irreparable harm’ is done.

And so, we are doing nothing more (and nothing less) than subjective guess-work based upon symptomology - hardly scientific….

Read ‘Your Drug May Be Your Problem - How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medication’ by Peter Breggin, MD - Psychiatrist, Harvard Medical School Grad - called “the conscience of American Psychiatry”.

People get ‘better’ on these psychotropics?
The doctors and families see things like tardive dystonia as a symptom of the ‘illness’ - when it’s a side-effect of the medication - these side effects show up somewhat rarely in short-term clinical trials, but go out the roof after long-term use - and doctors, psychiatric nurses, social workers and counselors do not even know that these are side-effects.

Start with the book - and see if you ever see ‘medical compliance’ in quite the same way as it pertains to psychotropics…..

We keep talking about weight gain, and diabetes. These drugs damage the brain itself - they interrupt messaging from the basal ganglia to the frontal cortex - they actually cause parts of the brain to shrivel away…..

Hard to wrap your head around at first (pardon the semantics), but true……

The days of Thorazine were much more comfortable for the psychiatric patient - the new ones are a lot worse - they are literally killing people…..

‘Woahh, back off’??? - Not this kid - not until there are criminal investigations by the US Attorneys Office - not until justice is served.

I almost lost my son to Geodon - he turned into a ‘zombie’ and it took months to get him back…..and I know similar stories around the country…..and people are being forced to take these meds…..and some families are not as fortunate as we were - some of their sons and daughters die.

Duane Sherry, M.S. CRC
http://discoverandrecover.wordpress.com

None of these drugs are without VERY serious risks. Tardive dyskinesia with the typicals is a very real concern–have you ever seen a person moving their mouth like a chewing rabbit constantly?

What trials like CATIE don’t measure are patient satisfaction with their meds. Adherence to a med regimen is a poor surrogate for patient satisfaction. Many patients feel better on the atypicals, and physicians DO consider the patients’ desires when prescribing.

I sold against Zyprexa for years. The most persuasive argument physicians made for prescribing it is that is works and the patients feel good on it. That is not Lilly telling the doc that the patient feels good; it is the patient saying they like the way they feel on the med.

The CATIE trial was informative, but hardly shocking to anyone who works with these meds and patients every day. We all knew the typicals and atypicals have the same efficacy. We also all know that compliance with oral meds is terrible. (Compliance is an issue with all patients, not just the mentally ill.) CATIE, as I said, did not measure patient satisfaction.

Perhaps the proof of this will be forthcoming soon: Risperdal goes off patent imminently, and Zyprexa and Seroquel are soon to follow. Will docs shun them once there is no one marketing them and return to the typicals? I doubt it.

The atypicals are actually WORSE than the older ones.
People with ’schizophrenia’ used to die on average 10 to 15 years earlier than the general population.

Thanks to the newer ‘atypical’ antipsychotics, that has turned into 25 years less. Could it be the ‘new drugs’ that these people have been persuaded, coerced, or sometimes legally forced to take? Maybe we should find out…..

I know one thing for certain - the cozy relationship between the FDA and Big Pharma is criminal.

It’s time for full investigations by the US Attorney General’s office - everyone deserves a fair trial - even the major CEO’s of Big Pharma.

After the fair trial, it’s time for the Big Pharma CEO’s (who will be convicted in my opinion - by any jury with any common sense) to go to jail.

Duane

I’ve added a line that, hopefully, answers your question. Thanks for asking.

ed