How Psychiatric Drugs Made America Mad
Another potential advantage: Intuniv is not a controlled substance, and is not associated with any known mechanisms for potential abuse or dependence. An estimated 30% of children with ADHD cannot tolerate stimulant drugs or do not benefit from currently available ADHD medications. Intuniv also might have applications in combination with stimulant drugs to reduce aggression and insomnia associated with stimulants and adult patients. Shire hopes to gain FDA approval and launch Intuniv in the second half of 2009. APA Reference Hauser, J. (2006). Upcoming Psychiatric Medications in the Pipeline.
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://psychcentral.com/lib/upcoming-psychiatric-medications-in-the-pipeline/000693
Psychiatric drug use skyrockets in U.S. military
Among the side effects that some health professionals worry about are impaired motor skills, reduced reaction time, increased suicide risk, irritability, aggressiveness and hostility. “Imagine causing that in men and women who are heavily armed and under a great deal of stress,” psychiatrist Peter Breggin said. Some observers have suggested that the 150 percent increase in suicides in the Army since 2001 and the 50 percent increase in the Marines may be caused in part by the 76 percent increase in the use of psychiatric drugs . The widespread use of psychotropics, including off-label use and cocktails, is “really a large-scale experiment,” said former Navy psychiatrist Grace Jackson. “We are experimenting with changing people’s cognition and behavior.” It is difficult to determine the exact causes of increase psychotropic use in the military. Some analysts have pointed to the increased stress of multiple ongoing wars and longer deployments since 2001. Others, such as Frank Ochberg of Michigan State University, note the faster growth rate of mood-dulling drugs such as antipsychotics and anticonvulsants, and suggest that these drugs are being prescribed to troops readjusting to civilian life.
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.naturalnews.com/029285_psychiatric_drugs_military.html
Psychiatric drugs may not increase death risk: study
The researchers could not evaluate whether death rates differed among people with anxiety disorders, because so few deaths were recorded during the trials. They did find, however, that people’s risk of dying decreased when they were randomly assigned to take medications to treat their psychiatric disorders – such as antipsychotics for schizophrenia and mood stabilizers for bipolar disorder – compared to those who were assigned to take a drug-free placebo. Suicide accounted for just over 40 percent of deaths in all patients across drug trials. Khan said the researchers aren’t sure why the drugs appeared to decrease patients’ risk of dying, but the finding should be reassuring for doctors. “For practicing clinicians, they should feel comfortable that they can prescribe these medications,” he said. The exception to the lower death rates was a class of older antidepressants known as heterocyclics, which include tricyclic and tetracyclic antidepressants. Those were linked to about a doubling in risk, but the drugs have been largely replaced by newer medications.
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/30/us-psychiatric-drugs-idUSBRE97T0WR20130830
Expressed emotions such as criticism, rejection and emotional overinvolvement don’t cause the disease, but once it occurs, such factors can make it more serious, added Heresco-Levy, who earned his MD at Tel Aviv Universitys Sackler Medical Faculty and specialized in psychiatry at Herzog. In the early 1950s, chlorpromazine (Thorazine) originally an anti-nausea treatment that also alleviated psychotic symptoms was the first anti-psychotic drug, but it was not specifically meant for schizophrenia. Working as an antagonist to dopamine, it blocks dopamine receptors on the ends of nerve cells and was found to improve positive symptoms significantly but not the negative and cognitive ones. An agonist is a chemical that binds to some receptor of a cell and triggers a response by that cell. Agonists often mimic the action of a naturally occurring substance. While an agonist causes an action, an antagonist blocks the action of the agonist. Schizophrenics have average life expectancies that are 12 to 15 years less than others because of higher suicide rates and physical problems for which they dont seek medical help.
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.jpost.com/Health-and-Science/Glutamate-The-next-psychiatric-revolution-326119
Glutamate: The next psychiatric revolution
The foxes of BigPharma have a close ally inside the henhouse. That is the conclusion of two books by a courageous investigative journalist and health science writer named Robert Whitaker. His first book, entitled Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill,noted that there has been a 600 percent increase (since Thorazine was introduced in the U.S. in the mid-1950s) in the total and permanent disabilities of millions of psychiatric drug-takers. This uniquely First World mental health epidemic has resulted in the taxpayer-supported, life-long disabilities of large numbers of psychiatric patients who are now unable to be happy, productive, taxpaying members of society. Whitaker has done a powerful service to humanity, albeit an unwelcome one for various healthcare-related industries, by presenting previously hidden, but very convincing evidence from the scientific literature to support his thesis: that it is the drugs and not the so-called mental illnesses that are causing the epidemic of mental illness disability. Many open-minded physicians and many aware psychiatric patients are now motivated to be wary of any and all synthetic chemicals that can cross the blood/brain barrier because all of them are capable of altering the brain in ways totally unknown to medical science, especially with long-term medication use.
For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://www.alternet.org/story/155001/how_psychiatric_drugs_made_america_mad/
Marisa’s Dandelion Patch 