On February 1, Allen Frances, MD, published an interesting article on the Huffington Post blog. The article is called Do Antipsychotics Help or Harm Psychotic Symptoms?, and is a response to Robert Whitaker’s post of January 27: “Me, Allen Frances, and Climbing Out of a Pigeonhole. This post, in turn, was a response to Dr…. Continue Reading
The Use of Neuroleptic Drugs as Chemical Restraints
On July 17, I wrote a post on the use of neuroleptic drugs as chemical restraints in nursing homes. The article generated some comments, one of which touched on some very fundamental issues which, in my view, warrant further discussion. The comment was from drsusanmolchan and read as follows: “All drugs can be dangerous toxic… Continue Reading
Neuroleptics and Tardive Dyskinesia in Children
There’s an interesting February 11, 2014, article on Peter Breggin’s website: $1.5 Million Award in Child Tardive Dyskinesia Malpractice. Thanks to Mad in America for the link. Here’s the opening paragraph: “On February 11, 2014 a Chicago jury awarded $1.5 million to an autistic child who developed a severe case of tardive dyskinesia and tardive… Continue Reading
Psychiatric Dogmatism
In November, Joanna Moncrieff, MD, a British psychiatrist who works as a Senior Lecturer in psychiatry at University College London and a practicing consultant psychiatrist, started her own blog. What’s remarkable about this blog is that it is highly critical of psychiatry. Dr. Moncrieff marshals important facts and arguments in this area, and it is… Continue Reading
Neuroleptics for Children: Harvard’s Shame
In December 2012, Mark Olfson, MD, et al, published an article in the Archives of General Psychiatry. The title is National Trends in the Office-Based Treatment of Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Antipsychotics. The authors collected data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys for the period 1993-2009, and looked for trends in antipsychotic prescribing… Continue Reading
Causes of High Mortality in People Labeled ‘Mentally Ill’
ANOTHER VIDEO FROM DR. LIEBERMAN On October 28, Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, President of the APA, made another video. This one is titled An Important Look at Mortality in Mental Illness: A Decade of Data on Psychotropic Drugs, and was made for Medscape. You can see the transcript at the same site. Medscape is a web… Continue Reading
Submitting Claims for Off-label Prescriptions to Medicaid May Constitute Fraud
In my view, one of the most destructive developments in psychiatry in recent years is the prescribing of neuroleptic drugs to children. Much of this prescribing is off-label, meaning that the prescribed use is not approved by the FDA. Off-label drug prescribing is legal, however. Once the FDA has approved a drug for one purpose,… Continue Reading
Antipsychotics: A Euphemism for Neurotoxins
I guess everybody knows by now that Robert Whitaker spoke at the NAMI conference in San Antonio last Saturday (June 29). You can view an outline of his speech, The Case for Selective Use of Antipsychotics here. He spoke about the fact that for people who have been assigned a “diagnosis” of “schizophrenia,” long-term outcomes… Continue Reading
The Power of Words to Shape Attitudes
I recently wrote a post called: Do Major Tranquilizers Make Things Worse? The post was based on a study by Drs. Harrow and Jobe in which they speculated that the high relapse rate of “schizophrenics” who stop taking their drugs may have more to do with drug withdrawal than the supposed drug efficacy. Monica, at… Continue Reading
Do Major Tranquilizers Make Things Worse?
BACKGROUND On March 19 of this year an article by Martin Harrow and Thomas Jobe was published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin: Does Long-Term Treatment of Schizophrenia with Antipsychotic Medications Facilitate Recovery? You can see it here. The term “antipsychotics” embraces drugs such as Haldol, Risperdal, Thorazine, etc… I prefer the term major tranquilizers, because it… Continue Reading
Tardive Dyskinesia
In the late 80’s, I worked for a while in a State Hospital in West Virginia. Clients would arrive on 72-hour holding committals from the counties, and if the psychiatrist felt that the client needed to stay longer than that (which was almost always the case), then either the client had to convert to voluntary… Continue Reading