Kelly Preston | HuffingtonPost

Parents are still largely unaware that these drugs are turning kids into walking time bombs. Eight out of the last 13 school shooters were taking prescribed psychiatric drugs, and only now is the FDA investigating the fact these drugs can cause violence. Legislators are still not waking up to the need for investigation — despite the Jeff Weise tragedy in March when the teen, after being prescribed an antidepressant, shot dead his grandparents and then classmates and school officials.

Now adding to the alarm bell we have the Partnership for a Drug Free America report that teens don’t consider these drugs dangerous because they are prescribed. However, the DEA classifies them in the same category of highly addictive drugs such as cocaine, opium and morphine. At least 10 percent of teens are abusing the stimulants, Ritalin and Adderall. A “troop of drugged-out zombies” is frighteningly real. (Watch for Lawrence Bender’s latest movie, Chumscrubber: Meet Generation Rx — an accurate portrayal of the current epidemic of teen prescription drug abuse.)

The recent controversy over these drugs has also raised another important debate: that parents across America are administering them for conditions they have been led to believe are the result of a “chemical imbalance” in the brain or some sort of brain-based disorder. Yet, the medical doctors in their letter to the FDA make it clear that these “potentially harmful substances” are being prescribed for “disorders that have no neurobiological or physical cause.” Even the president of the APA, Steven Sharfstein, recently admitted that there is no “clean cut lab test” to determine a chemical imbalance can cause “mental illness.” This has prompted concerns about the FDA’s drug approval process and why it approves so many psychiatric drugs for what is essentially behavioral control rather than treatment of medical illness. (read more. . .)

healingarts | July 14, 2005 |

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | Salon

When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data — and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic.

In June 2000, a group of top government scientists and health officials gathered for a meeting at the isolated Simpsonwood conference center in Norcross, Ga. Convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the meeting was held at this Methodist retreat center, nestled in wooded farmland next to the Chattahoochee River, to ensure complete secrecy. The agency had issued no public announcement of the session — only private invitations to 52 attendees. There were high-level officials from the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, the top vaccine specialist from the World Health Organization in Geneva, and representatives of every major vaccine manufacturer, including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Wyeth and Aventis Pasteur. All of the scientific data under discussion, CDC officials repeatedly reminded the participants, was strictly “embargoed.” There would be no making photocopies of documents, no taking papers with them when they left.
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healingarts | June 16, 2005 |

Alicia Priest | Whole Health

Anyone with a pulse should now be familiar with the SSRI scandal. That’s the sordid saga that came to light in late 2003 concerning the antidepressant medicines known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

In brief, it’s a tragic tale of corporate corruption and greed and government neglect at the expense of public health. SSRI drugs, which affect chemical messages in the brain and nervous system, were given to children and teens with the full knowledge of one of the manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline, that their product could increase a patient’s chance of becoming suicidal. Yet these drugs—such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Celexa—were prescribed for everything from depression to bed-wetting, anxiety, and insomnia. Furthermore, many of the SSRI trials show little, if any, benefit in treating depression in children.

This incident illustrates many worthy things but one that screams out to be heard is how little medical science knows about how the brain/mind works, while at the same time putting more people on brain/mind drugs than ever.
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healingarts | June 9, 2005 |