Obama Shuns Public Opinion on Psychiatric Drugs

If you are landing on my blog for the first time you'll probably have arrived here via a search engine, chances are you typed in "Paxil withdrawal" or "Seroxat side effects". In fact many visitors arrive here using the search terms Paxil or Seroxat combined with words such as "aggression", "mood swings", "suicidal thoughts", etc.

The recent Connecticut school shootings highlighted, for me at least, just how dangerous psychiatric drugs can be. It also highlighted how the public in general perceive 'mental illness'.

Adam Lanza, it is believed, shot and killed 27 people, 20 of whom were children, this before turning the gun on himself in an act of suicide.

This, obviously, outraged the public and comments on websites, forums and social networking sites were littered with opinion about Lanza's state of mind. "Nutter", "Crazy", "Madman", "Evil" all being examples of words used to describe Lanza.

Sure, I'd agree with most of the above descriptions but I wouldn't/couldn't just leave it there.

What made Lanza crazy?

Glaxo Finish in 26th Position... But Spin Victory

Back in November I wrote how GlaxoSmithKline had been shortlisted for Britain's most admired company. When I learned that they had been shortlisted I wrote a brief email to the editor of the Management Today, who were offering the award. In a nutshell, I aired my disgust at their nomination, citing Glaxo's various violations over the years.

Management Today never replied.

No surprise then that Glaxo were blowing their own trumpet on their Facebook page early in December after they had learned that they had won the most admired company in the Health & Household category. [Fig 1]

Fig 1

The Health & Household award was a sub-category and the reason why Glaxo felt the need to cover themselves in garlands on their Facebook page was probably due to the fact that they finished in 26th position overall. Now there's some spin for you, huh?

"Remarkable efficacy of Paxil" - Endorsed for Kids by the JAACAP

Okay, the JAACAP [Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry] aren't exactly endorsing Paxil for kids but, in my opinion, they are doing the next best thing.

GlaxoSmithKline's... [Strike that]... Sally Laden's published study, in which eminent psychiatrists pretended they had wrote, Efficacy of Paroxetine in the Treatment of Adolescent Major Depression: A Randomized, Controlled Trial, has been the subject of much debate over the years. When it was flagged as being incorrect the pretend authors defended it. When it was proven to be incorrect the pretend authors went all quiet on us.

Now, we have a piece of literature purportedly written by the likes of Martin Keller, Neal Ryan and Karen Wagner to name but a few, that still causes controversy, this time from the publishers of the said piece, the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.  I've Previously wrote about one of the more lesser known authors, Stan Kutcher. [Links at foot of post]

School Shootings and the Psychiatric Medication Link

The recent news of yet another school shooting saddened us all. I was moved by President Obama's speech to the public that has appeared and been viewed many times on YouTube.

There's a lot of speculation surrounding Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the recent massacre in Connecticut. Stories are surfacing that he had some form of personality disorder. If true, then the likelihood is that Lanza may have been on psychiatric medication. Of course, this is just speculation. Lanza, according to his aunt, has since been described as a "quiet, nice kid," 

There is, however, a link to the majority of school shootings and psychiatric medication. The pro-pill brigade refuse to lay blame on the medications, opting instead for the 'illness' that caused these people to become hostile and murderous.

One thing is for sure, the link, however small you may think it is, has to be investigated.

SSRi Stories is a website that has collated many stories over the years. To gauge the link between psychiatric medication and school shootings one can see that there is a problem that needs some serious investigation.

SSRi Stories starts with an incident in 1988 where Laurie Wasserman Dann "walked into a second grade classroom at Hubbard Woods School in Winnetka, Illinois carrying three pistols and began shooting children, killing an eight-year-old boy - Nicholas Corwin - and wounding five others before fleeing. She entered a nearby house where she shot and wounded a 20-year-old man before killing herself. "

Dann was taking the antidepressant Anafranil [clomipramine] for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

More Paxil Birth Defect Woes for Glaxo

It would appear that GlaxoSmithKline have some sort of sick fetish for courtrooms or battling against consumers who complain about their antidepressant, Paxil [Known as Seroxat in Europe and Aropax in the southern hemisphere]

It's just been announced that Canada has been given the green light to attempt to seek justice for its first national class action lawsuit against GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of Paxil, which is alleged to have caused birth defects in children born to women who took it during pregnancy.

Representative plaintiff, Faith Gibson, took Paxil during her pregnancy throughout 2004. On September [same year] her daughter, Meah Bartram, was born with a hole in the heart.

The class action, given the thumbs up by The Supreme Court of British Columbia, will see lawyers argue that GlaxoSmithKline knew or ought to have known of the risks and failed to provide adequate and timely warning to doctors and the public.

The Supreme Court green light can be viewed, in full below:

David Healy - Saints v Sinners

Fascinating talk given by antidepressant expert, David Healy, is doing the rounds on YouTube and on various blogs sites.

Healy, who recently launched a website [Rxisk] aimed at patient adverse reaction reporting, has long sought to bring about awareness regarding pharmaceutical companies and the way clinical trials are run. He's the author of many books, his most recent, Pharmageddon, takes a meticulous look at the inside workings of the pharmaceutical industry and the way in which prescription drugs are marketed throughout the world and how this aids in the survival of some of the most richest and influential global organisations in the world today. I reviewed Pharmageddon here.

Healy was branded as a maverick when he first started speaking out against the popular antidepressants, a slur put out, more than likely by the pharmaceutical industry and those KOL's [Key Opinion Leaders] he exposed.

I've watched many talks by David Healy and although we don't agree on entirely everything, I believe SSRi's cause more harm than good, his knowledge and unique ability to reach out to the layperson should be commended.

The talk [Below] is well worth watching - it will raise a few eyebrows and will give you food for thought.

For an itemised breakdown of the one hour talk, Irish blogger and friend, Leonie Fennell, has offered a timeline on her website here. Meantime, here's the talk which was presented at the Cardiff University School of Psychology on 26th November 2012. Amongst other things Healy talks about Ghostwriting,  GlaxoSmithKline, Zoloft and antidepressant use in pregnancy.