The Lancet Publishes Scaremongering 'Study' Amid Covid19 Crisis

Published: April 15, 2020
Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic

The Lancet

I've read it.

It's based around one word.

Here are my thoughts.

What the published authors claim:

We explore the psychological, social, and neuroscientific effects of COVID-19 and set out the immediate priorities and longer-term strategies for mental health science research.

What this blog has found:

Mental health 'scientists' claim:

"As scientists continue to investigate the brains of people who have mental illnesses, they are learning that mental illness is associated with changes in the brain's structure, chemistry, and function and that mental illness does indeed have a biological basis." (1)

This claim has been debunked many times by professionals in the field. See here.

What the published authors claim:

"We urge UK research funding agencies to work with researchers, people with lived experience, and others to establish a high-level coordination group to ensure that these research priorities are addressed, and to allow new ones to be identified over time."

What this blog has found:

Prediction published March 30, 2020 (2 weeks prior to the Lancet paper being published)

It will be claimed that many have detachment-type disorders and new phobias. Mourning the loss of loved ones will continue to be deemed as a mental disorder if that mourning process goes beyond two weeks. Psychiatric 'medication' prescriptions will increase as will cases of autoimmune diseases, ironically caused by some of 'medications' prescribed. (2)

What the published authors claim:

"Discovery, evaluation, and refinement of mechanistically driven interventions to address the psychological, social, and neuroscientific aspects of the pandemic are required."

What this blog has found:

A distinction must be made here between what a psychiatrist does and what a neurologist does.

A psychiatrist claims to focus on and treat symptoms originating in the brain that lead to abnormal voluntary functions, i.e; human behaviours, whereas neurologists focus on and treat symptoms originating in the brain that produce abnormal involuntary functions.

Confused? I was at first until I looked closer.

One treats symptoms that "lead" to abnormal voluntary functions whilst the other treats symptoms that "produce" abnormal involuntary functions.

So, a psychiatrist treats something that isn't fully manifested whereas neurologists treat something that has manifested. They do this by using technology, usually in the form of Computed tomography (CT) or computer-assisted tomography (CAT) scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG), nerve conduction studies and electromyography (NCS/EMG), and lumbar puncture (LP) for cerebral spinal fluid analysis.

Most psychiatrists use the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) to diagnose mental health disorders. (3)

The DSM is a manual whereby 'mental health diseases' are voted on by panel members. No technology, such as those used by neurologists, are ever used.

What the published authors claim:

"Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes COVID-19, might infect the brain or trigger immune responses that have additional adverse effects on brain function and mental health in patients with COVID-19."

What this blog has found:

The above looks impressive until you read that they had to add one word. If you blink you'll miss it. It's a word often used in the field of psychiatry and basically means one of two things - [1] It does [2] It doesn't. It covers both bases but only ever talks about one of them.

The word in the above sentence you are looking for is "might."

The published Lancet article hinges on this one little word, a word that sees authors push for more funding. It's a bit like you or I going to the bank for a loan and telling the bank manager that we wish to borrow money for an investment that may or may not (might) bear some fruit.

The common theme running throughout the Lancet paper seems evident, to me at least.

Imagine, if you will, the scene from Oliver Twist. You all know the one, right?

'Please Sir, I want some more'
(Lancet references to funding)

Like all good articles in the media do, they start off with the main message and finish reiterating that message. This Lancet publication is no different.

"New funding will be required to meet these priorities, and it can be efficiently leveraged by the UK's world-leading infrastructure."

"Research funders and researchers must deploy resources to understand the psychological, social, and neuroscientific effects of the COVID-19 pandemic."

"We propose a framework for the prioritisation and coordination of essential, policy-relevant psychological, social, and neuroscientific research, to ensure that any investment is efficiently targeted to the crucial mental health science questions as the pandemic unfolds."

"Given the need to develop the research priorities rapidly to inform immediate funding priorities."

(Final paragraph) "New funding will be required to meet these priorities, and it can be efficiently leveraged by the UK's world-leading neuroscience and mental health research infrastructure. The UK must connect with international funders and researchers to support a global response to the mental health and neurological challenges of this pandemic."

If the begging bowl references don't alarm you then the published piece, you'll find, is littered with words and phrases that are designed to scaremonger, more so than the media are doing with reference to Covid19.

It's quite shocking to see some of the tactics used in this paper based on something that may or may not ever happen (might)

Here's just a small example of scare tactics used by the authors:

"The need to maintain high-quality research standards is imperative."

"An immediate priority."

"There is an urgent need."

"Must deploy resources."

"The research community must act rapidly."

"Growing threats to mental health."

"Clear immediate priorities."

"Need to be repeated more rigorously."

"A risk that prevalence of clinically relevant numbers of people with anxiety, depression, and engaging in harmful behaviours (such as suicide and self-harm) will increase."

"The potential fallout of an economic downturn on mental health is likely to be profound."

"A major adverse consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to be increased social isolation and loneliness (as reflected in our surveys), which are strongly associated with anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide attempts across the lifespan."

"The immediate research priorities are to monitor and report rates of anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide, and other mental health issues both to understand mechanisms and crucially to inform interventions."

"Data will be vital to determine causal mechanisms associated with poor mental health."

"The digital response is crucial."

"Paramount importance."

Now, if you, like me, have received criticism on Twitter from members of the Royal College of Psychiatrists for raising awareness about the "interventions" they speak of in this Lancet paper, you'll understand why I'm bringing all of the above to the attention of my readers.

This paper is designed to grab funding. Unlike poor young Oliver Twist, they haven't even said, "please."

The covid crisis has been an eye-opener for someone like me. I am fascinated by people-watching. I tend to watch a lot before engaging, I like to weigh up a person. There have been many media reports of people cashing-in during this crisis, you know, local shopkeepers hiking the prices of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Many people who are ignoring government guidelines are also in the news.

What I've seen from the mental health field is no better than those selfish idiots and greedy shopkeepers as they push their agendas that covid can cause mental health problems. Nope, it will just cause behavioural problems as people adjust to their new normal. It's not a brain disorder nor will it manifest into one. Mental Health big-wigs have seized this opportunity with both hands, hence the need for them to create a problem that isn't there and then try to convince people that it may happen and to tackle it they need funding.

Oliver only wanted more porridge because he was hungry. Mental Health, it appears, want more, much more, to feed their egotistical appetites.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm all for sticking someone under a scanner to determine if their brain is or isn't working properly, I just don't think one can determine a brain default by box-checking a guide that was voted on by a bunch of white-coated men who "might" have just been influenced by drug company money.

Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science can be read here.

Only one of the authors (panel members), Prof Clive Ballard, PhD, reports grants and personal fees ~  from Acadia and Lundbeck; personal fees from Roche, Otsuka, Biogen, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, AARP, and Exciva; and grants from Synexus

Bob Fiddaman

(1) NIH Curriculum Supplement Series 2007

(2) Mother Nature (Mother Earth) and the Invaluable Lesson

(3) How to Diagnose a Mental Health Disorder

Stop It!

Dr. Clare Gerada ~ "Stop it"

Louis Appleby, Government Advisor on the prevention of suicide, opened a can of worms on Twitter last month when he tweeted:

Antidepressants work, they are not placebo, they are not addictive. Emphatic from @ClareGerada on #r4today. Dangerous to suggest otherwise.

— louis appleby (@ProfLAppleby) March 10, 2018

What followed were some jaw-dropping tweets from, Clare Gerada, the person Appleby was promoting.

Who is Clare Gerada?

Clare Gerada is one-half of a psych drug promotion pair. She's married to Simon Wessely, a psychiatrist and professor of psychological medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. Gerada was the chairperson of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners from 2010 to 2013. She is also a partner in the Hurley Group which runs a number of GP practices and walk-in centers across London. She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2000 Birthday Honours "for service to medicine and to drug misusers"

Nice.

Now let's take a look at Clare's attempts to stifle conversation about the side effects surrounding 'antidepressants'.

First up to tweet opposition to her views was Australian Army Major Stuart McCarthy. He joined the Australian Army in 1988 and in 1999 deployed to Bougainville, Papua New Guinea where he served as commander of a multi-national patrol in the Peace Monitoring Group.

Towards the end of McCarthy’s Bougainville deployment, he became a subject in an unethical drug trial for the antimalarial drug tafenoquine. In 2001, he spent six months as the deputy force engineer in the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea. While there he was prescribed mefloquine and experienced a variety of adverse drug effects including depression.

Despite recurrent major depression and other debilitating neurological symptoms that he now realises are the result of the undiagnosed neurotoxic brain injury he sustained in 2001, McCarthy served in the Army for 16 additional years.

His full bio is at the foot of this blog post.

McCarthy's April 16th tweet to Gerada asked her three questions. The resulting twitter exchange was priceless despite that Gerada's "responses" were dreadfully predictable.

Click on Twitter images to enlarge.

Undeterred, Major McCarthy pressed Gerada for some answers. Once again, she tried to silence the respected veteran:

I then tweeted Gerada a question asking if she would concede that, for some, they (drugs labeled antidepressants) could be dangerous? Her reply, if you could call it such, was quite puzzling:

So, now she was using her same line on me, Gerada ordered me to "stop it."

Minutes later she made a claim that these drugs save lives and told me to read the 500 clinical trials that prove it. Ahem, I hated to break the following to her:

Gerada could not answer my question because the fact is there have been no clinical trials for drugs labeled antidepressants that supported the claim Gerada made. There are no clinical trials that have found any evidence that taking these drugs saves lives. If there were, pharmaceutical companies would have already printed this bold proclamation on their product packaging. Pharma would never let such a sales and promotional opportunity slip by.

After running face first into a brick wall, Gerada's next tweet was equally lame but more bizarre:

I've previously written about how critics of patient safety advocates throw out the PR stigma line. You can read all about it here.

I then pointed out Gerada's strawman arguments and her shady goal to suppress and shame those harmed by drugs labeled antidepressants. Fiona French, who has been seriously damaged by benzo prescribing, joined the twitter conversation. What is astounding here is the way Gerada diagnoses French.

The conversation seemed to end there, but the following morning Gerada tweeted something even more delusional.

My answer was short and sweet. "Stop it", I said.

Coming late to the twitter round was Kristina Gehrki. Her tweets appeared to have ended Gerada's nonsense. Perhaps Gerada was too busy the last days with her googling "Who is Florence Nightingale?"

**STOP PRESS**

Remarkably, just minutes ago, Gerada felt the need to chip in again. This time, responding to a parent whose son died in an 'antidepressant' induced death. Telling a parent whose child died as a result of a prescription that they are 'wrong' is an affront to public health. Her reply also shows an appalling lack of human compassion.

Here's the tweet.

Gerada has now blocked me on Twitter.

Bob Fiddaman

Major Stuart McCarthy Biography

When Psychiatry is Debated, it Becomes an 'Attack'.

Mommy, make them stop!

I laughed hard upon reading a recent article published in The Lancet Psychiatry [27 May 2014
doi:10.1016/S2215-0366(14)70232-9]

You see, there's a bunch of psychiatrists who are taking umbrage to those that oppose unwarranted use of antidepressants. The psychiatrist argument smacks of total hypocrisy and lacks any scientific data, preferring instead to quote hearsay whilst using the defence of antidiagnosis and antitreatment groups attacking their belief system [because that's all it is, a belief.]

What's remarkable about this article is pretty much summed up in its final paragraph. My thoughts on this later.

Here we have 5 professionals putting their name to an article, namely, David J Nutt, Guy M Goodwin, Dinesh Bhugra, Seena Fazel and Stephen Lawrie.

They claim they are being targeted by an anti-psychiatry movement when, in fact, they are being asked to debate the issue of antidepressants publicly.

This latest stunt from David J Nutt et al just highlights how psychiatry, when backed into a corner, does everything to avoid going head to head in a public forum with people that disagree with them.

Rather than enter into a public debate they choose to deflect their cowardice by playing the victim.

"Psychiatry is used to being attacked by external parties with antidiagnosis and antitreatment agendas."

"Most of these people are depressed and more than 70% are not taking an antidepressant at the time of death. Blanket condemnation of antidepressants by lobby groups and colleagues risks increasing that proportion"

"Antipsychiatry groups usually claim that depressed patients should be treated with exercise and psychotherapy instead of drugs. However, little controlled evidence exists to support the use of psychotherapy as an alternative to antidepressants in major depression."

"...the anti-psychiatry movement, although now long in the tooth, has revived itself with the recent conspiracy theory that the pharmaceutical industry, in league with psychiatrists, actively plots to create diseases and manufacture drugs no better than placebo."

Nutt et al are so far of the mark here. There are many individuals, myself included, who are not part of groups - choosing instead to go it alone, to speak out against something because it's the right thing to do.

What I find worrying about this article is the bare-faced cheek of it's authors who dismiss claims that the pharmaceutical industry is in league with psychiatrists and then, because the Lancet abide by transparency, reveal the authors ties to the industry.

{Insert canned laughter here}

DJN has received grants and personal fees from Lundbeck and GSK; and personal fees from Lilly, BMS, Otsuka, Servier, and Pfizer. GMG has received grants and personal fees from Servier and Lundbeck; personal fees from Teva, Otsuka, Takeda, Eli Lilly, Merck, GSK, and AstraZeneca; and grants from P1vital. SL has received research funding from Abbvie, Roche, and Pfizer in connection with genetic, brain imaging, and therapeutic studies of people with schizophrenia. He has also been paid by Janssen and Roche to speak at or chair educational meetings about schizophrenia, as well as to contribute to advisory boards about new antipsychotic treatments. The other authors declare no competing interests.

It's laughable.

It's akin to the following hamster claiming that he doesn't know where the carrots are.

And we, the gullible public, are expected to believe Nutt et al because [boo hoo] they are being targeted by antipsychiatry groups.

If Nutt had anything about him, he'd step up to the plate and publicly debate what he thinks he knows about antidepressants and their safety - instead he, with his colleagues, run to the Headmaster because they cannot answer their critics in a public place - ergo they are being bullied, targeted by academics who have different opinions.

"Mommy, make them stop."

A few weeks ago Professor Peter Gøtzsche, Nordic Cochrane Centre, Dr Joanna Moncrieff, University College London and Dr James Davies, University of Roehampton challenged Nutt et all to an open debate. All three are part of The Council for Evidence Based Psychiatry [CEP] - the clue to what they seek is in the title of their organisation - "Evidence Based Psychiatry".

One way to put a stop to this is to stop the pissing match. Go public, sit on a panel - Gøtzsche et al on one side of the table, Nutt et al on the other side.

What we are currently witnessing is fight-hype, we see this, normally in Boxing. Two fighters talk the talk before beating one another in the ring. Difference being, they get in the ring to iron out their problems.

The CEP have challenged Psychiatry but Psychiatry is making excuses, they want to keep their heavy-weight belt and fear they will lose it if they accept the challenge.

We have the CEP in one corner here and Nutt et al in another. The CEP are ready to exchange blows but Nutt et al want protection from the referee. "The CEP are anti-me Mr Referee, do I have to fight them?"

In 2004 Nutt held 300 shares in GlaxoSmithKline and was also a paid consultant for them. It's a pity Nutt didn't add this in his article in the Lancet.

The Lancet Psychiatry article, Attacks on antidepressants: signs of deep-seated stigma?, can be read here [registration needed]

Bob Fiddaman

CEP Lays Down Gauntlet to Prescribing Psychiatrists

Will Professor Nutt et al accept the invitation from the CEP for a debate on antidepressants?

The Council for Evidence Based Psychiatry [CEP] has laid down the gauntlet to a handful of psychiatrists who, it appears, believe antidepressant use can prevent suicide.

Last week Professor David Nutt, Professor Sir Simon Wessely and other senior psychiatrists responded to an article in The Times written by  Health Correspondent, Chris Smyth.

Smyth quoted CEP Co-Founder Peter Gøtzsche in his article and this evoked a response from a number of psychiatrists who replied in a letter to The Times.

Sir, Depression can be a debilitating and lethal illness. Medication is a vital part of the treatment of the severest cases. Successful treatment with antidepressants definitely does not do “more harm than good” as you report (Apr 30).

We do not dispute that these drugs are of potentially less value for mild depression, but their effectiveness is maintained as the severity of the depression increases. Is that true of psychological treatment or exercise?

Depression is serious: 6,500 people commit suicide each year in the UK. Many of them are never offered antidepressants, and the blanket condemnation of antidepressants by Professor Peter Gøtzsche and colleagues will increase that proportion.

Professor David Nutt, Neuropsychopharmacology Unit, ICL

Professor Stephen Lawrie, Division of Psychiatry, Edinburgh

Professor Sir Simon Wessely, Royal College of Psychiatrists

Dr Seena Fazel, University of Oxford

Professor Guy Goodwin, European College of Neuropsychopharmacology

Professor Dinesh Bhugra, World Psychiatric Association

In response to the letter from Nutt et al, Peter Gøtzsche,  Dr Joanna Moncrieff and Dr James Davies, of the CEP, wrote...

Sir, Further to the letter from Professor David Nutt and others, whatever the evidence on the efficacy of antidepressants — and the effects are weak even in severe depression — there is no doubt these drugs are being widely overprescribed, and not enough attention is being paid to the harms they can cause. We do not accept that reducing antidepressant prescribing will increase the number of suicides. Antidepressants have not been shown in reliable studies to reduce suicide, indeed they increase the risk of suicide in young people. There is also evidence that antidepressants may increase a whole range of adverse events in the elderly, including falls and fractures, and are associated with increased mortality.

Given these factors and the tendency of many psychiatrists to downplay the harms of overprescribing such medications, we invite Professor Nutt and his colleagues to a public debate where these views can be properly aired.

Professor Peter Gøtzsche, Nordic Cochrane Centre

Dr Joanna Moncrieff, University College London

Dr James Davies, University of Roehampton

Nutt et al have, so far, failed to reply to the invitation. I'd be really surprised if they take the gauntlet laid down by Messrs Gøtzsche, Moncrieff and Davies - Nutt et al have been backed into a corner here - if they come out with guns blazing they are liable to make themselves look silly. Using the defence that antidepressants prevent suicide in their initial letter to The Times was  textbook psychobabble. They go down this route in the hope that patients, both past and present, support their claims with statements such as "Antidepressants saved my life" or "If it wasn't for antidepressants I'd probably be dead". Both statements come from the type of patient who, for whatever reason, have been duped into believing the claims of clever marketing, key opinion leaders [paid by the industry] and a fear that they just cannot get through the day without their daily fix of Prozac type drugs.

Nutt et al have now been publicly challenged to offer proof of this. To my knowledge, there is no proof that antidepressants can prevent suicide, in fact the evidence suggests that antidepressants actually can induce suicide.

Hats off to the CEP for showing how predictable the pro-pill brigade can be when one questions the safety and efficacy of antidepressants.

Incidentally, I wrote about David Nutt some years ago. Nutt was part of the Committee on the Safety of Medicines (CSM), an apparent independent body who have, for 40 years, advised the UK Licensing Authority on the quality, efficacy and safety of medicines - In other words they offered advice to the MHRA.

In 2004 Nutt held 300 shares in GlaxoSmithKline and was also a paid consultant for them. It's a pity Nutt didn't add this in his letter to The Times.

So, does Nutt have the bottle to get into a public debate about the safety of antidepressants?

Will he shy away because of his paid consultancy from GlaxoSmithKline and the shares he once held may be used against him and make his argument very weak. Will he and his colleagues be able to back up their claims with actual science or are their claims, as I suspect, just a theory based loosely around the pandemic promotion of these groups of medicines.

We have six pro pill pushers in Nutt, Lawrie, Wessely, Fazel, Goodwin and Bhugra. How long will we have to wait before the likes of Robert Gibbons and Patricia Casey poke their noses into something that appears to have upset those who choose to drug rather than look at the evidence that, for the majority, shows that these drugs just don't work.

My money is on Nutt et al declining the offer of a public debate. Why would they accept the offer to be publicly humiliated by scientific fact?

You can see the exchange of letters between the CEP and Nutt et al here.


Bob Fiddaman