- The British newspaper, The Guardian, in the article below
states that the news broke yesterday in the UK that antidepressants
have been all hype with no beneficial results for two decades. Along
with that release the British government announced that $335 Million would
be allotted to train 3600 new talk therapists to help those suffering depression.
-
- In the meantime the world rocked with the realization
that they had been duped. The question that remains is just how
great has been the cost of that deception?
-
- The study, published in the journal PLoS (Public Library
of Science) Medicine, looked at Prozac, Seroxat, Effexor and Serzone and
found the drugs were only better than a placebo for some people with severe
depression. "Given these results, there seems little reason to prescribe
antidepressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients
unless alternative treatments have failed to provide a benefit."
-
- Looking for medications to take over where Valium left
off we were left with a void in treating anxiety and we were introduced
to a new disorder - depression and a new batch of miracle cures
in pill form - the SSRI antidepressants, beginning with Prozac. Since the
end of 1989 Dr. Ann Blake Tracy has worked non-stop to educate the
public to the fact that these drugs were NOT doing what we were being told
they were doing to help us. She has sounded warnings of the dangers
of the drugs, the anaesthetizing effects of these drugs and questioned
how anaesthetizing someone could be "therapeutic" especially
when the action of SSRIs was so similar to a slow fuse PCP or LSD effect.
Then in August the head of the National Institutes of Mental Health, Dr.
Thomas Insel, publicly stated that antidepressants do produce the same
effect as Ketamine, sister drug to PCP (Angel Dust).
-
-
- Meanwhile worldwide people stood back asking how
Bipolar Disorder could increase by 4000% from 1994 - 2003? And where was
all the violence and insanity coming from that now seems to engulf our
world?
-
- I would encourage you to please read below the beginning
of a shocking article out of the United Kingdom this morning on this issue.
Then below that don't miss Dr. Tracy's two latest brief presentations to
the FDA on the SSRI antidepressants and their impact upon society as we
adjust to the concept of such great deception in medicine along with the
danger of millions coming off these drugs, when few professionals know
safe methods of withdrawing from antidepressants.
-
- We hear the word "conspiracy" a lot, but how
many know what the word means? I have always understood it to mean "concealing
truth in order to get gain." Knowing that the antidepressant market
was bringing in $200 Million per day makes it quite clear that there was
much gain on the part of the pharmaceutical giants to keep these studies
concealed from the public. What everyone must feel like today is what J.
Edgar Hoover stated long ago: "The individual is handicapped by coming
face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists."
-
- THE WITHDRAWAL AFTERMATH: As Dr. Tracy explains below
in bold print it is very critical to make sure patients are weaned
EXTREMELY slowly so as to avoid ANY chance of going into a withdrawal state.
The FDA warned with the black box warning on these drugs that abrupt changes
in dose can produce suicide, hostility or psychosis. All we need are
millions of people going into suicide, hostility, or psychosis because
they, or their doctors, are not familiar with safe withdrawal
methods for antidepressants.
-
- PLEASE REFER TO DR. TRACY'S HOUR AND A HALF LONG CD/TAPE
ON SAFE WITHDRAWAL IDEAS TO GUIDE YOU THROUGH SAFE WITHDRAWAL FROM THESE
DRUGS. (800-280-0730)
-
- ______________________________________
-
-
- As criticism of the industry's withholding of such results
mounted, drug companies were forced to make unflattering results public.
-
- It is only very recently that this has become a legal
obligation. In the heyday of antidepressant PR, only about 10% of results
about how the drugs affected quality of life were published. More than
two-thirds of studies today are industry funded, and such research is four
times as likely to find in favour of the drugs than independent inquiry.
It is hardly surprising, then, that research has tended to give a positive
spin to antidepressants.
-
-
- The Creation Of The Prozac Myth
-
- The Guardian - UK
- 2-27-8
-
- In the 20 years since its launch, 40m people worldwide
have taken the so-called wonder drug - but research revealed this week
shows that Prozac, and similar antidepressants, are no more effective than
a sugar pill. So how was the myth created? Psychoanalyst Darian Leader
traces the irrepressible rise of the multibillion dollar depression industry,
while others explore the clinical and cultural impact of Prozac, its perceived
personal benefits - and sometimes terrible costs
-
- Has the depression bubble finally burst? Yesterday's
headlines about the inefficacy of Prozac and other bestselling antidepressants
must have been an unpleasant shock, not only to the drug manufacturers,
but also to the millions of people in the UK taking these drugs. The new
research, published in the Public Library of Science Journal, found that
a placebo was just as effective as the drugs - excepting in some cases
of severe depression, where it was not the drugs that did well, but the
placebos that did worse.
-
- What will the impact of this new research be? Is it a
case of recognising that the Prozac emperor never had any clothes? Or,
on the contrary, of acknowledging the power of placebo and finding new
ways of working with it?
-
- For many researchers, the PLoS findings actually reveal
nothing new. Several earlier studies comparing placebo with antidepressant
drugs had found that there was not much difference, yet these results had
little media uptake. The new paper owes its coverage partly to the fact
that it includes data from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose
not to broadcast. As criticism of the industry's withholding of such results
mounted, drug companies were forced to make unflattering results public.
-
- It is only very recently that this has become a legal
obligation. In the heyday of antidepressant PR, only about 10% of results
about how the drugs affected quality of life were published. More than
two-thirds of studies today are industry funded, and such research is four
times as likely to find in favour of the drugs than independent inquiry.
It is hardly surprising, then, that research has tended to give a positive
spin to antidepressants.
-
- The new negative results might seem to promise a change
of direction. But they may just be the other side of the industry coin.
What remains unchallenged is the diagnosis of depression itself. GPs diagnose
it every minute of the day, celebrities reveal they suffer from it and
soap opera characters wrestle with it. Yet 40 years ago depression was
hardly anywhere. A tiny percentage of the population were deemed to suffer
from it. So what happened?
-
- These developments actually followed a surprising course.
The story of depression cannot be dissociated from the story of its supposed
remedies. And these, like nearly all psychotropic drugs, were not the result
of targeted research, but of chance association. The first drugs had in
fact been used as antihistamines, yet they seemed to have effects on mood,
energy and anxiety.
-
- Although epidemiological studies had found high levels
of nervous conditions in the community before these drugs were marketed,
this had not been diagnosed as depression. With the marketing of the drugs,
this nervous substrata was now labelled as a depression which had gone
unrecognised and untreated. Yet this knowledge was not seized on and marketed
until the drugs market made this happen in the late 70s.
-
- Where depression had been rated at 50 per million in
the early 60s, by the 90s this had jumped to 100,000. These remarkable
changes coincided with the crisis in the market for minor tranquilisers
such as Librium and Valium, prescribed for anxiety. As these widely used
drugs were found to be highly addictive, it looked as if a substantial
market was about to collapse. Hundreds of thousands of people took these
drugs and the economic gains were enormous. Anxiety had to be remarketed
and new agents found to respond to it. And this is where depression started
to really take off as a diagnosis. First of all, however, it had to be
constructed as a discrete, well-defined clinical entity.
-
- Why couldn't the drugs companies have simply offered
their products as tonics or general mood enhancers? After the thalidomide
scandal in the early 60s, tough new standards were set in place and drugs
had to specify their active ingredients, the outcomes sought and the delivery
period for attaining them. This meant a new kind of surface precision.
Drugs would have to pass expensive trials proving they were more effective
than placebo and do better than other drugs used for this same group of
target patients. These new standards brought with them a new technology
to evaluate. Randomised controlled trials became the norm, together with
a silver bullet model of illness according to which each specific disorder
would have a specific cause and a specific treatment.
-
- These changes in the landscape of prescription medicines
framed the market for the antidepressants. Since the new diagnosis needed
to be publicised, drug companies paid for adverts in medical journals,
glossy pullout supplements, conferences and clinical studies to show the
prevalence of depression. When Frank Ayd wrote his book Recognising the
Depressed Patient, the pharmaceuticals giant Merck bought 50,000 copies
and distributed them to GPs. The book argued that depression was going
undetected and untreated in the community. This dissemination of knowledge
coincided nicely with their marketing of a new treatment for depression
in the form of amitriptyline.
-
- The later generation of SSRI drugs had an even more exponential
success: by the late 90s Prozac was a household word, with millions of
prescriptions and a whole cult of novels, films and memoirs based around
it. In 2005, traces of Prozac were even found to be present in British
tap water.
-
- This process of marketing depression helped create the
clinical category itself. If the new drugs affected mood, appetite and
sleep patterns, then depression consisted of a problem with mood, appetite
and sleep patterns. A subtle shift in the defining symptoms of depression
took place over the years, so that the category itself became taken for
granted. Lost here was the simple idea that there is a difference between
surface symptoms (insomnia, loss of appetite, feeling low) and underlying
causes, which may be different from case to case. The creation of the antidepressant
market effectively disallowed this once crucial distinction.
-
- What would happen, after all, if surface symptoms were
separated from underlying causes? How would the clinician make a prescription?
What would be targeted? Pretty soon, the absurdity of the idea of a drug
curing underlying causes would become clear. How could a drug cure the
experience of having lost a loved one, for example? It might numb the pain,
but it couldn't really do much more than that.
-
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/27/mentalhealth.health1
-
- ________________________________
-
-
-
- Dr. Ann Blake Tracy's September 13, 2004 to the FDA
-
-
-
- I am Ann Blake Tracy, PhD, head of the International
Coalition for Drug Awareness. I am the author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora?
- Our Serotonin Nightmare and have testified in court cases involving antidepressants
for 12 1/2 years. The last 15 years of my life have been devoted full time
to researching and writing about SSRI antidepressants.
-
- Research on serotonin has been clear from the very beginning
that the most damaging thing that could be done to the serotonin system
would be to impair one?s ability to metabolize serotonin. Yet that is exactly
how SSRI antidepressants exert their effects.
-
- For decades research has shown that impairing serotonin
metabolism will produce migraines, hot flashes, pains around the heart,
difficulty breathing, a worsening of bronchial complaints, tension and
anxiety which appear from out of nowhere, depression, suicide - especially
very violent suicide, hostility, violent crime, arson, substance abuse,
psychosis, mania, organic brain disease, autism, anorexia, reckless driving,
Alzheimer?s, impulsive behavior with no concern for punishment, and argumentative
behavior.
-
- How anyone ever thought it would be "therapeutic"
to chemically induce these reactions is beyond me. Yet, these reactions
are exactly what we have witnessed in our society over the past decade
and a half as a result of the widespread use of these drugs.
-
- In fact we even have a whole new vocabulary as a result
with terms such as "road rage," "suicide by cop," "murder/suicide,"
"going postal," "false memory syndrome," "school
shooting," "bi-polar" - every third person you meet anymore
- along with the skyrocketing rates of antidepressant-induced diabetes
and hypoglycemia.
-
- Can you remember two decades ago when depressed people
used to slip away quietly to kill themselves rather than killing everyone
around them and then themselves as they do while taking SSRI antidepressants?
-
- A study out of the University of Southern California
in 1996 looked at a group of mutant mice in an experiment that had gone
terribly wrong. These genetically engineered mice were the most violent
creatures they had ever witnessed. They were born lacking the MAO-A enzyme
which metabolizes serotonin. As a result their brains were awash in serotonin.
This excess serotonin is what the researchers determined was the cause
for this extreme violence. Antidepressants produce the same end result
as they inhibit the metabolism of serotonin.
-
- These are extremely dangerous drugs that should be banned
as similar drugs have been banned in the past.
-
- As a society we once thought LSD and PCP to be miracle
medications with large margins of safety in humans. We have never seen
drugs so similar to LSD and PCP as these SSRI antidepressants. All of these
drugs produce dreaming during periods of wakefulness. It is believed that
the high serotonin levels over stimulate the brain stem leading to a lack
of muscle paralysis during sleep thus allowing the patient to act out the
dreams or nightmares they are having. The world witnessed that clearly
in the Zoloft-induced murder-suicide of comedian Phil Hartman and his wife,
Brynn.
-
- Connecticut witnessed the Prozac-induced case of Kelly
Silk several years ago. This young mother attacked her family with a knife,
then set the house on fire killing all but her 8 year old daughter who
ran to the neighbors. As she stood bleeding and screaming for help she
explained, "Help! My mommy is having a nightmare!"
-
- Out of the mouths of babes we will understand these nightmares
for what they are. She understood that this was something her mother would
do ONLY in a nightmare, never in reality.
-
- This is known as a REM Sleep Behavior Disorder. In the
past it was known mainly as a drug withdrawal state, but the largest sleep
facility in the country has reported that 86% of the cases they are diagnosing
are patients on antidepressants.
-
- Because this was known in the past as a condition manifesting
mainly in drug withdrawal you should see how dangerous the withdrawal state
from these drugs will prove to be. That is why it is so critical to make
sure patients are weaned EXTREMELY slowly so as to avoid ANY chance of
going into a withdrawal state.
-
- _________________
-
-
- Dr. Ann Blake Tracy's December 13, 2006 to the FDA
-
-
- Ann Blake-Tracy, PhD, head of the International Coalition
for Drug Awareness, author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? & Our Serotonin
Nightmare. For 15 years I have testified in court cases involving antidepressants.
The last 17 years of my life have been devoted to researching, writing,
and lecturing about these drugs.
-
- Two of my nieces in their early 20's, a decade apart,
attempted suicide on antidepressants, the first on Prozac, the second just
a month ago on Wellbutrin.
-
- Due to time constraints I refer you to my September,
2004 testimony on the damaging effects of inhibiting serotonin metabolism
- the very mode of action of antidepressants. Impairing serotonin metabolism
results in a multitude of symptoms including suicide, violent crime, mania
and psychosis. Suicidal ideation is, without question, associated with
these drugs.
-
- Rosie Meysenburg, Sara Bostock and I have collected and
posted 1200 news articles documenting many exaggerated acts of violence
against self or others at www.drugawareness.org with a direct link to www.ssristories.com
-
- Beyond suicidal ideation we have mania/bipolar increasing
dramatically. Antidepressants have always been known to trigger both.
-
- According to the Pharmaceutical Business Review in the
last 11 years alone, the number of people in the U.S. with "bipolar"
disorder has increased by 4.8 million.
-
- Dr. Malcolm Bowers of Yale, found in the late 90's over
200,000 people yearly are hospitalized with antidepressant-induced manic
psychosis. They also point out that most go unrecognized as medication-induced,
remain un hospitalized, and a threat to themselves and others.
-
- What types of threats from manias?
-
- Pyromania: A compulsion to start fires
-
- Kleptomania: A compulsion to embezzle, shoplift, commit
robberies
-
- Dipsomania: An uncontrollable urge to drink alcohol
-
- Nymphomania and erotomania: Sexual compulsions - a pathologic
preoccupation with sexual fantasies or activities
-
- Child sex abuse has increased dramatically with even
female teachers going manic on these drugs and seducing students. The head
of the sex abuse treatment program for Utah estimated 80% of sex crime
perpetrators were on antidepressants at the time of the crime. While Karl
Von Kleist, an ex-LAPD officer and leading polygraph expert estimated 90%
- strong evidence of manic sexual compulsions that demand attention.
-
- Diabetes has skyrocketed, has been linked to antidepressants,
and blood sugar imbalances have long been suspected as the cause of mania
or bipolar. Anyone who has witnessed someone in insulin shock would see
the striking similarity to a violent reaction to an antidepressant.
-
- If there has been any increase in suicide since the black
box warning it is due to doctors not knowing how to get patients off these
drugs safely.
-
- Clearly, far too many lives are being destroyed in various
ways by these drugs.
-
-
- ___________
-
-
-
- For additional information contact:
-
- Ann Blake Tracy, Ph.D., Executive Director,
- International Coalition For Drug Awareness
- Website: www.drugawareness.org & www.ssristories.org
- Author: Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare
- CD or audio tape on safe withdrawal: "Help! I Can't
Get
- Off My Antidepressant, etc.!"
- Order Number: 800-280-0730
- E-mail: <mailto:atracyphd1@aol.com>atracyphd1@aol.com
- Phone: 1-801-209-1800
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