Fred A. Baughman, Jr.
Board Certified Neurologist,
Fellow, American Academy of Neurology
November 30, 2009

As suggested in the New York Times November 27th article, “Brain Power–Surgery for Mental Ills Offers Both Hope and Risk”, being unable to brush ones teeth and the act of showering for seven hours at a time are not medical or surgical diseases.  Even psychiatrists, having gone to medical school, know that a disease is an abnormality–gross (a lump), microscopic (cancer cells), or chemical (elevated blood sugar in diabetes).  But in the wonderland of psychiatric diagnosis, they would have us believe that each of their labels is a physical abnormality/disease /disorder, when, instead, each is a lie—devoid of science and truth.

Carey cites Ross, 21 years of age, who swears “It (psychosurgery) saved my life…I really believe that.”  Whether or not a patient believes he has a disease, and whether or not they believe a treatment’ has helped is subjective, proving nothing.  Carey persists: “ the first real application of advanced brain science …is a precise, sophisticated version of an old and controversial approach: psychosurgery…”  Because there are no diseases in psychiatry, psychosurgery is performed upon brains with no defined abnormalities—normal brains—powerful imagery to perpetuate the ‘disease’ lie—psychosurgery as ‘disease’ propaganda!.  In 1948 the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology made psychiatry and neurology separate specialties–neurology to deal with the diagnosis and treatment of physical/organic diseases of the nervous system, psychiatry with all problems emotional and behavioral, none of them diseases.

Nor does an article such as this, represented to be news, science and the truth, appearing on the front page of the New York Times, confirm or validate psychiatric diagnoses as brain or body abnormalities/disorders/diseases.

On Nov 10, 2008, Supriya Sharma, MD, MPH, FRCPC, Director General of Health Canada wrote   “For mental/psychiatric disorders in general, including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and ADHD, there are no confirmatory gross, microscopic or chemical abnormalities that have been validated for objective physical diagnosis.  On March 12, 2009  Donald Dobbs of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, US Food & Drug Administration, wrote: “I consulted with the FDA new drug review division responsible for approving psychiatric drug products and they concurred with the response you enclosed from Health Canada.”

In psychiatry today, there is no regard for the brain, our #1 organ of learning, adaptation, and mental health, or for the truth that more persons recover from psychiatric ills to return to their homes and jobs absent drugs, shock, and psychosurgery than with any combination of such ongoing “treatments.”