Tag Archives: antidepressants

Military’s drug policy threatens troops’ health, doctors say

Army leaders are increasingly concerned about the growing use and abuse of prescription drugs by soldiers, but a Nextgov investigation shows a U.S. Central Command policy that allows troops a 90- or 180-day supply of highly addictive psychotropic drugs before they deploy to combat contributes to the problem.

Drug formulary includes drugs like Valium and Xanax, used to treat depression, as well as the antipsychotic Seroquel, originally developed to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, mania and depression.

Dr. Grace Jackson, a former Navy psychiatrist, told Nextgov she resigned her commission in 2002 “out of conscience, because I did not want to be a pill pusher.”

Want to beat depression? Do what I did – just get a grip!

Depression is a pandemic, so it must have an underlying cause. I suggest it’s this: we have come to see negative emotions as an inconvenience or an illness. And our modern therapy culture is far too ready to give people labels for their distress — labels that make them feel mentally abnormal and unable to help themselves out of their troubles. Many people believe they suffer from ‘depression’ or ‘clinical depression’ simply because they are grieving over one of life’s maulings, don’t know what to do to feel better and think it might help if they had a label for their bad feelings. The label acts like a baby’s dummy or the security blanket of Charlie Brown’s best friend Linus in the Peanuts cartoon — he sucks his thumb and holds it to his ear n times of trouble, though it doesn’t actually serve any useful purpose. This label is not a cure. It might actually demoralise you and prolong the whole bitter episode.

Note to Press Re: Arizona Shooting—Before Touting Pharma’s “More Mental Health Treatment Needed” Line – Try Asking The Right Questions

Every single time there is a school shooting, or some senseless massacre, the press are quick to start touting the need for more mental health treatment to “prevent” these tragedies—well before the facts of the case have been investigated. In fact, most of the press don’t appear as interested in bringing the facts to light as they are in making “recommendations” based on assumptions and calling for more mental health services/treatments. How one can make recommendations before finding out what actually occurred seems illogical to us, and we’re hoping we’re not the only ones.

The New Child Abuse: The Psychiatric Diagnosing and Drugging of Our Children

Science and medicine have so successfully rationalized and justified our society’s most devastating and pervasive form of child abuse that it remains almost wholly unacknowledged, though it is known to every sentient adult and to most children. Probably every adult and half-grown child in America knows and can identify at least one child who is the victim of this abuse. Those who teach, coach, minister to or otherwise serve children may know dozens or even hundreds of children who are victims of the new child abuse. Our society’s particular form of child abuse is the psychiatric diagnosing and drugging of our children.

New Study Links ADHD Drugs, Antidepressants, Hypnotics & Anti-Smoking Drug to 1,527 Acts of Violence

For years, there were contentious debates about links between certain prescription meds, notably antidepressants, and suicidal behavior. Now, the focus is turning to violent behavior directed toward others. And a new study is linking 31 widely prescribed drugs – most notably, the Chantix anti-smoking pill – with 1,527 serious acts of violence, such as physical abuse, physical assault and homicide. The study, which was published in PLoS One, identified 484 drugs that accounted for 780,169 serious adverse event reports of all kinds, including 1,937 cases meeting the violence criteria determined by the researchers. There were 387 reports of homicide, 404 physical assaults, 27 cases indicating physical abuse, 896 homicidal ideation reports and 223 cases described as violence-related symptoms.

Besides Pfizer’s Chantix, 11 antidepressants, three ADHD meds and five hypnotics or sedatives were linked to 79 percent of the violence cases. Looked at another way, no cases of violence were reported for 324 of the 484 drugs evaluated. And so an association with violence appeared “highly unlikely” for nearly 85 percent of all evaluated drugs in widespread clinical use.