Thomas Insel's Translational Science is lost in translation

Stanford Medicine's Spring Newsletter has a Special Report titled, 'Inside the Head The Future of Psychiatry.'  What this means is one of the most prestigious Medical School's in the country has determined that the belief in an illusion is sufficient.  Philip A. Pizzo, Dean of Medicine, in a letter titled, 'Psychiatry and the Brain,' begins with this mythological gem, "THOUGH PSYCHIATRIC DISEASE IS CONSIDERED A DISORDER OF THE BRAIN, THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND MENTAL ILLNESS AT THE LEVEL OF THE BRAIN'S DISORDERED MOLECULES AND NEURAL NETWORKS IS ONLY NOW EMERGING."  

The Dean's letter appears to be a display of loyalty to NIMH Director, Thomas Insel, who clings to his bio-maniacal faith in the psychiatric diagnosis is brain disease hypothesis.  Ethical research should at least in part be directed by the best interest of the patients, since it is these people who are supposedly to be the direct beneficiaries of the research itself.  I say supposedly, since it is obvious that the narrow myopic focus on the biological causes of and treatments for 'psychiatric disease' is not based on sound scientific reasoning or ethical medical judgement.  It is based on a biased belief which is truth ordained according to believers.  The Dean of Medicine at Stanford University, Phillip A. Pizzo, writes a letter which begins with a pseudo-scientific statement, giving a pseudo-medical veneer and what seems to be a certainty to the bio-disease hypothesis, which has yet to be validated by ethical scientific, medical standards.  To date, no definitive,  empirical evidence of a disease process, a genetic trait, or medical pathology of known or unknown etiology has been discovered which would support Pizzo's statement that "psychiatric disease is considered a disorder of the brain."  Many people educated and uneducated alike, consider this statement to be true; but absent empirical data to support it, it is only a belief.  

I suspect the Dean is not a true believer, but is genuflecting at the funding altar of the NIMH, tipping his hat to the Director.  The Dean's letter is misdirection and obfuscation at it's finest...

via Stanford University Medicine Spring 2012

TRUJILLOPAUMIER

       Philip A. Pizzo

THOUGH PSYCHIATRIC DISEASE IS CONSIDERED A DISORDER OF THE BRAIN, THE ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND MENTAL ILLNESS AT THE LEVEL OF THE BRAIN'S DISORDERED MOLECULES AND NEURAL NETWORKS IS ONLY NOW EMERGING.

We see this with Ricardo Dolmetsch, a member of our faculty who has a child with autism. He has converted skin cells from people with a type of autism into stem cells, then converted these into brainlike balls of neurons. By studying these neurons, he has determined some ways in which these cells are distinctive, and has found a drug that corrects the abnormalities in vitro. He describes what he’s done as creating a human behavioral disorder in a petri dish — or at least the ability to more deeply study it that way.

This approach could transform behavioral and mental health research, as Thomas Insel, MD, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, explains in a recent blog post: “This would be the stuff of neuroscience fiction — if it weren’t real. This is nothing less than a way to reprogram a patient’s easily obtained skin cells into his or her own neurons, theoretically allowing us to fathom the secrets of that specific individual’s disorder. And, perhaps someday, to use the information to inform that patient’s treatment — or maybe even engineer a one-on personalized treatment.”

This leap forward is not just happenstance. Decades of creative and painstaking basic research funded by federal and state agencies have made these advances possible. In the case of Professor Dolmetsch’s work, funding for stem cell research was particularly valuable.

While a national political debate swirls, scientists are making discoveries about stem cell development that are leading to tools for psychiatric research. At Stanford, we’re leaders in the emerging science of neuronal stem cell biology.

Marius Wernig and Gerald Crabtree, two of our faculty who also happen to be friends and neighbors, amazed the biomedical world by independently developing two different methods of converting skin cells directly into neurons, skipping the stem cell stage entirely. Indeed, when Professor Crabtree looked through his microscope and saw neurons, he didn’t believe what he was seeing. They published their discoveries within a few months of each other last summer.

Researchers throughout the world are pursuing similar strategies to study a range of illnesses involving the brain, including schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease. Their accomplishments are not only extraordinarily useful for testing potential treatments and studying the intricacies of brain cells, they’re a testament to the power of science.

When you consider that we can transform an ordinary skin cell into the elaborately branched architecture typical of a neuron, and that the resulting cell functions as a neuron should, incredible new insights and discoveries seem possible. The important connections between investments in basic research and their impact on health and disease also become more apparent.

In this issue you’ll read how new understandings about the brain are influencing psychiatry. You’ll also see that we are far from grasping all the answers. But the amazing developments in our laboratories give us reason to believe that many of those answers are on the horizon. They underscore the importance of continued investments in basic science research.

Sincerely,
Philip A. Pizzo, MD
Dean
Stanford University School of Medicine
Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Professor, Pediatrics, Microbiology and Immunology 

The only identified diseases associated with 'psychiatric diseases' in real world practice are the numerous iatrogenic, i.e. physician caused, diseases.  Neuroleptic drugs cause profound trauma to human beings---these are not, 'side effects' they are THE DIRECT EFFECTS of neuroleptic drugs. Neuroleptics alter the function of every major bodily system since the drugs alter parasympathetic nervous system function; which is why neurological, hormonal, metabolic, and cardio-vascular diseases, and other iatrogenic injuries are common.  

What is difficult, if not impossible for me to understand, how have actual diseases been medically neglected by psychiatry and other medical specialties?  Worse, yet, how can these iatrogenic diseases be attributed to an unidentified 'psychiatric disease' or dismissed as being a symptom of the patient's psychiatric diagnosis?  Psychiatric patients are given drugs that are known to cause illness, actual diseases and impairments, yet in the vast majority of cases, a patient's complaints are dismissed out of hand and are rarely investigated as valid complaints even though they are known adverse effects of the drugs!  It is common when a psychiatric patient seeks medical attention, that once he/she is identified as 'a psych patient,' it will likely be assumed that the complaint is 'all in their head.'  Psychiatric patients are in fact being medically neglected because of having a psychiatric diagnosis; further evidence the diagnosis itself is the source of stigma.  Medical diseases caused by the drugs are not diagnosed or treated; and some are even attributed to the diagnosis; a cruel unethical deception, adding insult to injury.  Worse, people who die as a direct result of the drug's effects, are claimed to have died from 'natural causes!'  Drug-induced death is now a 'natural cause' of premature and sudden death!?!  

Psychiatric patients are being harmed at unacceptable rates.  The alarming rates of disability and death for those who are considered to be, 'seriously mentally ill,' clearly illustrates a failure.  Psychiatric patients are being poisoned with what is attested to be 'necessary, efficacious medical treatments' in Courts of Law; and in drug marketing programs used in continuing medical education. The actual real world outcome data does not support the oft- repeated marketing claim used to support the psychiatric treatment standard, that neuroleptics are efficacious medical treatments.  It is a deliberately misleading and false statement;  AKA 'perjury' in a Court of Law, and AKA 'fraud' when used to change a person's behavior.  People who believe this claim become compliant psychiatric patients; many to their detriment...The claim itself is based on an opinion, and a belief in a decades old hypothesis, yet to be validated.  No psychiatrist would be able to offer evidence admissible in a court of law that conforms with the Rules of Evidence to support a claim that an individual in fact has a 'psychiatric disease,' and submit evidence of an identified pathology.   Rules of Evidence are mandatory in EVERY other type of Court Proceeding---but psychiatrists and other 'professionals' are not required to comply with these standards when  acting to legally deprive a person of their liberty and compel psychiatric treatment with fatal risks?  This is a violation of individual Human Rights period.  Psychiatry can offer no proof of the existence of a 'psychiatric disease;' yet can obtain Court Orders to give human beings teratogenic drugs or other biological 'treatments' based on a false claim the person has a disease which requires this inhumane treatment which can cause grave injury, lasting trauma and actual disease.  

Psychiatric patients are then medically neglected by these 'doctors,' and other medical professionals until they are disabled; and eventually die from drug-induced causes; and their deaths are classified as being the result of 'natural causes.'  When did drug-induced or more accurately, iatrogenic fatality, carelessly or intentionally causing a patient's death, become a 'natural' cause of death?  The intention to medically treat may in fact be sincere and noble; but, it is the patient's outcome that is paramount, not a psychiatrist's intentions.  The stigma of a 'psychiatric disease' is an immediate potential loss of Human Rights and a greatly increased risk that your life will end in a 'natural' death caused by psychiatric treatment.

As documented in the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) Medical Directors Council report, on Morbidity and Mortality in People with Serious Mental Illness from 2006, the patients are being disabled and killed at a rate that suggests disability and early or sudden death are acceptable; if not desired, 'successful treatment' outcomes.

When I consider the recent announcement that we are going to continue monitoring the 'trend' of widespread drugging of vulnerable foster children who are being given neurtoleptic and other neurotoxic psychiatric drugs as 'necessary medical treatment' for their 'psychiatric disease.' Apparently, disabling psychiatric patients, including foster children and causing sudden and early death is to become an officially sanctioned outcome for poor children on Medicaid and  foster children served in the Child Welfare system.  Iatrogenic diseases and sudden and early death must be DESIRED outcomes; or the recommendation would be to stop the unethical drugging of foster children since it is not in the children's 'best interest.'  The 'professionals' instead are planning to monitor not stop, the ongoing Human Experimentation on foster children, and continue to commit Medicaid fraud... 

Thomas Insel's Translational Science is lost in translation!

The Deans letter here

Special Report Inside the Head The Future of Psychiatry

cartoon of doctor here

Advocacy Program or Progrom?

:
The Deputy Prosecutor and the psychiatrist involved in the violation of my son in late July and early August of 2010 have both lost their jobs... the psych unit is closing...

I was asked by someone I respect very much, if I was certain I did not fill out a court document when I took my son to the crisis center at the end of July. My response was I know absolutely for certain that I did not. I shared that over the years I have filled out and filed court documents.

There is no way in hell I would have filled out a statement in support of my son's Constitutional Rights being diminished or violated! The law that allows for this kind of human rights violation is something that I have been living in fear of. I am a mother, and a person who was given one of the labels that is often used as an excuse to violate people's human rights; my son has already endured the most horrendous ongoing violations of his human dignity and human rights for most of his life. It is an added insult to the injustice that Designated Mental Health Professional, Nancy Sherman perpetrated. She maligned and slandered both my son and myself in Court proceedings. What she did is claim that I asked her to lock up my son. People who know what my son's childhood was like, know that I fought for almost 2 years to rescue him from CSTC, where he had been used in drug trials, know that we as a family endured horrifying experiences which were traumatic in the extreme for all of us. Isaac was tortured and disabled by psychiatric treatment. FYI There is no way in hell I would trust a Mental health Professional or a State authority to take care of a dead animal-- and I would die and go to hell before I trusted any of them to take care of my son. There is no way I could.

In her testimony, under penalty of perjury, she alleges that Isaac threw a television. The TV was not smashed, or even damaged. My son is seriously impaired from massive amounts of neuroleptic drugs he was forced to take. He was told that if he didn't take them he would never get to leave and go home. A kid in a locked facility who wanted to go home, he took the drugs. One of the adverse effects and the iatrogeinic harm he experienced causes him to lose his balance easily. What Sherman described, is not something Isaac is physically capable of doing.

Unfortunately, this lie is repeated by Dr. Jeffrey Jennings, who is, as the petition he filed instructs: only to state facts he knows "first hand," to be true; as testimony. Dr. Jennings commits Perjury in his petition. He did not speak to me, he had no "first hand" knowledge of the events that occurred for which Isaac went to the crisis center. He did not in the time he "treated" my son speak to my son's primary physician, his psychiatrist, his brother, or his mother. As a physician, how can he believe he actually has any ethical integrity? I say this because the reason cited for the court order's necessity, "To protect the integrity of the Medical Profession" I asked Isaac if he remembered Dr. Jennings, he said, "he wanted to talk to me but I was tired and asked him to leave me alone, but he kept trying to talk to me. Mom, I asked him 4 times to leave me alone, then I screamed, get the fuck out of my room." Well, who wouldn't want their wishes respected in the hospital? The patient rights list given to Isaac upon admission gave him the right to tell Jennings to leave him alone...Jennings simply chose not to respect those rights.

This event is recorded by Jeffrey Jennings in Isaac's hospital chart as, Isaac became agitated and needed to be medicated. Jennings doubled the dose of a benzodiazepine that Isaac had to take and that he had been tapered totally off, due to "cardiac risk," and increased a neuroleptic drug by 250 mg and Jennings made it a part of the Court Order which was in effect for six months. The drugs have caused my son iatrogenic illness and iatrogenic neurological impairments. The neuroleptic drug is, according to it's manufacturer, is only to be increased by 50 mg at a time, no more frequently than twice a week to minimize risk of death among other things. My son has yet to recover from this psychiatrist's assault. Apparently, Jennings had never heard of the Hippocratic Oath.

I am a mother, it is my duty to protect my son from harm. I am his caretaker I make sure he takes what is prescribed, and he has never refused to take what is prescribed. It is because the drugs have caused profound iatrogenic injuries that disabled Isaac, that he needs assistance in his daily life. I'm gratful he trusts me, and that he listens when I tell him he can't just stop taking them; he's humble and knows it's ok to need help. He believes me when I tell him that there are people who are trustworthy. But, believing what your mom says, and knowing something for yourself as a young man, is not at all the same thing. I hope he doesn't end up thinking I lied about there being people who are trustworthy.

The two thugs who are mental health "professionals" must be members of NAMI, an organization that purports to be a "grassroots" advocacy movement, it refers to itself as, "The Nation's voice on mental illness." It was one of NAMI's affiliates that disseminated a "Tip Sheet" written by D.J. Jaffe and E. Fuller Torrey, the so-called co-founders of The Treatment Advocacy Center, "TAC" D. J. Jaffe's Tip Sheet appears to be advising people to exaggerateto syptoms and behaviors, to tip over furniture when attempting to have have a family member committed. This, "Tip Sheet" was developed to advise family members who are calling on Law Enforcement to assist them. In effect, it advises people to file false police reports, which is a crime. More than once E. Fuller Torrey, has been quoted in the media and in NAMI literature as saying it is necessary to lie; and advises family members in NAMI to do so in order to have a person committed. It is criminal as a matter of fact.

Has anybody else noticed a pattern in this yet? This is all smoke and mirrors. The drugs are falsely billed as effective and necessary medical treatment for treating "brain diseases" without any disease actually being identified. The drugs can in fact cause iatrogenic diseases, particularly when used in high doses and for long periods. A group of people who are purportedly advocating for me and my son; and for everybody who has ever had or who may be suspected of having a psychaitric diagnosis. The grassroots advocates do not speak for me. No one can pretend to speak for me with a voice that advocates treating any human being who is creatively maladjusted, a trauma survivor, with neurodiverse, unique human qualities as if they are unworthy of their Human Rights--My son has Human rights that so-called advocates and mental health providers have no interest in. No interest in what the truth is, what happened to him, or what it's done to him physically or emotionally. The self-appointed grassroots advocates, The Voice on "mental illness" has no interest in helping the people who are harmed by the forced treatment that NAMI endorses; so NAMI is not in fact qualified to speak for, let alone be THE VOICE for my son whom they have helped to de-voice by refusing to acknowledge his existence or the profound iatrogenic injuries he sustained as a victim of the progrom of forced treatment that NAMI advocates for. NAMI advocates for an agenda regardless of it's detrimental effect on the people NAMI claims to be advocating for.

As advocates, with a government, pharma, and private foundation funded pharma fear-based forced treatment agenda marketing machine, NAMI marched it's grassroots progrom of advocacy "for the seriously mentally ill" across the nation. The people who are targeted for "special treatment" are just like everybody else, advocates say. The methods, the tools this progrom uses are distortortion of current and historical events, feeding individual fears, using innuendo, gossip, and traumatic events to polarize groups of people to fuel innate ignorance and biases to promate bigotry and create an US and THEM dichotomy. These are the building blocks and the tools of propaganda. These advocates are using a progrom that made man's inhumanity to man public policy, and then the law in Germany leading up to WWII. The neuroleptic drugs used for "necessary medical treatment" of schizophrenia in use since the mid fifties have killed far more individuals than the Third Reich did. We just don't bother to count the bodies; victims who were stripped of their human dignity in life, don't count once they're dead...because drug induced death is totally "natural."

Here, we have grassroots advocates "for the seriously mentally ill" enlisting the general public, law enforcement, medical professionals, schools, churches and government agencies help further the goal of the treatment advocacy agenda: To identify every human being who "needs special treatment" whether they, or anyone who knows them knows it or not...This special treatment progrom, requires family and friends to help advocates by referring family, neighbors, and friends, for special treatment "for their own good" because they just don't know what's good for them at all! NAMI has endorsed and lobbied for the legislation that legally mandates a diminished social and political status and stripping the Human Rights that the advocates take for granted, from the people they advocate for---but of course you know, "it's for their own good" we have to do it, to protect the public is the fear-based mantra used to justify torture, and trauma as medical treatment, essentially Crimes Against Humanity.

This purposeful overt victimiztion of people based on subjective opinions, errors of attribution, distortions of known facts and histrical events, is blatant bullying, systematic discrimination and calling it medical treatment does not change the nature of what is being done, and it certainly does not ameliorate the harm done. People being drugged with terotogenic drugs and given electric shock treatments will cause a statistically significant percentage to die within the first year; and will disable and kill a statistically significant percentage of the people taking the drugs on an ongoing basis either willingly or under court order, regardless of age or psychiatric diagnosis.

If this progrom was for the primary benefit of the mentally ill; there would at least be a show of civility, if not actual compassion for the people who have been and are being harmed and the family members who mourn the loss of loved ones who are killed. Indeed, it seems that assistance being offered and preventative measures would be taken to avoid further harm, and efforts made to ammeliorate the harm that's already been done...NAMI and no other "patient advocacy" group does anything like that...It seems that it is more important when advocating for "special treatment" that any adverse and fatal effects of the treatment being advocated for are ignored; because it would divert attention away from the "benefits" of the special treatment! When you advocate for a progrom to Court Order people to take neuro-toxic drugs and/or get electric shock treatments, it's important to focus on the safety and effectiveness of the special treatment...

The adverse effects caused by neuroleptic drugs and electic shock treatment are direct effects; i.e. they are the mechanism of "how the special tratment works." Calling these direct adverse effects "side-effects," is analogous to saying decomposition a "side-effect" of death.

Neurleptics increase mortality from heat attack, heat stroke and sudden brain death.

First published October 21, 2010
update Sept. 13, 2011

Tardive Dyskinisia, Akasthisia and Increased Mortality: The New "Safe and Effective" Psychiatric Treatment Standard

Neuroleptics, referred to as "antipsychotics", are drugs that at one time, were theoretically only prescribed to people (adults) who were diagnosed with schizophrenia, or another diagnosis for which psychosis is a symptom. These drugs are now the most frequently prescribed psychiatric drugs--and are even being prescribed to children for behavioral issues, ADHD, and the current diagnosis de jour, "bipolar disorder" in spite of the lack of validated research justifying the drugs' safety or effectiveness for treating any psychiatric diagnosis in children. At the very least, the wisdom of "treating" all these diagnoses with such dangerous drugs is suspect; neuroleptic drugs alter the functioning of the entire parasympathetic nervous system and none of the conditions being "treated" result from a dysfunction in the parasympathetic nervous system! The function of the eyes, the entire digestive tract from the throat to the rectum, the brain, the heart and the lungs; the metabolic, endocrine and hormonal systems and all rely on the parasympathetic nervous system to function properly. 

Why are these drugs being given to children? They can and do cause dysfunction where none previously existed; whatever a child's diagnoses, it seems an odd "treatment" strategy to give them drugs that can and do cause dysfunction. According to Jon McClellan in the "Practice Parameters" he wrote for using these drugs to treat schizophrenia in children and adolescents: 50% are expected to develop Tardive Dyskinisia; a potentially permanent and disabling "side-effect," which is not always alleviated by withdrawal from the drug that caused it!

In discussing "evidenced based" drugs used in mental health treatment for this population, I find it more than a little strange Quack Master Jack did not even mention this class of drug AT ALL. The article is from the year 2005, and by then, it was nine years since my son had first been given the antipsychotic, Risperdal, a full decade before it was approved for pediatric use. Dr. Jackass, as "the lead researcher for childhood onset schizophrenia" had prescribed this type of drug himself for at least that long---why is there no data to cite in 2005 or to share in his article, on evidence based treatments? Is there no data to support and justify the prescribing of neuroleptics in real world practice to children for any diagnosis? Why else would this expert on childhood schizophrenia fail to cite any evidence for the supposedly "evidence-based" prescription of neuroleptics to children, not even for childhood or "early-onset" schizophrenia?

How did neuroleptics become so frequently prescribed "off-label" with no clinical trials recommending this practice? What I find incredible is how in the hell can the psychiatrists in this Country have recommended using this class of drugs on children "off-label" for so long, and there is still a supposed paucity of research to validate their use; nonetheless, neuroleptics are prescribed to children. It is now a "standard practice"?!

Why did the FDA approve more of these poisons for use in children after the TEOSS trials were completed? What exactly were the basis for the approval? 12% of the kids enrolled in the TEOSS trials were 'effectively treated,' the drugs are not 'safe' and obviously, not very effective. Now these drugs are used casually "Off-label," when they are minimally effective for the condition they were developed to treat. The prescription of drug needs to be based on something more that a consensus of opinions for God's sake! FDA approval needs to be based on higher standards of safety and effectiveness than the neuroleptic drugs have demonstrated. Using these dangerous drugs so casually off-label for symptoms caused by environmental conditions is morally reprehensible and is certainly not ethical medical practice! Drugs prescribed to children should be based on being safe and effective and should be prescribed only for treating actual medical conditions; this is not the case with psychotropic drugs in standard clinical practice. Neuroleptics are not safe and effective for their original use as "antipsychotics" to treat schizophrenia, since about 74% of those diagnosed with schizophrenia do not benefit from an appreciable reduction of symptoms with them. Neuroleptics also have some very serious risks which is why their use was so limited. They are not any more safe or effective, more than 60 years after they were first used, yet these harmful teratogenic drugs are now used for a variety of conditions in spite of the risks.

The newer more expensive atypicals are NOT MORE EFFECTIVE OR SAFER, according to numerous studies, yet are prescribed more often; the vast majority for conditions or symptoms the drugs are not known to actually treat. This questionable practice is mostly paid for by the Federal Medicaid and Medicare programs, and is responsible for a great deal of the fraudulent claims being submitted which puts States at risk for being held liable for the fraudulent claims submitted. I am disgusted with psychiatry and it's unethical "medical model" which leaves people sicker and disabled far too often. It's unholy alliance with the pharmaceutical industry coupled with a failure to gain any true insight into a how to help, not harm, a significant percentage of the people who seek psychiatric care, begs the question, how do they continue to get away with this fraud? Why are these drugs now used on children with a myriad of diagnoses and for behavioral problems? If the prescription choice is not made based on an the evidence base, how can it be ethical to prescribe neuroleptics to children? They are not strictly speaking, safe or effective when used for adults with scizophrenia and even less effective and more dangerous for children with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. They cause illness and early death, always have. They cause permanent neurological and metabolic damage, sudden death, and early (25-30 years early) death, always have.

Ultimately, the psychiatric profession failing to show compassion or responsibility for those who have been harmed and disabled by the "safe and effective" drugs psychiatry has, at times, forced upon them by Court Order; is very telling. In failing to even acknowledge the existence of these people; in the present or historically, it is evident that psychiatry as it is practiced in the mainstream, is not at heart, a "medical" or "healing" profession. No individual or profession can claim victory without owning the failures along the way...

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Practice Parameter FOR THE ASSESSMENT AND TREATMENT OF CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA

Kids Dying From Off-label Use of Antipsychotics  Evelyn Pringle 2006

n McClellan  Psychiatric Times: Evidenced Based Therapies in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Summing Up the NIMH Trials: Evidence of Effective Paradigm of Care?  2010 Robert Whitaker