What was once an illusion is now delusion

via ScienceDaily:

Science News

Unruly Kids May Have a Mental Disorder

a couple excerpts:

"ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2012)  When children behave badly, it's easy to blame their parents. Sometimes, however, such behavior may be due to a mental disorder. Mental illnesses are the No. 1 cause of medical disability in youths ages 15 and older in the United States and Canada, according to the World Health Organization.

"It's also important to understand that mental illnesses are a developmental brain disorder even though they can look like behavior problems," Dr. Insel explained." read here

Insel's statement is not grounded in scientific findings, ethical medical principles or common sense. 

Thomas Insel, has been the front man for an effort to maintain the charade that psychiatry is an ethical medical specialty that treats actual diseases. Apparently, the "Stay the Course" agenda of treating emotional and behavioral difficulties children and adults experience as if the difficulties are symptoms of an unidentified "brain disease" requires no actual evidence. Without definitive evidence supporting the disease hypothesis, it isn't even a theory, let alone a scientific finding or medical certainty. Insel's statement is merely an unsubstantiated belief; a belief that belies understanding of the existent "evidence-base" and ethical medical principles. Insel is entitled to his opinions, but it is irresponsible and ethically unacceptable for him to share his opinions when being interviewed in his official capacity as the Director of National Institutes of Mental Health. The fact that his belief is shared by others who are convinced that the discovery of evidence that will vindicate their belief is right around the translational science corner, Insel's statement compounds the potential for confusion about what is and is not known about etiology of psychiatric diagnoses. Insel's lack of judgement in voicing his personal opinion, in effect, seems to confer a patina of scientific validity to a belief.

Firmly held beliefs and shared opinions are no substitute for empirical evidence; shared beliefs and opinions  do not imbue the standards used in psychiatric clinical practice with validity, safety and effectiveness. Absent the scientific evidence that is (theoretically) required in order for a diagnostic criteria and treatment protocol to be considered a valid, ethical, medical standard; mental illnesses have been declared by psychiatric decree to be caused by disease and/or defect, and treatment standards are developed using the same quasi-democratic process of consensus; becoming standards simply because they have been decreed to be standards by psychiatrists.  Psychiatry "validated" diagnostic and treatment standards with a quasi-democratic process, i.e. a vote taken by psychiatrists. If one carefully reads these standards and protocols it is apparent that empirical evidence is often not cited in support of the conclusions; empirical support is required to comply with and conform to ethical scientific and medical principles. The primary basis of psychiatric diagnoses and treatment protocols designated as standards of care for use in clinical practice is consensus; i.e. evidence of agreement. Agreement is no substitute for empirical evidence; consensus does not support or verify diagnostic and treatment validity, reliability, safety or effectiveness. Consensus cannot quantify risks to patients.  

Psychiatrists have been perpetrating fraud. Shared beliefs and opinions have been substituted for empirical evidence. Conviction that one's beliefs are valid is not empirical evidence of the validity of a hypothesis, nor is it a justification for psychiatry abusing it's medical authority or violating the trust of patients and families in the misguided notion the foundation of psychiatry's standards of care could be supported and validated by beliefs and opinions. More importantly, how does a conviction that one's beliefs and opinions are valid cause an individual, let alone virtually an entire medical specialty to justify using deceit, fraud and coercion to manipulate patients, to misinform and manipulate parents and others to be complicit in manipulating, controlling and coercing patients into being "treatment compliant?" Psychiatry has been using fraud, a crime, to implement and enforce an unethical standard of care in order to "medically treat" unidentified metaphorical diseases. This is not an ethical, medical practice obviously; nor is it done with an altuistic intent to serve a patient's best interest. Fraud is never used to benefit those who are being deceived; this fraud has been used to implement and enforce what psychiatry claims is "necessary medical treatment" for children and vulnerable adults diagnosed with mental illness for decades. Some are compelled under Court Order if they are unwilling to submit to psychiatric authority, which belies the claim that necessary medical treatment is what psychiatry provides, When did deceit, fraud, and coercion; outright criminal behavior, become acceptable methods to use in the practice of medicine?

The fraudulent claim is used in standard clinical practice to coerce patients and parents of children who are patients into believing there is a disease which requires psychotropic drugs to treat it. It is a fraudulent claim meant to convince patients and parents of children, of the necessity for "treatment compliance." It is used in order to perpetrate fraud.  A claim that is not based on facts used in the hope that if believed, it will modify a person's behavior and gain their cooperation, is by definition, a fraudulent claim, This particular claim is used specifically to convince adult patients, children, youths and their parents to comply with psychiatric treatment. People who believe the claim and comply with psychiatric treatment have, more often than not, sustained iatrogenic injuries; some have been disabled or killed by the direct adverse effects of the drug/s they were prescribed. How many patients and their families have been misled, and were never warned about the well-known adverse effects, iatrogenic injuries and diseases that are well-documented intrinsic risks of the drugs they are prescribed? 

I know from pain-filled experience that when these risks become actual injuries, psychiatrists will often claim the drugs do not cause the brain damage and other iatrogenic injuries; many will declare that even obvious iatrogenic injuries are simply symptoms of the psychiatric diagnosis itself.  I can assure you, as the mother of a victim of psychiatric abuse and torture, my agony is, at times unbearable, I know my son was intentionally victimized by dishonest, unethical psychiatrists who lied repeatedly, psychiatrists who abused their authority and power and used the disease hypothesis as an excuse to justify medical malpractice. Treatment not supported by evidence of safety and effectiveness is human experimentation; and it is an accepted practice in the standard of care used in clinical psychiatric practice. Every psychiatrist who treated my son, particularly the lead researcher for childhood schizophrenia, Jon McClellan, intentionally perpetrated fraud in their (mis)treatment of my son. A belief that my son's symptoms were evidence of an underlying disease, is not actual evidence---this now familiar metaphor is simply an intrisic part of the fraud being perpetrated by psychiatrists,  My son is neurologically and cognitively impaired; he has been victimized repeatedly in effect, he was tortured by psychiatrists who acted with impunity. Every single one of the so called doctors who (mis)treated my son knew he was a victim of horrific abuse; and every single one of them knew he had severe PTSD and Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy as a result.

This new program that Thomas Insel is marketing, is the same old progrom.  It is certainly no way to regain lost credibility; absent ethical integrity, the psychiatric profession will continue to lose credibility for failing to be accountable for the harm psychiatric diagnosis and treatment causes. Stating this particular claim with authority when psychiatry still does not have valid and reliable diagnostic criteria, is unethical; and it is entirely irresponsible without definitive evidence an actual disease even exists.  In effect, Insel is claiming that without duplicable, reliable i.e. valid, data; that psychiatric diagnoses are in fact the result of an unidentified, and incurable pathology that has not yet been found.  This is nothing more than an attempt to use his authority and pseudo-scientific sounding terminology to continue to market the same old illusion that psychiatry is treating actual medical diseases. In truth, the drugs psychiatry uses cause diseases that psychiatrists then medically neglect; increasing the risks for iatrogenic disabilities, and decades early sudden death, which is in truth, homicide.  Insel apparently believes that psychiatrists can practice ethical patient-centered medicine without valid diagnostic criteria, and without relying on empirical evidence as the evidence-based foundation for practice parameters, treatment protocols, and standards of practice. 

Psychiatry isn't "evidence-based medicine." Without evidence, i.e. valid research data that supports and validates reliable diagnostic criteria, the treatments provided, and the standards of care used; it is evident that psychiatry does not value using sound ethical medical judgement or obtaining informed consent from patients. To some psychiatrists, these are not ethical duties performed, but affectations that are barely paid lip-service.

Primum non nocere.

What was once an illusion is now delusion.

portions of this post first published as "The illusion of psychiatry and 'Translational Science'" 4-29-2012

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