Thank You For The Ominous Long-Term Health Risks

Quack Master Jack McClellan

"Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm."  Hippocrates

Jon McClellan, the lead researcher for childhood schizophrenia in Washington State, is a doctor who should be stopped.  He is the psychiatrist who gave my son neuroleptic and other  psychotropic drugs without consent. He repeatedly told me I had no say in treatment decisions; no say about what drugs he gave my son.  He drugged my son without consent, much less, Informed Consent; while trialing neuroleptic drugs for FDA approval; so the drugs he used were not approved for use on children.  Drugged my son over my objections, into a state of profound disability. He told me I had no say in what drugs were given to my boy, who had an IQ of 146.  It is frightening that this man is still the Medical Director of the State-run psychiatric facility for children.

Schizophrenia is a diagnosis of exclusion.  What that means is that any and all other explanations for the symptoms must be excluded.  Until this researcher got a hold of him, my son was diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and PTSD, the latter due to having been severely traumatized, in foster care.  Both of these can cause the symptoms which Dr. McClellan concluded were symptoms of schizophrenia.  When I asked him if he was going to do an EEG to rule out the Temporal Lobe Epilepsy; he said it was not necessary.  My protests were labeled denial, my input was dismissed; I was told I had no say.

Ultimately, McClellan put my son on Clozapine which between 1998 and 2005 was linked to 3,277 deaths in the U.S. and over 4,300 events that resulted in disability or required medical intervention, according to the data in the FDA Medwatch adverse events reporting system.  Dr. McClellan lied to me and said that since the drugs was  put back on market in the US, with mandatory blood draws, no one had died from it's use. He also told me that it was only over in Europe that anyone died at all.  This conversation happened only after he had put my son on the drug, as did all the conversations about what drugs he was using to treat my son. Like all of the drugs used by Jon McClellan, on my son, it was not approved for pediatric use for the reason McClellan prescribed them.

The reality is, no matter the diagnosis or the symptoms; this doctor had no right to use my son as a guinea pig---and he had no legal authority to drug him without my consent.  He did not have my son's consent---or his mother's permission; he did not comply with the Hippocratic oath, the ethics guidelines of the medical profession, the laws of the State of Washington, Federal Medicaid guidelines, the U.S. Constitution, or the Nuremberg Code.  There is no way in hell I would have given consent, had I been given the opportunity and actually been informed, which he did not think was necessary. Quack Master Jack, Jon McClellan, a "lead researcher" funded by NIMH, played God.

What is known and has been know about this class of drugs for decades, is that they cause iatrogenic, i.e. physician caused; diseases, neurological impairments, disability, and sudden, and early death.  These are know risks, and as such, should be information discussed prior to administration.  I found these facts out on my own, not in any conversation I had with "Dr. Jack," as he told the kids to call him.  My son, who still takes Clozapine, is unaware of these risks; no psychiatrist has discussed them with him.  McClellan used many anti-psychotics, on my son without adhering to any ethical, moral, or legal standard; knowing this, I am disgusted that this man never loses an opportunity to decry their over-use.  He had no problem using them to drug my son; without warning either my son or myself about the "Ominous Long-Term Health Risks."

It didn't matter to Quack Master Jack that he didn't have 
Informed Consent from the patient or his MadMother.

I was never asked if I wanted to sacrifice my son on the altar of corporate greed and have my son used in Drug Trials. Had I been asked, there's no way in hell I would have given consent. The TEOSS Drug Trial was a "seeding trial," the purpose of a "seeding trial" is gain FDA approval for a drug to treat a new condition, or a different population; to expand the drug market and ensure that BigPharma continues to make a killing

figuratively and literally...

It matters to this MadMother.

Does it matter to you?

Link to The Belmont Report and Nuremberg Code:


Originally published on December 17, 2010

Trauma Can Cause Symptoms of Mental Illness

2003

He is bracing himself on the tree, and trying to smile---

I can't really tell you what it was like to see my son at 15 and 16 years old stumble to the ground like a toddler---because he was so drugged---or how horrifying it was leaving him in a place I dreamed of hiring mercenaries to rescue him from...and the obvious---well, let's just say one of the hardest things I've had to learn to deal with---is how unkind and not fully human people can be.

Psychiatric Drugs As Agents of Trauma

Dr. Charles Whitfield's article concludes that trauma is the cause of most symptoms which are used for psychiatric  diagnoses of mental illnesses, alcoholism, and addiction. The symptoms are treated with psychotropic drugs almost exclusively; in spite of the lack of empirical evidence to support this Standard Practice. Which begs the question, is it even an ethical standard of care being used by psychiatry?  How did using psychotropic drugs to treat symptoms  become standard for any condition or symptom without empirical support?  I would say it is definitely not ethical, therapeutic or medicine in the Hippocratic tradition.  The focus is solely on an attempt to control symptoms; even if the patient does not believe it is a "need" to  control the identified symptoms...

We knew what the primary cause of his PTSD symptoms was; why mental health professionals refused to provide the recommended treatment that was in their own practice parameters; or even listen to us. he professionals used brain damaging drugs in their futile attempts to control behavioral symptoms. Doing so, they committed Medicaid fraud; but worse that that, the treatment repeatedly traumatized and eventually disabled my precious son. My beautiful son Isaac had an IQ of 146 at the age of seven; and today at twenty-four, cannot do the things he did at the age of seven...

My son was as a victim of horrific abuse in foster care and as a result, had trauma-induced PTSD; he also has Left-Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, which is caused by a traumatic head injury.  Instead of the recommended treatment, he was repeatedly traumatized by pseudo-medical mental health treatment. His longest hospitalization was for over 4 years where a psychiatric researcher, Jon McClellan, further traumatized him and disabled him in the TEOSS drug trials. It is illegal what he did to my son; forcing drugs upon him, over my protests. Jon McClellan used my son like a guinea pig in Washington State's only state-run psychiatric facility for children, Child Study and Treatment Center. Quack Master Jack is a "lead researcher" for childhood schizophrenia; and the Medical Director of CSTC; the man had no right to play God, he had no right to use my son in the way he did.  The effects of trauma were ignored, minimized, or misidentified as symptoms of whatever diagnosis was subjectively determined to need the massive amounts of teratogenic drugs to "treat" it. Permission, i.e. "Informed Consent," was not needed; Jon McClellan needed only his own permission apparently.  The deleterious effects of the drugs on the patient; irrelevant.

Dr.Whitfield used data from over 300 studies; in writing this article.  Some are the same ones I had read and used in my futile attempts to advocate for my son.  I can assure you, there truly are circumstances when there is no comfort in being right.  Using data from, "the work of numerous psychiatrists and psychopharma-cologists" and his own experience in private practice, Dr. Whitfield provides the evidence supporting his conclusions; he additionally explains, "most common psychiatric drugs are not only toxic but can be chronically traumatic."  Dr. Whitfield's article in, "The International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine" concludes that trauma, and the PTSD symptoms which result, are often misdiagnosed; the symptoms are almost always treated exclusively with drugs. Dr. Whitfield states for some people, this "medical treatment" traumatizes them further; exacerbating, instead of alleviating their distress.   (I have noticed in ten+ years of doing research, research like this that questions, or is not supportive of drugging symptoms of distress is seldom published here in the US)

Both my son and I have been saying he was traumatized, not treated.  Quack Master Jack, Jon McClellan lied to me; and failed to follow legal and ethical standards; his "medical treatment" mainly consisted of using my son as a guinea pig trialing drugs that were not approved for pediatric use. Drugs not approved for use in children, some of the drugs were not approved until years after my still traumatized son no longer was a child; some still are not approved for children.  Neuroleptic drugs are known to cause brain damage, heart damage and be potentially fatal.  "Off label" means experimental use, according to the FDA.  He never obtained Informed Consent; in fact, he claimed, he didn't need it.

In the Psychiatric Summary from May of 2004, which is in a previous post, he implies that my son was taking the drugs "willingly."  The report in this same post, is from 2001, the year my son turned 13 and the age of consent law is one of the excuses this "researcher" used as an excuse to not need my consent.  Given the condition my son was in, there is no way in hell anyone, even a young child, would have thought Isaac had the capacity to give consent.  Quack Master Jack knows that both he and other staff members told my son if he did not take the drugs; he would never get to leave the hospital.  To be Informed Consent, there can be no coercion, my son could have assented, but was in no condition to provide "Informed Consent" just because he was thirteen!   My son had no choice, as an adolescent in a locked facility, he naturally wanted to leave, and if you want to leave, you have to do what you are told.  I was forced to pretend to buy this thug's diagnosis and "treatment" in order to have any chance in hell of rescuing my own son.  Jon McClellan's care was obviously heavy on the (drug)study, negligent, fraudulent and abusive in the extreme.  Isaac has said he thought he was kidnapped; and I have no problem understanding why he would have thought or believed this.  Jon McClellan ignored the Hippocratic Oath, the US Constitution, the Ethical Guidelines for Informed Consent and the Nuremberg Code in the "treatment" he inflicted upon my son.

"Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm." 

Hippocrates 

Read Dr. Whitfields article here...
Originally posted  January 16, 2011 "Can Trauma Be A Cause of Mental Illness?"

Jon McClellan's testimony to the US Senate

The fact of the matter---as Jon McClellan is well aware---Washington State had absolutely NO psychotropic drug policy for children in State Custody until after I brought my son home in January of 2005.  In the process of researching how I could to rescue my son from the Washington State children's psychiatric facility he referred to in his testimony as, "my State hospital;" I discovered that Washington State in fact had no mechanism or protocol to provide for Informed Consent to protect children in Washington State custody.  I informed Children's Administration that I was not going to just go away---just because I was able to force them to comply with the Law and return my son to me---didn't mean that I was going to forget what I had learned.   

The Psychotropic Drug Policy was developed within a couple months of Isaac's return home, and is titled "The Dope on Drugs." In my opinion, the policy protects primarily the State of Washington.  It is plain to me that Washington State's Psychotropic Drug Policy was developed to protect prescribers, the State of Washington, and the State's employees and contracted Mental Health Service providers from liability.  It is my opinion that the policy as written ensures that the children in State custody are still available to use as guinea pigs in research; can be given psychiatric drugs EXPERIMENTALLY with impunity while giving the appearance of protecting foster children in State custody from harm.


It is in fact experimental to give drugs "off-label" for symptoms and diagnoses for which the drugs have not been FDA approved; to give drugs to children that have not been tested for safety and efficacy in children and do not have FDA approval for pediatric use; is the definition of Human Experimentation. the term, "off-Label" sounds innocuous, which is why it is used; it makes Human Experimentation acceptable, but calling it a "standard practice" belies the truth, and does not meet the STANDARD for being given the distinction.

The policy offers the children in state custody very little care or protection in real world terms. The reason I say this, is two-fold.  Primarily, it is because the policy would not prevent what was done to my son from happening to another child. In fact, it in effect, allows Jon McClellan to use children in Drug Trials without the parent's consent. The final paragraph on the second page of Washington's psychotropic drug policy for children in state care states, "The informed parental consent or court order needs to be a general authorization for the administration of psychotropic medications at the direction of a qualified, licensed physician so that a change in the consent or court order is unnecessary when there is a need for the physician to adjust the medication."  How could any reasonable person believe that a one time general consent is even ethical, much less claim that a one time general consent will protect a child from being harmed from teratogenic psychotropic drugs? It is simply ludicrous. A one time general consent is simply for the State of Washington's convenience; it does little to protect children from iatrogenic harm. 


When developing a policy to protect and defend children, it is unwise to proceed as if they do not have the same needs as everyone else; to offer them LESS than we would expect for ourselves and our own children, speaks to the lack of thoughtful consideration given to protecting children in State custody. So what purpose does this policy serve? The policy does not serve the purpose to protect children in state care so much as it serves to  cover the State's ass while putting on a "show of protection;" for state wards.  A one time general consent is, on the face of it, unethical; it does nothing more than pay brief lip-service to what Informed Consent actually entails.  This policy is a shameful excuse for an effort that is supposedly intended to protect children.  There is no way in hell a general authorization would be sufficient to protect a child against the type of off label drugging of emotional and behavioral problems quantified by this investigation. (The THIRD US Senate investigation into psychotropic drugging of children on Medicaid) It is because Jon McClellan and other members of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have written practice parameters and treatment algorithms based on consensus which were then "validated" and implemented as Standards of Care by consensus, that this investigation is even necessary.  

Washington's policy is "Interim Policy  97-10" and I first printed it on March 9, 2005--two months and three days after I brought my son home from Child Study and Treatment Center; it is still exactly the same and still fails to protect the children even half as much as it protects the State of Washington and unethical medical practitioners.


Another interesting thing about this policy is that it does not list even one of the newer, most prescribed, neuroleptic drugs like Risperdal, Seroquel, Geodon, Abilify, EVEN though these new neuroleptics are being prescribed off-label as a matter of course, and are on Washington's "Preferred Drug List" which are fraudulently billed to the Federal Medicaid Program. I say fraudulently, because in 2005, these drugs were not FDA approved for use in children, therefore not qualified for reimbursement through the Federal Medicaid program.  The only neuroleptics listed on this policy were the older, cheaper neuroleptics only Thorazine was approved for use in children with schizophrenia:

Chlorpromazine/Thorazine	Halperiodal/Haldol
Trifluoperazine/Stelazine	Thioridazine/Mellaril

It is unchanged to this day. here is the link

From Isaac's Treatment Record at Child Study and Treatment Center: 
The Report from the Evaluation and Treatment Conference lists Jon McClellan as the "Team Leader" dated 10-8-2001 and covers a two month period leading up to this conference, lists his current medications as: Zyprexa, 20 mg. at bedtime,  since 9-7-2001.  Zyprexa was started on 8-27-01 at 5 mg. increased to 10 mg on 8-30-2001 and increased to 15mg. on 9-4-2001.  Risperdal 3mg. twice a day increased from 2mg. twice a day on 9-6-2001.  Ativan .5 mg 3 x a day and 1 mg every four hours as needed not to exceed 6 prn doses in 24 hours, the report states the Ativan was adjusted several times beginning on 9-7--2001 when he was on 1 mg 3x a day.  The Ativan was prescribed "in hopes of controlling Isaac's impulsive behavior"----not an indicated or approved use, for this highly addictive drug meant for short-term use---Another oddity of this report, is that it lists Cogentin 1 mg. as being started on 10-20-2001----although the entire report  was prepared for a Review which took place on the 8th of October 2001.  Thorazine discontinued on 8-16-2001, and a brief trial of Seroquel discontinued on 8-5-2001.  

What this all means is that Jon McClellan had my son who was thirteen, on at least two and at times three neuroleptic drugs, that were not approved for use in children; the only neuroleptic drug approved for pediatric use at the time was Thorazine. The reason Jon McClellan claimed he did not need my consent is Washington State's Age of Consent Law for mental health and substance abuse treatment is thirteen. The purpose of this law is supposedly in order to enable kids whose parents are not supportive to access any substance abuse and mental health treatment they need.  It is used by some professionals to exclude parents.  My son may have been thirteen but it would have been obvious to a bright grade-school student that Isaac was totally in his own world; he lacked the capacity to give consent.   The other reason he cited was illegal---he told me repeatedly, that since Isaac was a Ward of the State, he did not need my approval or consent.   He actually said it was a "courtesy" for him to tell me anything about the drugs he was giving my son; not a requirement.  State Law, Federal Medicaid Guidelines, the US Constitution, the Ethical Guidelines for Informed Consent and the Nuremberg Code all required that my consent be obtained; but Jon McClellan claimed he didn't need it!  

In fact, when I was forced to relinquish custody of Isaac "voluntarily" I was assured that I would not lose my parental rights to provide consent to his treatment.  I was forced to relinquish custody in violation of Federal Medicaid Law and Federal Child Welfare Policy by Washington State DSHS Region II Children's Administration staff who falsely claimed that it was required so Medicaid would continue to pay for Isaac's medical care.  This was  a lie used to coerce me to "sign a Voluntary Consent to Place Agreement.  I believe this fraud was perpetrated so that the State of Washington could fraudulently collect foster care reimbursement funds to help pay the cost of his care.  I was further manipulated into signing the agreement by the Children's Administration caseworker, who informed me if I refused to sign it, she would tell the Judge I was unable to act, "in my son's best interest."


I only learned this past year that the one time the law allowed for me to enter into the Court Record my take on the proceedings, was at that specific hearing.  My son had by this time gone without the recommended treatment for his Left  Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and PTSD for six years.  Isaac had PTSD as a result of being violently assaulted and put in a closet in foster care when he was three. God only knows what else happened to him before that---The State of Washington does not have on record where he was for the two whole months prior to being placed in Margaret Manson's home where he was victimized.   Jon McClellan knew Isaac had been victimized--he put it in his medical record stating that it was reported to CPS the first time Isaac was in Child Study and Treatment Center in 1995.

Why is it that I found no consent protocol for children in State Custody when I looked for one, and when I asked Children's Administration for a copy---there was nothing to give me? In 1997, a six-year-old boy, Domico Pressnell, died in foster care from the effects of taking multiple psychotropic drugs as prescribed---AND "Following the death of Domico Presnell, Washington's policies and procedures for the administration of psychotropic drugs to foster children came under withering scrutiny. Ultimately the case changed the way DSHS administers and allows drugs to be administered to foster children. The message went out powerfully to state administrators, foster care caseworkers and foster caregivers themselves that negligence will come at a steep price for everyone involved." Obviously, this statement is overly optimistic; DSHS administrators, didn't get the message...

Jon McClellan helps formulate Public Policy about Mental Health Treatment Services for children who are Wards of Washington State, and for children across the Nation---He has been published extensively in professional journals and is regularly quoted in National News outlets.   Due to my personal experiences witnessing Jon McClellan "medically treat" my son, and from what I know about his research, I found his testimony in the US Senate disingenuous.  Jon McClellan has been on the faculty at the University of Washington, for over two decades, and supervises interns at Children's Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, and Child Study and Treatment Center in Lakewood.  The man is listed as the sole author, if not listed among the authors, of Practice Parameters and Treatment Protocols for virtually every psychiatric diagnosis given to children.  He was on the editorial board for the Professional Journal put out by the AACAP, a journal that still refuses to retract the reports of Study 329, an utterly fraudulent Drug Trial that falsely reported the safety and efficacy outcomes for the drug Paxil; including not reporting fatal outcomes of clinical trial participants.  The drug was FDA approved as "safe and effective for pediatric use" because of falsely reported results from Study 329. 

  

The writtenTestimony of Jon McClellan in it's entirety:
Statement of Dr. Jon McClellan

Professor
University of Washington
Seattle, Wa
Senate hearing: December 1, 2011
“The Financial and Societal Costs of Medicating America’s Foster Children”
McClellan Testimony: Psychotropic Drugs in Children
2
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee; thank you for inviting me to participate in this important discussion regarding the use of psychotropic medications in foster children.
I am a Child Psychiatrist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, a Professor at the University of Washington, and the Medical Director of Child Study and Treatment Center, the State psychiatric hospital for youth in Washington State.
The high risk practices identified by the GAO study raise significant concerns regarding the treatment of severely mentally ill and vulnerable youth. Although the focus of this study is on foster care, the concerns raised are relevant to all children and adolescents prescribed psychotropic drugs.

Children in foster care often have emotional and behavioral difficulties. The high rate of medication use in this population is not a new discovery, nor does the use of these drugs always imply bad practice. Several psychiatric medications have been studied and approved for use in children and adolescents. When prescribed correctly, these treatments can help reduce suffering and enhance the functioning of young people.
McClellan Testimony: Psychotropic Drugs in Children
3
However, it is also well documented that many children in the child welfare system do not receive high quality psychiatric services. Treatment too often occurs during times of crisis, without adequate support or access to skilled clinicians and programs capable of providing effective social and behavioral interventions.
In these situations, medications become stopgaps, used to prevent the child from hurting themselves or others, or to help control disruptive behaviors that threaten the child’s foster placement. The lack of effective long-term treatment exacerbates the risk for excessive and inappropriate medication use.

This problem is evident in the patterns of high-risk prescriptions identified by the GAO study. As a group, children in foster care were more likely than other children to be treated with multiple psychiatric drugs, and also were more likely to be treated with dosages that exceed recommended standards of care.

These practices impacted thousands of children. Some young people were prescribed as many as 10 different psychotropic drugs at the same time. Some children younger than 5 years of age were prescribed as many as 5 different medicines concurrently.

4
Unfortunately, such practices are not uncommon. At my State hospital, kids are often admitted taking four or more medications. A few years ago, one young boy admitted to Seattle Children’s Hospital was taking 13 different psychotropic drugs. There is no research that justifies these practices.

The most troubling finding of the GAO study is the use of psychotropic drugs in infants. Most of the prescriptions in babies were for antihistamines, some of which may have been used to treat other types of medical problems. Regardless, there is little research supporting the use of these medicines in very young children, and the prescriptions are concerning.

Furthermore, dozens of babies were prescribed antipsychotics, antidepressants, clonidine or lithium. Some infants were prescribed more than one drug. The use of psychotropic medications in babies defies both standard of care and common sense.

The findings of the GAO study strongly suggest the need for better oversight. The Best Principals outlined by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry provide a useful set of monitoring guidelines.

5
Washington State has implemented a model system to oversee psychotropic drugs. Criteria were developed to identify prescriptions that exceed safety thresholds, based on dose, number of medications or age of the child. For prescriptions flagged by this process, a second opinion by a child psychiatrist is required before the medication is dispensed. This oversight system has reduced high-risk prescriptions, and over a two-year period, saved the State 1.2 million dollars.

The results of the GAO study also strongly call for more research. A hodgepodge of prescribing practices occurs in part because none of our current treatments work well enough. Genetics and neurobiological sciences have advanced substantially over the past decade, in large part due to the leadership of the National Institute of Mental Health. Nonetheless, given the marked complexity of brain functioning, the underlying causes of most psychiatric illnesses remain unknown. Without known causes, research on intervention inevitably struggles. We need continued investment, both fiscal and intellectual, in order to develop safer and more effective treatments, and to eventually find cures.
Thank you for listening.    (emphasis mine)


I would love for this "doctor" submit evidence in compliance with the Rules of Evidence required in every other type of civil or criminal proceeding in Courts of Law,  except Involuntary Commitment hearings. There are none.  It is a hypothesis that a genetic or neurobiological defect or disease causes any/every psychiatric diagnosis/es.  Jon McClellan's statement is  not "testimony" in an ethical medical or legal sense; it is more an excuse, justified by a presumed privilege.  There is not any scientific basis or an ethical medical purpose for prescribing teratogenic drugs to children and adolescents, based on a hypothesis alone, since real world risks are disability and death.  Jon McClellan is one of the psychiatrists who has led the way in recommending "a pill for every ill" psychopharmacology is the new psychiatry psychotropic drug marketing campaign.


Practice Parameters and Treatment Protocols are followed by psychiatrists, and other medical professionals. These parameters and protocols recommend drugs without the recommendations having definitive, empirically validated support.  Jon McClellan's "testimony" was not the truth and nothing but; it was more of a self-serving defense of the bio-psychiatry pharmaceutical treatment paradigm; with no evidence offered for the validity, safety, and/or effectiveness of this "psycho-pharmacological treatment." Drugging children for what may be the effects of abuse, deprivation and trauma as if the effects (their injuries) are evidence the child has an unidentified genetic or neuro-biological condition; is social and political control of children and/or their parents; not medicine. Clearly to NOT address the real world environmental and inter- and intra- personal deficits which are clearly causal factors; adds insult to injury, to say the least.


While deprivation, and physical abuse can cause biological damage, and the detrimental effects of trauma--particularly a brain injury, can cause neurological deficits, as well as behavioral, emotional and social difficulties, does that mean a child who has had these horrific experiences has a disease that is neurobiological and/or genetic in origin?   According to Jon McClellan, apparently, that is what it means---I wonder how a normal child can become genetically and/or neurobiologically diseased and/or defective, from not having their needs consistently met?  There is a major difference between genetics and epigenetics... How is it that the failings of the adults in children's homes, and in their communities is not seen for the causal factors that they are, but instead minimized or dismissed while it is claimed that children are mentally ill due to an unidentified (illusory)  neurobiological disease and/or a genetic defect? 


picture credit

Lucky Number 7 and Quack Master Jack

Quack Master Jack

My son Isaac, at the age of seven, was diagnosed with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. This is a neurological condition that is number seven on a list of medical conditions which need to be excluded in order to diagnose schizophrenia; because it has the same symptoms.  He was diagnosed by a neurologist from an EEG, just prior to Quack Master Jack first "treating" my son for seven months at CSTC.

Three sevens isn't that supposed to be lucky?! 

Being educated, even though I'm not a Dorktor like Quack Master Jack, I knew that schizophrenia is a diagnosis of exclusion.  I also knew that when Quack Master Jack diagnosed my son with schizophrenia, that my son's Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and early childhood trauma were ignored by 'treatment providers' and always had been---not excluded or treated with recommended treatments; but  ignored.  Quack Master Jack ultimately excluded Temporal Lobe Epilepsy by removing the diagnosis from my son's Medical Record, a crime.

All of my son's symptoms can in fact be caused by Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Quack Master Jack used my son, because research needs to be done, there are drugs to sell and Practice Parameters which an evidence-base must be developed to support and validate "scientifically" if not ethically... How lucky can one boy be!  Lucky triple number 7 and chosen to be in Quack Master Jack's TEOSS Drug Trials!

I'm not a dorktor, I'm just a MadMother; I'm thinking how in the hell could this be considered ethical; let alone be publicly funded?! It sure as hell isn't ethical; it doesn't comply with the Nuremberg Code! Since when is it permissible for a NIMH funded 'research psychiatrist' without any legal authority, to effectively strip a parent of their parental rights; strip my child in distress of his Human Rights; so that he can be used as a human guinea pig in neuroleptic drug trials?  My son was repeatedly traumatized and ultimately disabled by Jon McClellan who repeatedly told me I had no say in what he was doing to my son.  He informed me that telling me anything was a COURTESY since he did not need my approval or consent.  Jon McClellan was the only one who provided approval and consent to the unethical treatment of my son.

"in psychiatry, curing symptoms reigns suppreme (sic) over a collaborative approach. Parents who objected to medical treatment they would see as at best ill informed and at worst impaired themselves."  This is a quote from one of Quack Master Jack's former professors... The obvious flaw in this convoluted reasoning, and "professional opinion"; is that it implies that no one has the right to refuse psychiatric treatment--period.  Considering the fact that the drugs do not cure, or even treat the symptoms---for the vast majority of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, it is an insane justification for what was done to my son.  The drugs caused a hell of a lot of trauma, and induced iatrogenic diseases as they are well known to do...

How lucky can one boy get!

via NAMI/NYC:

How to determine if a 'physical' illness is causing what looks like a 'mental' illness. 

by Ronald J Diamond M.D. 

University of Wisconsin Department of Psychiatry 

Written and Revised (1/28/96)

(It is the 'dream' of everyone with a 'mental' illness, and their families, that the illness, can be 'cured'. Dr. Diamond is one of the most caring doctors I have met. The following is a paper he wrote for 'non medical mental health professionals' to help them determine if someone presenting with a psychiatric illness has other physical illnesses and/or a physical illness that is 'causing' the mental illness that may have been missed by others. I have, albeit awkwardly, rephrased (redited and shortened) the original (better) paper to be of relevance to families of and people with neurobiological disorders ("NBD" formerly known as 'mental illness" )

The idea is that doctors should, but often don't look for other physical illnesses in someone with NBD. Armed with the following info, you can start to look for the illness yourself, or at least insist the doctor do it. -This should not substitute for a doctor's advice- dj jaffe, ed). 

 C. Medical Illnesses that Can Present as Psychosis

7. Temporal lobe epilepsy (or partial complex seizure disorder)





4-13-2012
NOTE:
I used Jaffe as a source as a JOKE more than anything else---it fit with the 'theme'---It is quite unusual to find anything put out by Jaffe that resembles accurate information.  As for his comment, "doctors should, but often don't look for other physical illnesses;"  the reality is much more sinister than this statement implies.  Other causes are not being excluded properly before labeling a person as having schizophrenia; the fucking geniuses who diagnose schizophrenia and treat patients often medically neglect the iatrogenic; e.g. PHYSICIAN caused /AVOIDABLE, neurological, cognitive, metabolic and cardiovascular diseases they acquire as a result.   My son has had one EKG in seven years, The manufacturer of one of the drugs he takes recommendeds an EKG be done ANNUALLY; but since I am not a DORKTOR, I can't order one...or force his DORKTORS to order it.  They also do not think it is important to order the neurological work up my son should have.  You'd think it would be important: fully assessing the actual of condition of a real live guinea pig...

Temporal Lobe Epilepsy is thought to be caused by Traumatic Brain Injury--My son was the victim of violent assault at the age of three while in foster care.  Quack Master Jack knew of this trauma and recorded in Isaac's medical record that the crime had been reported to CPS as required by law...

how it was

Washington State's "Lead Researcher for Early Onset Schizophrenia" investigator for the NIMH funded TEOSS Drug Trials, Jon McClellan, the Medical Director of Child Study and Treatment Center, and a professor of psychiatry at University of Washington. 


via Seattle Children's Hospital Research Foundation 2009 Academic Report:
"TEOSS demonstrated that olanzapine and risperidone have significant side effects that limit their use. While molidone can cause symptoms similar to Parkinson disease, the two new drugs can cause explosive weight gain — up to 15 pounds in eight weeks — and put young people at risk for diabetes and heart disease. The study also found the new drugs are no more useful than the old drugs at reducing psychotic symptoms — and each is useful in only a fraction of cases." (emphasis mine) Read more here.


 14 of 116 or 12% were "successfully treated" in TEOSS a small fraction at that! 


This same man who is the lead author for the "Practice Parameters" for treating Schizophrenia in children and adolescents for The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; last updated in 2010.  These  parameters anticipate that 50% of the children prescribed neuroleptic drugs, called "antipsychotics," will develop Tardive Dyskinisia, a disabling condition which can be permanent--even if the child is withdrawn from the drug which caused it.  This specific risk was never mentioned in the 4+ years Jon McClellan used my son in his Drug Trials without Informed Consent.  "Increased pulse rate," is how he characterized the cardiac risks.

What makes me angry

Jim Edwards' column, Placebo Effect titled, "How the Supreme Court Just Neutered the FDA" on June 24th was about a couple of US Supreme Court decisions.  a few excerpts:


"fear that people would make bad decisions if given truthful information cannot justify content-based burdens on free speech."   This quote is from Justice Anthony Kennedy who seemed to imply that pharmaceutical companies have no duty to be truthful in regards to the utility of their products.   Drug companies have a right to say whatever they want to about the drugs they manufacture in order to sell them or market them "off-label."


Edwards points out that "off-label promotion has previously opened up drug companies to a whole raft of different and often expensive legal liabilities.   It may also harm patients by subjecting them to drugs that don't work for what the companies say they work for."  


I can and do say what I want; but I cannot yell fire in a crowded theater if I wanted to  without fear of being prosecuted; and rightly so.   Freedom is within limits, and is not absolute.  Why can drug companies mislead medical professionals and people who are ill or in distress with drug marketing agendas and/or advertising campaigns?  Does the Consumer Protection Act not apply to FDA approved drugs?

The damage is potentially the same in the above scenarios:  people can be maimed and killed by a panic-stricken, stampeding crowd; people can be disabled or die from taking FDA approved drugs used for FDA-approved uses, as prescribed; or from taking prescription drugs prescribed "off-label" as directed.  The FDA refers to off-label use of FDA approved drugs as "experimental use" which sounds more risky than the innocuous term, "off-label."   The FDA is not doing it's job ethically, with due diligence.   This is painfully apparent when a person is disabled or dies from an adverse effect they were never informed of; particularly when the risk was known to the manufacturer and the FDA. Even worse, the risks are minimized or denied altogether so that the drugs can be FDA approved. The FDA proclaims that it has no ethical duty to share even fatal risks with the American public; supposedly the risks are "trade secrets." The FDA drug approval process is rarely revisited; nor is required after-market drug studies rarely done for drugs approved under PDUFA.  The FDA and the drug companies deny adverse effects of the drugs, and deny responsibility for the harm caused.  When the FDA approves a drug based on deception and fraud, professionals are intentionally misinformed about the the safety and effectiveness of the drug; consequently, doctors cannot give their patients accurate information. Is "Informed Consent" even possible with the pervasive corruption and collusion between the FDA and Big Pharma?   


In 1999, an article in published in Science Direct concluded, "The atypical antipsychotics should be critically assessed and compared to psychosocial interventions; if effective, a combination of both types of treatments should be evaluated."  Judith Rappaport, Child Psychiatry Branch at the NIMH is listed as one of the authors in the article, "Antipsychotics in Children and Adolescents." (behind a paywall) The article is not readily accessible even though it was funded by the American people through the NIMH.   

It does not appear to me that the NIMH acts on recommendations derived from research data that is produced from research that is partially or fully funded by the NIMH.  This seems to be particularly true when the recommendation itself will not further enrich Big Pharma by lessening the dependence on pharmacological treatments in favor of psychosocial and other evidence-based treatments for emotional and behavioral issues.  


In the last few decades, it has become abundantly clear that this duty is not being met:  The NIMH has historically partnered with Big Pharma in funding and conducting drug research.  When joint ventures are conducted there is a universal failure to effectively protect the public's safety interests.  Protecting the public from dangerous drugs,medical devices, etc. is theoretically the primary responsibility of the FDA, and it's failing miserably. People recruited into Federally funded research projects are at a serious disadvantage; but so are many ordinary patients, since professionals are also being misinformed by the FDA and Big Pharma. A degree, or even several, does not signify that a person has ethics or good judgement, neither does a license to practice medicine!  A degree is recognition of a person's education, and a medical license is legal permission to provide medical care. Blindly trusting that pieces of paper signify that a person is always honorable and always provides medical care in accordance with the Ethical Guidelines for Informed Consent is killing some of us...  


My son was given neuroleptic, or "antipsychotic" drugs, drugs that did not work; drugs that have caused him real, lasting harm.  He is not the only one who had these horrifying experiences---I cannot change what I could not stop; but as long as I live and breathe, I will try to keep the same thing from happening to any one else...A MadMother doesn't need a degree to have honor or ethical integrity---no one does.   


No one asked my son's or my permission; we were not informed about the risks or told that  the drugs were NOT APPROVED for pediatric use; therefore, we could not and did not give an "Informed Consent."  As I see it, my son was sacrificed on the altar of NIMH funded psychiatric research and corporate greed, by Jon McClellan.  The man never thought it necessary to ask if the debilitating effects of neuroleptic drugs that ultimately disabled my son would suffice in lieu of the recommended treatment which may have helped him. Instead of treatment for his severe PTSD, my son was repeatedly traumatized while being held prisoner in a locked psychiatric facility. I was lied to by  Jon McClellan, Medical Director of CSTC, and research psychiatrist. Jon mcClellan illegally assumed an authority he did not have and falsely claimed that my consent for my son's "treatment" was not needed, or required.  It took me almost two years to rescue my son---after McClellan finally acknowledged my son no longer needed to be in CSTC---then almost immediately obtained a Court Order for Involuntary Treatment in Pierce County Superior Court in order to prevent me from taking my son home---simultaneously, in Yakima County Superior Court, CSTC was recommending that Isaac be discharged; and the permanent plan to return my son home was implemented.


What makes me angry? The subterfuge and criminal conduct of the State's agents who act with seeming impunity, without conscience; and the knowledge that my son's experience is not uncommon.  No government agency in this State has ethically fulfilled the legal duty it owes my son. When he was a 3 year old child in the State's foster care system, he was the victim of violent crime due to State negligence--so the State tried to cover it up, to shield itself from being held liable for damages---Washington State protected the State and the perpetrator; it did not act in defense of my son, a crime victim to whom the State owed a legal duty.  

Once my son was a crime victim with profound PTSD and Left Temporal Lobe Epilepsy from brain trauma, the State made no effort to provide the recommended treatment for his injuries. The State was criminally negligent when it placed my son in the foster home since  there had been 12 CPS reports for abuse and neglect prior to the State putting my son there. 

The State ultimately violated federal Child Welfare and Medicaid law when it coerced me into signing a "Consent to Place" agreement using the fraudulent claim that it was the only way that Medicaid would pay for my son's continuing medical care. Once again in state custody, my son was repeatedly abused and medically neglected; he was heavily drugged with multiple drugs being used concomitantly, none of them approved for pediatric use. My son was repeatedly traumatized, in effect, my son was tortured by Jon McClellan in the State's psychiatric research facility for children until he was profoundly neurologically and cognitively impaired.

Why was I falsely led to believe that CSTC is a hospital, when it is not?  Why was I coerced into signing a Consent to Place agreement?  I can't help but conclude it was so the State could commit child welfare fraud, and also so the state's lead psychiatric researcher for children, Jon McClellan, could use my son in federally funded neuroleptic drug trials.  The State never acted to protect my son, or his best interests.  In truth, I don't believe my son, or his "best interests" were ever a consideration of the State's employees who had a legal duty to protect my son and his best interests. Under Color of Law, instead of acting in my son's best interests, State employees committed fraud, perjury, and Human Rights Crimes which left my precious son terrified of medical settings and permanently disabled. 

Every wrong seems possible today, and is accepted. 
I don't accept it.  
Pablo Casals

photo credit: technoayurveda.wordpress.com