Insel's assumptions are biased beliefs predicated on a hypothetical etiology that is reminiscent of eugenics

via NIMH The Director's Blog

Transforming Diagnosis

an excerpt: 

NIMH has launched the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) project to transform diagnosis by incorporating genetics, imaging, cognitive science, and other levels of information to lay the foundation for a new classification system. Through a series of workshops over the past 18 months, we have tried to define several major categories for a new nosology (see below). This approach began with several assumptions:

A diagnostic approach based on the biology as well as the symptoms must not be constrained by the current DSM categories,

Mental disorders are biological disorders involving brain circuits that implicate specific domains of cognition, emotion, or behavior, (emphasis mine)

Each level of analysis needs to be understood across a dimension of function,

Mapping the cognitive, circuit, and genetic aspects of mental disorders will yield new and better targets for treatment.

Apparently, Thomas Insel is unaware that in order to ethically determine the direction and the focus of scientific research requires an open mind; not a pre-determined agenda. Insel's announcement that the NIMH will no longer use the DSM is a political decision. Insel acknowledges the NIMH adopted a biological research focus based on assumptions; instead of using ethical scientific principles, and allowing the existing empirical data to guide the direction of psychiatric research; he says, "because we lack the data"!? What a crock! Insel knows there is little to no scientific basis in his assertion that "Mental disorders are biological disorders."

It is an assumption that is and has been embedded in the language of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment, an assumption that was entrenched along with the eugenic theories that spawned it. Eugenic theories which are still used in an attempt to justify the inhumane "standards of care" that are without empirical support, standards without empirical support should not be considered "standards of care" since by definition, standards are theoretically to be derived from the evidence base; instead, psychiatry validated their standards of care by consensus,  a quasi-democratic political process, not using ethical medical judgement and empirical data from psychiatric research.  By consensus, psychiatry effectively determined that some people with certain  psychiatric diagnoses don't need their Human Rights protected; people of all ages are effectively stripped of their Human Rights by psychiatry, based on a belief that a diagnosis of mental illness is evidence the person has an incurable brain disease, that requires life-long treatment with teratogenic drugs. Without any definitive evidence to validate the brain disease hypothesis, it's simply a hope-filled belief in a hypothesis that is still seeking validation; it's not even a theory...let alone an actual disease.

Insel's assumptions are beliefs reminiscent of eugenics.  The eugenics movement in this country also proceeded without any empirical evidence to validate it's ignorant assumptions. 

The NIMH will assume that the brain disease hypothesis is a brain disorder or disease in the absence of  empirical evidence that would validate the hypothesis. According to Thomas Insel, the NIMH is going to proceed as if an assumption, i.e."Mental disorders are biological disorders," is a sufficient substitute for using critical thinking skills, and for relying on the existing research data on "mental disorders" exercising sound judgment to determine what the focus and direction for psychiatric research should be. I wonder, if the best interests of those who experience cognitive, emotional and behavioral symptoms were even considered? Is there empirical data that supports Insel's use of biased assumptions that are without empirical support to justify this biased and myopic focus on brain biology for psychiatric research? Insel's announcement that the NIMH will focus on seeking evidence that "mental illness" is caused by a brain disease is not 'news;' the NIMH has been focused on seeking the evidence which would validate the brain disease hypothesis for decades...Insel's announcement that research funded by NIMH will no longer be guided by the DSM, due to it's lack of validity; is long overdue. The irony is, in the same blog post, Insel uses biased assumptions as if bigotry-based assumptions are a sufficient substitute for valid information when making mental health research policy decisions (theoretically) in the public interest. There is no ethical justification for the NIMH to continue to fund research looking for the still illusive genetic defects, brain diseases and bio-markers as it's  main agenda. The pre-occupation with proving schizophrenia and/or any other psychiatric diagnosis, is caused by a biological defect or disease seems to purposely exclude research on known and suspected social and environmental risk factors that cause cognitive and emotional difficulties; worse it neglects the cognitive/behavioral/psycho/social/ therapeutic treatments that can help people right now in real world practice, if the treatments were actually available...

In effect, Insel is announcing all cognitive and emotional symptoms of distress, including undesirable, or disapproved of behavior, is caused by a yet to be identified, biological disorder or disease process---while simultaneously ignoring the overwhelming evidence of environmental causal factors such as  sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and neglect, poverty, malnutrition, environmental violence, socio-economic-political status and intra- and inter-personal conflicts are highly correlated with, and known to exacerbate (if not cause) what Insel 'assumes' are biological disorders...

Allen Frances, had a OP-Ed published in New Scientist, which concludes with the statement, "Anything that goes into the manual should already have passed rigorous research testing; the manuals are far too important to include untested hypotheses. DSM-5 is not, and cannot be, an appropriate guide to future research." 

I agree. I would add that assumptions about the scientific validity of a hypothetical, neuro-biological cause for any psychiatric diagnoses (or anything else) is also inappropriate. An assumption is not an ethical scientific basis for psychiatric research; it is not an ethical foundation for a new nosology either.  

I wonder if Insel can explain why dangerous neuroleptic, or "antipsychotic" drugs that are minimally effective for a minority of people diagnosed with schizophrenia, are prescribed off label, to children? 

Human Experimentation is "effective psychiatric treatment." 

It's the standard of care used in psychiatric practice. 

via National Advisory Mental Health Council 219th Meeting September 18-19, 2008 

NIMH Director's Report: 

an excerpt:

"Results from the NIMH-funded 6-year multisite Treatment of Early Onset Schizophrenia Study (TEOSS) found no significant differences in outcomes with first- or second-generation antipsychotic medications. There was a striking difference in side effects, but there was no evidence that any of the medications was the best choice for the entire group of people being treated. Similar results were obtained in the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) trial, the Cost Utility of The Latest Antipsychotics in Severe Schizophrenia (CUtLASS) trial from the United Kingdom, and the large-scale Veterans Administration trial. Despite the lack of a clear superiority in overall effectiveness of the second-generation drugs, they account for more than 90 percent of the market and cost about 20 times more than the first-generation compounds." Thomas Insel 

via National Institutes of Health:

The NIH Public Access Policy ensures that the public has access to the published results of NIH funded research. It requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to the digital archive PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication. To help advance science and improve human health, the Policy requires that these papers are accessible to the public on PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication.

photo credit:Psychiatry is junk science

Criticism of Thomas Insel's TED Talk: Toward a new understanding of mental illness

via TEDTalks:

Near the end he says, "Now to be clear, we're not quite ready to do this. We don't have all the facts. We don't actually even know what the tools will be, nor what to precisely look for in every case to be able to get there before the behavior emerges as different. But this tells us how we need to think about it, and where we need to go."

There is no evidence that ANY psychiatric diagnosis is caused by an underlying disease pathology, no "brain disease" has ever been identified in any person alive or dead; making Insel's suggestion at the very least, premature. It is more of a statement of Insel's personal belief in the biological hypothesis of "mental illness." His speech is more a promotion for the unethical, but lucrative relationship between the American Psychiatric Association and the pharmaceutical industry.

via Integral Options Cafe:

"This video represents what is so painfully wrong about the medical model of mental illness. TED should be ashamed of promoting such patently misleading and financially motivated crap." here

via Neuroautomaton:

The TED Model of Mental Illness: Thomas Insel
an excerpt:
"In other words, Insel’s “early identification and prevention” premise is completely unsupported by the reality. In fact, the “evidence” he uses to support this strategy for going forward (from a very special case of childhood-onset schizophrenia) may have no correlate in very common and disabling disorders like depression. Even if we could implement society-wide brain scans at an early age, there’s a very good chance that there won’t be anything useful to discover there for predicting the course of common mental disorders." here

Mindhacks Blog Deeper into genetic challenges to psychiatric diagnosis

For more on the "science" behind the disease model of schizophrenia see Mary Boyle 'Schizophrenia' and genetics: does critical thought stop here?

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

How to prevent and treat mental illness: Primum non nocere

Sunrise over the Dead Sea, Israel

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

Hippocrates

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." 

C.S. Lewis

Calling mental illness a developmental brain disease, Thomas Insel, the Director of National Institutes of Mental Health, has stated, "One reason we haven't made greater progress helping people recover from mental disorders is that we get on the scene too late." I agree with this statement. I agree that was is labeled as "mental illness" is a "developmental" phenomenon; however, calling this phenomenon a "brain disease" when no disease has been identified--after decades of seeking evidence that a "disease" exists. This being the case, the root cause/s which lead to a person developing symptoms considered to be signs of "mental illness," cannot ethically be attributed to a biological disease, it's an unfulfilled wish that believers in the disease hypothesis cling to and state as if it is a fact... 

Many symptoms of mental illness are known to be caused and/or exacerbated by environmental factors--- such as poverty, nutritional deficits, emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect, societal violence, and traumatic events, including natural disasters. These are major etiological factors for the emotional and behavioral symptoms of mental illnesses across the life span; it is foolish to not aggressively seek ways to prevent and treat mental illness based upon these identified factors. The biological disease paradigm of care adopted in the publicly funded mental health care system continues to disable people at an alarming rate; it does not effectively cure or enable recovery from mental illness. Nonetheless, the NIMH continues to invest a disproportionate amount of resources on biological treatments for mental illness; funding research in a desperate search for evidence that would validate the biological brain disease hypothesis.

Focusing on biological treatments to treat what essentially is the harm caused to human beings injured by not having physical, emotional and social needs consistently met, or injured by traumatic events; is obviously not working. It is not about who is to blame. It is about being brutally honest as individuals and as a society, and it is about being responsible. Responsible enough to accept the fact that how we treat our children, and how we treat one another throughout our lives is always important, regardless of a whether a person has a psychiatric diagnosis or not. However, how we treat one another is even more important when a person is in distress, people who have been given a psychiatric diagnosis are in need of compassion, in need of respect, and in need of assistance provided by people who accept them, without judging them.

The interpersonal conflicts within families and within society are the root cause of emotional and behavioral symptoms people develop. How we react and respond to people and to their symptoms, has the potential to exacerbate symptoms profoundly; our reactions and responses are determinate factors in how severe, entrenched, and lasting symptoms will ultimately become. Conversely, we can help people recover by providing the appropriate types of support and care they need when experiencing distress. Helping people to meet their own needs, we show people in distress they are valued and loved.  

Treating symptoms once they occur will require a change in our thinking and a change in our behavior. First, we need to stop blaming people for the symptoms that make us uncomfortable. Perhaps our discomfort stems from our unwillingness to fully accept our own personal responsibility for how we have failed to do what we can or should be doing to effectively help. Individuals in distress are not different from people who are not; their symptoms are evidence of their human frailty, and should not be considered evidence of a genetic defect or biological weakness. The symptoms that seem strange due to our own personal discomfort, are merely coping strategies; in reality, they are a person's valiant attempts to process horrific experiences that have caused profound injury. Symptoms are evidence of injury. An individual has symptoms, but the symptoms are an outward manifestation of the harm sustained through interactions within families and within society. 

All humans are the product of the interpersonal relationships within their families and within the social groups they belong to. How we interpret these interactions, the choices we make about how we think and what we do about positive and negative experiences, the meaning and the importance we attach to our experiences is equally important. To blame a person who has difficulty, label the person with a psychiatric diagnosis, claim the person has a disease in their brain, is to pretend their symptoms are phenomena arising from their biological makeup, and have little or nothing to do with the very experiences which in fact have caused them. 

It may not be a simple cause and effect relationship, but it would be a mistake for us to believe there is no connection between how we treat people and whether or not they develop symptoms of mental illness. Perhaps denial is rooted in a mistaken belief that if one's behavior causes distress unknowingly,   blame must be assigned; this is a flawed perspective, without offering a solution. No one wants to believe they have caused or exacerbated a loved one's distress. As parents, we accept the responsibility for directly influencing and guiding the development of our children. Our children's success we have no difficulty attributing to having done a good job as parents. Why would we not also recognize that emotional and behavioral problems may be caused or exacerbated by our own personal parental and/or societal deficits? Individually and collectively, it is about responsibility; not blame.

We humans have a profound impact on one another, and to deny the possibility that our own personal deficits may be a causal factor or can exacerbate another person's symptoms of distress, is to deny the truth, and deny the help needed as well. Denial allows people to abdicate the responsibility each of us has to change ourselves while encouraging change within society for our own good. Our personal sense of responsibility must include being willing to be accountable for our actions which cause harm; truly listening and believing our loved ones who say they have been harmed. It is only our actions others see and experience. One's good intentions are not a justification; and should never be used as an excuse to deny or abdicate our responsibility for any harm our behavior causes others. All of us have caused harm unintentionally to people we care about, it is part of being human; it is unavoidable. Failing to be accountable once made aware, is to intentionally choose to cause further harm. By being accountable for changing whatever we need to in ourselves, with an awareness of the frailty of interpersonal human  connections, we can avoid repeating mistakes; effectively minimizing our risks of causing further harm. 

By being self-aware, accepting responsibility for our behavior, 

we can prevent and more effectively treat mental illness.  

photo credit Drew Haninger

NIH Defends Grant To Psychiatrist Sanctioned For Taking Millions From Big Pharma

via Pharma WatchDog:

NIH Defends Grant To Psychiatrist Sanctioned For Taking Millions From Big Pharma:

A former Emory University psychiatrist caught for failing to disclose millions he received from Big Pharma is once again receiving federal grants. The decision to award the grants has sparked criticism from many, including a US Senator.

The federal grant were made 3 months ago to Charles Nemeroff, a former Emory University psychiatrist. Dr. Nemeroff was caught failing to tell his university about at least $1.2 million in consulting income from drug companies, such as GlaxoSmithKline. read here

More at Pharmalot

hat tip: Mark Sadaka

photo from Stop Rx Foundation

Ducktors Nemeroff and Insel: quacks can't be Kosher...

Ducktors Thomas Insel and Charles Nemeroff 

The investigation is OPEN.

It is a clearly a questionable decision to award a Federal Grant to a psychiatrist whose conduct has been under investigation by both the Office of Inspector General for Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice for quite some time.  It is simply unethical to award Charles Nemeroff a grant prior to the investigation being over.  That is exactly what has happened though. The investigation has been completed; but the DOJ has not announced whether it will be filing criminal charges or lettting Nemeroff off the hook. 

The grant Nemeroff was awarded is to study the neurpsychobiological risk factors for post-traumatic stress disorder. Translation: Chuck is being paid to hunt down the evidence needed to declare  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a neurobiological disease. ($$$ good!)

4 out of 5 psychiatrists recommend Ethic-Eze

IT'S NOT JUST FOR Ad Men any more!

Ed Silverman's article and the comment left by 1Boring Old Man are a must read.  Ed's article and 1 Boring Old Man's comment lay out the disturbing facts about how Insel purposely minimized the egregious nature of Nemeroff's unethical conduct, then helped to secure him a faculty position at another public institution of Higher Learning, the University of Miami. By all appearances, unethical behavior was dismissed or minimized.  It appears that a plan for Nemeroff to avoid the consequences that NIH and Emory had laid out for his unethical conduct was planned and executed by the Director of the National Institutes of Mental Health, Thomas Insel, and the unscrupulous Charles Nemeroff.  One doesn't have to be a Rabbi to know that Nemeroff and Insel's unethical conduct destroys altogether the delusion that ethical integrity is valued by psychiatric researchers or valued by the Director of NIMH.

Ducktors Insel and Nemeroff are not even close to Kosher...

via Pharmalot:
NIH Insists Latest Nemeroff Grant Is Kosher

By Ed Silverman // August 13th, 2012 // 9:59 am

Three months ago, US Senator Chuck Grassley demanded that the National Institutes of Health justify a recent decision to award a multi-million-dollar research grant to Charles Nemeroff, the University of Miami medical school psychiatry chair, who has been at the center of a far-reaching probe into conflicts of interest involving academic researchers and the pharmaceutical industry. The grant is for research into post-traumatic stress disorder. here 

Lost in Translational Science: Anosognosia Due to Pharmacosis

Lost in Translation

via NIMH Director's Blog:

Experimental Medicine
By Thomas Insel on June 12, 2012

an couple excerpts:

"Existing antidepressants and antipsychotics have many proposed molecular targets, but none that have been shown to be necessary or sufficient for their clinical effects. 

Amazingly, after three decades of broad use of these medications, we still don’t know how they work when they are effective.

"As a result, NIMH is shifting from large clinical trials that promise an incremental improvement to a model called “experimental medicine.” In experimental medicine, drugs are used as clinical probes and the immediate goal is not to develop a treatment but to identify or verify a target." here

Psychopharmacology is, and always has been "experimental medicine."  It is not Evidence-Based.  Now, the director of NIMH is stating, "antidepressant effects have variously been proposed to involve changes in serotonin neurotransmission, hippocampal cell birth, and changes in stress hormones, among many other effects. By ruling out some targets and focusing on those involved in the biology of the disorder, we can direct treatment development much more efficiently."

What is Thomas Insel smoking?  A pathophysiological disease process causing depression has not been identified. Belief that depression is caused by an unidentified biological disease, is  not 'evidence' validating a hypothesis. Without identifying a disease and it's pathophysiology; how could anyone hope to identify a treatment target? Let me guess: the target will be identified after a drug's mechanism of action is identified.

This strategy never has worked out very well.

What 1 Boring Old Man had to say about Thomas Insel and this blog post, New Directions: 

He believes what he thinks is the truth.  At Yerkes, he was not reappointed Director after five years – largely because the staff didn’t want him back. He was toodirective. He took the term Director literally and tried to channel the direction there too vigorously. Now he’s doing the same thing at the NIMH. I gather he genuinely believes that the future direction for mental health is in newer, more effective medications. Under his direction, he’s incentivised this goal and micromanaged the direction of research efforts.

The argument he makes in this blog could’ve been made at any point in the history of psychiatry, but he presents it with a messianic sense of urgency and priority. His job at the National Institute of Mental Health is to create an environment that shepherds our best and brightest minds to follow their scientific instincts, not Tom Insel’s. Like his colleagues on the APA’s DSM-5 Task Force, he’s trying to hold on to a paradigm that is in a phase of exhaustion, now bordering on toxic. It’s a time for consolidation, for reflection, for stepping back and contemplating. It’s a time for new directions, and a new Director at the National Institute of Mental Health… here

Thomas Insel must have Pharmacosis: a loss of insight and an inability to access reality.  It is highly contagious, and is spread by disseminating biased, otherwise inaccurate, and/or  completely false 'information' about the illusion of psychiatric diseases; and the effectiveness of psychiatry's prescribed pharmacological treatments  to treat illusory psychiatric diseases...

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

Friday Funny: I have something to say to Thomas Insel

Via The Director's Blog:


April 20, 2012
The Future of Psychiatry (= Clinical Neuroscience)

Insel ends his post with this statement, "So maybe there is an identity crisis for psychiatry in the U.S. as well as the U.K. But the U.S. version seems filled with hope and excitement, with many of the best and brightest now deciding that they can bring new approaches to help people challenged by mental illness." here

Same old neurobiological disease illusion same old tired "Stay the Course" translational science bs...

I'll let Betty White say it for me:

a history of dishonesty and a lack of ethical integrity

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

George Santayana

In my last post I compared the modern day practice of psychiatry to the eugenics movement.  I want to clarify that it is not that I believe that psychiatry is involved in some sort conspiracy to practice eugenics.  The 'mythology of chemical imbalance' and the bio-medical belief system in psychiatry and it's doctrine that mental illnesses are 'brain diseases' is and has been used to justify horrific violations of Human Rights just like 'genetic inferiority' was used as an excuse to sterilize people in public progroms during the Eugenics era.  Mental Health Public Policy is discriminatory, and legally segregates people diagnosed as mentally ill into a separate, less than equal, lower class in human society---even more so once a psychiatric diagnosis has been legally adjudicated.  Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals become treatment enforcers instead of providers and potentially have the authority to 'medically treat' and dictate where patients/victims live for the rest of their lives.  

The same flawed biased reasoning is used to justify the current Involuntary Treatment Laws that was used to justify the Eugenics Laws.   People were considered less than fully human by virtue of being determined to be 'dim-witted,' mentally ill, mentally retarded, or epileptic and were declared genetically defective, and sterilized and lobotomized in psychiatric institutions.  People were sterilized, lobotomized,  among other heinous 'medical treatments' carried out ostensibly, to benefit all of human society...

To protect society from 'those people', society determined that torture and abuse were necessary.  Legislation was passed to legally mandate these 'medical treatments.'  Ironic when one considers it.    

That there was a 'scientific basis' for the beliefs which fueled eugenic practices was 'common knowledge,' much like believers in psychiatric mythology erroneously believe that mental illness results from brain disease is a scientifically valid medical determination; when it is simply belief in a yet to be validated hypothesis.   In spite of obvious reasons for this current claim to be not only be questioned, but considered suspect; Legislation has been passed diminishing the rights of those diagnosed by psychiatry.  Involuntary Commitment Laws segregate and diminish the Individual Rights and Liberty interests of people in the exact same manner the Eugenics Laws diminished the freedom and autonomy of the people considered defective.  Proponents of the ITA Laws and the Eugenics Laws claim they are based on scientific and/or medical knowledge; yet neither were supported by valid empirical data which would validate the claims.  Apparently, as a society, we are to accept the claim that psychiatric diagnoses are diseases because some believe it to be true...no evidence is necessary, we should not need it...

We are to accept the claim because of who is making it.  Making such a claim without providing valid scientific evidence is suspect.  Doctors are not supposed to lie to or about patients.  Doctors are not supposed to lie to or mislead anyone about what is and is not known about diagnoses or treatments they provide.  Historically and presently this type of honesty has not been universally valued; scientific principles in psychiatric research and medical ethics in clinical practice have not been adhered to.  Psychiatry has abused it's authority and abused distressed patients with impunity historically.  Currently the methods of social control like coercion, being manipulative and controlling using subterfuge and denial are common in Standard Practice.  Exactly why has the ability to Court Order unwilling patients and to detain patients commonly, without Procedural Due Process of Law and Police Powers been granted to psychiatry in spite psychiatry's history of dishonesty and lack of ethical integrity? 

The Pharmacaust: The Destruction of the "Mentally Ill"

cartoon credit

I'm no ding a ling...if it walks like and talks like a duck, it must be

"PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him.  And perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. "

John Donne

A short time ago Robert Whitaker wrote a post, that I was personally grateful he wrote.  "The Taint of Eugenics in NIMH Research Today"   I was grateful because based on my own research on history and psychiatry, and my lived experience, I had come to realize that the NIMH has focused it's efforts on finding 'proof' of genetic defect and/or biological disease in people who have symptoms of 'mental illness.'  While it very well may make good sense to look for a disease or defect; to do so at the expense of neglecting other valid areas of research, into etiology, diagnosis and treatment is not scientific, ethical or wise!  That is exactly what the NIMH has done, and Tommy Insel is continuing with his 'Stay the Course' translational neuroscience marketing agenda  in the desperate quest for the disease, or the gene that causes madness; searching for proof people with a 'mental illness' are genetically defective is the #1 priority.  

Why?  Because bio-psychiatry desperately wants to validate it's Standards of Practice used in clinical practice; particularly the standards which recommend using neuroleptic drugs as a first-line treatment for schizophrenia as an 'Evidence Based practice;' which is ludicrous---ALL the treatment algorithms, and practice parameters for using psychiatric drugs particularly the neuroleptic drugs, are not based on the evidence base, but were "standardized" by consensus---which offers protection to psychiatrists from liability claims, but offers none for patients, which is the purpose of having standards of care--to protect the patients.  In psychiatry what a Standard Practice is is an affirmative defense based on what psychiatrists do in clinical practice to "treat mental illness." Absent a show of the evidence that the standards are derived from, a reasonable person would wonder, how in the world does a treatment become a standard treatment without definitive evidence it is effective and safe? CAN a treatment be an ethical standard medical treatment absent definitive supporting evidence of it's safety and effectiveness? Evidence is a requirement for validity to be determined--do psychiatrists not understand that? I don't believe so. The psycho-pharmacological treatment first, bio-disease paradigm lacks the sort of evidence required to validate diagnoses, it lacks evidence that any particular prescription drug is an "Evidence-Based" treatment for any diagnosis; so simply mixes and matches diagnoses and drugs.

THAT is the real (potentially fatal) elephant in the room.

The evidence on neuroleptic drugs has always been substandard, which is not a big deal--unless you wish to exaggerate the drugs effectiveness while minimizing the very real life changing risks of disability and early fatality.  Psychiatry has some Standard Practices that are not therapeutic that is reality violate people's Human Rights; coercion, misleading patients and family members about what is and is not known about psychiatric diagnoses and 'treatments,' abuse of authority, are some of them. The Civil Commitment Laws in this Country mean psychiatrists in effect have, police powers when as a profession, psychiatry has been misleading patients and families, the general public, Legislatures and Courts of Law how have they earned so much "trust" without the ability to tell the truth?

Indeed, E. Fuller Torrey, the "Brain Collector," forced psychiatric treatment demagogue, and NAMI's hero psychiatrist, has been quoted in the press recommending lying to the police, and courts--why would perjury be necessary to "practice medicine?" How is open deceit, and "metaphorical" explanations of a supposed "disease" ethically ACCEPTABLE in the practice medicine? If it is the practice of Medicine, medicine has been redefined with disability and death being the "successful treatment" outcome.  It's so "effective" and desirable in fact, we legally compel people to be "treated" with drugs which more often than not, are disabling and fatal to the patient, taken as prescribed. Calling it 'necessary medical treatment' is true if early death and disability are the desired end points; because in Real World Practice, any therapeutic value to the patient, is irrelevant.

The most sickening ugly part of my experiences with psychiatry is seeing what the drugs do to a human being; not being allowed to have any say, let alone stop it.  My son was tortured; I'm a MadMother, because I witnessed the crime.  Neuroleptics are no 'first-line treatment,' a treatment of desperation, or of last resort maybe--but certainly not something to be considered safe and effective or prescribed coercing treatment compliance using fraudulent claims. The neuroleptics in truth do not "treat" so much as they alter physiological processes which may not be dysfunctional; much less, need to be altered.  Specifically, the neuroleptics alter cognition, metabolism, and cadio-vascular processes; indeed they effect the parasympathetic nervous system, which regulates all major processes in human beings. This broad spectrum effect is why neuroleptic drugs have a myriad of serious, adverse effects and fatal risks. Characterizing neuroleptic drugs as effective medical treatment in a Court of Law, or anywhere else, is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.

We are once again 'investigating' instead of STOPPING how this Nation is drugging poor children who are on Medicaid in vast numbers with drugs that have a significant risks for disability, sudden and/or early death. The leaders in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry estimate in their Practice Parameters for Schizophrenia 50 % of the children given neuroleptic drugs will develop Tardive Dyskinesia, a neurological disorder which can be permanent and disabling; even if the neuroleptic is discontinued.  "As described above, the main symptoms of TD are continuous and random muscular movements in the tongue, mouth and face, but sometimes the limbs and trunks are affected as well. Rarely, the respiration muscles may be affected resulting in grunts and even breathing difficulties. Sometimes, the legs can be so severely affected that walking becomes difficult."

Opinions, even a whole bunch of educated opinions--are not scientific evidence.  It is 'Standard Practice' to drug people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia 'for their own good; it is not based not on empirical data, but on subjective opinions.'  This is a Standard Practice has killed more people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia than are allowed to survive, to perhaps, one day recover.  Court Orders that do not need to comply with the Rules of Evidence or Standard Legal procedures without meeting the burden of proof required in any other type of Legal proceeding. Conveniently, the FDA does not require 'adverse events' caused by FDA approved drugs be reported.  Fatalities caused by the drugs are drug induced deaths; in all reality, iatrogenic, or 'physician caused' homicide.  It is a common Real World Outcome in Standard Practice; such deaths are said to be "natural" although it is drug-induced.

It may be legal, but it is not ethical, or moral.  

It is not 'medicine.'  

It is eugenics.  

From the Director's Blog:

After a century of studying schizophrenia, the cause of the disorder remains unknown. Treatments, especially pharmacological treatments, have been in wide use for nearly half a century, yet there is little evidence that these treatments have substantially improved outcomes for most people with schizophrenia. These current unsatisfactory outcomes may change as we approach schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder with psychosis as a late, potentially preventable stage of the illness. This ‘rethinking’ of schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder, which is profoundly different from the way we have seen this illness for the past century, yields new hope for prevention and cure over the next two decades. here. 

This does this help explain the focus on early intervention. Basically, 'pre-treatment' for those targeted as being 'vulnerable' to perhaps, maybe, at some point in the future, as maybe, having a chance of experiencing psychosis. 

These services target poor children, the traumatically wounded, and the elderly; and since Alcohol and Substance Abuse was melded with Mental Health into SAMHSA, alcoholics and addicts are another demographic now targeted as well. 

nothing to see here...move along.

update from over the weekend, apparently they're a slow reader...

 bell photo credit

forget where I got the elephant it's in another post though