775 template 151106Antipsychotic Drugs and Brain Shrinkage. Mass murderers taking psych drugs

Antipsychotic Drugs and Brain Shrinkage. Mass murderers taking psych drugs

(1) Antipsychotic Drugs and Brain Shrinkage - Gary G. Kohls, MD & Joanna
Moncrieff, MD
(2) Antipsychotic Drugs May Result in Brain Damage - David Oaks
(3) Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry by Robert Burrowes
(4) Elliot Rodger, like nearly all the other young mass murderers, was
taking brain-altering psych drugs

Newsletter published on 9 November 2015

(1) Antipsychotic Drugs and Brain Shrinkage - Gary G. Kohls, MD & Joanna
Moncrieff, MD

    Gary Kohls<ggkohls@gmail.com> 7 November 2015 at 13:59

http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/11/04/6193_confessions_of_a_medical_heretic-2

Antipsychotic Drugs and Brain Shrinkage

By Gary G. Kohls, MD

Over the 40 years that I practiced medicine, I slowly became aware of
the fact that drugs that cross the blood-brain barrier and thus impact
the brain, especially those marketed for so-called mental illnesses (of
unknown etiology), only mask symptoms and never cure anything - despite
what the attractive, trinket-bearing salespersons from Big Pharma
proclaimed as they were trying to convince me to prescribe their latest
over-priced drugs (while at the same time abandoning the tried and true
cheaper generics I had been using successfully for years).

When I went to medical school, we were taught that the relatively few
psychiatric drugs available in the decade of the 1960s were too
dangerous for us lowly family practitioners to prescribe safely.
However, sometime between then and the generation of the 1980s, Big
Pharma started flexing its Big Business muscles, started having
previously restricted drugs available over-the-counter, started ignoring
the psychiatrists (who coveted the monopoly they had had on psych meds),
and started marketing heavily those same dangerous drugs so that we
lowly family practitioners would help them increase their “market share”.

Living in a rural area where there were no psychiatrists to make
wholesale diagnoses of mental illnesses (of “unknown etiology”) that
supposedly warranted life-long drugging, I wasn’t asked by very many of
my patients for psych drug treatment. But then came along Prozac.

The one time that I was asked by a patient to prescribe Prozac for her
(a so-called selective [a lie] serotonin reuptake inhibitor [SSRI]), I
was totally unaware that I had been deceived by Eli Lilly’s commercials
and its drug reps when I was told how Prozac was supposed to work. They
also skipped over (or were ignorant of) what were the serious potential
dangers of the drug, especially the long-term dangers which included
suicide, homicide, addiction, brain damage, sleep disorders, mania,
psychosis, dementia, permanent sexual dysfunction, etc, etc. That
patient didn’t take her Prozac for more than two weeks before it pooped
out. But it got me curious about what synthetic, fluorinated,
amphetamine-based chemicals like the SSRIs can do to the brain.

Lilly’s drug reps never tried to detail me on their so-called
second-generation anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa, but by the time those
drugs were being promoted, I was highly suspicious of Big Pharma and all
of their mis-represented psych drugs. I had begun to understand why all
anti-psychotic drugs were called “chemical restraints”, “chemical strait
jackets”, “chemical lobotomies” or “zombification drugs”.

So when I ran across the following article (by Dr Joanna Moncrieff, a
British psychiatrist) about the most serious unintended long-term
consequence of antipsychotic drugs (brain shrinkage!), I decided to
print extended excerpts of it below. I have done minimal editing.
Phrases in italics are mine.

(The antipsychotic drugs that Dr Moncrieff is referring to include
Thorazine (GlaxoSmithKline), haloperidol (generic), Abilify
(Bristol-Myers Squibb), Clozaril (Novartis), Fanapt (Novartis), Geodon
(Pfizer), Invega (Janssen), Resperdal (Janssen), Saphris (Merck),
Seroquel (AstraZeneca), and Zyprexa (olanzapine - Lilly).

_______________________________________________________________________

Antipsychotic Drugs and Brain Shrinkage

By Joanna Moncrieff, MD / December 13, 2013

This article – with an unabridged reference list - has been posted at:
http://joannamoncrieff.com/2013/12/13/antipsychotics-and-brain-shrinkage-an-update/

“After 18 months of treatment monkeys treated with olanzapine or
haloperidol, at doses equivalent to those used in humans, had
approximately 10% lighter brains that those treated with a placebo.” –
Joanna Moncrieff, MD

Evidence that antipsychotics cause brain shrinkage has been accumulating
over the last few years but the psychiatric research establishment is
finding its own results difficult to swallow. A new paper by a group of
American researchers once again tries to ‘blame the disease,’ a time
honored tactic for diverting attention from the nasty and dangerous
effects of some psychiatric treatments. In 2011, these researchers, led
by the former editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry (and
therefore with significant conflicts of interest), Nancy Andreasen,
reported follow up data for their study of 211 patients diagnosed for
the first time with an episode of ‘schizophrenia’. They found a strong
correlation between the level of antipsychotic treatment… and the amount
of shrinkage of brain matter as measured by repeated MRI scans. The
group concluded that “antipsychotics have a subtle but measurable
influence on brain tissue loss” (1).

This study confirmed other evidence that antipsychotics shrink the
brain. When MRI scans became available in the 1990s, they were able to
detect subtle levels of brain shrinkage in people diagnosed with
schizophrenia or psychosis. This led to the (erroneous) idea that
psychosis is a toxic brain state, and was used to justify the claim that
early treatment with antipsychotics was necessary to prevent brain
damage. People even started to refer to these drugs as having
“neuroprotective” properties, and schizophrenia was increasingly (and
erroneously) described.… as a neurodegenerative condition (2).

The trouble with this interpretation was that all the patients in these
studies were taking antipsychotic drugs. Peter Breggin suggested that
the smaller brains and larger brain cavities observed in people
diagnosed with schizophrenia in these studies (and older using the less
sensitive CT scans), were a consequence of antipsychotic drugs (3), but
no one took him seriously. It was assumed that these findings revealed
the brain abnormalities that were thought to constitute schizophrenia,
and for a long time no one paid much attention to the effects of drug
treatment. Where the effects of antipsychotics were explored, however,
there were some indications that the drugs might have a negative impact
on brain volume (4).

In 2005, another American group, led by Joseph Lieberman who headed up
the CATIE study, published the largest scanning study up to that point
of patients with a first episode of psychosis or schizophrenia (5). The
study was funded by Eli Lilly, and consisted of a randomized comparison
of Lilly’s drug olanzapine (Zyprexa) and the older drug haloperidol
(Haldol). Patients were scanned at the start of the study, at 12 weeks
and one year later and patients’ scans were compared with those of a
control group of ‘healthy’ volunteers.

At 12 weeks haloperidol-treated subjects showed a statistically
significant reduction of the brain’s grey matter (the nerve cell bodies)
compared with controls. At one year both olanzapine- and
haloperidol-treated subjects had lost more grey matter than controls.
The comparative degree of shrinkage in the olanzapine group was smaller
than that in the haloperidol group, and the authors declared the
olanzapine-related change not to be statistically significant because,
although the result reached the conventional level of statistical
significance (p=0.03) they said they had done so many tests that the
result might have occurred by chance. In both haloperidol and olanzapine
treated patients, however, there was a consistent effect that was
diffuse and visible in most parts of the brain hemispheres.

The idea that schizophrenia or psychosis represent degenerative brain
diseases was so influential at this point, that the author’s first
explanation for these results was that olanzapine, but not haloperidol,
can halt the underlying process of brain shrinkage caused by the mental
condition. They did concede, however, that an alternative explanation
might be that haloperidol causes brain shrinkage-, but they never
admitted that olanzapine might do this.

It seems as if Eli Lilly and its collaborators were so confident about
their preferred explanation, that they set up a study to compare the
effects of olanzapine and haloperidol in macaque monkeys. This study
proved beyond reasonable doubt that both antipsychotics cause brain
shrinkage. After (only)18 months of treatment monkeys treated with
olanzapine or haloperidol, at doses equivalent to those used in humans,
had approximately 10% lighter brains (at autopsy) than those treated
with  a placebo (6).

Still psychiatrists went on behaving as if antipsychotics were
essentially benign and arguing that they were necessary to prevent an
underlying toxic brain disease (7). Andreasen’s 2011 paper was widely
publicized however, and it started to be acknowledged that
antipsychotics can cause brain shrinkage. Almost as soon as the cat was
out of the bag, however, attention was diverted back to the idea that
the real problem is the mental condition.

Later in 2011 Andreasen’s group published a paper that reasserted the
idea that schizophrenia is responsible for brain shrinkage (rather than
the now established fact that the drugs were causing the treated brain
to shrink). In this paper there was barely a mention of the effects of
antipsychotics that were revealed in the group’s earlier paper (8). What
the authors did in the second paper was to assume that any shrinkage
that could not be accounted for by the… antipsychotic effects must be
attributable to the underlying disease.

<snip>

…without a comparison group which has not been medicated, (a virtual
impossibility in this day and age) it is simply not possible to conclude
that any part of the observed effect is not drug-induced.

The latest paper by this research group replicates the findings on
antipsychotic-induced brain shrinkage, but also (falsely) claims that
brain volume reduction is related to having a ‘relapse’ (10).… The most
recent analysis ignores the probable association between antipsychotic
treatment intensity and relapse, but it seems likely that people
undergoing periods of ‘relapse,’ (or more accurately, deterioration of
symptoms), would be treated with higher doses of antipsychotics. If this
is so, and the two variables ‘relapse’ and ‘treatment intensity’ are
correlated with each other, then the analysis is questionable since the
statistical methods used assume that the variables are independent of
each other.

So Andreasen’s group has found strong evidence of an antipsychotic
induced effect, which they have replicated in two analyses now….

These researchers seem determined to prove (falsely) that
‘schizophrenia’ causes brain shrinkage… Their recent analysis once again
confirms the damaging effects of antipsychotics, but the authors largely
discount the effects of drug treatment and conclude that patients must
not stop their antipsychotics. The only concession made to the
antipsychotic-induced changes the study reveals is the suggestion that
low doses of antipsychotics should be used where possible.

Yet other prominent psychiatric researchers have now abandoned the idea
that schizophrenia is a progressive, neurodegenerative condition, and do
not consider that Andreasen’s study provides evidence of this (11).
Bizarrely, Nancy Andreasen is a co-author of a recently published
meta-analysis which combines results of 30 studies of brain volume over
time, which clearly confirms the association between antipsychotic
treatment and brain shrinkage (specifically the grey matter) and finds
no relationship with severity of symptoms or duration of the underlying
condition (12).

What should antipsychotic users and their families and caregivers make
of this research? Obviously it sounds frightening and worrying, but the
first thing to stress is that the reductions in brain volume that are
detected in these MRI studies are small, and it is not certain that
changes of this sort have any functional implications. We do not yet
know whether these changes are reversible or not. Of course the value of
antipsychotics has been much debated, and their utility depends on the
particular circumstances of each individual user, so it is impossible to
issue any blanket advice. If people are worried, they need to discuss
the pros and cons of continuing to take antipsychotic treatment with
their prescriber, bearing in mind the difficulties that can be
associated with coming off these drugs (13). People should not stop drug
treatment suddenly, especially if they have been taking it for a long time.

People need to know about this research because it indicates that
antipsychotics are not the innocuous substances that they have
frequently been portrayed as. We still have no conclusive evidence that
the disorders labelled as schizophrenia or psychosis are associated with
any underlying abnormalities of the brain, but we do have strong
evidence that the drugs we use to treat these conditions cause brain
changes. This does not mean that taking antipsychotics is not sometimes
useful and worthwhile, despite these effects, but it does mean we have
to be very cautious indeed about using them.

(This blog is a slightly revised version of one that appeared on Mad in
America in June 2013.)

Dr Moncrieff is a Senior Lecturer in psychiatry at University College
London and a practicing consultant psychiatrist. She has written three
books: “The Bitterest Pills”, “The Myth of the Chemical Cure” and “A
Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs”.

Dr Moncrieff is also the author of a very useful article that has been
posted at
http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/02/need-know-starting-drug-mental-health-problem/.
It is entitled “What You Need to Know Before Starting a Drug for a
Mental Health Problem”.

An equally useful article that Dr Moncrieff wrote concerned getting off
psych drugs was published in the medical journal Medical Hypotheses
(2006;67(3):517-23). It was titled “Why is it so Difficult to Stop
Psychiatric Drug Treatment? It may be Nothing to do With the Original
Problem”.

Reference List (abridged)

       (1)    Ho BC, Andreasen NC, Ziebell S, Pierson R, Magnotta V.
Long-term Antipsychotic Treatment and Brain Volumes: A Longitudinal
Study of First-Episode Schizophrenia. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2011
Feb;68(2):128-37.

       (3)    Breggin PR. Toxic Psychiatry. London: Fontana; 1993.

       (4)    Moncrieff J, Leo J. A systematic review of the effects of
antipsychotic drugs on brain volume. Psychol Med 2010 Jan 20;1-14.

       (5)    Lieberman JA, Tollefson GD, Charles C, Zipursky R, Sharma
T, Kahn RS, et al. Antipsychotic drug effects on brain morphology in
first-episode psychosis. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2005 Apr;62(4):361-70

       (9)    Molina V, Sanz J, Benito C, Palomo T. Direct association
between orbitofrontal atrophy and the response of psychotic symptoms to
olanzapine in schizophrenia. Int Clin Psychopharmacol 2004 Jul;19(4):221-8.

     (11)    Zipursky RB, Reilly TJ, Murray RM. The Myth of
Schizophrenia as a Progressive Brain Disease. Schizophr Bull 2012 Dec 7.

     (13)    Moncrieff J. Why is it so difficult to stop psychiatric
drug treatment? It may be nothing to do with the original problem. Med
Hypotheses 2006;67(3):517-23.

(2) Antipsychotic Drugs May Result in Brain Damage - David Oaks

PPEN # 446: Involuntary Neuroleptic (Antipsychotic) Psychiatric Drugs
May Result in Brain Damage

    Gary G. Kohls<gkohls@cpinternet.com> 31 December 2014 at 02:34

http://ppjg.me/2014/12/30/involuntary-neuroleptic-antipsychotic-psychiatric-drugs-may-result-in-brain-damage/
http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/psychiatric-drugs/antipsychotics/neuroleptic-brain-damage/

Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter # 446

Involuntary Neuroleptic (Antipsychotic) Psychiatric Drugs May Result in
Brain Damage

By David Oaks   (18 September 2007)  MindFreedom International

Any serious debate in 2007 about the topic of involuntary psychiatric
procedures ought to include the following fact:

For years, many studies have indicated that long-term high-dosage
neuroleptic (also known as antipsychotic) psychiatric drugging may
induce structural brain damage. This damage can include actual shrinkage
of areas of the brain associated with higher-level functions, what makes
us human.

In his commentary, "England's New Mental Health Act Represents Law
Catching Up with Science," Anthony Maden demands that "ethical advocates
of a change to capacity-based legislation are under an obligation to
deal with the science."

However, I note that proponents of involuntary psychiatric procedures
seldom explain clearly to colleagues, the public, patients or their
families, the full implications of these procedures. It is undeniable
that involuntary psychiatric procedures often involve psychiatric
drugging, and that neuroleptic psychiatric drugs are often used in such
circumstances.

Therefore, the impact, risks and efficacy of neuroleptics are relevant.
There are debates about these topics, including that there are effective
alternatives other than neuroleptics. However, I wish to focus on one
particularly relevant risk.

In the last decade or two, countless medical articles have raised
warning flags that long-term high-dosage neuroleptic use is associated
with structural brain change. Please understand that I, and the
nonprofit organization I direct, MindFreedom International, are
pro-choice. Many of our members choose to take prescribed psychiatric
drugs, including neuroleptics, others do not.

But we are all united in speaking up for basic human rights, and a
fundamental human right for patients, their family and society itself is
the right to know. It is a horrible medical catastrophe that knowledge
about neuroleptic-induced structural brain damage is today largely
confined to the medical field itself. As a human rights activist for the
past 31 years, and as an individual who has personally experienced
involuntary neuroleptic drugging, I maintain that this disaster amounts
to a kind of "Greenhouse effect" of the mind, and some day the public
will want to know why they were not informed.

Similar to the controversy about the environmental Greenhouse effect,
there are industry defenders who are sowing doubt about the claims here,
that long-term high-dosage neuroleptic use is associated with structural
brain changes. Even though there are brain scan and autopsy studies
showing these changes, some still try to deny these changes by claiming
the underlying "mental illness" must be reasonable for the brain
changes. This does not explain, however, why medical studies on animals
can replicate similar structural brain change. Did these animals all
miraculously develop "mental illness"?

Why is neuroleptic-induced structural brain damage so important? Try a
simple thought experiment. If any medical authority recommended that
thousands of individuals out in the community receive involuntary
psychosurgery -- actual surgical destruction of healthy brain tissue to
change behavior -- there would be automatic outrage. Why? Because when
force is combined with a procedure that is so profoundly intrusive and
irreversible and damaging to the core part of our being as
psychosurgery, the general public intuitively understands that coercing
these procedures would be unethical.

Many Studies Show that Antipsychotic Treatment can Result in Severe
Structural Brain Changes

Today, there are many studies showing that long-term high-dosage
neuroleptics can actually result in such severe structural brain
changes, that these changes can include shrinkage of the parts of our
brain associated with high-level cognition. As anyone who is
knowledgeable in this field is aware, there are many such studies
showing that long-term high-dosage neuroleptics are associated with
structural brain change.

I will just mention one such study, because it involves both an
older-type neuroleptic and a newer atypical neuroleptic.

In this study, three groups of monkeys each were given haloperidol,
olanzapine or sham for a 17 to 27 month period. There was an 8 to 11
percent reduction in mean fresh brain weights in both drug-treated
groups compared to sham.

The differences were seen in all major brain regions, especially in the
frontal and parietal regions in both gray and white matter. There was a
general shrinkage effect of approximately 20% and a highly significant
variation in shrinkage across brain region

The Absurd Notion That Psychiatric Drugging is Good for the Brain

When I have raised concerns about studies like this with defenders of
coerced psychiatric drugging I have been surprised at the response. One
hypothesized that perhaps such brain shrinkage is helpful. Another
hypothesized that such shrinkage is not literally "damage." Still
another hypothesized the brain would snap back afterwards.

All of these debaters, despite the absurdity of their defense, miss the
main point. To repeat, yes, I understand some may still choose to take a
neuroleptic despite these risks; if they are fully informed and offered
a range of alternatives, that is not the issue here. However, any debate
about the ethics of involuntary psychiatric procedures must include a
discussion about the fact that long-term high-dosage neuroleptics
literally have a similarity to chemical psychosurgery.

The fact that any large library has the information I am discussing on
its medical side, but not in the popular media side, is an indictment of
the core values and ethics of the entire medical profession. This is a
human rights emergency, and calls for immediate attention.

In the 1800's, a medical model was utilized to help consolidate power of
those leading the mental health system. It is time now for democracy to
get more hands on with the mental health system. We cannot continue to
abandon mental health policy to rule by a small group of experts.

There are many other arguments against forced psychiatric procedures,
especially on an outpatient basis, but I am focusing upon this central
point about neuroleptic structural brain change because it is so
important, and is so frequently totally ignored by those defending
forced psychiatric drugging.

Patients on the "Sharp End of the Needle" in the Mental Health System
are Among the most Silenced, Disempowered, and Oppressed in Society

For decades psychiatry has searched for proof of a "chemical imbalance"
for any major psychiatric disorder. While they have not found proof of
any chemical imbalance, those of us in the human rights field have
discovered an enormous power imbalance. People on the "sharp end of the
needle" in the mental health system are among the most silenced,
disempowered, and oppressed in society. Due to decades of community
organizing among thousands of psychiatric survivors and our allies
internationally, the powerless clients are finding ways to speak out.

I applaud the president of the World Psychiatric Association, Dr. Juan
Mezzich, who has recently joined with us in calling for open mediated
dialogue between organizations representing psychiatric survivors and
psychiatric professionals.

We will never be silenced again.

Sincerely, David W. Oaks, Director, MindFreedom International
www.mindfreedom.org

Medical study source: The Influence of Chronic Exposure to Antipsychotic
Medications on Brain Size before and after Tissue Fixation: A Comparison
of Haloperidol and Olanzapine in Macaque Monkeys, by Dorph-Petersen KA,
Pierri JN, et al. from University of Pittsburgh.-
Neuropsychopharmacology 9 March 2005

(3) Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry by Robert Burrowes

    Gary G. Kohls<gkohls@cpinternet.com> 6 December 2014 at 16:22

http://warisacrime.org/content/defeating-violence-psychiatry

Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter # 442

Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry

By Robert J. Burrowes - 12 September 2014

As the movement to abolish psychiatry continues to gather momentum – see
‘On Antipsychiatry’ – it is worth reviewing its delusional foundation,
the history of its violence and its function as a weapon of elite social
control.

Psychiatry is based on a delusional conception of how the human mind
works and what is needed in order to assist it to function optimally
when it is not doing so. This is because the purpose of psychiatry, with
the complicity of other professions in the ‘mental health’ field and the
incredibly profitable pharmaceutical industry, as well as the support of
the legal system and the corporate media in promoting this violence, has
always been about profits and elite social control, not restoring the
health of the ailing individual.

The human mind consists of many interacting components. These include
sensory capacities (such as sight, hearing and touch), feelings (such as
thirst, hunger, nausea and physical pain), memory, ‘truth register’,
intuition, conscience, more feelings (such as fear, happiness, emotional
pain, joy, anger, satisfaction, sadness and sexual arousal), and intellect.

Each of these capacities is separately important but, in a healthy
individual, it is their integrated functioning that is used to
crystallize the appropriately precise behavioral option in any given
circumstance. If any one of these capacities is not functioning as
evolution intended, the individual will suffer accordingly and this
might result in a dysfunctional behavioral outcome as well.

Dysfunctional behavior is caused by terrorizing an individual during
childhood so that the integrated functioning of their mind is impeded.
This occurs when you inflict ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly
invisible’ violence on a child in order to make them do what you want.
This violence forces the child to suppress their awareness of the mental
processes, especially the feelings that generated the original and
functional behavior so that they can comply with your violence. But
their obedience comes at the price of their increased dysfunctionality
in the future. For a full explanation of this, see ‘Why Violence?’ and
‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

However, if instead of identifying and addressing the violent social
conditions that lead to emotional and behavioural dysfunction, we
attribute any dysfunctionalities to a supposed ‘diseased brain’, ‘flawed
genes’ or a ‘chemical imbalance in the brain’, then we open the door to
psychiatric violence under the label ‘treatment’. See, for example,
Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the
Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, ‘Psychocracy and
Community’ and ‘12 Shocking Facts About the Dangers of Psychiatric
Drugs’. And this psychiatric violence has catastrophic consequences for
society. For some insight into the nature and extent of these
consequences – which include dramatically increased violence, suicide
and criminal behaviour – see the work of Dr Peter R. Breggin  – ‘the
conscience of psychiatry’ – whose research includes his ‘probing
critique of the psychopharmaceutical complex’. See Medication Madness:
The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide, and Crime
and  The Conscience of Psychiatry: The Reform Work of Peter R. Breggin, MD.

In fact, according to the lengthy research of Peter Gøtzsche, MD, in the
USA ‘prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart
disease and cancer’ and it ‘is inescapable that their availability
creates more harm than good’. See ‘On Pharma, Corruption, and
Psychiatric Drugs’ and ‘Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big
Pharma Has Corrupted Health Care’. And according to Dr Philip Hickey
‘all psychiatric drugs operate by creating a pathological state within
the organism… [They] are toxic in and of themselves regardless of
dosage.’ See ‘The Use of Neuroleptic Drugs As Chemical Restraints’.

According to the ‘bible’ of the American Psychiatric Association (APA),
the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’ (the DSM),
there are roughly 300 officially certified and distinct ‘mental
disorders’. But there are no defining physical tests to diagnose any of
them. However, given the publication of the DSM is worth over $5 million
a year to the APA, historically totaling over $100 million, there is
little organisational interest in validity. See ‘Not Diseases, but
Categories of Suffering’ .

In fact, as Dr Bonnie Burstow has pointed out: ‘while psychiatry has
been claiming for a very long time that people who are “disordered” have
chemical imbalances and frequently reiterate that imbalances have been
found, the reality is that no imbalances have ever been established for
a single “mental illness”. By contrast, the various treatments of
psychiatry (e.g., the drugs, electroshock) have been demonstrated to
create illness.’ See ‘On Antipsychiatry’.

In short, there is no scientific basis for psychiatry and this is
occasionally admitted even by prominent psychiatrists. See, for example,
‘Psychiatry Now Admits It's Been Wrong in Big Ways - But Can It Change?’
In fact, on 29 April 2013, the highest ranking federal ‘mental health’
official in the USA, Thomas Insel, stated that ‘While DSM has been
described as a “Bible” for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary,
creating a set of labels and defining each…. The weakness is its lack of
validity. Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or
AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of
clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure.’ And in a
candid moment some years earlier, Allen Frances, the lead editor of the
fourth edition of the DSM, highlighted the real depth of the problem:
‘there is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bullshit. I mean, you
just can’t define it’. See ‘Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness’.

But such occasional candid admissions do not lead to change for several
reasons: many individual psychiatrists are ignorant of their own
ignorance (simply believing, as most people have been terrorised into
believing, what they were taught at school and in subsequent training
courses) and, of course, institutional forces and profits ensure that
such comments are suppressed by the psychiatric, pharmaceutical and
media industries ensuring that they do not get through to the public.

Tragically, psychiatry has long been used to inflict violence on
targeted populations. See ‘Political Abuse of Psychiatry – An Historical
Overview’. Perhaps the best known of these historical examples were the
use of psychiatry to justify and help perpetrate the euthanasia programs
of the Nazi regime – see ‘Psychiatry during the Nazi era: ethical
lessons for the modern professional’ – and the violence within the
Soviet Gulag: see ‘Political Abuse of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union and
in China: Complexities and Controversies’. But a more recent version of
this type of psychiatric violence was the Federal Violence Initiative
started in the US in 1992. According to Dr John Breeding: ‘This
initiative includes ongoing “research” into the supposed biological
basis of inner-city violence and includes proposals for biomedical
social control. The US government asks “Are Black People Genetically
Violent?” and plans a psychiatric screening program which would lead to
mass drugging of innocent inner-city children, the vast majority of whom
are young people of color.’ See The Necessity of Madness and
Unproductivity: Psychiatric Oppression or Human Transformation.

However, the violence of psychiatry is now at epidemic proportions given
its dramatic expansion in recent decades. It includes experiments
conducted on unknowing military personnel and soaring soldier and
veteran suicides because of use of psychiatric drugs – see ‘The Hidden
Enemy: Inside Psychiatry’s Covert Agenda’  – complicity in the
development of torture techniques for use on political prisoners – see
‘The Story of Mitchell Jessen & Associates: How a Team of Psychologists
in Spokane, WA, Helped Develop the CIA’s Torture Techniques’ – the use
of psychiatric violence to force false confessions from prisoners of war
– see ‘U.S. Drugged Detainees to Obtain FALSE Confessions’ – the use of
psychiatry to imprison political activists – see ‘Are People Being
Thrown Into Psychiatric Wards For Their Political Views?’ – the
psychiatric definition of people who have a personal viewpoint at
variance with elite interests – labelled ‘oppositional defiant disorder’
(ODD) – as mentally ill – see ‘Psychiatrists now say non-conformity is a
mental illness: only the sheeple are “sane”’ – and now the violent
psychiatric ‘management’ of children – see ‘The Proactive Search for
Mental Illnesses in Children’ (part one) and (part two) – and even
babies: see ‘Watchdog Says Report of 10,000 Toddlers on ADHD Drugs Tip
of the Iceberg – 274,000 0-1 Year Olds and 370,000 Toddlers Prescribed
Psychiatric Drugs’.

Of course, pregnant women and nursing mothers don’t escape psychiatric
violence either although groups such as ‘Moms & Meds’ campaign to raise
awareness of the health and death risks from psychiatric ‘medication’ to
the mother and unborn child. And, as you no doubt expect by now, older
people, predominantly women, aren’t spared drugging and electroshocking
either. Fortunately, in the USA, once a person reaches 65 their
electroshocking is paid for by the government which means that, at this
age, the number of people diagnosed as requiring electroshocking jumps
enormously! See The Necessity of Madness and Unproductivity: Psychiatric
Oppression or Human Transformation.

But if you think drugging pregnant women, children and babies is bad,
did you know that psychiatrists still electroshock children as well? And
‘electroconvulsive therapy’ is ‘never necessary’, damages the brain,
always causes memory loss and sometimes kills! See ‘Electroshocking
Children: Why It Should Be Stopped’. Obviously, psychiatrists should not
be electroshocking adults either and some organisations actively
campaign to end this practice too. See, for example, The Coalition for
the Abolition of Electroshock in Texas.

And, of course, psychosurgery, in which ‘a small piece of brain is
destroyed or removed’ – ‘irreversible brain mutilation’ as it has been
called – is still performed in many countries despite the very long
campaign to get it stopped. See, for example, the 1982 article ‘The
Return of Lobotomy and Psychosurgery’. ‘In lobotomy and psychosurgery
parts of the brain that show no demonstrable disease are nonetheless
mutilated or cut out in order to affect the individual’s emotions and
personal conduct.’

  Despite its horror history, recent ‘justifications’ for ‘irreversible
brain mutilation’ are readily found.

The bottom line is this: Most psychiatrists, like most people, are
terrified of listening to your feelings (and especially when they are
driving dysfunctional behaviour and might need considerable time for
healing to occur). This is the inevitable outcome of being terrified of
feeling their own feelings. Feelings won’t hurt you; suppressing your
awareness of them with drugs, electroshocking or other violence will.
Feelings are a vital part of the information your body gives you;
feeling these feelings is the way you heal from traumas (great or small)
and a vital source of information about what you need to do.

If, like me, you are nauseated by the cowardice and violence of the
psychiatrists, doctors, other ‘mental health professionals’ and the
pharmaceutical industry personnel who so readily damage our emotional
health for the sake of elite social control and personal profit, then
you have a simple choice: you can choose to never consult a psychiatrist
or other ‘mental health professional’ and you can choose to never
subject your child to their violence either. And if you are forced into
involuntary psychiatric ‘care’, you can choose to remain silent and
pursue avenues for being released.

In the end, even if they forcibly drug you, you have a considerable
chance of making a full recovery from this (hopefully short-term)
violence. (For expert assistance in withdrawing from psychiatric drugs,
check out Gerson Therapy, Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for
Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and their Families, Point of Return
and the International Coalition for Drug Awareness) Unfortunately,
recovery from the brain damage that results from forced electroshocking
is far less likely – but for an inspirational account by someone who did
survive and fully recover from psychiatric violence, including brain
electrocution, you can read Ronald Bassman’s evocative account ‘Never
Give Up’ – and recovery from psychosurgery is effectively impossible.

You might also consider joining the movement to abolish psychiatry –
see, for example, opportunities outlined in ‘On Fighting Institutional
Psychiatry With the “Attrition Model”’ – as well as signing the online
pledge of the worldwide movement to end all violence ‘The People’s
Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

Some people have argued that psychiatry should be reformed. But any
experienced nonviolent activist knows that psychiatry, like other
manifestations of violence (such as domestic violence, economic
exploitation, slavery, ecological destruction and war) cannot be
‘reformed’. We must work for abolition.

Finally, value your emotional health extremely highly. An empathic
listener can help you feel your way through those times when you need to
feel the sadness, pain, fear, anger and other valuable feelings that
evolution gave you to enable a full recovery from the inevitable traumas
of life. (Although the information is directed at soldiers who have been
traumatised by war, the process as outlined in this article applies to
anyone who needs emotional support to recover from difficult life
experiences, however ‘trivial’: see ‘An Open Letter to Soldiers with
“Mental Health” Issues’.)

If you don’t allow yourself to feel and express the so-called ‘negative’
feelings, you will soon find that your emotional responses to the joys
of life will be unconsciously suppressed too.

And life without feelings is not life: it is ‘flatlining’. _______

Biodata: Robert Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and
ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an
effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a
nonviolent activist since 1981. He lives in Australia and co-founded the
The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World in 2011. Check  out
the People’s Charter website at:
(http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com/). Burrowes is the
author of ‘Why Violence?’ His website is
http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com/.

(4) Elliot Rodger, like nearly all the other young mass murderers, was
taking brain-altering psych drugs

    Gary G. Kohls<gkohls@cpinternet.com> 16 July 2014 02:52

http://www.naturalnews.com/045419_Elliot_Rodger_Xanax_psychiatric_drugs.html

Elliot Rodger, like nearly all young killers, was taking psychiatric
drugs (Xanax)

Tuesday, June 03, 2014
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) Like nearly all mass murderers and psycho killers, Elliot
Rodger is now confirmed to have been taking massive doses of psychiatric
drugs. Law enforcement authorities have now confirmed Elliot Rodger, the
"sorority girl" killer of Isla Vista, California, was taking massive
doses of Xanax, a psychiatric drug belonging to a class of chemicals
called benzodiazepines.

"Elliot had been taking Xanax for awhile, according to his parents ...
there were fears he might have been addicted to it, or taking more than
was prescribed," a law enforcement source told RadarOnline (1), which
first broke the story.

"The Xanax had been prescribed to Elliot by a family doctor," the story
continues.

A second story on RadarOnline (2) explores, "disturbing details about
the community college student's dependence on Xanax."

That story goes on to report:

Based on interviews with Elliot's parents, Peter and Li Chen, the Santa
Barbara Sheriff's Department "is being told that he was likely addicted
to Xanax ... Peter and Li have been doing basic research on addiction to
Xanax, and based on what they have read, they believe the tranquilizer
made him more withdrawn, lonely, isolated, and anxious," a source told
Radar. "It's their understanding that when Xanax is taken in large
amounts, or more than the prescribed dosage, these are some of the side
effects."

Time after time, mass murderers are found to have been taking
psychiatric drugsElliot Rodger now joins a long and ever-expanding list
of other killers who were either taking psychiatric drugs or withdrawing
from them at the time they committed mass murder.

While the mainstream media predictably blames guns for all mass
shootings, it rarely looks at the chemical drugging of the person who
pulled the trigger on those guns. After all, guns don't operate by
themselves. They require a person to make a decision to commit murder.

In case after case, mass murderers on psychotropic drugs describe
themselves as feeling withdrawn, isolated, distant and almost living out
a "video game" that isn't real. This is whatpsychiatric drugs to do you:
they make you feel detached from reality.

Here's just some of the true history of psychiatric drugs and mass murder:

* Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged
18 (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12
students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing
themselves. Klebold's medical records have never been made available to
the public.

* Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three
times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his
grandfather, his grandfather's girlfriend and many fellow students at
Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.

* Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was
on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle
to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of
the event.

* Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.

* Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while
taking Zoloft.

* Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking
Zoloft for 6 days.

* Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while
they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and
injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.

* Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two
students, wounding six others.

* A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure
that caused an armed stand off at his school.

* Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high
school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were
killed, five others were wounded..

* A young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping
up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost
murdering another.

* Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14,
(Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and
wounding 10 others.

* TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia
opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates.

* Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat.

* James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood,
South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school
killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers.

* Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting
in Pennsylvania

* Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon,
California

* Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed
his grandmother 61 times.

* Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed
a woman.

* Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents
as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher
knife and mechanic's file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.

* Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have
been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.

* Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a
gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two
years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible
homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and
other SSRI antidepressants.

* Alex Kim, age 13, hung himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription
had been doubled.

* Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six
days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot
herself.

* Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida
student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him
dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family's Gulf Shore
Boulevard home in July 2002.

* Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung
herself from a hook in her closet. Kara's parents said ".... the damn
doctor wouldn't take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on
the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of
reaction to Paxil...")

* Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed
suicide in 2002, (Gareth's father could not accept his son's death and
killed himself.)

* Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her
family's detached garage.

* Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having
difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven
days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry
hook in his closet.

* Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun.
He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the
world that SSRI drugs can kill.

* Woody, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking
Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the
dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had
never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness
symptoms.

* A boy from Houston, age 10, shot and killed his father after his
Prozac dosage was increased.

* Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student.
He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and
"other drugs for the conditions."

* Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9
students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing
himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine.

* Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people and wounded 21
others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University
auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking
Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had
trace amounts of Xanax in his system.

* Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been taking
antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more
at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.

* Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking
his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.

* Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a
teacher in his New York high school.

Missing from list... 3 of 4 known to have taken these same meds....

* What drugs was Jared Lee Loughner on, age 21... killed 6 people and
injuring 14 others in Tuscon, Az?

* What drugs was James Eagan Holmes on, age 24... killed 12 people and
injuring 59 others in Aurora Colorado?

* What drugs was Jacob Tyler Roberts on, age 22, killed 2 injured 1,
Clackamas Or?

* What drugs was Adam Peter Lanza on, age 20, Killed 26 and wounded 2 in
Newtown Ct?