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[mefree]

The Schizophrenia Drug Dance - Citizens Commission on Human Rights of St. Louis
1 January 2011, 10:43 am

A recent article in Nature magazine ["The Drug Deadlock" 11/11/2010] had some interesting comments on psychiatric drugs and drug research.

In January, 2005 a four-year $43 million clinical trial of schizophrenia drugs ended, making it clear that newer psychiatric drugs were barely different than the old ones.

They ran this drug trial because the old drugs had horrific side effects, and they wanted to compare those old drugs to the newer drugs. What they found, and did not expect, was that the side effects of the new drugs were just as bad. Overall, three-quarters of the patients abandoned their drug during the trial due to side effects, regardless of which drug they took.

Within a few years, several large drug companies chose to pull out of psychiatric pharmacology altogether in order to cut costs.

Now, however, drug companies are looking again at schizophrenia drug research, because schizophrenia represents a huge potential market, particularly given that most patients seem to manifest such symptoms in their early twenties and could be on daily drugs for the rest of their lives.

Unfortunately, schizophrenia is not a real mental disease, and psychiatric drugs are not a real cure.

more at http://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2011/01/01/the-schizophrenia-drug-dance/

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Unfortunately, schizophrenia is not a real mental disease, and psychiatric drugs are not a real cure.

I'm fairly certain that those who suffer from schizophrenia or endeavor to treat this condition would beg to differ. Dr. Steve Wiseman has been kind enough to provide some commentary on this misleading CCHR blog article:

Hi XXXX,

I'm happy to provide a few words of commentary re: the offending and misleading article; please see below.

This article refers to the well-known CATIE trial, which indeed included some pretty sobering results for the pharmaceutical industry. It is important to realize, however, that this is just one trial among many others, and like all trials has been criticized for methodological issues such as assumptions about dosing equivalents and more disturbingly, not including those patients most at risk for certain serious side effects in the group receiving perphenazine (the "old drug"). It is also important to note that CATIE was run and published by psychiatrists, which highlights the self-reflective, scientific basis of psychiatric research; would a group of Scientologists ever choose to publish negative study results about auditing, even if they were willing to honestly put the technique to scientific test to begin with?
 
Schizophrenia is an incredibly complex condition, differing greatly in nature and cause between patients. Like ALS, or  pancreatic cancer, our treatment outcomes are not yet close to where we would wish them to be; this does not render psychiatrists, or psychiatric research, any less dedicated or competent than those working hard to improve the treatments of some of the most complex and challenging "medical" illnesses.
 
This article also points out the importance of investigating and ruling out any underlying "medical" cause for psychiatric symptoms, and indeed this is why every psychiatrist is first and foremost a fully-trained medical doctor. Medical investigation is a basic part of any psychiatric practice, and in DSM-IV-TR virtually every psychiatric diagnosis carries the caveat "the symptoms are not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance...or a general medical condition". It truly seems odd that the CCHR believes that psychiatric symptoms can be caused by underlying physiological disturbance, but only to the point where in the absence of anything obvious, the symptoms suddenly become "spiritual" in nature or "a problem in living". Would it not make much more sense to accept that all psychiatric symptoms and disturbances have an underlying biology?

Warm regards,
 
Steve Wiseman

Just for clarification, Dr. Wiseman did not post this response on the CCHR blog.

[Mary_McConnell]

Excellent find. Good to know Wiseman is not afraid to speak up on CCHR like this publicly.

[sekh]

Unfortunately, schizophrenia is not a real mental disease, and psychiatric drugs are not a real cure.

Though I agree that the psychiatric drugs currently in use are less than perfect, my blood starts cooking every time I read something like this. 

Schizophrenia is a very real, and very serious brain disorder, which causes unfathomable suffering in patients and their family.

The Human Rights/ Psychiatry-discussion is complicated to say the least, but one-liners like this one above don't help. More insight in the causes of mental disease would help, just like research to create better drugs.
This asks for fundamental scientific (and not scientological) research, which is very costly.
The big pharmaceutical companies are, unfortunately, the only ones that can afford this kind of research. Universities just don't have the budget needed,

I'm not a fan of "Big Pharma", but I know what schizophrenia can do to people, and hope that one of these companies will find an effective treatment with few side-effects.

In an ideal world this kind of research would be executed by non-profit scientific centers, but we have to work with the world we have. If that means using the capacity of Big Pharma for the good of the cause, so be it.

Better than leaving the treatment of very sick people to the likes of Co$. They add real craziness to the mix. And that's the last thing the patients need. Their illness is bad enough without space opera and denial of reality.

If money has to be part of the equation, I'd rather see my loved one treated by greedy scientists than by greedy quacks.

Sekh
 

[ethercat]

Unfortunately, schizophrenia is not a real mental disease, and psychiatric drugs are not a real cure.

This statement reminds me of Jenna Elfman saying that AIDS is a state of mind. 

Hollywood Rumors, Gossip and Lawsuits Waiting to Happen
12/14/99
DHARMA DOESN'T HAVE VERY GOOD KARMA

From this moment on, Jenna Elfman shall be known as the Grinch who stole
Christmas. During the last holiday season, the Dharma & Greg star refused
to take part in a celebrity autograph auction for an organization that
raised money for the care of children with HIV. As a brainwashed devotee
of The Church of Scientology, the bah-humbugy Elfman stated that she
couldn't support any organization that raised money for AIDS research or
relief because "AIDS is a state of mind, not a disease." Get over it!
They're babies, for Buddha's sake!! (or should we say "for Xenu's sake" --
in honor of her wacky alien leader/god?).

Ironically, Scientology megacelebs Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and John
Travolta all donated autographs for the same auction. One word of advice,
Jenna: Watch out for the ghost of Christmas past.

Interestingly, she also said this:

“If someone starts talking to me negatively about something they’ve never actually studied that actual text of, I don’t really admire them very much because it shows they don’t have much integrity, so I just kind of ignore them,” Elfman told AAP in Sydney.

which is advice CCHR should take. 

Of course, she was talking about people speaking negatively of Scientology.  Scientologists sayin anything to suit their needs at the moment, without any regard to the truth, appears to be a recurring pattern.  When one applies a blanket statement to an individual situation, they should make sure the statement applies to all situations it might be applied to.

That CCHR site is so full of fallacies and contradictions, I don't see how any thinking person could take it seriously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy