Betraying Patients

Two psychiatrists sexually abused scores of female patients throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Although numerous complaints were filed against William Kerr and Michael Haslam, they continued to practice until they retired in 1988. Moreover, they were permitted to “voluntarily” remove themselves from the medical register, avoiding any disciplinary action.

Finally, in 2003, Haslam was convicted and jailed. Kerr, who was suffering from a brain-wasting disease, was convicted of indecent assault but never served time.

[Data from Clare Dyer, legal correspondent, “Blind eye to complaints allowed psychiatrists to abuse patients,” July 26, 2005, bmj.com. The Kerr/Haslam Report is available at www.dh.gov.uk]

A Harvard Medical School psychiatrist, accused of seducing a patient and causing his suicide, admitted that her treatment was "somewhat unconventional."

Dr. Bean-Bayog claimed that Paul Lozano, was suicidal and a victim of child abuse. She gave him a stuffed bear and children's books and urged him to think of her as his mother. She even wrote pages of explicit sexual fantasies about him.

Friends and family said that Paul went to Dr. Bean-Bayog simply because he was lonely at school. There was never any abuse. The family physician supported their statements saying that Paul was well adjusted and never had emotional problems.

[Data taken from Fox Butterfield, “Therapy in Suicide Case Defended by Psychiatrist,” April 1, 1992, nytimes.com]

Note: In September 1992, Margaret Bean-Bayog surrendered her medical license rather than undergo a hearing by the Massachusetts Medical Board for improper treatment of former Harvard Medical School student Paul Lozano, who had committed suicide with a drug overdose.

Parents Beware: TeenScreen

A frightening new trend in public schools is the TeenScreen program.

This is, believe it or not, a computer program - provided by a private company that makes oodles of money from it - that actually DIAGNOSES CHILDREN FOR MENTAL ILLNESS.

That's right. Psychiatrists aren't even pretending mental illness is a medical condition anymore, apparently. A computer can evaluate and diagnose your child, based on a simple questionnaire.

If you have kids in public school, you need to be aware that this program in some places operates with "passive consent" - meaning, they will send home a note, and if your child forgets to give it to you, your consent will be implied.

You MUST read up on this if you have school-aged children. One family is suing TeenScreen, after their perfectly normal daughter was told she was mentally ill. She had clicked "yes" on a couple of the questions, so after she took this little computer test she was taken into the hallway and told she was mentally ill.

Pretty crazy stuff.

— from men.com, the essential online magazine for men (no date or author listed)
[quoted in full because it says it all, thanks]

Paxil Linked to Suicide

"After analyzing data from clinical trials, GlaxoSmithKline has sent letters to doctors warning that its antidepressant drug Paxil appears to increase the risk of suicide attempts in some young adults.
…
"In October 2004, the Food and Drug Administration ordered drug companies to place a strong warning on antidepressant labels after studies suggested that some drugs increased suicidal thinking or behavior in children and adolescents. But the Glaxo study — the first by a drug company to find a link between antidepressants and suicidal behavior in adults, experts say — is likely to persuade some skeptics that the risk is real and not confined to minors."

—Benedict Carey and Gardiner Harris, “Antidepressants May Raise Suicide Risk,” May 12, 2006, The New York Times

Infants on Prozac? Check These Shocking Stats

Doctors prescribed sedatives and powerful, mood-altering medications for nearly 700 Ohio babies and toddlers on Medi-caid last summer, according to a Dispatch review of records.
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''It's shocking,'' said Dr. Ellen Bassuk, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. ''Who's really being helped by these children being drugged? The babies? Or their caregivers?
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Federal officials have long required that drugs be screened for safety in adults. But less than one-fourth have been tested on children.
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Psychiatric medications are big business.

In 2002, drug companies made $12 billion in profits from antidepressants alone. Those numbers continue to grow, largely because of increasing use on children.

Nationwide, the number of children using psychiatric medications tripled between 1987 and '99.
…
Even infants put on pills

Advocates are equally distressed by the high numbers of drugged-up infants. In 1994, 3,000 prescriptions for Prozac were written nationwide for children younger than 1 year old, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Almost all psychiatric prescriptions for toddlers and preschool children are ''off label'' — without dosage recommendations and for conditions other than those for which the drugs were created.

—by Encarnacion Pyle, “Even Babies Getting Treated as Mentally Ill,” April 25, 2005, from the series, “Drugged Into Submission,” The Columbus Dispatch

Stimulants Increase Risk of Drug Dependence

[The Northern California Study is a 28-year investigation performed by Dr. Nadine Lambert’s research team at the University of California (Berkeley). This study is compelling because the data came from multiple sources (parents, physicians, teachers, patients) and at several different times (eight separate interviews).]

“Of the original 492 children (282 with hyperactivity, 210 controls) in the Northern California study, 202 reported some cocaine use by the age of 40. Treatment with stimulants in early childhood was associated with a two-fold higher risk of cocaine dependence, an association which was six times stronger than the link between conduct problems and later dependence upon cocaine.

“The significance of Lambert’s findings rests partly upon the fact that the use of cocaine and nicotine were carefully monitored prospectively over time. In all cases, substance abuse commenced after the initiation of treatment with stimulant medications. This suggests that prescription stimulants re-wired the subjects’ brains in ways which sensitized neural pathways to future drug experimentation or compulsive use…”

—Grace E. Jackson, MD, March 18, 2006, FDA, FACT SHEET: ADDICTION & STIMULANTS

Ritalin Causes Heart Damage

"In 1977, Drs. Vernon Fischer and Hendrick Barner wrote a Letter to the Editor at JAMA, in which they described the cellular changes associated with cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart) in a patient who had taken Ritalin for 4 1/2 years. A tissue sample was obtained from the patient during open heart surgery. That biopsy demonstrated abnormal membrane accumulations in the left ventricle.

"Curious to know if the Ritalin had played any role in these changes, Fischer later teamed with Theodore Henderson to conduct animal studies. A causal effect was confirmed. Ritalin in mice and rats produced the same kinds of membrane proliferation in the heart cells seen previously. These changes were consistent with the cardiomyopathy observed earlier in the human subject."

— Grace E. Jackson, MD, FDA Hearing on Stimulants – March 22, 2006, “Stimulants Damage the Heart”