Accutane vs. Geodon. More on double standards

I watched this vid the other day, 1:43 into it. That was all I needed to see, or hear: "None of us would like it , if one of our children were to die at a young age, especially if it was for taking a medication that was for the treatment of pimples." -Doug Bremner.

Right. Certainly, none of us would like that. And sure as hell it was about time, and the only right thing to happen, when Accutane was pulled from the market last year. And although Hoffmann - LaRoche claimed other reasons to have prompted the decision to pull Accutane, concerns about the safety of the drug, also, and not least, voiced by Doug Bremner, without doubt were crucial to this decision. So, hats off to Doug Bremner's courage!

Anyhow, here's what I simply can't get my head around: if it is so outrageous as, among others, Doug Bremner thinks it is, and as it, indeed, is, that a drug that potentially causes depression and suicidal ideation/behavior as a side effect is used to treat acne, how come it is fully acceptable that drugs, medical treatments, with the side effect profile of Geodon are used to treat what isn't even scientifically proven to be an illness, a medical condition, at all? How come it isn't only acceptable, but apparently even desirable, if I understand Doug Bremner correctly - and it seems I do, since he didn't protest my comparison of his Mark Becker post to Fuller Torrey/TAC propaganda - to be able to force people to take these drugs?

So far, in Denmark there has been filed one complaint about Zyprexa causing diabetes. The complaint was dismissed. Explanation: "schizophrenia" is a far more severe disease than diabetes. So, if you suffer from "schizophrenia", you'll have to live with a side effect of the severity of diabetes. In fact, "schizophrenia", according to the "experts", such as Doug Bremner, must be worse than death. Because, unless you get run over by a bus and killed, or something along those lines, you, eventually, will die from taking drugs like Geodon or Zyprexa. On average, about 25 years earlier than you would have died not taking these drugs. So did the person who filed the complaint here in Denmark, who died from complications related to diabetes, which he had developed thanks to taking Zyprexa.

So, what we've got are drugs for the treatment of something that is not scientifically proven to be a disease, that actually, according to the scientific, psychiatric (!), research that has shown non-medical approaches like Soteria or Open Dialog to produce recovery rates of about 85%, vs. the drugs' 0%, with much greater probability is an emotional, existential problem, than that it is a medical one, that do not only have death as a possible, but, if taken long-term, as advocated by Doug Bremner and most of his colleagues, certain side effect. That is, looking at the scientific facts, any risk-benefit analysis of these drugs clearly tells us that the risks are way out of proportion compared to the benefits. Far more out of proportion than for a drug like Accutane.

Still, there is a public outcry, not least from Doug Bremner himself, for a ban of a drug like Accutane, while there, at the same time, is a just as loud, if not louder, public outcry, not least from Doug Bremner himself, in favor of forced "treatment" with a drug like Geodon.

If it was for Big pHARMa's profit to be at stake alone, I bet, someone like Doug Bremner would be one of the first to go for a ban of neuroleptics. But there is more, much more, at stake than Big pHARMa's profit when it comes to psych drugs. Pimples, acne, don't challenge society's status quo, they don't challenge the collective mass-psychosis that is called modern western civilization to the same extent as existential crises do. Indeed, society, Doug Bremner included, doesn't fear anything, not even death, and not even "if one of our children were to die at a young age", as much as it fears "schizophrenia", that is the confrontation with its own dysfunctionality. "Schizophrenia" begins where the courage to face oneself ends.

More about Merete Nordentoft's surprising (NOT!) research results on "schizophrenia"

The main emphasis of the article, whose title translates into: "High school certificate a good weapon against schizophrenia", is on the role of education in terms of recovery from so-called "schizophrenia".

The researchers followed 547 people labelled with "schizophrenia" over a 5-year-period.

Results: 19% achieved full recovery, most of them, as mentioned in my previous post, were not "treatment compliant", respectively didn't use psych drugs at all. 15% achieved significant improvement. 53% didn't achieve lasting improvement, but are able to live independently, and without longer hospitalizations. 13% are dependent on assisted housing, or need long-term hospitalization.

Among those who achieved full recovery or significant improvement, a higher education is prevalent, most of them are women, and most of them come from a family background with both parents living together. On the other hand, "negative symptoms" like social withdrawal and passivity indicate a less favorable outcome.

Education: the so far only comment on the article at Dagens Medicin (the journal only allows professionals to comment... ) concludes that a higher education equals to a higher IQ which equals to more benefit from CBT - "something we've known for a long time".

In my opinion, a higher education equals to the ability to search for information on one's own, if necessary - and when it comes to "mental illness" it is necessary, since true information in Danish is thin, to put it mildly - also information in foreign languages like English. Information that may have the individual choose to, by and large, do without neuroleptics, that may have him/her question the (Danish) mh system's messages about a chronic, biological brain disease, and that may have him/her investigate into alternative views of the experience. A higher education often equals to a stronger belief in one's own intellectual capacities, "intellectual self-reliance", so to speak, and thus to less blind confidence in others' - the "experts' - authority.

A higher education often provides tools to think analytically, critically and independently. Invaluable tools when it comes to finding meaning with one's experience, and become an expert on one's own behalf: "I know what's good for me." It's called empowerment, and it's decisive in the recovery process.

Drugs: well, I'd say, it's self-evident that substances which interfere with and reduce cognition, memory, self-/consciousness, etc., which in fact often render researching, googling, reading and understanding unsurmountable challenges, are not helpful in the process of resolving crisis.

Women: in general, women are more socializing than men, and don't have the same reservations against opening up and talking about personal problems. And if people who experience crisis need anything, it is the possibility to communicate their experience to someone they can trust unconditionally.

Family: a somewhat well-functioning family can be a valuable resource of support. Especially if family members are minded to resolve problems rather than to just brush them under the carpet, or run from them.

It doesn't look like the researchers have done much else than gathered statistics about "symptoms" experienced, hospitalizations, education, family background, and whatever else can be observed from the outside. Also this study seems to be a shining example of the lack of empiricism in psychiatric "research" in general. Participants obviously were not asked what in detail was helpful for their individual recovery. As a result, the researchers stand with a bunch of data they, due to their preconceived idea of the nature of "schizophrenia" - it's still referred to as an "illness", of course -, and the resulting preconceived idea of what kind of treatment is indicated, don't really know what to make of.

Probably, their reasoning will not go beyond conclusions like the one mentioned above, that CBT is the decisive factor, while they just as probably will be unlikely to admit the quite logic causality between "treatment" with consciousness reducing, and in the long run brain damaging substances and long-term outcomes. Actually, the article explicitly states, that "antipsychotics" are effective treatment for "psychosis": "Don't draw the 'wrong' conclusions from the research results! Take your meds!" Also, an undertone can be traced in the article that clearly emphasizes that "full recovery" doesn't mean "cured". "Schizophrenia" still is a chronic brain disease: "You're still ill! Don't you dare to believe anything else! You're only as lucky as to be in remission!" So, it is unlikely that this study will change anything about how "schizophrenia" is perceived by the "experts", or how it is being treated. Concerning the fact that most of the fully recovered participants either went off neuroleptics, or never used them, this is probably not interpreted as a precondition for their recovery ("remission"), but rather as a result of it. Just as the article doesn't mention the connection between "negative symptoms" like social withdrawal and passivity on the one hand, and the these "negative symptoms" increasing effects of neuroleptic drugs on the other, with one word.

If at all this study makes it to one of the major journals in the field, I suspect it will suffer the same fate as other long-term outcome studies, and soon be buried in the archives, under a load of crap like Thomas Werge's eugenic "research", that allegedly found the genetic cause of "schizophrenia" to be chromosome mutations which are found in 60 - 90% of the general population... (Can't recall whether I wrote about it here, but well, now you know: 60 - 90% of the general population are genetically predisposed to develop "schizophrenia". In other words: to be a human being predisposes you for "schizophrenia". LMAO.)

BTW: the article calls OPUS a "psycho-social" project. Not by any stretch of imagination can I find much "psycho-social" about a project that explicitly promotes " - psycho education with weight on a biological model (guilt reducing)", and "antipsychotic medical treatment" as "indicated" for "most of the patients".

New Danish research shows that "schizophrenics" do better off drugs

Oh really?! You don't say! Yup. And Merete Nordentoft who led the research, is dumbfounded with this result: "Most of the participants who achieved full recovery, didn't take medication after five years. Some of them actually managed entirely without medication. I didn't expect this."

Well well, what did you expect, Merete?? Merete Nordentoft is the Danish "expert" when it comes to "schizophrenia". How is it that the Danish "expert" on "schizophrenia" seems to never have heard of any long-term outcome studies like Harding, et al., 1987, or Harrow, Jobe, 2007, of the WHO-studies, of Soteria, Open Dialog, and and and?! Maybe she doesn't speak English? I mean, we all know that shrinks usually are not the sharpest tools in the shed among medical professionals... Which leads me to another interesting result of the study. But since it's really late: more on it, link and so on, tomorrow.

Side effects

When I was about 17 I came down with an inflammation in my left knee, a reaction to overwork. I wasn't aware of that, so went to see my GP for an explanation of what was going on. As it is GPs - and virtually all other doctors' too - habit, he prescribed one of Big pHARMa's wonder cures. This was a new drug, that still was in the experimental stage, not yet fully approved. So, yeah, I was acting guinea pig for Big pHARMa.

Luckily, I didn't experience as much as one of all the in part rather frightening possible side effects listed for the drug. And it did the trick, rather quickly in addition. I maybe was on that crap for ten days. At the most. I wouldn't even have started to take something with such side effects as those listed, if I'd been told I would have to take it for at least several weeks or months, not to mention for the rest of my life. And the side effects still were somewhat harmless, compared to those of psych drugs.

Anyhow, had I experienced as much as the suspicion of only one single side effect, I can assure everyone, I'd instantly thrown the pills out. That is, I had not waited for my GP to tell me what to do. I'd stopped taking the poison here and now. I've never had excessive trust in the products of the pharmaceutical industry beforehand. Neither in the infallibility of medical expertise. The only reason I gave these pills a try was that I couldn't wait to be able to get back on horseback again, which the inflammation in my knee prevented me from.

Now I wonder how on earth it is, that I hear so many people report all sorts of intolerable side effects of psych drugs, as in this blog entry for instance, while, nevertheless, these people stay on the drugs, waiting for their doctor to decide for them what to do. How come? What keeps all these people from taking control of their life, their well-being, themselves, instead of leaving it with someone, who obviously doesn't care and/or is rather incompetent?? I really don't get it. Is it the spellbinding effect? Can it be the spellbinding effect, when someone realizes they're experiencing side effects, that it is not the "illness" that causes the misery? Is it some sort of half- or unconscious need to repeat the trauma: "I don't deserve to feel good. - But since society doesn't accept a conscious choice of emotional suffering, I choose the suffering the side effects cause"? Or are people really that alienated from themselves that they unconditionally trust in anybody else but themselves to know what's good and right for them, even though their body and soul is screaming at them that this is not so? Anyone?

To prevent misunderstandings: Of course I'm not talking about people who are forced to take psych drugs. That's a different story.