Medication Madness

Breggin, Peter. Medication Madness A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of Mood-Altering Medications. New York St. Martin s Press, 2008. The psychiatrist author describes how psychiatric medicines can cause suicide, violence, crime, and emotional breakdowns. He argues that the FDA, pharmaceutical industry, and medical establishment encourage overuse of psychiatric drugs and fail to adequately protect the consumer. Breggin... 

The following four characteristics of medication spellbinding are taken from this author s book Medication Madness (Breggin, in press) ... 

Fourth, extreme spellbinding produces medication madness in which the individual feels driven or compelled to behave in out-of-character and potentially disastrous ways—to murder her beloved mother like Emily Ashton or to drive his car into a policeman like Harry Henderson. 

The concept of medication spellbinding occurred to me when I was reviewing a lifetime of clinical and legal cases in the process of writing a new book, Medication Madness... 

As a result of the increased prescription of drugs like Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Geodon to children, I am seeing an increasing number of TD cases in young people. I have personally evaluated well over a dozen cases involving Risperdal and an additional number caused by Zyprexa and Geodon, several of which I describe in detail in Medication Madness (in press). 

This is consistent with my testimony and publications, beginning with Toxic Psychiatry in 1991, in which I warned about both suicide and violence caused by SSRIs and with my book Medication Madness (in press), which will present dozens of case histories illustrating harm to self and to others induced by the SSRIs. The FDA continues to lag behind, however, mentioning hostility and aggression in the new labels as problems associated with SSRIs but without giving these dire outcomes sufficient emphasis. 

The section about the Lacuzong case draws on a similar section in my book Medication Madness (in press). 

Here are 20 principles for providing therapy to deeply disturbed persons. Many of them are elaborated in The Heart of Being Helpful (1997b), and all of them draw on the Principles of Life that I present in Medication Madness (in press). While the focus is on providing help to emotionally disturbed and disabled patients who seek individual therapy in a private practice or clinic, the same principles apply to residential and milieu treatment as well. In a more general way, these 20 guidelines can also be applied to our experiences with other people in our workplace, families, and everyday life. 

Breggin, P. (in press May 2008). Medication madness True stories about mayhem, murder and suicide caused by psychiatric drugs. New York St. Martin s Press. 

Medication Madness True Stories of Mayhem, Murder and Suicide Caused by Psychiatric Drugs (2008)... 

What produces their medical madness There are three main explanations ... 

Mercury can be a cumulative poison, which means that minor amounts absorbed over long periods of time build up until damage to internal organs occurs. Years ago, a mercury compound was used in the manufacturing process of felt hats. Workers who came in contact with the mercury developed a variety of medical problems, including the loss of hair and teeth and loss of memory along with general deterioration of the nervous and other systems. This became known as the mad as a hatter syndrome because of the afflicted individuals odd behavior. 

Anticholinergics "Red as a beet, dry as a bone, blind as a bat, mad as a hatter," /Sxs opposite of SLUDGE Symptomatic/supportive, can be caused by medications or certain natural substances (ie, jimsonweed) Physostigmine... 

We have had clients who have previously withdrawn too abruptly and sought help in desperation for acute depression or other severe symptoms. The syndrome may be difficult to recognise if the client does not connect her symptoms with abrupt tranquilliser withdrawal. Alternative medication for symptomatic relief may confirm the client s and her family s fears that she is going mad or is about to die. 

Recent medications prevent the insane from following their alienation through. They have thereby lost their own "liberation." Eve when they cannot really be cured, they are damped. Strange, dull "improved" cases, which one encounters at present in the asylums or outside, madmen frustrated of their madness. . . (p.190). 

Although, in the end, the 1930 Mental Treatment Act stopped short of abolishing the role of the magistrate, the concerns of the Macmillan Commission demonstrate that a commitment to a technical medical approach to the management of madness was present in government prior to the introduction of any psychiatric treatments that were generally thought to be effective. 

In this chapter I have described how enthusiastically the new drugs were received when they were introduced into psychiatry in the 1950s and 1960s and how they appeared to take over the mantle of interest that had been associated with the physical treatments. The whole of medicine in this era was searching for disease-specific treatments, and the psychiatric profession had additional professional motives to desire this sort of treatment. Western governments also supported a medical approach to the management of madness and distress, which stressed the similarity of general medicine and psychiatry. The pharmaceutical... 

The mass-market Confidential Flash asserted in a full-page cover headline, "LSD KILLS SEX DRIVE FOREVER. The Police Gazette reprinted a report from The Journal of the American Medical Association with a new title "LSD and Sex Madness."... 

As early as the 1840s, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes (father of the Supreme Court justice) advocated that physicians should wash their hands between patient visits. His ideas were considered extreme and slightly mad at the time, but eventually hand washing became routine throughout the world of medical practice and beyond. Today many people are required by law to wash their hands as a condition of employment because frequent hand washing is still considered the single most effective way to prevent the spread of communicable disease. 

Mercury was known in antiquity and utilized by alchemists. Its neurological effects were recognized early, and its use in the hat-making trade gave rise to the phrase mad as a hatter . Mercury has been used commercially and medically for centuries. In the past it was a common constituent of many medications, for example, it was used in the treatment of syphilis. Use of mercury has been drastically reduced in recent years. Within the twentieth century, mercury used to be in every physician s or pharmacist s armamentarium, for example, calomel was commonly used in infant teething powders in the 1930s and 1940s. 

Dr. A. E. Fossier, New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal (1931) "Under the influence of hashish those fanatics would madly rush at their enemies, and ruthlessly massacre every one within their grasp."... 

Thomas, G. Journey into Madness the True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse Batam Books (1989) ISBN 0-553-28413-4 Wasson, R.G. Ruck, C.A. Hofmann, A. Road To Eleusis Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (1978) ISBN 0-15-525279-1 Watts, A.W. The Joyous Cosmology Vintage Books (1962) LC 62-100080 ISBN 394-70299-9... 

Consolidated Research Institute for Advanced Science and Medical Care, Waseda University, 513 Wasedatsurumaki-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-0041, Japan School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, 3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan e-mad osakatets waseda.jp... 

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