December 1, 2020

Why did anyone think wearing a warm, moist rag a millimeter away from his or her mouth, for hours at a time, creating the ideal conditions for bacteria to multiply, would be a good thing? This is a gigantic, uncontrolled experiment. 

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September 15, 2020

The hysteria is approaching a fever pitch. Writing in The Conversation, a professor of medical ethics opined that we need “morality enhancers” to induce people to wear their masks. Such morality enhancers might be taken in pill form, the professor helpfully explained, or added to the water supply.

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September 14, 2020

I strap on a mask which I retrieved a minute ago from the floor of my car, and she nods affirmatively and then awards me a light-blue smiley faced sticker signifying something or other. I am tempted to ask her if she thinks she is more likely to lose years off her life due to Covid-19 or to sloth and gluttony, but I do not. Just another day in Clown World.  

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June 18, 2019

Hidden camera stings have been used to uncover animal abuse in factory farms, industrial-scale pill mills, and child sex predators. If Daleiden loses in the California courts, this could have a chilling effect on freedom of the press reaching far beyond the boundaries of this one case.

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June 6, 2018

For years, Michael Fumento has been the source of some of the hardest-hitting reporting around, speaking truth to power in an era in which bovine gullibility has become the main or even the sole virtue

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April 9, 2018

Iconoclastic journalist Michael Fumento is being held in a Colombian jail on trumped-up charges and denied access to life-saving medication. 

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June 8, 2017

Last March, a settlement was reached on behalf of Meah Bartram and 50 other Canadian children born with congenital defects whose mothers used Paxil during pregnancy. GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay out $6.2 million, but admitted no wrongdoing. 

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June 7, 2017

In a telephone interview Dr. Healy blasted SmithKline Beecham for not following up on early indications that paroxetine could cause birth defects. He likened their attitude to that of tobacco company executives confronted with evidence of the harm their product could cause: “Let’s not look too closely at this.

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June 6, 2017

These drugs readily cross the placenta and become part of the environment bathing the developing fetus, and not one of them was tested for safety and effectiveness in pregnant women before being released.

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June 5, 2017

A tale of iatrogenic harm that beggars belief

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December 2,  2016

“The task of childhood is to learn how to manage unpleasant emotions. We need to help children learn techniques to manage their emotions, not just squash them with drugs."

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December 1, 2016

In a telephone interview Dr. Healy blasted the idea that antipsychotic drugs exert a neuroprotective effect. “That’s a complete myth,” he told me. “I know of absolutely no basis for this.

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October 3, 2016

Suicide rates for VHA users who were veterans of these operations more than doubled between 2003 and 2014. For the age group 18-24, the increase in suicide was a staggering 400%.

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October 2, 2016

"Hammerhead sharks feasting on the dead make a unique sound."

So says William, a disabled Navy veteran and survivor of a horrifying incident that occurred in the Persian Gulf.

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August 2, 2016

The bipolar boom continues. Once upon a time, children were taught religious parables and national myths that placed their lives in a larger context of meaning, as well as stories that taught the value of hard work (The Little Red Hen), foresight (The Three Little Pigs) and perseverance (The Little Engine That Could). They learned about the young Teddy Roosevelt overcoming his childhood asthma through strenuous exercise, and the young Abe Lincoln reading by the firelight and then walking miles to return books he had borrowed. Today tomes such as Brandon and the Bipolar Bear, Turbo Max, and My Bipolar Roller Coaster Feelings Book teach the little ones the importance of psychotropic medication compliance.

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August 1, 2016

Once, while being deposed in a lawsuit, Dr. Biederman identified his academic rank as “full professor.” Asked what was above that, Biederman replied “God.”

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July 31, 2016

In the year following the death of Rebecca Riley, Newsweek magazine, which had already published not one but two laudatory cover stories on Prozac as well as a puff piece on childhood depression, weighed in with yet another cover story, “Growing up bipolar: Max’s world,” which told the story of Max Blake, a boy who suffered from temper tantrums, attacking teachers and playmates without warning, biting and kicking and spitting at them.

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July 30, 2016

The short unhappy life of Rebecca Riley is a parable for our times. Her diagnosis with bipolar disorder at the age of 28 months was followed by a downward spiral which parents, doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, and everybody else around her seemed powerless to halt.

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July 29, 2016

In a telephone interview Dr. Healy blasted the idea that antidepressants and stimulants “unmask” a pre-existing mental illness. “There’s absolutely no reason to think these pills reveal the underlying disorder,” he told me. “That is just nuts.”

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July 29, 2016

In December 1999, Demitri Papolos, M.D., and Janice Papolos published The Bipolar Child, the book that convinced Anne that her son William was bipolar. In the preface, the authors lay it on the line for us: “Many of these children were initially diagnosed as having attention-deficit disorder with hyperactivity and put on stimulant medications; or they were first seen in the throes of depression with little or no consideration of the opposite pole of a mood disorder. As a result, a shocking number of children were thrown into manic and psychotic states, became paranoid and violent, and ended up in a hospital—unstable, suicidal, and in worse shape than before the treatment began…”

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July 27, 2016

A paper published in the April 1976 issue of the Journal of Diseases in Childhood described five cases of childhood mania. All the children described came from obviously troubled families. In three of the five cases the authors explicitly state that the mania did not develop until after the children had begun taking stimulants or antidepressants.

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July 26, 2016

An epidemic is sweeping the nation, a crippling, perhaps lifelong, sometimes fatal condition known as juvenile bipolar disorder.

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July 25, 2016

"He was a beautiful child."

That's how Anne, a nurse by profession, remembers her eldest son William. 

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May 2, 2016

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December 14, 2015

Are negative news stories about statins hazardous to your health?

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December 11, 2015

The headline proclaimed “Anti-smoking drug Champix does not raise risk of suicide or depression.”

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December 10, 2015

In July of 2011, the FDA issued a warning linking Chantix to an increase in the rate of heart attacks in patients with stable cardiovascular disease. 

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December 9, 2015

Chantix surpassed all other drugs for serious events reported to the FDA, including but not limited to hostility, aggression, paranoia, hallucinations, psychosis, heart arrhythmias, heart attacks, visual disturbances, seizures, falls, traffic accidents, homicidal ideation, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts, along with 28 actual suicides.

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December 8, 2015

In May of 2009, 34-year-old Sean Wain of Economy, Pennsylvania, murdered his wife of fourteen years with a shotgun blast before turning the gun on himself, leaving their four small children orphaned. 

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December 7, 2015

Lawrence Krystynak still remembers the night his wife Nora went missing.

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October 9, 2015

On 13 June 2013, a paper authored by Peter Doshi, David Healy, and several others appeared in BMJ. The authors noted that they had obtained access to 178,000 ages of previously confidential drug company documents pertaining to clinical trials which had either never been published in the scientific literature, or which had been misreported. 

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October 8, 2015

On 29 January 2007, the BBC news program Panorama aired the documentary, “Secrets of the drug trials.” This episode, presented by BBC reporter Shelley Jofre, detailed the behind-the-scenes attempts to spin the results of SmithKline Beecham’s Study 329 of Paxil. 

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October 7, 2015

On 13 February 1998 60-year-old Donald Schell of Gillette, Wyoming, took two guns and shot his wife and daughter and 9-month-old granddaughter dead. Each victim took at least at least three shots to the head. Afterwards, Schell turned one of the guns on himself and ended his life. All this took place two days after Don Schell began taking Paxil for sleep problems. 

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October 6, 2015

SmithKline Beecham’s Study 329 of Paxil may well be the single most infamous drug trial ever, and its history is instructive.

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October 5, 2015

"I tried slitting my wrists, overdosing on Tylenol PM, I tried hanging myself, I tried drowning myself. I even considered jumping off a bridge at one point. It wasn't a cry for help. I just wanted to die."

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August 18, 2015

John Abramson is a medical doctor, the author of Overdo$ed America, and an outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical industry. He also is one of the experts featured in the Catalyst documentary, and he describes himself as an expert in litigation, including cases involving statins.

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August 17, 2015

A study by Australian medical researchers is the latest salvo in the battle triggered by the documentary, “Heart of the Matter,” which raised questions about the safety and effectiveness of statins, a class of drugs that block the body’s ability to synthesize cholesterol.

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April 5, 2015

Beginning in 2009, television viewers were treated to a series of commercial messages featuring animated images of winsome young mothers whose lives had been turned around by taking Abilify. In one memorable spot, an actress declaims in voice over: “My antidepressant worked hard to help with my depression. But sometimes I struggled to get going – even to get through the day.”

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April 4, 2015

David Healy is a medical doctor, the author of Pharmageddon, and an outspoken critic of the psychopharmaceutical industry. He also is a practicing psychiatrist and he does prescribe neuroleptics to his patients. But, he cautions, “The drugs are tranquilizers, and they were originally called tranquilizers. They are not curative."

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April 3, 2015

Abilify belongs to a class of drugs called “neuroleptics.” Chlorpromazine was the first of the neuroleptic drugs, and indeed the first of the modern-day psychiatric medications, and its history is instructive.

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April 2, 2015

"Psychiatry has destroyed my life in so many ways.”

So says Jarrett, a young man from Orange County, who for the past three and half years has been taking a cocktail of various psychiatric medications, including America’s best-selling drug, Abilify.

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January 5, 2015

Just last August, a study was published in JAMA in which adolescents were screened for depression and then randomized either to a collaborative care intervention or usual care. An accompanying editorial called for integration of depression screening into primary pediatric care, noting that “depression is associated with serious mental health problems (e.g., suicide).”

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January 4, 2015

In the meantime the media and the FDA were flooded with tales of suicidal and homicidal violence committed by patients, including children, who had been taking Prozac. 

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January 3, 2015

Sadness, sorrow, and despair have been a part of the human condition from the beginning. More than two thousand years ago, the author of The Book of Job wrote, “I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” Around the same time, Siddhartha Gautama is said to have told his followers, “Life is suffering.” 

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January 2, 2015

“It’s like being in a torture chamber all your life.” 

That’s how Brenda, a young woman from the southeast of England, describes her experience with prescription antidepressants.

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August 26, 2014

Anxiety, fear, and terror are universal human experiences. It is only within the last eighty years or so that they have come to be regarded as “diseases” that can and should be treated by the medical profession.

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August 25, 2014

The article was buried in the New York Times health blog: “Anti-anxiety drugs tied to higher mortality.”

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August 24, 2014

“Now that I’m dependent on these benzos I’ve lost everything I’ve had in my life.”

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August 21, 2014

Between 1994 and 2007, annual per-patient spending on diabetes drugs more than doubled, from $495 to $1048 per. A study by Doctor Caleb Alexander of the University of Chicago Hospitals found that during the same period, the three-year death rate for people with type 2 diabetes dropped by less than one in two hundred.

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August 19, 2014

Hot on the heels of the Avandia debacle, is history about to repeat itself?

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August 17, 2014

Amy Lynn Evans remembers the onset of the illness that left her with seven hundred thousand dollars in medical bills.

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August 13, 2014

In 2011, the Cochrane Collaboration published a meta-analysis, or a study of studies, on the effectiveness of statins for primary prevention of CVD. They concluded that 223 people with no previous history of CVD would have to be treated with statins for three years in order to avert one death. 

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August 12, 2014

When he was nearing the end of his career, Henry Gadsden, then-CEO of pharmaceutical giant Merck, gave an interview to Fortune magazine in which he said that he regretted that he couldn’t sell drugs to healthy people. He said his dream was to be able to peddle his company’s wares to everybody, like chewing gum giant Wrigley’s.

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August 11, 2014

“You use them or you die.”

This is what a doctor told Sulette Brown, a psychotherapist from Oklahoma, when she balked at taking statins, after she’d been rushed to the emergency room for a heart attack. Since that night, her life has changed in ways she could not have imagined.

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