"I care for a family member who has been taking antipsychotic medications for over 15 years.
During that time there has been serious deterioration in his metabolic health.
Having attempted to search the available literature, I have numerous questions, but most importantly, questions regarding the safety and efficacy of these drugs.
I have not found published articles cited as evidence that include data on the response of healthy volunteers to neurolept drugs, nor articles that evaluate the efficacy of these drugs upon drug naïve subjects. A major flaw in virtually all clinical trials is that the placebo arm includes subjects that are experiencing withdrawal of another drug, not drug naïve subjects.
How is it that such trials are regarded as valid evidence for the TGA approve these potent drugs, which have such profound effects upon health including the shortening of life?
Please could you provide references in the scientific literature that may satisfy my concerns?"
If you get an answer please let us know as I have never got any satisfactory answers to that type of question. In my view, the drug industry is corrupted by the greed of the manufacturers and the naivety of the psychiatric profession who are desperate to be seen as genuinely scientific in standing.
I'm not qualified to decide whether this article is 100% accurate, though I can say I find it very persuasive. In part this is because I've previously listened to Mark Horowitz's views on the matter (detailing his personal experiences in a YouTube video) - he seemed convincing. I have also read Dr Paul Denborough comments last year in The Australian, having listened previously to his very sensible views on other issues.
So, accepting that everything that has been said in this article can be taken as true, a key question arises: Why "Only in psychiatry"? How have some of the nation's smartest, most dedicated and hardworking individuals made a mess of things while lesser people have created systems that work?
Well, these drugs effect multiple systems in the brain and body, so when doctors or psychiatrists assert a patient's claimed side-effects or withdrawal symptoms don't exist, according to what they've read or been taught, that tends to demonstrate an extraordinary intellectual incuriosity and lack of scientific rigor. But it's all so evidence-based and scientific, right?
There's a truly bizarre range of withdrawal symptoms possible. Deprescribing from Sertraline, I experienced excruciating dental and gum pain that dragged on for months. I saw a dentist, said take a look, but I'm certain this pain is withdrawal-related. He looked at me with that skeptical, condescending look I know so well: "Ah, a psych patient. Humor him."
Turns out I did need a couple of fillings. But they didn't account for the dental pain I was experiencing. But that's just one of a laundry list of withdrawal symptoms I've experienced, 90% of which tend to be dismissed as hypochondria, or some kind of perverse malingering.
I don't buy that depression is always psychological or situational. I believe psychological reductionism can be as pernicious and absolutist as biomedical reductionism. However, in most cases it certainly isn't biological at all, and how an emotionally and intellectually immature and shallow shrink, who's understanding of psychotropic medications is simply Pharma marketing masquerading as science, thinks they can mystically divine some imagined neurological aberration is truly whacked out.
Also, many patients are prescribed antidepressants for neuropathic pain, tinnitus, menopausal symptoms, and so on. So calling their withdrawals a return of the "original psychiatric condition" is utterly absurd: there was no original psychiatric condition.
Sometimes I wonder if Vioxx, which caused such death and disability, was a psychiatric medication, whether it would have been withdrawn from circulation. It seems to me that anything or anybody outside the charmed circle of normalcy is demoted to risible unreality and a complete absence of humanity and credibility.
I've written the following letter to the TGA:
"I care for a family member who has been taking antipsychotic medications for over 15 years.
During that time there has been serious deterioration in his metabolic health.
Having attempted to search the available literature, I have numerous questions, but most importantly, questions regarding the safety and efficacy of these drugs.
I have not found published articles cited as evidence that include data on the response of healthy volunteers to neurolept drugs, nor articles that evaluate the efficacy of these drugs upon drug naïve subjects. A major flaw in virtually all clinical trials is that the placebo arm includes subjects that are experiencing withdrawal of another drug, not drug naïve subjects.
How is it that such trials are regarded as valid evidence for the TGA approve these potent drugs, which have such profound effects upon health including the shortening of life?
Please could you provide references in the scientific literature that may satisfy my concerns?"
Let's see what ha[[ens
If you get an answer please let us know as I have never got any satisfactory answers to that type of question. In my view, the drug industry is corrupted by the greed of the manufacturers and the naivety of the psychiatric profession who are desperate to be seen as genuinely scientific in standing.
I'm not qualified to decide whether this article is 100% accurate, though I can say I find it very persuasive. In part this is because I've previously listened to Mark Horowitz's views on the matter (detailing his personal experiences in a YouTube video) - he seemed convincing. I have also read Dr Paul Denborough comments last year in The Australian, having listened previously to his very sensible views on other issues.
So, accepting that everything that has been said in this article can be taken as true, a key question arises: Why "Only in psychiatry"? How have some of the nation's smartest, most dedicated and hardworking individuals made a mess of things while lesser people have created systems that work?
Well, these drugs effect multiple systems in the brain and body, so when doctors or psychiatrists assert a patient's claimed side-effects or withdrawal symptoms don't exist, according to what they've read or been taught, that tends to demonstrate an extraordinary intellectual incuriosity and lack of scientific rigor. But it's all so evidence-based and scientific, right?
There's a truly bizarre range of withdrawal symptoms possible. Deprescribing from Sertraline, I experienced excruciating dental and gum pain that dragged on for months. I saw a dentist, said take a look, but I'm certain this pain is withdrawal-related. He looked at me with that skeptical, condescending look I know so well: "Ah, a psych patient. Humor him."
Turns out I did need a couple of fillings. But they didn't account for the dental pain I was experiencing. But that's just one of a laundry list of withdrawal symptoms I've experienced, 90% of which tend to be dismissed as hypochondria, or some kind of perverse malingering.
I don't buy that depression is always psychological or situational. I believe psychological reductionism can be as pernicious and absolutist as biomedical reductionism. However, in most cases it certainly isn't biological at all, and how an emotionally and intellectually immature and shallow shrink, who's understanding of psychotropic medications is simply Pharma marketing masquerading as science, thinks they can mystically divine some imagined neurological aberration is truly whacked out.
Also, many patients are prescribed antidepressants for neuropathic pain, tinnitus, menopausal symptoms, and so on. So calling their withdrawals a return of the "original psychiatric condition" is utterly absurd: there was no original psychiatric condition.
Sometimes I wonder if Vioxx, which caused such death and disability, was a psychiatric medication, whether it would have been withdrawn from circulation. It seems to me that anything or anybody outside the charmed circle of normalcy is demoted to risible unreality and a complete absence of humanity and credibility.