Psych Observer – Exposing Bad Psychiatry

Earlier this year a 7-year-old boy in state custody prescribed mind altering drugs threatened to kill himself, then he did. This summer another child on powerful drugs also threatened to kill himself, his mother called Help Me Howard, what happened after that? Tonight here is Patrick Fraser with a story we call a mothers hope.

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On September 14th 2008 roughly around 5:23PM EST I was watching my local news, Channel 7 News Fox WSVN-TV, when a subject called “Defeat Depression” came to my interests. It showed an obese teenager named David Harvey playing a wrestling game at the beginning of the report and then it continues on as it shows him and his mother, Jeri Jashnoff, playing a cardboard game, sorry! (ironically). To make the story run short it explains that David’s mother losing her job in real estate from the bad economy and how worry some the teenager becomes after finding out that he can no longer get what he wants anymore because of the tight budget. Because his mother couldn’t afford the dangerous psychotropic drugs from her job lost she took him to a research facility called Segal Institute For Clinical Research where people get paid to become guinea pigs and take experimental drugs that hasn’t yet been approved by the FDA.

Richard Lemus interviewed the atrocious Psychiatrist, Dr. Scott Segal the owner of the Segal Institute for Clinical Research and has said:

Dr. Scott Segal, Psychiatrist, Segal Institute for Clinical Research: “It’s definitely making adults depressed, and therefore the children depressed, as well. However, they have less money to spend on treatments, and these days insurance companies have higher co-payments and it’s very difficult for people to come in.”

Even scarier, it’s hard for patients or their families to pay for the medications they so desperately need.

Dr. Scott Segal: “They get their visits and their evaluations and whatever is needed in the study for free, as well as medications. In fact, in research studies, the treatment is above the normal level of care.”

Patients will often try out new drugs that aren’t on the market yet and many times they can stay on that medication after the study is over.

Dr. Scott Segal: “In many studies, after the study is over, the pharmaceutical company will give them a compassionate care and allow them take the medications for a period of time.”

David is on a new medication and sees a doctor weekly. He and his mom have high hopes for the future.

What Richard Lemus and the Channel 7 News Fox WSVN-TV fail to revel to the public is that theirs other ways to defeat depression without the usage of the dangerous drugs. It’s called proper diet, exercise and proper outdoor activities like going to the beach or going to a park. In the whole segment of the story reported by Richard Lemus nowhere did it mention natural ways to deal with depression.

Transcript from this story can be seen on: URL: http://www.wsvn.com/features/articles/medicalreports/MI131332

The essentials differences between a biological diseases and a mental disorder.

By Michael Biesecker, Staff Writer (Newsobserver)
State mental health officials were informed earlier this week they could lose federal funding at state psychiatric hospitals in Raleigh and Butner as soon as Feb. 20, potentially costing more than $1.2 million a month in lost revenue.

Meanwhile, federal inspectors were at both facilities Thursday and today reviewing new complaints of patient abuse and neglect.

The loss of Medicaid and Medicare money at Central Regional Hospital, which includes a new $130 million building in Butner and the Dorothea Dix Hospital campus in Raleigh, comes at a critical time for a state Department of Health and Human Services already facing deep budget cuts. It cost about $10 million a month to operate the two hospitals.

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By Marshall Allen

Fri, Jan 16, 2009 (2 a.m.)
Sun Archives  * Mental hospital criticized (11-30-2005)

State investigators have fined the state’s psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas for not protecting a female patient who was reportedly raped by a male patient with known violent tendencies.

The staff at Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital knew the man had bipolar and antisocial personality disorders and was prone to violence but failed to put protections in place to prevent him from harming others, according to the state’s investigation of the incident, released Thursday. It was one of three alleged rapes at the state’s two mental hospitals since 2005.

The medical records of the male patient, who was referred to only as “Pedro,” age 33, revealed he had “many incidents in which he was aggressive and threatening to staff and peers,” investigators from the Nevada Health Division’s Licensure and Certification Bureau wrote in their report.

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* Story Highlights
* Atypical antipsychotic drugs associated with higher risk of sudden cardiac death
* Atypicals were thought to be safer than older, so-called “typical” antipsychotics
* Three atypical antipsychotics are among the 10 top-selling drugs worldwide
* About 325,000 people in the U.S. die of sudden cardiac death each year

By Anne Harding

Susan Craig’s brother Roger died of a pulmonary embolism in 2007, at age 38. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in high school, he had been on antipsychotic drugs for years. At the time of his death, he was carrying 280 pounds on his 6-foot-4-inch frame.

Craig, a public relations specialist who works at Columbia University in New York City, knew that Roger’s medications could cause weight gain. But she had never been told that the drugs he was taking might be harming his heart.

“We were never counseled by his psychiatrist or his primary care provider to watch for symptoms of heart disease or any risk of sudden death at all,” Craig says. There’s no evidence that Roger’s medications caused his death, but his family might have been able to get him help sooner if they had known about the risks, Craig explains.
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Nashville, TN, January 15: Atypical antipsychotics, a widely prescribed class of drugs that help combat psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, autism and dementia, may actually double the patients’ risk of fatal heart attacks, just as the older drugs, a study has found.

The study conducted at the Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Veterans Affairs Medical Center analyzed Medicaid records (from 1990 to 2005) of nearly 277,000 people aged between 30 and 74 years. While one-third of the people were taking either a newer or an older version of the antipsychotics, two-thirds were nonusers.

For each antipsychotic drug user, two age and sex matched non-users were assessed. During follow-up period, 478 sudden cardiacdefine deaths occurred among those taking the drugs – twice the rate that occurred in the control group, researchers report.

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Michael Biesecker – Staff Writer (Newsobserver)
Published: Thu, Jan. 15, 2009 12:30AM

RALEIGH — Three fired Cherry Hospital employees accused of severely beating a patient in 2006 have been arrested on felony charges after a special prosecutor re-examined the evidence against them.

| James A. Smith| Billy Gerald Wynn Jr | Eric Jerrod Isler |

Nearly two years ago, an assistant district attorney in Wayne County dismissed misdemeanor charges against the men — Billy Gerald Wynn Jr., Eric Jerrod Isler and James A. Smith.

The new patient-abuse charges were filed Jan. 5 by Doug Thoren, a special prosecutor with the N.C. Attorney General’s Office who won guilty verdicts in November against two other Cherry employees who beat a patient.

Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for Attorney General Roy Cooper, said the latest charges are the result of a review of the old evidence and new information turned up by SBI agents.

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By Martha Rosenberg
If 100 million Americans have high cholesterol and only 8 million have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, how can AstraZeneca’s Seroquel, not cholesterol pill Crestor, be its second best selling pill?

Right after its number one pill, the Purple Performer Nexium?

Can anyone say disease mongering?

For years, AstraZeneca has tried to convince depressed people they are really bipolar and need to take the atypical antipsychotic Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate) which is only approved for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

“Is It Really Depression or Could It Be Bipolar Disorder?”  trumpet the ads, urging unaware victims to take a Symptom Quiz and find out how sick they really are.

Full color spreads run in general interest magazines showing a rampaging woman her mouth contorted – think female Dark Knight – asking readers is this you?

“Are there periods of time when you have racing thoughts? Fly off the handle at little things? Spend out of control? Need less sleep? Feel irritable? You may need treatment for bipolar disorder.”

Now the FDA says AstraZeneca can not – repeat not – market Seroquel for depression.

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Submitted by DannyHaszard on August 22, 2008 – 12:33pm.

Eli Lilly sells a drug that can cause diabetes and then turn a profit on the drugs that treat the condition that they may have caused in the first place! Zyprexa is the product name for Olanzapine,it is Lilly’s top selling drug.It was approved by the FDA in 1996 ,an ‘atypical’ antipsychotic a newer class of drugs without the motor side effects of the older Thorazine.
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