Number of Prescriptions Written in UK for Antidepressants Nearly Equals Entire Population

“… there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing…a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.”

-Aldous Huxley

NaturalNews
Friday, December 04, 2009 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer

There were 36 million prescriptions issued for antidepressant drugs in the United Kingdom in 2008, nearly one for every adult in the population, according to numbers obtained by the Liberal Democrat party.

The number is 2.1 million higher than in 2007.

Writing in the Guardian, Ed Halliwell examines the reason for this trend, noting that antidepressant prescriptions have increased more than threefold since the beginning of the 1990s, far outstripping the increase in the percentage of the population classified with a “common mental disorder.” From 1993 to 2007, this number increased by only one million, going from 15.5 percent of the population to 17.6 percent.

Halliwell notes that while national guidelines recommend that psychological therapies are the preferred treatment for mental illness or distress, 75 percent of doctors report having prescribed drugs in cases where they thought that therapy or other non-pharmaceutical treatments would have been more effective. In part, this is because despite government recommendations, psychotherapy treatment remains difficult to find in the United Kingdom, with long waiting lists.

“However, medics also prescribe drugs because that’s what they are trained to do – pills have long been their (and our) default response to depression,” Halliwell writes. “The dominant view of psychiatric illness is that chemical imbalances in the brain are mostly to blame, and that they can be controlled with pharmaceuticals.”

Yet a number of studies have called into question whether antidepressants are really significantly more effective than a placebo, and a much-touted study identifying a “depression gene” was recently discredited by a new analysis.

Halliwell calls for a shift away from a pharmaceutical approach to depression, with a renewed emphasis on more well-proven measures such as “building good relationships, lifelong learning, being kind to others and exercise.”

He acknowledges the challenges inherent in this approach.

“As well as an overhaul of services, it means tackling social fragmentation, greed-based economics and the stress created by a speedy, sensationalist culture,” he writes. “And it means starting a mature debate based on understanding rather than fear of the mind, promoting the ways we can look after our psychological as well as our physical health.”

Sources for this story include: www.guardian.co.uk.

St. John’s Wort Again Proven Better than Antidepressant Drugs

(NaturalNews) The popular herbal extract St. John’s wort is more effective at treating the symptoms of depression than any antidepressant drug, and has fewer side effects, researchers from the Centre for Complementary Medicine in Munich have concluded.

“Overall, the St John’s Wort extracts tested in the trials were superior to placebo, similarly effective as standard anti-depressants, and had fewer side effects than standard anti-depressants,” lead researcher Klaus Linde said.

In a study published by the Cochrane Library, the researchers compiled the results of 29 prior trials, involving a total of 5,489 participants who were randomly assigned either St. John’s wort, a placebo, tricylclic antidepressants or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) to treat mild to moderately severe depression. All studies were double-blind, meaning that neither patients nor researchers knew what kind of treatment each participant was receiving.

St. John’s wort was found to be more effective than a placebo and at least as effective as both tricylics and SSRIs, but with fewer side effects. Patients receiving the herbal treatment were significantly less likely to drop out of studies due to negative side effects than those assigned to take tricyclic antidepressants.

The researchers called their study the most thorough to date, and possibly the first to show that St. John’s wort is effective at treating not only mild, but also severe depression (also known as major depression).

St. John’s wort, known officially as Hypericum perforatum, is a native European perennial herb with distinctive yellow flowers and now grows wild in many parts of the Americas as well. It derives its common name from the tradition of harvesting its flowers on St. John’s day (June 24). Also known as Klamath weed or Tipton’s weed, the plant has been used for centuries as an herbal remedy for depression and sleeping problems.

In recent years, the popularity of the herbal antidepressant has soared as new concerns continue to emerge over pharmaceutical antidepressants, especially SSRIs. In Germany, doctors regularly prescribe it to children and teenagers. In the United Kingdom, it is currently used by two million people.

SSRIs have been shown to significantly increase the risk of suicide in those under the age of 18, and evidence suggests that they may have a similar effect on adults, as well. Recent evidence has also linked use of the drugs by pregnant women with an elevated risk of oral and heart-related birth defects.

With Western health care systems emphasizing drugs for the treatment of mental illness, however, many doctors feel they have no alternatives but to prescribe tricyclics or SSRIs, in spite of the risk. The new study may lead more doctors to prescribe St. John’s wort instead.

Another recent study, conducted by St. James’ University Hospital in Leeds, England, found that St. John’s wort was the only herbal supplement effective at treating depression, in contrast to cat’s claw, ginseng, gingko biloba, liquid tonic and royal jelly.

Researchers remain unsure precisely how St. John’s wort works, in part because the plant contains chemicals from at least seven different families. The most favored explanation is that the herb acts much like an SSRI, slowing the rate at which the neurotransmitter serotonin is removed from the brain. The chemical hyperforin is posited by some as the most active chemical agent in the herb, and has been linked to slowed uptake of not only serotonin but also the neurotransmitters dopamine, noradrenaline, GABA and glutamate. St. John’s wort extracts from which hyperforin has been removed, however, have still been shown to function as effective antidepressants.

Government wants to drug nursing moms on anti-depressants: HR-20 passes house

Five years ago, when my wife was pregnant with our son,  I fought a battle over this issue, to keep them from drugging my wife.  And believe me, if your wife is anything like mine, and trusts the psychiatric industry, this is a difficult battle to fight.  But I did it to protect my son from the known brain damaging effects of antidepresants that pass thru the placenta and the milk into the baby, and cause permanent neural damage. Luckily she didn’t go on the drugs.

Disagreements like this cost me my marriage but thank God she got thru the pregnancy without going on the drugs like they (and she) wanted. My son is healthy and absolutely brilliant. I can only imagine how he would have turned out if he had suffered a daily Prozac drugging.

Babies who’s moms have taken prozac while pregnant often have “weak or absent cry,” or are born “emotionless.”  Any drug that can suppress this essential instinct in a newborn is going to have profound and permanent detrimental effects on neural development.

Big pharma and corporate media will deny it, but seriously people, use a little common sense.  I’ve heard rationalizations such as “If the mother gets upset it reduces blood flow to the fetus, and that can be dangerous.” Even if there is a grain of truth to this, there are millions of years of biological precedent for a fetus to survive maternal distress and anxiety. There is absolutely zero biological precedent for a fetus to survive being poisoned by brand new (evolutionarily speaking) antidepressant drugs.

I don’t want to sound callous with regard to the very real emotional turmoil many women experience while pregnant and post-partum.  Preganancy is no joke.  But do you want to fry your baby’s brain so you can get what you think is going to be some relief from depression and anxiety?

Some studies show SRI drugs are no better than placebo at treating depression.  But many studies show they do cause psychotic breaks, suicide, and other aberrent behavior in a small but significant percentage of users.

This bill only deals with screening for post-partum depression, but I’ve seen first hand how they push drugs on pregnant women as well.  There is plenty of opportunity for them to “evaluate” pregnant women for depression due to constant doctor and hospital visits during pregnancy, and they have no reservations about prescribing anti-depressants in spite of research showing negative impact on neural development of the fetus/baby.

Women: Be strong.  Do not cave to the will of big pharma.  Do not let them fry your baby’s brain in utero and do not let them deny you one of the greatest gifts you can give your child, breastfeeding.

http://www.govtrack.us/co…

A sweeping government policy for all new births in the United States has just passed the House of Representatives and is now headed to the Senate. The Mother’s Act, if passed, will mandate that all new mothers be screened by means of a list of subjective questions that will determine if each mother is mentally fit to take their newborn home from the hospital. Just imagine that after your child is born, you are told that you can’t take them home since a multiple choice questionnaire wasn’t answered correctly. Just imagine being told that the only way you can take your child home is if you or your spouse goes into treatment or on anti-depressants which we know causes psychosis, delusions, and even homocidal thoughts. It just doesn’t make sense. Unfortunately, this bill is on a fast track–No public debate, no public disclosure of the broad impact on our society and that is why we need you to act now!

The Mother’s Act violates our Constitutional right to privacy and your right to liberty and it is just outright dangerous. That is why we need you to help stop this. We urgently need you to call and email each Senator on the HELP Committee and tell them you STRONGLY OPPOSE the MOTHER’S ACT and that you are OUTRAGED that there was NO public debate or disclosure on the impact this would have on our society as a whole.

Send a letter by going here: http://salsa.democracyina…

Please call the following Senators on the HELP Committee and tell them that you want the Mother’s Act to die in committee.

Lisa Murkowski, R: 202-224-6665, AK
John McCain, R: 202-224-2235, AZ
Christopher Dodd, D: 202-224-2823, CT
Johnny Isakson, R: 202-224-3643, GA
Tom Harkin, D: 202-224-3254, IA
Pat Roberts, R: 202-224-4774, KS
Edward Kennedy D: 202-224-4543, MA
Barbara Mikulski D: 202-224-4654, MD
Richard Burr, R: 202-224-3154, NC
Kay Hagan, D: 202-224-6342, NC
Judd Gregg, R: 202-224-3324, NH
Jeff Bingaman, D: 202-224-5521, NM
Sherrod Brown, D 202-224-2315, OH
Tom Coburn, R 202-224-5754, OK
Jeff Merkley, D 202-224-3753, OR
Bob Casey, D 202-224-6324, PA
Jack Reed, D 202-224-4642, RI
Lamar Alexander R 202-224-4944, TN
Orrin Hatch R 202-224-5251, UT
Bernard Sanders, I: 202-224-5141, VT
Patty Murray, D, 202-224-2621, WA
Michael Enzi, R, 202-224-3424, WY

Thank you so much for caring enough to call and take action! Remember “We The People” are in charge!
Respectfully,
Sheila Matthews
Cofounder www.ablechild.org

Depression Drug Illegally Marketed to Kids, Kickbacks Paid, FDA Approved Anyway

Written by Derek Markham
VIA EcoChildsPlay
March 22, 2009

A five year probe of Forest Laboratories by the U.S. Justice Department into illegal marketing of Lexapro to children has an ironic twist to it: The FDA just approved the use of Lexapro for depression in children.

“Federal health care programs have paid thousands of false and fraudulent claims for Celexa and Lexapro prescriptions that were not covered for off-label pediatric use and/or were ineligible for payment as a result of illegal kickbacks paid by Forest.”

On February 25, the Justice Department accused Forest of bribing pediatricians to prescribe Celexa and Lexapro with things like spa visits, sports tickets, Broadway shows, and fishing trips. On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration gave the go-ahead to use Lexapro to treat depression in adolescents aged 12 to 17.

Federal prosecutors say Celexa is not any more effective for children or teenagers than taking a placebo, and more patients taking Celexa attempted suicide or reported suicidal thoughts.

The Justice Department prosecutors also claim that both Lexapro and Celexa, another of Forest’s antidepressants, have been improperly used for treating depression in children for a long time. One study showed that Celexa was not effective for use in children, and even Forest admits that the effectiveness was not shown in two different studies, a Lexapro trial with patients aged 7 to 17 and another study of Celexa in adolescents.

Even weirder, Forest Laboratories said that Lexapro’s ability to maintain control of symptoms in adolescents had not been demonstrated, but the FDA concluded that maintenance efficacy can be “extrapolated” from adult data. How’s that for federal intervention – the FDA contradicts the maker of the drug. Makes me wish we had a “WTF?” category for this blog, ’cause “Health” is kinda misleading…

Forest Labs claims that 2 million adolescents in the United States are affected by depression, and Lexapro is only the second approved drug for that age group.

Not surprising, Lexapro is Forest Laboratories’ highest selling product, bringing in over $2 billion a year, and the fifteenth top seller of all prescription drugs in the US.

So who’s getting paid off here?

There’s never any mention made in studies of depression in children about diet or lifestyle, yet many experts have made the connection between the foods we eat and the way we feel. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our practice of prescribing drugs to children was a last resort and not driven by a heavily marketed, payola-based scheme?

Take your happy pills