CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH SUMMIT: SEPTEMBER 28 & 29, 2012

 

www.mentalhealthexcellence.org

Register online at:  www.iacaf.org

Download Flyer for:  2012summit 

RECLAIMING CHILDHOOD: 

A New Approach to Improving Social-Emotional, Behavioral, and Mental Wellness

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

A two-day symposium for clinicians, educators, researchers, students, and parents.

Experts will present on topics such as:

▪ TRAUMA

▪ FOSTER CARE

▪  PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATIONS

▪  PLAY

▪ MINDFULNESS

▪  NUTRITION

▪  SAFE & EFFECTIVE APPROACHES

Friday 9/28/2012  Hutchings Psychiatric Center

Saturday 9/29/2012  Crowne Plaza Syracuse

Filed under: pharmacology, Children, children's mental health summit, event, foundation for excellence in mental health care, it's about childhood and family, law, legal, mental health, nonprofit, psychiatry, psychology, social work

If Pharma Made Trikes – “Buyer Beware”

After 10 injuries were reported, a 2010 recall of over 7 million trikes manufactured by Fisher Price took place.  It seems as if some manufacturers have come a long way and child safety standards are a top priority.  For the pharmaceutical industry, should we continue to accept ”buyer beware” as the standard?

By Maria Mangicaro

Dr. David Healy’s recent post, “If Pharma Made Cars“,  crafts several very clever analogies regarding mandatory compliance of consumer safety regulations imposed on the auto and airline industries, as compared with the safety expectations of products manufactured by the tobacco and the pharmaceutical industries. [1]

Healy’s points are well made and by further exploring various concepts of consumer protection,  his analogies become much more multi-faceted for mental health consumers, advocates and lawmakers to consider.

By far, the U.S. is the global leader in the consumer protection movement.  The Consumer Bill of Rights includes eight specific guarantees:  the right to satisfaction of basic needs, the right to safety, the right to be informed, the right to choose, the right to be heard, the right to redress, the right to consumer education, and the right to a healthy environment. [2]

U.S. consumers are protected against deceptive business practices by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  The FTC acts to protect consumers, prevent fraud and maintain competition in the marketplace.  The FTC vision is stated as:

“A U.S. economy characterized by vigorous competition among producers and consumer access to accurate information, yielding high-quality products at low prices and encouraging efficiency, innovation, and consumer choice.“[3]

The characteristics of the mental health care system deprive many individuals of this “vision” and consumerism, which in some cases is forced, is concentrated on the purchases of psychiatric services and pharmaceutical products.

 A recent resolution introduced in the Illinois House of Representatives by Rep. Mary Flowers (D-Chicago), calling for the establishment of a “Task Force on Mental Diagnosis and Illinois Law“, may help break apart psychiatry’s ”monopoly of the mental illness epidemic“.   Click here to read more.

Filed under: 'ADHD', Maria Mangicaro, pharmacology, Task Force on Mental Diagnosis and Illinois Law, consumer protection, consumer rights, CPSC, David Healy, FDA warnings, FTC, If Pharma Made Cars, Mad in America, mental health, Task Force on Mental Diagnosis and Illinois Law

Whitney Houston and Psychiatric Drugs – Xanax

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/xanax-whitney-houston_b_1288122.html

A post by Peter Breggin:

Often when I think about how much I love my wife, Ginger, I wish I could sing to her. But I cannot sing. Instead, I imagine Whitney Houston singing to Ginger in her incredible soaring voice. Whitney became the voice expressing how much I love my wife. That is how much Whitney came to mean to so many of us who knew her only through her music. She became the music about love we carry in our hearts.

Whitney’s passing has raised the specter that she was taking the benzodiazepine Xanax (alprazolam) at the time she died.

If it turns out that Whitney was under the influence of Xanax (alprazolam), then there’s a good chance she would be alive today if that drug had never been put on the market.

Although Xanax is the most commonly prescribed benzodiazepine, and in my experience the most dangerous, the same harmful effects can be caused by all benzodiazepines, including Valium, Ativan, Klonopin, Serax, Halcion, Dalmane, and Halcion. When I address Xanax, I’m also talking about all of these drugs.

Reports that Xanax and other benzos are not usually lethal when taken alone are vastly misleading. Xanax is rarely taken alone. Why? Because as much or more than any other prescribed drug, Xanax causes medication spellbinding. It corrupts judgment, memory and self-control, so that individuals have no idea how badly they are being impaired. Eventually it erodes all mental faculties, often without the person fully grasping this loss of function. The impairment of judgment and self-control causes people to overdose on drugs or alcohol without intending to, leading to coma, cardiovascular collapse and death. The Xanax-induced memory impairment causes them to forget how many pills or how much alcohol they have already taken, again increasing the lethal risk.

Xanax has been called “alcohol in a pill” because its effects are so similar to alcohol. However, as will be documented, Xanax can be far more dangerous than alcohol. It should not be prescribed to patients with alcohol problems, because it becomes a powerful impetus for alcohol abuse.

At critical moments in their lives when individuals are suffering from serious emotional problems, their ability to deal with them is further compromised as a result of Xanax-induced medication spellbinding and cognitive deficits. In acute distress, they often have no idea what is happening to them. They have no idea how impaired they have become, they forget what they’ve already taken, or increase the dose, or increase or add other medications or alcohol.

Filed under: adverse drug reactions, medication, psychiatric drugs, psychotropic drugs, Sudden Death, Whitney Houston, Xanax, Benzodiazepines, Benzos, Healthy Living News, mental health, Overdose, Peter Breggin, Prescription Drug Abuse, prescription drugs, Prozac, Psychiatric Drug Abuse, Ssri Antidepressants, SSRIs, Whitney Houston, Xanax, Xanax Whitney Houston

Yes, We Can Pretend We Did It All On Our Own (The MOTHERS Act – How at least $13 to $16.4 million in pHARMa dollars buys a bill)

pHARMa: Putting a price on the lives of American moms and babies

Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son?
And what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

- Bob Dylan

Two days ago, The MOTHERS Act and several other dangerous psych programs passed the house after being stuck in the 2400 page Senate Health Care Bill. Today, President Obama, a former co-sponsor of The MOTHERS Act in the Senate, signed the bill into law.

Two years and two months ago Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, Camille Milke and I, as heads of CHAADA, UNITE, COPES and ICFDA collaborated on a press release to be sent to the public, media and Congress regarding our opposition to The MOTHERS Act. We created a petition and within days we had hundreds of signatures from around the country. I spent the next two months calling people all day and sending emails, writing press releases and trying to update my website with the numerous radio shows where we would spread the word about the fight to save America’s mothers from an invasive government screening program.

Filed under: antidepressants, Congress, Melanie Stokes, mothers act, PPD, Pregnancy, suicide, A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall, ACOG, AFSP, America, American Psychiatric Association, APA, CHAADA, COPES, David and Goliath, DBSA, Eli Lilly, Guttmacher, Health Care Reform Bill, ICFDA, Katherine Stone, Mary Jo Codey, Menendez, mental health, MHA, NAMI, NARAL, Nemeroff, New Jersey, Pfizer, Postpartum Support International, Screening for Mental Health, Sherri Lusskin, SMH, SPAN USA, Susan Stone, The MOTHERS Act, UNITE

Ron Paul’s Parental Consent Act of 2009: Contact Your Reps!

Please contact your Representative in Congress and ask them to sponsor H.R. 2218,  The Parental Consent Act of 2009.

Here is a link to the bill text: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-2218

Here is a great article by Dr. John Breeding explaining the background of the bill and the Bush Administration’s “New Freedom Commission on Mental Health” which Dr. Breeding appropriately coins the “No Freedom” commission.

To take action against specific Orwellian psychiatric programs included in recent versions of the Federal Health legislation, see this link:

Senate Nixes Public Disclosure of Revised Health Care Language – Take Action.

For more background on some of the bills now coming up in Congress to fulfill the goals of the “Freedom Commission” see:

http://tinyurl.com/BillionsPsych

http://tinyurl.com/ykqy8e2

Filed under: Barack Obama, Bush Family, Congress, Freedom Commission on Mental Health, The Future of The United States, Barack Obama, Bush, Dr. John Breeding, Federal Health Care Bill Calls for Billions in Orwellian Psych Programs and Treatments, John McCain, mental health, New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, No Freedom Commission, Parental Consent Act of 2009, Parental Rights, Ron Paul