Excerpts from affidavits by Robert Whitaker, Grace Jackson, and Toby Watson:
Whitaker:
“In summary, the research literature reveals the following:
a) Antipsychotics increase the likelihood that a person will become chronically ill.
b) Long-term recovery rates are much higher for unmedicated patients than for those who are maintained on antipsychotic drugs.
c) antipsychotics cause a host of debilitating physical, emotional and cognitive side effects, and lead to early death.”
Jackson:
“Risperidone is an inhibitor of mitochondrial function and an inducer of oxidative stress. Through these cellular effects, risperidone then disrupts the structure and function of the cardiac, endocrine, hepatic and neurological systems……risperidone is unique among the newer ‘antipsychotic’ drugs in terms of its potential to elevate prolactin. In some studies, hyperprolactinemia has occurred in as many as 90% of the risperidone patients…… hyperprolactinemia has been repeatedly linked to cardiac disease…….”
“Second, even at typical or ‘ordinary’ doses (D2 blockade of 60-80%), risperidone induces Parkinsonian side effects at a rate which equals or surpasses the so-called traditional or conventional neuroleptics….”
“Third, the real-world risk of tardive dyskinesia due to risperidone is significant….”
Researchers have “…documented a statistically significant relationship between exposure to neuroleptics and a two-fold higher likelihood of severe neurobehavioral decline” and have “…discovered that the initiation of neuroleptic therapy was associated with a doubling of the speed of cognitive decline…” of patients with dementia.
“Evidence from neuroimaging studies reveals that old and new neuroleptics contribute to the progressive shrinkage and /or loss of brain tissue…………and induce a significant reduction in total brain weight and volume, with prominent changes in the frontal and parietal lobes.”
“Not surprisingly, this damage has been found to contribute to the induction or worsening of psychiatric symptoms, and to the acceleration of cognitive and neurobehavioral decline.”
Studies Showing non-drug or limited drug treatments are superior in outcomes:
Bockoven Study: “The investigators concluded that medications were associated with higher numbers of relapsing patients, and a higher number of relapses per patient.”
Vermont Longitudianl Study:
“A subsequent analysis revealed that all of the patients with full recoveries had stopped pharmacotherapy completely. (In other words, compliance with antipsychotic drug treatment was neither necessary, nor sufficient, for recovery.)”
Michigan State Psychotherapy Project:
“The poorest outcomes occurred among the chronically medicated, even when drugs were combined with psychotherapy.”
Colorado Experiment:
“After ten months of experimentation, the researchers made the following discovery: compared to ‘treatment as usual’ (neuroleptics and supportive therapy), the recipients of intensive psychotherapy experienced lower recidivism (fewer re-admissions after discharge) and lower mortality.”
Soteria Project: “The Soteria cohort [involving minimal use of drugs] outperformed the hospital control group (94% of whom received continuous neuroleptic therapy) by achieving superior outcomes in terms of residual symptoms, the need for re-hospitalization, and the ability to return to work.”
Agnew State Hospital Experiment: “The best outcomes, in terms of severity of illness, were found among the patients who avoided neuroleptic therapy both during and after hospitalization.”
Finland – Needs Adapted Approach: The patients receiving the Needs Adapted Approach, in contrast to the group receiving treatment as usual experienced “…fewer days of hospitalization, more patients without psychosis, and more patients with higher functioning. These outcomes occurred despite the fact that the Needs Adapted group consisted of more patients with severe illness…and longer durations of untreated psychosis, and despite the fact that 43% of the Needs Adapted subjects avoided antipsychotics altogether (vs. 6% of the controls.)”
In “…what has evolved to be known as the Open Dialogue Approach, the Finnish clinicians have achieved the following five-year outcomes for first-episode, non-affective psychosis: 82% rate of full remission of psychotic symptoms, 86% rate of return to studies or full-time employment, and 14% rate of disability”
“The results of the Finnish experiment stand in stark contrast to the results of the prevailing American standard of care, which currently features a 33% rate of lasting symptom reduction or remission; and, at most, a 40% rate of social or vocational recovery. ”
Watson:
A 1960s NIMH study found that “Drugs that were effective in curbing psychosis over the short term were making patients more likely to become psychotic over the long term.”
A 1970s NIMH trilogy of studies found that , “In each instance, patients treated without drugs did better over the long term than those treated in a conventional manner. Those findings led NIMH scientist William Carpenter to conclude that ‘antipsychotic medication may make some schizophrenic patients more vulnerable to future relapse than would be the case in the natural course of the illness.'”
In the 1970s two Canadian researchers wrote that “‘Neuroleptics can produce a dopamine supersensitivity that leads to both dyskinetic and psychotic symptoms.”
In the 1990s “…several research teams reported that antipsychotic drugs cause atrophy of the cerebral cortex and an enlargement of the basal ganglia….In other words , they found that the drugs cause morphological changes in the brain that are associated with a worsening of the very symptoms the drugs are supposed to alleviate.”
In 1994 the Vermont study found that a third of its “…cohort had recovered completely, and that ll who did shared one characteristic: They had all stopped taking antipsychotic medication. The notion that schizophrenia needed to stay on antipsychotics all their lives was a ‘myth,’ Harding said.”
World Health Organization studies show patients in poor countries, with 16% regularly maintained on antipsychotics had better outcomes overall than countries like the U.S. where 61% of patients were regularly maintained on antipsychotics.
In 2007 researchers at the University of Illinois Medical School “…found that 40% of those who refused to take their antipsychotic medications were recovered at five-year and 15-year followup exams, versus five percent of the medicated patients.”
“In addition to making patients chronically ill, standard antipsychotics cause a wide range of debilitating side effects. Specifically:”
Tardive Dyskinesia
Akathisia
Emotional Impairment
Cognitive Impairment
Increased incidence of blindness, fatal blood clots, arthythmia, heat stroke, swollen breasts, leaking breasts, obesity, sexual dysfunction, skin rashes, and seizures, early death.
Concerning new vs old antipsychotics:
In 2000, a team of English researchers at the University of Oxford concluded that “‘There is no clear evidence that atypicals are more effective or are better tolerated than conventional antipsychotics.'” In 2005, an NIH study concluded the same.
Researchers in the British government who had previously found that patients on the old neuroleptics had a “‘very poor’ quality of life,” concluded in 2007 that patients on the old drugs had a better quality of life than on the new antipsychotics.
Watson concludes:
a) “Antipsychotics increase the likelihood that a person will become chronically ill.
b) Long-term recovery rates are much higher for unmedicated patients than for those who are maintained on antipsychotic drugs.
c) Antipsychotics cause a hot of debilitating physical, emotional and cognitive side effects, and lead to early death.
d) The new ‘atypical’ antipsychotics are not better than the old ones in terms of their safety and tolerability, and quality of life may even be worse on the new drugs than on the old ones.
e) Being diagnosed with any psychiatric disorder, such as Schizophrenia, does not indicate there is a biological disease or true medical illness, and it does not indicate that a person suffering needs to be medicated…..psychiatric medication as an intervention is a way to control behavior, thoughts, or feelings in lieu of physical restraint. It is not treatment. Finding the true reason and underlying meaning within the persons suffering however, is treatment of the person.
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