Industry of Death - Focus on Psychiatry

The following video documentation in 7 volumes reveals detail by detail how the madness of ubiquitous diseases, especially psychiatric diagnoses.


they present a range of eye-opening statistics, regarding death toll, numbers of people commited and the drugging of 543 million worldwide - so far.


/2xo77k


they liken treatment in 'institutions' to torture. it is.

Psychiatry is nothing more than a psuedoscience. And a poor one at that.

Yes but in some people lives it can be used to destroy them and keep them away from the rest of society for a very long time. So it may be a psuedoscience and a poor one at that, but people treat it like it's the holy testament of human behaviour and what is acceptable vs not acceptable.

I have my own reservations about Psychiatrists, but I think for the most part they are just doing what they have to in order to help the patient. There are surely enough cases of them precribing the wrong medications and/or holding certain people against their will, and I am not here to debate that point. My sister, for one, would agree with the "torture" that goes on in certain institutions. However, it is really based upon a person's viewpoint on the issue...a psychiatrist is trying to do what they can to cure a person just like a physician and if that means loading them with medicine then so be it. It could be argued, although, that many of them keep patients overly medicated to the point that the medications themselves screw with the person.

Psychologists, on the other hand, I have never found to be of much help. Every one of them I have known seem to skirt around the real issues that people have, and never delve into the persons past to try and help the person realize who they are because of what they were or what once happened to them to cause them to behave a certain way.

did you watch the part where they bring up the cases of well-insured people they kept confined indefintely, while those who lost insurance or had none to begin with were suddenly declared sane released again? or the part where sex offenders' ratios were compared between various medical professions? (it's part 3 i think)

whatever you call it, the flouxetine and other psycho-drug epidemic grows on the dung heaps of psychiatry. who prescribes them ? might as well be GPs, does not change my point, medication as a way of life is wrong and perverted.

Originally posted by Long Lance
medication as a way of life is wrong and perverted

I'm not so sure about this. For some people, medication has become a way of life to insure they stay well, and until there is a better method they have no choice. Natural remedies don't work at least 9 out of 10 times, and most of them are just outright fraudulent, unscientific, and untested. Long term therapy can be an excellent way to help people, but then again, we end up right where this topic began.

So, are current medications primitive? You bet they are. Most medications have not been around for longer than 50 years; many shorter than that. Nevertheless in continuation from that thought, I do believe that as time progresses better medicines and viable alternatives to those will come into existance, but for the time being most people have no other choice but to give the medications a chance.

Physicians and Psychiatrists are not out to get everyone and drug them into a state of delusion and trance like states. They are simply doing their job with what primitive medications we currently have. Just be glad you don't live in an age where the practice of Phlebotomy (bloodletting, for the uninitiated) is considered normal and a practical remedy for many problems that are now treated with medications.

i don't care if they're primitive and i don't care if alternatives got a bad reputation for whatever reason.

there's an old thread you might want to take a look at, specifically starting at:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

if someone is permanently on meds, it means you're unable to cure, merely adressing symptoms and fostering addiction, err, dependence, if you wish. i'm not ruling out that this might happen to a few people, if 25% of school children ie. young people are classed as abnormal and put on speed, something is totally amiss, however. all these psycho drugs are treating elusive 'ailments' which have their basis in statistics but not in science. psychic issues are never cured, just controlled, and most of these substances do have severe side ffects and they cause addiction.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

just to give you an idea. medication as a lifestyle btw, is supposed to imply that drugs aren't taken in need, but rather because it's fashionable to feel good at all times, even when you shouldn't.

Originally posted by Jazzerman
Natural remedies don't work at least 9 out of 10 times, and most of them are just outright fraudulent, unscientific, and untested. Long term therapy can be an excellent way to help people, but then again, we end up right where this topic began.

I completely disagree with the statement that natural remedies don't work 9 times out of 10. Natural remedies are more effective than prescription medications and do not have the side effects that prescription meds have.

Mankind has been healing itself with natural remedies for centuries. Cancer and many other illnesses are completely cureable with herbal remedies.

Western medicine creates prescription drugs that kill 100,000 people per year and hikes up the prices 500,000% over the cost of the raw ingredients. This is nothing but a money-making scam machine for the FDA. All of this information has already been exposed.


Here is a sample of articles:

Cures for cancer already exist, but not in the realm of chemical-based medicine, says holistic nutritionist

St. John's Wort proven more effective than antidepressant drugs for treating depression

Study: Hot chili pepper compound kills cancer without side effects

Modern medicine is little more than a grand con perpetrated by medical journals, drug companies and the FDA

U.S. pharmacies make tragic medication mistakes that injure or kill U.S. consumers; but FDA keeps warning us about Canada

Statistics prove prescription drugs are 16,400% more deadly than terrorists

Prescription drug deaths skyrocket 68 percent over five years as Americans swallow more pills

Merck caught in scandal to bury Vioxx heart attack risks, intimidate scientists and keep pushing dangerous drugs; Vioxx lawsuits now forming

The Cure Con: how you're being deceived by charities that claim to be racing for the cure for cancer and other chronic diseases

The "Race for the Cure" scam exposed: The cancer industry's guilt-powered shakedown of a gullible public

Doctor says herbal medicine can treat diabetes and typhoid fever

The great direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising con: how patients and doctors alike are easily influenced to demand dangerous drugs

Herbal remedy fights Hepatitis C liver disease

Consumer Reports Article Support FDA's Attempt To Regulate or Outlaw All Nutritional Supplements


You can find more articles here:

NewsTarget

Again, show me a few scientifically tested natural remedies that acutally work.

Annestacey...I have never heard of a natural remedy that will cure cancer, and I have no reason to believe there is one currently. I need to see some real lab confirmed results on this before I'm going to believe such a wild claim. There are a lot of people on these forums that make wild claims based only on their own opinion or on the opinions of outside sources that are frankly biased and untrustworthy. In fact, your own source, Newstarget, state in their disclaimer:

The information on this site is provided for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional advice of any kind.

So, someone show me scientifically supported information from a reliable source that natural and herbal remedies were found to work in a controlled environment...maybe the CDC, FDA, etc. for instance. If anything, including modern medicine or natural remedies, have not been rigorously tested then I pose the question...why trust them? It's as if everyone is out to get Pharmaceutical companies because they for the most part (no doubt there have been a few instances where they don't) virorously test everything that leaves their doors. Whereas most natural remedies have never been tested.

Also, the author on most of those articles on Newstarget is Mike Adams, the supposed "Health Ranger". Here is his personal website: Health Ranger to the Rescue. Look at the top of the page...you can even hire him as your communications evangelist! Nowhere on his site does it list his credentials, other than his own experiences with health related matters. On top of that look at all those pictures of him with his dog, hiking, feeding exotic birds. and bathing under waterfalls...surely we must all be convinced now that he knows the truth behind the evil big pharmaceutical companies. So, if we all buy his books, attend his lectures, subscribe to his newsletters then he can teach us how to to pose with dogs and bath under waterfalls for a mere astronomical fee. Surely if you see it on the internet it must be true...

This "Health Ranger" kind of reminds me of someone else, namely Kevin Trudeau, the author of "Natural Cures" who you can find here: Trudeau. You can also find him at the following websites for his widely known scams:

Federal Trade Commission

More...

Wiki

People like these two men are a dime a dozen. No scientific basis behind their claims, no credentials, shoddy websites, and the belief that we are all gullible enough to fall for their claims.

Go read the information for yourself. And go read the about the book "The Hundred Year Lie" at www.hundredyearlie.com.... Read the Slippery Slope Index on that website that talks about the synthetic chemicals that have been introduced over 100 years ago that is causing the illness and diseases of today that did not exist 100 years ago.

You can choose to believe it or not believe it. I did a test on myself to prove that chemicals in the food supply can cause anxiety and depression and that clean organic foods and herbs would eliminate anxiety and depression.

I was on antidepressant medication for over 6 years and believed what the doctors told me when they said that I had a 'chemical imbalance' and would probably have to stay on the meds indefinitely. I did my own research and discovered that there is no such thing as a natural chemical imbalance in the brain... and that the chemicals we take in to our bodies everyday cause all kinds of illnesses and disease (including mental illness). Plus, my research included the healing properties of organic fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains and herbs.

So I went off of my antidepressant medication and stopped consuming food that contains chemicals. I found that as long as I stay on chemical-free food, I have no anxiety or depression. But when I consume something that contains chemicals, my anxiety and depression return. Luckily it's temporary and all I have to do is get back on the chemical-free food and the mental issues disappear again.

Also I found that taking St John's Wort speeds up the elimination of anxiety and depression so when I feel it coming on because I've eaten something I should not have eaten, I can speed up the healing process. even faster.

The FDA has been exposed many times and continue to try to cover up their scams and lies but the truth can only be hidden for so long and people start to figure out the truth.

I will never again believe for one minute that anything synthetic could be healthy for me. Not ever. If you want to believe it, then it's your early death you're bringing on. I choose not to be a victim.

Originally posted by Jazzerman
Annestacey...I have never heard of a natural remedy that will cure cancer, and I have no reason to believe there is one currently. I need to see some real lab confirmed results on this before I'm going to believe such a wild claim.

It only seems like a wild claim to you because you've never heard of it. People have been curing disease for thousands of years using natural and herbal remedies. Modern medicine comes along and invents synthetic drugs, then covers up the truth about natural remedies because they want to make money. They cannot make the money if everyone is out there curing themselves with stuff they're growing in their back yards.

They have been very effective in using their propaganda to make society believe that natural medicine is nothing but quackery. And they've done a pretty good job of it too because most people believe it.


Here is the information about curing cancer with hot peppers:

Capsaicin -- the compound that makes chili peppers spicy -- can kill cancer cells without harming healthy cells, with no side effects, according to a new study by researchers at Nottingham University in the UK.
The study, led by Dr. Timothy Bates, found that capsaicin killed laboratory-grown lung and pancreatic cancer cells by attacking tumor cells' source of energy and triggering cell-suicide.

"This is incredibly exciting and may explain why people living in countries like Mexico and India, who traditionally eat a diet which is very spicy, tend to have lower incidences of many cancers that are prevalent in the Western world," Bates said.

Source: Study: Hot chili pepper compound kills cancer without side effects


Here is another article:

Capsaicin, the stuff that turns up the heat in jalapeños, not only causes the tongue to burn, it also drives prostate cancer cells to kill themselves, according to studies published in the March 15 issue of Cancer Research.
According to a team of researchers from the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in collaboration with colleagues from UCLA, the pepper component caused human prostate cancer cells to undergo programmed cell death or apoptosis.

Capsaicin induced approximately 80 percent of prostate cancer cells growing in mice to follow the molecular pathways leading to apoptosis. Prostate cancer tumors treated with capsaicin were about one-fifth the size of tumors in non-treated mice.

Source: Pepper Component Hot Enough to Trigger Suicide in Prostate Cancer Cells (press release)

Annestacey...I know what you are getting at, and I do agree that a healthy diet without all the chemicals added into foods is a good thing. My own sister was on medications for depression and anxiety for quite awhile before she began to eat healthier. However, this is completely different than saying natural remedies can cure cancer, viral infections, etc.

If your symptoms of depression, etc. lessened when you started a healthy diet then it was merely the contaminants that were being decreased in your body, thus clearing your body of those chemicals. It was not because of the new foods or herbal supplements you were taking, it was because of the lack of comtaminants in your body.

Now, don't get me wrong. I live as healthy as I can, and I exercise regularly and eat plenty of fruits and veggies (I'm nearly a vegetarian), I have never drank alcohol, never done drugs, never smoked...in fact, I have never even drank soda pop! It was a conscious choice I made a long time ago, and I know that I have had very few medical problems because of it. However, as I explained above, it's because there is a distinct LACK OF CONTAMINANTS in my body that I live with no problems either mental or physical...not because I eat healthy.

Eating healthy is completely different than these so-called natural remedies that once again, have no scientific basis behind them and claim to cure cancers and the like. So yes, eating a balanced diet and exercising can extend your life's longevity as you have noticed, but the differentiation must be made between:

-Natural remedies resulting in the control and/or cure of disease

and

-Lack of contaminating chemicals contributing to the immune systems response to disease

Are you simply removing the chemicals with a nutritional diet lessing the symptoms of whatever ails you, or actually curing a disease by taking natural remedies? They are two completely different things.

Originally posted by Jazzerman
So, someone show me scientifically supported information from a reliable source that natural and herbal remedies were found to work in a controlled environment...maybe the CDC, FDA, etc. for instance. If anything, including modern medicine or natural remedies, have not been rigorously tested then I pose the question...why trust them? It's as if everyone is out to get Pharmaceutical companies because they for the most part (no doubt there have been a few instances where they don't) virorously test everything that leaves their doors. Whereas most natural remedies have never been tested.

By the way... a lot of the so-called "controlled testing" done by the drug companies are rigged to cover-up negative data in order to get the drugs approved.

So we have a two-stage cover up that is now beginning to unfold. First, we have the pharmaceutical companies, the makers of antidepressant drugs, who are covering up the negative clinical data by burying it and refusing to forward it to the FDA, and then, in stage two, we have the FDA attempting to make sure the public doesn't find out about these links by pressuring staffers who have conducted reviews of the clinical data and were about to step forward and warn the public about these horrifying links between prescription drugs and violent behavior.

In any other industry, this would be considered criminal activity. It would immediately be investigated by the FBI or perhaps the GAO. There would be national headlines and congressional investigations. People would go to jail for this kind of activity, especially when it involves compromising the health of tens of millions of Americans. And yet, somehow, amazingly, all of this gets overlooked in today's political climate, where pharmaceutical drugs are assumed to be perfectly safe regardless of how many people are killed by them.

Source: Pharmaceutical companies and the FDA continue to suppress negative information about antidepressant drugs and violent behavior


Here are more articles:

The FDA Exposed: An Interview With Dr. David Graham, the Vioxx Whistleblower


FDA's own scientists report pattern of intimidation, censorship and scientific fraud that undermines public safety

Massive medical fraud exposed: pharmaceutical company paid doctors to prescribe drugs and run sham clinical trials


Ketek drug scandal reveals pattern of scientific fraud at the FDA

FDA advisory panels rigged; agency rubber stamps drug approvals to please Big Pharma


So you're asking why would you trust natural and herbal medicines if they haven't been rigorously tested, but these medicines are not going to harm you as long as you're not overdosing on them. And even then you might feel a bit sick but I seriously doubt you would die from it.

I would trust natural and herbal meds way before I would trust synthetic drugs that are not natural to the body and are also not vigorously tested.

Prescription drugs kill 100,000 people per year and the FDA gets away with it and covers it up. Why would you trust them?

I can make all kinds of beverages and meals with natural items such as tomatos, peppers, carrots, celery and add natural spices to them and it's not going to hurt me at all. But if I extract natural ingredients from natural plants and make medications of them, there's something wrong and dangerous about them? That doesn't make any sense. Natural remedies haven't been tested because they're "natural". They don't need to be tested. Are you going to test every recipe you make that contains natural fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, herbs and grains? No. Because you know they're healthy (unless they're filled with pesticides that the FDA tries to say are fit for human consumption).

Ok I'm done for now.

Understand that all of these tests that prove cancer can be cured with natural foods and herbs... you're not going to hear about them in the mainstream news. The only way you're going to learn about it through the internet or published books and articles. We're not supposed to know this stuff. The FDA even makes attempts to take down these websites that are trying to help educate people on healthy living.

People really are being cured of diseases using natural remedies. You just have to go out there and find them.

Originally posted by Jazzerman
Are you simply removing the chemicals with a nutritional diet lessing the symptoms of whatever ails you, or actually curing a disease by taking natural remedies? They are two completely different things.

They seem like two different things to you but they really do go hand in hand. Disease is caused by the chemicals. You can lessen your chances of getting a disease by reducing the chemicals in your body. But if you DO get a disease, these same foods can be used medicinally to cure the disease. Certain foods and herbs contain certain healing properties that allow the body to cure itself based on what the ailment is.

You can eat hot peppers to keep yourself healthy and disease-free or you can eat them to cure the disease. It all works and is designed to work that way by nature. There is no synthetic drug that can be that pure and healing.

One more thing to add.

Another good resource is the Cosmetics Safety Database. This database contains thousands of products including makeup, cleansers, lotions, toothpastes, deodorants, fragrances, baby care products and more that contain highly toxic chemicals.

Each item is rated on a scale from 0 to 10 with 10 being the most toxic and 0 being the safest.

It will shock you to find out the deadly toxins that are in almost every personal care product that we use.

There are so many ways that the food industry, cosmetics industry and pharmaceutical industries are poisoning us right under our noses, yet advertising all of it and telling us how wonderful and healthy they are.


The Cosmetic Safety Database: www.cosmeticdatabase.com

Thanks for reading.

Originally posted by annestacey
Understand that all of these tests that prove cancer can be cured with natural foods and herbs... you're not going to hear about them in the mainstream news. The only way you're going to learn about it through the internet or published books and articles. We're not supposed to know this stuff.

Yeah, because the internet is such a reliable source of information. I mean, why should we be trusting our physicans to know what is best for us when Joe Schmoe "Health Ranger" can save the day! You know the real reason we don't hear about a cure for cancer through natural remedies...because there isn't one.

Again, and I don't know how many times I have to repeat this, until a drug or therapy can be proven effective it must go through rigorous testing on many subjects. Also, the results from those tests will have to be repeatable by an independant source and all the trials results will have to have the same conclusions. Natural remedies have yet to stand up to the same standards and scrutiny imposed on modern medicine, and I wonder why....

Because the results fluctuate enough to allow for many results with many test subjects. Therefore, how could anyone rely on these natural remedies when they cannot withstand even the most basic rules of the scientific method. Results have to be verified to work on many many test subjects before conclusions can be made about the general efficiency of said product. I have yet to see any evidence for this in the case of natural remedies as a cure for disease.

Cancer has existed for the duration of human existance. I wonder what people blamed it on before it was chemicals in the food... oh that's right... the gods were angry.

I'm thrilled you've found something that has cured your depression, annestacey, but one could argue equally well that it's a placebo (still works for you) and that advocating organic foods over a prescribed medication could have serious health risks to someone.

There are also very different types of "mental health" problems. To the person who suffers mild, but persistent depression, something so little as a life-style change could spark a rejuvenation of sorts.

What of the other people with serious persistant problems, though? I had a coworker once who had several "mental" problems, least of which were bi-polar disorder and depression. She also had a "christian" hang-up about taking her medicine (God made me the way I am...) She'd be fine for months, working diligently, calmly... a normal employee, and then there'd be two weeks of flake-outs, call-ins, and no-shows until she wound up in a mental hospital for a week. The cause was always that she'd stopped taking her meds.

One of my wife's friends led a reclusive, almost spinster life for 28 years, having descended into a world of self-deluded fantasy. After realizing she'd be alone her entire life due to her condition, she sought therapy, and after just a few months of therapy and a low-dosage medication, she found a boy-friend and has started branching out.

I've witnessed the other side of the story, however, where my brother had a breakdown and was shuttled around a mental hospital (even the padded room temporarily) for almost a month, being pumped full of drugs, while doctors tried in vain to figure out what was wrong with him. All told, it turned out to be a *SEVERE* potassium deficiency brought on by rapid weightloss due to some diet he was following. They got him straightened nutritionally and he was fine.

So yeah... a lot of misdiagnoses happens, and far too many people are probably over-medicated, but sometimes the psychiatric field can be a great help.

In recent years there has been a proliferation of psychiatric disorders. The pharmaceutical industry in cahoots with the psychiatric industry has for a long time been on the trail of inventing new diseases to throw their drugs at and, if a pill stays on the shelf for too long, they find new illnesses to throw it at. Normal human responses and conditions are, according to this money-hungry machine, very serious illnesses and disorders which can only be treated with mountainloads of drugs.

Shy people have Social Anxiety Disorder, nervous people have GAD, kids who are just being kids have ADHD and women with PMT are all of a sudden plagued with the incurable (but according to Eli Lilly eminently treatable with repackaged Prozac as Sarafem) PMDD or Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder (See: Old drug for a 'new' female disorder).

And what about Panic Disorder? Is it really a true psychiatric condition? I'm very uneasy about this label since it was a term concocted by Upjohn/Pharmacia (now owned by Pfizer) to promote their drug Xanax. Like many other disease-mongering drugs companies they "bought" psychiatrists to write it up and persuade the FDA to approve it, but the majority of people I have spoken to these last few years suffer from panic as an iatrogenic condition. Anxiety isn't a disease but drugs companies aided and abetted by their legal pushers have turned it in to one. Benzodiazepines (all of them) cause, exacerbate and prolong the symptoms of anxiety and beguile the user into believing that these drugs are of benefit. It's an awful trap to be caught in but millions unwittingly buy into the lie.

"Panic Disorder is an 'illness' specifically invented to market Xanax/alprazolam. This is described by Dr David Healy in his book "The Psychopharmacologists". Also I agree that panic attacks are often iatrogenic or drug-induced. The ones I hear of are often people coming off benzos, starting antidepressants (especially SSRIs) or as a result of cannabis," according to Professor Heather Ashton.

"Healy points out that drug companies "are now not simply confined to finding drugs for diseases. They have the power to all but find diseases to suit the drugs they have". ... One of many examples of this process was the development in the 1970s of alprazolam (Xanax) for panic disorder. According to David Sheehan (Institute for Research and Psychiatry, Tampa, Florida), the marketing of this drug involved a "clear strategy" to take advantage of the medical profession's confusion in the classification of anxiety disorders; "to create a perception that the drug had special and unique properties that would help it capture market share and displace diazepam from the top position... There was in fact nothing unique in this regard about Xanax... benzodiazepines were all good for panic disorder." Xanax was marketed by Upjohn with F.D.A. approval of doses up to 6mg daily (equivalent to 60-120mg diazepam). It is perhaps no coincidence, as Healy observes, that the effective incidence of panic disorders has grown 1000-fold since 1980." - Professor Heather Ashton, DM, FRCP, A View from the Shoulders of Giants, A Review of David Healy's "The Psychopharmacologists III", September, 2001.

What do you make of Explosive Brain Disorder? Note that this relies so heavily on the "chemical imbalance in the brain" hocus-pocus. Do they really expect us to fall for these scams? This merry-go-round seems unstoppable. The drugs companies have whole truckloads of drugs to sell and they're always coming up with new "diseases" to throw them at aided and abetted by the legions of willing doctors. Are these people really concerned about your health and well-being or do they just wish to drug you from the cradle to the grave and carry your cash to the bank? Do governments perhaps have a vested interest in keeping you sick, drugged, dependent and docile?

First, you market the disease... then you push the pills to treat it

First, you market the disease... then you push the pills to treat it

Brendan I Koerner on the ugly truth about doctors, PR firms and drug companies

Tuesday July 30, 2002
The Guardian

Word of the hidden epidemic began spreading in spring last year. Local news reports around the United States reported that as many as 10 million Americans suffered from an unrecognised disease. Viewers were urged to watch for the symptoms: restlessness, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, nausea, diarrhoea, and sweating, among others. Many of the segments featured soundbites from Sonja Burkett, a patient who had finally received treatment after two years trapped at home by the illness, and from Dr Jack Gorman, an esteemed psychiatrist at Columbia University.
The disease was generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), a condition that, according to the reports, left sufferers paralysed with irrational fears. Mental-health advocates called it "the forgotten illness". Print periodicals were awash with stories of young women plagued by worries over money and men. "Everything took 10 times more effort for me than it did for anyone else," one woman told the Chicago Tribune. "The thing about Gad is that worry can be a full-time job. So if you add that up with what I was doing, which was being a full-time achiever, I was exhausted, constantly exhausted."

The timing of the media frenzy was no accident. On April 16 2001, the US food and drug administration (FDA) had approved the antidepressant Paxil, made by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, for the treatment of Gad. But it was a little-known ailment; according to a 1989 study, as few as 1.2% of the US population merited the diagnosis in any given year. If GlaxoSmithKline hoped to capitalise on Paxil's newapproval, it would have to raise Gad's profile.

That meant revving up the company's public-relations machinery. The widely featured quotes from Burkett were part of a "video news release" the drug maker had distributed to TV stations around the country; the footage also included the comments of Gorman, who has frequently served as a paid consultant to GlaxoSmithKline. On April 16 - the date of Paxil's approval - a patient group called freedom from fear released a telephone survey which revealed that "people with Gad spend nearly 40 hours per week, or a 'full-time job,' worrying". The survey mentioned neither GlaxoSmithKline nor Paxil, but the press contact listed was an account executive at Cohn & Wolfe, the drugmaker's PR firm.

The modus operandi of GlaxoSmithKline - marketing a disease rather than selling a drug - is typical of the post-Prozac era. "The strategy [companies] use - it's almost mechanised by now," says Dr Loren Mosher, a San Diego psychiatrist and former official at the national institute of mental health. Typically, a corporate-sponsored "disease awareness" campaign focuses on a mild psychiatric condition with a large pool of potential sufferers. Companies fund studies that prove the drug's efficacy in treating the afiction, a necessary step in obtaining FDA approval for a new use, or "indication". Prominent doctors are enlisted to publicly affirm the malady's ubiquity, then public-relations firms launch campaigns to promote the new disease, using dramatic statistics from corporate-sponsored studies. Finally, patient groups are recruited to serve as the "public face" for the condition, supplying quotes and compelling stories for the media; many of the groups are heavily subsidised by drugmakers, and some operate directly out of the offices of drug companies' PR firms.
The strategy has enabled the pharmaceutical industry to squeeze millions in additional revenue from the blockbuster drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a family of pharmaceuticals that includes Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, and Luvox. Originally approved solely as antidepressants, the SSRIs are now prescribed for a wide array of previously obscure afflictions - Gad, social anxiety disorder, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and so on. The proliferation of diagnoses has contributed to a dramatic rise in anti-depressant sales, which increased eightfold between 1990 and 2000.

For pharmaceutical companies, marketing existing drugs for new uses makes perfect sense: a new indication can be obtained in less than 18 months, compared to the eight years it takes to bring a drug from the lab to the pharmacy. Managed-care companies have also been encouraging the use of medication, rather than more costly psychotherapy, to treat problems such as anxiety and depression.

But while most health experts agree that SSRIs have revolutionised the treatment of mental illness, a growing number of critics are disturbed by the degree to which corporate-sponsored campaigns have come to define what qualifies as a mental disorder and who needs to be medicated.

When Paxil hit the market in 1993, the drug's manufacturer, then known as Smith-Kline Beecham, lagged far behind its competitors. Eli Lilly's Prozac, the first FDA-approved SSRI, had already been around for five years, and Pfizer had beaten Smith-Kline to the punch with Zoloft's debut in 1992. With only a finite number of depression patients to target, Paxil's sales prospects seemed limited. But SmithKline found a way to set its drug apart from the other SSRIs: it positioned Paxil as an anti-anxiety drug - a latter-day Valium - rather than as a depression treatment.

SmithKline was especially interested in a series of minor entries in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM), the psychiatric bible. Published by the American psychiatric association since the 1950s, the DSM is designed to give doctors and scientists a common set of criteria to describe mental conditions. Entries are often inuenced by cultural norms (until 1973, homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder) and political compromise: it is written by committees of mental-health professionals who debate, sometimes heatedly, whether to include specific disorders. The entry for GAD, says David Healy, a scholar at the college of medicine at the University of Wales and author of the 1998 book The Antidepressant Era, was created almost by default: "Floundering somewhat, members of the anxiety disorders subcommittee stumbled on the notion of generalised anxiety disorder," he writes, "and consigned the greater part of the rest of the anxiety disorders to this category."

Critics note that the DSM process has no formal safeguards to prevent researchers with drug-company ties from participating in decisions of interest to their sponsors. The committee that recommended the Gad entry in 1980, for example, was headed by Robert L Spitzer of the New York state psychiatric institute, which has been a leading recipient of industry grants to research drug treatments for anxiety disorders.

SmithKline's first forays into the anxiety market involved two fairly well-known illnesses - panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Then, in 1998, the company applied for FDA approval to market Paxil for something called social phobia or "social anxiety disorder" (SAD), a debilitating form of shyness the DSM characterised as "extremely rare".

Obtaining such a new approval is a relatively simple affair. The FDA considers a DSM notation sufficient proof that a disease actually exists and, unlike new drugs, existing pharmaceuticals don't require an exhaustive round of clinical studies. To show that a drug works in treating a new disease, the FDA often accepts in-house corporate studies.

With FDA approval for Paxil's new use virtually guaranteed, SmithKline turned to the task of promoting the disease itself. To "position social anxiety disorder as a severe condition", as the trade journal PR News put it, the company retained the New York-based public-relations firm Cohn & Wolfe. (Representatives of GlaxoSmithKline and Cohn & Wolfe did not return my phone calls.)

By early 1999 the firm had created a slogan, "Imagine Being Allergic to People", and wallpapered bus shelters nationwide with pictures of a dejected-looking man vacantly playing with a teacup. "You blush, sweat, shake-even find it hard to breathe," read the copy. "That's what social anxiety disorder feels like." The posters made no reference to Paxil or SmithKline; instead, they bore the insignia of a group called the social anxiety disorder coalition and its three non-profit members, the American psychiatric association, the anxiety disorders association of America, and freedom from fear.

But the coalition was not a grassroots alliance of patients in search of a cure. It had been cobbled together by SmithKline Beecham and Cohn & Wolfe handled all media inquiries on behalf of the group.

The FDA's advertising regulations also helped the Cohn & Wolfe strategy. "If you are carrying out a disease-awareness campaign, legally the company doesn't have to list the product risks, notes Barbara Mintzes, an epidemologist at the University of British Columbia's centre for health services and policy research. Because the "Imagine Being Allergic to People" posters did not name a product, they did not have to mention Paxil's side effects, which can include nausea, decreased appetite, decreased libido, and tremors.

Cohn & Wolfe's strategy did not end with posters. The firm also created a video news release, a radio news release, and gave journalists a press statement stating that SAD "affects up to 13.3% of the population," - one in eight Americans -and is "the third most common psychiatric disorder in the United States, after depression and alcoholism." By contrast, the diagnostic and statistical manual cites studies showing that between 3-13% of people may suffer the disease at some point in their lives, but that only 2% "experience enough impairment or distress to warrant a diagnosis of social phobia".

Cohn & Wolfe also supplied journalists with eloquent patients, helping to "put a face on the disorder", as account executive Holly White told PR News. Among the patients most frequently quoted in stories about social anxiety disorder was a woman named Grace Dailey, who had also appeared in a promotional video produced by Cohn & Wolfe.

Also on that video was Jack Gorman, the Columbia University professor who would later make the rounds on Paxil's behalf during the GAD media campaign, appearing on numerous television shows, including ABC's Good Morning America.

Gorman was not a disinterested party in Paxil's promotion. He has served as a paid consultant to at least 13 pharmaceutical firms, including SmithKline Beecham, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer. Another frequent talking head in the SAD campaign, Dr Murray Stein of the University of California at San Diego, has also served as a Smith-Kline consultant, and the company funded many of his clinical trials on SAD.

Cohn & Wolfe's campaign on SAD paid immediate dividends. In the two years preceding Paxil's approval, fewer than 50 stories on social anxiety disorder had appeared in the popular press. In May 1999, the month when the FDA handed down its decision, hundreds of stories about the illness appeared in US publications and television news programmes, including the New York Times, Vogue, and Good Morning America. A few months later, Smith-Kline launched a series of ads touting Paxil's efficacy in helping SAD sufferers brave dinner parties and public speaking. By the end of last year, Paxil had supplanted Zoloft as the nation's number-two SSRI, and its sales were virtually on par with those of Eli Lilly's Prozac. (Neither Prozac nor Zoloft has anapproval for SAD.)

The success of the Cohn & Wolfe campaign didn't escape notice in the industry: trade journals applauded GlaxoSmithKline for creating "a strong anti-anxiety position" and assuring a bright future for Paxil. Increasing public awareness of SAD and other disorders, the consulting firm Decision Resources predicted last year, would expand the "anxiety market" to at least $3bn by 2009.

* This is an edited excerpt from an article in Mother Jones magazine.

See also: Pharmaceutical companies have come up with a new strategy to market their drugs: First go out and find a new mental illness, then push the pills to cure it.

Originally posted by Jazzerman
Yeah, because the internet is such a reliable source of information. I mean, why should we be trusting our physicans to know what is best for us when Joe Schmoe "Health Ranger" can save the day! You know the real reason we don't hear about a cure for cancer through natural remedies...because there isn't one.

Our physicians are not trained to know about natural remedies. They are taught to prescribe drugs.

Again, and I don't know how many times I have to repeat this, until a drug or therapy can be proven effective it must go through rigorous testing on many subjects. Also, the results from those tests will have to be repeatable by an independant source and all the trials results will have to have the same conclusions. Natural remedies have yet to stand up to the same standards and scrutiny imposed on modern medicine, and I wonder why....

Most of the prescription drugs approved by the FDA do not go thru rigorous testing.

Because the results fluctuate enough to allow for many results with many test subjects. Therefore, how could anyone rely on these natural remedies when they cannot withstand even the most basic rules of the scientific method. Results have to be verified to work on many many test subjects before conclusions can be made about the general efficiency of said product. I have yet to see any evidence for this in the case of natural remedies as a cure for disease.

No they don't have to be verified to work on many many test subjects... blah blah blah. Natural remedies are "natural". They will affect each person differently in the same way that antidepressants affect each person differently. And antidepressants have been approved by the FDA while having the negative results covered up. They have killed thousands of people but that seems to be ok as long as whatever fabricated test results are shown to the public and the FDA says it's ok.

Remember for thousands of years, there was no FDA to "approve" anything and society was much safer than they are now.