Medication Madness – Part I
Pharmaceutical companies have perpetrated an incredible fraud upon the medical profession and millions of patients through deceptive research, business practices and advertising regarding the safety and effectiveness of antidepressants, tranquilizers, neuroleptics, amphetamine stimulants, mood stabilizers and sleep medication since the early 1990s.
In his book, Medication Madness, Dr. Peter Breggin communicates with authority that is based upon his over 40 years of clinical experience, research and writing as a psychiatrist. He methodically builds the case that psychiatric drugs do not improve emotional or mental problems; rather they cause serious, harmful effects in many people who take them that can lead to “mayhem, murder, and suicide.” Breggin explains how this occurs by relating real stories of individuals whose lives were adversely affected by the use of psychiatric drugs.
Note that I wrote that these drugs cause harmful “effects” rather than side effects. Psychiatric drugs work by altering normal brain function by disrupting the neurotransmitters uptake. There is no scientific proof that people have mental or emotional problems caused by an imbalance in some chemical in the brain. There is a host of scientific evidence though that demonstrates the deleterious effects that psychiatric drugs have on the mental and emotional activity of those who take them. Psychiatric drugs cause or exacerbate mental or emotional problems in many of the patients who use them.
Breggin discusses the spellbinding effect that psychiatric drugs have on those individuals who take them. Spellbinding prevents the users of psychiatric drugs from realizing that the deterioration in their inability to discern right from wrong, their inability to control violent impulses or comprehend the consequences of their violent actions are caused by the drug that they have been prescribed. It is an involuntary intoxication. These psychiatric drugs can cause akathisia, (severe restlessness), agitation, amnesia, anger, anxiety, apathy, depersonalization, depression, delusions, hallucinations, hostility, irritability, impulsive actions, manic euphoria, obsessive compulsive behavior, overstimulation, paranoia, and suicidal and homicidal thoughts and actions.
This deception by the drug companies has been perpetrated on the American public with the collusion of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Millions of patients have suffered severe and debilitating side effects, even suicide, from the use of antidepressants, antianxiety and other psychiatric drugs or from withdrawal reactions that can occur with the discontinuation of these drugs. Psychoactive drugs are addictive. This is what creates the withdrawal reactions seen in the vast majority of patients who try to stop using them.
Let’s consider the antidepressants. There are two major classes of prominently used antidepressants, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI), e.g., Prozac, and the Serotonin Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRI), e.g., Effexor. These antidepressants operate by the same biochemical mechanism as cocaine which is a super neurotransmitter reuptake inhibitor. Cocaine boosts the levels of three (3) neurotransmitters; serotonin, noradrenalin and dopamine. Drug companies researched and developed drugs that mimicked the effects of cocaine. Now you understand why antidepressants are addictive.
Sincerely yours,
Steven F. Hotze, M.D.
