Prozac for Pets

The FDA has approved a reformulated version of the much-prescribed SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) Prozac (fluoxetine hydrochloride), but this one is just for dogs. Reconcile was created to treat canine separation anxiety. It is a once-daily, chewable, dog-treat-flavored drug that is supposed to be used "in conjunction with a behavior modification plan." Reconcile is manufactured for Elanco Animal Health, a division of Eli Lilly and Company. Of course Prozac, even for dogs, has some pretty hefty side effects: "The most common adverse events reported in decreasing order of reported frequency are: decreased appetite, depression / lethargy, shaking / shivering / tremor, vomiting, restlessness and anxiety, seizures, aggression, diarrhea, mydriasis, vocalization, weight loss, panting, confusion, incoordination, and hypersalivation." On October 15, 2004 the FDA ordered pharmaceutical companies to add a "black box" warning to all antidepressants because the drugs could cause suicidal thoughts and actions in children and teenagers. The agency also directed the manufacturers to print and distribute medication guides with every antidepressant prescription and to inform patients of the risks. Dogs were not mentioned. Many other side effects of Prozac in people have been documented, such as hallucinations, hostility, mood swings, panic attacks, paranoia, psychotic episodes, seizures, violent behavior, and withdrawal symptoms. Would you want your dog, or your neighbor's dog, to be taking Prozac on top of existing behavior problems, given the known link between violence and Prozac in people? In fact, Reconcile is specifically not recommended for the treatment of aggression. Read the full article at http://www.anh-usa.org/prozac-for-pets/. The newer antidepressants, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) emerged in the late 1980s/1990s, marketed as being capable of selectively targeting a chemical—serotonin—in the brain that was theorized to influence depression. This has remained a theory only, and is no more than a theory when considered for dogs. Serotonin (of which about only 5% is found in the brain) is one of the chemicals by which brain cells signal each other. SSRIs prevent serotonin from being naturally reabsorbed and thus create continued stimulation of cells. Psychiatry has been targetting you and your children, and now it is targetting your pets. In 1998 Alan I. Leshner, psychiatrist and former head of the National Institute of Drug Abuse stated: "My belief is that today, you [the physician] should be put in jail if you refuse to prescribe SSRIs for depression." Today, a physician, and now a veterinarian, can be criticized, bullied and treated like a "fringe" dweller for practicing traditional, workable, diagnostic medicine. The coercive undercurrent characterizing psychiatry is manifest in many ways, and wherever it meddles, it is destructive of certainty, pride, honor, industry, integrity, peace of mind, well-being and sanity. These are qualities that we must fight to preserve not only for ourselves, but also for our animal dependents. For more information, download and read the CCHR booklet, "Psychiatric Hoax — The Subversion of Medicine — Report and recommendations on psychiatry's destructive impact on health care."

People’s Pharmacy: Antidepressants carry suicide risk

QUESTION: A family member took his life while on Cymbalta. He never had been depressed, but when he explained to his physician the suicidal thoughts he was having, the physician doubled his dose of Cymbalta, added Abilify and told him to come back in a week. He died by his own hand instead.

ANSWER: The Food and Drug Administration requires a highlighted warning for Cymbalta and similar drugs: "Antidepressants increased the risk compared to placebo of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents, and young adults in short-term studies of major depressive disorder and other psychiatric disorders. … Patients of all ages who are started on antidepressant therapy should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, or unusual changes in behavior."

More: http://www.psychsearch.net/psych_news/?p=1908

Sex therapist ordered to stop treating women

A Plantation sex therapist was ordered by the Department of Health to stop seeing female patients after a 36-year-old woman accused him of engaging in sexual contact with her. State regulators Thursday ordered N. Jay Tow, a Plantation sex therapist, to stop treating female patients in private after the state surgeon general concluded that the therapist had confessed lurid details of his own sex life to a 36-year-old female patient and engaged in "sexual physical contact" with her during a therapy session. Read the full article: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/06/2442233/sex-therapist-ordered-to-stop.html#ixzz1a6j8hckr

No Benefit, Possible Harm From Routine Depression Screening

Routine screening for depression in primary care, as recommended by organizations in the United States and Canada, has not been shown to be beneficial, and may even be harmful, according to new research published online September 19 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. In addition, in this era of
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Dope Smok'n Largo Psych in Trouble with the Department of Health

Largo, Florida psychiatrist Ronald Knaus was arrested on July 2, 2010 in nearby Clearwater for possession of marijuana. The police initially approached him due to a handgun in his waistband, per the police report. He pleaded no-contest in open court and was sentenced.

But the story does not end there.
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Mental Health Counselor Gets 35 Years in Prison

By Jay Weaver
The Miami Herald

A federal judge Monday (9/19/2011) issued another lengthy sentence in one of the nation's biggest mental-health fraud cases, sending a Miami therapist to prison for 35 years.

The sentencing of Marianella Valera, 40, came only days after the same judge sent her 49-year-old boyfriend, Lawrence Duran, to prison for 50 years. The pair ran Miami-based American Therapeutic Corp, which prosecutors say defrauded the taxpayer-funded Medicare program of more than $200 million.

The couple's company, with clinics stretching from Miami to Fort Lauderdale to Orlando, collected $87 million in Medicare payments after submitting $205 million in false claims. The couple paid kickbacks to recruiters to supply patients suffering from dementia, Alzheimer's and addictions, but they could not have benefited from the company's purported group therapy sessions.

Valera and Duran also threw "charting" parties, where they and other American Therapeutic employees altered patients' records to make it look like they needed the purported group therapy sessions when they didn't.

A total of 34 people, including American Therapeutic employees, doctors, therapists, nurses and recruiters, have been charged in the ongoing fraud case, which is being investigated by the FBI and Health and Human Services-Office of Inspector General.

Previously, federal agents busted 42 South Florida suspects on Medicare fraud charges as part of a Justice Department sweep, including the owners of Biscayne Milieu Health Center, a Fort Lauderdale psychiatrist, Dr. Gary Kushner, patient recruiters and assisted living facility landlords. Out-of-state patients, suffering from disabilities and addictions, were lured to South Florida with the promise of a roof over their head. But once they arrived, with their valuable Medicare cards in hand, they would be squeezed into rundown assisted-living facilities and steered to purported mental-health programs — at a multimillion-dollar cost to taxpayers, authorities say. If they dropped out of the group therapy sessions, the assisted living facility owners would toss the patients out into the street.

Crime in Mental Health Care

For decades psychiatrists and psychologists have claimed a monopoly over the field of mental health. Governments and private health insurance companies have provided them with billions of dollars every year to treat "mental illness," only to face industry demands for even more funds to improve the supposed, ever-worsening state of mental health. No other industry can afford to fail consistently and expect to get more funding.

A significant portion of these appropriations and insurance reimbursements has been lost due to financial fraud within the mental health industry, an international problem estimated to cost more than a hundred billion dollars every year. The United States loses approximately $100 billion to health care fraud each year, with up to $40 billion of this due to fraudulent practices in the mental health industry.

For more information about psychiatric fraud, download and read the free CCHR booklet, Massive Fraud – Psychiatry’s Corrupt Industry – Report and recommendations on the criminal mental health monopoly.

Parents' Rights: The Brave Detroit Mother Who Stood up to Child Protective Services

The case of Maryanne Godboldo and the defense of her daughter against forced drugging by the state has quickly become legendary.

Earlier this year Godboldo, the mother of a 13-year old girl, was being accused of neglecting her child by refusing to administer the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, a drug so dangerous it is documented by international drug regulatory agencies to cause aggression, cardiac arrest, fatal blood clots, liver failure, mania, suicide and violence. Child Protective Services, accompanied by armed police officers, a SWAT team and a tank, arrived at her door with a court order to take her child away.

So what did Godboldo do? A 12-hour standoff ensued, and this mother, who was simply acting within her rights to protect her child from harm, was arrested.

Months later a web of lies and deceit involving Child Protective Services has been uncovered, and Maryanne Godboldo is not only still fighting, but winning the battle.

Click here to read more about the twisted web of lies in the Maryanne Godboldo case.

Click here to read how Johnson and Johnson, Risperdal's drug makers, currently face $1 billion in federal and state lawsuits.

Mental Health scammers plead guilty in massive scam

Duran and Valera, who each pleaded guilty this year to Medicare fraud charges of running the biggest mental-health racket in the nation, face the prospect of spending the rest of their lives in prison for orchestrating the $205 million scam…

In the past year, Duran and Valera were charged along with 32 other American Therapeutic employees, psychiatrists, counselors, nurses, marketers, patient recruiters and others who supplied Medicare beneficiaries in exchange for kickbacks. American Therapeutic billed Medicare for thousands of patients, including many with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, who had no way of benefiting from the company’s costly group-therapy sessions, prosecutors said.

Duran and several of the employees also held “charting” parties, where they would falsify the medical records of beneficiaries to make it look like they needed therapy when they actually didn’t.

About a dozen of the defendants have been convicted, including Duran and Valera’s top aides, Margarita Acevedo, who ran the marketing operation to bring in patients, and Judith Negron, who was in charge of a subsidiary, MedLink, which laundered Medicare profits to pay employees and kickbacks. Another employee, Joseph Valdes, who worked under Acevedo, also pleaded guilty.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/09/13/2405602/miami-couple-faces-lengthy-sentence.html#ixzz1Y28e7Ou2