Psychdata - Dedicated to exposing the fraud of psychiatry

Prozac for Pets

2011-10-17T09:19:00.002-04:00

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

2011-10-09T12:00:00.002-04:00

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

2011-10-09T11:45:00.002-04:00

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

2011-09-27T16:57:00.002-04:00

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

2011-09-21T13:21:00.002-04:00

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

2011-09-20T09:29:00.002-04:00

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

2011-09-16T08:53:00.002-04:00

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

2011-09-15T11:00:00.002-04:00

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

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

2011-09-14T08:54:00.002-04:00

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

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.

Dozens arrested in Medicare mental health fraud

2011-09-14T08:50:00.002-04:00

Sep 7th, 2011
By Jay Weaver
Miami Herald

Federal agents busted 42 South Florida suspects on Medicare fraud charges as part of a Justice Department sweep targeting hotspots from Miami to Los Angeles.

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 ALF owners would toss the patients out into the street.

Collectively, they’re accused of submitting $160 million in false claims to Medicare for services that were either not needed or provided to patients.

The biggest case was the new indictment of Biscayne Milieu and 23 defendants, including the family owners, a psychiatrist, Dr. Gary Kushner, patient recruiters and ALF operators. The clinic owners are accused of paying recruiters and landlords to lure out-of-state patients into the scheme.

Crime in Mental Health Care

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.

State suspends license of Orlando marriage and family therapist, cites 'sexual misconduct'

2011-09-08T14:42:00.002-04:00

http://tinyurl.com/4yranqg

The Florida Department of Health has suspended the license of an Orlando marriage and family therapist for what the state agency is calling sexual misconduct. Health officials said Aldo Ivan Rodriguez inappropriately touched two patients while working as a senior adult counselor for The Center for Drug-Free Living between 2008 and 2010.

The therapist is accused of rubbing the hands and thighs of a 28-year-old patient and touching her face during a counseling session. He also asked the woman, who was seeking therapy for an opioid dependence, about her "past sexual experiences," according the state's emergency suspension order. The woman was afraid to tell anyone about the incident, health officials said.

He's accused of rubbing a second patient's hands, legs and arms and running his fingers through her hair. Health officials said he also put his hands under the woman's shirt and on her stomach and "began to move his hands upward" until she pushed them away. He told the patient, who suffered bipolar disorder and alcohol and opioid abuse, that "she needed to learn that not all men wanted something from her and that he was trying to teach her 'good' touch," health officials said.

Rodriguez resigned from the center in January 2010 and went into a private practice. It wasn't until after his resignation that staff learned about the sexual misconduct, state health officials said. He met officials at the center a month later. He admitted to touching the patients, state health officials said.

He underwent a state evaluation this June. State officials said he "violated therapeutic boundaries" and should not see female patients on a one-to-one basis. State officials asked him to seek outpatient counseling and monitoring with the Professional Resource Network, but he failed to do so, according to the report.

Rodriguez could not be reached for comment. He's entitled to a hearing before a final decision on the case is rendered. A hearing has not been scheduled.

News article in full: http://tinyurl.com/4yranqg

Miami psychiatrist's license suspended for drug use

2011-08-20T10:47:00.002-04:00

The license of Evan Zimmer, a Miami psychiatrist who's had previous legal problems involving prostitutes and drug abuse, was suspended by an emergency state order this week after he tested positive in July for cocaine and marijuana.

The Florida Department of Health order noted that Zimmer, 60, "has a significant history of substance abuse" and "an inability to practice medicine with reasonable skill and safety."

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/19/2366708/miami-psychiatrists-license-suspended.html#ixzz1VZ9zryDG

ADHD video

2011-08-17T19:29:00.000-04:00

Pretty much says it all.

Parental Control Act

2011-08-17T19:26:00.002-04:00

Congressman Ron Paul has re-introduced The Parental Consent Act, a bill which prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program.

The Parental Consent Act 2011 (H.R. 2769 – previously H.R. 2218 in 2009) prohibits federal education funds from being used to pay any local educational agency or other instrument of government that uses the refusal of a parent or legal guardian to provide consent to mental health screening as the basis of a charge of child abuse, child neglect, medical neglect, or education neglect until the agency or instrument demonstrates that it is no longer using such refusal as a basis of such charge.

Click here to read more

"Difficulty playing quietly" -- the ADHD fraud

2011-08-17T19:25:00.002-04:00

ADHD—Labeling normal kids “mentally ill”
Click here to watch video

ADHD is a bogus mental “disorder” based only on a checklist of behaviors. There are no medical tests to prove any child has ADHD, yet more than 4.5 million kids have been diagnosed and put on drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta, which the U.S. DEA places in the same highly addictive category of drugs as cocaine, morphine and opium. According to the Center for Disease Control, boys are much more likely to be diagnosed “ADHD” than girls.

Prozac for pets? Give me a break

2011-08-16T18:11:00.002-04:00

Now Fido can have the same violent and psychotic breaks from SSRIs as humans.

The FDA has approved a reformulated version of the much-prescribed SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) Prozac, 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.”

Now this is getting insane.

Please support the new Citizen Petition to the FDA

Psychiatric Labeling

2011-08-02T08:53:00.002-04:00

"Confirmation bias" is a term used to describe the tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions regardless of whether the information is true.

As a result, people may gather evidence and recall information from memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way.

A recent paper ("Confirmation bias: why psychiatrists stick to wrong preliminary diagnoses", published 5/20/11 in Cambridge Journals Online) studied this phenomenon to find out whether psychiatrists and medical students are prone to confirmation bias, and whether this leads to poor diagnostic accuracy in psychiatry.

The results were revealing. After having made a preliminary diagnosis, it was common for the study participants to stick to this diagnosis, right or wrong, when presented with new information that could potentially change the diagnosis. Participants making a wrong diagnosis also prescribed different treatment options compared with participants choosing the correct diagnosis.

The paper concludes, "Confirmatory information search harbors the risk of wrong diagnostic decisions."

Now, couple this built-in bias with a blatantly fraudulent psychiatric diagnostic manual, and we get diagnostic mayhem and treatment nightmares.

The DSM IV (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, volume 4) is the current version of the psychiatrist's billing bible from which they must draw their diagnoses in order to collect insurance payments.

Using the DSM, a psychiatrist labels the patient with a "mental disorder", prescribes him a drug, and bills the patient's insurance. The psychiatrist with the DSM in hand can try various labels on the patient until he finds one that either fits the patient's symptoms or comes close enough to allow him to bill the patient's insurance.

As the diagnoses completely lack scientific criteria, anyone can be labeled mentally ill, and subjected to dangerous and life threatening "treatments" based solely on opinion.

Fraudulent diagnoses, harmful treatments, confirmation bias, and bogus labels = psychiatry's own psychosis, labeling everything a mental illness.

The Chantix Fraud

2011-08-01T15:44:00.001-04:00

A study published July 4, 2011 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal concluded that smokers who take Chantix, a smoking cessation drug, could increase their risk of heart problems.

The study found that there are "safety concerns about the potential for an increased risk of serious adverse cardiovascular events associated with the use of varenicline among tobacco users."

The heart problems are the latest in a growing list of concerns raised by patient reports, lawsuits and studies since the drug's approval in 2006.

The drug could cause changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, according to its warning label. Chantix carries a boxed warning -- the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's most restrictive safety labeling -- because of the risk of psychological events.

Chantix has been banned by the Federal Aviation Administration for pilots and air-traffic controllers because it may cause loss of consciousness and blackouts. Truck and bus drivers are also not allowed to take the drug.

Among all this is the apparently deliberate attempt to mislead the public regarding the true nature of Pfizer's Chantix. What are they not saying?

Guess what? Chantix is an addictive benzodiazepine-based psychotropic anti-anxiety drug.

That's a mouthful.

Just don't put it in your mouth.

It might just stop you from smoking - permanently.

Click here for more information about the side effects of psychiatric drugs.

Forest Labs' CEO Faces Exile

2011-07-29T11:21:00.002-04:00

The Forest Laboratories CEO, Howard Solomon, who built his company's fortune on the antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro, faces exile from the health-care industry.

On Apr. 12, Solomon learned that the Office of Inspector General (OIG) which handles the U.S. Health and Human Services Department's efforts to fight waste and fraud in government health programs, is considering "excluding" him. Technically, this means exclusion from doing business with federal health programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Affairs Department. Functionally, it means a ban from the entire health-care industry.

Forest's troubles began in 2001, when Joseph Piacentile, a non-practicing physician in N.J., filed an action alleging that Forest was providing kickbacks to doctors who prescribed Celexa. In 2003, Christopher Gobble, a salesman who had been fired in 2002 by Forest Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary, filed a whistleblower suit in federal court in Boston alleging that the company was illegally pushing doctors to prescribe its antidepressants to children.

In September 2010, more than seven years after Gobble filed his suit, Forest Pharmaceuticals pleaded guilty to three criminal charges and settled civil claims filed by the Justice Department with a $313 million fine. Forest admitted it obstructed the FDA by concealing information, distributed an unapproved thyroid drug, and illegally promoted Celexa for use by children and adolescents.

In March, Lewis Morris, chief counsel to the inspector general, testified to Congress that "we are concerned that the providers that engage in health-care fraud may consider civil penalties and criminal fines a cost of doing business" and said that the government is forced to allow major pharmaceutical makers that have been convicted of crimes and have paid millions in fines to continue to participate in health-care programs because of the "potential patient harm that could result from an exclusion" of an entire company.

Hence, the move currently under consideration by the OIG to hold the CEO accountable by excluding him personally from participating in federal health programs, and thus forcing him out of the company.

Read the full article in the July 18 Bloomberg Businessweek.

Celexa and Lexapro manufactured by Forest are addictive and harmful psychotropic drugs prescribed for fraudulent mental disorders. There are no physical tests or scientific evidence to substantiate the theory that a chemical imbalance in the brain causes depression or any mental disorder. SSRI's such as Celexa and Lexapro are no more effective than placebo, and can cause violence and suicide.

Click here for more information about the side effects of these drugs.

funding for health care

2011-07-14T08:48:00.002-04:00

Costs of Health Care

An article in The Economist (25 June 2011, "Mass observation") discussing the 2006 health care reform legislation in Massachusetts, and on which the current federal health care legislation was based in part, makes the point that, although the percent of those lacking health insurance in Massachusetts dropped from 6.4% to 1.9%, the costs of health care and health care insurance have increased, and according to The Economist these costs are "unsustainable."

Costs for MassHealth rose 40% between 2006 and 2010, and costs for the subsidized health program for adults was 32% more than expected in 2008 and 11% more than expected in 2009. Also, uninsured hospital visits in 2010 were 14% above the level in 2009. Insurance premiums rose 12% between 2006 and 2008.

There are so many ifs, ands and buts about these figures that it is hard to make generalizations. However, one thing we can say for sure is that there is a general unwillingness to acknowledge and confront the contribution of fraud to the rising costs of health care and health care insurance, in particular the amount of patient abuse and fraud in the mental health industry.

Mental health practitioners perpetrate more fraud than any other sector of medicine. The U.S. loses about $100 billion to health care fraud each year, and up to $40 billion of this is due to fraudulent practices in the mental health industry.

The mental health monopoly has practically zero accountability and zero liability for its failures. This has allowed psychiatrists and psychologists to commit far more than just financial fraud. The roster of crimes committed by these "professionals" ranges from fraud, drug offenses, rape and sexual abuse to child molestation, assault, manslaughter and murder.

With mental health care insurance coverage being mandated in the U.S. through state and federal legislation, levels of fraud and abuse can be expected to continue to escalate, in spite of health care reform legislation.

What is the alternative? Provide funding and insurance coverage only for proven, workable treatments that verifiably and dramatically improve or cure mental health problems.

For more information download and read the CCHR booklet, "Massive Fraud — Psychiatry's Corrupt Industry — Report and recommendations on the criminal mental health monopoly."

Florida psychiatrist pleads guilty to massive Medicare fraud

2011-07-01T11:23:00.001-04:00

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/June/11-crm-871.html

Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Miami-Area Psychiatrist Pleads Guilty for Role in $200 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme

WASHINGTON - A Miami-area psychiatrist pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Miami for his part in a fraud scheme that resulted in the submission of more than $200 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, the Department of Justice, FBI and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced.

Dr. Alan Gumer, 64, of Tamarac, Fla., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud. Gumer was charged on Feb. 15, 2011, with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and four counts of health care fraud.

According to court documents, Gumer was a psychiatrist at American Therapeutic Corporation (ATC), a Florida corporation headquartered in Miami. ATC purported to operate partial hospitalization programs (PHPs) in seven different locations throughout South Florida and Orlando. A PHP is a form of intensive treatment for severe mental illness.

Gumer admitted that he signed evaluations, notes and other documents in medical files for patients who did not need the treatment for which ATC billed Medicare. Specifically, as a psychiatrist, Gumer knew that the patients attending ATC did not need intensive mental health treatment, and that the treatments offered by ATC were not the type of intensive treatments a PHP should provide. Gumer admitted that he signed these files without examining the patients, or writing and reading the statements he was signing. Gumer also admitted to writing prescriptions for psychiatric medications for patients who did not need them in order to make it appear to Medicare that the patients qualified for PHP treatment. According to court documents, Gumer also referred hundreds of ATC patients to a related company, the American Sleep Institute (ASI), for unnecessary diagnostic sleep disorder testing.

According to court filings, Gumer’s co-defendants and ATC’s owners and operators paid kickbacks to owners and operators of assisted living facilities (ALFs) and halfway houses and to patient brokers in exchange for delivering ineligible patients to ATC and ASI. In some cases, the patients received a portion of those kickbacks. Throughout the course of the ATC and ASI conspiracy, millions of dollars in kickbacks were paid in exchange for Medicare beneficiaries, who did not qualify for PHP services, to attend treatment programs that were not legitimate PHP programs so that ATC and ASI could bill Medicare for more than $200 million in medically unnecessary services.

According to the plea agreement, Gumer’s participation in the fraud resulted in $19.3 million in fraudulent billing to the Medicare program. Sentencing for Gumer is scheduled for Jan 19, 2012. Gumer faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

ATC, its management company Medlink Professional Management Group Inc., and the owners and lead manager of ATC, Medlink and ASI, were charged with various health care fraud, money laundering and other offenses in a separate superseding indictment unsealed on Feb. 15, 2011. Two of the three owners and the lead manager, as well as both ATC and Medlink, have pleaded guilty and have admitted to the fraudulent scheme and that more than $200 million in billings were submitted to the Medicare program as a part of the scheme. They are scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 14, 2011, by U.S. District Court Judge James Lawrence King. The trial of the third owner charged in the separate superseding indictment is scheduled to begin on Aug. 15, 2011.

The remaining 17 co-defendants named in the indictment in which Gumer was charged are scheduled to stand trial on Nov. 7, 2011, before U.S. District Judge Patricia A. Seitz.

An indictment is merely an accusation and defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

Today’s guilty plea was announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida; John V. Gillies, Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI’s Miami field office; and Special Agent-in-Charge Christopher Dennis of the HHS Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG), Office of Investigations Miami office.

The criminal case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Jennifer L. Saulino of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section. The case was investigated by the FBI and HHS-OIG and was brought as part of the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, supervised by the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida.

Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations in nine locations have charged more than 1,000 defendants that collectively have billed the Medicare program for more than $2.3 billion. In addition, HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, working in conjunction with the HHS-OIG are taking steps to increase accountability and decrease the presence of fraudulent providers.

To learn more about the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT), go to: www.stopmedicarefraud.gov

The illusions of Psychiatry -- great article

2011-06-30T10:25:00.001-04:00

The Illusions of Psychiatry

by Marcia Angell in the New York Review of Books

This is a seriously great article exposing all the inner workings of psychiatry's billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), including the complete lack of medical legitimacy for psychiatric diagnoses, the birth of the psychiatric-pharmaceutical alliance to push DSM disorders off on an unsuspecting public, and the funding behind psychiatrists and their front groups pushing the brain based "disease" model which they all know is bogus.

"Unlike the conditions treated in most other branches of medicine, there are no objective signs or tests for mental illness—no lab data or MRI findings—and the boundaries between normal and abnormal are often unclear. That makes it possible to expand diagnostic boundaries or even create new diagnoses, in ways that would be impossible, say, in a field like cardiology. And drug companies have every interest in inducing psychiatrists to do just that."

Read the full article here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jul/14/illusions-of-psychiatry/

Expand Investigation of Psychiatrists

2011-06-29T14:58:00.001-04:00

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/editorials/check-up-on-djj-doctors-1565866.html?cxtype=rss_editorials

Check up on DJJ doctors

The Palm Beach Post

June 27, 2011

Anyone with an Internet connection can go online and see that Dr. Gold Smith Dorval is on probation with the Florida Board of Medicine and that his medical license was suspended because he stole money from Medicaid. Why, then, did the Department of Juvenile Justice allow him to treat children in state custody and prescribe powerful drugs for them?

DJJ's inspector general should expand her already ongoing investigation into the department's use of antipsychotic medications to answer that question. DJJ Secretary Wansley Walters ordered the inquiry after The Palm Beach Post reported that children in DJJ care are being prescribed heavy doses of the drugs.

A follow-up investigation by The Post's Michael LaForgia showed that several of the psychiatrists doing the prescribing have troubled pasts that, by law, should bar them from working for the agency.

"We will look," Ms. Walters said in an earlier interview, "at everything that surrounds this issue."

Certainly, the qualifications of the doctors employed by the agency falls into that category. As The Post reported, some psychiatrists working for DJJ were cited for overprescribing drugs that led to patient deaths. A simple background check can reveal much about a doctor's history. Even though DJJ requires such checks, in the case of Dr. Dorval and others, no one bothered.

DJJ does not have a system for tracking the medications taken by children in its care and has no way of knowing whether they actually need the prescriptions or if some of the doctors are drugging the kids simply to make them easier to control. When the doctor is someone like Charles Dack of Lakeland, who was disciplined for overprescribing drugs to a woman until she overdosed and died yet worked for DJJ until April, it's easy to suspect the latter. And that's unacceptable.

DJJ spokesman C.J. Drake said some doctors, such as Dr. Dorval, work for the agency through a third-party company. Those agencies should be required to prove that they have conducted background checks on all the doctors in their employ. Earlier this month, Georgetown University's Center for Juvenile Justice Reform announced that Florida is one of four states selected to participate in its Juvenile Justice System Improvement Project. "The fact that Florida stepped up and applied," said Shay Bilchik, founder and director of the center, "is a reflection of how seriously they take their responsibility."

The seriousness with which the agency addresses this issue will be an even better reflection of its commitment to reform.

- Rhonda Swan,

for The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board

Loser psychs treat kids in state custody

2011-06-20T12:46:00.001-04:00

Sohail Punjwani Gold Dorval

Cocaine Possession Grand Theft

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/dosed-in-juvie-jail-troubled-doctors-hired-to-1549240.html

Dosed in juvie jail: Troubled doctors hired to treat kids in state custody

Palm Beach Post

By Michael LaForgia

Sunday, June 19, 2011

By the time Florida started paying Dr. Gold Smith Dorval to counsel and medicate jailed children, the Pembroke Pines psychiatrist already had experience with kids in state custody.

He had used them, authorities said, to bilk the government out of money for the poor.

When Dorval pleaded no contest to a felony grand theft charge, it should have barred him, by law, from working for Florida's Department of Juvenile Justice.

It didn't.

And, like Dorval, other doctors have emerged from past troubles and gotten jobs at DJJ - with authority to prescribe drugs to kids in state jails, a Palm Beach Post investigation has found.

Some psychiatrists took DJJ jobs after they were cited for breaking the law, making grave medical missteps or violating state rules. Others were hired after they were accused of overmedicating patients, sometimes fatally.

All were empowered to prescribe drugs to jailed kids as powerful antipsychotic pills flowed freely into Florida's homes for wayward children.

"It's appalling. A psychiatrist is a psychiatrist. They're licensed, they've been to medical school, and there is a certain trust placed in that person's judgment when they tell you that this child needs to be medicated," said John Walsh, an attorney with the Palm Beach County Legal Aid Society who has represented children in juvenile court. "This just illustrates that we always have to be on guard with children."

To read Full Article, click here: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/dosed-in-juvie-jail-troubled-doctors-hired-to-1549240.html

America's Most Dangerous Pill? Klonopin

2011-06-13T09:10:00.001-04:00

What is America's most dangerous prescription drug? It's not Adderall or Oxy. It's Klonopin. And doctors are doling it out like candy, causing a surge of hellish withdrawals, overdoses and deaths.

Klonopin is the brand name for the generic clonazepam, which was originally brought to market in 1975 as a medication for epileptic seizures. Since then, Klonopin, along with the other drugs in this class, has become a prescription of choice for drug abusers from Hollywood to Wall Street. In the process, these substances have also earned the dubious distinction of being second only to opioid painkillers like OxyContin as our nation's most widely abused class of drug.

Klonopin is used as an anti-anxiety drug, in the class of drugs that are also called minor tranquilizers, benzodiazepines or sedative hypnotics. Daily use of these drugs is associated with physical dependence, and addiction can occur after only 14 days of regular use. The typical consequences of withdrawal are anxiety, depression, sweating, cramps, nausea, psychotic reactions and seizures. There is also a "rebound effect" where the individual experiences even worse symptoms than they started with as a result of chemical dependency.

Alcoholics and drug addicts are most likely to run into Klonopin during detox, when it is used to prevent seizures and control the symptoms of acute withdrawal. Klonopin takes longer to metabolize and passes through the system more slowly than other benzodiazepines, so in theory you don't need to take it so frequently. But if you like the high it gives you, and keep increasing your dosage, the addictive effects of the drug accumulate quickly and can often be devastating. The drug's label clearly specifies that it is "recommended" only for short-term use—say, seven to 10 days—but once exposed to the pill's seductive side-effects, many patients come back for more. And not surprisingly, many doctors are happy to refill prescriptions to meet this consumer demand.

Read much more about this at

http://www.cchrint.org/2011/06/02/americas-most-dangerous-pill-klonopin/

and find out more about psychiatric drug side effects at

http://www.cchrstl.org/sideeffects.shtml.

Creating juvenile zombies, Florida-style

2011-06-08T16:47:00.001-04:00

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/28/2240617/creating.html

Miami Herald

Creating juvenile zombies, Florida-style

May 28, 2011

By Fred Grimm

They're children of the new Florida ethic. Zombie kids warehoused on the cheap in the state's juvenile lock-ups. Kept quiet, manageable and addled senseless by great dollops of anti-psychotic drugs.

A relatively small percentage of young inmates pumped full of pills actually suffer from the serious psychiatric disorders that the FDA allows to be treated by these powerful drugs. But adult doses of anti-psychotic drugs have a tranquilizing effect on teenage prisoners. Prescribing anti-psychotics for so many rowdy kids may be a reckless medical practice, but in an era of budget cuts and staffing shortages, it makes for smart economics.

Florida fairly inundates juvenile offenders with this stuff.

The Palm Beach Post reported last week that the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has been buying twice as many doses of the powerful anti-psychotic Seroquel as it does ibuprofen. As if the state anticipated more outbreaks of schizophrenia than headaches or minor muscle pain.

State Hired Psychiatrists Paid by Drug Companies

2011-06-08T16:42:00.001-04:00

A list of the pharma paid Department of Juvenile Justice psychiatrists: http://www2.palmbeachpost.com/news/juvidrugs/index2.html

List of Florida psychiatrists with their number of Medicaid prescriptions for psych drugs for all ages:

http://www2.palmbeachpost.com/news/juvidrugs/index.html?cbResetParam=1

Palm Beach Post

Dosed in juvie jail: Drug firms pay state-hired doctors

By Michael LaForgia

Monday May 23, 2011

In Florida's juvenile jails, psychiatrists entrusted with diagnosing and prescribing drugs for wayward children have taken huge speaker fees from drug makers - companies that profit handsomely when doctors put kids on antipsychotic pills.

The psychiatrists were hired by a state juvenile justice system that has plied kids with heavy doses of the powerful medications, and the physicians have prescribed antipsychotics even before they were approved by federal regulators as safe for children.

One in three of the psychiatrists who have contracted with the state Department of Juvenile Justice in the past five years has taken speaker fees or gifts from companies that make antipsychotic medications, a Palm Beach Post investigation has found.

In two years, the four top paid doctors combined to accept more than $190,000 - all while working for DJJ. Three of the four psychiatrists still are seeing patients in state jails and residential programs.

In at least one case, the number of Medicaid prescriptions a psychiatrist wrote for children rose sharply around the time he was paid, The Post found.

"That's very, very scary," said Jude Ann Prisco, a Palm Beach County mother whose child took psychiatric drugs while recently locked in a program. She said it never occurred to her that DJJ doctors might take money from drug companies. "I'm very upset by that, and I think they need to get some new guidelines."

Responding to The Post's findings, newly appointed DJJ Secretary Wansley Walters recently ordered a sweeping investigation into how antipsychotics are used in state jails and programs for kids. She declined to comment further, however, citing the probe.

DJJ doctors took payments as powerful antipsychotics flowed into state jails and homes. Child advocates say the widespread use of these drugs amounts to a policy of controlling children through "chemical restraint."

"This is a serious, legitimate and possibly life-threatening issue that requires investigation, reformation and possibly prosecution," said Circuit Judge Ronald Alvarez, who has sat on the juvenile court bench in Palm Beach County for 12 years.

DJJ relies heavily on the judgment of its contract doctors: In state juvenile jails and residential programs, the psychiatrists ultimately decide whether children should get medication - and which drugs kids should take.

Florida doesn't have disclosure laws

Doctors prescribed heavy doses of antipsychotic drugs for children in DJJ custody even before the drugs were deemed safe for kids.

Seroquel, for example, wasn't approved for kids until late 2009. Between mid-2006 and mid-2008, DJJ bought at least 217,563 tablets of Seroquel for children in the department's custody.

The state has no rules requiring drug companies to disclose payments to doctors. DJJ has no policy requiring contracted doctors to disclose conflicts of interest. In overhauling health care last year, Congress enacted a measure that requires all drug companies to disclose payments and gifts to doctors. However, that part of the law won't take effect until 2013.

DJJ doesn't track prescriptions going into its jails and programs. The rationale behind the department's system is that doctors, with help from nurses and other program staff, always prescribe drugs appropriately.

"The idea was, if kids did not have a medical need for psychotropic medication, then there wouldn't be any purpose in giving (antipsychotics) to them," said DJJ spokeswoman Samadhi Jones.

Last Tuesday, six days before this story was published, DJJ's chief medical director, Lisa Johnson, took the unusual step of issuing a strongly worded memo to DJJ's contracted and state-employed doctors.

The note, among other things, cautioned psychiatrists against prescribing antipsychotics and other drugs for reasons that aren't approved by the federal government, except in extreme cases. It also reminded doctors that they aren't to use the drugs "as a means of punishment, discipline, coercion, restraint or retaliation."

'Quid pro quos' violate anti-kickback laws

The topic of doctors taking payments from pharmaceutical companies has become increasingly controversial in the past four years, after the federal government accused some companies of paying illegal kickbacks to physicians.

The subject takes on a new dimension when it involves doctors who care for children in state custody, said Eric Campbell, a professor at Harvard University who researches medical conflicts of interest.

"In my eyes, the role of government is to ensure that people who are left in our care, who are vulnerable and need help, actually get that help," Campbell said. "And potentially exposing them to inappropriate prescriptions, when the benefit of those goes to the individual physician, I see as especially problematic."

In general, if doctors prescribe drugs in exchange for payments from pharmaceutical companies, the quid-pro-quo arrangement violates state and federal anti-kickback laws, said Ryan Stumphauzer, a former federal prosecutor and founding member of South Florida's Medicare Fraud Strike Force.

Stumphauzer, who now is in private practice in Miami, added that The Post appears to have unearthed "some truly stunning and troubling data."

Firms: Doctors provide valuable service

Drug companies' practice of compensating doctors is perfectly legal so long as it's not an effort to influence prescribing, said Bruce Reinhart, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in West Palm Beach.

"A drug company can give free samples, for example, or a doctor can go to a seminar, if the purpose of doing that is education," Reinhart said.

A spokeswoman for AstraZeneca, which makes Seroquel, said the company views payments as "appropriate and ethical" compensation for professionals who provide valuable services.

"Physicians who speak about our products are compensated at a fair market value based on the physician's qualifications and the amount of time required to provide the service," Stephanie Andrzejewski said. "Patients ultimately benefit when physicians are well informed and knowledgeable about our medicines, treatment options and standards of care."

Prescriptions rise with payments

AstraZeneca was one drug company that paid Dr. Umesh Mhatre after he started working for DJJ. Pfizer, maker of the antipsychotic Geodon, was another.

In 2010, Mhatre, who is board-certified in psychiatry and child psychiatry and based in Lake City, took $65,475 in payments and gifts, including $63,250 in speaker fees.

Records show Mhatre billed Medicaid for more antipsychotics for children during a period in which he was taking tens of thousands of dollars in payments.

The psychiatrist began working in St. Augustine in 2009 at the St. Johns Juvenile Correctional Facility, a secured program where children aren't eligible for Medicaid, and the St. Johns Youth Academy, a non-secured program where Medicaid can pay for kids' prescriptions.

During his first 15 months seeing DJJ patients at the St. Augustine homes, Mhatre billed Medicaid, on average, for about 254 prescriptions every three months for antipsychotics that went to children.

In the first six months of 2010, Mhatre took $39,000 in speaker fees from AstraZeneca, and then, months later, accepted another $13,100, records show. He also accepted more than $15,000 in speaker fees and to cover meals and travel from Pfizer between mid-2009 and the end of 2010.

Between April and June 2010, Mhatre wrote 328 children's prescriptions for antipsychotics in three months, or 35 percent more of those scrips than he had billed Medicaid for, on average, in three-month spans over the preceding 2½ years.

Medical experts cautioned against drawing conclusions from Mhatre's prescribing, saying a number of variables might have been at work.

For instance, he might have seen more patients in the spring of 2010 than he did in previous months: Mhatre's patient rolls weren't available. Speaking through a receptionist at his office, Mhatre declined to comment for this story. He continues to see patients for DJJ.

Fat speaker fees, free meals and travel

Mhatre is one of 17 current or former DJJ psychiatrists who, in two years, took a total of $253,982 in speaker fees or free meals and travel. Many doctors took payments or gifts valued at less than $300. A few, like Dr. Rex Birkmire, took much more.

Birkmire, an Oviedo-based psychiatrist who is board-certified in psychiatry and forensic psychiatry, has accepted nearly $129,000 from makers of antipsychotics since mid-2009. He took at least $70,750 in payments for educational programs around the time he worked at the Orange Regional Juvenile Detention Center.

After he started at DJJ, Birkmire billed Medicaid for dramatically fewer children's prescriptions for antipsychotics than he had in previous months. He evaluated patients in a secured juvenile jail, where DJJ, not Medicaid, pays for drugs for children.

Birkmire didn't respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking comment.

Taxpayers pay for prescriptions

Many of the drugs prescribed to children in DJJ custody are paid for with taxpayer dollars.

DJJ buys drugs given to kids in its jails and state-operated residential programs. But psychiatrists can bill Medicaid or private insurance for drugs prescribed to children in non-secured homes operated by private contractors.

Medicaid billing records don't identify patients who receive prescriptions, making it impossible to tell how many, if any, of the scrips were written for children in DJJ custody. What the records do offer, however, is a window into the prescribing habits of doctors who have worked for DJJ.

Take Mhatre, for example. In the run-up to his working for the department, he billed Medicaid for more mental health drugs than other doctors did. In 21 months, Mhatre wrote at least 24,771 prescriptions for mental health drugs, including antipsychotics, for both children and adults. That breaks down to 42 scrips per day, seven days a week, for 84 weeks straight.

In all, 52 psychiatrists who have worked for DJJ combined to bill Medicaid for at least 175,247 prescriptions for psychiatric medications in 21 months, a span that ended in March 2009. The doctors who took payments, a group that numbered 17, accounted for more than half of all those prescriptions, records show.

Big drug firms go to court

Pharmaceutical companies began disclosing payments to doctors in 2009. The move was related in part to lawsuits that alleged the drug makers were paying illegal kickbacks to physicians who prescribed pills liberally.

In April 2010, for example, AstraZeneca paid $520 million to settle the federal government's allegations that the company paid kickbacks to doctors who promoted Seroquel for off-label uses, among other claims.

When it comes to money for DJJ doctors, AstraZeneca and other companies said the payments weren't meant to influence prescribing.

"AstraZeneca never pays physicians in exchange for prescribing our medicines or as an incentive to promote our products," Andrzejewski, the company spokeswoman, said in a statement. "Further, we have policies in place to ensure that our payments to physicians do not create conflicts of interest or otherwise influence the decisions these physicians make in treating patients."

Some doctors paid by drug companies work hard preparing talks and crafting slides, and they can earn less than their hourly rate when delivering them, said Dr. Robert Hendren, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.

In other cases, Hendren said, companies seem to have sought out speakers based on prescribing patterns. "I think that, in some of those ways, there probably is undue influence," Hendren said. "I think people are influenced by who pays them. I think there's no doubt about that."

Needed transparency for payments

Unlike other states, including California, Massachusetts and Minnesota, Florida lacks rules requiring drug makers to disclose payments to doctors licensed by the state.

Such measures would create needed transparency, medical ethicists said.

"I think it's because we worry that paying and marketing and advertising and detailing can shape behavior," said Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics. "I don't think that's a hypothetical, because we know that they do."

Even better, said Campbell, the Harvard professor, would be if Florida government medical contractors refused all offers of money from drug companies.

"Physicians who care for patients who are vulnerable populations need to be particularly above reproach when it comes to this behavior," Campbell said. "I personally believe it's completely inappropriate for physicians to moonlight as drug reps. You either sell drugs or you practice medicine. But you can't do both."

3 Patients Sue Jail Psychiatrist - Sexual Misconduct

2011-06-08T11:18:00.000-04:00

http://www2.hernandotoday.com/content/2011/jun/07/another-suit-filed-against-embattled-jail-psychiat/news/

Another suit filed against embattled jail psychiatrist

Hernando Today

By TONY HOLT

June 7, 2011

She was offended, violated and wasn't going to take it anymore, she said.

The former Hernando County jail inmate reported the alleged sexual harassment by her psychiatrist to a female correctional officer.

She consoled the shaken inmate. The two women talked. They cried. The officer promised to report it to her supervisors.

Less than an hour later, the inmate was led to a dark, isolated cell with no windows. She remained in solitary confinement for another nine days, she said.

She only received one visitor – an investigator from Corrections Corporation of America, the company that ran the jail.

Feeling ignored and intimidated, she was too scared to push the matter further, she said.

When she learned last month two of her former inmates filed lawsuits against Dr. James Yelton Rossello, she changed her mind and joined them, said attorney Samuel Rogatinsky.

Rogatinsky, of South Florida, is representing all three women in the lawsuit.

The latest plaintiff, identified in court documents as Jane Doe III, filed her suit Tuesday in Hernando County Circuit Court.

She sobbed during a conference call with her attorney.

"It wasn't about me getting money," she said. "It's about him not being able to do this to anyone else."

Jane Doe III was incarcerated at the jail from May to October 2010. CCA managed the jail until late August of that year.

She was released from solitary confinement about two weeks before the Hernando County Sheriff's Office took over jail operations.

By then, the officer who consoled her was no longer employed at the jail and the other CCA managers who supposedly handled the complaint were gone. Yelton also had transferred.

CCA eventually fired him following a slew of sexual misconduct allegations.

Yelton has never been criminally charged, but the State Attorney's Office is still investigating the Hernando cases.

Jane Doe III described Yelton as a large, broad-shouldered man who weighed about 250 pounds.

"He could have restrained one of us easily if he really wanted to," she said.

In his court filing, Rogatinsky stated Yelton "sexually molested the Plaintiff on numerous occasions by touching the tattoo that was just above her buttocks while counseling her."

Jane Doe III said Yelton repeatedly asked her about her sexual preferences, including whether she was bisexual or had any "lesbian relationships" in the jail. He also asked her to describe her favorite sexual positions.

Rogatinsky said Yelton initially would ask his patients sexually charged questions, but made them think it was part of his psychoanalysis.

Eventually, he stopped asking questions and started beckoning his patients to shed their clothes or perform other sexual favors, Rogatinsky said.

During her second visit with Yelton, the latest plaintiff told him she had gained weight. She assumed it was a side effect from one of the drugs the doctor had prescribed her.

"He told me to pull my pants down," she said. "He told me he wanted to have sex with me."

At one point, Yelton ordered her to show him her tattoo. When she lifted her shirt and revealed her lower back, he caressed it, she said.

The other two plaintiffs accused Yelton of rubbing, kissing and fondling them during their visits.

Yelton would invite his patients into a small office and he would lock the door to prevent correctional officers from entering, Rogatinsky said.

Jane Doe I accused Yelton of "threatening her with additional criminal charges and threatening to withhold her medications if she refused to cooperate with his deviant behavior," the attorney wrote.

Jane Doe II accused him of forcing her to sit on his lap while he was sexually aroused, grabbing her crotch area and sexually battering her.

When the allegations first came to light in March, the Florida surgeon general restricted Yelton from treating female patients.

Rogatinsky said Yelton told at least one of the plaintiffs he was "98 percent faithful" to his wife and claimed he had an expense account and a hotel room for when she would be released from jail.

Rogatinsky said he would contact the State Attorney's Office about the latest allegations.

CCA, based out of Nashville, Tenn., has declined to comment on the Yelton lawsuit.

Protecting Foster Children from Psychiatric Drugs

2011-06-06T14:14:00.001-04:00

Protecting Foster Children from Psychiatric Drugs

Whether under the auspices of Child Protective Services, Departments of Family and Child Services, or Youth Welfare Offices, foster care children—often removed from family homes because of abuse—are furthered abused when they are prescribed psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs under state care. In fact, US foster children receive at least three times more psychotropic drugs than comparable children in poor families. Already troubled over their circumstances, these children are drugged for emotional and behavioral issues, sometimes with tragic outcome. This week's Watchdog Radio show guest, Sonya Muhammad, has been fighting this system from within and is ensuring that foster children receive standard educational solutions, not psychiatric drugs.

Snake oil salesman Patrick McGorry...

2011-06-06T14:13:00.001-04:00

Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry, (who somehow ended up as "Australian of the Year" much to the delight of Big Pharma, we're sure) has an international agenda to pre diagnose and pre drug children Starting in Australia and branching out worldwide. McGorry is so out there, most other psychiatrists don't want anything to do with him. That, says a lot.

Here's a brilliant article exposing McGorry and his Voodoo Science.

Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry: Voodoo Science & Snake Oil | Utopia Research Institute

utopia.edu.au

Are our children really AT RISK or is Patrick McGorry selling us Voodoo Science & Snake Oil? Should we trust our childrens lives to Patrick McGorry? Do we want our children to be labelled with Psychosis Risk Syndrome? The Federal Government has handed $400 million dollars to Patrick McGorry...

Drugging our kids is wrong

2011-06-06T14:12:00.001-04:00

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/drugging-our-kids-on-anti-depressants/story-e6freuy9-1226065161126

THE number of children aged six and under being prescribed anti-depressants has soared by almost 50 per cent since the federal government pledged to investigate the issue, new figures show.

Federal health department data reveals prescribing rates of the controversial drugs have risen from 852 in 2007-08 to 1264 in 2009-10.

But despite Health Minister Nicola Roxon ordering an investigation three years ago, a Freedom of Information request shows the government held just two meetings.

Five deaths have also been linked to anti-depressants in children aged 10 to 19 since 2009, Therapeutic Goods Administration figures show. In children aged nine and under, 89 adverse reactions were linked to anti-depressants over the same period.

A world of sheep

2011-05-18T09:43:00.001-04:00

Psychopharmaceutical industry seeks world of dispassionate sheeple

People who obediently follow the herd, never markedly sad, angry or excited; children who play quietly and never annoy or talk out of turn – this is the object of the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industries. And when anyone steps out of line, the answer is simple: stamp them "abnormal" and give them a pill.

Psychiatry's worst social meltdown concerns our youngest. The threat of ADHD, bipolar, autism and other alleged childhood diseases – which duped teachers, counselors and parents are on constant lookout for – presses children into a "socially acceptable" mold.

And who decides when a child or adult has crossed from normality into abnormality? Psychiatrists – a field financially joined at the hip with Big Pharma.

Read the full article here.

Antipsychotic drugs are hazardous for the elderly

2011-05-11T10:02:00.001-04:00

Antipsychotic drugs are hazardous for the elderly

"Nearly one in seven elderly nursing home residents, nearly all of them with dementia, are given powerful atypical antipsychotic drugs even though the medicines increase the risks of death and are not approved for such treatments, a government audit found."

[http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/article_f0fc1438-7aaf-11e0-8be7-0019bb30f31a.html]

Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said, "Too many of these institutions fail to comply with federal regulations designed to prevent overmedication, giving nursing home patients antipsychotic drugs in ways that violate federal standards for unnecessary drug use."

The summary from HHS report OEI-07-08-00150 published May 4, 2011, said, "For the period January 1 through June 30, 2007, we determined using medical record review that 51 percent of Medicare claims for atypical antipsychotic drugs were erroneous, amounting to $116 million."

For more information about psychiatry harming the elderly, download and read the CCHR booklet, Elderly Abuse — Cruel Mental Health Programs — Report and recommendations on psychiatry abusing seniors, from http://www.cchrstl.org/elderly.shtml.

Stevie Nicks: The biggest mistake I ever made was going to see a psychiatrist

2011-05-04T14:39:00.000-04:00

My Favorite Mistake: Stevie Nicks

The biggest mistake I ever made was giving in to my friends and going to see a psychiatrist. It was in the mid-1980s, and I had just gotten out of Betty Ford. I was feeling buoyant and saved and fantastic. But everyone said, “We’re sure you’re going to start using again. You should go to a psychiatrist.” Finally, I said, “All right!” and went. What this man said was: “In order to keep you off cocaine we should put you on the drug that we’re using a lot these days called Klonopin.” Stupidly, I said, “All right.” And the next eight years of my life were destroyed.

Klonopin is in the Valium family, but Valium is fuzzy and Klonopin is insidious because it’s so subtle that you can hardly tell you took it. I got through 1986 and 1987. Thank God I’d already written the words for my record The Other Side of the Mirror. But what started happening was that if I didn’t take it, my hands started to shake. I felt like I had a neurological disease or Parkinson’s. I started not being able to get to Lindsey Buckingham’s house on time, and I would get there and everybody was drinking, so I’d have a glass of wine. Don’t mix tranquilizers and wine. Then I’d sing horrific parts on his songs, and he would take the parts off. I was hardly on Tango of the Night, which I happen to love.

The next six years were terrible. Looking back on it, I think this therapist was basically a groupie. He loved hearing stories of rock and roll and he started upping my dose. He watched me go from a beautiful, 125-pound, newly sober woman who had the world at her feet to a 170-pound woman who had the lights go out in her eyes.

Finally, in 1993, I’d had enough. I said, “Take me to a hospital.” I went in for 47 days, and it made Betty Ford look like a cakewalk. My hair turned gray and my skin molted. I could hardly walk. You can detox off heroin in 12 days. Coke is just a mental detox. But tranquilizers—they are dangerous. I was terrified to leave, and I came away knowing that that would never happen to me again.

I learned so much in that hospital. I wrote the whole time I was there, stuff that I consider to be some of my best writing ever. I learned that I could have fun and laugh and cry with amazing people and not be on drugs. I learned that I could live my life and still be beautiful and fun and still go to parties and not even have to have a glass of wine. I never went to therapy again after that—why would I?

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/05/01/my-favorite-mistake-stevie-nicks.html

Sex Offender Treatment? Sex with Patient

2011-05-03T10:27:00.001-04:00

http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/2011/may/03/LANEWSO1-state-take-license-from-sebring-clinician/

Highlands Today

State: Take license from Sebring clinician

By ROBERT BOYER | Highlands Today

May 3, 2011

ARCADIA - The state of Florida wants to strip the professional credentials of a licensed mental health counselor from Sebring who was charged in 2010 with sexual misconduct with a sexual predator under her care.

The counselor, Leanne Paynter, was charged last May 19 after authorities said she had sex with a 42-year-old male inmate at the Florida Civil Commitment Center, a 660-bed secure treatment facility in DeSoto County for sexual predators and those who have been detained or civilly committed under the Sexually Violent Predator Act.

The center contracts with the Florida Department of Children and Families.

On Sept. 24, 2010, Paynter signed a pre-trial intervention program agreement, DeSoto County court records show. Although not probation, the program is supervised through probation, a DeSoto County clerk of court said. The felonious charge against Paynter will be dropped if she completes the requirements of the program, the clerk added.

The inmate, identified only as "GM," told authorities he and Paynter had sex about 17 times on the floor of Paynter's office, according to the petition from the Florida Department of Health filed April 15 that seeks to permanently revoke or suspend Paynter's license, deny her any future license, impose a reprimand and fine, and place her "on probation, corrective action, continuing education, and/or any other relief that the Board (of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling) deems appropriate."

On April 19, April 23, May 3 and May, 7, 2010, security cameras captured Paynter and the inmate "alone for extended periods," the petition stated. During the last three dates, "The pair would remain on the floor together" for 90 minutes to 3 hours.

The Real Crisis in Mental Health Care Today

2011-05-02T09:35:00.001-04:00

The Real Crisis in Mental Health Care Today

Seen on a T-Shirt:

I take Aspirin for the headache caused by the Zyrtec I take for the hayfever I got from Relenza for the uneasy stomach from the Ritalin I take for the short attention span caused by the Scopederm Ts I take for motion sickness I got from the Lomotil I take for the diarrhea caused by the Zenikal for the uncontrolled weight gain from the Paxil I take for the anxiety from Zocor I take for my high cholesterol because exercise, a good diet, and regular chiropractic care are just too much trouble.

Health care costs are being driven out of control by litigation, malpractice suits, fraud, and the coercive use of drugs and medical devices.

Mandated mental health parity is an effort by the mental health industry to have governments force insurers, employers, consumers and taxpayers pay for a service they will not buy of their own free will. It drives up the cost of insurance and has skyrocketed the number of uninsured.

By one estimate, one of out every four uninsured people has been priced out of the market by state-mandated health insurance laws.

With mental health treatment costing up to 300% more than general medical treatment, spiraling costs are unavoidable when mental health care is mandated.

In May, 2001, the Office of the Inspector General reported that one-third of out-patient mental health care services provided to Medicare beneficiaries were "medically unnecessary, billed incorrectly, rendered by unqualified provider, and undocumented or poorly documented."

Psychiatrists proclaim a worldwide epidemic of mental health problems and urge massive funding increases as the only solution. But before we commit more millions, do we know enough about the "crisis?"

Community Mental Health programs have an expensive and colossal failure, creating homelessness, drug addiction, crime and unemployment all over the world.

Mental health courts assert that criminal behavior is caused by a psychiatric problem and that treatment will stop the behavior. There is no evidence to support this.

Individuals are sometimes forced to pay for a legal defense against treatment that they do not want and against incarceration that consumes their insurance coverage.

Psychiatry's budget in the United States for Community Mental Health Centers and outpatient clinics soared from $143 million in 1969 to over $9 billion in 1997. In 2011 the Missouri Department of Mental Health budget alone is over $1 billion per year.

When governments and courts are lobbied to strengthen involuntary commitment and community treatment laws, and to establish "mental health courts" to promote treatment rather than punishment, they are never told of the lack of scientific basis for psychiatric methods, of the consequences of those treatments for the patient or of the lack of accountability for those treatment outcomes.

Whenever a "mental patient" commits an act of senseless violence, psychiatrists invariably blame the tragedy on the person's failure to continue their medication. Such incidents are used to justify mandated community treatment and involuntary commitment laws. However, statistics and facts show it is psychiatric drugs themselves that can create the very violence or mental incompetence they are prescribed to treat.

Proper medical screening by non-psychiatric diagnostic specialists could eliminate more than 40% of psychiatric admissions. Health insurance coverage for mental health problems should only be provided on the proviso that full, searching physical examinations are first undertaken to determine that no underlying and, thereby, untreated physical condition is causing the person's mental health condition.

In 2002, the U.S. President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education found that 40% of American children (2.8 million) in special education programs labeled with "learning disorders" had simply never been taught to read.

Decades of psychiatric monopoly over mental health has only lead to upwardly spiraling mental illness statistics and continuously escalating funding demands.

While psychiatry strenuously denies it, much knowledgeable and skillful help is administered by non-psychiatric professionals. There are many non-psychiatric, humane and workable practices for the achievement and recovery of mental health, even for the most disturbed individuals.

The claim that only increased funding will cure the problems of psychiatry has lost its ring of truth. Psychiatry and psychology should be held accountable for the funds already given them, and irrefutably and scientifically prove the physical existence of mental disorders they claim should be treated and covered by insurance, in the same way as physical diseases are.

The many critical challenges facing societies today reflect the vital need to strengthen individuals through workable, viable and humanitarian alternatives to harmful psychiatric options.

For more information and recommendations, download and read the CCHR booklet The Real Crisis in Mental Health Today - Report and recommendations on the lack of science and results within the mental health industry.

Foster children and antidepressants

2011-04-25T09:54:00.000-04:00

Meet the New Advocate for Foster Children—Giovan Bazan

Imagine for a moment that you're a child in the foster care system in the US; you don't have a family, you live in a state-run institution, and you along with more than half of the other foster kids are forced to take psychiatric drugs which give you horrific side effects. You are literally treated worse than a prisoner, and you're just a kid. The horrible truth is that today, 52 percent of foster care kids are being given psychiatric drugs including antidepressants and powerful antipsychotics. That's about a quarter of a million kids in the U.S. alone on drugs that cause depression, psychosis, aggression, mania, violent and suicidal tendencies. These children need a voice.

Meet this week's Watchdog Radio show guest, Giovan Bazan. A former foster child himself, he has been to hell and back and lived to tell about it.

Florida Psychiatrist Ordered to NOT Treat Women

2011-03-28T11:02:00.001-04:00

Psychiatrist James A. Yelton Rossello is accused of molesting female inmates. See story below.

Comments can be made here: http://tinyurl.com/florida-psychiatrist

The Florida Department of Health is pursuing further action against Yelton Rossello.

The order from the Department of Health can be found here: http://www.psychsearch.net/public_records.html

U.S. Rep. Richard Nugent says Yelton Rossello should face further investigation.

St. Petersburg Times

Florida restricts license of ex-Hernando jail psychiatrist accused of molesting female inmates

By John Woodrow Cox

March 28, 2011

BROOKSVILLE — The Florida surgeon general has restricted the license of a former Hernando County jail psychiatrist after authorities say he asked female inmates to expose themselves, give him a lap dance or a kiss and implied he would trade medication for sex.

In one instance, authorities said, Dr. James A. Yelton Rossello, 53, pinned a woman to the wall and molested her.

The accusations against Yelton stem from his treatment of four female inmates from November 2009 to August 2010. During that time, the state records show, he was employed by the Corrections Corporation of America, which for 22 years was contracted to run the county jail.

Psychotropic Drug Use in Foster Care

2011-03-28T09:51:00.000-04:00

Psychotropic Drug Use in Foster Care

In June of 2010, the US Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigatory arm of the Federal Government, to investigate the prevalence of prescribed psychotropic medications for children in foster care.

According to a number of foster care experts, children in foster care, who are typically concurrently enrolled in Medicaid, are three or four more times as likely to be on antipsychotic medications than other children on Medicaid. A Texas study from 2004 showed that 34.7 percent of foster children were prescribed at least one psychotropic drug with some children taking five or more.

Foster care parents receive more money if a child is on psychiatric drugs; the children are considered "special needs" children, needing a higher level of care.

Unfortunately, psychiatric drugs are not "care." Prescribing psychotropic drugs for children is especially troubling given their addictive nature and the potential side effects associated with them, including the increased risk of suicidal and violent behavior.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that House Bill 23 in the Georgia state legislature proposes to create an independent clinic review of the drugs foster children are given, which has support from both Democrats and Republicans because of its efforts to protect the vulnerable. Projections are that it will save the state millions of dollars, as Georgia spends $7.87 million per year in Medicaid funds on mind-altering psychiatric drugs for foster children.

Click here for more information about the side effects of psychiatric drugs.

Download the report "Drugging Foster Care Children" from the CCHR St. Louis website.

If you are aware of foster care children being abused by psychiatric drugs, please report this to CCHR and to the GAO.

Antidepressants often used for no valid reason

2011-03-07T17:00:00.001-05:00

Antidepressants often used for no valid reason

Research published January 25, 2011 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry ("Antidepressant Use in the Absence of Common Mental Disorders in the General Population") concludes that "antidepressant use among individuals without psychiatric diagnoses is common in the United States," and these drugs are more likely to have been prescribed by family doctors than by psychiatrists.

Reuters picked up the story and said that "more than a quarter of people in the United States who take antidepressants have never been diagnosed with any of the conditions the drugs are typically used to treat."

At $10 billion per year, the sale of antidepressants is a major contributor to the high cost of health care insurance. As these drugs often have devastating side effects, they are calculated to create patients-for-life; more and more health care is needed to combat these side effects, while the original symptoms for which they may have been prescribed go undiagnosed and untreated.

The New York Times says (March 5, 2011) that "Talk Doesn't Pay, So Psychiatry Turns to Drug Therapy." "Psychiatric hospitals that once offered patients months of talk therapy now discharge them within days with only pills. ... A psychiatrist can earn $150 for three 15-minute medication visits compared with $90 for a 45-minute talk therapy session." Yet, "Recent studies suggest that talk therapy may be as good as or better than drugs in the treatment of depression."

Sure, people can have difficult problems in their lives, and at times they can be mentally unstable, subject to unreasonable depression, anxiety or panic. Mental health care is therefore both valid and necessary. However, the emphasis must be on workable mental healing methods that improve and strengthen individuals and thereby society by restoring people to personal strength, ability, competence, confidence, stability, responsibility and spiritual well-being. Psychiatric drugs and psychiatric treatments are not workable.

Find out more about psychiatric drug side effects by clicking here.

Psychiatric Drugs and Violence: A Review of FDA Data Finds A Link

2011-03-04T20:48:00.001-05:00

Mad in America

History, Science, and the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders

by Robert Whitaker

Psychiatric Drugs and Violence: A Review of FDA Data Finds A Link

Antidepressants near top of list of drugs associated with violence

Published on January 5, 2011

There has been an enduring controversy over whether psychiatric medications can trigger violent actions toward others. A review of the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System by Thomas Moore, Joseph Glenmullen and Curt Furberg, which was published by PLoS One on December 15, found that such "adverse events" are indeed associated with antidepressants and several other types of psychotropic medications.

To do their study, Moore and his collaborators extracted all serious events reports from the FDA's database from 2004 through September 2009, and then identified 484 drugs that had triggered at least 200 case reports of serious adverse events (of any type) during that 69-month period. They then investigated to see if any of these 484 drugs had a "disproportionate" association with violence. They identified 31 such drugs, out of the 484, that met this criteria.

The 31 "suspect" drugs accounted for 1527 of the 1937 case reports of violence toward others in the FDA database for that 69-month period. The drugs in that list of 31 included varenicline (an aid to smoking cessation), 11 antidepressants, 6 hypnotic/sedatives, and 3 drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Antidepressants were responsible for 572 case reports of violence toward others; the three ADHD drugs for 108; and the hypnotic/sedatives for 97.

Of the 1937 total case reports of violence toward others, there were 387 cases of homicide, 404 physical assaults, 27 cases of physical abuse, 896 reports of homicidal ideation, and 223 cases of "violence related symptoms."

The adverse events reported to the FDA are known to represent but a tiny fraction of all such adverse events. This study simply identified 31 drugs responsible for most of the FDA case reports of violence toward others, with antidepressants near the top of that list.

In light of this finding, the many past shootings at school campuses and other public venues should perhaps be investigated anew by government officials, with an eye toward ascertaining whether psychotropic use may have, in the manner of an adverse event, triggered that violence.

Moore and his collaborators concluded: "These data provide new evidence that acts of violence towards others are a genuine and serious adverse drug event that is associated with a relatively small group of drugs. Varenicline, which increases the availability of dopamine, and serotonin reuptake inhibitors were the most strongly and consistently implicated drugs."

And more here:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0015337

Prescription Drugs Associated with Reports of Violence Towards Others

Violence towards others is a seldom-studied adverse drug event and an atypical one because the risk of injury extends to others.

To identify the primary suspects in adverse drug event reports describing thoughts or acts of violence towards others, and assess the strength of the association.

From the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) data, we extracted all serious adverse event reports for drugs with 200 or more cases received from 2004 through September 2009. We identified any case report indicating homicide, homicidal ideation, physical assault, physical abuse or violence related symptoms.

Disproportionality in reporting was defined as a) 5 or more violence case reports, b) at least twice the number of reports expected given the volume of overall reports for that drug, c) a χ2 statistic indicating the violence cases were unlikely to have occurred by chance (p<0.01).

We identified 1527 cases of violence disproportionally reported for 31 drugs. Primary suspect drugs included varenicline (an aid to smoking cessation), 11 antidepressants, 6 sedative/hypnotics and 3 drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The evidence of an association was weaker and mixed for antipsychotic drugs and absent for all but 1 anticonvulsant/mood stabilizer. Two or fewer violence cases were reported for 435/484 (84.7%) of all evaluable drugs suggesting that an association with this adverse event is unlikely for these drugs.

Acts of violence towards others are a genuine and serious adverse drug event associated with a relatively small group of drugs. Varenicline, which increases the availability of dopamine, and antidepressants with serotonergic effects were the most strongly and consistently implicated drugs. Prospective studies to evaluate systematically this side effect are needed to establish the incidence, confirm differences among drugs and identify additional common features.

Review of Psych Drugs on Foster Children will Save Millions of Dollars

2011-02-20T18:51:00.001-05:00

http://www.ajc.com/news/concern-over-high-medication-846324.html

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Concern over high medication rate among foster kids

Review of kids' psych drugs urged

By April Hunt

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

While in foster care, Giovan Bazan, now 20, says he was put on Ritalin,

anti-depressants and sleeping pills. At 18, he elected to stop all drugs,

and says he learned he didn't need them.

Giovan Bazan was 6 when a doctor first gave him medicine to treat his diagnosis of hyperactivity.

Bazan admits he was unruly at the time. Perhaps it was because the only parent he had ever known, his foster mother since he was an infant, had just died.

No one asked about that. Nor did anyone check years later to see that he was on a double dose of Ritalin when another physician, seeing a boy so mellowed out that he barely reacted, prescribed an antidepressant. "They start you on one thing for a problem, then the side effects mean you need a new medicine," Bazan said. "As a foster kid, I'd go between all these doctors, caseworkers, therapists, and [it] seemed like every time there was a new drug to try me on."

When he turned 18, Bazan elected to stop all medications. It turned out he didn't need any of them.

Now, the Georgia House is weighing an idea to better track the psychotropic drugs foster children take at a far greater rate than other kids.

House Bill 23 hits a rare political sweet spot. The proposal to create an independent clinic review of the drugs foster children are given has support from Democrats and Republicans because of its efforts to protect the vulnerable — and projections that it will save the state millions of dollars. The state spends $7.87 million per year in Medicaid funds on those mind-altering drugs for foster kids. "This is an idea I'm very open and willing to have a discussion about," said Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, adding his main concern is the cost of the review.

The issue is a national one. Only half of state child welfare systems — not including Georgia — have a policy to review usage of mind-altering drugs, even though as many as 52 percent of kids in foster care are taking them.

By comparison, about 4 percent of the general youth population is on the medications, according to a 2010 Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute study.

"These drugs are not something you take like an aspirin," said state Rep. Judy Manning, a Marietta Republican and chairwoman of the House Children & Youth Committee who is co-sponsoring HB 23 with Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur.

"We want to monitor it and make sure the treatment is correct," she said. "You don't want a tragedy."

Lack of oversight can prove deadly. Gabriel Myers, a 7-year-old foster child in Florida, hanged himself in 2009 while taking three powerful psychotropic medications, none of which had been approved for use in children.

There have been no similar high-profile cases in Georgia. Still, one in three foster  children on Medicaid was  prescribed mind-altering psychotropic drugs last year, according to a January report from the state Department of Community Health. More than half of them were on a daily cocktail of more than two of the drugs — some of which lack approval for treatment in children.

Oliver argues that both the cost and number of foster children on such drugs will drop if her proposal succeeds.

Her plan calls for an independent review to kick in on red-flag cases in the system, such as when a very young child is prescribed drugs for mental health or when a youngster is on multiple medications at once.

It would be up to the Human Services or Behavioral Health departments to decide what would flag cases and how to best manage the independent psychiatrists who would monitor them.

Oliver said private foundations have expressed interest in funding the idea as a national pilot program.

"Foster children are more traumatized, for horrible reasons, and that's why their medical care has to be better," Oliver said. "I am excited about the number of stakeholders who want to work on solving this problem with us."

The issue may extend to lack of oversight on what drugs foster kids are being prescribed and taking. A 2010 investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed several companies operating foster care homes in the state had repeatedly used psychotropic medications to "subdue" children.

"Medications dispersed often aren't to help the child with their problems but to make the child more docile for the caregivers," said Richard Wexler, who heads the National Coalition for Child Protection and Reform. "And the paradox of child welfare care has always been the worst thing for the kids is what costs the most."

That seems to have been the case for Bazan. Now 20, he can recall a brief period in high school when prescriptions had run out and his foster mother didn't keep him on the stew of mind-altering drugs.

Fellow students noticed the no-nonsense boy was suddenly joking around and friendly.

"When I was off the medicines, everyone kept asking me why I was so happy," Bazan said. "There was a real difference."

The medications quickly  returned, however. But Bazan said they didn't help with the loss he felt over the death of  his first foster mother or his feelings of being unwanted  and under attack in the foster home he repeatedly ran away from.

He spent time in Department of Juvenile Justice facilities, where the medications kept coming, sometimes provoking seizures because some of them didn't mix.

No one, he said, ever asked about his feelings. "They would have gotten a better response if someone had just taken a look at what was really going on in my life," he said.

Bazan did that himself when he quit all medications cold turkey at age 18. But the years of medication already have hurt his future: His plan to enter the military to pay for college is blocked by the diagnosis of hyperactivity. He is ineligible to serve.

Bazan now works part time at the Division of Family and Children Services, acting as  a liaison with community  organizations and state agencies.

He also has started his own security company to provide nighttime patrols at his church in DeKalb County and others.

His goal is to get a full-time job with DFCS and persuade Gov. Nathan Deal to appoint him to the Georgia National Guard. With that, he could pay for college.

First, though, he is sharing his story in the hope that lawmakers and others will see him as a cautionary tale for what can happen when someone isn't monitoring care of foster kids.

"I ask them, 'Would you give all these people carte blanche with your kids, without any scrutiny of their medical history and a review of their life?'" Bazan said. "We're just children. Someone has to look out for us. We need the same care and attention you give your own children."

Associated Press: Therapist says he molested more than 100 2/2/11

2011-02-03T17:51:00.001-05:00

Therapist says he molested more than 100

By FRANK JORDANS, JOHN HEILPRIN

BERN, Switzerland — A 54-year-old man has admitted sexually abusing more than 100 mentally disabled children and adults in care homes in Switzerland and Germany during almost three decades, in what Swiss police described Tuesday as an unprecedented case.

The abuse took place in nine different care homes where the unidentified man had worked as a therapist since 1982, police in the canton (state) of Bern said.

Police have identified 122 of the victims, with the youngest being 1 year old at the time of the crime. Forty-two of the victims were over 18.

The man was arrested in April 2010 and has been detained since, but authorities only released details of the case Tuesday to prevent the investigation from being impeded by media interest, police said.

The head of Bern police’s special investigations unit, Gabriele Berger, told a news conference in Bern that the evidence against the man includes photos and hours of video recording the abuse.

She said he had gone about his crimes deliberately, in many instances choosing victims who were unable to speak.

The case came to light in March, after two male residents of a care home informed their parents of sexual contact with the therapist.

The man was subsequently arrested at his home in the Bernese Oberland, in central Switzerland. Police said he has cooperated with investigators since his arrest, describing himself as a pedophile.

The man admitted sexually abusing 114 mentally disabled patients, some of whom also were physically impaired, police said. He also admitted eight further cases of attempted abuse, authorities said. Most of the victims were male, they said.

The majority of cases have passed the statute of limitations, police said. Under Swiss law, the man can only be prosecuted for 33 of them, they said.

“One of the central questions of this investigation is how such levels of abuse could go undetected for so long,” said Berger.

The man had been investigated on allegations of sex abuse in 2003, but that probe was dropped due to conflicting evidence, she said, adding that that case would be reopened.

Jordans contributed from Geneva.

Parents Drugging Their Children for Money

2010-12-22T16:50:00.001-05:00

4-Part series in the Boston Globe

by Patricia Wen

A legacy of unintended side effects

A Globe investigation has found that this Supplemental Security Income program - created by

Congress primarily to aid indigent children with severe physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy,

Down syndrome, and blindness - now largely serves children with relatively common mental, learning

and behavioral disorders such as ADHD. It has also created, for many needy parents, a financial

motive to seek prescriptions for powerful drugs for their children.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/12/12/with_ssi_program_a_legacy_of_unintended_side_effects/

A coveted benefit, a failure to follow up

Government data show that Social Security officials have, over the past decade, fallen far short
when it comes to conducting the regular case reviews required by statute. A typical SSI

disability case is supposed to get a full medical review every three years, but from 2000 to 2008

the agency examined, on average, only 10 percent of the children on SSI.

Read the full article here: http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/12/13/follow_up_process_lacking_in_ssi_disability_program/?page=full

A cruel dilemma for those on the cusp of adult life

Many teenage recipients of federal disability benefits say they feel pressure to avoid work,

not wanting to raise doubts about their status and jeopardize vital family income.

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/12/14/teenagers_in_ssi_program_face_a_cruel_dilemma/?page=full

Brown calls for hearings on disability program

US Senator Scott Brown called yesterday for Senate hearings to examine a $10 billion federal
disability program for indigent children, a response to a three-part Globe series published this

week that alleged troubling incentives that pose risks to children.

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/12/18/brown_calls_for_hearings_on_disability_program/

Alienist Investigation Continues

2010-11-05T10:21:00.001-04:00

It started with the high prescribing Miami alienist* (see end) who wrote 284,908 prescriptions over the past six years which cost

Florida taxpayers $43 million. See here: http://www.cchrflorida.org/blog/tag/dr-fernando-mendez-villamil/

Newspapers in other states are now publishing articles on high prescribers in their own zone. (See below links for stories)

Now an Alabama newspaper is calling for their new Governor to force Alabama Medicaid to release psych drug data.

Quotes: "It is important because, as it turns out, some doctors are writing far more prescriptions for psychiatric drugs than are their colleagues. Not only does this add to the strain on Medicaid and Medicare, but it may indicate that some patients are being over-medicated. …Grassley, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote to state Medicaid agencies earlier this year, asking them

to list their top 10 prescribers of eight drugs commonly used in psychiatry."

Alabama - Why are doctors writing so many prescriptions?

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20101105/NEWS/101109818/1012?p=1&tc=pg

Connecticut

http://blogs.courant.com/connecticut_insurance/2010/11/senator-grassley-cites-connect.html

Pennsylvania

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/regional/s_706831.html

Arizona

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/article_fd365674-cb88-5b00-95ba-a2f9b2961883.html

West Virginia:

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/opinions/x1769794505/Senator-asks-good-questions-about-prescription-drugs

Minnesota:

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/105576013.html?elr=KArks:DCiUHc3E7_V_nDaycUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUbPi87EK_g:D_vqnH_nchO7DU

*Alienist - psychiatrist; derivation: mid-19th century < French aliéniste < Latin alienare "estrange, make irrational"

(Encarta World English Dictionary)

Psychobabble

2010-11-01T11:15:00.001-04:00

Millions of people around the world will crack a smile today as they watch the 33 Chilean miners finally being hoisted back to life. But Those Who Know Better, the overlords of the therapy industry, see something different: not a happy ending to a two-month nightmare, but the start of an even longer nightmare of ill-health, craziness and PTSD for these unfortunate creatures from the dark. According to the experts, what we’re really witnessing in Chile today is a volcanic eruption of human instability, as 33 ticking timebombs of emotional frailty are raised to the surface.

One psycho-expert, echoing an army of others, told Fox News that the rescue of the men will release a ‘cauldron of emotions’; apparently ‘molten, churning reservoirs of emotion are about to emerge from that mine’. And there’s no telling what this geyser of two months worth of repressed feelings will give rise to. Fox’s fortune-teller says it could spawn ‘divorces, violence, terrible despondency, panic attacks, plays for celebrity that fall short and lead to suicide, addiction to alcohol and illicit drugs and gambling, and wild allegations levelled by one miner against another’. For the mental-health lobby, it seems, every silver lining has a cloud.

How will these men who coped remarkably well in a 32 degrees Celsius underground cavern for more than two months now cope with the temptation to descend into a drug-addled world of violence and backstabbing? On this question, the experts are unanimous: as one of them sums it up, the freed 33 will require ‘all the skill of the very best mental-health professionalsavailable’. Is it just me or does this look like a brazen job-creation scheme? At a time of recession and cutbacks, I guess even the mental-health lobby has to find ways to earn a crust - even if that means cynically re-presenting 33 fairly hard, robust miners as men on the verge of a nervous breakdown who will need professional help for the rest of their lives.

The most startling thing about the various psycho-pronouncements being made about the miners is not their undiluted miserabilism, their ability to see future suicides where most of us see a moment of joy, but their ignorance of the facts of the past two months. Because the inconvenient truth is that the 33 miners survived underground not as a result of psychological advice and intervention but by sometimesrebelling against the psychologists who kept a watchful eye on their every move. The real story of the Chilean miners, for anyone who cares to look, is that the interventions of the various wings of the trauma industry often make things worse rather than better, and people are mostly happier and healthier without them.

The on-site psychology team at the San Jose mine treated the trapped men with extraordinary mean-spiritedness. Driven by the conviction that they, as one headline put it, ‘know best’, and backed up by the dime-a-dozen profferings of every headline-hungry psychologist and therapist around the globe, the psychologists saw it as their duty to police the men’s thoughts and even to censor letters from their families in case they triggered ‘problematic emotions’. Such petty authoritarianism is the end result of the deep-rooted idea that life is way too hard and complicated to be negotiated without the words of wisdom of the therapy lobby.

One of the medical experts at San Jose - part of a team of 300 people that oversaw the men’s health and needs - said there was a ‘daily arm wrestle’ between the miners and the psychology team. That isn’t surprising. The mental-health experts overground used a system of ‘prizes and punishments’ to try to control the men’s behaviour - for their own good, of course. So when the men assented to hour-long phone calls with the mental-health team, as they did when they were first found to be alive 17 days after getting trapped, they were rewarded with prizes such as access to TV shows. But when they refused to talk to the psychologists, as they started to do in mid-September when their health and body weight were improving as a result of sent-down food and they insisted that ‘we are well’, the psychology team would deprive them of luxuries. As one on-site doctor put it: ‘We have to say, “OK, you don’t want to speak with psychologists? Perfect. That day you get no TV, there is no music - because we administer these things.”’

More: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9785/

Blame Anna Nicole's death on her psychiatrist

2010-11-01T08:57:00.001-04:00

Anna Nicole Smith's psychiatrist was convicted of conspiring to fake names on prescriptions. Psychiatrist Dr. Khristine Eroshevich was convicted of conspiring with Howard K. Stern to fraudulently prescribe Vicodin.

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/10/28/3140863/jury-acquits-smiths-doctor-in.html

GlaxoSmithKline criminal charges

2010-11-01T08:56:00.002-04:00

GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay an eye-popping $750 million and will plead guilty to a criminal charge to settle a U.S. government investigation of manufacturing deficiencies at a former plant in Puerto Rico. The investigation largely concerned the manufacture of defective pills including the Paxil antidepressant at Glaxo’s plant in Cidra, Puerto Rico, between 2001 and 2005. U.S. authorities found that some tablets could split apart or had inappropriate amounts of active ingredient, posing safety risks.

[http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/10/27/gsk-to-pay-750m-to-settle-charges-over-adulterated-drugs/?blog_id=14&post_id=35066]

Significant portion of children received antipsychotic for conditions that have no published evidence supporting their use

2010-11-01T08:56:00.001-04:00

A significant proportion of children younger than 18 years in at least 1 state Medicaid population received a second-generation antipsychotic for conditions that have no published evidence supporting their use. "Clearly, behavioural problems, including oppositional and conduct disorders and hyperkinetic-hyperactivity symptoms, were frequently seen among the children treated with second-generation antipsychotics," the investigators write. [http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/717544]

atypical antipsychotics (AAPs) increases the risk of significant weight gain

2010-11-01T08:55:00.003-04:00

More research appears to confirm recent results of a large, prospective cohort study that the use of atypical antipsychotics (AAPs) increases the risk of significant weight gain and varied metabolic changes in children and adolescents with mental illness and behavioral disturbances. According to Dr. Panagiotopoulos, a growing body of evidence in adults demonstrating that AAPs cause significant weight gain, hyperlipidemia, and insulin resistance has raised concerns among the medical community in general, and the psychiatric community in particular, about whether these drugs may increase the risk of premature cardiovascular disease in children and adolescents. [http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/712079]

antipsychotic use in children and adolescents is associated with rapid and significant weight gain

2010-11-01T08:55:00.001-04:00

October 29, 2009 — First-time, second-generation antipsychotic use in children and adolescents is associated with rapid and significant weight gain as well as varied adverse metabolic changes, new research shows. "These medications are not benign and can have side effects that can have potential long-term complications that are associated with endocrine and cardiovascular illness," said principal investigator Christoph U. Correll, MD.[http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/711526]

TeenScreen Petiition, Sign Here

2010-10-22T10:28:00.001-04:00

Please take 4 minutes and watch this. Then, sign the petition. Thanks.

Note: The Rutherford Institute known as "one of the nation's premier civil liberties organizations" provides legal services to people whose human rights have been threatened or violated. The Rutherford Institute took a stand against the use of TeenScreen without parental consent by representing parents Teresa and Michael Rhoades of Indiana in federal court. You can see a video of Teresa Rhoades here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6AFRhVe8aE The school where their daughter was screened dropped TeenScreen and the lawsuit was settled.

Safe Harbor Links to doctors who help people get off psychiatric drugs & treat people without psychiatric drugs

2010-10-22T09:59:00.001-04:00

http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/

Thousands of people around the world have recovered from mental disorders and now enjoy the simple pleasures of a drug-free life. Most were told this was impossible. Yet we hear from these individuals regularly.

Many others have been able to significantly reduce their dependency on psychiatric medication. Commonly these people find that underlying their "mental" disorders are medical problems, allergies, toxic conditions, nutritional imbalances, poor diets, lack of exercise, or other treatable physical conditions.

Our site has testimonials, over 100 articles, and the Web's only directory of alternative mental health practitioners. You can also get information from our bookstore, support groups, email lists, and our free monthly newsletter.

Valium users worse drivers than drunks

2010-10-22T09:58:00.003-04:00

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/valium-users-worse-drivers-than-drunks-20101019-16sl7.html

Valium users worse drivers than drunks

Kate Benson HEALTH

October 20, 2010

PEOPLE who take sleeping pills or anti-anxiety medications are more dangerous on the roads than drunk drivers, researchers have found.

The study, to be presented tomorrow at the Australasian Sleep Conference in Christchurch, found that drivers who take benzodiazepines, such as Valium or Temazepam, were more likely to veer out of lanes, drive off the road or crash into other drivers than those with an illegal blood alcohol limit of 0.08.

New Scientist - When Big Pharma Breaks the Law, Prosecute the CEO

2010-10-22T09:58:00.001-04:00

Patient safety will remain at risk until big pharma's top executives are brought to book for their companies' actions, says Paul Thacker

THERE have been so many stories about pharmaceutical companies promoting the misuse or abuse of their drugs that the names seem to merge - Zyprexa, Seroquel, Paxil and more.

The latest case concerns GlaxoSmithKline's Avandia (rosiglitazone), an anti-diabetes drug linked to heart attacks. Last month, the European Medicines Agency recommended its suspension from the market, while the US Food and Drug Administration made it all but impossible for doctors to write prescriptions for the drug.

More here:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827826.900-when-big-pharma-breaks-the-law-prosecute-the-ceo.html

High Prescribing Florida Psychiatrist Sparks Federal Investigation

2010-10-22T09:41:00.001-04:00

Comments can be made here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/21/1883536/another-volley-in-rx-probe.html

Miami Herald

Another volley in Rx probe

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa continues his investigation into doctors who prescribe large numbers of drugs -- a move sparked by a Miami psychiatrist.

BY MAR CABRA AND JOHN DORSCHNER

October 21, 2010

Based on the huge numbers of prescriptions written by a Miami psychiatrist, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is continuing to pressure federal officials to investigate why some doctors write stunning numbers of scripts for tax-funded Medicare and Medicaid programs.

In his latest volley, a letter sent Wednesday to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Grassley demanded exact answers to three pointed questions about what her department is doing to address the problem.

"The federal government has an obligation to figure out what's going on here,'' Grassley said in a statement e-mailed to The Miami Herald Wednesday. "The taxpayers are footing the bill, and Medicare and Medicaid are already strained to the limit. These programs can't spare a dollar for prescription drugs that aren't properly prescribed. The conclusion might be that there isn't any fraud, but it's important to reach a conclusion one way or the other and fix whatever is broken.''

In the Sebelius letter, Grassley said his concern was triggered by a "Florida provider who wrote 96,685 prescriptions for mental health drugs in a 21-month period.'' The letter did not identify the provider, but state records confirm that it is Fernando Mendez-Villamil, a psychiatrist with an office on Coral Way.

State Medicaid records independently obtained by The Herald show that over a two-year period Mendez-Villamil wrote almost twice as many prescriptions for mental health drugs as the No. 2 Medicaid prescriber in the state.

Robert N. Pelier, attorney for Mendez-Villamil, said Wednesday he and his client learned about the letter only after receiving a call from The Miami Herald. He said the psychiatrist tried to reach Grassley's office when his prescription numbers were made public to give the proper context to the doctor's prescription patterns and "why he is an intricate part in the community.'' Pelier said he had not received a response from Grassley.

"What my client believes is that he's been a victim of this healthcare debate,'' the attorney said. ``The majority of his prescriptions are expensive because they're cutting-edge pharmaceuticals.''

Pelier said Mendez-Villamil has been recently terminated from the Medicaid program and is now seeing some patients for free. ``We are pursuing legal action against AHCA [Agency for Health Care Administration] for the improper termination of doctor Mendez-Villamil from Medicaid,'' he said. The suit was filed in July.

Meanwhile Ryan Wiggins, spokesman for the Florida Office of the Attorney General, confirmed there is an ongoing investigation into Mendez-Villamil that involves "complicated issues of medical necessity. . . . We cannot comment further at this time.''

Last December, Grassley's office calculated Mendez-Villamil's numbers meant "this physician wrote approximately 153 prescriptions each and every day, assuming he did not take vacations.''

Earlier this year, Mendez-Villamil told The Herald that he works long hours and often gives each patient four or five prescriptions, accounting for the large numbers.

In April, Grassley wrote to all state Medicaid agencies requesting data about certain mental health drugs. On Wednesday, Grassley's office said the Florida provider identified by The Herald as Mendez-Villamil had the second-highest number of prescriptions in the nation for the generic form of Xanax in the data they analyzed.

The Wednesday letter also noted that the top Zyprexa provider in Florida wrote 1,356 prescriptions for 309 individuals in 2008 and 1,238 for 236 in 2009. The Herald independently verified from state data that this provider was Mendez-Villamil, and he wrote more than twice as many Zyprexa prescriptions as the No. 2 provider in the state.

"I want to be clear that none of the information provided suggests any illegal or wrongful behavior,'' Grassley wrote. But such huge numbers ``might also suggest overutilization or even healthcare fraud. The only way to determine veracity is through appropriate oversight by [Health and Human Services] and continued monitoring by the Congress and the [Senate Finance] committee.''

BUSTED!

2010-10-21T14:21:00.001-04:00

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/21/v-fullstory/1884170/federal-agents-round-up-ring-of.html

Federal agents round up ring of mental health operators in alleged $200 million Medicare fraud case

Drug Makers actually make lemons, not medicines

2010-09-08T14:03:00.003-04:00

Drug Makers Actually Make Lemons not Medicines!
The lemon, of course, is a metaphor and is not a pretty one. But Donald Light, a sociologist and professor of comparative health policy at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, contends that the spate of instances in which drugmakers hid or downplayed info about serious side effects - or overstated benefits - has transformed the market for medicines into one for lemons.

"The basic idea is simple but arresting: just as there are hidden dangers and flaws in used cars, so there are in drugs. And just as used car salesmen have an incentive to profit from not disclosing risks the consumer cannot see under the shiny exterior, so drug companies and their reps have an incentive to profit from not disclosing risks the physician and patient cannot see inside a shiny new pill. In a number of ways, however, drug markets differ from used car markets. One way is that bad drugs do not drive good drugs out of the market, as Akerlof famously predicted in the article that helped him win the Nobel Prize. Rather, they stay in, mixed with higher risk drugs," Light tells us, after presenting a paper on the subject at the American Sociological Association annual meeting last week.

More here:

http://www.pharmalot.com/2010/08/drugmakers-actually-make-lemons-not-medicines/

Zoloft Spoof

2010-09-08T14:03:00.001-04:00

http://www.cchrint.org/videos/videos-we-like/mad_zoloft/
Zoloft Spoof!

Jailed psychiatrist pleads guilty - CNBC

2010-08-20T18:30:00.001-04:00

Jailed psychiatrist pleads guilty - CNBC

Psychiatrist doing clinical drug trials for Glaxo pleads guilty in fraud regarding clinical trials of Paxil on kids, "with intent to defraud and mislead in connection with those clinical trials" and sentenced to 13 months in prison. THAT sentence runs concurrent with her current 87-month prison term for health care fraud.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38783181

Prescription Pill Popping - Leading Killer in Florida

2010-07-22T14:27:00.001-04:00

FlaglerLive

Prescription Pill-Popping By Far a Leading Killer as Florida’s Drug Deaths Spike 20%

July 1, 2010

Oxycodone, the addictive prescription pain-killer also known by its Purdue Pharma brand name OxyContin, directly caused more deaths in Florida in 2009 than cocaine, heroin and morphine combined. Prescription drugs as a whole are killing far more Floridians than illegal drugs, with some 8,600 deaths last year involving at least one prescription drug, according to an annual report released today by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission.

That’s 5 percent of all deaths in Florida in 2009, when 171,300 people died in the state.

The number of people killed by prescription drugs is a significant 20 percent increase over last year’s 6,200 deaths attributed to overdoses. Much of the increase is due to a spike in oxycodone addiction. The increase in prescription-drug addiction continues a trend that began in Florida 10 years ago, when prescription drugs overtook illegal drugs as leading causes of drug-related deaths.

Alcohol is also included in the examiners’ analysis, and it leads the way of all drug-related deaths, with 4,046.

The annual report is a stark look at the effects of legalized drug addiction and over-prescription of drugs, both of which affect a far larger segment of the population than recreational or illegal narcotics.

For the first time in 2009, the commission tracked deaths by region. In Flagler County’s district, which includes St. Johns and Putnam counties, 22 deaths were attributed to oxycodone (the fourth lowest number in the state’s 23 districts), with 13 of those deaths directly attributed to the drug, and nine cited as being present among other drugs that contributed to death.

Hydrocodone claimed 16 lives in the district. Cocaine contributed to 19 deaths in the Flagler district, though only four cases were directly attributed to the drug. In 15 cases, cocaine was present in the body in conjunction with other drugs that proved lethal. Overall in Florida, cocaine-related deaths (including the majority of cases where cocaine wasn’t directly the factor but was present in the body at the time of death), have fallen from a peak of 2,179 in 2007 to 1,462 in 2009. (Again, cocaine was the direct result of death in 529 cases out of those).

Ken Kramer, a researcher with the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida, says the numbers underestimate the extent of the problem, because medical examiners do not track deaths attributed to antipsychotic drugs or to antidepressants, both of which carry black-box or black-label warnings. The warnings on antidepressants, required by the Food and Drug Administration, state that the drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents and young adults up to age 24. (Antidepressants include Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, Effexor, Lexapro and Celexa.)

Anti-psychotic drugs carry a variety of black label warnings of increased mortality in elderly patients (including a death rate almost twice as high for people taking Risperdal, for example). Those drugs, prescribed and often overprescribed in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, include Abilify, Clozaril, Geodon, Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa.

“Certainly, the actual number of prescription drug deaths is higher than the annual report states,” Kramer said. “It is unknown just how much higher because the Medical Examiners Commission does not track these classes of drugs.”

Two years ago Kramer got his concern heard by the commission following an email exchange with a commissioner in which he argued that antidepressants and anti-psychotic drugs’ contributions to mortality should be part of the annual report. He was rebuffed. One examiner said he had not seen “more than the occasional death caused by these types of drugs,” according to the minutes of the Aug. 13, 2008 meeting of the commission. [Note: audio here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJrpaxNOU-k ]

Other findings in the 2009 report, which can be read in its entirety here:

Prescription drugs tracked in the report account for 79 percent of all drug occurrences in deaths when alcohol is excluded.
Deaths directly attributed to Oxycodone increased by 25.9 percent over 2008.
Cocaine occurrences decreased by 18.4 percent over 2004.
5,275 individuals, or 7.1 percent more than in 2008, died with one or more prescription drugs in their system. The drugs in those cases were identified as both the cause of death and present in the deceased person.
Overall, 171,300 deaths occurred in Florida in 2009.

The report specifies that the “state’s medical examiners were asked to distinguish between the drugs being the ’cause’ of death or merely ‘present’ in the body at the time of death. A drug is only indicated as the cause of death when, after examining all evidence and the autopsy and toxicology results, the medical examiner determines the drug played a causal role in the death.”

New info shows anti-depressants & pilots are a dangerous mix

2010-07-17T18:37:00.001-04:00

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/07/ssris-render-unfriendly-skies/

SSRIs Render Unfriendly Skies

by Evelyn Pringle / July 15th, 2010

The SSRI antidepressant makers are desperate to find new customers, so they recently have been focusing on capturing groups for which the drugs were usually considered off limits. The latest marketing coup managed to open up sales to roughly 614,000 American pilots.

Under a new policy announced on April 5, 2010, pilots diagnosed with depression can seek permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to take one of four SSRIs, including Eli Lilly’s Prozac, Pfizer’s Zoloft, and Forest Laboratories’ Celexa and Lexapro.

“The FAA should reverse its ruling before it’s too late and hundreds of lives are lost when a pilot becomes impulsive, suicidal or violent — or just loses his sharpness — under the influence of antidepressant medication,” said SSRI expert, Dr Peter Breggin, in an April 19, 2010 Huffington Post commentary.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is also calling on the FAA to rethink allowing pilots to take SSRI in light of a new report issued last month by the National Transportation Safety Board, on a February 1, 2008 plane crash in North Carolina, by a crazy acting pilot on Zoloft, that killed all six persons on board

The report said the pilot failed to maintain control of the plane during instrument flying conditions and “deliberately descended below the minimum descent altitude.” The plane stalled and crashed while circling after an aborted landing.

“Review of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) audio revealed that the pilot had displayed some non-professional behavior before initiating the approach,” the NTSB reported.

The CVR recorded the pilot singing: “Save my life I’m going down for the last time,” before beginning a commentary in which he told passengers: “If anybody back there believes in the good Lord, I believe now would be a good time to hit your knees.”

A review of medical records documented that “from December 4, 2006 through December 31, 2007, the pilot had filled 6 prescriptions for 30 tablets of 50 mg sertraline (Zoloft),” the report said.

The records indicated that he had been treated previously with two other antidepressant medications for “anxiety and depression” and a history of “impatience” and “compulsiveness,” the NTSB noted.

An investigation of another plane crash, resulting in two fatalities in Kingsport, Tennessee, in August 2003, found Zoloft in the blood and liver of a private flight instructor, according to an accident report by the NTSB.

In the policy statement published in the Federal Register, the FAA seems to justify the use of these drugs via the fully debunked “chemical imbalance in the brain” theory when writing: “All these medications are SSRIs, antidepressants that help restore the balance of serotonin, a naturally occurring chemical substance found in the brain.”

“Increasingly accepted and prevalently used, these four antidepressants may be used safely in appropriate cases with proper oversight and have fewer side effects than previous generations of antidepressants,” the FAA wrote, with no citation to any scientific paper to back up this assertion.

In fact, the current labels on SSRIs warn that “anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients treated for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric.”

“Even when not severe, these reactions impair judgment and increase the likelihood of accidents and violence,” according to Dr Breggin.

CCHR has set up a great website with a one-of-a-kind search engine that allows the public and officials to access the database on side effects reported to the FDA on SSRIs, and every other psychiatric drug. The site also has a search engine to access all the International warnings and studies on psychiatric drugs which have been summarized so they are easy to understand, even to a lay person

Input Only From the Choir

On April 6, 2010, Bob Fiddaman, author of the long-running popular website and blog, “Seroxat Sufferers,” sent a request to the FAA, under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking information on the change in policy.

In the Federal Register, the FAA claims it came to its decision after “careful consideration.” However, in the 58 pages of documents sent to Fiddaman on June 9, 2010 (and kindly shared with this author), there is no mention of consultations with any of the prominent SSRI experts who may have offered a contrary view. Like Peter Breggin, for instance.

The FAA’s response to Fiddaman shows the agency has been discussing the policy change since at least 2008. In response to a request for “minutes of meetings where the change in the policy was on the agenda,” as well as a list of “members present and a declaration of interests of each of the members,” the FAA sent a copy of a July 18, 2008, Memorandum, with a summary from one consultants’ meeting. Three outside experts attended but there were no declarations of interests, or lack thereof, by anyone at the meeting.

The summary noted that the consultants “unanimously agreed that the concept of allowing certain airmen taking antidepressant medication was reasonable and safe.” But the “unanimous consensus” was that only Prozac and Zoloft “were appropriate medications due to the longevity of their use and overall safety.”

“They also felt that only these two should be considered initially, and no other medications considered at this time,” the summary reported.

In responding to the question of whether the new policy would apply to Air Traffic Controllers, the FAA said the “new policy does not presently apply to Air Traffic Control Specialist (ATCS) because the administrative details of the monitoring and follow-up of these employees are yet to be determined. The plan is that ATCSs will eventually be included in a program of this type.”

In response to a request for any information “given to FAA from outside parties that relate to the FAA’S recent change in policy regarding pilots on antidepressant medication,” the FAA sent copies of documents received from the Aerospace Medical Association, the Airline Pilots Association Aeromedical Office, the International Airline Pilots Association, and the United States Army.

“In developing the new policy, the FAA also utilized a variety of medical research literature available in the public domain,” the response said. “We used internet sites such as, but not limited to: The National Library of Medicine PubMed site and the FDA Medwatch.”

The documents Fiddaman received show consideration of a 2003 study of aviation accidents that found SSRIs in 61 pilot fatalities between 1990-2001, in which the psychological condition and/or the drug use was determined to be the cause, or a factor in 16 of the accidents, or 31%.

However, there was no mention of a later November 2006 study titled, “Pilot Medical History and Medications Found in Post Mortem Specimens for Aviation Accidents,” led by Dennis Canfield, from the FAA’s Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, in the Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine journal.

For this study, toxicological evaluations were performed on 4,143 pilots involved in fatal aviation accidents during the period between January 1, 1993, through December 31, 2003, to identify all pilots found positive for medications used to treat cardiovascular, psychological, or neurological conditions.

The evaluations found one-hundred dead pilots with SSRIs in their systems including forty with Prozac, twenty-six with Zoloft, twenty-one with Paxil, and thirteen with Celexa.

Less than a month after the new policy was announced, in Aviation International News, on May 1, 2010, Matt Thurber reported that in a review of 127 accidents in the NTSB database since 1991, containing the word “antidepressant,” only three were nonfatal.

“In 124 of those accidents, 211 people were killed,” Thurber said. “In accident after accident, antidepressants … were found in the tissues of dead pilots, and the pilots had falsified their medical certificate applications to show that they had never been treated for psychiatric problems.”

Drug Free For All

No doubt in large part to Fiddaman’s multi-year non-stop campaign to inform the world about the dangers of Paxil, pilots will still not be allowed to use it.

However, some of the people who submitted comments to the FAA on the new policy thought the agency should open up the friendly skies to more psychotropic drug use. For instance, on June 16, 2010, a person commenting under the name, Anonymous, told the FAA: “This review should be expanded to include ADHD medications.”

“Many pilots are diagnosed as having ADHD and take medication to assist them. Many of the medications used today to assist adults are derivatives of drugs issued to military pilots to remain alert during missions,” Anonymous said. “I strongly encourage the FAA to review the use of ADHD medication so the pilots using medications to manage their symptoms can finally come out of the shadows.”

On June 23, Gregorio Guillen wrote and asked: “How about those pilots wanting to take prescription low dose Sertraline to treat premature ejaculation and not necessarily depression?”

Gregorio wants to know whether they “are going to be affected by this rule?”

A pilot named Paul Reed, asked the FAA to: “Please consider allowing migraine treatments with anti-depressants to be included in this rule,” on June 17.

But on the other hand, on June 17, Patric Barry wrote: “If the pilot population is permitted to use such medication, the temptation to increase the dose when a pilot is feeling “a little off” is too great a risk — to amend the rules to allow an inch, some pilots will feel compelled to take a mile.”

“That is simply an unacceptable risk to the general population and passengers relying on the stability of the pilot group to safeguard and protect public safety,” he told the FAA.

Dr Jeffrey Welker also believes it is “a bad idea to allow individuals being treated for depression with medications to hold a current valid medical,” and “we should be looking very close at these individuals after treatment for mental stability.”

“I base this opinion on my professional and personal observations of 25 years in practice,” he said in a comment on June 25.

All of the comments submitted can be found by going to the FAA’s Regulations and Policies Web page.

SSRIs Impair Roadways

It makes no sense to put planes full of people at risk by allowing pilots to fly on SSRIs when a study as far back as December 2006, in the “Journal of Clinical Psychiatry,” reported that about seven out of every ten people who take antidepressants have impaired driving ability in a car, and 16% have severe motor impairments.

In addition, “reckless driving is one of the most commonly reported adverse effects of antidepressants,” Dr Breggin reports.

After taking antidepressants, disinhibited, agitated or angry drivers find themselves exploding into road rage or using their cars as instruments of suicide,” he says. “This is one of the first antidepressants reactions that clinicians like myself began noticing soon after Prozac hit the marketplace.

In his book, Medication Madness, Dr Breggin describes how an ordinarily calm, model citizen became suicidal on Paxil and drove his car into a helpless policeman in order to knock him over and get his gun so the man could kill himself with it. Although the man seriously injured the cop, he failed to get the gun.

In another case, a man described as kind and gentle turned psychotic while on Zoloft and drove his automobile into a barrier in attempt to kill his passenger wife because he believed her body was harboring an alien beast that wanted to destroy him and all of humanity.

“The other part of this story that the FAA seems to be missing is that for all but the most extreme cases of depression, antidepressant drugs have been scientifically proven — through multiple clinical trials — to work no better than placebo,” says Mike Adams in the April 5, 2010 report, “Medicated in the Cockpit.”

“These pilots would do just as well taking capsules filled with olive oil as they do on patented, monopoly-priced SSRI drugs,” he points out.

The current price of the four SSRIs at DrugStore.com, for 90 pills at a middles dose, is $600 for Prozac, $365 for Zoloft, $320 for Celexa, and $270 for Lexapro. Much to the delight of the SSRI makers, the FAA’s new policy will likely encourage pilots to keep paying for their useless drugs forever.

Evelyn Pringle is an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in government and corporate America. She can be reached at: evelyn-pringle@sbcglobal.net. Read other articles by Evelyn, or visit Evelyn's website.

20 Million Children Drugged

2010-05-29T10:39:00.001-04:00

Click here for 2 minute video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR4EWSbXLWA

Please take a moment to watch CCHR's latest video - its only 2 minutes long but contains many facts about the psychiatric drugging of children, and also directs people/parents where
to go to get the FACTS about psychiatric drugs - CCHR's new, one of a kind, psychiatric drug database.

Pass this message along to your friends.

Click here to visit CCHR's Psychiatric Drug Database/Search Engine: http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/

Psychiatrist gets 16 years

2010-05-28T11:14:00.001-04:00

The story on the Florida psychiatrist (sentenced to 16 years yesterday) so far appears on over 130 newspaper sites and also in Canada, Austrailia, Tawain, Korea and the Phillipines.

Psychiatrist Jerome Feldman

The Post-Standard
Former doctor imprisoned 16 years for phony organ transplant scam

By John O'Brien

May 27th, 2010

A former psychiatrist was sent to prison for 16 years today for duping seriously ill people out of $400,000 with false promises of organ transplants in the Philippines.

U.S. District Judge David Hurd sentenced Jerome Feldman to 15 years and 8 months in prison and ordered him to repay $2 million to the victims of the phony organ-transplant scheme and an earlier Medicare fraud in Florida.

Feldman Feldman pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud charges for luring five people to the Philippines for life-saving organ transplants. He'd set up a web site where patients sought quick access to transplants because they were desperate for a life-saving organ transplant.

Feldman, 69, whose estranged wife lives in Baldwinsville, apologized in court as he stood in an orange jail uniform and handcuffs.

"I'm sorry I didn't return - didn't make refunds," Feldman said.

His lawyer, federal Public Defender James Greenwald, told the judge that Feldman did help three of the five victims get organ transplants in the Philippines. Greenwald acknowledged that Feldman falsely represented his relationship with the doctors there and overcharged the patients.

"He's not the monster or ogre the government makes him out to be," Greenwald said in court.

Those patients who did get transplants did so only because they made their own arrangements in the Philippines when they arrived and realized Feldman was a fraud using an alias, Assistant U.S. Attorney Carla Freedman said. They had wired thousands of dollars to Feldman's bank account then flew to Manila only to realize he'd made no arrangements for the transplants, Freedman said.

One of the patients who got an organ "is alive today in spite of the defendant," Freedman said. She said the patient went to a surgeon's office on his own and Feldman went with him. Feldman then asked the secretary if the surgeon could take the patient, Freedman said.

The patients had to pay legitimate medical expenses for the transplants on top of the amounts they'd paid to Feldman, she said.

Another patient, Erwin Benke of Edmonton, Canada, flew to the Philippines in 2008 after paying $70,000 to Feldman in a last-ditch effort for a liver transplant. Benke waited six months before he died there without a transplant, Freedman said. His common-law wife, Victoria Langier, was not with him.

"She will never be able to live with the fact that she wasn't with her husband in the last six months of his life," Freedman said.

Feldman's fraud unraveled in July 2008 when Langier called the DeWitt Police Department to report that her husband was dying in the Philippines while waiting for a liver transplant. She told DeWitt police that she'd wired the $70,000 to a DeWitt bank for the surgery.

Florida Tightening Psych Drug Rules

2010-05-19T10:46:00.001-04:00

George Sheldon - Secretary of the Florida Department

of Children and Families

Daytona Beach News Journal
DCF tightening medicine rules
By DEBORAH CIRCELLI
May 14, 2010

DAYTONA BEACH — A bill that would have ensured tighter controls on administering psychotropic drugs to foster children failed to pass this legislative session, but the head of the state Department of Children & Families is moving forward with rules he says will ensure children are safe.

George Sheldon, secretary for the state Department of Children & Families, who was in town Thursday afternoon to attend community meetings on the department’s future strategic plan, said the bill not passing was a “major failure” on the part of the Legislature.

A work group made 90 recommendations following the April 2009 death of a South Florida foster child, Gabriel Myers, 7, who was prescribed several mind-altering drugs and hanged himself in his foster home.

Some of the recommendations included hiring a chief medical officer to monitor the prescribing of such medications, which Sheldon plans to move forward with using other funds.

By July 1, he said, operating procedures also will be in place to ensure every child on psychotropic medications has a guardian; to prohibit any foster child from being a part of any clinical trials; and to make sure every child is informed of the side effects, to name a few.

Psychotropic medications are drugs used for psychiatric reasons such as mood stabilizers, stimulants and drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

A database also will be in place to allow DCF to monitor any “red flag” cases where a child is on more than two psychotropic medications at the same time, he said.

“I’m unwilling to have Gabriel Myers’ death be in vain,” Sheldon said in an interview Thursday.

Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, who was honored at a community meeting Thursday for her work over the years for social services, said she was “very disappointed” the bill did not pass and that it “is an issue that must be dealt with in our state.”

The work group criticized DCF in the review of Gabriel’s death and raised concerns in some cases that the drugs have been used to control foster children’s behaviors.

Statewide as of May 7, according to DCF records, 14.6 percent or 2,724 foster children are on one or more prescriptions for psychotropic medications, with 122 or 14.8 percent locally.

Bill Babiez, CEO of Community Partnership for Children, the local foster care agency for the state, said local initiatives include hiring a specialist to make sure parental consents are in place when a doctor prescribes psychotropic medications.

“We don’t want to miss a beat on this issue. It is too critical to the life of a child,” Babiez said.

Florida Tightening Psych Drug Rules

2010-05-14T15:31:00.001-04:00

George Sheldon - Secretary of the Florida Department

of Children and Families

Daytona Beach News Journal
DCF tightening medicine rules
By DEBORAH CIRCELLI
May 14, 2010

DAYTONA BEACH - A bill that would have ensured tighter controls on administering psychotropic drugs to foster children failed to pass this legislative session, but the head of the state Department of Children & Families is moving forward with rules he says will ensure children are safe.

George Sheldon, secretary for the state Department of Children & Families, who was in town Thursday afternoon to attend community meetings on the department's future strategic plan, said the bill not passing was a "major failure" on the part of the Legislature.

Some of the recommendations included hiring a chief medical officer to monitor the prescribing of such medications, which Sheldon plans to move forward with using other funds.

Psychotropic medications are drugs used for psychiatric reasons such as mood stabilizers, stimulants and drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

A database also will be in place to allow DCF to monitor any "red flag" cases where a child is on more than two psychotropic medications at the same time, he said.

"I'm unwilling to have Gabriel Myers' death be in vain," Sheldon said in an interview Thursday.

Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, who was honored at a community meeting Thursday for her work over the years for social services, said she was "very disappointed" the bill did not pass and that it "is an issue that must be dealt with in our state."

The work group criticized DCF in the review of Gabriel's death and raised concerns in some cases that the drugs have been used to control foster children's behaviors.

Statewide as of May 7, according to DCF records, 14.6 percent or 2,724 foster children are on one or more prescriptions for psychotropic medications, with 122 or 14.8 percent locally.

"We don't want to miss a beat on this issue. It is too critical to the life of a child," Babiez said.

Emergency Suspension-Florida Psychiatrist Steven L. Kaplan

2010-05-10T14:58:00.000-04:00

Denis Maltez and mother, Martha

Health News Florida
'Emergency' action took 4 yrs.
By Carol Gentry

May 10, 2010

Four years ago, the Department of Health was warned that psychiatrist Steven L. Kaplan was dangerously overmedicating children, state records show. DOH got around to filing an "emergency" suspension of Kaplan last week, three years too late for one little boy.

The emergency suspension order by State Surgeon General Ana Viamonte Ros released late Friday makes no reference to the warnings about Kaplan that it received from the Agency for Health Care Administration's Medicaid unit in May 2006. The order says it received a complaint about Kaplan in November 2009 and began its investigation at that time.

The DOH's emergency order does not name the patient beyond his initials, but the circumstances make clear it was Denis Maltez, an autistic boy who lived in a state-licensed group home for foster children called Rainbow Ranch. He was Kaplan's patient for a year before dying at age 12.

As the Miami Herald reported last month, three agencies - AHCA, the Department of Children and Families, and the Agency for Persons With Disabilities - all voiced concerns about Kaplan's prescribing practices for years but no action took place as Kaplan continued to prescribe for hundreds of children in foster care.

The state Medicaid program acted only after the Herald report, removing Kaplan as a provider effective next week.

The Herald report, based on documents that became public in a lawsuit, indicates that DOH knew about Kaplan in 2008 but didn't act. It turns out that DOH knew about Kaplan much sooner than that - a year before Denis died.

Records provided by AHCA show that the Medicaid Program Integrity Office notified the DOH Division of Medical Quality Assurance in writing on May 12, 2006 about problems with Kaplan's "prescribing habits" as they pertained to "antipsychotic medications for Medicaid recipients/patients."

A low-level staffer at DOH wrote back on May 26, 2006 asking for medical records, consultants' reports and any other documents that would be helpful.

Tiffany Vause, a spokeswoman for AHCA, told Health News Florida last week that those records and reports were provided at the time.

However, it was a full year later -only a few days before Denis died, in fact - that a medical malpractice investigator for DOH notified AHCA that an investigation had been initiated.

The complaint was dismissed a year later, apparently, although none of that is mentioned in the emergency order.

DOH does not discuss complaints in which no "probable cause" is found by a committee of the Board of Medicine. Officials at DOH say the law does not permit them to do so.

A phone call to Kaplan's office upon the release of the suspension order was not returned. Health News Florida has asked DOH to explain how the agency will justify issuing an "emergency" suspension order on events that occurred in 2006.

Bizarre Psych News - Antigay Psychologist took a trip to Europe with a gay male prostitute

2010-05-10T13:56:00.001-04:00

The state of Florida recently paid him about $120,000 (not $60,000) to be an expert witness against gay adoption.

Psychologist George A. Rekers

Miami Herald
Antigay activist took trip with male ‘assistant’
An antigay psychologist who testified for Florida in the state’s gay adoption case took a trip to Europe with a gay male prostitute from Miami but says no illegal behavior or sex occurred.
BY STEVE ROTHAUS

May 6th, 2010

A nationally known antigay psychologist who testified for the state in its defense of Florida’s gay-adoption ban recently took a trip to Europe with a gay male prostitute from Miami who advertised himself online.

George A. Rekers — an officer of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and a retired University of South Carolina professor — hired the young escort known as Geo on Rentboy.com , a gay-sex website.

The Miami New Times website reported the story Monday, and it quickly went viral on the Internet. By Wednesday, Rekers had taken down his Facebook page and Geo had removed his Rentboy profile.

Both Rekers and Geo, who declined to give his real name, deny they had a sexual relationship during their 10-day journey to Spain and England.

“In all honesty, I did go on the trip with him,” Geo, 20, told The Miami Herald on Wednesday. “He was setting me up as a companion. In all honesty, he’s a very kind, family-values man.”

Rekers, 61, said via e-mail that he hired Geo as “an assistant to lift his luggage in his travels because of an ongoing condition following surgery.”

He added: “Dr. Rekers found his recent travel assistant by interviewing acquaintances. There was nothing inappropriate with this relationship. Professor Rekers was not involved in any illegal or sexual behavior with his travel assistant.”

Geo says Rekers — the father of three grown sons — hired him to carry luggage, be a companion and to translate Spanish to English during their time in Spain.

“Nor did he pay me enough” for sex, Geo said.

“I was getting about $75 a day,” Geo said, adding that he and his friends usually charge $300 to $500 a day for sex.

Geo said he is a Miami Dade College student who became a prostitute to pay his bills. “I was just trying to get through school,” he said. “I think I’m going to have drop my classes.”

Geo’s parents know he’s gay, but not that he’s an escort. “Who the hell wants to tell them I was doing this stuff?” he said. “I come from a very conservative Spanish family.”

Rekers, a founder of the conservative Family Research Council who believes homosexuality is a sin, is well-known for his antigay stance. In 1989, he and Jerry Regier — later secretary of the Florida Department of Children & Families — co-wrote an essay entitled The Christian World View of the Family, which railed against abortion and gay couples forming families, and emphasized that husbands have “final say in any family dispute.”

The state of Florida recently paid him about $60,000 to be an expert witness against gay adoption in the case of Frank Gill, a gay foster parent seeking to adopt two young brothers. Florida is the only state that bans all gay people from adopting.

In November 2008, Miami-Dade Judge Cindy Lederman awarded custody of the two boys to Gill. In her final judgment, Lederman wrote:

“Dr. Rekers’ testimony was far from a neutral and unbiased recitation of the relevant scientific evidence. Dr. Rekers’ beliefs are motivated by his strong ideological and theological convictions that are not consistent with the science. Based on his testimony and demeanor at trial, the court can not consider his testimony to be credible nor worthy of forming the basis of public policy.”

The Florida Attorney General’s Office has appealed Lederman’s ruling, and a decision is expected anytime.

On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum would not comment about Reker. A NARTH office worker also declined to speak.

Gay activists seized the opportunity, though.

Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, a national group that opposes the ex-gay movement, said it doesn’t matter whether Rekers and Geo had a sexual relationship.

“Who cares? It’s even creepier if they didn’t have sex,” said Besen, who grew up in Fort Lauderdale. “If you go to Rentboy.com to have the company of a sex worker and not have sex, I think that shows a pattern of repression and delusion. That’s just not normal behavior.

“Rekers is driving the story right now with his comical denial. He could have just as easily given someone a big tip to carry his bags, like everyone else does.”

Psych Drugs Again in Spotlight - Another Florida Kid

2010-05-07T13:19:00.001-04:00

How many children must die before the world wakes up?

Emilio Villamar died of a heart attack at 16. His mother said she was shocked

when she heard the same psychiatrist was treating 7-year old Gabriel Myers.

She claims her son was given a cocktail of drugs, some that were not approved

for children. “He was like a zombie, my son was like a zombie all the time.”

Miami Herald
Drug's use again in spotlight

The mother of a Broward teen who died in 2003 believes it was because of an anti-psychotic drug he should not have been prescribed.
BY NIRVI SHAH
May 1, 2010

A Broward doctor reprimanded by the Food and Drug Administration for his drug-prescribing practices is facing accusations in a civil suit that he caused the death of a Weston teen after prescribing an anti-psychotic drug not approved for use in adolescents.

Norma Tringali of Tamarac believes the drug Seroquel, which Dr. Sohail Punjwani prescribed to her son Emilio, played a role in his death seven years ago. Punjwani is the same physician who was treating 7-year-old foster child Gabriel Myers before he committed suicide last year.

Earlier this week, pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca agreed to pay state and federal government agencies $520 million to settle an investigation into the company’s marketing practices, which the Department of Justice said encouraged doctors to use Seroquel for young and elderly people for indications not approved by the FDA.

The settlement will yield about $8.5 million for Florida, split between the state’s Medicaid program, general revenue fund and a reward program for reporting Medicaid fraud.

Tringali’s case against Punjwani is expected to go to trial later this year.

All the other doctors and institutions named in the suit have settled with Emilio’s family, said her lawyer, Michael Freedland.

In the meantime, for Tringali, the civil penalty AstraZeneca has said it will pay provides some resolution.

“That is the thing — that is the answer,” Tringali said, through tears. “Emilio was taking something recommended for adults, not kids.”

Punjwani and his attorneys did not return several phone calls seeking comment.

After a year in Punjwani’s care, Emilio, who played water polo, had a heart attack and died. He was a junior at Piper High School in Sunrise. The lawsuit alleges that Punjwani’s care “deviated and departed from the prevailing professional standard of care exercised” by most doctors.

It goes on to say that Punjwani failed to monitor the effects of a combination of anti-psychotic drugs on Emilio’s heart, failed to perform regular cardiac testing and failed to consult with a cardiologist or other doctor with more experience with the heart-related side effects of anti-psychotic drugs, among other things.

But it is not certain whether the settlement will have a direct effect on the suit against Punjwani, said Tringali’s lawyer, Weston attorney Michael Freedland.

“She was always convinced that these drugs caused his death,” Freedland said of Emilio’s mother. “For her this settlement was some kind of vindication in a sense. It doesn’t necessarily relate to the exact same issue.”

Freedland’s office was simultaneously working on Tringali’s case and the whistleblower case that led to this week’s settlement with AstraZeneca. But rules about whistleblower suits meant they could not share anything about that case with Tringali until the settlement became public this week.

Punjwani was reprimanded by the FDA because he failed “to protect the rights, safety and welfare” of children enrolled in clinical drug trials.

“Your failure to conduct the requisite safety measures contributed to the unnecessary exposure of pediatric subjects to significant overdoses, which jeopardized the subjects’ rights, safety and welfare,” the FDA wrote.

Early last year, drugmaker Eli Lilly pleaded guilty to illegally marketing the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa for unapproved uses. Freedland’s firm also worked on that case, which netted a $1.42 billion settlement.

“The issue relates to these drugs,” Freedland said. “The way Dr. Punjwani treated Emilio Villamar and the manner in which these drugs were prescribed is a picture of everything that’s wrong with this industry and the relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies.”

The settlement says that AstraZeneca targeted its illegal marketing of Seroquel at doctors who do not typically treat schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, including physicians who treat older patients, young patients and primary care doctors and to psychiatrists and other physicians for uses that were not approved by the FDA as safe and effective.

The civil penalty will repay Medicaid, Medicare and other programs that were billed for the drug, although it was being prescribed incorrectly.

In a statement, AstraZeneca said under the agreement, it still denies the allegations.

However, the international company, with U.S. headquarters in Delaware, entered into a corporate integrity agreement with the Office of Inspector General of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that will last for five years.

Florida Psychiatrist now involved in Dosing Scandal

2010-05-02T19:20:00.001-04:00

When is this pig going to be thrown out of the profession?

Florida Psychiatrist Sohail Punjwani

Pharmalot
The Pfizer Geodon Trial And Physician Mishaps

By Ed Silverman
April 28, 2010

Earlier this month, the FDA sent Pfizer a warning letter for failing to properly monitor pediatric clinical trials in which at least 13 children with bipolar disorder experienced overdosing that led to restless legs, tremors, involuntary facial movements and a serious skin disorder.

This is a big problem for the drugmaker, since Pfizer hopes to receive an extra six months of marketing exclusivity in return for having conducted the pediatric trials. But the dosing scandal could prompt the FDA to request further trials, which would require so much additional time that exclusivity would likely be lost, since the basic Geodon patent expires in 2012. This would also delay pediatric approval, which would expand the possibilities for a drug that generated $1.1 billion in sales last year.

But who were some of the doctors involved? …

…there was Sohail Punjwani, who was cited for numerous instances in which the wrong dosage was given children. Punjwani ran one of three sites that were responsible for 40 patients receiving incorrect doses, or 16 percent of the kids involved, and half of them were given more than the maximum tolerated dose for the trial…

Punjwani has made headlines in Florida, where he is based, for treating 7-year-old Gabriel Myers, who hanged himself with a shower cord in a foster home. The boy’s death prompted a probe by a Department of Children & Families task force and proposed legislation before the Florida Senate. He did not respond to messages.

+++

Note: The FDA warning letter to Pfizer states that informed consent was not obtained in these clinical trials. See letter here: http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm208976.htm

Florida Boy Escapes Restraints, Thorazine and Seclusion

2010-04-30T16:53:00.001-04:00

A psychiatric treatment center in Palm Beach County named Sandy Pines is described by nine-year old Anthony Morales;

like this: "It was a bad place; they stuck needles in me…It was scary.”

Sandy Pines is owned by a company called Psychiatric Solutions, the largest operator of psychiatric inpatient facilities

in the country.

Here is Anthony's story:

Key West Citizen

SAVING ANTHONY

By John L. Guerra jguerra@keysnews.com

Apr 8, 2010

Nine-year-old Anthony Morales is a different child now that he’s not in restraints, shot up with Thorazine or locked away in a seclusion room of a state children’s psychiatric hospital.

The youngster seemed like any other kid in the Florida Keys as he sat squirming in a plastic chair and concentrating on a Pokemon game on his handheld video console.

“I’m glad to be back in Key West,” he said Wednesday, without missing a play. “I’m glad to see my older brother again.”

His mother — a single mother — watched him fondly as she explained how her son was almost lost to her in the state’s child psychiatric system.

“They restrained him with straitjackets and Thorazine; they told me he was mentally retarded, that he was going to end up in prison,” Hope Estrada said.

That was last year.

Anthony’s troubled behavior — bursts of violent anger, days without sleeping, disruptive behavior documented in his medical records, and multiple Key West police reports and Monroe County sheriff’s dispatch notes — began to surface when he started pre-K in Key West when he was 3½ years old, Estrada said.

“He could not sit still, he was very hyperactive,” Estrada said. “The school district did an evaluation through the Easter Seals and a doctor decided to give him Ritalin.”

The controversial drug is a mild central nervous system stimulant used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children, according to Drugs.com. In children, side effects include “loss of appetite … [and] inability to fall or stay asleep,” among others.

That’s not all Anthony experienced.

Bad side effects

“He would drool, suck on his T-shirt, and was very lethargic,” his mother said.

Doctors changed him to Risperdal, an antipsychotic used to treat schizophrenia, mixed and manic states associated with bipolar disorder and irritability in children with autism, the manufacturer’s Web site states.

His behavior didn’t improve. When he was 4, he would run from his mother and refuse to come back. He’d try to strike her and would threaten or attack other children.

This began a series of Baker Act calls to his home. The law allows authorities to detain and commit individuals for temporary mental health evaluation and treatment when required, either on a voluntary or an involuntary basis. He was committed to Miami Children’s Hospital several times, leaving his mother to jump in her car and drive the distance.

“I had to call the police,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I had to have help. The medications were not resolving anything. Some made him hallucinate.”

From age 5 until last summer, when Anthony was 8, he had been committed at least nine times, stabilized and either sent back home or to Sandy Pines, a residential psychiatric treatment center in Palm Beach County. The facility, licensed by the state Agency for Health Care Administration, has a public school, swimming pool, gymnasium and nature trails in a state park that borders the property.

Anthony would live there for six months and receive psychiatric care, counseling and an education. At night, he’d be restricted to the residential treatment unit with other troubled children from around the state. When staff determined he had improved, they’d release him — but the next Baker Act always seemed to come, Estrada said.

It was here that Anthony was restrained, medicated with psychotropic drugs, and isolated in a seclusion ward when he broke down and staff determined he had become violent, Estrada said.

‘A bad place’

“It was a bad place; they stuck needles in me,” Anthony said of his medication, looking up from his video game for a reaction from the adults in the room. “It was scary.”

Five years after Anthony began what his mother calls “a traumatic, emotional roller coaster” of hospital stays and other trouble, a glint of sunlight showed when things were at their worst. Years of driving from Key West to Miami to Palm Beach and back — not to mention the constant worrying about her son’s health and future — Estrada said she heard really bad news.

“On one of his last stays at Sandy Pines, a doctor told me, ‘I don’t know why Anthony is back here because he reached his full potential two months ago. He’s mentally retarded and has no future — except prison,’” Estrada said.

The Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) said Anthony could not return to Key West because he could not find the help he needed in the community, Estrada said. Not only that, but Anthony was reaching his limit, too. Upon learning that he’d have to return to Sandy Pines, he said something that truly frightened his mother.

“He told me, ‘They’re just going to drug me up. I want to kill myself,’” she said.

The last time Anthony was released to his mother’s care, in July, she had a panic attack and fainted.

Frightened that she’d lose her son to state authorities forever, she started calling lawyers to see what could be done.

Child advocate

“It’s her child, the treatment he was getting was missing the mark and she was crying for help and people weren’t listening,” said Andrea Moore, a lawyer who answered Estrada’s pleas. Moore had been referred by a television consumer advocate reporter Estrada had called.

“I read many of Anthony’s medical records and went to visit Sandy Pines,” Moore said. She met with Sandy Pines staff, with Anthony in the room to see what was going on. “When I first met Anthony, they brought him into a room full of adults at a meeting. He had all the signs of being on psychotropic medication but they let him climb on the tables, climb on the chairs. I was taken aback.”

Moore and the DCF have been alerted to the use of Thorazine, Clonodine and other heavy psychotropic drugs on children as young as Anthony.

It took the suicide of a boy Anthony’s age to shine the spotlight on the practice.

In April 2009, 7-year-old Gabriel Myers hanged himself in his foster parents’ home after years of being on psychotropic drugs, according to a state work group report on the use of the drugs on children. There were many factors that led to his alleged suicide, among them instability in his life and worries about the future, but the drugs are cited as a moving force in his decision to take his life. The work group also found that some 3,000 children had been given the strong drugs without parental permission.

Like Gabriel Myers, Anthony was in trouble, Moore said.

“In my opinion as a child advocate, psychotropic medication in young children is used as chemical restraints, to keep them quiet, calm and really to treat the environment rather than to treat the child,” Moore said.

The Gabriel Myers task force reached the same conclusion about the use of the drugs in child psychiatry. Nationwide, some 5 percent of all children are treated with psychotropic medications, an August 2009 task force reports. “In Florida’s foster care system, 15.2 percent of its children receive at least one such medication.”

The solution?

The bright young boy playing Pokemon still fidgets, but he’s off the heavy medication, Moore said.

“I recommended a thorough neuropsychological battery of tests so we could have an expert determine the best way to treat Anthony,” Moore said. “It was pretty clear that the treatment being provided was missing its mark.”

Moore also requested a PET scan of Anthony’s brain. His skull showed images of a fracture line, the result of falling out of bed when he was 8 months old, Estrada said. Moore thinks that’s where doctors may have gone wrong.

“They didn’t take into account that Anthony may have had organic damage to his brain,” she said.

Anthony is now under the care of a brain injury specialist.

Off medication, Anthony still faces behavioral problems, but has learned coping skills and new ways to get his way using socially acceptable methods, Moore said.

Anthony also was introduced to a different setting to attend school in Hollywood, albeit one that also has seclusion rooms, but does not give Anthony medication. Known as Florida Palms Academy, it’s one of several alternate family care facilities around the state.

“He had an Individual Education Plan developed for his needs,” Moore said. “He has made incredible progress in school, his behavior has substantially improved and his ability to focus has substantially improved. More importantly, he made progress in reading and math and the other subjects; that was beyond what we would have reasonably anticipated. You can watch him bloom with every passing week.”

There has been action in the Legislature, too. State Sen. Ronda Storms, chair of the Children, Families and Elderly Affairs Committee, has introduced SB 2718, “Relating to Children/Out-of-home Placement/Psychotropic Meds.” If it becomes law, it will require psychiatric evaluation of children and express and informed consent or assent be obtained from a child or the child’s parent or guardian.

Time will tell how much Anthony will improve and whether he’ll do well when he returns to Key West permanently sometime in the next few months. He was in town with his mother Wednesday to see his brother, and perhaps his third-grade teacher at Poinciana Elementary School.

“I just want a second chance,” Anthony said. “I think everyone deserves a chance.”