big pharma

Dec

2012

Sandy Hook Elementary School

My heart goes out to those that lost loved ones in Connecticut yesterday. I cannot imagine what they must be going through. I hope each one of them has someone there to help them. It is easy to blame the gun for the deed. I cannot for the life of me understand how the weapon can get blamed for the violence.

I do not own a gun. BUTd I do not consider guns to be inherently bad as many do. Something like this event can elicit some pretty intense reactions and feelings. Most people are pretty set in their view on whether they ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ guns.

There are a couple of points. One, if someone is raised in a family or environment where violence is a solution to a problem or difficulty in communication then that is what the person will learn. So, if you grow up that way and are confronted with a situation you don’t like, or you don’t like the other person’s view on things, then you may see no problem in hitting the person with a fist, baseball bat or shooting them with a gun! There, problem solved. “It worked for my father, brother, sister, mother or the tough guy down the street or in school – so why not for me.” Add to that, drugs of any sort, legal or illegal and you have a very dangerous mix.

If you do not like guns that is fine. I will not try and persuade you otherwise. That is what makes this country(the US of A) great! One has the freedom to believe what he or she wants. So far anyway.

But please take a step back and look at the broader picture. If you want to get rid of guns that is fine but what if that is not the cause of the these tragedies. There is a lot of evidence to the contrary. To look at just the guns as the cause and ban them and not solve anything would be a tragedy in itself.

Here are some interesting facts about gun ownership and violence in America:

1. Do some research and you will find that the actual percentage of people in the USA owning handguns is smaller than a lot of other countries. The individuals just own more of them. This site gives some interesting facts on guns and gun control in general. If you go down to the section “Allowances” you will see that per the laws in the USA it easier for a convicted criminal to legally aquire a gun than it is for a law abiding citizen. (That is pretty messed up.)

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Now, if you are concerned about deaths by violence:

– 195,000 people die per year as a result of medical mistakes.

www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/11856.php

– 100,000 peole die each year from known side effects of prescription drugs.

http://www.alternet.org/story/147318

Compare those stats to the number of homicides from guns:

– And gun homicides per year according to Center for Disease Control(CDC) is: 12,129 (another source says 9,146 – not sure of the year on that one – perhaps 2007.)

And the homicide deaths for the ‘side effects’ of the pharmaceutical drugs do not include (I’m pretty sure anyway) the people killed by those on these drugs. Now there is a lot of talk that the reason that these violent crimes/shooting sprees have increased is due to the increased use of pharmaceutical drugs. The majority, by far, of people doing this crazy sh*t are on or have recently come off some Big Pharma drug or other. And the cases of someone acting this violently without drugs happens but is rare.

If there is an investigation into this area I hope that anyone connected to the medical field or the pharmaceutical industry not be involved in any way in any way. And investigators should not be barred from looking at any documents needed to resolve this.

Sep

2012

Parents Rights

Many parents do not know their rights when it comes to their children being recommended psychiatric drugs. The medical industry being part of Big Pharma has a lot of muscle to throw around and because most people are not well informed as to their rights when it comes to this area they can be convinced to do something that is not always in the best interests of their child. The video at the end of the article linked below has a few requests that any parent is legally allowed to make. Very sensible requests that could not logically be denied. Even if you are one that does not believe that most of these drugs prescribed by doctors at the behest of Big Pharma will be harmful to your child, one should minimally follow through with the requests laid out in this video! Who knows, maybe your child has an allergy or a brain tumor and an anti-depressant is being prescribed without a proper diagnosis.

Check out the video at this page: Is your Child Mentally Ill?

Jul

2010

Big Pharma – 25 Shocking Phacts

Do you believe everything you see in the ads on television or read in the newspaper? Check this out for some information about pharmaceutical drugs and the companies that provide them that you don’t hear:

http://noedb.org/library/features/25-shocking-facts-about-the-pharmaceutical-industry

Oct

2009

It’s all in your head.

A friend of mine works construction in LA. He talks to a lot of people – he does like to talk. He told me a story of a woman he met about 3-4 years ago. He had gone to her house to appraise some damage to her chimney I expect and as he is wont to do he spoke with her of many things besides the required work. At one point she told him that she was very upset in life which made it hard to do her job and raise her kids. She was constantly worried about things and couldn’t really pinpoint what it was that she was worried about.

Upon questioning it was discovered that this woman started each day by reading the newspaper and ended each day watching the news on television. This was Los Angeles remember….

He asked her to do something that most people would never even consider: stop reading the newspaper and watching the news for one month. Absolutely no “news” in her life for that amount of time. It took a bit to get her to agree to this but he assured her that the world would not change that much in a few weeks.

She finally agreed and he . He had asked that she call at the end of the month period. She reached him after a week. He was a bit concerned with her calling as he had already spent quite a bit of time calming her down and trying to convince her to stay away from the ‘news’. But he was pleasantly surprised: She told him that she had completely kept away from the newspaper and did not watch the news on TV. The result was that in only one week she felt completely different – she was much calmer and no longer was upset with everything in life. In just those few days she was handling her job better and was actually enjoying life.

This is not the first story of this nature that I’ve heard and I’m sure that there are many more.

So, what does this have to do with psychiatry?

Big Pharma funds the media and obviously will tell them what can be promoted. Do the homework – follow the money. Look at the number of drug advertisements that are in magazines, newspapers and on television. Money like this cannot be turned away by the media.

Also, you will find many board members crossing from Big Pharma to media conglomerates. An example of this is: “MMR vaccine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline has appointed to its Board the head of News International James Murdoch.”

It behooves psychiatry and Big Pharma to keep the media directed the way they want – the more upset the general population are the more drugs they will take.

Do your own research.