SC PIE - Feature Article

I urge all parents to ask their legislators to vote in favor of the bills in the S.C. House (H. 3240) and S.C. Senate (S. 237) that say students cannot be forced into taking medications and parents may refuse psychological screening of their children. No one knows a child better than that child’s parents. Parents should maintain control of their child’s care.

One reason I am so concerned about this topic is that drugs and electric shock treatments have disabled my sister. Though she is blessed to be in an adequate long-term care facility, her ongoing current treatment with two psychiatric medications has made her permanently psychotic. I lament the fact I did not learn about the information that follows until the last few years. Her care under departments of mental health has cost taxpayers close to $2 million dollars to date (since 1967). She was a sweet, shy, loving woman who did not deserve to be sick. It is too late to make her well. But it is not too late for our precious students in South Carolina who are truly ill and need help now.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Cho Seung Hui, gunman at the recent Virginia Tech massacre, was taking antidepressant drugs. This could have been the trigger for his rampage. Colombine gunmen were also using antidepressant drugs. Psychiatric drugs can be lifesavers but they can also be killers. A May 3, 2007 article in The Sun News indicates the FDA backs expanding warnings of suicide risk in young adults taking antidepressants. According to the FDAs web site, adverse drug reactions (to all prescription medications) are the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. According to an article in The New York Times, in one year alone, the FDA received reports of at least 29 children dying and at least 165 more suffering serious side effects in which an antipsychotic was listed as the primary suspect. These figures are most likely just a fraction of actual incidences because reporting of bad drug effects is mostly voluntary. If psychiatric drugs could cure, you would be able to take them and stop. Instead, drugs mask and/or change symptoms, they can be addictive, and they have serious side effects. Drugs are toximolecular. They are substances foreign to the body, in sub-lethal (and sometimes lethal) amounts. Other treatments also cause permanent harm, such as electric shock that is well known in the psychiatric field for causing permanent memory loss.

Psychiatrists' diagnostic manual has been expanded from 112 disorders in 1952 to 374 in 1994 to such an extent that you are considered to be mentally ill if you are shy. So just about everyone is clinically mentally ill according to psychiatrists. Plus it is entirely possible to be misdiagnosed. The diagnostic process is very subjective. Did you know that some grandparents are being drugged in their nursing home beds to keep them quiet? Did you know that in hospitals patients with dementia are being drugged by psychotropic medication? One cause of dementia can be a deficiency of vitamin B12.

Problems in the brain are caused by medical problems that can be corrected if they can be located and treated. Drugs are not the best long-term option for mental symptoms. I have been researching the drug industry and psychiatry over the past three years and have attended a Harvard Medical School seminar to see what is being taught concerning psychopharmacology. What I have learned is that for generations, orthomolecular physicians have been curing mental illness by recognizing that brain malfunctions are caused by medical problems such as thyroid, kidney, and sleep disorder problems, an immune disorder cerebral allergy, metal toxicity, Candida infestation and enzyme and nutritional imbalances such as essential fatty acids deficiency (malnourishment). Biochemical testing can assist in determining underlying causes. Even Harvard's Dr. Stoll, who receives compensation from about ten different drug companies, recommends fish oil to provide essential Omega 3 fatty acids and vitamins as an effective treatment for depression. Toxins and environmental chemicals can also be causes.

According to Prescription for Nutritional Healing, a thyroid condition can cause fatigue, mood swings and depression, an allergy is an inappropriate response by the body's immune system to a substance that is not normally harmful, cerebral allergies cause swelling of the lining of the brain, and persons between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five are the most allergy-prone. Entire food families can cause IgE (immediate) or IgG (delayed) allergic reactions in susceptible people. Repeated headaches, or schizophrenic, violent, or aggressive reactions, can be an indicator. Foods such as corn, wheat, rice, dairy products, and chocolate, and certain food additives, are the most common offenders but chemicals such as petrochemicals or other substances, like mold can also cause serious problems. Other manifestations of food allergies are: acne, arthritis, asthma, chest and shoulder pains, colitis, depression, fatigue, food cravings, headaches, hemorrhoids, insomnia, intestinal problems, muscle disorders, obesity, sinus problems, ulcers, and unexplained dramatic weight changes. The list goes on and on. Allergies can also cause ADD or ADHD symptoms.

To cure, orthomolecular physicians have patients stop eating what they are allergic to. They remove toxins from the body, rid the body of Candida, and provide supplements as needed. The best book I have seen so far on this topic is Brain Allergies. I also recommend Natural Healing for Schizophrenia and Other Common Mental Disorders and The Omega 3 Connection. Unfortunately, the drug industry has such an influence on psychiatrists that it is still common for them to recommend superficial physical testing (if any at all), ignore the results, and rather than determine the cause and fix the problem, they try to cover up symptoms with mega doses of drugs. An excellent, very alarming book is Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs, which was written by a psychiatrist who stopped practicing psychiatry after seeing drug damage. A similar publication, Your Drug May Be Your Problem, includes information concerning how to stop taking drugs.