Psychiatrist Busted For Fraud

From: http://ifawebnews.com/2010/01/26/restitution-payments-to-drive-n-y-psychiatrists-jail-time-for-fraud/

Restitution payments to drive N.Y. psychiatrist’s jail time for fraud

By Keith L. Martin

Posted: January 26, 2010

A New York psychiatrist could face a maximum of 15 years in prison or as little as one year, depending on how much of his court-ordered restitution he pays in the next few months stemming from his conviction from Medicaid fraud.

Dr. Godfrey Mbonu and his corporate medical group, Sisck Inc., pleaded guilty to grand larceny, a felony conviction, Dec. 22, 2009, according to the New York Attorney General’s Office.

The plea comes after an investigation by the office’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, which revealed that from 2003 to 2009, Mbonu individually and through his New York City-based firm submitted hundreds of claims to the state’s Medicaid program for services never provided.

Records obtained through the investigation indicated that Mbonu submitted claims to Medicaid that he performed psychotherapy sessions in his office in New York when he was actually traveling in Nigeria and also claimed to perform in-office sessions with patients actually in the hospital.

The investigation also found that to double his payment from Medicaid, Mbonu billed Medicaid at the higher psychiatrist rate when psychotherapy sessions were performed by a clinical social worker, according to the attorney general’s office.

Mbonu admitted his intention to defraud Medicaid in New York County Supreme Court and was ordered to pay $214,156.90 in restitution to the state.

As part of his plea, if Mbonu fails to pay the full amount by the time of his sentence on April 28, the court can order him to serve five to fifteen years in state prison. If the doctor pays the restitution in full, he will be permitted to withdraw his grand larceny plea for a grand larceny in the third degree plea, qualifying for a sentence of one year behind bars.

“Records show this doctor fraudulently billed Medicaid hundreds of times for care that was never provided,” said New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in a statement. “He tried to game the system, was caught, and is now going to jail. My office will not tolerate people using the Medicaid system for personal gain.”

War on Drugs

The Raw (and Ugly) Truth about the War on Drugs Mike Adams

Drugs are bad. Drugs destroy peoples’ lives. Didn’t you know that marijuana turns regular everyday people into zombie pot smokers? That’s why we have a war on drugs in America: to protect our children from potheads.

Drugs are bad. Especially marijuana. I learned this the other day when I visited an elementary school as a guest speaker. The schoolchildren were well trained in describing the dangers of drugs. On command, they would spout out any number of statements describing them.

But then a funny thing happened. I started asking how many of them were on drugs. You know, drugs their doctor prescribed. Drugs that alter brain chemistry to keep them docile, or free of pain, or to dilate their lungs so they could breathe easier.

It turned out that 60% of these schoolchildren were either on drugs at that very moment, or had been on such drugs within the last twelve months. Two-thirds of the teachers were on drugs, too. And it’s not at all a stretch to believe that 40% or more of all parents are on drugs. Mild-altering drugs like antidepressants, no less.

A nation of drug addicts

Fact is, we are a nation of drug addicts. We drug ourselves, our elderly and our children on a daily basis. We do it with prescription medications, over-the-counter pills, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine… and we say it’s all fine because those drugs are legal.

But wait a minute, you say. Those legal drugs are different from marijuana. They’re FDA-approved drugs, prescribed by a doctor. They have a medical purpose.

Oh really? Ritalin has a medical purpose? What medical symptoms does Ritalin treat, then? What measurable physiological state is addressed with Ritalin? There are none, of course. Ritalin is an authority drug. It keeps children in line. It makes teachers feel less stress and parents feel less guilt. Ritalin is a mind-altering narcotic, and yet millions of children are on it today. Its purpose is not to help children, but to make life more convenient for those who manage children.

You think statin drugs have a medical purpose? Think again. In reality, they only have a profit purpose. These drugs were invented to sell pills that manage disease states in people, not that solve any real health problem. Don’t believe me? Just stop taking your statin drugs, if you dare, and watch your cholesterol skyrocket. You’ll find out you’re a slave to the drug, and no healthier than before.

What’s the difference between legal and illegal drugs?

So what’s the real difference between legal drugs and illegal drugs? Some people think that only illegal drugs are habit-forming. Yet legal drugs can be just as addictive as illegal drugs. Just ask anyone who has tried to quit smoking, go off caffeine, or kick to Oxycontin habit.

So is there some other difference between illegal drugs and legal drugs? People argue that legal drugs are safe. They’re FDA-approved! And yet they fail to recognize that prescription drugs kill more Americans each year than all the crack, meth, and heroin deaths combined.

Okay, then, what about the argument that illegal drugs have no medicinal purpose, and legal drugs do have a medicinal purpose. What about that? Wrong again. Medical marijuana is a medically proven treatment for a variety of conditions, yet marijuana still remains illegal. Even MDMA (now called “Ecstasy” on the street) was long considered an effective “experiential drug” that helped severely traumatized adult patients overcome past pains through improved clarity. At the same time, tobacco smoke has no medical purpose whatsoever, yet cigarettes remain perfectly legal.

No, the real difference between these two classes of drugs is not their medical merit, nor their safety. The real difference is something far more sinister. It gets right down to answering the question of why DEA agents will raid medical marijuana clinics, yet stand by doing nothing while Americans smoke themselves to death on tobacco.

Want to know the real answer? I very much doubt you do. Because, like most Americans, you won’t believe it. You’ve been blinded to the obvious truth for your whole life, manipulated by the media, and brainwashed by advertising that has turned you into a statistically-validated consumer. You’ll think, no, this couldn’t possibly be true. The world isn’t that unjust, you think. But you’re wrong. (Take the free Gullibility Factor test to find out if you’re really a mind slave or not…)

Here’s the raw, blunt truth about the war on drugs. Drugs are declared legal or illegal based primarily on who benefits from their manufacture, distribution and sale.

Corporate and government profits determine the legality

Let me put this another way. You know why cigarettes are still legal? Consider this: here’s a product that admittedly kills people. It has no health benefit whatsoever. It is a threat to the public health. Yet why does it remain legal? Because states get a cut of cigarette sales thanks to the Big Tobacco settlement a few years back. Keeping cigarettes legal results in desperately-needed revenues for states… revenues that are almost never spent on anti-smoking campaigns, by the way.

It’s a classic racket: tobacco is allowed to remain legal because powerful institutions get a cut of the action. While people die from lung cancer, states get financial resuscitation by taking a cut of every sale. States are trading your health for their revenues.

Think I’m being overly cynical? Let’s take a look at gambling laws. Organized gambling is illegal at both the state and federal levels in this country. Except, of course, when government gets a cut. Casino-friendly states didn’t just make casinos legal for the good of the public: they legalized gambling in exchange for a cut of the action. It’s a classic, mob-style “protection fee.”

If you want to test this theory, launch your own online gambling website. You’ll be shut down almost immediately and charged with serious crimes. Gambling and organized betting is illegal, didn’t you know? That is, unless the state runs the show, as in state lotteries.

It’s right in your face, folks: gambling is legal when powerful corporations or institutions get a piece of the action. It’s illegal when they don’t. It has nothing at all to do with morality, or protecting people, or doing what’s right. It’s all about money, pure and simple. Just ask all the corrupt politicians in Missouri who legalized riverboat gambling a few years back.

Getting back to drugs, why do you think alcohol remains a legal drug? Because states and cities tax it. State governments are addicted to alcoholics as a source of revenue to fund their voter entitlement programs that get politicians reelected. Alcohol is a cash machine for cities and states.

Sometimes the exact same chemical is both legal and illegal, depending on who profits from it. The FDA, for example, banned the Chinese herb ma huang because it contains ephedra. Yet the exact same chemical compound remains perfectly legal in over-the-counter drugs like Sudafed and a variety of cold medicines. Sudafed even gets its name from ephedra: “pseudo-ephedrine.” So why is ephedrine illegal in herbs, yet legal in pharmacy drugs manufactured by drug companies? You already know the answer.

With all that in mind, why do you think prescription drugs that kill people remain legal? Think carefully now…

If you guessed, “Because powerful corporations generate billions in profits selling drugs, and governments get a cut of that via state sales taxes and corporate income taxes” then BINGO! You win a prize: a lifetime of free Prozac to keep you happy!

Legal drugs generate windfall profits for those in power

Think about it: if prescription drugs were peddled by street dealers instead of doctors, and if all that revenue changed hands in a non-taxable, non-corporate structure (i.e. street cash), then you’d be seeing full-scale law enforcement action against the makers, distributors and sellers of those drugs. You’d also see endless headlines about how dangerous they were: “Street painkillers kill twelve in South Miami!”

The sad truth of the matter, though, is that those very same painkilling drugs killed at least twelve people in South Miami this very day. But you’ll never here about it in the media. Because the news networks are sponsored by drug companies, of course. (The news is not designed to inform you, it’s designed to shape your reality, to turn you into a consumer of whatever products the corporations are peddling this year. Didn’t you know?)

Every drug that’s legal is legal for one simple reason: somebody in a position of power is keeping it legal because they’re getting a cut.

Non-patentable drugs are usually outlawed

That’s why medical marijuana is illegal: because government doesn’t control its distribution, nor does government receive a financial cut. You can bet your life that if Big Pharma owned the patents on medical marijuana and could set monopolistic prices on it, pot would be perfectly legal to own and smoke. That is, as long as you got it from a pharmacy where prices and distribution could be controlled.

Control is the key here. You think the FDA is discrediting drugs from Canada in order to protect your health? Get real. The FDA is simply protecting the monopoly drug market in this country. It’s controlling distribution points in the U.S. in the same way that a crack dealer assassinates his street corner competition. Eliminate the competition, and you can set whatever price you want. That’s why uninformed U.S. consumers pay 30,000% markup prices for drugs that can be acquired in Mexico or Canada for pennies on the dollar.

It’s not about your health, it’s about their wealth

You see, corporate America doesn’t really care what you put in your mouth, up your nose, through your lungs or into your veins, as long as they get a cut from it. That’s the whole prescription drug racket in a nutshell: it’s billions of dollars in annual profits generated from mind-altering (yet legal) drugs that flat-out kill people. Lots of people. Like 100,000 Americans a year (or a lot more if you believe more critical statistics).

So if you’ve ever wondered why Ritalin – which has no medical purpose whatsoever – is perfectly legal, and yet medical marijuana – which has a well-proven medical purpose – is outlawed, now you know the answer: because Ritalin makes powerful people rich. And marijuana doesn’t. Anybody can grow marijuana. Drug companies don’t control the patents.

Why I teach people to be 100% drug free

Now, just for the record, I do not personally use any drugs whatsoever (recreational, over-the-counter, prescription or otherwise), and in fact, I teach people to be 100% free of all drugs, including caffeine and alcohol. I bought into the “just say no to drugs” advice of Nancy Reagan, and I actually applied it to ALL drugs, not just selective drugs.

And as far as I can tell, aside from the Mormons and the Amish, there are only a small percentage of truly drug-free people living in this country. Practically everybody I meet is addicted to at least one of the following: coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, pain meds, prescription drugs or sugar (which alters brain chemistry in drug-like fashion).

At the same time, I’m not at all fooled by this silly “War on Drugs” charade, which is really nothing more than enforcement of corporate drug profits at gunpoint. If we had a genuine war on drugs in this country that really worked to protect the American people we’d send DEA agents into drug company offices and confiscate all the legalized but deadly medications being manufactured, distributed and deceptively sold to unwitting Americans today.

Medical marijuana is a threat to both the profits and power of drug companies, not to mention the credibility of the DEA. Letting grannies smoke pot in California makes DEA agents look silly. If it were allowed, it would also undermine the billions of dollars already spent incarcerating people for “pot crimes.” Basically, it would make the whole War on Drugs look stupid. Which it most assuredly is, at least when it comes to marijuana.

I can understand taking a tough stance on hard drugs (crack, meth, heroin, etc.), but arresting cancer patients who smoke joints for pain control sounds a lot more like oppression than law enforcement to me.

So what is the War on Drugs? It’s an excuse to control you. It is a system that keeps the population in a state of constant fear so that heroic politicians can get elected on empty promises to “keep fighting the war on drugs!”

The DEA is AWOL on most drug issues

Where is this War on Drugs when it comes to Grandma in the nursing home, who died of a stroke caused by Cox-2 inhibitor drugs? Where is the War on Drugs when little Johnny schoolboy picks up a rifle and blows away his classmates because he’s on antidepressants and can’t tell the difference between real life and a first-person-shooter video game? Where is the War on Drugs when 16,500 people each year die, shitting digested blood until they pass out and die because that daily dose of aspirin tore a gaping hole in their stomach?

The War on Drugs, you see, turns a blind eye to the death and suffering caused by these drugs. The DEA pretends prescription drugs don’t even exist. No prescription drug death has ever been prevented by the DEA as far as I know. Yet 100,000 Americans are killed each year by FDA-approved drugs. The DEA has no interest whatsoever in protecting Americans from these drugs. Ever wonder why?

The DEA is properly named, by the way. It’s the Drug Enforcement Agency. It’s enforcing drugs. The right drugs. The legal drugs. The drugs that make money for drug companies, drug distributors, drug retailers, cities, states and countries. It’s enforcement at gunpoint, and as long as the money keeps flowing, the drugs will stay perfectly legal, regardless of who dies.

The entire distribution system is well in place: the false and misleading television advertising, the outright bribery of drug dealers (doctors), the street corner fulfillment centers (pharmacies), and the coordinating drug lord running the show (the Fraud and Drug Administration). It’s a brilliant system for manufacturing, promoting, delivering and selling deadly, addictive drugs to children, adults and seniors while generating corporate profits and tax revenues for cities, states and nations.

And that’s the raw truth about the War on Drugs. You may not like it, but now, at least, you know why it exists.

So I have a common sense question for all the people in this country. If you support the War on Drugs, then why are you taking so many drugs yourself? And why are you allowing your children to be drugged?

http://www.naturalnews.com

Electro Shock Treatment Under Attack

Electro Shock ‘Therapy’ is again under attack in Australia.  This brutal vestige of psychiatry’s troubled history is making a comeback.  New figures obtained by the Citizen’s Committee on Human Rights show that Shock Therapy is far from fading quietly away, and is not yet banned as many Australians believe.  In fact the numbers of people being subjected to this barbaric, brain frying punishment is actually on the rise.

Despite protests that the ‘treatment’ is now much safer, reliable reports from psychiatrists themselves state that it is just as dangerous as it ever was.

Certainly no other treatment in medical annals shows victim support groups all over the world protesting about a treatment as they do Electro Shock Treatment.

http://psychiatricnews.wordpress.com/electro-shock-therapy/

___________________

 

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/6525944/electric-shock-ban-mooted/

 

Electric shock ban mooted

CATHY O’LEARY MEDICAL EDITOR, The West Australian

November 28, 2009, 2:25 am

 

WA could be become the first State in Australia to ban the use of controversial electric shock treatment in troubled children under the age of 16.

 

Mental Health Minister Graham Jacobs said yesterday that while WA’s new Mental Health Act was still being drafted, he believed electroconvulsive therapy should not be given to children under 16, rather than a proposed under-12s cut-off.

 

ECT is used to treat a range of mental illnesses, including severe depression. It is given under a general anaesthetic and involves sending an electric current through the brain. Side-effects can include short-term memory loss and feelings of confusion.

 

Dr Jacobs’ comments came as the human rights watchdog Citizens Committee on Human Rights condemned the use of electric shock therapy in WA after figures revealed children as young as 11 received the treatment last financial year.

 

CCHR, a group set up by the Church of Scientology, called for WA’s new Act to ban the practice, which it says was used more than 1500 times across all ages in WA’s public and private hospitals in 2007-08.

 

Figures obtained by the group through Freedom of Information laws show that “fewer than five” children aged 11-15 were given ECT, while a similar number of 16-17-year-olds had the treatment.

 

The group has also obtained a copy of a now-withdrawn procedure manual from Graylands Hospital which warned staff that once the ECT machine was turned on, it was “as lethal as a loaded gun”.

 

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists defends ECT in its guidelines, saying it is one of the least risky medical procedures carried out under general anaesthesia and is substantially less risky than childbirth. It says there is no conclusive evidence ECT causes damage to young brains and it is rarely given before puberty.

 

A review of WA’s 1996 Act recommended ECT be banned in children under 12 but Dr Jacobs said it appeared to be an arbitrary cut-off and he believed most people would want it to be higher.

 

“I think the feeling on the street among the mums and dads is that 12 is too young and it may well be that we look at the age of 16,” he said. “I know some people want it banned in all children and even adults but you don’t necessarily want to rule out what could be a useful treatment.

 

“The age is still under consideration but my feeling is that 16 seems a good point because it’s a reasonable age for consent, and that’s when you consent to sex and other medical treatments.”

 

CCHR executive director Shelley Wilkins said a ban in children under 16 would be welcomed but the treatment should be outlawed.

 

“Many people out on the street actually think it is banned and illegal, when its use across Australia is actually increasing,” she said.

 

“Children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable, and even the consent forms warn of memory loss.”

___________________

 

 

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/electric-shock-therapy-being-used-on-troubled-victorian-teenagers/story-e6frf7jo-1225804766153

 

Electric shock therapy being used on troubled Victorian teenagers

 

ELECTRIC shock therapy is being used on deeply troubled Victorian teenagers in a last-ditch bid to cure their mental illness.

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information legislation reveal that eight juveniles and a further 107 young adults were given controversial electro-convulsive treatment in 2007-08.

The therapy has split the medical community, with some experts claiming it could harm children.

The revelations have put more pressure on Community Services Minister Lisa Neville, who is facing repeated calls for her resignation amid a continuing crisis in the state’s child protection system.

She insists the use of electric shocks to the brains of children was heavily regulated.

Victoria’s Chief Psychiatrist, Dr Ruth Vine, said: “The very few adolescents treated with ECT have severe mental illness that has not responded to other treatments – or need very urgent intervention for severe depression or acute psychosis.”

But Associate Prof Dr Nick Tonti-Filippini, of the health ethics committee of the National Health and Medical Research Council, said: “I regard the use of ECT on children as experimental. I’m concerned about the lack of evidence that it is safe.”

Department of Human Services documents obtained by the Herald Sun show 1815 mentally ill Victorians were treated with Electro-Convulsive Therapy in 2007-2008.

Eight of those were under 18, each treated an average of more than four times.

A further 107 aged 18 to 24 also underwent the treatment. And more than 270 Victorians over the age of 75 also received ECT.

The treatment is used only on severely ill patients and is heavily regulated by the Department of Human Services.

Patients sometimes suffer memory loss and confusion, and, in extreme cases, amnesia.

Dr Tonti-Filippini said: “Parents are not informed about the lack of safety evidence before they agree to let children undergo the treatment. I would like to see its use reviewed by a human research ethics committee.”

Shadow health minister Mary Wooldridge said the use of ECT was “disturbing”.

Psychiatry – Tool of Oppressive Government

From: http://www.ukcolumn.org/2009/10/05/maurice-kirk-fixated-threat/

Maurice Kirk – Fixated Threat?

Article by Mike Robinson

oct 5th 2009

 

The trouble with establishing a dictatorship through stealth is that people both within and without the system begin to protest. Not everyone is afraid. Some speak their minds. Some fight. And when people fight, inevitably the truth starts to leak. Initially such leaks can be put down to “conspiracy theory,” or “eccentricity,” but eventually, as the dictatorship gets closer to fruition, the numbers of people seeing the truth are too great. It is at that point, that the establishment acts to silence the dissenters.

Maurice Kirk is one man who has caused that establishment no end of trouble.

Maurice Kirk is a capable veterinary surgeon. He has been fighting establishment corruption for decades. He has taken a civil case against South Wales Police for harassment because they have been covertly monitoring his movements for a long time. That case is due to come to court in January 2010. It is clear now that South Wales Police, in collusion with the Judiciary, intend that Maurice Kirk will not be attending that court case.

In June this year, Maurice Kirk was arrested on the charges of possession of a firearm, and offering the gun for sale. The gun concerned was a decommissioned WW1 machine gun, which he obtained attached to a replica First World War Airco DH2 aircraft. The gun had no trigger. It had holes drilled in it. You can see quite clearly in the photograph, that the barrel is blocked. In fact, it was made up of salvaged parts from several other WW1 guns, with the sole purpose of looking good on the DH2.

 

MAURICE KIRK, MACHINE GUN IN HAND

 

 

The aircraft, gun included, was, at one time, owned by the RAF. It has had many owners since, including Maurice. It has appeared at air shows with gun attached. Maurice sold the aircraft one year before his arrest.

By coincidence, the arrest and subsequent search of the family home occurred just after he was required to exchange documents with the solicitors defending South Wales Police in his case against them for harassment.

Following his arrest, Maurice was held without bail at Cardiff Prison. He went on hunger strike.

Maurice Kirk has an adventurous streak. He’s an aviation enthusiast. As a busy farm animal vet, he found that flying himself from farm to farm was the only way he could fit all his calls into the day. One day an American sponsor offered to finance his taking part in the London to Sydney Air Race, which he completed in 2001 in a 1946 Piper Cub. He then attempted an around the world trip, which came to a sticky end when he landed close to George Dubya’s ranch in Texas, and attempted to hand deliver a letter.

It was as a result of that escapade that Maurice discovered how bad things have become in this world. Despite the Federal Aviation Authority agreeing that he had committed no crime, he was arrested, subjected to psychiatric assessment, and deported for life from the United States. His aircraft did not go with him.

Some time later, Maurice found himself at an aviation gathering next door to Prince Charles’ Gloucestershire home. He thought he might deliver a letter to Charles, if he was in. He wasn’t, but that’s how Maurice came to the attention of Tony Blair’s Fixated Threat Assessment Centre.

One of the problems that the establishment has, is that we’re not far enough along the road to dictatorship that they can start actually killing people in any numbers. Occasionally, for example David Kelly, they take the risk.

For Maurice Kirk, and activists like him, they don’t want to draw attention to him by killing him, and they don’t dare go to a full trial. A trial results in facts ending up in the official record. Worse, trials, at least for a while longer, have juries. The truth will out, as they say, and they are scared of that.

So the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre is there to make sure that in circumstances such as these, instead of prosecuting a charge in the courts, the charge is used as an excuse for a corrupt judge to order psychological and psychiatric assessments. All it takes is for some so-called psychiatrist to say that he feels an assessment should take place, and before you know it, you’re “Sectioned.”

And that’s exactly what happened to Maurice Kirk.

Prior to his arrest, the FTAC approached Maurice’s GP, asking for a psychological assessment. The FTAC expert involved was a Doctor David James, who Maurice characterises as “bright, informed and helpful.” Dr. James came to the written conclusion that Maurice was perfectly sane; absolutely no threat whatsoever.

Despite that, after nineteen days of hunger strike, someone from the FTAC, had Maurice taken to court on the 7th August, and an order was made under Section 35 of the Mental Health Act, for him to be incarcerated in a nearby loony bin for “assessment.”

He is still there.

Since entering Caswell Clinic, he has been subjected to 35 hours of one to one interrogation with the following doctors and psychologists:

Dr Tegwyn Williams

Dr Gaynor Jones

Professor Roger Wood

Dr Ruth Bagenshaw

Dr Joseph Sylvester

Dr Roger Wood is a psychologist at Swansea University. According to his profile on the university’s website, he researches the “impact of acquired brain injury, particularly orbito-frontal injury, on behaviour, cognition and social functioning. Clinical effectiveness of brain injury rehabilitation techniques in respect of social outcome. Long term sequelae of traumatic brain injury. Forensic neuropsychological assessment to identify neurobehavioural disability associated with ‘frontal’ dysfunction.”

So it is plain to see what they are attempting.

35 hours of one to one interrogation have found no evidence of mental illness. Yet at his latest court appearance, Maurice was returned to Caswell for a further 28 days, for further “assessment.”

But while this ordeal is clearly traumatic for Maurice, he is not alone. We are aware of others who are experiencing similar treatment at the hands of this out of control Government.

The establishment of the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre is a direct attack on those of us who would dare to speak out against the police state we are living in. What’s next? Mental health courts? Maurice certainly thinks so and we agree.

Canada has had mental health courts for a couple of years now. The idea behind them is that people considered to be mentally ill, and charged with “minor” offenses, are given a choice – attend the mental health court, or go through the normal courts and risk a prison sentence. Anyone choosing the mental health court route is closely “monitored” for compliance with any treatment regime, including drugs. Mental health courts in Canada have been hailed as a great success. It is presented as a voluntary scheme, a “moral” contract between the offender and the court, where the offender and opt out at any time and face a normal criminal proceeding. If the treatment programme is completed, the original charge is dropped or expunged.

Maybe I’m just being cynical, but that sounds very much like the choice given to Winston Smith at the end of 1984.

Keep up to date with Maurice at his website: http://kirkflyingvet.com/

Psychiatric Help Anyone?

From the Baltimore Sun:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/bal-md.hs.doctor19nov19,0,3070237.story

Suspended Towson psychiatrist undergoes hearing

Outcome unclear in case of alleged improper conduct with boys

 

By Meredith Cohn and James Drew

Baltimore Sun reporters

November 19, 2009

 

The Towson psychiatrist whose license was suspended early this month after he was accused of improper conduct with boys he was treating faced the state board that oversees doctors Wednesday in a hearing.

 

The closed-door hearing was a chance for Miguel Frontera to provide information to the Maryland Board of Physicians, which will decide whether to permanently revoke or reinstate his license. Frontera arrived with his lawyer, Natalie Magdeburger, who declined to comment.

 

The outcome of the hearing was unclear, though Frontera has the right to request another hearing. He has not been charged criminally, but for now cannot see patients.

 

The board began investigating Frontera in April after the Baltimore County police turned over two reports from 2006 and 2009 of alleged abuse that occurred years earlier, according to the board’s suspension order.

 

Jason League, chief of the child abuse-sex offense division of the county state’s attorney’s office, said the boys told police investigators that Frontera touched their genitals during physical exams.

 

“The difficulty for us lied in proving any kind of sexual gratification,” he said. “We did not believe we could prove criminal intent.”

 

Still, League said the reports were sent to the physicians board because it didn’t seem that Frontera was “conducting himself in a way that a psychiatrist should.”

 

The board investigated the two cases and three more with similar facts. The boys, mostly between 10 and 12 at the time, were primarily being evaluated for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the order says.

 

The board referred the cases to a psychiatrist, who called Frontera’s conduct in the practice of medicine “unprofessional” and immoral,” according to the order. The board also referred the cases to the Maryland Psychiatric Society, which reviewed the cases along with five others and found Frontera “failed to meet appropriate standards for the delivery of quality medical care.”

 

The situation has one advocate for abused children warning parents and caretakers to get help if they suspect abuse. They should call the police, child protective services or a center that deals with such cases, said Adam Rosenberg, executive director of the Baltimore Child Abuse Center, which helps families deal with abuse.

Chemical Imbalance

Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
November 9, 2009
(911 words)

Author The ADHD Fraud—How Psychiatry Makes ‘Patients” of Normal Children. www.Trafford.com <http://www.Trafford.com>

Saturday evening, November 7, 2009, Don Lemon of CNN had a psychiatrist on, a Dr. Dale Archer, speaking of the Ft. Hood massacre.  Dr. Archer spoke of post traumatic stress disorder—PTSD, and specifically suggested that it was a chemical imbalance of the brain, which means, a chemical abnormality of the brain–a disease.  Googling Dr. Archer’s web site, I learned that he is a ‘board-certified Psychiatrist and Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association…’ that “He specializes in chemical imbalances of the brain, personal responsibility and relationships…’ and finally, that  “He also is the Corporate Medical Director for the Behavioral Health Group which owns and operates 20 substance abuse treatment centers around the country.”
‘Chemical imbalance’ is the ‘big lie’ that psychiatry uses as its every ‘diagnosis’ and excuse/reason/indication to give drugs—‘chemical balancers.’  To be sure they do just that, often prescribing 5, 15 or 20 drugs at a time.  Google the tragic stories of soldiers Chad Oligschlaeger and Robert Nichols, and that of Derek Johnson, 22, Andrew White, 23, Eric Layne, 29, and Nicholas Endicott, all of Charleston, WV, diagnosed “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” (PTSD), and ‘treated’ with the Paxil, Klonopin, and Seroquel, all dying in their sleep more likely from their ‘treatment’ than from any ‘chemical imbalance’/’disease’ (Julie Robinson, Charleston Gazette, May 24, 2008).



And these are not exceptions.  Military psychiatry and psychiatry everywhere, prescribes drugs with no actual physical abnormality/disorder/disease to make normal and usually to the exclusion or prescribed and un-prescribed human, humane, common sense psychological healing such as that which surely comes of love, things spiritual, and or the human touch.  But how can such things work when the ‘disease’ model is forced down their throats, loved ones are barred, and it is insisted nothing else will do.  What’s more everything they say and do, be it to a veteran, a citizen, a struggling pregnant mother or a school child, is to drive home the ‘disease’ lie, portraying it to be as severe and grim as possible so as to leave not doubt of the necessity of drugs–only drugs.   PTSD, like depression, like anxiety, like desperation is no doubt a grim and terrible combination of feelings in normal, adaptable, human beings who have experienced grim, horrible things.  But are these exposures as horrible and insurmountable as psychiatry insists.  There were a far greater number of psychological survivors of the Holocaust than psychiatry cares to admit, none of them getting or needing the always-pharmacological solutions of psychiatry-gone-pharmacologic; of psychiatry gone Big Pharma, of psychiatry gone big money.

While the short term memory loss Stan White speaks of in PTSD can surely be due to psychological factors that are overwhelming, psychiatry invariably forces us to ask to what extent such short-term memory loss is due to the drugs PTSD ‘patients’ are virtually always on from the very first contact forward–that which insists it ‘diagnoses’ and ‘treats’ actual diseases when it never does–when what it does is nothing but poisoning and imprisoning ever after so as to make and keep the human being in the equation a psychiatric-pharmaceutical ‘patient’ in perpetuity.    They have no intention of discharging that ‘patient’—ever.

My good friend Patrick Groff was on the front lines in WW II and suggests the psychological outcomes were nowhere near as bad as we see and hear today.   Fully qualified to comment, he writes: “As a veteran from WW II, I am at a loss to understand why so many of today’s military commit so many suicides.  The only thing I can imagine in that regard is the seemingly lack of purpose these young men and women face at present.   As I can recall, I often was highly scared, but never to the point I felt like killing myself. How do modern psychiatrists explain this modern phenomenon?”

Suicides, homicides, Ft. Hood!  Who can claim that one war is any more horrible, evil or effecting than another?  Think, Vietnam! Think My Lai!  Think Nazi death camps!  What jumps out as different about these wars are veterans and soldiers saturated with psychiatric drugs, and kept on the front lines or sent back to the front lines time after time, as if these drugs sharpen their reflexes, reactions and assessments making them a better sniper, a better pilot of a supersonic fighter, a better leader of men, more likely to survive, more likely to see that their men survive.  Show me that study, that psychiatric literature.  And how do 8, 10 or 13 such drugs at a time sharpen their reflexes, their decision-making–make them better soldiers?  Every school and college massacre and most work-place shootings as well, have had psychiatric drugs and psychiatry written all over them and still we believe them and we dutifully accept their ‘disease’ ‘chemical imbalance’ diagnoses and their ‘pills’ where no real diseases exist, ever have or ever will.  And when the facts can finally be gotten out–yes there were psychiatric drugs, they admit, but they were all ‘under treated, is the new explanation.

I have yet to see a word about Major Hasan, perpetrator of the latest ‘Columbine’  and whether or not he was ‘medicated,’ ‘self-medicating,’ or clean and sober and on a warped, tragic religious mission.

Fred Baughman, MD

The ‘Influence’ of Pharmaceutical Companies

I have reprinted a letter from Basil Miller to the Irish Times below.

Read this and then read the prior blog which I put up ten minutes ago.

Notice the common thread?

The giant pharmaceutical companies lurk at the centre of a world wide web of deception and corruption.

Not only so called mental health advocacy groups, but ‘respected’ psychiatrists are pocketing money for acting as fronts for Big Pharma.

From: The Wellbeing Foundation <wellbeing@wellbeingfoundation.com>

Date: 23 October 2009 14:15:56 GMT+01:00

To: lettersed@irish-times.ie

Subject: Antidepressants and homicide

Madam, — Like Dr Orla O’Donovan (Letters, 22 Oct: Antidepressants and homicide) I am astonished by the intervention of the eight professors of psychiatry in respect of the Clancy/Creane tragedy. What astonishes me is their degree of wilful ignorance of the side effects of the drugs they espouse, prescribe and, presumably, enjoin their students to prescribe.

As Dr O’Donovan indicated, the scientific literature is replete with studies establishing a clear link between the use of SSRI antidepressants and similar drugs and self-harm, suicidality, aggression, hostility, mania and other induced behaviour; the word ‘hostility’ being used in this context to embrace all kinds of violent thoughts and actions, including the terminal hostility of homicide.

Dr O’Donovan cited the study by Professor David Healy et al, which is important in the present instance because it starts from a conservative position and carefully explores the medico-legal problems arising from the use of these drugs. If I may quote the summary in its entirety:

Recent regulatory warnings about adverse behavioural effects of [SSRI] antidepressants in susceptible individuals have raised the profile of these issues with clinicians, patients, and the public. We review available clinical trial data on paroxetine and sertraline and pharmacovigilance studies of paroxetine and fluoxetine, and outline a series of medico-legal cases involving antidepressants and violence.

Both clinical trial and pharmacovigilance data point to possible links between these drugs and violent behaviours. The legal cases outlined returned a variety of verdicts that may in part have stemmed from different judicial processes. Many jurisdictions appear not to have considered the possibility that a prescription drug may induce violence.

The association of antidepressant treatment with aggression and violence reported here calls for more clinical trial and epidemiological data to be made available and for good clinical descriptions of the adverse outcomes of treatment. Legal systems are likely to continue to be faced with cases of violence associated with the use of psychotropic drugs, and it may fall to the courts to demand access to currently unavailable data. The problem is international and calls for an international response.

I am astonished that all eight professors of psychiatry whose letter you published on Monday 19 October publicly profess ignorance of this important area of study in their field. These eight people have enormous authority; they are responsible for the training and education, and ultimately the graduation, of thousands of psychiatrists into our health services, not to mention the psychiatric component of GP training. Yet they deny that their drugs of choice for both their medical specialism and for GPs in treating depression can impel violent and aggressive behaviours.

There are many, many more peer-reviewed studies showing clear and irrefutable links between this generation of antidepressants and violent ideation and behaviour, too many to list here. Is it not only astonishing, but also potentially dangerous, for the leading lights of psychiatric education in this country to be unaware of this literature, or to dismiss it out of hand as they appear to do?

Perhaps they are taking the word ‘cause’, which they used in their letter, in the same sense as the tobacco industry used it for several generations to deny that smoking and cancer were linked, and to avoid the serious questions about risk and benefit which hang over the equally aggressively marketed SSRIs and SNRIs.

Let us have no chilling of the essential public debate on the role of these drugs in the case of Sebastian Creane and Shane Clancy — if there is any such chilling or stifling of debate, the sure result will be to leave the door open to another such tragedy. — Yours, etc,

BASIL MILLER

The Wellbeing Foundation

2 Eden Park

Glasthule

Co Dublin

N.A.M.I. Exposed by New York Times

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a supposed advocacy group, turns out to have been in the pocket to Big Pharma to the tune of millions over the years.

It seems like all the corruption across the spectrum is coming into view at the same time in America.

____________

Drug Makers Are Advocacy Group’s Biggest Donors

By GARDINER HARRIS

Published: October 21, 2009

WASHINGTON — A majority of the donations made to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one of the nation’s most influential disease advocacy groups, have come from drug makers in recent years, according to Congressional investigators.

The alliance, known as NAMI, has long been criticized for coordinating some of its lobbying efforts with drug makers and for pushing legislation that also benefits industry.

Last spring, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, sent letters to the alliance and about a dozen other influential disease and patient advocacy organizations asking about their ties to drug and device makers. The request was part of his investigation into the drug industry’s influence on the practice of medicine.

The mental health alliance, which is hugely influential in many state capitols, has refused for years to disclose specifics of its fund-raising, saying the details were private.

But according to investigators in Mr. Grassley’s office and documents obtained by The New York Times, drug makers from 2006 to 2008 contributed nearly $23 million to the alliance, about three-quarters of its donations.

Even the group’s executive director, Michael Fitzpatrick, said in an interview that the drug companies’ donations were excessive and that things would change.

“For at least the years of ’07, ’08 and ’09, the percentage of money from pharma has been higher than we have wanted it to be,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said.

He promised that the industry’s share of the organization’s fund-raising would drop “significantly” next year.

“I understand that NAMI gets painted as being in the pockets of pharmaceutical companies, and somehow that all we care about is pharmaceuticals,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said. “It’s simply not true.”

Mr. Fitzpatrick said Mr. Grassley’s scrutiny, which he described as understandable given the attention paid to potential conflicts of interest in medicine, had led his organization to begin posting on its Web site the names of companies that donate $5,000 or more. And he predicted that other patient and disease advocacy groups would be prodded by Mr. Grassley’s investigation to do the same.

“Everyone I talk to wants to have more balanced fund-raising,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said.

In a statement, Mr. Grassley praised the alliance for its disclosures. “It’d be good for the system for other patient groups to do what NAMI has done,” he said.

Mr. Grassley’s scrutiny has been unnerving for patient and disease advocacy groups, which are often filled with sincere people who are either afflicted with serious illnesses themselves or have family members who have been affected. Many join the groups in the hope of making sense of their misfortune by helping to find a cure or raising awareness of a disease’s risks and frequency.

Drug makers are natural allies in these pursuits since cures may come out of corporate laboratories and the industry’s money can help finance public service campaigns and fund-raising dinners. But industry critics have long derided some patient organizations as little more than front groups devoted to lobbying on issues that affect industry profits, and few have come under more scrutiny for industry ties than the mental health alliance.

For years, the alliance has fought states’ legislative efforts to limit doctors’ freedom to prescribe drugs, no matter how expensive, to treat mental illness in patients who rely on government health care programs like Medicaid. Some of these medicines routinely top the list of the most expensive drugs that states buy for their poorest patients.

Mr. Fitzpatrick defended these lobbying efforts, saying they were just one of many the organization routinely undertook.

The close ties between the alliance and drug makers were on stark display last week, when the organization held its annual gala at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on Constitution Avenue in Washington. Tickets were $300 each. Before a dinner of roasted red bell pepper soup, beef tenderloin and tilapia, Dr. Stephen H. Feinstein, president of the alliance’s board, thanked Bristol-Myers Squibb, the pharmaceutical company.

“For the past five years, Bristol-Myers has sponsored this dinner at the highest level,” Dr. Feinstein said.

He then introduced Dr. Fred Grossman, chief of neuroscience research at Bristol-Myers, who told the audience that “now, more than ever, our enduring relationship with NAMI must remain strong.”

Documents obtained by The New York Times show that drug makers have over the years given the mental health alliance — along with millions of dollars in donations — direct advice about how to advocate forcefully for issues that affect industry profits. The documents show, for example, that the alliance’s leaders, including Mr. Fitzpatrick, met with AstraZeneca sales executives on Dec. 16, 2003.

Slides from a presentation delivered by the salesmen show that the company urged the alliance to resist state efforts to limit access to mental health drugs.

“Solutions: Play Hard Ball,” one slide was titled. “Hold policy makers accountable for their decisions in media and in election,” it continued.

The alliance’s own slides concluded by saying, “We appreciate AstraZeneca’s strong support of NAMI.”

Mr. Fitzpatrick said that the alliance frequently had such meetings and that the organization would fight for better access to mental health drugs “even if we had no relationship with pharmaceutical companies.”

Tony Jewell, an AstraZeneca spokesman, said that the company was “committed to improving health through partnerships with nonprofit organizations” and that “includes striving to ensure people can access our medicines through formularies managed by state Medicaid agencies.”

Irish Psychiatric Inquisition of Dr. Michael Corry

http://wellbeingfoundation.com

Dr. Michael Corry is a psychiatrist who practices in Ireland.  Unlike many other psychiatrists he refuses to play the ‘mental illness’ game.  What is the mental illness game?  It is the situation whereby the Pharma/Psych alliance gets their hands on someone who is upset, distressed or in some way not coping with something in their life.  They then put them on to antidepressants.  When they succumb to the psychotropic ‘medicine’ and start to act strangely (or worse) they are pronounced ‘mentally ill’.

Then the expensive and destructive ‘treatments’ really start.  It leads to a very profitable and successful career, as long as one is not bothered by such niceties as ethics, or the concept of doing the right and decent thing.  You certainly wouldn’t want to have read the Hippocratic Oath.

Dr. Corry is a lovely bloke.  I met him a few years ago in Ireland and we had a beer together.  He was appalled at the shallow and self serving behaviour of his profession.  He was determined to have no part in the drugging for profit business and to genuinely care for those people who came to him for help.

Dr. Corry has also spent a considerable amount of time and effort fighting other psychiatric horrors such as the frying of human brains via ECT… ElectroShock Torture Therapy.

This has understandably not endeared him to his colleagues.  It is much easier to do what is wrong if everyone else is doing it also.  The first person to stand up and say “this is wrong and I will not participate” will be shot down quick smart.

Thus it is with Dr. Corry.

I have just received the following from Ireland and I urge you to read it and spread the word.  You may submit objections via the address at the bottom.

There is a need for good people to stand up here.

The Wellbeing Foundation

NEWSLETTER

15 October 2009

Human sustainability: the key to emotional health

Professor of Psychiatry charges Dr Michael Corry at Medical Council

A senior psychiatrist, Professor Timothy Dinan of University College, Cork, has laid a complaint against Dr Michael Corry at the Medical Council. The complaint concerns Michael Corry’s statements about the role of SSRI antidepressants in the murder/suicide of Sebastian Creane and Shane Clancy.

Dinan, who is an enthusiastic advocate of SSRIs and SNRIs and has declared his close relations with several drug companies, accuses Dr Corry of “”statements regarding the pharmacology of antidepressants” and of making “statements regarding a diagnosis without ever seeing the patient”.

Dinan has joined in a previous attempt to chill discussion of the effects of antidepressants. Signing himself as Timothy Dinan, MD, PhD, FRCPsych, FRCPI, Professor of Psychiatry, University College Cork, the academic was one of six professors of psychiatry who penned a letter published in the Irish Times on 16 November 2006 demanding the resignation of the then Minister for Mental Health, Tim O’Malley, for two reasons.

One, O’Malley had dared to suggest that many everyday difficulties of life were being mis-labeled as ‘clinical depression’. Secondly, he had dared to suggest, with good reason, that the alleged benefits of medications used to treat mental illness cannot be proven scientifically in the way that other medications can. Both suggestions are cardinal sins for those who rule the world of psychiatry, and whose word is law among the students they teach.

WE MUST DEFEND MICHAEL CORRY’S RIGHT TO SPEAK OUT!

To defend Dr Michael Corry we need other health professionals to stand by him.

We appeal to doctors and nurses, especially psychiatric nurses, together with psychotherapists and counsellors, who are concerned at this attack on the right of medical professionals to oppose the monopoly of bio-psychiatry and are willing to stand up and be counted.

Please contact Dr Corry’s defence team: email wellbeing[at]wellbeingfoundation.com

(use the @ symbol instead of [at] )

The most chilling part of Professor Timothy Dinan’s complaint is that Corry made “statements regarding the pharmacology of antidepressants”.

If such a complaint is upheld as valid, neither Dr Corry nor any other doctor registered with the Medical Council will ever again be able to ‘make a statement’ on the action of a drug such as Seroxat or Lexapro — or, by extension, of any drug.

Are you willing to allow this to happen?

Send objections to Professor Timothy Dinan’s complaint to:

Mr John Sidebotham

Professional Standards Department Medical Council

Lynn House

Portobello Court

Lower Rathmines Road Dublin 6

Fax: 01 4983103

Email: complaints@mcirl.ie

Visit the Wellbeing Foundation website

For news, views, resources and lots of interesting articles on depression, panic & anxiety, the campaign against electro-shock ‘therapy’, and much more.

Electro Convulsive Torture

PsychRights <http://apps.facebook.com/causes/243637?m=87cec8ff>
The FDA Wants to Declare Electroshock Machines Safe Without a Safety Investigation. TELL THEM NO!

The Food and Drug Administration is in charge of regulating medical devices just as it does drugs, including the machines used to give Electroshock. But it’s not doing its job. It has allowed these machines to be used on millions of patients over the past generation without requiring any evidence whatsoever that shock treatment is safe or effective! This is so even though shock machines are Class III—high risk—devices, which by law are supposed to be investigated by clinical trials as thoroughly as new drugs and devices just coming onto the market. But because of intense lobbying by the American Psychiatric Association—which claims the devices are safe but opposes an investigation—the FDA has disregarded its own law. (For the full story of how shock survivors have fought for a scientific safety investigation of Electroshock for the past 25 years, see Linda Andre’s terrific new book, Doctors of Deception: What They Don’t Want You to Know About Shock Treatment.) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0813544416/lawprojectfor-20

In April 2009—20 years after it first ruled the devices high-risk and named brain damage and memory loss as risks of the treatment—the FDA belatedly announced it would call on the manufacturers of the devices to provide evidence of safety and efficacy. The deadline for submissions has passed, but the manufacturers have not conducted any clinical trials, claiming they cannot afford them. They simply point to the opinions of shock doctors (including those who have financial interests in companies making Electroshock machines) as evidence that shock is safe.

The FDA is now supposed to require Electroshock machines to undergo the rigorous PreMarket Approval process (PMA) that is required of new devices, including clinical safety trials. These machines, technically known as “devices,” are referred to as Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT), but I don’t like to use this euphemistic term for running electricity through people’s brains. The FDA could have called for this investigation any time in the past 30 years but has previously failed to do so. There is great risk the FDA will downclassify it to the low-risk Class II, without scientific evidence of its safety. As a Class II device, Electroshock machines would never have to go through the PMA process. The amount of damage that electroshock has been allowed to inflict is an outrage. We now finally have a chance to at least register our opposition because the FDA has opened up a new docket for public comment on electroshock machines. It is important for as many people as possible to write in with their opposition. Comments will be accepted up through January 2010.

If you have personal knowledge or expertise about Electroshock, writing about that can be good. Or you can pull information from various sources. Linda Andre’s book, Doctors of Deception is a gold mine of information. Leonard Roy Frank issued the Electroshock Quotationary, in June 2006, which is a good source of material, and there is also a brand new web page of historical materials from Leonard athttp://psychiatrized.org/LeonardRoyFrank/FromTheFilesOfLeonardRoyFrank.htm Also, PsychRights has quite a large collection of materials athttp://psychrights.org/Research/Digest/Electroshock/electroshock.htm from which comments can be drawn.

If you are not in a position to write something up, then please send in the below coupon.
————————————————————————-
To: Food and Drug Administration, Dockets Management Branch (HFA-305), 5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061, Rockville, MD 20852

Re: Electroconvulsive Therapy Device (882.5940), Docket #FDA-2009-N0392

The undersigned opposes the reclassification of the ECT device to Class II by the FDA in the absence of adequate scientific evidence of its safety, and asks the agency to call for PreMarket Approval Applications for the device.

Name: ___________________________
Address: _________________________
_________________________
Signature: _________________________

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