Wednesday, May 21

from disbelief to outrage

I happened upon the Scientific Misconduct blog, whose heading includes the thought:
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention"


As I did more research about the class of drugs I was given for post-partum depression (which I began in my 3d trimester on the advice of a psychiatrist) I have been astonished about what SSRIs do to people. Then I found out about all these children getting the drug and I started to get mad. Now finding out what happens neonatally when pregnant woman take SSRIs I am truly outraged. I can't even blog about that right now. What the hell is going on?!!

Not only are SSRIs being shown to relieve depression the same as a placebo they have horrendous side effects (and how genius to invent a drug that creates the symptoms you want to get rid of when you go off it!). It's one thing taking it for yourself (although if you have willingly taken it I can almost bet you have never been shown the research!!), but to force children to take it (and it's not the parents, it the schools and councilors making them!) , and to give it to pregnant women?!! And I think I saw somewhere that over 20% of pregnant women are on SSRI antidepressants in the US. 

Anyways, back to Scientific Misconduct blog, where it is pointed out that psychiatric research does have a grave past. So when we think that nothing like this could happen today, how soon we forget yesterday.


The series "LSD and the corruption of medicine" was written to mark the death of Albert Hofmann, the inventor of LSD. The CIA used his invention in the Project MK-Ultra, which resulted in the murder and torture of tens of thousands of people who had no idea they were part of an experiment. Governments, academia and pharmaceutical companies colluded together to provide the US government with their desired program of non-consensual psycho-pharmaceutical research.

In Canada we have all heard of the case of Dr. Ewan Cameron's experimentation on his patients at McGill in the 50s & 60s. From the Scientific Misconduct Blog:
In the 1950's and '60's, Cameron experimented on his patients under the auspices of the CIA and MK-ULTRA. "Patients of Dr. Cameron were subjected to a regimen that included heavy doses of LSD and barbiturates, the application of powerful electric shocks two or three times a day, and prolonged periods of drug-induced sleep." These were not primarily therapeutic interventions, nor were they intended to be. They were experiments. Cameron's assistant, Leonard Rubenstein, was paid from CIA funds[5]. According to Government records, "the patients and their relatives were not told they were taking part in an experiment." The research and the CIA involvement was admitted, and some 20 years later. In 1998 $750,000 was paid to nine Canadians in 1988 by the U.S. government[17,18]. Other cases were settled out of court.

The attorney, who represented the nine Canadians described the experiments in a 1988 Op-Ed entitled The C.I.A and the Evil Doctor[19]. He explained that "The research project tested the theory that a person could have some of the contents of his mind obliterated and replaced by ideas of the researcher's choosing". He noted that Cameron had abused patients on behalf of the CIA leaving them "dazed, confused, incontinent and often in a state of utter panic." And yet Cameron's "work" for the C.I.A on countless non-consenting patients over 20 years was well known to his peers, and some of it had been published. "Nevertheless, until he left McGill, no one publicly criticized Dr. Cameron's theories, his methods, or the ethics of risking permanent organic damage without patients' consent".

I had no idea about the number of people who were unwittingly experimented on though (tens of thousands!) And people were subjected to experimentation with mild depressions, including post-partum depression, while many had no complaints at all. (Although is it worse to experiment on soldiers, people with headache complaints, those nominally depressed, or those who are mentally ill...) 


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh Dear, things really are changing! Twenty years ago docs would have told a person to suffer through the depression...or even a psychotic or manic episode. (The would have hospitalized them...without meds for safety.)

I have recently read how they are NOW giving meds to pregnant women. This is horrible.

It bothers me that giving meds during pregnancy has become mainstream.

What happened to the days when women didn't even take an aspirin when they were pregnant?

I did, and I felt horribly guilty about it.

What a shame the docs are telling women this is an okay thing to do.

I had an ex boyfriend who said if I got pregnant he would chain me to the house...I know that sounds terrible but the point is that we didn't want the meds and knew we would have to deal with the behavior.