Psychiatry & Ethics vs. Pro-Choice Argument
Some of the recent pro-choice threads have got me thinking. I was reading an older thread where it was agreed pretty much that pregnant women should be left alone -- it's utterly their choice whether to continue the pregnancy, terminate, smoke, drink alcohol, even do crack cocaine, it's all up to her and society has no business intervening.
Compare this with psychiatry where a person often has absolutely no choice about what substances she wants to put into (or remove from) her body. What is it about pregnancy that supercedes society's perceived interests? Why is it okay for a pregnant woman to drink alcohol just because she's lucky enough not to have a psychiatric label (although one could argue that such irresponsibility should be worthy of such a label) even though society clearly benefits by her having a healthy pregnancy, i.e. reducing the risk of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?
By way of comparison, I was forced to take antipsychotic injections (under threat of incarceration) when there is no such clear societal benefit. Despite what Big Pharma and the mental death industry would have you believe, the long range outcomes for serious mental illness are vastly better without conventional treatment.
I would think that what's true for pregnant women should be true for society as a whole. It's my body so get your hands (and hypodermic needles) off it.
Disturbingly, even though eugenics was pretty much cancelled in BC in the 1970s, there are still cases occasionally (in the States and the UK and I am guessing here in Canada too) where the government has sought to force abortions and sterilizations of the "mentally unfit." So you can go ahead and smoke crack if you're deemed worthy but look out if you've been psychiatrically labelled. At one point, I was offered a hysterectomy because "people like [me] shouldn't have children." Can you imagine if a normal woman was told that by her doctor? The doctor would be hauled before the Canadian Medical Assocation.
So what do you think happened?
Well, however you got it, the fact is that you have bipolar disorder now.
It means the chemicals in your brain are out of balance.
Dopamine and serotonin.
No.
Because you have bipolar disorder.
Most of psychiatry is about social control and compliance.
I think the behaviours towards pregnant women often have the same stink of social control about them, but behaviours vary widely depending on the race and social class of the pregnant women.
If they cannot measure them, maybe your brain chemicals were in balance before and the drugs put them out of balance. Medicine has become SO SCIENTIFIC these days~!!
They don't even know that it is serotonin and dopamine for sure. They just say that it is a chemical imbalance. They don't know which chemicals and why, that is just what they say. Its a "chemical imbalance".
AND...IF 100% of the people who go to psychiatrists are put on "medications", how do they know that it is not the drugs that are causing all the harm to begin with?
They will show CAT scans of the brains of people with advanced stages of schizophrenia and use these pictures to "PROVE" that schizophrenia is a degenerative brain disease. If 100% of them have been on major tranquillizers for all that time, how come no one questions that the "DRUGS" are causing the brain damage rather than the so called disease itself?
There are some superficially compelling studies pointing out
structural differences with unmedicated schizophrenics. Trouble is,
though, that many normals show the same structual differences and
many schizophrenics don't. It's probably worthwhile research but it's
nuts to sink tons of money into it. We already know how to vastly
improve the outcome for those struggling with thought disorders. We
need Soteria Houses in every province and state. Do you know about
the Open Dialogue project?
And as for the disturbingly eugenetically motivated schizophrenic
twin studies, there are lots of problems here too. In order to make
the data work, they have to vastly expand the diagnostic criteria for
schizophrenia. Interestingly, fraternal twins (same number of genes
as regular siblings) show way, way more concordance than they should.
And there are plenty of studies showing that twins (especially
identical ones) are treated differently and treat each other
differently than ordinary siblings. The only really interesting
question to study is identical twins raised apart but this pool is
vanishingly small, far too small for any statistical analysis.
As long as people see psychiatry as a legitimate institution and a respected scientific field, psychiatrists will have free licence to supress human rights in order to protect society from people who are a threat to others' safety.
THERE ARE NO UNMEDICATED SCHIZOPHRENICS~!!!
What people really need is proper nutrition which includes a change of diet which eliminates foods which cause thought disturbances and supplimented with proper doses of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and essential fatty acids.
Please refer to all literature on the internet pertaining to Margot Kidder and how she reversed her own Bi-polar disorder and depression.
I don't think so. Wasn't she a big, big fan of Abram Hoffer?
FA,
DON'T EVEN TRY TO GO THERE. She recovered from bipolar disorder and she said that Dr. Hoffer was the only one who was ever able to help her. DO NOT ERASE SOMEONE ELSE'S SUCCESS. I fully recovered from schizophrenia entirely on my own by following his guidelines. DON'T EVEN TRY TO ERASE WHAT I ACCOMPLISHED. I gave this nutritional formula to the mother of a child who was paralyzed from the neck down and the neurologists at the hospital had just told her that there was nothing that they could do for him and that he would be paralyzed for life. Six weeks after being on Hoffer's program his nervous system came back and he is at home walking around and living with his mother.
You have NEVER read any of his books. YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT~! Taking some second hand opinion from some psychiatrist JERK is not a valid reason for denouncing the successes others have had with his methods.
When I tell you that proper nutrition will help you, I MEAN IT.
I was talking to a forensic psychiatrist today, and he just came back from a conference in Europe. At this conference they were saying that the evidence for genetic components of mental illness appear to be much stronger than previously thought (I don't have more details as yet).
Though there's that intriguing Dutch study, which found that children who were in utero during the famine of 1945, at which time the population was reduced to an average of 500 calories/day, had an increased risk of schizophrenia:
So it looks like a combination of environmental and genetic factors, which we've thought for a long time.
From a Wikipedia discussion archive:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AOrthomolecular_medicine/Archive_3
Anyone can post anything in wiki about anything.
The reality is that the American Psychiatric Association tried to have Dr. Hoffer stripped of his membership in the American Psyciatric Association, and he said on what grounds?
They were NEVER able to come up with any grounds to strip him of his licence to practice medicine nor psyciatry. FUNNY EH?
Wiki has a lot of crap written by crappy people about things they no nothing about. For instance, take Stevie Cameron for one. Someone posted on wiki that she was an informer for the RCMP and CSIS after the Brain Mulroney Schriber Inquiry. Erroneous and unfactual politically motivated garbage pops up all the time on wiki.
I think Brian White told you eloquently exactly what you can do with your imposing opinions. Why don't you stop harassing people you don't agree with. Your tone and persistance is most unflattering and unwelcome.
You don't have to like what another babbler posts, but you may not shut them down because they disagree with you. If you're in need of a board where you will encounter no opposition, only agreement, you're posting in the wrong place.
My offhand comment about the difficulties inherent in battling misconceptions on the internet meant that I wasn't going to start up with this again, but you've just said, bring it. So here goes:
Risks of vitamins (from Skepvet, http://skeptvet.com/Blog/2009/08/orthomolecular-medicine-big-talk-little-evidence-real-risk/):
Then there's this:
The most devastating evidence against the effect of vitamins on mental illness comes from the fact that they don't do anything. What I mean is, compared with prescription drugs, vitamins are cheap and easy to get. If vitamins could cure serious mental illness, everybody would be doing it. People keep trying vitamins again and again and again and again; I've known many to try. But unfortunately vitamins just don't work. Just like vaccines don't cause autism, that dog won't hunt.
If you could cure mental illness by taking vitamins instead of drugs that make you fat and give you diabetes, or provoke you to do weird involuntary movements, or drool uncontrollably, or make you grow breasts, of course you'd do it. And healthcare workers would be all over that because we aren't sociopaths. Most of us don't work for Big Pharma. Most of us really care about what happens to vulnerable people, and deeply resent crackpots who attempt to mislead our patients - many of whom are on meager disability pensions - into spending their scarce funds on things that just don't fucking work.
I'm going to type this slowly so you can follow. Vitamins available everywhere. People with psychiatric illnesses readily able to buy vitamins everywhere (perhaps with help from family members if they are broke). Oddly, people not cured of their mental illnesses.
I've worked in addictions and mental health x 17 years. People try the vitamin thing all the time. It doesn't work.
With all due respect, I did not shut her down. I asked her to stop harassing people she does not agree with. I have no problem with people disagreeing with me, but when her tactics are to hit with factual mistake after factual mistake ad nauseum..., and then lie some more and is allowed to do so by the moderators without question, then I do have a problem.
The definition of harass:
1. To irritate or torment persistently.
2. To wear out; exhaust.
3. To impede and exhaust (an enemy)
If you fail to remember, please refer to the threads:
In Body and Soul: Call Out:PsychOUT:...
In Science and Technology: How to Reform Psychiatry:
Sineed has posted the same information about vitamins before many times. There is nothing new there that hasn't been refuted already, but it is posted here again. That is what I mean about harassment.
I love new ideas that are refreshing. Sineed's purpose is to intimidate and harass with unfactual garbage, and condescending insults.
For example, The Fish Tail to my claim to have helped someone with paralysis: She has the authority to proclaim that what happened simply did not happen, and with absolutely no qualifications to do so. She has the arrogance and entitlement to call someone else a liar because she does not share the same viewpoint. This type of aggressive attitude is problematic and constitutes harassment.
This goes beyond a simple difference of opinion. She makes absolute totalitarian statements of fact as if there is only her opinion to consider. It is an extreme black and white situation with absolutely no other valid position but hers, and most of the time, she is wrong and has nothing of substance to back up her extreme positions, and what is worse is that she has the support of the moderators.
And if I get frustrated and angry from time to time, it is because her attacks are personal in nature.
This study is CRAP! The experimental group received amounts of vitamins based on their serum levels. That automatically tells you that there was no consistency in dosages in the experimental group. AND...since they are going by SERUM LEVELS as the basis, they are following RDA's which is setting the study up to fail since RDA's are not at the megavitamin level.
Since I took 6 months to recover from my schizophrenia, I WOULD HAVE FAILED BASED ON THIS STUDY BECAUSE IT IS ONLY 5 MONTHS in DURATION.
Sineed, you are an educated person. A repeat study would used the EXACT same ingredients that the first study used and for the same time period.
Now...
1. This study does not outline exactly what vitamin levels were used. They intentionally keep you in the dark. You would have to look at the fine print to find out that they are nothing anywhere close to what Dr. Hoffer ever used.
2. Why would they have to use allergy testing for this experiment?
HERE IS HOFFER's METHOD:
1. Eliminate grains, dairy, sugar, and foods which make you feel unwell. Use a rotation diet.
2. 1000 mg of vitamin B3 three times a day with meals.
3. 1000 mg of vitamin C three times a day with meals.
4. Zinc 50 mg / day
5. folic acid, 5 mg / day.
6. calcium 333 mg three times a day with meals, magnesium 167 mg three times a day with meals.
7. vitamin A 10000iu/day
8 vitamin D 1000 iu per day
9 vitamin E 800 iu per day
Try it with the experimental group for six months.
How does this compare with the filthy garbage you are trying to pass off as a valid experiment on orthomolecular medicine. A housewife could follow this procedure, but somehow a team of medical researchers cannot? For shame.
If a cookie recipe called for 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar, 2 eggs, etc., but I used 1 cup of flour, 1 tsp of sugar, and no eggs, I would KNOW that I would not get a cookie from my modifications. Yet, medical researchers cannot tell the difference between simple vitamin dosages, and convolute their studies to deliberately pump out results other than successes?
It is very sad when we learn to expect better of a housewife with a limited education than we do of a medical researcher with a science degree.
1. And healthcare workers would be all over that because we aren't sociopaths: They just don't know how to challenge and question, and they don't know how to think outside the box. Dr. Hyla Cass, an Orthomolecular professor of Psychiatry at USC Berkley said to the effect of in Feed Your Head: A video by Dr. Hoffer, "Of every 100 psychiatry students I run across, only 3 are able to look for other options when drugs fail to work for people with mental illness." Unfortunately, these low numbers can be found everywhere. Mose people just do not know how to challenge and question.
2. Resent crackpots who attempt to mislead our patients: That is not nice, and it was not necessary. And, no one is trying to mislead anyone except for you.
3. I'm going to type this slowly so you can follow: You just insulted my intelligence and implied that I am stupid. If I said that to you, I would have been promptly diciplined and likely kicked off the board. However, you are allowed to use this terminology on people you disagree with.
4. Oddly, people not cured of their mental illnesses: You just accused me of being a liar. Sister Teresa Feist put out a book about her recovery from schizophrenia using Dr. Hoffer's methods. She then cured another nun, Sister Adelle an RN of her Multiple Sclerosis using Dr. Hoffer's methods, and the two of them set up a care home in Lebret, Saskatchewan to care for terminally ill people. YOu have just accused a lot of very credible people of being liars, and you do so without shame.
5. I've worked in Addictions and Mental Health for 17 years: Then, you of all people ought to know that Dr. Hoffer performed the very first controlled studies EVER in addictions research. In fact, Bill W, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous was a patient of Dr. Hoffers, and participated in his LSD trials in Weyburn, Saskatchewan in the 1950s. Bill W said that Dr. Hoffer and his vitamin B3 therapy helped him tremendously with his depression. Bill W even tried to get Hoffer's nutritional treatments included in the AA program and the American Medical Association said No. Bill W and Dr. Hoffer remained very close friends for many years. So, if you think that you are experienced with 17 years in addictions, Dr. Hoffer had 40 years more experience than you do today.
Dr. Hoffer has written books on addictions. He was more than qualified to do so.
Here is what wiki has to say about Bill W.
Here's the book put out by that other stupid, crackpot, liar as Sineed calls us:
Schizophrenia Cured: A Case History and a Look at Orthomolecular Therapy, by Sister Terra (Sister Teresa Feist) Ford.
Here is a comment written about the book on amazon.com
By John Hammell:
Goggles, your posts also get personal, are persistent,and are endlessly repetitive in content. Neither of you is ever going to change the other's mind.
My posts got personal only after Ryan asking me my story of success. It is only two people who have had the brazen audacity to tell me that my story did not happen, one of whom, you said you respect her opinions. I understand your bias. Now, on this thread, someone made a comment on what was needed to get well mentally. I have that information on how to get well. I would like to see people get well, so I am goig to mention nutrition so that people can try to get well if they so choose. I have been spending my time contradicting two other peoples' repetitive sick lies, one of whom you stated that you respect her opinions, so I know where you are coming from.
Goggles, no one has accused you of lying. You believe (apparently very deeply) something that is not only highly unlikely, but demonstrably not true. Being wrong is not the same thing as lying.
Please keep your arrogance to yourself. What you just wrote was not necessary, nor constructive. It was nasty. YOu have the support of the moderators, so I am asking you nicely to stop. You have the full freedom and support of the moderators to call me stupid, delusional, a liar, a crackpot. Bullying is not ok anywhere else, but you have the full freedom to do so on these boards without challenge and question.
I am asking you nicely to stop.
Quit being a hypocrite.
I have never had a problem with a difference of opinion. I have a problem with persistent bullying which this board actively supports. I am not the only one who has been harassed off the board. Yet the mods support this activity and then blame the people who are the subject of attack by the two perpetrators.
Goggles, that's inappropriate, and "outing" behaviour. If you want to take it to private message, that would be fine.
I have never called you stupid or delusional. I have said that your belief in OM is sincere, even though, given the strength of the evidence against it, OM itself does not work.
In other words, you're not delusional or a liar. You're just wrong on this.
I am not outing you. I am calling you a hypocrite.
Goggles, that's a personal attack, and one I can't argue without talking in detail about people who have nothing to do with any of this and haven't consented to having their lives discussed on a message board. You shouldn't be involving anyone else in the beef you have with me - it's an invasion of their privacy. While I recognize that there is no such thing as complete anonymity on the internet, you're putting up signposts that I'm uncomfortable with. It's one thing for me to share details about my life and work, totally another for you to.
When you actively say that you wished that others practiced like him, and then I find out that he uses vitamins, then there is a problem. And by the way, I did ask him for permission to use his name and he was fine with it.
Offhand mentions of my life and work are not an invitation to google-stalk me and call up people I might know. That's incredibly creepy and disturbing and it crosses a lot of lines. You are interfering in my personal life and relationships when you do that.
Also, by directly naming people I know and associate with, you are providing more direct information on my identity, which absolutely is a violation of my privacy.
Point taken. Only motive was to expose you for being the hypocrite you are. I did not google stalk you. You provided all the information yourself.
Take down the name.
And yes, you would have had to spend some time looking me up. I gave out no titles, names or direct locations. If you want to do that, fine, but putting it up on the board is giving out personal information about me. Calling people up to discuss me is DEFINITELY stalker behaviour. That is so far out of line that you can't even see the line from there. You are directly interfering in my personal relationships offline because I dared to disagree with you on the internet. What the fuck is the matter with you?!
And btw - Just because someone I know, respect and like is a proponent of vitamin supplementation does not mean I agree with them. There is no hypocrisy here.