The FDA does not require drug companies to submit ads before they air. An ad on tv or in magazines might be there for six months before they are tagged as being deceptive. By that time, the company has another ready for the public.

There needs to be better enforcement by the FDA for direct consumer advertising. There needs to be more disclosure in ads as to what the product is for, what are the risks and who should use it .

Drug advertising skews what people take. This is shameless promotion. The little bit obscuring the risks at the end of each ad is rarely noticed by the viewer.

These following YouTube videos are short and right to the point.

Prescription Drugs Deceptive Advertising (repeat from my facebook page)

Deceptive Drug Ads

Funny but True Facts About Big Pharma, Bill Maher Very funny!

And, finally – Facts About The Pharmaceutical Industry.  The pharmaceutical industry claims it spends billions of dollars on Research and Development (R&D) every year. Over 80% of that “R&D” is to market their product – Billions in Marketing! This video was produced in 2007. The numbers are higher and the abuse has escalated over the ensuing four years.

Kris Uncategorized

I carry the memories of my family carefully. There are some that should remain buried and some that I like to hold up to the light. There are some that are so painful that even a wisp of a trigger, a telephone ringing on a sunny autumn afternoon, the sequence of random events that I sense happened before and I will cringe. The skin on the backs of my hands gets prickly and my breath will stop short in my chest.

We are a “normal” family in most respects. We live in a house in a residential neighborhood. There were always dogs to shoo off the couch and teenage grumblings about family meals. We had strict rules about no tv during the weekdays and participation in a family activity on Sundays. A bike ride, kite flying, a card game or a movie. We took a family vacation every year and every year deemed it the best – better than the year before.

As the kids got older, like all families, we juggled after school sports and the agony of homework. Both kids went to a difficult prep school that demanded hours of critical analysis on their own time – usually late into the night and the dreaded catch-up on Sunday afternoons. It got in the way of our family time. But, we figured a good education was going to be the KEY. The ticket to the big world that awaited them.

For his senior speech, our son got up in front of his class of future lawyers, politicians and doctors and told them that he sees the world very differently than they do. Shape and color, design and texture defined his life. He opened the door on this renegade, skateboarding painter and described a life of contemplation and two-dimensional drama. He dedicated his speech to a fellow artist, his best friend, who had died the year before and the entire audience was wiping away tears as my son stepped down from the podium. His courage left me speechless.

Our daughter left this rigorous school in her junior year of high school and went to the local public high school. In the second week at her new school she informed us that she was going to be performing at the homecoming event and we should stop by. For the last couple of years, the strenuous schedule of homework and  lack of social connections had worn her down. After the decision to change schools, she brightened. It seemed I was always catching her smiling. It was like a black cloud had been lifted.

We walked into a packed auditorium. Kids were screaming. The homecoming king and queen were on the stage. It felt like the room was going to explode when the band emerged from the wings. Our daughter strolled out and sat demurely behind a HUGE drum kit, tapped her sticks together and proceeded to WAIL on the drums. The new girl rocked – absolutely blew everyone away. Her hair was flying, her skinny legs and arms kept the beat. After each song, she kept busy tweaking the snare and fiddling with her stool. She’d place her long hair behind her shoulders, give the beat and take off.

This was the most connected we had seen her in years. She was one with her self. It was absolutely beautiful to witness. My husband and I stood in the aisle of  this packed auditorium and silently cried. Happy, amazed tears of joy.  They finished to a roaring crowd and my daughter shot a smile out into the world that I will never forget.

Our son continues to thrill us with his work.

But, our daughter, not long after this phenomenal occasion, slid into to the morass of the psychiatric system. Nerves, stress, shyness, lack of self-confidence all tumbled down and crushed her. There was a host of things that probably led to my daughter’s descent into emotional and cognitive trouble. I had divorced her father when she was two. He had never been a part of her life in any parental way. Years as a single mother in New York City weren’t easy. By the time she was eight, things stabilized and I remarried. Her step-father treats her as his own. Even so, I do think that this kind of abandonment and early strife in life leaves lasting marks.

The years when my daughter was in her late teens and early twenties created too many bad memories. Memories of the most doomed and sad things. My daughter lost and miserable confirming these things. My son fleeing from these things and my husband and I barely acknowledging life existed other than these things.

It felt like it could never change. Life was dictated by “mental illness”. Doctors, diagnoses, drugs. Doctors, diagnoses, drugs. Doctors, diagnoses, drugs.

I am actively burying those memories by make new ones.

An update on my daughter- she is improving. Mentally and physically. She is walking around, albeit with a limp, but her foot endures an hour of physical therapy a week and high heels are back in the line-up. She sees an acupuncturist once a week and likes the floating, out-of-body experience it gives her. The naturopath gave her vitamins and minerals to boost her system. Her irritated digestive system is calming.

She is calming. She is focused and building her life. She is going to stay in Minnesota for awhile.

She has ups and downs. Emotional distress undermines her unexpectedly and I am usually the target of her anger when this happens. It incapacitates me more than it used to. I was at attention for so long, so ready for the worst to happen. When she came home and things settled down, I let my guard down.

These flare-ups send me into the depths of despair. But, they do not last. Last week, two three days of it and she pulled out and I began to breath again.

It is that dance of love that we preform with our loved-ones which we can’t help but to learn the steps. This new dance is fun. Hiccupy and jerky but with long smooth stretches.

Kris Uncategorized

In 1992, the Supreme Court ruled that the 1966 warning label law on cigarette packages does not shield tobacco companies from all lawsuits. This opened the door to sue tobacco companies for violation of antitrust laws by failing to disclose addictive qualities of tobacco.

On November 23, 1998 the Attorneys General and other representatives of 46 states. Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam and the District of Columbia signed an agreement with the five largest tobacco manufacturers (Brown & Williamson Tobacco corporation, Lorillard Tobacco Company, Philip Morris Incorporated, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Commonwealth Tobacco, and Liggett & Myers), ending a four-year legal battle between the states and the industry that began in 1994 when Mississippi became the first state to file suit. Four states (Florida, Minnesota, Mississippi and Texas) had previously settled with tobacco manufacturers for $40 billion.

The tobacco industry spent $40 million on the anti-settlement advertising blitz, and $58 million on lobbying during 1998.

Tobacco litigation peaked in the late 1990’s but it still goes on today. Billions of dollars have been paid out.

The Tobacco Settlement should be a guideline for a Pharmaceutical Settlement.

The Settlement

(Exchange “Big Pharma” with “Tobacco”)

The Foundation

Anti-smoking advertising campaign are extremely effective when they are long-term, and consistently portray smoking as hazardous for adults and children alike, according to an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Pharmaceutical advertising is ubiquitous. Legos with the logo of Seroquel were featured in a recent New York Times article recently.  (In the waiting room…  children played with Legos stamped with the word Risperdal, made by Johnson & Johnson. It has since lost its patent on the drug and stopped handing out the toys. Greg Panico, a company spokesman, said the Legos were not intended for children to play with — only as a promotional item.)

Long and often-repeated television ads lure viewers into the serene world of pharmaceutical bliss. Once lonely, depressed and miserably forgotten on the couch, these very same people are seen smiling euphorically into the eyes of their loved-ones, standing outside on, what the viewer is to believe will be a string of perpetually beautiful days, arms flung out to capture the overflowing joy that is now theirs – because they took a pill. The side effects quickly and quietly tagged on the end of the ad, sound like background music, bland and unimportant  in the presence of such remarkable happiness.

It is not mentioned that two-thirds of people on antidepressants don’t get better. The Abilify ad, which basically is telling you to step up onto the next rung on the psychiatric drug ladder and add an antipsychotic drug, because what they’re giving you on the lower rung – antidepressants – don’t work.

In his research, Robert Whitaker has conclusively shown that in most cases these drugs work no better than a placebo – and can also have serious side effects, including causing even more serious mental disorders than the one the patient is being treated for.

Truth in advertising? My daughter was on Abilify but within two days, the feeling of blood rushing in her veins was so uncomfortable she stopped taking it. This was not before her doctor prescribed another drug to add into the mix to combat the weird blood rushing problem. This was clearly not their only problem with the drug. In July of 2008, Bristol-Myers Squibb was ordered to pay $499 million dollars to satisfy a suit against the company for questionable marketing and pricing.

“The allegations were that these companies not only engaged in a pattern of kickbacks and false reporting to drive up both the sales and prices for its drugs, they also encouraged health care providers to prescribe a potent drug to both children and seniors for uses that had not been approved by the FDA,” Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker said in a prepared statement. “The drive to make certain that the bottom-line meets Wall Street expectations can never justify defrauding the taxpayers or putting our most vulnerable citizens at risk.”

The Settlement for the Tobacco Companies

Requires the industry each year for ten years to pay $25 million to fund a charitable foundation which will support the study of programs to reduce teen smoking and substance abuse and the prevention of diseases associated with tobacco use.

The foundation was required to carry out nationwide, sustained advertising and education programs to counter youth tobacco use and educate consumers about the cause and prevention of diseases associated with tobacco use.

The foundation was also required to create an industry-funded $1.45 billion national public education fund for tobacco control.

According to Pfizer’s 2008 annual report, their net income averaged $8.1 billion per year for 2007-2008. For 2006, it was $19.6 billion! These are the profits for just ONE pharmaceutical company.

There have been many lawsuits against the makers of Zyprexa, Risperdal and Seroquel. Pharmaceutical giant Astra-Zeneca was ordered to pay $520 million dollars to settle the Justice Department’s lawsuit against them for improperly promoting it’s anti-psychotic medication Seroquel. The Justice Department claimed that A-Z marketed the drug as treatment for  the treatment of aggression, Alzheimer’s disease, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder( PTSD). Its intended use is for Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia.

The enormous amount of money changing hands in these lawsuits is making some lawyers very rich but very few people abused by the drugs saw significant money.

The “illnesses” linked to pharmaceutical drugs are not as clearly defined as lung cancer. Instead, the pharmaceutical companies twist the findings and blame  side effects, chronic need for more medication and lack of efficacy of their drugs on the “illness”. Once the psychotropics have been introduced, the brain is immediately affected. Many refer to these effects as “traumatic”, the brain behaving like it has been subjected to significant injury.

Public Access to Documents and Court Files

“The American people deserve to know the truth about the tobacco industry’s marketing practices….”

U.S. Rep. Thomas Bliley.

The American people deserve to know the truth about the pharmaceutical industry’s marketing practices.

The Settlement

Requires tobacco companies to open, at their expense, a website which includes all documents produced in state

and other smoking and health related lawsuits.

It is important to note that they are requiring transparency – a commodity which the pharmaceutical industry is unfamiliar.

Requires the industry to maintain the site for ten years in a user- friendly and searchable format (requires and index and

other features to improve searchable access).

Requires the industry to add, at its expense, all documents produced in future civil actions involving smoking and health cases.

As new litigation comes up, they have to announce it.

Outdoor Advertising

“Tobacco companies spend more than $5 billion annually, or $13 million a day, on advertising and marketing campaigns.” Federal Trade Commission.

The Settlement

Bans all outdoor advertising, including: billboards, signs and placards in arenas, stadiums, shopping malls, and video game arcades.

Limits advertising outside retail establishments to 14 square feet.

Bans transit advertising of tobacco products.

Allows states to substitute, for the duration of billboard lease periods, alternative advertising which discourages youth smoking.

Tobacco Merchandise and Product Placement and Sponsorship

“Thirty percent of kids (12 to 17 years old), both smokers and nonsmokers, own at least one tobacco promotional item, such as T-shirts, backpacks, and CD players.” —

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

A document uncovered in the Minnesota case revealed how Phillip Morris provided products for use in movies as youth-oriented as “The Muppet Movie” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

Dissolution of Tobacco-Related Organizations

“The documents, considered as a whole, provide evidence that supports the state’s assertions that defendants used CTR (Council for Tobacco Research) to mislead the public…” — Honorable George Finkle, King County Superior Court Judge (Washington State).

The Settlement

Disbands the Council for Tobacco Research, the Tobacco Institute, and the Council for Indoor Air Research.

Requires all records of these organizations that relate to any lawsuit to be preserved.

Provides regulation and oversight of new trade organizations.

A whiff of this kind of provision in a pharmaceutical settlement and the shredders would be going night and day. Maybe they already are! Would NAMI bite the dust?

Financial Recovery For The States

The Settlement

Requires industry payments to the states in perpetuity, with the payments totaling $206 billion through the year 2025.

Provides that distributions to states will be made based on formulas agreed to by Attorneys General.

Requires annual payments by the industry to begin April 15, 2000.

Free Samples

“Samples encourage experimentation by providing minors with a risk-free and cost-free

way to satisfy their curiosity.” — Institute of Medicine.

The Settlement

Free samples cannot be distributed except in a facility or enclosed area where the operator ensures no underage person is present.

“Yes, I’d like to learn more about a FREE trial of ABILIFY!” is the banner on the official Abilify website. “Talk with your doctor if you have been on an anti-depressant for at least six weeks and still feel depressed.”

Lobbying

“Big tobacco spent $28.8 million in 1996 and $35.5 million in 1997 and employed 208 lobbyists to lobby Congress.

That is one lobbyist for every 2.5 members of Congress.” –

Public Citizen.

The Settlement

Tobacco companies prohibited from opposing proposed state or local laws or administrative rules which are intended to limit youth access to and consumption of tobacco products.  The industry must require its lobbyists to certify in writing they have reviewed and will fully comply with settlement terms including disclosure of financial contributions regarding lobbying activities and new corporate culture principles; Prohibits lobbyists from supporting or opposing state, federal, or local laws or actions without authorization of the companies.

Prohibition on Agreements to Suppress Research

“Cigarettes kill more than 400,000 Americans every year. This figure represents more deaths than from AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, murders, suicides, drugs and fires – combined.” —Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

The Settlement

Prohibits manufacturers from jointly contracting or conspiring to:

Limit information about the health hazards from the use of their products;

Limit or suppress research into smoking and health; and

Limit or suppress research into the marketing or development of new products.

Prohibits the industry from making any material misrepresentations regarding the health consequences of smoking.

Prohibits manufacturers from jointly contracting or conspiring to:

Limit information about the health hazards from the use of their products;

Limit or suppress research into smoking and health; and

Limit or suppress research into the marketing or development of new products.

Can you imagine Big Pharma being told that they can not longer “limit information about the health hazards from use of their product”? What if they couldn’t “limit or suppress research into the marketing or development of new products”? How would Big Pharma make their billions if they were prohibited  ”from making any material misrepresentations regarding the health consequences” of their products?

But, which one is the main target? Big Pharma and the American Psychiatric Association are like two arms of a monster which has the American public firmly in it grasp.

Kris Uncategorized Abilify, Astra-Zeneca, Johnson & Johnsosn, Pfizer, Pharmaceutical advertising, Risperdal, Seroquel, Tobacco Settlement, traumatic brain injury, Truth in advertising, Zyprexa

I was painting my garage door yesterday in the late afternoon as people were coming home from work. A neighbor I hadn’t met stopped to introduce himself and we talked for a couple of minutes.

We talked about neighborhood stuff, the gorgeous weather, his job and then he asked what I do.

I always waver here. I used to have a furniture design business. My brother’s handmade sculptural designs sold themselves, but I did the marketing, met with the showrooms and was the face of the business. When things began to get too unsettled around my house, I began to write full time from home. This way, I could be available for the long stretches that I needed to be free to help my daughter.

Soon after I quit the furniture business, we embarked on a search for relief for my daughter’s mental distress.We scoured the US for hospitals and treatment centers. While my daughter was in one, I was hunting for the next. This went on for years.

Now I write this blog and teach myself about the mental healthcare system, research alternative approaches to treatment and try to make myself an educated advocate for my daughter.

“What do you do?” my neighbor asked.

“I write a blog.”

“Oh, what is it about?” My experience tells me that I have to read reactions at this point very carefully.

“I advocate for change in the mental healthcare industry.”

“Oh,” he exclaimed, “me too! I am working on a project to help families who are dealing with people first diagnosed with manic-depression.”

“Hmm.”

“What do you write about?”

“Well, I write about my experiences with the system. I think it is time for an overhaul. I believe that there has ever been any solid evidence  presented that convinces me that “mental illness” exists. Mental distress is real. I don’t deny that, but I advocate for a different approach to treatment than what is available from the medical model that exists in this country.”

I know what is out there. I know everything that is presented to first-time consumers of the mental healthcare system.

My neighbor was actually backing away from me. It was like I had said something very frightening and weird and he needed to make space between me standing there in my readers, floppy hat, paint spattered clothes while I carefully dabbed the corners of the trim so that there wouldn’t be drips. So not scary, but to him, it sounded like I had just said that I am an alien.

“Are you saying that mental illness doesn’t exist?”

“Yes, but I do believe that people experience real mental distress. I just don’t call it an “illness”.”

“That’s not right. You are wrong.”

I went back to work.

To my back – “What’s the name of your blog?”

“Borderlinefamilies.com”

“OH! So you’ve got one of those? I have a couple in my family.”

“Well, no,” I started scrambling, trying to remember the wonderful comments people made on my facebook page about changing the name of my blog. Keep it as is to lead people who are searching for help to my site but add a tag line like – A Place to Create Healing. Too much information for this exchange.

“I named it for families who are looking for help, feeling on the edge…”

He cut me off, “Yeah, well, mental illness exists. Manic depression is real.” And, he fled back across the street.

Kris Uncategorized

Bob Whitaker at Alternatives 2010 part one.mov

Bob Whitaker at Alternatives 2010 part two.mov

Bob Whitaker at Alternatives 2010 part three.mov

Bob Whitaker at Alternatives 2010 part four.mov

In Robert Whitaker’s keynote speech at the Alternative Conference last week in California, he pointed out that we should be seeking the truth from professionals in the medical field, rather than berating the pharmaceutical companies who are basically chemical manufactures. Question the integrity of the mental healthcare professionals who have decided that continual medication is the cornerstone of every treatment plan.

More than one drug prescribed to combat a problem should be a red flag that the treatment isn’t working. Yet, most people who have entered into the mental healthcare system are routinely prescribed more than two, three or four medications at a time. My daughter was on high doses of five, eight, sometimes ten different drugs for years on end. All the while she was being told that she “wasn’t trying” and that she apparently was “treatment resistant” because the drugs didn’t work.

Our family would have made very different decisions had we known that she would under go excessive weight gain that could potentially cause diabetes or high cholesterol. If I could have seen in advance the look on my daughter’s face during an excruciating lunch as tardive dyskinesia took over and her right arm flung out into space, I never would have agreed to the Haldol. But, the doctors at the facility where she was living didn’t ask me as they added it to off-label use of Neurontin, and the Seroquel and the sleeping meds and off-label use of antihistamines. She was an adult by this time. But, she wasn’t warned either.

My daughter might die 25 years before her time as a direct result of the period of her life that she and I had faith in the system.

We don’t know if she still would be experiencing suicidal thoughts if she hadn’t been subjected to antipsychotics and antidepressants. Now, she swings into these moods, but endures and comes out the other side with a clear head and the ability to carry on her life. Something she couldn’t do for years. Because of the drugs.

Informed choice. It should be a very basic part of the health care system.

Robert Whitaker wrote an article for Psychology Today, SAMHSA, the Alternative Conference, and the Story of an Opportunity Lost. He reveals that there were considerable strings attached when he was re-invited to be the keynote speaker at the Alternatives Conference. He had originally been scheduled to give a speech in addition to the keynote but that workshop was cancelled. (He had planned to speak about a Finnish program for treating psychotic patients that was producing excellent results, and the prescribing of exercise as a treatment for depression, which is now being done in Britain.) The other condition was that the NEC, National Empowerment Center, was required to recruit a psychiatrist, from a list of names provided by SAMHSA, to “rebut” his keynote.

I heard from people attending the conference that Dr. Ragins, the psychiatrist selected,  did not seem very prepared. “Medical interventions are always correlated with worse (long-term) problems . . . It is likely that all interventions ‘done to’ someone to give them help or take care of them will have short-term benefits that wane over time and may well become long-term negatives.” This was Dr. Ragins’ punch line.

At the end of the article, Bob Whitaker admits, “At such moments, I have to confess that I begin to lose all hope. It seems quite impossible that our society will ever be able to have a thoughtful, honest discussion about what is truly known about mental disorders, and about the merits of psychiatric medications. The forces lined up against such a discussion are simply too great.”

We are so lucky to have this man as our spokes person. Smart and not afraid to take a stand that isn’t popular.

Kris Uncategorized