Over-Diagnosed Mental Illness Suits Drug Companies

This report called 'A Research Agenda for DSM-V' published by the American Psychiatric Association calls for more research on the causes of mental illness, which would incorporate specific tests such as MRI and sensitive blood tests to prove mental illness exists. It is also critical of the strict adherence terminology from the DSM-IV used by many of America's psychiatrists (including Canada's).

It's abhorrent to think that tests that include questions such as "do you prefer to work by yourself" would label business entrepreneurs as mentally ill because they are considered "narcissistic". Homosexuality is still considered a psychiatric illness according to the DSM-IV.

DSM stands for the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, which determines "mental illness" based on semantics identified by patients who fill out the questionnaires or answer a yes or no when asked specific questions by a psychiatrist. Many of these questionnaires are outdated but still used by Ontario's psychiatrists.

Very few researchers studying mental health medicine, save for the University of Ottawa are developing evidential tests to prove mental illness.

News Item from:

The Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP) :

According to the study,"Younger sufferers are especially overlooked, the survey found, even though mental illness is very much a disease of youth. Half of those who will ever be diagnosed with a mental disorder show signs of the disease by age 14, and three-quarters by age 24. But few get help."

Translation: detection of chronic mental disorders will require chronic treatment to enrich the pharmaceutical industry and mental health professionals at taxpayers expense.

Dr. Paul McHugh, former chairman of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, and a member of the President's bioethics commission, scoffed at the claimed findings: "Fifty percent of Americans mentally impaired - are you kidding me?"

Dr. McHugh noted the flawed diagnostic tool that psychiatry relies on: "the problem is that the diagnostic manual we are using in psychiatry is like a field guide and it just keeps expanding and expanding." "Pretty soon," he said, "we'll have a syndrome for short, fat Irish guys with a Boston accent, and I'll be mentally ill."

One wonders whether Congress will buy into this contrived effort to divert public budget allocations to enrich the mental health industry.

The declared mental health epidemic in the US is an irresponsible marketing ploy whose veiled purpose is to encourage increased chronic use of mind-altering prescription drugs whose hazardous effects pose a threat to the health and safety of the community.

The drugs-psycho stimulants, antidepressants, and anti-psychotics-induce severe hazardous effects in some who take them. The hazards often exceed the symptoms for which they are prescribed.

They include: insomnia, mania, agitation, akathisia (i.e., excruciating physical and psychological restlessness), sexual dysfunction, violent outbursts, liver damage, diabetes mellitus, and potentially fatal effects, including cardiovascular damage, NMS, stroke, violent suicidal /homicidal acts, not to mention they retard children's growth.

NIMH director, Dr. Insel, indicated that "mental disorders are highly prevalent and chronic."

But prevalence and chronicity are correlated to widespread use of psychotropic drugs in the US. A body of evidence shows that chronic use of psychotropic drugs--including psycho-stimulants,
SSRI / SNRI class of antidepressants, and the most dangerous drugs of all, the antipsychotics--results in drug dependency.

If the NIMH-Harvard study is taken seriously and we accept its claim that most of the US population is mad, the credibility of our leaders and our national policies will be the butt of international ridicule.