Talks & documentaries on mental health issues

The Healthy Mind, Body, Planet tour - details below from the Ottawa X Press - is in Hamilton at 7 p.m., at Sky Dragon Community Development Centre (pick link for details). I will be there tomorrow to meet Angela as well as promoting the documentary Prescription: Suicide? that will be screened at Sky Dragon next week on Friday May 5th at 7:00 - cost is $5.00


April 13th, 2006
Bio: Angela Bischoff
Corporate checkup
Riva Soucie
Ottawa X Press

Angela Bischoff's detox plan for a pill-popping generationTypically, mental, physical and planetary health are treated separately by activists, media and policymakers. But Angela Bischoff - whose partner's death, environmental activist and politician Tooker Gomberg, was linked to side effects from depression medication - wants people to make the connection between the three. She's teamed up with other activists to create Healthy Mind, Body, Planet - a multimedia presentation now touring Canada. XPress reached her in Big Cove, New Brunswick.

XPress This campaign looks really rad. Nutshell it for people who don't know anything about it yet.

Bischoff I've joined forces with independent media activists Kelly Reinhardt and Bridget Haworth of www.boilingfrog.ca. I'm focusing on the dramatic rise in antidepressant use while they're making the connections between big pharma and the corporate influences of big oil, big media and the like. In the next three months we'll travel by train to 23 Canadian cities and towns to talk about and document the dangers of antidepressant drugs and the pervasive influence of the pharmaceutical industry in our lives.

XPress What's the big deal about big pharma?

Bischoff They're a half-a-trillion-dollar industry that sells products that often cause injury or death when used as directed, like big oil and tobacco. All three industries know that some of their most profitable products are injuring and killing people, but have hidden evidence, lied about it, hired their own experts to produce phoney, misleading "research," and rely on public funds to pay for the consequences. Meanwhile, people are dying, and families are being torn apart. It's obscene.

XPress What was your motivation for taking this on?

Bischoff Two years ago I was living life fully with my soul mate of 17 years - Tooker Gomberg - travelling through life together, making waves, organizing around environmental and justice issues. We had just moved to Halifax. Tooker was unemployed and sank into a depression, the second of his life. He saw a psychiatrist and agreed to take an antidepressant drug. His agitation increased on the drug until, with the dosage upped to the maximum in just five weeks, the agitation literally sent him over the edge.

Not three weeks later, while at his memorial in Toronto, a friend gave me a copy of a newspaper report: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had issued a public health advisory stating that antidepressants can cause suicidal ideation in some users. I broke down, incredulous. I immediately immersed myself in this issue, reading everything I could get my hands on.

XPress What did you learn?

Bischoff I learned that one in four users of antidepressants gets agitated on them. This is a very serious side effect. Agitation is a potent predictor of suicide. With 50 million users worldwide, that's a lot of angry, agitated people. Dr. David Healy of the U.K., author of hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and a dozen books, claims that one in 500 users of antidepressants will kill themselves as a direct result of their drug - that's 500,000 suicides!

This has been confirmed by Dr. Dean Fergusson of the Ottawa Health Research Institute. His meta-analysis reviewed data on 90,000 patients from some 700 clinical trials and found that patients were twice as likely to attempt suicide on antidepressants as on sugar pills. And there's a whole host of other side effects that we're never told about, like mania, sexual dysfunction, emotional dullness, weight change, addiction, aggression and on and on.

XPress What are you hearing from people on the road?

Bischoff Our first stop on the tour was a First Nations community, Elsipogtog, in northern New Brunswick. We spent two days meeting people, hearing their stories, and it's a nightmare. Every family is touched by addiction and everything that accompanies it: theft, lies, family breakdown, suicide, all from drug abuse (pharmaceutical and street). This community is begging for solutions, for help. Meanwhile, the pushers carry on, the doctors keep writing "scripts," and the drug industry reaps millions in profits in this community alone. It's a tragedy of unbelievable proportion.

XPress What can we expect at the presentation tonight?

Bischoff We're telling people's stories through theatre, video and spoken word. We've edited together the best video clips we've come across to inform and inspire critical analysis. We're sharing and distributing information. We're listening to others' stories. We're creating a public dialogue. We're brainstorming solutions.

XPress How else can people get involved?

Bischoff They can visit our website: www.greenspiration.org. We've got blogs and video podcasts of interviews we're doing along the way, as well as information, articles and web links about antidepressants and big pharma. They'll also find our own publication, Depression Expression, outlining these issues in depth with references and resources, as well as discussion about alternatives to drugs to treat depression. The back page is about taking action.
More importantly, people can pay closer attention to their friends and loved ones, supporting them during their down times. Proper diet devoid of sugar and processed food, daily exercise and social contact are things you can do to keep yourself healthy and connected.

XPress Okay, activists aren't superhuman. Any guilty pleasures?

Bischoff I like to play pool and have a pint of the local microbrew. And black licorice - my favourite.

XPress What are you doing to stay healthy on the road?

Bischoff Bridget quit coffee on day one of the tour, narrowly averting a caffeine withdrawal headache with a shot of propolis tincture. Kelly purchased his last pack of smokes before boarding the train. A native medicine healer told me today that peppermint and mint are good herbs to counter cravings. We all committed to a half-hour of yoga daily, to eating healthily, and to staying positive and supporting each other. We're committed to our own physical, mental and spiritual health - what we call sustainable activism.