Boy, the propaganda machine this and other sites so gung ho about this LEGISLATION really sickens me! You folks just don’t get it, and I won’t waste my fingers re-explaining it to people who are beyond rigid and inflexible, so my hope is the readers who are gray and moderate will see through the “BS” Dr Grohol exclaims in his post.

You cannot unilaterally screen for a subjective diagnosis, especially when it involves a life changing event of birth. Don’t believe me, just review the failures moreso than not when politicians start legislating medical care. And if you do not believe some pharma companies are lining up if not already behind this farce of an excuse to responsibly diagnose post partum depression, as Mike Meyers so eloquently said it in his movie, “the monkeys are flying out my butt!”

Even if 10% of women legitimately display sizeable features of PPD, this demands the other 90% of women being screened? How about you screen first those who show symptoms of questionable concern or legitimate family members speak out independently?

Nah, that makes too much sense. After all, these are politicians and biased lobbyists behind this agenda, EH !!!!

Dr Grohol, you may mean well in supporting an issue, but you are way beyond the boundaries in pushing it to be so encompassing. Thank god there are people speaking out against this who are overt examples to why this proposal needs to be scrapped and rewritten at the very least. And if what I read is true about the wife of a NJ congressman being a cause to this legislation with her having PPD for 20 years, that is as absurd as this intention.

Hey, I am a psychiatrist, I have treated women with legitimate PPD, and advocate for treatment, but NOT THIS WAY!!! Readers, research the whole process to this matter, don’t jump on knee jerk bandwagons that don’t see the forest for the tree.

Skillsnotpills, board cert psychiatrist

This is a great article. Thank you Dr. Grohol.

Regarding “skillsnotpills” comment, I’m not sure I understand the sentence as written - “How about you screen first those who show symptoms of questionable concern or legitimate family members speak out independently?” However, I think that many people would agree that any screening of such a common reaction is life-saving, and screening for people who do show symtpoms would be a good first step, and worthy of research. So i guess i agree with you. And I don’t have monkeys flying out of my butt.

You know why everyone must be screened? Because of people like me. I was not under any circumstances going to talk to my doctor about how I was feeling but somehow it was easier to take a screening test. I would have committed suicide, possibly taking my children with me had it not been for the fact that I was screened and treated. There is no doubt in my mind that my children would be motherless if I hadn’t had the wonderful doctors and therapist in my corner. You know why they were wonderful? They didn’t force treatment on me. They worked with me and my feelings and beliefs to create the best plan for my individual situation. Medication wasn’t even mentioned until at least a month or two into my treatment and I wasn’t pressured when I initially declined. My Psychiatrist tried things like light and nutrition therapy as well as many other alternative treatments first. She was not a drug pusher by any means. Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of areas of the country that have knowledge about Postpartum Depression to be able to treat and diagnose it effectively. That is what the bill is about…education and research.

I dare you to look into my children’s eyes and tell them that their mother’s life isn’t worth screening for. Tell them that your paranoid antipharm agenda is more important than them having a mother and even possibly life themselves. If you don’t want to take medication then don’t but leave the rest of us alone!

I am responding to Marcie,
“I dare you to look into my children’s eyes and tell them that their mother’s life isn’t worth screening for. Tell them that your paranoid antipharm agenda is more important than them having a mother and even possibly life themselves. If you don’t want to take medication then don’t but leave the rest of us alone!”

OK then, I dare you to look into my children’s eyes and tell them that screening and drugging me and risking my life was worth it. If you want to take drugs fine but leave the rest of us alone - to use your words.

I dare you to watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnxuw2ufSug

Mother’s need the MOTHER’S Act. Why?

Because of ignorant OB’s like my first doc. I went to him at 12wks postpartum, struggling with horrific intrusive thoughts of stabbing my infant. I waited in his office for over an hour to see him, my infant screaming and fussing the entire time. By the time I got into see him I was a mess. Handed him a screening I had taken online with the questions “thoughts of harming yourself or your child” marked yes. Wanted to throw my infant against the wall while at his office just to get some silence!

What happened?

Nothing.

My medical records reflect that I was smiling, happy, well groomed, and clearly not depressed. I got a lecture about how hormones magically re-align at 6wks postpartum so there was no way what I was experiencing could be Postpartum Depression.

I left a DOCTOR’S office untreated, frustrated, angry, and still struggling with these horrific thoughts and cleaning/hiding potentially harmful items compulsions.

This spilled over into my second pregnancy, leaving me depressed through my pregnancy, setting me up for one heck of a roller coaster ride once my daughter was born with the unexpected complication of a cleft palate - and NO - no anti-depressants were on board - just plain old deep clinical undiagnosed depression. I wound up hospitalized by the time she was a little over two months old.

So do I think all new mothers need to be screened? ABSOLUTELY….but it should be done in an informed and consensual manner with an action plan in place for what to do if a mother does screen positive. A plan that respects the mother’s wishes for treatment, much like the one Marcie described.

I have suffered PPD in an ignorant area of the country. It is what drives me to do what I do now - peer support for new moms, sharing information, and supporting legislation that would enlighten the country and medical profession.

I am also tired of being judged and accused of not receiving informed consent or choosing to side with Big Pharma. I am BROKE. I have no ties to any pharmaceutical company. I made an informed decision as an intelligent college-educated woman. My approach with moms who come to me for support and guidance is to RESPECT the journey they are on. If they want natural, I am perfectly capable of sending them to people who know about that. If they have questions about medications, I refer them to their physicians and research regarding the efficacy and safety of medications then I (gasp) allow them to MAKE their own decision and SUPPORT whatever that may be…even if I don’t agree with it. It’s called “ethics” and “objectivity.”

Knowledge is key to reducing stigma.

Thank you, Dr. Grohol for this post.

Dr. Grohol, you wrote, “Sadly, whether people want to admit it or not, mothers are another “at risk” population. Why? Because society has told mothers time and time again that giving birth is supposed to be a joyous, happy occasion. If you’re depressed after giving birth to a child, there must be something wrong with you.”

Really - this is why mothers are at risk of PPD, because mothers are told giving birth is supposed to be a happy occasion? Don’t you have a Psy.D.?

“Don’t draw attention to yourself or your problems. Just try and deal with it, try and take care of the baby, and make it through each day. Mothers don’t know they might have something recognized as postpartum depression, much less that they can talk to someone about these feelings or that there’s treatment — psychotherapy or medication — readily available for it.”

Really? Mothers don’t know about PPD? Seriously? Because for the past month I have seen about 75 references to PPD on Twitter where PPD is twisted and people say that they have post-whatever-depression.

Not enough people get diagnosed with depression, eh? Perhaps that’s why one third of pregnant women are on psych drugs at some point during their pregnancy? Perhaps that’s why more people in this country take psych drugs than antibiotics?

So you’re promoting giving out medication to new mothers - and you don’t see a need to include warnings here with that statement?

Thank you Dr. Grohol–well said, well supported.

As a survivor, I look at places like Australia with some envy. This is what a friend there said they have there:

“Post-Natal Depression was discussed considerably at ante-natal classes.

“At your baby’s 3 month check-up at the maternal child health centre is really a mother’s check-up. The maternal child health nurses have a checklist of questions that they go through with mothers, which is aimed at not only picking up PND indicators, but also other risk factors for mothers - such as isolation, violence in the relationship, etc.

“We also see the same maternal child health care nurse multiple times in your baby’s first year - an at home visit the day after returning home, a 2 week visit, 4 week visit, 2 month visit, 3 month visit, 4 month visit, then every 2 months until a year.”

The way it is in my state is after your 6 week check up you are not your OBs patient so much anymore. You are not the pediatrician’s patient, your baby is. You, new mom, don’t seem to matter–just suck it up already.

As far as I knew, I didn’t have a mental health history prior to my PPD; didn’t have a list of risk factors but who would have known? I didn’t. There was nothing mentioned about “PPD”. I learned that what I had had (including a hospital stay) from Oprah. OHhhhh, it was POSTPARTUM depression, OHHH! What a relief to finally find a name for it, and to talk to others who have had it.

Why why why let mothers suffer with such a treatable condition???

Dr. Grohol, do you really believe that the reason that women are at risk for PPD is because they are told that birth is a joyous event?

Do you also believe that there aren’t enough women getting diagnosed with PPD?

Do you not have a problem promoting medication on your blog, even though you list zero warnings for patients on the risks of drugs?

One third of women are exposed to psych drugs during pregnancy according to the ACOG. The EPDS triples the number of women diagnosed. Yet you think that “missing” 20% of potential cases of PPD is a sad fact? I’d say that would be a lucky few who women or babies escaping the clutches of potential death, if it were true.

What’s wrong with women going to the doctor if they want to? Why do you think that the government needs to get involved in marketing a mental disorder? Do you really have so little respect for women that you think they are not capable of making their own decisions about their life and medical treatment?

Yes, THANK YOU, Dr. Grohol for your wisdom and ability to see the forest through the trees. We should invite opponents of this bill to think of some other way to speed up the snail’s pace that our country has been moving with respect to public awareness campaigns, as well as education healthcare providers on earlier detection and more accurate diagnoses (and research that will enable this to happen). I had no previously diagnosed mental/mood disorder and yet experienced PPD. Had my OB/GYN screened me for PPD or even bothered to ask me questions to further assess my situation when I told him I had insomnia at 6 weeks postpartum (clear sign we weren’t talking about the blues anymore), instead of merely prescribing me Ambien, I may have been spared the quick decline in my condition and the horrific panic attacks I experienced that left me feeling frightened and completely debilitated. For crying out loud, I couldn’t even take care of the baby my husband and I had tried for so many years to have. I didn’t know what was wrong with me and thought I would never return to my old self again. Hopelessness in the face of depression, if gone untreated, can lead to suicide. It’s frightening to think that was where I might have headed had I not sought help and gotten the medication I needed that brought me to a functioning level within 4 weeks’ time.

Are you claiming there is a stigma (out there somewhere) or are you asserting one? Your words are far from clear.

Brooke Shields, speaking out, seemed not to accept your pronouncement. And helped many others not to as well.

No, I do not accept “stigmas,” abet them, validate them, nor pass them on so someone else might. Can you explain why you apparently do?

Harold A. Maio, retired Mental Health Editor
khmaio@earthlink.net

THey do a lot of things during pregnancy and birth to screen ALL mothers-most of which we can opt out of. The cream on the baby’s eyes in case I have a veneral disease that could blind her comes to mind. Is that a vast conspiracy?

The assumption that big pharma is in it for the cash, and that all women are idiot automotons who blindly take pills is insulting. Are you all bothered by being asked about your sleeping habits during your pregnancy? Your eating habits? Where, TRULY, does the harm lie in asking, “Are you feeling ok emotionally?” Where is the harm in screening for mental health as well as physical?

Women ARE capable Amy-capable of telling doctors they are fine if they are, and capable of walking through a door that may have been opened with some simple questioning.

I wasn’t screened, by any means. And it risked my life, and my daughter’s because no doctor or nurse could be bothered to look at me and SEE that something was terribly wrong. A lacatation consultant noticed a month later. A month in which I nearly killed myself and my child.

Closing the door to other women who have suffered, who ARE suffering because YOU believe otherwise…it’s sad and ignorant. Blocking access for other women to help, to therapy, to a doctor noticing…I can’t understand it, and likely never will. Because I have two daughters who might very likely end up where I’ve been, and I shudder at the thought of someone else’s experience guiding the resources available to them.

skillsnotpills, don’t you have some non-existent patients you need to be beating into submission? If you’re really a board-certified psychiatrist, the field is in worse shape than anyone knows….

Good job, John. These bloggers who pander to the Scientology crowd (and their mentally ill ilk) are simply seeking the spotlight, in my opinion. Shameless self-promotion, at the expensive of accurate information. They’re whipping up the hornets’ nest and taking no responsibility for their actions. Despicable.

Check out Ms. Philo’s connection with the Scientology front’s “Natural News.” As if it’s not obvious she’s mentally unstable. The idea that Time magazine would give her a platform is ridiculous, as if she represents the “other side” of the issue. She sings straight from the Scientology songbook: off-key.

Keep in mind that doug bremner is not a PhD, but a Psychiatrist. I’d use caution before you determine that he is making false claims.

To quote a comment:”Even if 10% of women legitimately display sizeable features of PPD, this demands the other 90% of women being screened? How about you screen first those who show symptoms of questionable concern or legitimate family members speak out independently?”

Doesn’t the latest data show that only 2.5-3.5% of the pregnant population presents with gestational diabetes? Universal screening for that has been in place for many years in each and every OB office in America. 20% of women at real risk for a much more life-threatening and certainly comprising complication like a perinatal mood disorder seems certainly worth the time that it would take to screen using the 3 or 10 question EPDS in order to determine if more evaluation was necessary…yep, that’s it…no prescription pad plunked out- it’s not a diagnostic be all, end all. If women don’t mind being screened with a test that takes more than an hour and requires ingesting an unpleasant liquid and having bloodwork to potentially screen for something they are unlikely to have, and that according to research “no large randomized controlled trials show that screening for and treating gestational diabetes affect perinatal outcomes,” then I can’t imagine many would mind being screened for a couple of minutes for something they have a 1 in 5 chance of experiencing and which has shown to have great affect on perinatal outcome if not diagnosed and treated (with many different options such as therapy, supplements, support, or and or possible medication,etc.). Speak out…if you are a woman let the public, our government officials, and those on both sides of this issue know how you feel about having an OB or pediatrician ask you a few questions about how you are doing emotionally postpartum…it’s your choice if and how you answer.

Here’s some info on gestational diabetes and screening in case you’re interested:
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20031101/1767.html

This took a bit to complete, so sorry it is long, but it needs to be said:

After reading the above comments this morning, some of true value and others of just pandering pontification, it seems rather obvious this is a gray issue, and gray issues are not served by black and white pronouncements of legislation. Furthermore, 19 comments in about 12 hours shows there is a lot of passion and concern that relates this is an issue that cannot be summed up with “a bill”. Anyone who is a health care provider should really be stepping back and thinking hard before asking politicians to be setting precedents in health care interventions, because 95% of them have no real backround to be supervising like this!

It blows me away when colleagues are so quick to ask others without solid credentials to get involved. Sort of like the way managed care crept into health care? But, let’s be honest, and realize that if clinicians did a better job of managing their own, legislation would be few and far between in handling our own affairs.

To Mr Smith, most of my patients with PPD seem to thank me for not jumping on the meds-first bandwagon this society seems to be riding right into the brick wall up ahead. When I DO offer meds, it seems to go well because the patients are more comfortable with the plan because it is thought out, not thoughtless. Fortunately, being a man, we won’t have to deal with this issue personally, will we sir? I just love it when men want to legislate women’s issues. And, this is said by a man. I won’t touch abortion here, yikes!!!

Furthermore, Mr Smith, it speaks volumes about you from your “…beating into submission” comment. Whether you believe it or not, I do not take a cookie cutter approach to my patients, so take your rigid and extremist attitude to a place where the monkeys fly. I feel that my approach, the biopsychosocial model to mental health care, is the direction psychiatry should be taking, and not just embracing the quick fix mantra I gather people like you just want in place to ‘correct things’, and not treat the problems.

As per Dr Grohol, I read your post AGAIN, and do not see how you referenced my position in the post, so I am sorry I did not infer it the way you intended. If you believe that getting OBs involved in diagnosing mental health problems will direct patients into the right care interventions, I have to say, respectfully but harshly as well, you are clueless!

This is yet another reason why mental health care is declining, because everyone thinks being a psychiatrist or therapist is easy and applicable, and when they screw up the patient, who has to clean up these messes well intended but inadequately trained clinicians create? Yeah, people like me who more often might have helped things progress and not regress. Remember, Dr Grohol, 70% of prescriptions for antidepressants are written by non-psychiatrists, so why is the issue of medicating being beaten around these days?

Because the public doesn’t know any better, psychiatry as a whole should know better, and those at the front line, PCPs/family docs/OBs/nurse practitioners, don’t have the time or skills to do what is clinically indicated.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, this track by this pending bill. I offer this to you clinicians who do daily health care interventions, I’m curious how you feel when you have a negative outcome with a patient, and you felt you did your best. It pains you that it didn’t have a positive endpoint, true? Consider that feeling when you support this bill. Because when it does lead to sizeable negative outcomes, you think the politicians and knee jerk supporters are going to wince and have empathy to those they screwed by not considering all the checks and balances needed for this kind of ‘assessment process’? If you think they will, good luck with your soul.

I do not want politicians directing medical care in general, and god knows I do not want it involved in mental health care. Who is going to argue that politicians are so supportive and caring about mental health issues as a political body? You think the general air of narcissism and entitlement roaming around the halls of Congress that most politicians possess makes them receptive to a profession that is based on caring for others and being empathetic? And to those who will come at me saying otherwise, it just reinforces why George Carlin so wonderfully summarized in one of his bits why politicians suck, because it is the clueless and uninvested public that votes for them.

To clinicians reading this and other posts about this issue and mental health care matters as a whole, think about what this legislation is setting as a precedent, because if it passes, it is just another chip away of your inherent rights and responsibilities as providers and advocates. And what a big chunk it will be!

It’s funny that a “John Smith” is commenting on here trying to connect me with Scientologists. I’ve said many times on my blog that I have met many Scientologists since I Co-Founded CHAADA.org in 2005 with other psychiatric drug victims. I’ve also linked to CCHR on my website that entire time, and readily talked to and worked with people from any and every mental health watchdog group that I possibly could. It’s no secret that I believe in religious freedom and I have no problem with CCHR or Scientology. John Smith says I am obviously mentally unstable. Mmkay! So now you can diagnose strangers over the internet… without having them fill out a cute little multiple choice questionnaire. Medicine is now branching from the realm of paper and pen tests into the realm of telepathy and blog profiling! What - I’m curious - do you think makes me “obviously” mentally ill John?

Perhaps instead of screening in doctors’ offices we should just let people like John Smith do a perusal of mommy blogs, an IP trace on their sites and then knock on their doors to offer them drugs.

My point, Dr. Grohol is not what you wrote, that I don’t think women are capable of making their own decisions, my point is that you write as though you think we aren’t. You wrote that women don’t know they might have something called PPD.

Implying that the professionals need a way to invade their lives to tell them about it. You seem to think we need a law to make sure that everything possible is done to help women figure out if they have PPD or not. You don’t seem to believe in the ability of women to seek help when they feel the need. This is an invasion into the personal lives of women and families, disease mongering at its worst.

I know very well that NIMH promotes screening. As Tom Coburn has pointed out, most of what is in the bill is already being done in some form - except that it has been voluntary so far for women, until New Jersey passed a mandatory screening law.

We’re opposed to the expansion of drugging of mothers with a government go-ahead at a time when psychiatric drugs have been exposed for being extraordinarily dangerous. Rather than creating a new market for them we need to be finding alternatives to them for women in need and making women aware of the medwatch data. Did you see the video link I posted above with baby Matthew’s memorial video? He died after two hours of life because his mom took Effexor. This is being expanded by the perinatal drugging promoters who promote the bill.

What you and your allies don’t want to talk about are the risks of available treatments. Our coalition opposes dangerous psychotropic drugs being given to pregnant and nursing women and we promote the concept of informed consent for anyone unfortunate enough to be accepting a psychotropic drug prescription.

You have a gigantic Abilify ad on your site.

You think PPD is underdiagnosed and that this justifies mass screening.

We say PPD is overdiagnosed and overdrugged. I doubt that you would ever say there is overdrugging, but I could be wrong. I don’t ordinarily follow your drug blog. So maybe you have admitted that pregnant and nursing mothers are overmedicated, somewhere at some point in time.

Thordora doesn’t seem to understand the concept of forced psychiatric treatment.

http://www.netpowwow.com/unite011109/ppdcriminals.htm

Now I haven’t personally talked to Maxine Garcia or Yolanda Iyube so I have no idea if they are connected to, Natural News or CCHR or Scientology. Perhaps John Smith has a justification for the police escorting them from their doctor’s office and home respectively after calling a PPD hotline? Maybe it was their marital status, or their marital relationship, or their self esteem, or their pregnancy depression, or perhaps they walked outside to meet the police two fisting beer bottles while holding the baby in a sling? I don’t know.

The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey)

December 9, 2007 Sunday

Promised lifeline for new moms falls short
Postpartum depression law called a disappointment so far

BYLINE: SUSAN K. LIVIO, STAR-LEDGER STAFF

A `HORRIBLE’ RESPONSE

Maxine Garcia of Sayreville says that when she asked for help she got a response that left her stunned. Police officers and rescue squad workers arrived unannounced at her home last year, an hour after she called the hotline to say she was six months pregnant and “depressed out of my mind.” According to the police report, Garcia threatened to hurt herself, but she denies it. She and her two children were forced to go to the emergency room. “I felt like I had no rights,” Garcia said. “I really just needed someone to talk to.”

Yolanda Iyube of Franklin in Somerset County says she confided to her gynecologist two years ago she was consumed with scary thoughts about her baby dying violently. Before she left the office, a police-escorted social worker took her to the emergency room. “They brought me in a police car to the hospital. It was horrible - everyone was looking at me like I had committed a crime.”

Venis said such responses can discourage women with postpartum depression from seeking help.

…When the law took effect, there was an initial reluctance from physicians treating new mothers - a fear that “we won’t be able to discharge anyone from the hospital,” said Edward Wolf, vice chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston.

Wolf said the law added responsibilities for obstetricians already vulnerable to malpractice lawsuits. He said there was a fear of “I am going to get this thrown on my lap without help.”

over here (UK) all women are screened a few times for depression after the birth. However even screening is not 100% accurate, I suffered depression all the way through my pregnancy and after birth (I still have it now, 5 years on) although this is long-term depression, not post natal depression, it is so easy to cover up this illness. Mothers need more reassurance their child is safe and nobody will take them away if they admit they feel like killing themselves. Any woman who undergoes a birth involving complications or an emergency C-section should be thoroughly screened too.

John G. wrote: “We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if we were talking about cancer or some other health concern. But since it’s a mental health concern — boom! — it must have some subjective, diabolical meaning.”

——
Well, I’m glad that you see the logic of the Mothers Act.

When it came to Rebecca Riley, however, you were virtually calling for that treating psychiatrist’s head (I could be wrong, but I think you removed that story in the RR series….good.) Another headline (and story) remains, however, in which you definitely attribute that poor child’s death to early diagnosis and psychotropic medication, not to the depraved actions of the obviously mentally ill parents. http://tinyurl.com/mr8zjs

So, I don’t know how you can be accused of towing any Pharma line. That’s just the throwaway line from people who can’t process larger issues and go for the easy attack. Pfft to them.

In both cases, biology matters and facts matter. And for those who don’t understand what “screening” means, you should learn.

My only concern with the Mothers Act is that it is too narrowly focused on depression, specifically PPD. Conservatively, 10 million adults in the U.S. have ADHD, but only one tenth know that they do, and only a fraction of those are pursuing treatment. Presumably, half of those 10 million are women. (And again, that is an extremely conservative estimate.)

We also know that untreated ADHD is associated with higher rates of unplanned and unwanted pregnancies (for this reason, ADHD rates are high among adoptive children).

Even women with ADHD who want the children aren’t always prepared, cognitively or emotionally, for the reality. This is part of the ADHD symptomatology: not anticipating consequences and then being shocked by them. Women with resources and support get the help they need to deal with the transition to motherhood (or the addition of another child), if not always to pursue an ADHD diagnosis and treatment. But other women are left to their own devices.

Given that ADHD is 76 heritable, odds are good that these women with ADHD will have children with ADHD. Some of these children will display early manifestations of symptoms in the form of “fussiness,” difficulties with sleep, colic and food allergies, sensitivities to touch (meaning they will, for example, be overstimulated by cuddling and will cry, in essence rejecting the mothers). This is tough on any mother, much less a mother with ADHD — who doesn’t know she has it.

(By the way, children with ADHD are @46 times more likely to have a mother with ADHD than are children in who don’t have ADHD.)

Too often, women with ADHD are diagnosed with and treated for depression and anxiety — sometimes for decades. That’s because less-than-astute clinicians don’t know how to rule out the untreated ADHD that might be causing the depression and anxiety. I imagine a variant of this is also true with PPD.

I, too, worry about medications used in these cases, because treating ADHD with anti-depressants alone can intensify ADHD symptoms. (For a different reason, there’s also a risk with bi-polar disorder.) It would make more sense to me to screen new mothers for all mental illness, because if they go in looking for PPD or depression, well, you know what they say about a hammer and everything looking like a nail.

Moreover, I would like to see new fathers screened as well. The fact is, the arrival of a baby into the relationship can be extremely destabilizing for men with undetected/untreated mental illness. (Some experts say this is why the most common cause of death among pregnant women is murder by their partners.) Then, too, some women do not realize that their babies’ fathers are mentally ill until the baby arrives and they are suddenly expected to “step up to the plate.” This alone can create symptoms that resemble PPD.

Overly focusing on mothers and PPD or depression seems a real danger here. The problem isn’t medication or the Internet-based self-medicating-with-opposition crowd’s favorite boogie man, Big Pharma. The problem is poorly trained clinicians who do not know how to screen for a wide variety of mental illness and often treat the wrong thing. We have them to thank, in my opinion, for the medication backlash.

Gina Pera, author
Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.?
Stopping the Roller Coaster When Someone You Love Has Attention Deficit Disorder
Winner: ForeWord Magazine’s Psychology Book of the Year

Is there any evidence that screening for mental illnesses leads to that treatment which could foster successful outcomes? If so, what are the long term outcomes for persons who have been screened pursuant to any screening initiative? More specifically, are there studies for PPD screenings which relate the outcomes realized?

It’s a little silly, though, to impugn Doug Bremner’s motives because he wrote a book, for petesake. (As if anyone but the Dr. Phil types and other “celebrities” make money on the books they write.)

The title of his book, Before You Take That Pill, seems to have drawn the anti-medication, anti-psychiatry crowd to his blog. But I suspect none of them has actually read the book. It’s about all sorts of medication, including Vioxx and those for diabetes, and it contains some useful information. Not the usual shrill anti-pharma diatribe.

To those who contend that the mentally ill always know they are mentally ill, that flies entirely in the face of all that we know about anosognosia and the denial of illness. Mental illness can — and often does — limit accurate perception of self and others. It’s just a fact.

As Dr. Bremner likes to point out on his blog, you can get a used copy, John, for $.01.

Katherine Stone- Until recently, I had been a resident of New Jersey.. born and raised.. It is true that Mary Jo Codey is the former first lady of NJ, and not a Congressma’s wife. It is also true that Mary Jo publicly states she had been diagnosed w/postpartum depression after the birth of her first son. And according to Mary Jo, through press interviews, has stated that she continues to be treated for PPD. That she continues to take daily “medications” plural.

Mary Jo has also stated, publicly, in the Newark Starledger that she rcved ECT, and had been overmedicated by her physician and had to be hospitalized. Pretty frightening dont you think.

Would you please explain the rationale of screening for PTSD while a young woman is in active labor.. “during a contraction”

Mary Jo does nothing for free, and Senator Codey doesnt have the Salary to be paying for her
expenses, id like to know who is. Id also like to know who foots the bill for your hotel, food and travel.

Gina,… WoW, promoting a book I see.

John,I have purchased and read Dr. Bremner’s book, very informative and an easy read. His chapters on psyche meds was quite weak though.

Katherine Stone is a paid speaker for pharma front groups funded by Pfizer, and made $5800 doing this, over $300 for each one hour talk on “perinatal mood disorders.”

http://momsandmeds.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/pharmapaysmasupporters/

“Just so you have whatever data it is you need in your records, I did a total of 16 speaking events in 2008 and made a total of $5800. I had no idea the grant was for $20,000 as they never told me the amount of the grant they received — you have more info on that than I did. I’m sure the organization that supported these events has put it to good use to help serve the community.” - comment by Katherine Stone

To quote my original blog entry at the above link:

Including Nemeroff’s pharma income (as he was head of the AFSP and SPAN-merged group), but not including the pharmaceutical payments to leading psychiatric researchers who received money awards, consulted or acted as paid speakers for conferences in this list (e.g. John Rush, Joseph Beiderman etc.), the unknown amount of money given to any more recently added groups, including the National Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition which is sponsored by Wyeth, Glaxo, J&J, Merck, and Sanofi Pasteur, or money to Screening for Mental Health which conducts mental health screening, the total dollar amount from this summary is: $13,095,010. This is using the lowest dollar amounts in the dollar range for the donations disclosed without an exact amont. If the larger dollar amounts in the dollar ranges are used from the inexact donation amounts, the total increases to $16,487,497.

This does not include money awards from Eli Lilly to PSI’s Mary Jo Codey, Margaret Spinelli or Diana Barnes. This does not include payments to PSI’s Shari Lusskin from the four pharmaceutical companies she works for as a paid speaker. This does not include the undisclosed millions given to NAMI by the numerous other pharmaceutical companies (NAMI’s main foundation receives 56% of its funding from pHARMa). It’s possible that there is more money lurking under there, but who knows? It’s impossible to know what else might be undisclosed, or how many of the members of these groups who donate money to them privately have vested interests in pHARMa.

If my math is off I will be glad to correct it.

The dollar amounts were taken from the following excerpt from Evelyn Pringle’s “Just Say No To The MOTHERS Act” article:

Big Pharma funds Mothers Act supporters

Read more on that blog.

I think pharma might be hiring in the Bahamas.

I hate to see you defend yourself against such spurious attacks, Katherine. It’s not that the people who make such attacks trouble themselves to read your blog and to perceive your intentions accurately. Such deliberations are beyond them.

People who have not one mirror neuron in their brains distrust those who do; it is simply a foreign concept to them. The fact that they see craven motives behind every advocate or volunteer speaks more to what motivates them than what motivates those whom they criticize.

I think screening is a good process to add for women’s healthcare after giving birth. Screenings offer information and an opportunity to learn more about one’s self. A woman has free choice to decide what to do about such information. A referral to a qualified mental health provider should be provided.

This is no different from any other referral for a medical condition that a woman might receive from her doctor. She is still free to find her own referral or use the referral provided or do nothing.

A woman could be referred to a specialist after a mamography. She might have her own specialist in mind or she can choose to do nothing.

A qualified mental health provider’s services can offer a new mom support and coping skills, assist with getting the woman’s family involved. Getting such assistance does not equal medication. Lots of people are helped by mental health providers without the use of medication.

Some posters have indicated that they were screened and then forced on meds that caused greater distress. That is terrible and sounds like a case of malpractice.

A screening provides information. A qualified mental health provider provides treatment options. The woman is free to choose.

Knowledge is power.

So, just wondering, does this “lack of insight” that is a “fact” apply to ALL mentally ill women, or just the mentally ill women who disagree with you?

Katherine Stone admitted at one time on her blog that she was taking 5 different antidepressants and 2 antipsychotics (according to Evelyn Pringle). Why did she remove this fact if she is so certain this was an effective way to treat PPD and what deleterious effects must such a cocktail have on her parenting skills? I hope she saw the error of her ways and is on a much smaller cocktail now. Ivy Shih-Leung admits to having taken Ambien which leads very quickly to rebound insomnia and panic attacks yet she is certain she had underlying PPD — how does she really know once Ambien is in the picture since her symptoms were precisely those associated with Ambien dependency and intra-day withdrawal? What I object to here is not that postpartum issues aren’t real — of course they are — people do have emotional issues and need support after giving birth to a child especially if it is a complicated pregnancy or birth using fertility drugs or having a Cesarean. What I object to is the ignorance this avid group of Mothers’ Act supporters shows about treatments they have had themselves and/or endorse for others. I object to the fact that they do not admit that if in fact you go to a medical professional for postpartum problems this is the main option you are going to be offered and that professionals are operating in a vacuum with incomplete knowledge about how the drugs work and how to recognize and treat adverse effects. This is not “free choice” if the consent is misinformed which I can assure you it most certainly is.

Never mind, John. It’s another one of those red herrings — hijack someone’s words by setting up a false dichotomy.

False dichotomy, poisoning the well, straw man…..overusing these tools of obfuscation ought to be diagnostic of something.

Let’s look at the defenses of scoundrels, shall we?

Raise an issue or promote a cause that really is more gray, or is really less legitimate than claimed, and have ‘facts’ and questionable empirical evidence that is, in the end, refutable when closely examined. Then, do not give those with legitimate concerns a fair chance to review the data or have equal time to rebut. Then it begins:

1. Attack your opponent as being irrelevant and not supporting an issue that has merit, or claim the opponent is denying those who allegedly could benefit because the scoundrel says so and raised the matter first.

2. Once the opponents do in fact have positions of merit, then project, as the scoundrel is in fact guilty of doing, onto the opponent and blur the issues to obscure who is really guilty of inappropriate behaviors or unreasonable basis.

3. Once the opponent has shown he/she/group is not guilty of such false accusations, then the scoundrel will muddy the waters with spurious details that could give some merit to what the opponent has in fact raised, but in the end still claims the original intent has more pros than cons.

4. If the original pursuit still has too much to lose for the scoundrel, then try to bring on others who mistakenly buy into the scoundrel’s porous claims to try to legitimize the agenda.

4a. If the pursuit is a lost cause by now, the scoundrel will try to minimize the original claim and redirect the agenda, or try to slip out as best undetected, usually sloughing the baggage onto someone who had innocently come on board early on in the process.

5. Once the facts and goals are clearly understood and realized by the masses, the opponent is somewhat vindicated, but usually muddied and bruised.

The cost of pursuing the truth. No good deed goes unpunished. This is my epitaph.

Note I am not saying this directed to Dr Grohol, but I do feel this issue has qualities of this process as started by others, maybe with some true, responsible intent, but now very muddied.

Transparency, folks, and deeds speak louder than words. What defines healthy and appropriate intent. Or, as the business model also says, Buyer Beware! I now leave having said my peace and piece on this issue, as I agree with a blogger who earlier this PM advised me this issue is too emotional to maintain levelheadedness, as I have been guilty of today. But, legislating this issue is wrong, and as someone on the front line of post partum depression, I do know what I am talking about.

Hopefully, and ironically, sanity will prevail.

Honesty and Integrity can go a long way, it is also good for the soul.

Dr. Grohol, $5800.00 is considered by many as chump change. I would have respected and appreciated being told the truth. Katherine brought the criticism onto herself, and that’s a shame.

Full disclosure on my part:
I have never accepted any financial support for the trips I made to D.C. in regards to the safety and efficacy of antidepressants in children and adolescents, the importance of patient medication guides and testifying before Congress.

I did however receive from CCHR a beautiful, spray of funeral flowers. I had been extremely close to my mother-in-law who had passed away in 2005. CCHR’s act of Sympathy was very much appreciated.When one is grieving the loss of a loved, you really dont care about another’s religion, just their act of kindness.

Dr. Grohl, I never attacked Katherine Stone. I corrected her when she replied to Lisa’s question. If you don’t want someone to point out a conflict of interest, that makes your blog lose a lot of credibility. Perhaps you believe that the Senate investigation for undisclosed conflicts of interest of psychiatrists who are on the take from pharma is inappropriate? If so, I would point again to the large ad for Abilify above. I am not sure if you have any control over this on your blog or not.

To say that I don’t want to debate the issues is ridiculous. I have provided sources of information that discredit many of your arguments.

The only logical fallacy going on anywhere is the poor reasoning by you and a few others would be the repeated insistence that everything taking place in psychiatric treatment is voluntary and benign. Ignore the fact of women being arrested and incarcerated for seeking help, which deters women from seeking treatment in the first place. Being safe to seek help is something that you supposedly want women to feel. Yet you allow attacks and stigmatizing of “mentally ill” people in this thread.

Dr. Grohol your comments are getting a little bit silly. I suggest you reread my comments and the others as you have so carefully done with your literature review.

I also noticed that Brooke Shields name was mentioned here. What I find fascinating is that Brooke herself admitted publicly, in her book that while in the abrupt withdrawal of Paxil she had thoughts of crashing her car into a brick wall with her baby in the rear seat. She had gone back to her Dr., who then advised her not to stop paxil cold turkey. The Dr. should have told her about the dangers of stopping paxil cold turkey when he wrote the prescription. Brooke also admitted to the Today show that withdrawing from paxil was horrible.

I encourage folks to visit http://www.ssristories.com. Their are over 3100 hundred casses of antidepressant horror stories. Do these stories relate to a causal role,.. no. but it sure does get one thinking!!

Dr. Grohol, Gina Pera did mention it, in her comment above. I’ll re-quote for you:

“To those who contend that the mentally ill always know they are mentally ill, that flies entirely in the face of all that we know about anosognosia and the denial of illness. Mental illness can — and often does — limit accurate perception of self and others. It’s just a fact.”

And, so I’m not obfuscating, lest I be diagnosed with something for it … she did not use the phrase “lack of insight”… but rather the word anosognosia, of which “lack of insight” is one definition.

Dr Grohol, does your cite not allow links to other stories. Im curious as to if this is why my post is awaiting moderation. google ssristories.

The thing is, that a lot of the supporters are using their horrible stories of PPD as an argument FOR the Mother’s Act, Dr. Grohol.

The argument is being played on both sides, but we get labeled with paranoia and anosognosia. What a great bunch of advocates for mental illness, these folks are.

I have been checking back to read the latest comments in this debate off and on all day.

But I really did not feel the need to spend time responding to any of them.

However, Grohol’s comment directed at Amy, which stated in part: “We don’t allow ad hominem or personal attacks here. So I suggest that if you want to engage in such, you go elsewhere for your enjoyment,” really made me angry.

This from a someone who has allowed people to posted snide remarks and inuendoes to discredit Amy, or anyone else with an opposing view, who has been diagnosed with a mental disorder, rightfully or wrongfully, all over the internet, including here.

For instance, John Smith wrote on this site: “Check out Ms. Philo’s connection with the Scientology front’s ‘Natural News.’”

“As if it’s not obvious she’s mentally unstable,” he wrote.

“The idea that Time magazine would give her a platform is ridiculous, as if she represents the “other side” of the issue,” Smith said.

“She sings straight from the Scientology songbook: off-key.”

Over on Katherine Stone’s website, John posted the following comments:

“You know Time is abjectly derelict in its duty when it offers, as the “opposing side,” a person who seems to be an obvious Scientology sympathizer, Amy Philo.”

“Did they do no research at all? Do they not understand the importance of vetting sources?” Smith wrote.

“Do they not realize that mentally ill people don’t always have a grip on reality?”

The use of an association with Scientology, or the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, in attempt to discredit people who oppose the Mothers Act is really getting old.

The Citizens Commission is but one of more than 50 groups joined together in the coalition against the Mothers Act. Other prominent member organizations include: AbleChild, the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology; Alliance for Human Research Protection; International Coalition For Drug Awareness; Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, and Mindfreedom International.

By now, it’s actually rather amusing to watch these people try to use Scientology as a smokescreen, at least for me.

I am not a fan of any organized religion, or the practices of many, but I fail to see what religious beliefs have to do with opposing the Mothers Act.

No other religions are ever used this way.

The list of supporters of the Act includes Planned Parenthood, a group that encourages the use of birth control and counsels women on abortion.

This endorsement might well upset Catholics, being that Catholic women are not permitted to use birth control or have abortions.

Then you have Gina Pera writing the following blog over on Bremner’s website:

“We cannot make public-policy decisions based on the stories of people who have been diagnosed with mental health disorders and treated for them.”

“Sorry, but it’s true,” she added.

“Many mental health disorders limit objectivity,” Pera states, “so these people are just not the best judges of what has been done to them and why.”

“They can have their stories and they can share them,” she says. “But we can’t make policy on this kind of hearsay and paranoia.”

In a blog on this site, Pera wrote: “To those who contend that the mentally ill always know they are mentally ill, that flies entirely in the face of all that we know about anosognosia and the denial of illness.”

“Mental illness can — and often does — limit accurate perception of self and others,” she says. “It’s just a fact.”

These people verify everything I have warned about in my articles. Once a woman is tagged with a mental illness diagnosis via the Mothers Act, she will lose all credibility for life.

Think about it, when is the last time you heard somebody say, “so-and-so used to be mentally ill”?

Finally, I definitely disagree with this comment by Grohol: “We wouldn’t even be having this conversation if we were talking about cancer or some other health concern.”

If I found a large number of people were being charged $30,000 a year for drugs and therapy with serious side effects, to treat cancer and there was no proof that the cancer existed, or if the cancer was verified, but after years on end, the treatment didn’t stop the cancer, I’d be writing just as furiously about that as I have about multiple drug cocktails, with serious side effects, being prescribed for years on end to treat unverifiable mental disorders for people who never get “cured.”

Katherine Stone is a good example. For a simple diagnosis of postpartum OCD in 2001, she’s been taking drugs for 8 years,including 5 antidepressants and 2 antipsychotics.

She recently said she was still taking “meds” (plural). In June 2007 she was still calling Jeffrey Newport her psychiatrist in her blogs.

Even if she isn’t receiving regular therapy, some doctor is collecting office fees for prescribing the drugs.

Some of the drugs Katherine took cost over a grand a month on DrugStore.com. The Abilify advertised on this site, as an add-on with an antidepressant, for the treatment of depression, runs about $1,200.

Add Abilify to Cymbalta, at more than $300 a month, and your looking at yearly tab of over $18,000, not counting the fees for the prescribing doctor or any therapy sessions.

Are women really expected to accept that there are no therapists in this country competent enough to teach them how to change compulsive and obsessive thought processes without 8 years of drugs and therapy?

I suggest that they buy a book titled, “The Language of Letting Go,” and with minimal time and effort they should be able get off the drugs and couch in a matter of months.

Evelyn Pringle

The PPD Law isnt the only polarizing issue,.. Teenscreen was disputed quite aggressively, lawsuits emerged! I take it you havent payed much attention to the military suicides, and the VA’s PTSD screening. In the Military’s case, Marines and Soldiers are being screened, being medicated, and then they go onto attempting or committing suicide. Many marines returned home safely from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and only than to be prescribed multiple psyche meds. These brave men came home to rest in their own beds, Their families could not awaken them, these young vibrant men died in their sleep.

I believe the government should start spending taxpayer dollars more wisely. It turns my stomach to know that my hard earned money is being used for the prescribing of antipsychotics to babies!!

THANK YOU Evelyn Pringle for the post that said everything I wanted to say. Of course, I’m unwelcome to participate in this discourse, as I am diagnosed mentally ill, and currently suffering from anosognosia, a symptom of my mental illness. It’s obvious that I am suffering from anosognosia because I disagree with the Mother’s Act, you see. Too bad this wasn’t up for debate prior to 2008, when I was not yet labeled mentally ill and had not yet been deemed irrelevant for life.

The MOTHER’S Act is merely a witch hunt; and as with all good witch hunts, you have to find witches to validate the hunt.

It’s impossible, as has been shown here to communicate reasonable sense with those that have a financial stake in the outcome.

WHY HAS DR.BREMNER BEEN BLOCKED FROM COMMENTING HERE?

I believe Dr. Bremner’s comments have been blocked since he began to make comments suggesting he was not capable of carrying on a dignified, respectful, and professional conversation.

As for the topic of conversation, the MOTHERS act is good in that it raises a real issue, can help educate consumers and treatment providers, and hopefully reduce stigma.

However, I see another side to making screenings mandatory. In my opinion, making such a screening mandatory may imply that health providers are not well trained to recognize the signs/symptoms of the illness or even the at-risk factors that may be present that would warrant a screening. Thus, the mandatory nature of the act may underscore a lack of confidence in the health field, which the public likely will pick up on.

As such, making certain screenings mandatory may do more harm to health professions than good, as the public may begin to lose confidence in their health care professionals’ ability to recognize what is, and is not, present.

Additionally, making “treatment” (in this case, screenings) mandatory, creates an almost cookie-cutter approach to health care. No longer would clinicians be able to use their clinical training to decide, rather the government says to do it for everyone, so we do it for everyone. Individualized care is loss and health care costs go up.

I’m curious also as to why my brother’s comments have been excluded from the conversation?

Thank you Lisa for reminding me of the TeenScreen program, another blatant drugging dragnet that I investigated and reported on extensively back in 2005.

Likely unknown to most people here, TeenScreen is named in a federal lawsuit by third-party payers against J&J, as being used as a tool in the off-label drug marketing scheme to increase profits through sales of Risperdal to kids.

The lawsuit points out that the leader of TeenScreen, Laurie Flynn, was the leader of NAMI for 16 years, before she was recruited to run TeenScreen.

The complaint also gives great details on the drug company money funneled through NAMI, a main supporter of the Mothers Act, to further the scheme.

Evelyn Pringle

Evelyn Pringle is totally correct on how inappropriate it is for people who present themselves as mental health authorities to criticize psychiatric drug survivors. It seems like the people who love these drugs most fervently are the drug dealer/ prescribers whose license to practice medicine, ONLY, keeps them out of jail very unlike a normal unlicensed person whose distribution of the same drugs is deemed illegal. Most psychiatric practioners have never been forced to consume these drugs for years except maybe as punishment for being labelled mentally ill. It’s quite cruel and callous to criticize survivors who have personally experienced what may feel like to them, permanent damage to the central nervous system that these drugs have been found to cause. These people were unfortunate enough to have been forced to take drugs for many years and are unable to get a second opinion from a licensed medical practioner who could very gradually and safely wean them off them. Those who haven’t experienced that pain shouldn’t criticize those who have. It’s just cruel and inhumane to infer that these people are worthless for being labelled (quite often falsely) as mentally ill and to all out try to convince everyone that the pain and physical damage these people experience, could ONLY be caused by the condition and not the drugs and that no matter how brutalized and beaten down by these drugs these people are or feel they have been, to tell everyone else they have actually been HELPED and that anyone so labelled will be helped rather then harmed. It’s just a money fueled BIG LIE that has to be continually laid down in the media.

I’m just curious how you can say that someone who is diagnosed with PPD is branded mentally ill for life.

I had very severe Postpartum Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I happened to live in an area where pretty much everyone I dealt with was knowledgeable in treating PPMD’s I would be dead. No one branded me. No one forced (or even suggested the possibility of medication until I had been in treatment for at least a month or two) medication or any other treatments on me. The fact that I was able to be victorious in the end gave me much more credibility than I ever could have imagined. The MOTHERS Act is something I support wholeheartedly because I’ve seen what an educated treatment team can provide.

I tried many things including talk therapy, light therapy, exercise, medication and yes, in the end even ETC. When I was given medication I was very clearly told the risks and to call immediately if I had any problems. When I went to the hospital it was because I realized that’s what I needed to keep my baby safe.

Now I talk about my experiences and moms often come up to me to tell me about theirs. They don’t think I’m a freak or worthless because of my PPMD. They are thankful for my openness and willingness to share. They are happy to have someone they can talk to who isn’t going to look at them funny when they aren’t feeling love toward their child.

On a side note, supporters of the MOTHERS Act are being caught in the SPAM blocker too…it’s nothing personal.

Grohol asks whether I would be against “screening and eduction for cancer?”

No, providing that the screening that showed I had cancer was verifiable and the treatment I was offered to slow or cure the cancer, did not continue for years on end, without any way to document that the treatment I was paying for did in fact slow or cure the cancer.

To feign ignorance of the fact that screening for mental illness leads to drug treatment is misleading at best, and dishonest at worst. You know as well as I do that it leads to massive drugging.

The drug companies would not be pouring millions of dollars into the online screening programs and mental illness screening days every year if they did not render major profits.

Here are a few paragraphs (not edited totally) from a new article that will be out shortly to evidence the money spent in this country on “mental illness,” and drugs are the standard treatment.

The May-June issue of Health Affair reports that prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased by 73% among adults, and 50% with children, from 1996 to 2006. Another study in the same issue, found spending on mental health care grew more than 30% over the same 10-year period, with almost all of the increase due to psychiatric drug costs.

On December 22, 2008, the “National Survey on Drug Use and Health,” by the Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, reported that in 2007, 10.9 percent of adults aged 18 or older, or an estimated 24.3 million persons, had experienced serious psychological distress in the past year, and 44.6% had received mental health services.

Of those who received services, 87% were given prescription medication, and 34.6% received drugs only. In contrast, only 10.7% received outpatient treatment alone, without any drugs.

In 2004, overall sales of psychiatric drugs totaled $26.7 billion, according to NDC Health Corp, a health information firm. In 2008, drug makers had overall sales in the US of $14.6 billion from antipsychotics, $11.3 billion from antiseizure drugs, $9.6 billion for antidepressants, and $4.8 billion from the sale of ADHD drugs, for a total of $40.3 billion.

In 2008, “85 million prescriptions were filled for the top 20 benzodiazepines, an increase of 10 million over 2004, according to IMS Health, a health-care information company,” the Wall Street Journal reported on June 30, 2009.

Worldwide revenue for Xanax rose to $350 million in 2008, “up nearly 50 percent from 2003, according to pharmaceutical company Pfizer’s financial reports,” the Journal reported.

This paragraph is from a previous article:

On April 22, 2009, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, reported that in 2006, more money was spent on treating mental disorders in children aged 0 to 17 than for any other medical condition, with a total of $8.9 billion.

By comparison, the cost of treating trauma-related disorders, including fractures, sprains, burns, and other physical injuries from accidents or violence was only $6.1 billion.

So the question remain, if all these people are going without treatment and more screening is needed, who the hell is eating all these psych drugs?

And where are all the people who have recovered from mental illness as a result of ingesting billions of dollars of psych drugs every year, with the majority of costs billed to public health care programs?

More than 40% of births in this country in 2007 were to unwed mothers, meaning in large part, much of the money to be made off the drugging that will result from the Mothers Act disease mongering campaign will likely come from public health care programs.

Tax payers cannot afford to allow another screening dragnet to be set up targeting the more than 4 million women who give birth in the US each year.

Finally, the Mothers Act campaign does not limit itself to drugging women for postpartum “depression and “psyhosis”, as specified in the legislation.

A whole new industry has been developed using the bill as a vehicle, with specialties like “reproductive psychiatry” and “reproductive mental health”, with terms like “perinatal mood and anxiety disorders,” and extending throughout the cycle of childbearing years.

Any one interested, can check out the websites of the so-called “advocates,” such as Katherine Stone’s Postpartum Progress, to see what’s in store for women in this country if the legislation is passed.

Evelyn Pringle

Dr. Grohol,…

PPD Screening and Education is not yet a U.S. Law. It is just a “BILL”!!! If you where Ameican you would have known that.

Folks can provide all the studies and arguments they like in regards to this “BILL”,.. not, “LAW”

Through Katherine Stone’s, and Mary Jo Codey’s own admissions, they have been diagnosed and continue to be treated for Mental Illness, who have at times, been prescribed potentially lethal, life threatening, combination of medications.

Folks need to be reminded that these women are clearly mentally ill. So why in God’s name would I allow these individuals to make medical decisions on my behalf, or on the behalf of family members and the american public.

Our legislators, should first, allow the mentally ill to make medical decisions on the behalf of themselves, and their family members. If our legislators want to be “guinea pigs” then that is their perogative. Our legislators dont have the right to make “guinea pigs” out of american citizens.

The literature you review says nothing about the fact that people, whether male or female, are more likely to experience emotional distress.

Here’s an example the meta analysis you reference that lists:

“13 significant predictors of postpartum depression: prenatal depression, self-esteem, childcare stress, prenatal anxiety, life stress, social support, marital relationships, depression history, infant temperament, maternity blues, marital status, SES, and unplanned/unwanted pregnancy.”

Huh, aren’t these things indicators some one is going to be unhappy maybe to the point of being labeled depressed whether she has a child or not. And if one in five mothers suffers from PPD, it’s not a private genetic biological problem, it’s a societal problem and blaming the individual will only make things worse. It’s like with the nation’s unemployment rate today doing a study on whether depression causes unemployment, irrelevant and potentially very harmful.

As I write this our county hospital has just achieved a new milestone, 5,081 psychiatric admissions, which is an increase of 49% over FY 2005. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were told that in the “Era of Recovery and Wellness”, well into the “Era of Evidence-based Practices”, that community services would result in declining hospital admissions. The reality was quite different from the promise where service availability remained largely constant in the face of an ever increasing service population.

While I don’t question the intent of those who support the Mother’s Act, I do wonder what consideration has been given to the nature, timing, and extent of services available in the community and the outcomes these services routinely engender? What efforts had been made to insure that mothers with PPD can readily access those services which can make a difference?

Katherine,

You stated that a particular Psychiatrist made you sicker… Did you report him to medical authorities? If not, why not? If you havent, you became a part of the problem.

Wow. As I commented last time this issue came up, there can be so satisfactory resolution to this or to the many other phantom debates in psychiatry/psychology as long as we keep pretending we have a coherent theory of mental health and a truly objective process of scientific inquiry upon which to base conclusions.

Dr. Grohol, you have a knack for getting to the essential issue, i.e.: What’s the difference between “physical diseases” like cancer and “mental disorders” like depression? A lame answer to this question leads to lame educational materials and lame treatment options.

Worse, if the legitimacy of evidence-based information and treatment options has been compromised by the undue influence of the pharmaceutical industry (and it has been), it is quite reasonable to be concerned that this could lead to MIS-information and HARMFUL treatment options being offered to suffering people.

What good is freedom of choice under those conditions?

Of course, we all have to move forward and deal with suffering people right now, however crappy the situation. But we ignore the root issue at everyone’s peril.

Here’s hoping this comment does not get *lost*. I have responded to the previous comments here on my own site and have these additional comments.

The comment that people wouldn’t be this up in arms about cancer screening as much as they are for psych screening is in fact not a good one. If you follow the link to my site and then the link to the category “cancer” you can see how screening for prostate and breast cancer have not in fact been shown to reduce mortality from those disorders. Good journalists like Gary Schwitzer have written about the waste inherent in medical screening and testing in the US and how this leads to over-diagnosis, over treatment and unnecessary anxiety. The fact that the mainstream continues to accept without question the “war on cancer” and the need for expansion of screening (e.g. see legislation for expansion of breast screening contrary to the evidence) is beyond me. Similary good journalists like Evelyn Pringle have examined the fact that screening for mental health disorders is not grounded in evidence that it improves outcomes but rather is promoted by drug companies as a way of expanding their markets.

Katherine, I am actually very happy to hear that you are only taking one medication now. I hope some day you might consider trying to get off and that you will research carefully withdrawal so you know that a lot of what you may experience is withdrawal and rebound and not some “underlying condition.” Getting off a psych drug is not an easy process especially when someone has been on them for a long time. Medical professionals often underestimate the length of time it takes to get off and the very slow rate of taper required (often necessitating a liquid form of the drug to facilitate) and give up and just put people back on or leave them on indefinitely.

I admit to being a little surprised that you are fighting so hard for more education and awareness in the general public when your own experience with medical professionals started off so dismally. It seems to me that what’s needed more than a global campaign to increase awareness about PPD is a lot of research and education among academics and professionals about just what the effects of psych drugs really are and how to get off them safely and carefully. No one should commence a treatment with a drug that so often ends up being a lifelong therapy without fully understanding just what is involved in stopping the drug and what the effects of staying on indefinitely really are.

Dr. Grohol,

Thank you for your reply. Absent significant dedicated funding I see little chance that mother’s with PPD will get the very care they deserve (1). That said, it remains challenging to get any care for depression (2).

(1) The Relationship Between Quality and Outcomes in Routine Depression Care” [2001]. http://psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/52/1/56
“Only 29 percent of the patients received guideline-concordant treatment.”

(2) Depression Patients Lost to Follow-Up After Leaving Emergency Department [2009]. http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/44/7/8-a
“Only 1 in 10 callers posing as patients just released from hospital emergency departments and diagnosed with acute depression could get appointments for community-based follow-up care, regardless of insurance status.”

Perhaps the stars will align and mothers will be able to access psychotherapy but I doubt it unless they have the personal resources to access it. One of my county’s MH agencies serves 1,500 individuals in its outpatient cluster with 7,125 units of service. Approximately half of the total units of service are for medication management.

I do hope that you come across those studies which refute what I have found and fear.

Again I totally agree with Evelyn Pringle. If this were only about “education” the drug companies would not be involved because that would compromised paid for infomercial type education” where people are encouraged to let their doctor make the decision for them. And where anything not involving these dangerous drugs is always severely criticized, ignored, or persons questioning the drugging are degraded in verbally or in print as on this blog or they are ignored. That’s not education. That is pseudo education or a perverted idea of what education really is. Education or what passes for that becomes fraudulent once way too much money gets behind only one viewpoint on an issue.

Katherine Stone mentions that she had a “bad” doctor at first who she had trouble with even though she denys being put on multiple drugs. How many other women have had the same experience and not reported the doctor or psychiatrist so other women would be caught in the same situation? Is this part of the education? Pretty negative especially when women email the blog and are feeling bad from the side effects and are told to “stick with it”. They might feel they are being hurt by the drugs and are just being told to suffer through it by pro psych drug advocates like Katherine Stone. How responsible is that? So that’s part of the education?

In response to Katherine’s remarks, I will state that I am not inaccurate in my reporting.

After I wrote the first article on the Mothers Act, Katherine changed the wording on her website to include the line about the doctor who didn’t know what he was doing. She also removed the list of drugs she was prescribed.

Katherine has changed her story continuously over the past 5 years. And it would be none of my business, if not for the fact that she is misleading women into think they will need minimal treatment for mental disorders when she knows that is false.

In a webpage titled, “The Art of Psychiatric Medication,” posted with a date of June 8, 2006, Stone told readers:
 
“I’ve taken many medications, including Effexor, Celexa, Seroquel, Risperdal, Wellbutrin, Luvox, Cymbalta, etc.  Throughout all of them, I was on the road to recovery.  Some just worked better than others at treating my symptoms.”

In the June 7, 2004 issue of Newsweek, in which she was promoting the Mothers Act, she described her treatment for OCD and wrote “in my case, that meant taking an antidepressant and going for weekly therapy sessions.”
 
Since my reporting on the Art of Medication page, Katherine removed the paragraph with the list of drugs and put in the line:

“My psychiatrist gave me seven different medications, partially because he didn’t know what he was doing and partially because some of them didn’t work for me.  When I finally found a trained doctor, we developed a plan that worked, including one antidepressant and weekly therapy.”

Compare that to the story she told 5 years ago in Newsweek, when she wrote: “I took advantage of my company’s employee-assistance program and called the help line. God blessed me that day. They put me in touch with a wonderful therapist who saw me immediately and recognized what was wrong.”

“As it turns out, I had postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder,” she stated.

“For a while I was convinced that I’d never be the same person again,” she said. “But I did everything my doctor told me to do, and I’m now back to the old me.”

There was no mention of changing doctors or trying seven different drugs in Newsweek in 2004.

In fact, Katherine specifically stated: “I tell the story so that women who are now going through what I did will know there is help,” leading women to believe they could get well by taking a single antidepressant and attending weekly therapy sessions briefly.

Women readers had no way of knowing that her statement of, “I’m now back to the old me” meant taking antidepressants during their next pregnancy and still being on “meds” 7 years later.

In the Art of Medication she wrote: “What you can expect is to get less sick over time until you get back to who you were before you got sick.”

“For some people that takes a couple of months, for some people longer,” she said.

Finally, Katherine also did not reveal the money she was paid from Zoloft-maker Pfizer, until after I exposed the payments in one of my articles.

I discovered the $20,000 grant in a Pfizer report and traced it back to the Mental Health America Georgia group’s website and found Katherine’s phone number and email address listed to schedule the 1-hour talks for a the program: “Project Healthy Moms: What You Need To Know About Perinatal Mood Disorders.”

Nowhere on her website does she let it be known that she was paid money by a drug maker. The amount she says she received averages out to roughly $350 for an hour talk.

Her acknowledgment of receiving Pfizer money at all, was posted in a lone blog on Amy’s website, and again, only after it was widely exposed.

Katherine’s Postpartum Progress “has become the most widely-read blog in the United States on postpartum depression, postpartum OCD, antepartum depression, postpartum PTSD and postpartum psychosis,” according to her website.

I have a big problem with knowing that so many potentially vulnerable and naive women are receiving advice from a woman who simply makes things up as she goes along.

Evelyn Pringle

I do have to agree that a number of these avid Mothers’ Act supporters, including Melanie Blocker-Stokes’ own mother and probably Katherine herself, strike me as dangerously and hopelessly naive about what they are supporting. It is quite clear that few of them understand the issues surrounding psychiatric medication and the role the pharmaceutical industry is playing in pushing their use and concealing their risks. The pharmaceutical industry is a master manipulator of victims of their own products. It happens all the time with all kinds of “disorders.” I also weep when I see people latch on to their diagnoses with a steel clamp never to let go again when so many factors (not the least of which is seemingly benign treatment) influence the onset and exacerbation of symptoms. I’m all for peer support groups and I’m glad these mothers have found each other but give the label a rest — really. It’s not doing you one bit of good and all this legislation is going to do is make it more widespread than ever.

Mental health professionals have never been able to figure out what happens in the brain physically that causes depression. And they’ll even admit they don’t know what causes depression in drug detailing literature. So they foolishly study the chemistry of brain and try to control brain function through inhibition of certain chemicals in the brain. Certainly the brain is a delicate organ in which many things can go wrong when it is assaulted for years by chemistry altering drugs. The drugs worsen the situation a person’s body is trying to handle. Of course that viewpoint won’t sell these drugs so that viewpoint is going to be attacked or ignored. And hundreds of thousands of women will be hooked on these drugs that only make them worse. In that way, science preys on those it is supposed to help. Also, I don’t know one person in my life who didn’t die after getting chemo and radiation for cancer and I am 58 years old so I think the number of survivors is much less than medical authorities want to admit.

Thank you for your wonderful post. After the birth of my second child, I struggled with depression as well as PSTD that my birth experience triggered. I had no idea what was happening to me mentally and was certainly not going to mention anything to my doctor or anyone else for that matter. Had I been screened in such a manner as suggested in this act, I would have certainly recovered much quicker and enjoyed those first months much more.

I truly don’t see this as forced treatment in any way. I underwent other screenings including AIDS, diabetes, Group B strep during pregnancy. It seems to make sense that PPD be included after.

“And some people may choose an antidepressant, rather than psychotherapy.”

Come on, Dr Grohol, do you practice any clinical care in the past 5 years? Do you think OBs, pediatricians, family practice MDs are going to review the various interventions with a patient after allegedly determining this woman has PPD? And with the quick fix mentality at hand, is a patient going to make an effort to schedule and follow up with a therapist, or, accept the ready made prescription prepared for her in the office?

This is why the issue is so heatedly debated, because there are the extremists supporting this legislation based on unique exceptions of severe negative outcomes that gather media exposure, and on the other side the antipsychiatry crowd who demand no interventions because anything psychiatric is evil. And then there is us, the middle moderates who see the issue and would like legitimate people with true PPD be diagnosed and treated by responsible and credible providers.

Not with this legislation though. Black and white definitions to gray problems. I just hope the readers who know moderation can see the extremes at hand in this blog debate.

In response to the above comments by Catherine Davis, I would say that with the screening mentioned for AIDS, diabetes and Group B strep, the patient would be able to request documentation to prove that the disease existed before heading to the pharmacy to buy drugs.

The patient would also be able to verify that the drugs were working with those diseases.

In the Mothers Act disease mongering campaign we now have social workers, running treatment centers with websites, diagnosing mental disorders, with 2 and 3 question screening tools, and advising women on which drugs they recommend.

These women have no way to prove, or disprove, whether a disease exists.

It’s hard enough to accept that the nation’s mental health is gauged on disorders defined by a single 38,000 member psychiatric professional group, delegating the treatment of mental illness to social workers, with a doctor signing off on the diagnosis for billing purposes, is not acceptable.

Evelyn Pringle

I’ve been trying to think of a compromise. Knowing what I know now about psychiatry, I would not have gotten involved with it, and as a matter of fact, it remains the only decision I made while “manic” that I deeply regret. The problem is that I don’t see psychiatry/psychology as a very helpful profession for a large number of people and even a psychiatric label alone can exclude one from a number of career paths (med school, law practice). I’m glad to hear that some people feel they’ve been helped by psychiatry. Their experiences should not be denied, but neither should those of us who feel it was detrimental. Until psychiatry ceases to be a one-trick pony operation, and until they post better long term outcomes, I cannot support anything that will result in a major upswing in diagnoses, many of those “affected” being women who are just under a tremendous amount of stress combined with sleep deprivation.

I am not the person who keeps bringing up the fact that we screen for other diseases like cancer and AIDs, diabetes, and etc, and comparing it to screening for mental disorders.

I am merely responding to arguments by others that the expense and harms of treating mental illness can be compared to the expense and harm of treating other diseases based on screenings.

Trying to switch the topic to discrimination is really a sorry tactic Grohol.

You have avoided addressing the posts where I show the constant rise in dollar amounts spent on treatment for mental illness in this country and the failure to show any rise in recovery rates, with the great majority of the costs billed to public health care programs.

How much more money do you think tax payers should be willing to fork over to the psycho-pharmaceutical complex if the Mothers Act is passed?

Evelyn Pringle

To save time, I am going to post excerpts from an article I wrote a short time back, which clearly makes my point and backs up my argument, with an example of what is happening with children.

The Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center website explains childhood bipolar disorder and reports in part:

“Symptoms may be present since infancy or early childhood, or may suddenly emerge in adolescence or adulthood. Until recently, a diagnosis of the disorder was rarely made in childhood. Child psychiatrists can now recognize and treat bipolar disorder in very young children.”

“It is thought that a significant number of children diagnosed in the United States with attention-deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADHD) have early-onset bipolar disorder instead of, or along with, ADHD

“According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, up to one-third of the 3.4 million children and adolescents with depression in the United States may actually be experiencing the early onset of bipolar disorder.”

The child psychiatrists at the top of this center are Robert Kowatch and Melissa DelBello, the gal who landed on Senator Grassley’s list in the spring of 2008 for not disclosing her payments from the makers of psychiatric drugs. Their website also reports that:

“Many times, it necessary to use 3-4 medications to effectively treat a child or adolescent with a bipolar disorder. Typically, there is a partial response to one medication and another psychotropic agent is added in the hopes of achieving a full response. It is not unusual for pediatric patients with a bipolar disorder to be treated with 1 or 2 mood stabilizers, an atypical antipsychotic agent, a stimulant for ADHD, and clonidine or gabapentin for sleep.”

The website bases these recommendations on the “Treatment of Guidelines for Children and Adolescents with Bipolar Disorder,” in the March 2005 Journal of the Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. The authors of the guidelines are Robert Kowatch, Mary Fristad, Boris Birmaher, Karen Wagner, Robert Finding, and Martha Hellander.

The list for the Working Group Members and Contributors to the guideline project includes, among others, Joseph Biederman and Melissa DelBello.

The project was sponsored by the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation and supported by grants from Abbott Labs, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Forest Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Pharmaceutical, Novartis, and Pfizer.

Keeping in mind that: “It is not unusual for pediatric patients with bipolar disorder to be treated with 1 or 2 mood stabilizers, an atypical antipsychotic agent, a stimulant for ADHD, and clonidine or gabapentin for sleep,” the prices for the anticonvulsants listed above on DrugStore.com at a middle dose, in December 2008, were: Depakene 180 capsules $434, Lamictal 180 tablets $929, Tegretol 180 tablets $152, Topamax 180 tablets $1170, and Trileptal 180 tablets $496. Gabitril was listed at $458 for ninety tablets in April 2009.

The atypical prices, at a middle dose, in April 2009 were: Abilify 90 tablets $1230, Geodon 100 capsules $787, Invega 100 tablets $1168, Risperdal 90 tablets $716, Seroquel 100 tablets $839, and Zyprexa 90 tablets $1195.

Some of the December 2008 ADHD drug prices, at a middle dose, were: Adderall 90 capsules $278, Concerta 90 tablets $412, Daytrana thirty 9-hour patches 3 boxes $437, Desoxyn 90 tablets $366, Strattera 90 capsules $464, and Vyvanse 90 capsules $385.

The price for Catapres (clonidine) was $183 for one hundred 2mg tablets and 270 capsules of Gabapentin sold for $209 at 400mg.

For the guidelines in the Journal, the “panel recommended that medication tapering or discontinuation be considered if the patient has achieved remission for a minimum of 12 to 24 consecutive months.”

“It was acknowledged that for many patients, long-term or even lifelong pharmacotherapy might be indicated,” the authors noted.

If a child ends up on the two mood stablizers, Limictal and Topamax, the yearly cost for these two drugs alone will be roughly $25,188. Add Abilify to the mix, at a cost of $14,760, and the annual treatment rises to $39,948.

Then throw in the ADHD drug, Concerta, at a yearly cost of $4,944, and Condine for sleep, at $2,196, and the total yearly price tag comes to $47,088.

In no other field of medicine could parents be suckered into paying fifty grand a year for drugs to treat a disease that could not even be substantiated.

Evelyn Pringle

Bringing up colorectal screening is a bad choice, read here

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/schwitz/healthnews/

as for breast cancer screening here is my last post on the topic

http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/index.php/2009/02/09/this-just-in-breast-cancer-screening-essentially-useless/

and here is prostate cancer screening

http://www.beforeyoutakethatpill.com/index.php/2009/03/19/prostate-cancer-screening-found-to-be-useless/

the point is that the burden of proof is on the person advocating screening for ANY condition. I would add the same for lung cancer although I have not researched it.

John wants to keep bringing it back to risk factors for PPD but his arguments are lame because he strung together a string of factors that are highly colinear, meaning that they are so intertangled that it is difficult to determine what is specifically related to one of them. The one article I looked at and posted on my website didn’t substantiate his claims. As for the accusation of cherry picking an article, well, next time make sure your arguments are rock solid.

Dr. Grohol,

When I was diagnosed, no one gave me a blood test, looked at an MRI, PET scan, or fMRI. No one biopsied brain tissue. No one mapped my genome and located defective alleles. No one tested chemical levels. What scientific measures are you speaking of? If they exist, I’d like to have them done.

If I go to a cardiologist and complain of chest pain, I don’t get diagnosed with heart disease and prescribed immediate medication for it.

I do think mental illness is real, but the fact is that there are NOT any scientific diagnostic tests to confirm it. And anyone who has been in the psychiatric system for long enough can tell you just how flimsy these psychological methods are. A friend of mine was diagnosed with Schizophrenia in the late 60s. In the 90s, she was “Depressed”. Now, she’s “bipolar”. Um, can you imagine a doctor saying, “Oops! My bad, you don’t have heart disease, you have diabetes” ?

Like I said, I do believe that mental illness is real (inasmuch as any condition that interferes with your functionality in life can be considered an illness) and perhaps one day we will find a scientific, objective test to confirm diagnoses. But as it stands today, mental health treatment is a LONG way from being comparable to physical health treatment. I have AMPLE experience in both areas and I can tell you, it’s not just apples and oranges, it’s apples and frigging cordon bleu steak.

This post is for the benefit of anyone who reads the blog all the way through and wants more information. I have taken my responses to the arguing going on here on over to Dr. Bremner’s blog and will continue to do so.

http://www.naturalnews.com/026634_drugs_suicide_adhd.html

The Mothers Act Disease Mongering Campaign - Part I

You can read Evelyn Pringle’s article on Natural News or my blog uniteforlife.wordpress.com

I do not intend to reply to Dr. Grohol on his blog. If he wants to speak to me he may come to my blog or Dr. Bremner’s to respond. I am tired of the insulting tone here.

Evelyn, you state “In the Mothers Act disease mongering campaign we now have social workers, running treatment centers with websites, diagnosing mental disorders, with 2 and 3 question screening tools, and advising women on which drugs they recommend.”

Please cite your reference for such claims since we all know that political opinion is not a reputable source.

“skills - I’m open to data that shows some of yours and other opponents arguments have merit. Surely the federal government has funded (or tried to fund) prior education and screening measures for other health and mental health concerns, no? Yet I scratch my head to find any data that shows such prior efforts have resulted in *more* misery or some sort of mandate to screen (or else!). Show me the data, and I’ll be happy to reconsider my position.”

-Dr. Grohol- I agree with you for the most part: we should screen. I also believe that the FIRST line of treatment should be talk therapy, not pills. At my blog, noted, I blogged on this on “blog for ppd day.”

I do see a very valid reason for begin suspicious of government-mandated mental health screening programs. The “Texas Medication Algorithm Program” circa 2004 is a strong example of this potential government-promoted nightmare. The problem is that such projects, including TMAP, attract “support” from pharmaceutical companies who smell a steady stream of cash. As in other psych areas, their influence is strong. The algorithms end up being psych-med prescription-based. At the same time, there is great evidence you may be familiar with that talk therapy, not pills, should be the preferred treatment for kids with depression. TMPA was promoted by Gov Bush in Texas. Bush senior was on the board of directors of Eli Lilly. He may still be for all I know. Many of the “clinical resaerchers” involved with TMAP, including at UT Southwestern in Dallas, were, and still are, strongly funded by Pharma.

So, I believe that Bremner has a justified fear of govt-promoted mental health schemes, including systematic screening of anyone. I am generally FOR M B-S because it calls for 1. more research into ppd- there is a great set of issues to study; and 2. it does not involve a treatment algorithm.

Obstetrics has already addressed PPD. Their professional organizations expect CME and vigilence. I am not familiar with the way that pediatrics has addressed PPD, but I see this as the next frontier for addressing PPD: it is the pediatricians who see the moms for the first year post-birth.

Holding Obstetricians and pediatricians responsible as first-line MH providers is a problem: their toolbag is very limited, and is mainly filled with pharma-sponsored CME.

My posts are not limited to talking about women being treated for PPD because the Mothers Act disease mongering campaign is aimed at diagnosing and treating women for a multitude of mental disorders, which is one of my biggest complaints.

The whole point of my opposition is being overshadowed by discussions of whether screening and treating diseases like cancer and diabetes can be compared to screening and treating mental illness.

I say it cannot.

As far as now trying to limit the conversation to Alzheimer’s disease Grohol, I am not prepared to discuss it because I readily admit that I do not know enough about the disease, the screening process, the treatments or the costs involved.

My writing campaign against the Mothers Act is not a pleasurable hobby. In fact, I find the work utterly distasteful, when picturing children being dosed with psych drugs in the womb and through nursing mothers.

My sole aim is to try to protect the voiceless victims of this latest off-label drug marketing.

I am of course concerned for the vulnerable and naive women who will be snagged in with this drugging dragnet but at least they will have some say so in the matter.

This is not my first trip around the block by far. I have been investigating and reporting on the off-label marketing schemes for psych drugs using screening tools since 2004.

My first entry into the field was to try and protect teens from the TeenScreen drugging scam.

It’s extremely discouraging to find myself 5 years later trying to prevent the forced drugging of the fetus and infants barely out of the womb.

Evelyn Pringle

Dr. Grohol, Id like to discuss the research Data on this very important issue. I noticed in your original post that you cited 8 studies, are they the only studies, or is there more? I have no desire to debate the findings, i would just like to have an idea of how many more studies are out there. Im not interested at this time, in the medication treatment studies.

Dr. Grohol, I took a little stroll through your website, and found that your site severely lacks patient information in regards to the safety and efficacy of antidepressants in children. May I suggest:
1)With the exception of prozac and lexapro, antidepressants have never been FDA approved to treat depressionin pediatric patient population.

2)”ALL” antidepressants carry an FDA Black Box Warning for children, teens, and young adults.

3) provide a link to FDA Medication Guides in regards to the use antidepressants.

4, Provide your online readers with copies of GSK and Wyeth’s Dear Health Care Provider Letters.

No, Dr. Grohol, a depression inventory test is not scientific. A book with a list of symptoms and categories is not scientific. Here’s an example of science (I’ll use Genetics, as that is my area of study)- the Central Dogma of Biochemistry: “DNA->RNA->Protein” This has been independently validated hundreds of thousands of times by thousands of labs and hundreds of thousands experiments.

The fact that we are even arguing about the validity of these “disorders” is not due to stigma, it’s due to the unscientific nature of the screening, diagnostic, and treatment process.

I have spent the past six months researching the various websites of the main supporters of the Mothers Act.

In response to the request for sources to back up my claim that social workers are now running treatment centers and providing therapy for mental illness, and using websites to recruit customers, while promoting the use of screening tools equal to a pop quiz, and advising women on what drugs to take, I will gladly submit the following.

The websites discussed below all refer to each other back and forth with live links.

This from social worker Susan Stone’s website:

“Welcome to Perinatal Pro, the website presence of Blue Skye Consulting, LLC, posted by women’s reproductive mental health expert Susan Dowd Stone, MSW, LCSW, to help educate and inform women, families and health care providers about the often unexpected challenges of mood changes during pregnancy, the postpartum and throughout a woman’s reproductive life.”

Susan is a past president of Postpartum Support International. She maintains a private practice, “specializing in women’s reproductive mental health across the life cycle,” according to her bio.

The “Clinical Focus” of treatment advertised with PerinatalPro includes: Perinatal Mood Disorders and Postpartum Depression; Perimenopause and menopause; Bereavement associated with child loss, stillbirth or miscarriage; Lifestyle changes and loss (divorce, remarriage, health issues); Depression associated with medical conditions; Disordered Eating and Body Dysmorphic Disorder; Trauma/PTSD; and Affective Disorders including depression and anxiety.

Potential patients can click on a link on the website to schedule an appointment.

Blue Skye offers half-day workshops for professionals “to help develop a specialty in perinatal mood disorders,” including two titled: “Identifying Perinatal Mood Disorders,” and “Treating Perinatal Mood Disorders.”

Karen Kleiman, another social worker, runs a treatment facility called the “Postpartum Stress Center,” in Rosemont, Pennsylvania.

“The Postpartum Stress Center specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of prenatal and postpartum depression and anxiety disorders,” Kleiman’s site says.

“The Postpartum Stress Center specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of prenatal and postpartum depression and anxiety disorders,” the homepage says.

Services offered include, “Screening for prenatal and postpartum depression and anxiety,” and “Psychiatric evaluation and follow-up.”

At the Center,” Kleiman teaches seminars for professional training with ads on her website and the heading: “Become an Expert in the Treatment of Postpartum Mood Disorders.”

The first sentence in “Highlights” for this training states: “This is a crash course on diagnosis, screening, assessment, treatment options.”

The fee is $750 for a 10-hour course, but they do throw in a book titled, “The Postpartum Stress Center’s Guide to Enhancing your PPD Private Practice: A checklist for successful practice.”

Karen could make $7,500 per seminar by simply recruiting 10 trainees. Nearly all the websites pitch in to promote conferences and seminars, so rounding up 10, or even 20, trainees would likely not be too difficult.

The site shows 4 seminars a year, meaning Karen could earn roughly $30,000 for 40 hours of teaching people how to “Become an Expert.”

And if she could round up 20 trainees per class, she could make $60,000 a year, putting her up there with all the other highly paid speakers within the new industry.

In a June 4, 2007, blog, Kleiman reported a new study that found 79% of doctors were unlikely to formally screen for postpartum depression and noted that the co-author of the study “reminds us that in addition to the Edinburgh (EPDS) Screening tool (most commonly used), healthcare practitioners can check for signs of PPD by a simple 2-question tool, developed by Whooley et al.”

Further elaborating on this quiz, Kleiman wrote: “It has been shown that these two questions may be as effective as longer instruments,” and listed the questions as: (1) “Over the past 2 weeks, have you felt down, depressed, or hopeless?”, and (2) “Over the past 2 weeks, have you felt little interest or pleasure in doing things?”

“A positive response to either question indicates a positive screen and should be followed by an comprehensive history and assessment to confirm the diagnosis of depression,” she wrote.

Kleiman is listed as a postpartum depression “expert” on another website called StorkNet, complete with her own bio page, where she posts advice for pregnant and nursing mothers to access over the internet and provides a live link to her treatment center.

In response to the question, “what are the best drugs for a breastfeeding mom with postpartum depression?”, Kleiman wrote in part:

“Keep in mind that this information is based on MY practice and will vary considerably from doctor to doctor.”

“The SSRI antidepressants (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) we are most comfortable using based on the research we have are: Zoloft (Sertraline) and Paxil (Paroxetine). Other antidepressants (tricyclics) that are used are Pamelor (Nortriptyline) and Desipramine (Norpramin), although it seems that the SSRIs are preferable these days because they have fewer side effects and are easily tolerated.”

In answering questions on “How Long to Take Medication,” Kleiman said to think of antidepressants as a “Serotonin vitamin,” and cited a recommendation from the American Psychiatric Association for staying on antidepressants for 6 to 9 months after the woman is feeling better.

“That’s not 6-9 months after you start taking the pill, it’s after you start feeling better!” she wrote. “The reason they recommend that you remain on it that long is because studies show there is a high risk of relapse if you get off the meds too early. And if you relapse, the symptoms are often harder to treat.”

“Antidepressants are one of the most efficient and effective treatments for PPD,” Kleiman tells women reading her StorkNet advice.

In another blog Kleiman wrote: “Women who experience depression during pregnancy are at an increased risk for PPD.”

“Current research supports the use of antidepressants immediately after delivery to reduce the likelihood of PPD.”

“Many women and their doctors choose this option,” Kleiman said, “to start their medication right after the baby is born, and I mean right in the delivery room!”

In a March 11, 2009, blog on Postpartum Progress, Katherine Stone plugs herself for speaking jobs, along with a study that concluded “the Internet is a viable and feasible tool to screen for PPD.”

“I’ll be adding this study to the speech I give on how women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders use the Internet,” she reports, and then adds:

“If you’re interested in having me speak at your event, let me know!”

On March 16, 2009, Katherine posted a “Quick Survey on Postpartum Anxiety,” and wrote:

“The fabulous Karen Kleiman has asked me to ask you to participate in a short, five-question online survey on anxiety. She says ANYONE can answer it, regardless of the age of their baby(s) and regardless of diagnosis or lack thereof. ANY mother should answer the questions. It’s super quick — I know because I took it myself.”

Kleiman’s survey is a good example of the methods used to con women into suspecting they are mentally ill via the “expert” blogs.

The preface states: “The questions on this survey can be answered by a new mother of an infant or an empty-nester with good recall of the early days with her baby. Please answer as honestly as you can.”

The question, capital letters and all, reads: “When you were carrying your baby down a flight of stairs, did you EVER, at ANY time, have ANY thought, image or concern that you could accidentally drop your baby?”

The survey further tells women:

If you answered YES to the first question, please describe the type of worry you had: Scary thoughts about dropping the baby, Scary images about dropping the baby, Both thoughts and images, Other.

How much distress did this cause you? A Great deal of distress, Some distress but I quickly got over it, Some distress that seemed to linger, Not much stress

Did this thought or image occur once or did it recur? Only once, It recurred frequently, It recurred persistently, It occurred off and on, Did you ever tell anyone about the fear of dropping the baby? (Please describe why you chose to tell someone or why you chose not to)

Women who take the survey are told nothing about what the results mean at the end.

But clearly the seed is planted that something is wrong if you “EVER, at ANY time, have ANY thought, image or concern that you could accidentally drop your baby”.

In September 2008, the Postpartum Support International website ran the news flash: “3 Questions Can Spot Possible Postpartum Depression.”

A three-item anxiety sub-scale of the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale turned out to be a better screening tool than the two other abbreviated versions which are almost the same as the commonly used Patient Health Questionnaire, PSI reported.

On September 8, 2008, Katherine ran a blog with a headline of: “Researchers Find 3-Question Screening Test Effective in ID’ing PPD.”

She explained that for this sub-scale of the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale, new mothers were asked to answer “Yes, most of the time,” “Yes, some of the time,” “Not very often” or “No, never” to the following statements: I have blamed myself unnecessarily when things went wrong; I have felt scared or panicky for not very good reason; I have been anxious or worried for not very good reason.

“The subscale identified 16 percent more mothers as depressed than the original, longer questionnaire,” Stone reported, in the best news for the psycho-pharmaceutical industry.

The StorkNet site carried the headline “Postpartum Depression: Three Simple Questions to Ask Yourself,” for the same quiz. “A simple new 3-question test has proven very reliable at detecting postpartum depression,” it reported.

In a July 8, 2009, blog on her website, Lauren Hale reported on the latest screening tool and wrote: “This morning I discovered an iPhone app which includes the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale along with three other depression scales.”

“Chances are many new moms either have an iPhone or know someone who does,” she said. “What’s really cool about this app is that it stores the last 30 entries so you can take the results straight to your doctor.”

The above information is taken from excerpts from my past articles on the Mothers Act and my new four part series titled, “The Mothers Act Disease Mongering Campaign.”

I rest my case.

Evelyn Pringle

Dr. Grohol says, “I think the psychological measures that have been in use for decades that have decades’ worth of science and research behind them work just fine.”

I wish I could agree with that but I most assuredly can’t. If the measures we are using are so great why is there such a brouhaha brewing over the newest DSM? Why can’t diagnoses be reliably “replicated” from one doctor or counselor to another? Why do treatments seem to be as arbitrary as the diagnoses and depend more on what is the “drug du jour” than on a valid treatment for a specific diagnosis? A few years ago Paxil was the favored drug, then Lexapro. Now it’s Abilify or Seroquel. Why are there over 3000 stories of harm in treated people on ssristories.com if the tools we are using to diagnose and treat are “just fine.”

And no, women are most assuredly not “voiceless victims” but the system is not well set up for them to be turning down the recommendations of medical figures of authorities like doctors, psychiatrists and counselors. Even these authorities don’t have all the facts due to the corruption and conflicts of interest that are now rampant in clinical research. So patients surely aren’t going to have them either. True informed consent is simply not available at this point in time.

Yes, I agree with you there about general medicine and that the problems are not limited to psychiatry although I think they are particularly egregious in that field. Problems of diagnosis, selling sickness and overtreatment are rampant throughout medicine, no doubt about it, and it’s why I consider it nearly a full time job to stay away from the doctor and avoid iatrogenesis, probably the biggest problem that exists in our health care system today and the one that is going to bankrupt our country if someone doesn’t get a grip on it and start measuring outcomes of treatments more precisely.

Sara - no one wants to look at outcome data because outcomes in psychiatry as a whole are dismal. Since thorazine was invented in the ’50s the rate of people disabled from mental illness has quintupled. To be fair, in some ways, that’s not a good comparison, because you’re comparing those institutionalized (in the 50s) to those on SSI and SSDI (now), which isn’t the same. However, the rate of people disabled from mental illness on SSI/SSDI has DOUBLED since the 1990s and the invention of the SSRIs. Something is horribly amiss. I would think that the goal of psychiatry would be to help people with mental illness live full, integrated, productive, self-actualizing lives. If meds are so good at doing just that, why do we see such a dramatic increase in the rate of people on SSI/SSDI for mental illness in the past 10-20 years? Why has the average lifespan of a person with mental illness gone DOWN by 10 years (now 25 years less than the avg. person, 10 years ago it was only 15 years… we are going the opposite direction)? Why do people with Schizophrenia in India and Nigeria recover at twice the rate they do in the US, despite the fact that only one out of six is on medication in those countries? Why is it that 27% of people who commit suicide have SOUGHT “professional” help in the year leading up to their suicide? Better outcomes, show me better outcomes, and THEN I will support “education” and “screening”.

kimbriel, you claim “However, the rate of people disabled from mental illness on SSI/SSDI has DOUBLED since the 1990s and the invention of the SSRIs.”

I’m curious where are you getting that information from? SSI/SSDI is not just for those with mental health disabilities, but also includes those with physical disabilities. Just by looking at SSI/SSDI numbers, there is no way for you to know why a person has SSI/SSDI, unless you actually work for SSA and can access all their records.

As a result, I would not measure the prevalence of mental health disabilities by using SSI/SSDI, as you will artificially inflate your numbers.

I would like to address the financial end of this debate, If this bill becomes law, (which I dont believe it will,.. the votes just arent there) is, who is going to pay for it? The American taxpayer like Dr. Grohol or katherine, or those in favor of this bill, maybe, thats if they make over 250,000 dollars a year! So I would like to offer up this proposal: Lets all meet up for lunch,.. and dont forget your checkbooks, we will compare State and Federal Tax Returns, I would like you to write the US Govt a check for the same amount of money as I do; If you want to waste money that is your perogative, It is not your perogative to waste mine.

Dr. Wayne,

This article has a different focus but seems to give support to Kimbriel’s contentions.

As an FYI, I only glanced at it so please keep that in mind.

http://tinyurl.com/llsq8h

“Individuals with psychiatric disabilities are the fastest-growing
subgroup of Social Security Administration disability beneficiaries
and have negligible rates of return to competitive employment”

By the way, not a very encouraging article regarding employment for people with psychiatric disabilities.

Back on topic - Obviously causation doesn’t equal correlation but if meds are as effective as professionals claim they are, this shouldn’t be happening.

AA

The data I got from an excerpt of a book yet to be published, “Anatomy of An Epidemic” by Robert Whitaker. You can find this excerpt on the web if you do a search for it- the data is very clear.

AND THIS IS exactly my point (thanks AA): “Obviously causation doesn’t equal correlation but if meds are as effective as professionals claim they are, this shouldn’t be happening.”

Psychiatry/Psychology needs to do some serious introspection because CLEARLY what they are doing is not getting us where we need to be.

Interesting anecdotal story for what’s it’s worth: re: AA’s above link to the article that says

“Individuals with psychiatric disabilities are the fastest-growing subgroup of Social Security Administration disability beneficiaries
and have negligible rates of return to competitive employment”.

It’s a good idea to look to the long-term outcome of more women medicated and focus on the possible errors and wrong dx that could come of it.

Comparing it to my daughter’s case, which is wrong dx (confirmed by chief of staff of a prominent hospital with 30 yrs experience according to the doctor)for pediatric bipolar at age 11…is now a 21 year old disabled from the psychiatric medications and is a recipient of SSI as well as medicaid. She is still on psych meds.

Just makes me wonder about the long term outcome of a screening where a woman’s hormones are all over the map anyway, and I am concerned with people being wrongfully medicated, only to possibly find out years later they really didnt need to be.

(Note, she is still on psych meds, due to inability to withdraw successfully, many doctors have thought out loud about the change in the brain and the possibility of the brain being addicted to the drug)

SHOW ME THE MONEY,… who is going to pay for this etremely expensive legislation. Id like to see the proponents of this bill cough up some major dough. It is selfish to expect others to when your not willing yourselves.

I can assure you that Senator Menendez is not winning over NJ voters with this type of legislation. May I remind you its the NJ Vote that counts not the votes Ms. Stone, Melanie Stokes’s mother or even Brooke Shields. Not even you Dr. Grohol. Them’s Politics.. A Headline,. Menedez’s Legislation will treat woman like criminals

Stephany’s daughter’s story is one of the saddest illustrations of misapplied “science” compounding mistake after mistake… THIS is why we are wary of any intrusion psychiatry might have into our lives. There’s a reason that so many psychiatric survivors are upset with the profession. And no, it doesn’t have to do with our “lack of insight”.

Stephany,.. If you would like to talk to a support group in regards to antidepressant withdrawal, check out paxilprogress.org. They are a wonderful group of individuals from all over the world, there is always someone avilable to chat with.

I resent that the post in which I referred to “voiceless victims” has been twisted into conveying that I meant the women who will be taking the drugs.

I specifically said:

“My writing campaign against the Mothers Act is not a pleasurable hobby. In fact, I find the work utterly distasteful, when picturing children being dosed with psych drugs in the womb and through nursing mothers.

My sole aim is to try to protect the voiceless victims of this latest off-label drug marketing.

I am of course concerned for the vulnerable and naive women who will be snagged in with this drugging dragnet but at least they will have some say so in the matter.

This is not my first trip around the block by far. I have been investigating and reporting on the off-label marketing schemes for psych drugs using screening tools since 2004.

My first entry into the field was to try and protect teens from the TeenScreen drugging scam.

It’s extremely discouraging to find myself 5 years later trying to prevent the forced drugging of the fetus and infants barely out of the womb.”

No one seems to want to address the most of important issue here; that of the unborn children and nursing infants who will being forcibly drugged against their will.

Perhaps it’s too “utterly distasteful” for some people to even think about, much less address head-on.

Evelyn Pringle

Evelyn, to me that is absolutely horrifying to think about… I really can’t even address THAT aspect of it.

Kimbriel, I have a strong sense that a lot of people are avoiding the issue for the very same reason.

Which is why I so strongly believe that I cannot.

Believe me when I say it is no less horrifying to me.

1. Evelyn Pringle calls herself an investigative journalist but I can see no evidence that she’s ever been involved with a legitimate news organization — only Scoop Independent News, which is a news aggregator out of New Zealand.

2. Just because people presents anecdotal reports of how they or their loved ones were ruined by Big Pharma, it doesn’t mean these reports are true. Granted, every day the psychiatrists get it wrong with too many patients, often prescribing the wrong medications (or none at all). Horrible mistakes and misjudgements happen. But we do not know how the people cited in these blog posts would have fared without treatment. In short, some people are born with mental illness and sometimes it only gets worse, despite psychiatric intervention. This is common sense, which is always sorely lacking in these “discussions.”

Being a Brit, I’m not familiar with this particular piece of legislation, nor this particular argument (being a Brit doesn’t preclude me from understanding either of these things, of course, but they’re not big news, here in the UK). Let me see if I have this right:

First, women may get depression when they’re pregnant, or immediately afterwards, we’re told. Not all women, though. It is claimed that there is a series of factors that appear to influence the likelihood of a prospective mother experiencing depression and they are… a, b, c, whatever. Because somebody or other believes that they can identify (reasonably accurately?), which individuals are most at risk from postpartum depression, it is being proposed that *all* mothers take some kind of depression rating test, in order to assess the extent of the risk to them.

It is further (counter), argued that postpartum depression is not an illness, in and of itself, and that a woman experiencing depression at or around the time of birth will be predisposed to depression, as a general concept, and that having depression at the time of birth is purely coincidental.

Hmmm. I’d like to point out that nobody appears to have had much success in treating depression, postpartum, or otherwise (I’m talking cures, here - “once diagnosed, never undiagnosed,” and all that). Who is the prospective beneficiary of this new assessment program, if one accepts that it’s unlikely to be the patient?

Matt

Okay then, let’s look again at the data… here’s Robert Whitaker on the rates of disability from mental illness as a number of persons per hundred of the population:

“rom 1955 to 1987, during this first era of psychiatric drugs — the antipsychotic drugs Thorazine and Haldol and the tricyclic antidepressants (such as Elavil and Anafranil) — we saw the number of disabled mentally ill increase four-fold, to the point where roughly one out of every 75 persons are deemed disabled mentally ill.

Now, there was a shift in how we cared for the disabled mentally ill between 1955 and 1987. In 1955, we were hospitalizing them. Then, by 1987, we had gone through social change, and we were now placing people in shelters, nursing homes, and some sort of community care, and gave them either SSI or SSDI payments for mental disability. In 1987, we started getting these supposedly better, second-generation psychiatric drugs like Prozac and the other selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants. Shortly after that, we get the new, atypical antipsychotic drugs like Zyprexa (olanzapine), Clozaril and Risperdal.

What’s happened since 1987? Well, the disability rate has continued to increase until it’s now one in every 50 Americans. Think about that: One in every 50 Americans disabled by mental illness today. And it’s still increasing. The number of mentally disabled people in the United States has been increasing at the rate of 150,000 people per year since 1987. That’s an increase every day over the last 17 years of 410 people per day newly disabled by mental illness.”

What is the deal? Why is the rate of people disabled from mental illness going up so dramatically? Don’t we have better health care and awareness than ever before?

FYI, psychotropic drugs change the structure and size of the brain… this has been shown in humans as well as lab animals. Or maybe the lab animals have mental illness too?

A reliable source who goes by the name, “Anonymous” stated:

1. Evelyn Pringle calls herself an investigative journalist but I can see no evidence that she’s ever been involved with a legitimate news organization — only Scoop Independent News, which is a news aggregator out of New Zealand.

Although I would ordinarily not respond to anyone who blogs under the name “anonymous,” I will take this opportunity to demonstrate the sleezy and dishonest tactics used by the opposition.

I went and did a couple google and yahoo searches of my name and the pharmaceutical industry, because frankly I do not keep track of where my articles and reports have been published. Below is a list, available to anyone who wants to do the same.

Alternet
Axis Of Logic
Best Syndication
Buzzflash
Compleat Mother
Conspiracy Planet
Consumer Health Digest
Counter Currents
Counterpunch
Covenent News
Dayton Daily News
Democratic Underground
Dissident Voice
Education Reporter
Health News Journal
Holistic Junction
Independent Media TV
Information Clearinghouse
La Leva
Lawyers and Settlements
Lincoln Daily News
Looking Glass News
Media Monitors
Medical Veritas
MWC News
Natural News
Online Journal
OpEd News
Reliable Answers
Scoop
Spinwatch
The Madison St Clair Record
The Intelligence Daily
Todays Seniors Network
Truthout
Uruknet
Web Health Answers
Yubanet

Awards

2007 Distinguished Investigative Reporting; International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology

2009 CCHR International Human Rights Award

Articles cited in:

Source Watch
Wikipedia
Brief of respondent for Wyeth v Levine, 07-0689

I am so glad you corrected anonymous, Evelyn Pringle, because without the ‘facts’, I would have had absolutely zero cause to not completely and entirely trust ‘ano’s’ opinion and judgement about what a liar you are, as opposed to her style and grace. (LOL)

I never took Paxil, nor did my daughter.

You can dazzle some idiots with that, Evelyn, but some of us know better. Keep writing, though, folks….you’re hoisting yourselves well on your own petards.

Excuse me while I pop a ritalin dose. I lost my place on this forum and Gina Pera vehemently claims Ritalin is the only remeidal option for my distraction.

Just use your magical ADHD ability to “hyperfocus”… and it’s not just Ritalin… there’s Concerta, Strattera, Adderall too… ask your doctor which one is right for you

Yep, and all of the side effects that go along with the aforementioned narco-stimulants. Must be nice to have the pharmaceutical industry finance lies and deceit.

Now, it is time for me to dope my five year old before his brain evolves into a free thinking machine.

anonymous wrote:
“You can dazzle some idiots with that, Evelyn, but some of us know better. Keep writing, though, folks….you’re hoisting yourselves well on your own petards.”

LOL. Where is the stress in that first clause? Is it on the word “some,” by any chance? The implication (or is that “inference”? I’m never quite sure about these things!), being that you are one idiot who is not fooled by Evelyn’s credentials!

Incidentally, I neither own nor need a petard - much too crude for my tastes… I prefer more subtle devices.

Matt

anonymous wrote:
“…This is common sense, which is always sorely lacking in these “discussions.””

Ah, now: there’s a gauntlet that I’d like to pick up… I had no idea that anybody was interested in having a discussion, let alone a “common sense” discussion - in fact, I suspect that nobody is interested in such a thing, for fear that they may be obliged to leave the ground that they are attempting to defend.

As an opening gambit, I would like to suggest to you that the objective of mental healthcare is to cure patients of mental illness. That may not be the stated objective, but it is the ultimate objective, I should have thought, irrespective of whether it is believed to be possible to achieve. If it is not the objective, then the field is populated with charlatans.

If it (achieving cures), *is* the objective, then we should proceed towards it, with all due haste. Are we able to agree on that, you and I?

Matt

NO ONE talks about cures in mental health. The cancer people get “cure cancer” the AIDS people got “cure AIDS”, even the fibromyalgia people get talk of a cure and that’s another one of those diseases they can’t really prove (like mental illness)… We nutcases get “take your meds (for the rest of your life) and please go away”

Honestly, the treatment isn’t even working… unless the goal is to get more people on federal disability… someone please post a metric that indicates/correlates with the premise that our current mental health system is working on a widespread basis… have suicide rates declined?
Something? Anything? Really… I’d like to see something that would show that our current system has progressed past the 19th century… when recovery rates were actually higher.

I see your point, Kimbriel, and I agree especially regarding the matter of ‘not curing’ mental patients.

In fact, I think, that perhaps in most instances, when mentally ill patients get cured, this may not be so much from the treatment they received, but rather ‘in-spite’ of the treatment they received?

I also find it quite disgusting, that a ‘psychiatric diagnosis’ tends to be placed more ‘permanently’ vs. a physical illness, that is possible to cure?

That is complete nonsense, and I also think it is often the people who do not suffer distress, get sick, and/or seek help, who are not only a lot more ’sick’ than those who are like you and me, but who are in the category of the ones who feed on ‘making sick’ others.

Yes, thank you, Katrin… I would not be labeled had I not sought “help”– obviously I did not know the things I know today about psychiatry, otherwise I would have stayed away by any means necessary. It is not stigma. It is the fact that I did not get better, I got worse. Seeking psyhiatric help remains the only decision I made while manic that I regret. I know many others who fought the same emotional distress I went through, but fought it on their own, and therefore did not end up with a lifelong diagnosis and a year of their life down the drain. Are some people grateful for their treatment? Absolutely. Good for them- it worked out. I was not so lucky.

And I am sincere here… I want to see a metric posted that indicates we are making progress on treating mental illness on a widespread basis… surely something exists? I have read three books on the history of psychiatry as well as countless clinical psychology articles in journals… I’m just not impressed… but maybe someone can show me what I’m missing?

Until then, I will not support screening or education. I think OBGYNs should foster an open, trusting relationship with expectant moms… no screening or questionnaires needed.

I understand, Kimbriel!

I recently read a really great book, and I think many would find it quite valuable as I did, and on both sides of the fence.

It is called: ‘Against Medical Advice’ by James Patterson.

And, believe it or not, the very fist person I handed this book to, and on tape, so she would be more likely to read it, while driving, was my son’s psychiatrist. (She prescribed for years Luvox for my son and which made him bipolar, and all our lives ‘Hell’)

it was discontinued only, because my son got into trouble, and the case worker from DHS told the psychiatrist something that made her order me to stop it.

From that moment on, he was never manic depressive again.

Anyway, she actually read the book and loved it, and I never got it back because she then gave it to another psychiatrist, and he to another, and so on.

The book is not one to be ‘against all and everything’, it’s the story of a boy who was diagnosed with Tourettes and OCD at an early age, and his journey through the medical and psychiatric system, AND, with wonderful parents.

GREAT BOOK! and ‘true story’

Katrin, kimbriel: Allow me to present you with a double bind: what is mental illness? That is the problem that mental healthcare has set the patient, at its most basic level.

Mental illness, then, is a problem that is insoluble, as far as the experts in the field are concerned (they have no cures, in other words), so they have passed the current state of the art on in precisely that package: “here is an insoluble problem; kindly solve it. In fact, don’t solve it, because it is insoluble.” What kind of madness is this?

Let’s take depression as a case study… You feel lonely/isolated? You don’t take pleasure in the stuff that you used to enjoy? You feel sad? Presto! You’re depressed! The problem being that having made this somewhat presumptuous diagnosis, we must acknowledge that there is no known cure, so take these drugs and fuck off.

Except that there is a solution. If a person feels lonely/isolated, then one should have them feel *not* lonely/isolated, and there will no longer be a symptom of depression, and so they will no longer be depressed - infallible logic. At least, to me, this seems logical, but the current model seems to assume that loneliness/isolation is an immutable thing: a fact, when this is surely absurd?

No, the current model *does* have a beneficiary, but it sure as hell isn’t the patient.

Matt

I’ll have to check it out, sounds interesting… your son’s story is in fact not uncommon, though still sad. I’m very glad that it worked out for your family in the end.

Thanks, Matthew, for your comment. Katrin

Katrin wrote:
“Thanks, Matthew, for your comment. Katrin”

You’re welcome. Having been through the system, I can speak with authority about its failings. Oddly enough, the system doesn’t appear interested in addressing those failings. I’ve lost interest in understanding why that is - the system is not fit for purpose and should be de-looped from the process (Pharma and all), as far as I’m concerned.

Matt

Matthew, I hear what you’re saying and very good points. A lot of the symptoms of depression are just lists of behaviors. The disease is defined by its symptoms. This would be analogous to complaining of chest pain, going to a cardiologist, and getting diagnosed with heart disease (where heart disease is listed as = chest pain). I’m sure that depression is real but psychosocial supports are much more promising than chemicals- antidepressants beat the placebo by 10%, and an active placebo (one that causes benign side effects) by no margin at all…

I just have a problem with evidence-based medicine in general. It amounts to this: “uh, we have no idea what causes this problem, or the mechanisms by which it works, and we don’t know how this medicine works, but this medicine DOES seems to work for it, so it’s all good”. (and sometimes they go a step further and say that the medicine working for it proves that the problem is caused by the mechanism they hypothesize is behind the drug- such as “Take this Ritalin, and if you can focus better, that proves you had ADD”, or sometimes they say that if, for example a dopamine blocker treats some symptoms of Shizophrenia, then Schizophrenia must be an excess of dopamine… it just goes on and on)

I mean, I realize that people are looking for relief and some DO get it from psychiatry… but then to say that we haven’t accepted our diagnosis because we don’t want to take the meds or because we feel stigma is ridiculous. I HOPE they find the genetic mechanism behind these things, because at least if I had a genetic test that proved I had a problem, it would be something.

Yes, with me, I consider myself one of those who has come out the other end ‘in-spite’ of the ‘help’ I got.

Sometime, you can learn so much from all the mistakes, right?

Katrin

Oh, incidentally: the “system” very nearly succeeded in killing me, a couple of years ago. I’m going to repay the compliment - that’s all.

Matt

Actually, Matt, it almost succeeded in killing me as well, followed by many years of severe PTSD as a result. (I think when I said the above I was still trying to avoid the memories once again)

xxxKatrin

When you go to a doctor, or have surgery, you are required to sign such things as that you are aware a procedure may kill you.

And, this should really also have to be signed the very first time you step into a shrink’s, or psychiatrist’s office.

And it’s not merely a ‘maybe’. You have from that moment on lost all of your ‘legal rights’, ‘civil rights’, etc…..

So, If someone murders you, they just write, (without more than a couple’s days of investigation) that you killed yourself, and that this is no big deal, and certainly not worthy of a ? mark, as once in your life, you took Prozac for a couple of months?

I really don’t think people get that aspect. Being labeled mentally ill has huge legal, financial, and social implications. If “personal judgment” is deemed a necessary part of the job, you can even be excluded from a job, without protection under the ADA. And unfortunately, a mental illness label is not likely to go away even though it cannot be verified. They can use it to take your child away. They can treat you against your will (something that does not have an equivalent in any other fields of medicine). You matter less.

But you know what? I would have put up with all of it, if the treatment had just worked. It did not, and it certainly was NOT worth the tradeoff. Quite frankly, I’m pretty sure I’ve got PTSD from it too.

Matt- you’re right on. Psychiatry is tautological. It’s akin to going to a cardiologist complaining of chest pain and having them diagnose you with cardiac disease, where cardiac disease is listed in some book as being equivalent to chest pain. Then imagine them saying, “There are no lab tests to verify that you have cardiac disease, but take this medicine and see if it helps. And by the way, you’re going to need it forever.”

We deserve better than that from the system.

Katrin/kimbriel: Well, the memories are still there for me, too. And I know what brought them about, too: people for whom the Truth is a foreign country.

In (my), reality, there is no such thing as mental illness - every thing that troubles one is somebody else’s problem that one has taken on, because one was kind enough to do that… Watch them squirm when one gives them the problem back, though. The mental healthcare system has a problem: it has no idea what it’s doing - it doesn’t know what the objective is, nor how to achieve it. This problem is now the patient’s, and every effort has been made to ensure that the patient may not give the problem back, because the patient has no right to say what is real about their own experience.

I know what causes mental illness: it’s every problem that one has never solved; still rolling around in one’s mind, awaiting resolution. Who’s skilled enough, from the current crop of “experts,” to resolve that? None that I’ve seen in action - they’d have to capable of leaving their own reality in order to see a problem through somebody else’s eyes, and they’re too afraid to do that. And too arrogant to acknowledge that somebody else might know something that they don’t.

Well, I don’t want to see the world through their eyes, either.

Matt

Kimbrel wrote: NO ONE talks about cures in mental health. The cancer people get “cure cancer” the AIDS people got “cure AIDS”, even the fibromyalgia people get talk of a cure and that’s another one of those diseases they can’t really prove (like mental illness)… We nutcases get “take your meds (for the rest of your life) and please go away”—-

You obviously have no idea how complex the brain is, especially when injured or impaired. No clue at all. Or you wouldn’t be staying ridiculous things like this. Never in human history have people with psychiatric disorders had such opportunities for a chance at a better life. Just because some physicians can’t diagnose or prescribe correctly (can all car mechanics?) and just because some brains are severely impaired, you would throw out all pharmaceutical interventions? Selfish narcissists.

Frank lee says: ‘You obviously have no idea how complex the brain is, especially when injured or impaired. No clue at all. Or you wouldn’t be staying ridiculous things like this.’

Frank Lee’s diagnosis follows:

‘Selfish narcissists.’

You are correct, Frank lee, the brain is incredibly complex, and so is the language that goes along, (expresses itself along) with it.

It is obvious that you are not able to listen, and understand what Kimbriel is talking about, and trying to express through language, and that ’some of us’ in turn do understand, the meaning of the words. (and which are also more complex than each individual word)

And just as I can understand what you really meant when you used the words ’staying ridiculous’ rather than ’saying ridiculous’.

Sometimes, it really helps to listen,and to try and relate to another person, and to try and understand a person with a complex brain and ‘complex experiences’, rather than putting them down like a ‘wise guy’, including making an immediate diagnosis like some shrinks who think like you.

Uh, Frank? I have a degree in SCIENCE. I also have a neurological disorder, and have spent numerous hours with neurologists, so I do know a thing or two about the brain.

Just do a little bit of reading up on history, and you will see that your statement is completely untrue. Even today, people in developing countries with severe mental illness (who are typically NOT treated with meds) have a much better chance at recovery than people with those same illnesses in the US. This was discovered by the World Health Organization in 1979 and verified by a second study in 1992.

Lastly, when did I say that I would throw out all pharmaceutical interventions? If I had that attitude, do you think I would have ever let them medicate me for a year? People should be allowed to CHOOSE- yes, CHOOSE- whatever method they want to help them with their mental illness. The problem is that too much focus is being put on pharmaceutical interventions right now- and if you look at the statistical data, it’s not improving things. Not by a long shot.

Never understand why blog authors allow their sites to become chat room clatter like the above has become. Go to your email sites and debate away this spurious dialogue on your turf, please.

It demeans the topic at hand, ie how to intervene in diagnosing and treating postpartum depression.

Remember?

We don’t have each other’s email to discuss this elsewhere. If you don’t want to read it, don’t.

skillsnotpills wrote:
“…It demeans the topic at hand, ie how to intervene in diagnosing and treating postpartum depression.”

Well, no, it isn’t… We (I), changed the objective, above, and it is now “let’s cure mental illness.” It’s easy enough to get rid of depression: just stick around somebody who isn’t depressed, and copy what they do… Funny thing, communication…

Anyway, we’re not “engaging in spurious dialogue,” we’re having a deeply philosophical discussion, in keeping with the sombre nature of the subject matter.

Matt

I do believe that the reason Psychiatry and Religion hate each other so much is, because they are just so much alike.

Now, it’s not that I worship surgeons, but this is what happened with me about a year ago.
I saw a surgeon who specifically requested that all the original tests, (i.. MRI, CT scans, etc) were sent to him so he could view them for himself rather than go by someone else’s report.

Although the MRI was negative for further pathology, he told me he didn’t quite trust the report and that he was concerned, and therefore scheduled three hours for the Operating Room, just in case. Then he injected a dye into the area that would tell him if anything had spread, but from the dye’s behavior, this was unlikely, and which in this case also confirmed the MRI report.

But the surgeon once again was suspicious and so he started looking further around only to find that that his suspicion was confirmed.

The pathology had dangerously spread beyond and he, and his team and the pathologist spent every last second of the three hours operating.

Had the surgeon been a novice and uninterested in all his affairs, and trusted the MRI and Ultrasound results,I would be dead by now.

But instead he used his caring and skill and competence to treat and cure me. he went beyond.

I hardly think that most Psychiatrists are just as diagnostically accurate, and skillful, when they stuff huge parma into any patient just so he shuts up.

I love surgeons- never had one steer me wrong, yet (and I’ve had 12 surgeries).

Anyway, I wanted to note that I stand corrected: I found a website that is actually talking about cures for mental illness: http://www.imhro.org/

And it says, from the website: “The International Mental Health Research Organization is a leading mental health charity committed to supporting research to help people with brain disease, and, ultimately, find CURES for schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder.”

MUCH appreciated. Yes, I understand the brain is complex, but that doesn’t mean a cure should not be the goal.

kimbriel wrote:
“…Yes, I understand the brain is complex, but that doesn’t mean a cure should not be the goal.”

Absolutely. And we know the brain is complex, because each of us has one, which we may analyse at length and at our leisure.

I’ll tell you what the cure for depression is: not being depressed. The question is, what does “not being depressed” amount to? I can’t remember whether it was you or Katrin who wrote something to the effect that “mental illness is a list of symptoms”. “Not mental illness,” then, must also amount to a list, which directly contradicts the definition.

Presumably, then, when one is happy, enjoying some activity and feeling involved, one cannot be, by definition, depressed. Should one avoid being sad, bored and isolated, for fear that one is going to be labelled “depressed”? Well, that’s probably a question for the individual - there’s nothing objective about it, as far as I can tell.

So, we’re now left with another question: if one is exhibiting the moods/behaviours that amount to “depression,” how does one switch to the behaviours/moods that amount to “not depression”? Serendipity is the answer, I think: go and do something else, and let one’s brain work on the problem, in the background/unconscious! Give it a problem, and it’ll work it out, every time.

Matt

Matt, could you give an example? kat

Re Dr. Grohol’s statement: Are you honestly suggesting that a person’s mental health is somehow worth less money and value than their physical health??

The point is really that if a person’s physical health deteriorates enough they will die.

If a person’s mental health deteriorates, they aren’t necessarily headed for death.

But if toxic drugs deteriorate a person’s physical state they can die sooner than they would have without them. If you want to try to convince people that a mental state causes deteriorating physical damage you can do that, but it would be very difficult to validly prove how that actually occurs. And nobody can say it actually occurs because it is scientifically unprovable with a valid test or clinical research.

And yet the experts still maintain that it happens even though they have no way of proving that it happens. The label expert allows these folks to say things a normal person wouldn’t believe if said to them by a normal person.

Interesting chain, I have to say. Can’t believe I forgot to check this back out after I submitted a comment up at the very beginning. Anyway, I had to re-join the discussion, though it seems to have veered off the topic at hand. Totally in agreement with skillsnotpills @ 12:17 pm 7/27 (speaking of skillsnotpills, I agree w/your comments @ 5:24 pm 7/16). If you read these comments from the bottom up, you’d never think we were having a discussion about PPD. Especially the deeply philosophical–and circular–points of this guy Matt which fail to reverberate with me, probably due to the fact that he’s not talking about women and PPD at all, or the Mother’s Act for that matter. Michael Elder’s comments are irrelevant in this particular discussion.

I’d like to acknowledge and applaud Dr. Grohol (esp. comments @ 2:45 pm 7/15, 6:52 am 7/17, 12:42 pm 7/17 and 5:25 pm 7/17), Gina Pera (esp. comments @12:03 pm 7/15 and 2:35 pm 7/15), and Power is Knowledge.

These are by far my fav:
1. Dr. Grohol, thank you for saying the following…I couldn’t agree more!
“I don’t think or see women as “voiceless victims” just because some are trying to empower them with information and more data — data that comes from screening measures. A woman’s choice about what she does with that information and data is just that — her choice. I would never imagine it is my right to come between a doctor and their patient and their right to choose any treatment they want (or no treatment at all). It’s their choice, not yours, not mine. Screening provides women with more data to make an informed decision. Lack of screening keeps women in the dark. Since this bill only provides for voluntary screenings (and doesn’t mandate any sort of treatment whatsoever), I will very much continue to support it.”

“I think we have to realize that our knowledge and ability to understand the complexity of the human body and the mind has a long way to go. I understand that, as do most researchers and clinicians. But what are we to do in the meantime, as our we try and increase our knowledge? Stop trying to help people in emotional pain who want treatment?? Or do the best we can with the tools and treatments we have available? There’s no doubt nor argument that treatment can harm as well as help. The question then becomes, How do we minimize likelihood of harm and increase the likelihood of help? And this is true of any treatment, psychotherapy too.”

2. Gina, thank you for saying this…I couldn’t agree more!
“Overly focusing on mothers and PPD or depression seems a real danger here. The problem isn’t medication or the Internet-based self-medicating-with-opposition crowd’s favorite boogie man, Big Pharma. The problem is poorly trained clinicians who do not know how to screen for a wide variety of mental illness and often treat the wrong thing. We have them to thank, in my opinion, for the medication backlash.”

“Hate to see you defend yourself against such spurious attacks, Katherine. It’s not that the people who make such attacks trouble themselves to read your blog and to perceive your intentions accurately. Such deliberations are beyond them. People who have not one mirror neuron in their brains distrust those who do; it is simply a foreign concept to them. The fact that they see craven motives behind every advocate or volunteer speaks more to what motivates them than what motivates those whom they criticize.”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kimbriel, how the heck do you think an OB/GYN would foster an open, trusting relationship if they don’t necessarily do what they’re supposed to do which is to ensure the new mother is feeling alright after having just given birth without asking a few questions which, if a woman feels uncomfortable answering, she can just pass on? Since when does a doctor jam questions down a patient’s throat? I personally have never experienced it in my lifetime. If my OB/GYN or GP had spent a few minutes asking me questions to try to get to the bottom of what was wrong with me when I had PPD, I would’ve been so lucky. If I had been asked relevant questions–or in other words screened for PPD–as soon as I indicated I had insomnia (rather than just been prescribed Ambien to help me sleep because he thought I had the blues), I could’ve been spared the painful experience that ensued, panic attacks and all.

I have to disagree with many of the anti-Mothers Act opponents in this chain….PPD is absolutely under-diagnosed and under-treated in this society. Every time I talk to a bunch of women, they share with me that they suffered miserably and unnecessarily from PPD without any treatment at all, depriving them of their ability to enjoy motherhood the way that they would’ve liked. Why did they suffer? Because they didn’t know what they had and were afraid to speak up and seek treatment due to the myths out there about motherhood and mental illness. We as a society have a truly long way to go to overcome all that. This country needs to provide education so that every last person is aware of what PPD is. I would’ve loved to have enjoyed my motherhood experience, but I didn’t. I was caught unaware and uneducated about PPD and what to look out for. No one told me anything. Had I known then what I know now, things would’ve been so different, so much better. This is what so many PPD survivors and others interested in the wellbeing of mothers are hoping to finally achieve in this country. Until then, what do all anti-pharma people propose? Be the change that makes a difference for mothers once & for all? That would be great, because it is so desperately needed!

If this bill passes, which I hope it does, it should be up to the individual woman whether she wants to answer questions at 6 weeks postpartum intended to make sure she is okay. If I were asked, I would answer, knowing what I know today.

I agree with many in the chain that the underlying problem and barrier to progress lies in the fact that medical professionals need to be trained to properly detect, diagnose and treat PPD. They also need the right resources/tools to do so.

My doctor’s office voluntarily screens for PPD. This is relatively new. I have had five children and it was not until this last child (born 8 weeks ago) that this screening took place. It took place at my six-week follow-up and there was nothing “invasive” about it.

I have read one commenter here who said he/she was a psychiatrist and that this sort of screening should only take place if the patient is known to be “at risk.” I ask, how is an OB/GYN

Sorry, hit a wrong button…continued from previous comment at 9:24am

I ask, how is an OB/GYN supposed to know which patients are at risk? Most doctors do not know their patients personally. To assess which patients are at risk would require, well, some type of screening at some point.

While I do not know for certain that I agree with legislating screenings, I do believe they should be given. Having suffered PPD without detection following previous pregnancies I can only imagine how much easier my life would have been, and the lives of those around me, if it had been identified and dealt with early on.

Pls remember there is nothing in the bill that states screening will be mandatory.

2 Replies to the above:

1. Sara: I sense I was the one you note as mentioning “at risk”, and that is my point, that an OBGYN is not trained to make such a determination based on their interactions with a post partum patient. So, if a patient comes in and makes questionable comments that reflect a mood disorder issue, the patient should be advised to see a mental health professional to determine if the problem is one of PPD. Not necessarily a psychiatrist first, perhaps better if it was a therapist if the issues at hand were coping or psychosocial problems related to being a new parent or overwhelmed multi-child parent. But, let the expert make the determination, not a doc who will be writing a script, or worse, reaching for a sample pack that a pharma company has prepared once this sick legislation has metastisized into the process. You really think OBs are going to implement an appropriate treatment process for PPD? Think again!

By this rationale being repeated by the advocates to this bill, can’t anyone with an MD after their name treat any medical problem that presents in their office? Can’t psychiatrists treat diabetes? Can’t cardiologists treat multiple sclerosis? Can’t surgeons treat psoriasis?

Again, think again!

2. Ivy: thank you for the supportive comment. I said it then (7/16), and I say it now above again to Sara, one of the sizeable reasons that psychotropics are causing problems is due to the fact that non-psychiatrists who have prescription access too eagerly write prescriptions. Every one is quick to attack psychiatry, yet I know that a majority of the suicidal patients this develops from being placed on meds is due to PCPs/internists/nurse practitioners/OBgyns starting these people on meds and then sloughing it off on psych MDs to pick up the pieces, if the patient even gets to a psych MD door by then.

“everyone thinks they are a psychiatrist until the crap hits the fan, and then everyone has left the room to leave the patient and psychiatrist to get it full force.” Said to me in my training by a supervising Psych MD, and oh how accurate an assessment to the state of affairs it has been.

If it is so easy to practice mental health care, why is psychiatry still a profession in this millenium? I’ll tell you in one sentence repeated to me by multiple non psychiatric physicians for decades now: “I don’t have time to talk to the patient and hear their problems I can’t treat as a somatic doc, so that’s your expertise.”

And yet, still 70% of antidepressant prescriptions written in the US are by non-psychiatrists. Seems people just don’t know better. Eh?

Ivy’s comments are so disingenuous.

One, she knows the Mothers Act is modeled after the New Jersey law that REQUIRES women to be screened during and after pregnancy. They have NO choice.

The screening language was finally removed last year only after they all realized that they would never get the Act passed if it stayed in.

Senator Menendez said as recently as May, 2009, that once the federal legislation is passed, they hope the individual states will pass screening laws like New Jersey’s.

Ivy’s statement below really got me going because I tried to post a response to the twisting of my words by Grohol and it was not accepted.

Ivy said, “These are by far my fav: 1. Dr. Grohol, thank you for saying the following…I couldn’t agree more! “I don’t think or see women as “voiceless victims” just because some are trying to empower them with information and more data — data that comes from screening measures.”

I never said women were the voiceless victims. This is what I wrote on another site:

Over on Grohol’s site, my statements about the voiceless, unprotected victims of the Mothers Act disease campaign, the fetus and nursing infants, were basically ignored.

Grohol himself switched my term “voiceless” into meaning the women and never addressed the victims I was talking about.

Dr David Healy, the famous psychopharmacologist and historian on psychiatry from the UK has said, that only 1 out of 10 pregnant women will be helped by antidepressants even if they do have true depression, which means the fetus of nine women will be put at risk for the one mother who may be helped.

As Dr Fred Baughman points out, years ago, doctors would never have considered giving pregnant women drugs unless it was absolutely necessary.

Today, in the midst of the psych drug peddling for profit schemes, the safety and health of the unborn fetus is no longer the priority concern in providing health care to pregnant women. In fact, it seems to have fallen to the bottom of the list.

Being that the medical profession as a whole is now dominated by the pharmaceutical industry’s best interest, women themselves had better start thinking about the responsibility they have to the unborn children they chose to bring into this world, who have no voice of their own in this drugging matter.

The health and safety of the fetus needs to return to the number one position on the list of concerns for pregnant women.

As a women, mother and grandmother, it’s difficult for me to understand how they ever lost that priority position in the first place.

Evelyn Pringle

Hi doc (skillsnotpills),

I read you loud and clear and especially “And yet, still 70% of antidepressant prescriptions written in the US are by non-psychiatrists. Seems people just don’t know better. Eh?”

Some do and I’ll include me in that category and since I’ve been a support person and caregiver to my spouse for more than 46 years and reasonably educated in my proactive mental health advocacy and activism and having collaborated with many in your profession as well as the other medical disciplines I’ll politely throw the ball back into your court as I have done with a number of my spouse’s practitioners.

How’s about getting of your ass and high horse and along with the Bremner’s, Carlat’s and other professionals with your viewpoint influencing your societal organizations to educate and/or change the practices of the AMA and the other medical associations and their memberships from dispensing these drugs and your specialty and then washing their hands (dumping) of these serious cases by the time it reaches you and your associates.

It’s wonderful you share your thoughts on these forums but the problems do not necessarily lie with screenings for medical and/or mental health problems but as far as I’m concerned and not necessarily with you per se but certainly with many in the medical profession.

You guys (maybe not you as I don’t know your age) screwed up the health care system so that we ended up with the abomination called managed care (technically managed profits and little to no care) so instead of talking, do something to educate and improve the delivery systems for proper mental health care within the medical establishment. And while you’re at it, where were you all these years fighting for parity in health insurance coverage for mental health?

That was a very long hard fought battle so how’s about you guys starting a movement for a more appropriate delivery system for mental health?

The concepts and idealism of medical screenings for illnesses are in and of themselves not bad but rather the misapplications and squirreled up delivery systems needs to be addressed.

Warmly,
Herb
VNSdepression.com

Hey Herb, long time, no read. I am the formerly therapyfirst, as I shed that alias about 3 months ago once I came to the painful conclusion that not only patients have no real investment to pursue therapy as an intervention, but I am finding more and more ‘therapists’ are equally not invested to offer the service in the first place! So, I have gone to this alias as it was offered by a colleague who does take her job seriously and puts the patient directly in the cross hairs when the patient is meds only focused and wastes hers and my time.

I’m under the age of 50 and have watched my older colleagues sell out to the managed care beast 20 years ago as my field is one of whores and cowards. Note not all, but too many that justifies my use of that phrase. I left the APA in 1995 after the Eist/Sharfstein election when 48% voted for Dr Sharfstein’s unspoken “managed care is here to stay, so deal with it” campaign slogan, so the writing was on the wall. And the parity issue only still validates insurance intrusions in the end, so that is not an honest and effective goal to strive for.

As far as impacting on the hierarchy of the AMA and APA, it is death and retirement that will make the difference, and that is not going to happen too soon, eh? I am as direct and honest about this issue, and as long as entrenched, soulless, selfish bastards who have lost the oath they read outloud at their medical school graduations 30 or more years ago and just focus on their wallets and prestige/power among their cronies are still in charge, nothing will change.

So, as the Carlats, Bremners, and I feel Mr Dawdy at Furious Seasons is a prime time player to some degree, speak out but are not empowering the masses who are missing the point, they will do little. And that is not meant to be demeaning to them, it is just you can’t negotiate with narcissism and antisocial personalities. And that is what is basically running the show.

Getting it back to this post, political legislation does not help things in the end, and I truly do not understand why Dr Grohol does not see this instinctively. Fame fucks you up, that is why I like what I do. I treat people who are looking for help, and I do it because it is right and I have the skills to do it for the most part. I am not interested in prestige or accolades, but thank yous from patients are truly appreciated.

Glad to read you are around. Hope you can bring some healthy, responsible, and challenging viewpoints to the debate!

Have a good weekend!

FYI, another comment lost to the spam machine. Personally, while you, Dr Grohol, have emailed me to tell me it is the system that messes with me, I have to say I do not think it is coincidence. And if it is this inconsistent, I offer you find another service, if able, to handle your volume.

skillsnotpills

Are Evelyn Pringle’s posts being blocked, again. By blocking them, it makes it seem she is unwelcome on this blog especially to the lady who questioned whether she ever worked as a journalist at a credible newspaper. People usually hate Evelyn because they don’t like to hear what she has to say and or what her sources say. And by blocking her from posting, you give her a bit of credibility if for no other reason than if people can’t stand to hear the truth, there must be some truth in what gets blocked out.
Larry Bone

Skills…this has happened to me, though, as well, like three times.

Once the comment that was lost showed up about seven hours later, and which was not so great either.

The other two just ‘puffed into thin air.’

I find this frustrating as well.

Katrin

All the comments on this blog break down into.women who are comfortable with taking psychiatric drugs no matter how toxic over the long run to themselves or their unborn. There are those women who do not want anything legislatively introduced that would subject them to being forced to take drugs that they feel are toxic to themselves or to their unborn. If informed consent was a part of this bill, the comments on this blog would not be anywhere near as toxic as they have been. If 1 out of 10 women feels comfortable taking toxic psychiatric drugs, the other 9 should not be forced to consent to being drugged through legislative coersion. A mother not worried about these drugs is free to take them although the rights of an unborn child would be respected if she refrained from taking such drugs until after her baby was born.
Larry Bone

There is nothing in the bill that mandates screening or drugs, for that matter.

Are Evelyn Pringle’s posts being blocked again? People hate Evelyn Pringle such as the lady who questioned whether she ever worked for a credible newspaper, because she says what people don’t want to hear or quotes sources people don’t want to hear. Either way when people read a blog and someone like Evelyn is blocked from posting, it tends to make people believe there must be some truth either in what they say or their sources say. Such lack of transparency becomes suspect in the eyes of blog readers.
Larry Bone

In New Jersey, screening is mandatory as an example for other states to follow. If women don’t want a law like the one in New Jersey in their state, who can blame them for not supporting the Mother’s Act? Both bills originated from the same sponsor so how can anyone claim screening and therefore enforced drugging in not the truthful purpose behind passage of these bills?
Larry Bone

An interesting day here at PsychCentral, I must say. This posting certainly has had its number of comments, maybe not a record, but the issue has generated volume. I just hope in the end that the author here has the interest of the public at hand, and if he really has a strong feeling that this legislation will benefit more than harm, then I hope he is right. But, I don’t think he is right. Because, in the end per history of what politicians do, it is what is convenient or serves special interests, and I leave you all with this metaphor I ask of patients who struggle with choices that I sense have more obvious outcomes than not:

If you are presented with two doors to exit to get to your needs/desires, and door one has an 80% likelihood of getting you there, and door two has a 20% likelihood of getting you there, what door will you choose?

This legislation is behind door number two, folks. And if I am wrong, we are all happy, because patients get what they need, and they get better. Or, if I am right, pharma and politicians are appeased, at the expense of the public.

You figure out what door to exit, people, I made my choice, and door one looks damn good to me!!!

It was NJ Gov Corzine that passed the NJ law. There are many supporters of the law in NJ, including me.

I never said the fetus isn’t important. It sure is. Your implication that I wouldn’t think a fetus is important is insulting. The NJ law is a postpartum one, where healthcare professionals are required to screen their POSTPARTUM patients (fetuses no longer part of the equation) that you say the Mother’s Act is modeled after. Anyway, everyone has a right to their own position with regard to this potential legislation. I and many other supporters remain such, just as the opponents will remain such. As I’ve told Amy before, I respect others for their positions…everyone has a right to their own beliefs which they arrive at from their own experiences. However, resorting to insults only shows the nature of the person providing such negative comments. Period.

You damn right I get negative when I see the health and safety of voiceless children, whether it be the fetus’ or nursing infants, get delegated to the bottom of the heap.

And I am going to keep right on being negative towards anyone involved in any profiteering scheme that leads to the forced drugging of these helpless victims.

As I’ve said previously, investigating and reporting on the Mothers Act disease mongering campaign is not some kind of pleasurable hobby for me. In fact, it’s an utterly disgusting task.

My sole purpose is to protect children who in no way can protect themselves.

And with the psycho-pharmaceutical industry brainwashing women of child bearing years with these types of campaigns, it’s obvious that they need all the help they can get.

And my interest lies in the women with PPD who continue to slip through the cracks because their doctors do not properly detect, diagnose and treat PPD. They have a right to be asked simple questions to gage how they are faring after childbirth. They have a right to know before they get it what exactly to look for in terms of PPD. As a PPD survivor, I have firsthand experience of falling through the cracks, and that is not a good experience by any means. I also knew well enough about the risks of meds being fed to my daughter, so I moved to formula. I am not in this for profiteering by any means.

Fine Ivy - you keep looking after the mothers, who by your own admission, are not voiceless and have mouths of their own.

As a woman, mother, and grandmother, my interest will remain focused on the helpless children who never asked to be born, just as it has since I gave birth to my own children beginning some 40-odd years ago, and as my 7 grandchildren entered the world beginning 17 years ago.

You women need to quit acting like childbearing is some brand new experience, any different than it was for the rest of us, who somehow managed to make it through without drugging our infants in the womb or through nursing, every time mood changes occurred that we knew came with the territory.

By now, the risks and harms that can be done by psych drugs to the fetus and nursing infants is well documented and easily found on the internet.

Unless a drug is absolutely necessary for some life-threatening condition, in my opinion, a decision to take it, with knowledge that any possible harm could come to the child, is selfish.

The few women who experience true postpartum depression or psychosis are easy to spot and they can get help. Train doctors to be on the look-out if there are none out there competent enough to see it.

Screening the entire 4 million women who give birth each year in the US is totally unnecessary and amounts to nothing but a recruitment dragnet for the new “reproductive psychiatry” industry.

People need to look at the whole picture here. This disease mongering campaign is by far not solely for the financial benefit of Big Pharma.

Easy to spot, not so easy for all mothers with PPD to get the right treatment. You don’t know what I went through, so suggesting that I’m a wimp for not sucking it up like everyone else has the thousands of years women have been giving birth is ridiculous. Did you survive anything other than the hormonal shifts that cause the majority of mothers out there to be tearful or irritable for the first couple of weeks postpartum? Don’t presume to know what I or any other PPD survivor has gone through unless you’ve been through it yourself (sordid physical symptoms ranging from insomnia, not knowing what was happening to me, feeling completely unable to function, suffering from God-awful panic attacks)–and worse yet, have your own OB/GYN fail to even recognize that I had PPD at 6 weeks postpartum. Who’s to say that if I hadn’t sought treatment, I wouldn’t have wanted to end it all out of sheer fear and desperation. Yeah, I’m selfish alright for wanting to get help so I could function and take care of my daughter.

Don’t waste your time, Ivy. Evelyn Pringle is never interested in reality- or sane-based points of view. She has her agenda, and she barrels ahead over everyone in her way, all the while claiming how much she cares. Weird-o.

Can’t you read, Evelyn? These mothers don’t want your help. And to keep insisting that they do is doing violence to them. If their babies could talk, they’d say the same thing.

As for “Concerned Reader”, I’m done responding to bloggers who don’t even have the decency or guts to use their real names.

As for Ivy, I have read your story and it is not much different than many I have seen over my life-time.

Aside from the use of terms like “panic attack” instead of simply describing how new mothers often get extremely fearful and overwhelmed while taking care of newborns.

Absolutely nothing new there. I remember it well myself and thinking I was crazy. But the good thing was that 40 years ago, people assured me I was not and that it was normal to get fearful and overwhelmed.

Nobody taught me how to cope with having or taking care of a tiny little baby. It was a learning process - like everything else in life.

But thank God, nobody even mentioned drugs, or I probably would have been conned into taking them just like the women are now.

As far as depression, the answer would not be to start dosing a woman with antidepressants because they don’t even start to work (if at all) for 3 to 6 weeks.

That’s a lot of time that could be spent on getting to the core issue of what is really going on with the new mother.

Insomnia goes with the territory and the common sense thing to do is to find someone to help out with the child to make sure you can get some uninterrupted time to sleep.

The bottom line is there are umteen things that could and should be tried before a woman even thinks of taking drugs while pregnant or nursing.

But that’s not the way it works today. The doctor, who does not provide therapy, prescribes the drugs first and the woman is lucky if she ever gets referred for any type of therapy.

Also, in the 15-minute office call, the doctor does not ask anything about what might be going on in the woman’s life other than having a baby.

And 9 chances out of 10 there are plenty of issues that should be looked at and dealt with before a woman is drugged.

Again, until you’ve been in my shoes and experienced real insomnia and real panic attacks, you cannot assume that all that equates to is sleep deprivation and anxiety from being a new mother. It was way beyond that, and obviously you didn’t experience what I experienced, otherwise you’d understand what I’m saying. I’m done trying to explain to someone who thinks she knows it all.

Don’t tell me what I have or have not been through. I lost a planned baby at 5 months and after another planned pregnancy, my 3-day-old infant died.

As much as you would like to believe they are, you’re experiences are not unique in the history of childbearing.

You’ve simply been brainwashed into believing they are by the profiteers running this show, who want to lock in life-long customers.

After reading over the various postings on your website Ivy, I believe that to be true because you come across as very sincere in your wanting to help other women.

I do not think you are a “knowing” participant in the Mothers Act disease mongering campaign in the same category as say Katherine Stone and Lauren Hale, and that’s why I’ve never written anything derogatory about you or your website in my articles.

I’m not about to fault somebody for being duped by quite possibly the most rapid gang of disease mongers that I’ve come across in my 5 years of investigating these types of profiteering schemes.

Thanks, Evelyn, for sharing your personal experiences, at least these particular ones.
You are right, we can never, ever assume anything about another person, and who has won the suffering contest.

Evelyn,
I am very sorry to hear about your experience.

I had the Queen Bee of all postpartum disorders- postpartum psychosis- and I STILL don’t think that justifies screening ALL women for what happened to me. It’s 1 out of 1000 who gets this. They caught it two weeks postpartum and I was committed and drugged (and separated from the baby for three days). I am thankful for the two weeks I had with him and that I was able to breastfeed during that time- something I lost when they gave me drugs that weren’t safe for breastfeeding.

Thanks for you post.

Katrin wrote:
“Matt, could you give an example? kat”

Sorry, I’ve kinda lost the thread a bit… An example of the brain solving a problem via “background processing,” for wont of a better description? Or serendipity? Bear in mind, of course, that I use these words as near-facsimiles of the concepts that I’m trying to explain - they may mean something different to you.

Anyway, for most people, the issue is in identifying what the problem actually is. You’d be surprised how few have even the vaguest idea. Or perhaps you wouldn’t.

To answer your question (by not answering it!), I could give an example from my own experience, but it would be largely meaningless to you - something that I had regarded as insurmountable and massively problematic might present itself as trivial, to you.

Matt

Ivy wrote:
“…If you read these comments from the bottom up, you’d never think we were having a discussion about PPD. Especially the deeply philosophical–and circular–points of this guy Matt which fail to reverberate with me, probably due to the fact that he’s not talking about women and PPD at all, or the Mother’s Act for that matter…”

Not circular… It’s a spiral - we may return to the same place, but it looks different, the second time around, because it’s viewed from a slightly different perspective.

Anyway, if you want something other than circularity, or the semblance thereof, then you would have to have an objective, because if you don’t have a reference point, how will you know whether or not you’re progressing in the right direction? And if you can’t be sure that you’re headed in the right direction, there seems precious little point in moving off the spot.

Matt

PS Unless somebody’s going to reveal that they have experienced what they take to be PPD, then it would be difficult for any of us to discuss it, given that we would have no knowledge of it, and nobody to ask.