Dr. David Healy is an internationally respected psychiatrist, psychopharmacologist, scientist, and author. A professor of Psychiatry in Wales, David studied medicine in Dublin, and at Cambridge University. He is a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, and has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed articles, 200 other pieces, and 20 books, including The Antidepressant Era and The Creation of Psychopharmacology from Harvard University Press, The Psychopharmacologists Volumes 1-3 and Let Them Eat Prozac from New York University Press, and Mania from Johns Hopkins University Press.
David’s main areas of research are clinical trials in psychopharmacology, the history of psychopharmacology, and the impact of both trials and psychotropic drugs on our culture.
He has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving psychotropic drugs, and in bringing problems with these drugs to the attention of American and British regulators, as well raising awareness of how pharmaceutical companies sell drugs by marketing diseases and co-opting academic opinion-leaders, ghost-writing their articles.
David’s latest book, Pharmageddon, documents the riveting and terrifying story of how pharmaceutical companies have hijacked healthcare in America and the life-threatening results.
David is a founder and Chief Executive Officer of Data Based Medicine Limited, which operates through its website RxISK.org, dedicated to making medicines safer through online direct patient reporting of drug effects.
Take a pill and go away has apparently become the de facto modus operandi for many psychiatrists in Canada…. quick-fix questionnaires provide rapid diagnosis with none of the work involved in analysis….. apparently some psychiatrists are doing their job in 15-minute appointments. Toronto’s CAMH (Centre for Mental Health and Addiction) only books 30 minutes for assessments.
Dear David
You’ve drawn attention recently in the BMJ to Psychiatric drugs and Suicide within the most Vulnerable.
I emailed your email address on Dec 21, 2012 in reference to my own experience.
The Big Psychiatric Label:
There’s no cure for life. There is recovery from ‘Schizophrenia’. My successful recovery was as a result of ‘not taking my medication’ and using Psychological means instead. As a Doctor and a Professor in Psychiatry are you able to accept this?
Psychology:
CBT Type Therapy is an experiment and result process. Its scientific. Results can be verified.
Suicidal Toxic Reaction:
Lots of youngish adults have thoughts on suicide, people with dreadful ‘no hope’ lives might think about it more. My suicidal tendencies were as a result of reaction to Depot at a toxic level – they were ‘full on’ and uncontrollable. The dangerous part was the mental state – beyond anything I had ever experienced. After about a day I calmed again.
To identify cause of Suicidal reaction an honest interview of suicide attempters is needed. With me the interviewers imputed my emotions. A pointer might be drug toxicity ie movement problems; and the initial 48 to 96 hr reaction to Depot type medication.
Would you please respond to my December email – I’m writing stuff up about this at the moment.
eric – i don’t have the december email – can you resend
Just read “Pharmageddon” and wonder exactly what is “the raw data”? It seems totally preposterous that this info not be included in procuring FDA approval for a new medication. However, “Big Business” does run this country, so anything is possible. Great book! Well written and easily read by a non-medical person. Thanks.
QUESTION: Does the Psychiatric profession recognise complete consistent recovery from what is diagnosed as schizophrenia through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy?
QUESTION: What about the most vulnerable?
ABOUT ME: Diagnosed as schizophrenic, I was injected in 1980 with modecate, reacting desperately 24 hrs later (extreme fear, vulnerablity, tension, terror), lasting roughly a day. Experienced identical twice in the community (Galway) attempted sucide both times. Experienced involuntary leg movement till I discontinued this drug (4 or 5 yrs)(diagnosed as ‘mentally ill’ due to my inability to ‘hold down work’). Floundering on withdrawal I requested lighter oral medication and Counselling. I since followed wtih talking treatments and CBT. 26 years later I’m still well and in ‘non drug recovery’. I work at proper jobs in private enterprise, am Independant, am qualified tradesman also gained graduate and post graduate qualifications. I cut oral medication to a non therapeutic level that has no negative effects. (This is some of my experience! )
COMMENT: My reactions are probably not limited to me, I’ve got a Voice.
ALSO: You ve met me in the 1980 s (I think), in Galway. I was a ‘professional psychiatric patient’ (Loud voice, cheerful, red hair, receding, short, 5′ 11”)
I am a “recovered” SSRI victim. I would like to make a couple of points that have not been made. One, after extensive research, I discovered that the cause of my alleged “depressive” symptoms was a combination of gluten allergies and related nutritional deficits. When I remedied those, I became symptom-free. Two, most of my brain has bounced back from SSRIs EVEN THOUGH I AM OVER 50. This needs to be said. The notion that the brain is static and doesn’t fix itself or replace neurons is ALSO INCORRECT. Neuroplasticity is a fact. (Train the brain to change the Mind is a book by a Harvard-trained type on this topic.)
One thing that doctors kept telling me was that my deteriorating mental condition was an affect of AGE not the damn SSRIs. Well, that is a load of bollocks. Truly it is…I am 6 years past SSRIs now and my brain is recovering. I did lose my eidetic memory which pisses me off, but at least I can reason again.
What I discovered is that the damage caused by SSRIs can be remedied through change of diet, withdrawal from anything with fluorides in it and regular detoxifications to keep drawing down the cumulated compounds that SSRIs leave behind. What I am angry about is that my fine brain was so impaired by these stupid drugs. I still have a brain that is better than many, but I was in the top 1 to 3 percent across the nation. Now, who knows where I stand. SSRIs damaged me terribly. This is a crime against all of humanity to permit this stuff to be given to people where it is eventually excreted into our water ways, evaporated up and put into our soil and air. Many of these drugs contain fluoride which is a persistent environmental toxin with NO REAL VALUE nutritionally and, Indian and Chinese studies both show that it lowers I.Q.
In any event, I want to recommend Robert Whittaker’s book, Anatomy of an Epidemic as well as Peter Breggin’s book, Medication Madness. There is another book that Lilly has squashed about the early evidence of the linkage between Prozac and violence. I will have to try to find that title.
Keep up the good work!
MK
Hi
I am so glad that you posted that you have recovered and pleased for you
I am very interested in you saying that you detoxed the accumulated compounds out of your body
I have been looking into detox and would appreciate it if you can let me know what you used to detox
With thanks
Pb
Hello MK, what did you make to detox from antidepressants?
Thank you.
I agree that SSRIs can be bad but I admire people who seek professional help to face mental problems they may have and succeed with CBT instead or other therapies.
Question: However, what do you do when a family member living at at distance is self-harming and refuses to seek help in any way?
Loving mum
What advice do you have to the mother of a patient of 50, who is diagnosed with Asperger’s and schizophrenia in the NHS but has had multiple tests which have been evaluated by profs. Maes, St.Clair, Puri and toxicologist Rosemary Waring as have severe detox problems with an underlying medical condition. He has had CRP of 20 , now down to 10.3 which the NHS will not test. He currently has high antibodies to measles and herpes 1 – all private investigation. The NHS will allow no tests whatsoever or referrals to other consultants.
He is under a community treatment order and has tremors in hand and leg and it now 19 Stone. Prof Puri said he had metabolic syndrome. His RMO admits that his behaviour changes are related to infection but says that her job is not to treat this, just the schizophrenia. The Scottish Mental Welfare Commission refuses to look at the case.
Christine – impossible to comment without being able to review everything – this looks very complex.
You seem to have me confused with someone else?
I wrote the question about my son.
Christine – I know – his case looks complex.
HI,
Can’t help feeling, having read the above , that drugs should be administered with greater care, checks for side effects made alot sooner and more regularly, and people should not be kept on drugs for any longer than is absolutely necessary>
Is there anyway for people to be educated as to how to become very self aware when taking prescribed drugs?
There are probably certain groups of people who are more vulnerable than others who would forget to /find it difficult to question what they are being prescribed.
If I were a Doctor prescribing medicine, one of the first things I would make the patient aware of are possible side effects and to stress to the patient the importance of monitoring how they are feeling, so help can be sought if needed.
Adverse sudden reactions need fast special treatment and sometimes cannot be anticipated – and acknowledgement by Pharmaceutical companies of any side effects would enable them to research their drugs to make them safer.
I think people quite generally are afraid of admitting liability
Communication between medical professions, pharmaceutical companies and patients is absolutely vital.
Gillian
Hi,
Reading the above, I can’t help but feel there is a possible gap in the medical field
for help given/offered to people who are trying to get their lives rebuilt
following the trauma of having been ill due to adverse reactions caudedf by drugs.
Having myself experienced the mind blowing effect of side effects caused seemingly by the drug Enhbrel – I have now surfaced and fortunately can see my way clear – but only after an awfu8l lot of self – questioning.
I am thankful for the support and attention given by the medical teams – however-
I do feel people would benefit from counselling, empathy, sense of humour and a gentle sign -posting in order for them to balance their lives out again.
At times, staff tend to question,and interrogate such a way that would surely leave Inspector Morse or James Bond reeling and pale into a hasty retreat.
It isn’t a patients fault they have become ill – and they do need a positive approach, during and after treatment.
Extra training for staff who are attending to mentally ill patients is needed- in how they talk to them and approach them.
Having interviewed young teenage drug abusers, homeless single mothers, potential suicide victims in my work as a senior employment officer- I think I kind of know what I am talking about.
It is through my own insight and experience of working with people that I have manged to keep a sense of humour and balance- but I do worry for people who are left struggling to understand what has happened to them- and are in a position where they have no idea how to rebuild what they have lost.
People seem to feel they have lost so much with no way back – through no fault of ttheir own- they should be heped gently as part of their recovery>
Citizen’s advice can’t do it, and I do think Social Services is pretty hopeless at times-
You know – I do think – this needs to be looked at – a more user friendly way which isn’t condescending or makes a person feel they are caught up in a system-
A glimmer of hope can quite often be given on a ward e.g.
Art Therapy
Music
Reading
Flower Arranging
Talking/discussion
self analysis is so important for people to decide what to do next to get better- step by step .
Well, that’;s my soap box fot this morning –
Gill x
i have just finished watching the 2012 Lancaster lecture on you tube. i first heard David speak in Middlesborough at an ADHD conference in the early 2000s or late 1990s i forget, and looking back it possibly helped save my life. having lived medication free for nearly 13 years now after starting on five years of seroxat in 1991. having had annual psychotic mania requiring section, detention, forced medication 1991 to 1996 when a change of consultant who actually had read the published data took me off seroxat and reduced my psychosis by half. i soon afterwards took myself off all meds and never looked back, that was 2000.
keep on doing the work Dr Healy, in years to come you will be recognised as one of the big hitters in the fight to save lives and stop the soul mining that makes it profitable for big pharma to continue to exploit damaged and abused people for vast profit.
i am in brighton having come to hear Robert Whitaker speak and though i know you are in a different category, the collective push of voices spreading alternate stories and information about the unseen truths of business, psychiatry and patient abuses all helps to save lives and slowly turn the mega tanker of this industry.
thankyou for being committed to your work and holding a morally unquestionable clarity in your choices. what i want to know now is who do i sue for dismantling my life by prescribing seroxat to me, a bi polar diagnosed patient in 1991 when even BNF had advisory against such prescription in that year. and if there is a who to sue, please tell me how to get about it all these years later. being a uk citizen in the UK i have to presume the NHS is not an easy target and the consultant prescribing thankfully retired in 1996 or i would have been dead by 1997.
Keep up the good worl. Being of 100% Irish descent I am glad you know who have crossed borders and countires especially the USA. As a a professional, I remember the search for blood markers for Depression. I wonder why in grad school we read Foucault and Szaz and then on the psych unit the docs were looking for bio markers. I love that you have a historical perspective and in America Dorthea Dixis a mere memory. I loved your book. But how do we find leadership? How do we find strength in asking questions? How so we do what Dorthea Dix did in Aamerica? Who will be our next Dorthea Dix? After many years in the Mental Health field I became psychotic because of over the top stress. Everything you document is your newest book is true. How can we truly make a change?
Peer run respite houses seem to be an answer with judicious use of short term medication on a case by case basis. How can this be accomplished? The Irish seem to have a history of psychosis especially where my father’s family is from in the wilderness of the west. How to change the USA system of forced medication? So many questions and in my area of the Midwest USA there is only the old sawhorese of medicine conpliance and lack of anything, anything alternativel Lucky for me I continued to do research and found Mind Freedom International, and Robert Whittaker’ writings along with yours and Loren Mosher along with the currnt crop. But when will someone try to resestablish Dr. Mosher ‘s treatment plan? When will they have peer mentors on Psych Units? When will it be safe to be hosptialized and not be comepletely traumatized bye low intelleigent direct c are workers and non caring Psychiatrist/ When will Psychiatrist break the bonds of Big Pharma and not take their money? How can they sleep at night?
With each of my clients, I always offered the hope of medication discontinuation. That was never offered to me. It hurts that I could offer folks better care and professional ism that I was never able to recieve myself. The Psychiatric profession and the RC Church are both on a desperate c ollussion course. They can’t last with their sins much longer. Thanks and keep up the good work work.
I think that the majority of psychiatrists have forgotten everything taught in medical school. The science of pharmacogenetics is never considered where a patients shows an adverse reaction. Tests are not carried out to ascertain a patient’s metabolic capacity because of the cost. The knowledge is there, but the damage continues. We would not need a human genome project if we are all identical. Everyone is different and some will react not only to drugs, but to food and to endogenous as well as exogenous toxins.
Moreover the discovery that mitochondrial dysfunction is related to neur-psychiatric disturbances, should mean that acidosis from this should be ruled out- it is pretty obvious that this is physical when it happens.
The BMJ’s best practice on psychosis recommends ruling out of physical problems and the current DSM also says physical problems should be ruled out.
In my son’s experience, not only was there no blood tests by the psychiatrists in our NHS, but test results by world renown experts were ignored.
Until we can ensure that every “mentally ill” person has a competent physical investigation, including immune, metabolic and genetic work up, the course of action will always be drug first and to hell with the consequences.
This is an issue of human rights and we have legislation for this- is this how we take action?
As I told Dr David Fryer, Katie was diagnosed as Schizophrenic at age 16 after a suicide attempt after taking Aropax. The Psychiatrist at Bloomfield Psychiatric Hospital, Orange, NSW. Australia took 20 minutes to make
I don’t believe in meds. My background is in Psychology & Rehab Counseling.
My daughter Katie (aged 32 yrs & < 60 kg in weight) had a script written for RISPERDAL CONSTA
written for her 62.5 x 2 by a Dr Murial Reddy who has poor English. The Neurologist at Calvary Hospital said she was on a toxic dose at 37.5 mg with side effects. The Respiridal Consta has been written for her without Cogentin for side affects.
I know I'm asking a lot but can you give me some advice. The Pharmacist was shocked & wouldn't fill the script.
The medication is making no difference to her psychosis except that she has become compliant. Not necessarily ideal.
I'm really worried as I think psychosis is a normal way of coping with trauma. If you have time, could you make some suggestions.
Maybe David may be able to forward to Paul Duckett as well for a suggestion. Life has been hell for her since Aropax.
Kind regards
Stephanie
As I told David, Katie was diagnosed as Schizophrenic at age 16 after a suicide attempt after taking Aropax. The Psychiatrist at Bloomfield took 20 minutes to make his diagnosis.
Terry is in Canberra & seems fine / her youngest daughter Erina is turning 30. I don’t believe in meds. My background is in Psychology & Rehab Counseling.
My daughter Katie (aged 32 yrs & < 60 kg in weight) had a script written for RISPERDAL CONSTA
written for her 62.5 x 2 by a Dr Murial Reddy who has poor English. The Neurologist at Calvary Hospital said she was on a toxic dose at 37.5 mg with side effects. The Respiridal Consta has been written for her without Cogentin for side affects.
I know I'm asking a lot but can you give me some advice. The Pharmacist was shocked & wouldn't fill the script.
The medication is making no difference to her psychosis except that she has become compliant. Not necessarily ideal.
I'm really worried as I think psychosis is a normal way of coping with trauma. If you have time, could you make some suggestions.
Maybe David may be able to forward to Paul Duckett as well for a suggestion. Life has been hell for her since Aropax.
Kind regards
Stephanie
just wondering….if you are a scientologist. having a debate about the dangers of psychiatric drugs and their connection to school shootings. my friend says it is a conspiracy theory put out there by scientologists because they dont believe in psychiatric drugs. your bio doesnt say if you are indeed a scientologist or not, so i would like to know.
Not any connection to scientology. Your friend is wrong about the conspiracy. The data and internal company documents all show a risk so if there is a conspiracy there seems to be one not to talk about the risk which is unfortunate because by understanding it we could greatly mitigate the problems
It was interesting to read your comments about Bridgend. As Director of Bridgend Samaritans between 2007 and 2010 I was closely involved with the crisis. Since it started I argued against the authorities who still to this day insist that the number of suicides in Bridgend County is normal. What happened here is far from normal.
That kind of effect could also prompt an economic crisis, as the paradoxical “wages of sin” prompt insurers to offer lower co-pays to alcoholics and gamblers.
Yep!