18 percent

March, 28, 2018 | 26 Comments

Comments

  1. I can’t remember if it was 18% but another org was trying to piggy back off Duncan Double’s critical psychiatry blog – praising the work he was doing and the input by commentators – then inviting membership and support and sharing campaigning expertise – turned out down the line payments were expected. 18% might clarify it was them.

    • Of course Zach and 18percent are very welcome to comment. 18 percent looks v recent so if the DD material was a while back its likely to be someone else. I imagine there are a great many of these. I get several requests a month offering to write content for DH and for rxisk

      D

  2. Johnson & Johnson are also major players behind an organisation calling itself the European Health Parliament which operates in Brussels.

    http://www.ageofautism.com/2017/11/the-european-health-parliament-bogus-institution-is-industry-front.html

    It must be made clear that European Health Parliament is only a pretend institution of the European Union and a front for industrial interests, though no doubt actual European Union institutions such as the European Medicines Agency (which is 87% funded by industry) are equally untrustworthy.

    https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-1

  3. Often people wonder why I, and other reluctant patient activists who’ve been burned by corporate psychiatry, are so cynical about “Mental Health Awareness” campaigns. And why we don’t trust the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), even when they do nice things or lobby to save public services.

    And why we roll our eyes when yet another bright shiny campaign kicks off to “challenge” the “stigma” around mental illness.

    And why we’re suspicious of most new online support groups, or positive-encouragement apps–or apps that promise to monitor our smartphone use and social media postings to see when we might be edging towards “suicidal” or “hypomanic.”

    This is why.

    Zach’s crowdfunding campaign for “18percent”, just like his online fund drive for NAMI, was on a platform called CaringCrowd.com, which is “proudly sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.” (The division of J&J that makes Rx drugs is called Janssen, which allows Americans to keep associating the J&J name with hand lotion and baby powder.)

    One goal is simply to generate some positive feelings for J&J (Janssen) by letting them play fairy godmother to heartwarming projects. The other goal? To scrape the data of any poor fool who pours his or her heart out on a site like 18percent, and incorporate what they learn into selling the next big antipsychotic drug.

    Here’s the story of 18percent as celebrated on Goodcrowd.info, sponsored by CaringCrowd.com, sponsored by J&J.

    http://goodcrowd.info/death-inspires-crowdfunding-success-fund-training-prevent-tragedy/

  4. Zach Schleien

    https://medium.com/@ZachSchleien/slack-community-for-mental-health-blending-health-and-technology-3d196db73367

    Editor of Dating Hacks, Paleo Eats

    Entrepreneur. Foodie. Traveler. Find me at: http://www.facebook.com/zschleien

    Zach Schleien
    3 December 2017 ·

    I am so grateful to all of you who donated! We raised over $9,500, 100% of our goal for the National Alliance on Mental Illness NAMI in honor of Louis! The money will train 3 teachers and support 360 parents of children and teens with schizophrenia. Thank you, Johnson & Johnson and CaringCrowd for making this possible!

    Hacking the Internship Process (The Work Book Series) Kindle Edition
    by Bill Hobbs (Author),‎ Zachary Schleien (Author)

    ‘a minor in Marketing’

    https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06W9GCQVR

    Zachary Schleien is a recent graduate receiving a Master of Science in Information Management from the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University (Dec ’15). He received his B.A. in History and a minor in Marketing (’12).

    He was a 2014-2015 Kauffman Entrepreneurship Engagement Fellow and has been invited by non-profits to talk on topics such as entrepreneurship and leadership. He currently works for Johnson & Johnson in their IT Leadership Development Program (ITLDP). He also runs an online food business with his mom called LIFT Protein Muffins, which offers a meal in a muffin. His passions lie in growth hacking, entrepreneurship, and nutrition.

    https://medium.com/@ZachSchleien

    Subreddits for Mental Illness

    Feeling down or upset? I did some research and came up with every subreddit for mental illness.

    https://medium.com/@ZachSchleien/subreddits-for-mental-illness-6d48f5766d9a

    Zach Schleien Retweeted

    Charles Schleien‏ @CharlesSchleien Mar 23

    Keeping medication out increases the likelihood of a poisoning. Instead of keeping medication out as a reminder to take a dose, set an alarm in your phone so you can remember when to take or give a dose. #PoisonPreventionWeek!

  5. I Googled the name Zach Schleien and noticed that someone of that name works at Johnson & Johnson. Here are the top two results…

    Zach Schleien | Professional Profile – LinkedIn
    https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharyschleien
    View Zach Schleien’s full profile. … Zachary Schleien is a recent graduate receiving a Master of Science in Information Management from the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University (Dec ’15). … He currently works for Johnson & Johnson in their IT Leadership Development …

    Zach Schleien (@ZachSchleien) | Twitter
    https://twitter.com/zachschleien?lang=en
    The latest Tweets from Zach Schleien (@ZachSchleien). Eating healthy, learning, Business Technology Leader @JNJCares. New York, NY.

  6. Marketing mix of Johnson and johnson – The 4 P’s of J&J

    This globally acknowledged brand has targeted every segment of the society with age being no bar. It has products for babies, children, teenagers and even adults.

    https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-johnson-johnson-4-ps-jj/

    Popular cartoons like The Little Mermaid, Pocahontas and Winnie the Pooh and Pals have also been included in the ads for baby care products making them highly popular amongst the viewers.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/johnson-and-johnson-agrees-to-pay-22-billion-in-drug-marketing-settlement/2013/11/04/a7092342-456a-11e3-b6f8-3782ff6cb769_story.html?utm_term=.c321564faba4

    “Today we reached closure on complex legal matters spanning almost a decade,” Johnson & Johnson general counsel Michael Ullmann said in a statement. “This resolution allows us to move forward and continue to focus on delivering innovative solutions that improve and enhance the health and well-being of patients around the world.”

    Over 50, have you had your Shingrix .. Vaccination ..

  7. re my comment above – thanks all you sleuthers – it was the european health parliament I was thinking of so it looks like they go fishing. So do we in a sense but the title of the the organisation is misleading and unethical. I did actually write to one of their MEPs ages ago after they put an unusual message on DD’s site – to ask for help with funding the Rxisk campaign – no answer of course! Then twigged what they were up to after reading more of their publicity. It is worrying though that they are targeting young people specifically now and cleverly through cttees consisting of but not headed by young people.

  8. Motive?

    Seems a bit odd that someone with obvious links to pharma and NAMI would reach out to you, David? It’s a bit like a Villa fan reaching out to a Birmingham City fan who is the editor of an online magazine.

    I am left wondering at what the possible motives are?

    1. You have a popular blog so advertising via a guest post would be beneficial.

    2. He has an opinion that is different to yours and wants to try and get his point across.

    3. He hasn’t researched you and doesn’t know who you actually are.

    4. J&J or NAMI told him to do it.

    It seems bizarre that he would reach out then fall silent after you post about him. Most, if not all, would respond to set the record straight.

    Do you, or anyone else who has left a comment here, have any idea what his possible motive is?

    It’s a head scratcher for me.

    • Bob

      I’m not sure there has to be a grand plan. I don’t think pharma worries about these things. Its a throw mud at the wall strategy. Some sticks. They don’t mind which bit of wall it sticks to

      D

      • Bob & David,

        It may also be poor “intelligence”. I remember a UNESCO pamphlet a few years ago, which I cannot track down now, which labelled certain websites “anti-vax” some of which were on their own side. Probably the approach would never have happened if Zach had simply done some homework.

        John

  9. Maybe he’s simply casting a wide net to ensure a successful launch. After watching the videos above I have the impression these efforts also have an end goal of impressing shareholders. The fact that Louis complained of adverse effects seems to be lost in all of the feel-good hoopla. It’s simply: Louis didn’t accept his diagnosis or adhere to taking medication, but with the help of this new community launched by a friend in his name, we hope you will. Impressive!

  10. “One of my closest friends” or “our family friend?

    Schizophrenia or bipolar I?

    “Took his own life” or got lost hiking solo

  11. Given Zach’s industry ties and his letter’s effort to conceal them, I ponder, “If Louis were alive today, would he applaud his friend’s connections to J & J?” The company was forced to pay 2.2 billion in criminal and civil fines for improperly promoting the antipsychotic drug Risperdal to older adults, children and people with developmental disabilities.

    Would Louis support Zach’s fundraising for NAMI, a pharma front masquerading as a grassroots organization? NAMI targets families for donations that NAMI then uses to further the goals of the companies who made the products that in many cases contributed to the family member’s demise. It’s a sick but lucrative business model. The families NAMI fleeces seldom realize the wool was pulled over their eyes.

    While Zach might have good intentions, he should be aware that delusion can be a symptom of schizoaffective disorder. Perhaps these links might prompt better contact with reality:

    J & J Risperdal: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/business/johnson-johnson-to-settle-risperdal-improper-marketing-case.html

    NAMI: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/grassleys-nami-probe-may-want-to-look-at-pfizer-whistleblower-suit/

  12. this is a terribly common story all over the Western world.

    The one undoubtedly good thing about the new and gruelling film Unsane is that one of its villains is the ever-growing power of psychiatry and the pill industry that has taken it over.
    Claire Foy plays an unhappy young woman who unwisely tells her woes to a counsellor and suddenly finds herself locked up in a mental institution, being dosed with pills which are clearly making her genuinely ill. On a much smaller scale, this is a terribly common story all over the Western world.

    I do wish people were more alert to it.

    This is Peter Hitchens’ Mail on Sunday column

    User Reviews

    Great film.
    25 March 2018 | by N-whymark

    All filmed on an I phone. Saw this at a preview thinking it wouldn’t be very good but was surprised how good it was. Based on a women whose stalked and ends up in a psychiatric hospital. The stalker is creepy. Would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a thriller

    Un sane ..

    • Thank you Annie! That is just frickin’ adorable. How nice to know that while Zach raised $9,500 for NAMI, Johnson & Johnson gave them $340,000 last year. (And that was kind of a slow year; they gave $540,000 to NAMI in 2016.)

      https://www.nami.org/getattachment/About-NAMI/Our-Finances/Major-Foundation-Corporate-Sponsorships/WebRegistryQ42017.pdf

      Part of that was a dedicated $100,000 grant for “First Episode Psychosis.” This is where things get serious. People of Louis & Zach’s generation are very important to J&J just now. Here in the States (and worldwide) there is a very big focus on developing programs for young adults facing a first psychotic episode, with the stated goal of improving their long-term prospects. Some of these programs are pretty good — innovative, open to exploring the real-life stresses that may have triggered the episode, committed to using meds as sparingly as possible.

      Others are just the opposite. J&J in particular is putting its money on depot antipsychotic injections that deliver a 1-3 month dose at a time. They are sponsoring studies where young folks like Louis are essentially given no way out of “medication adherence.” They are placed on depot injections of a fairly high dose of Invega (paliperidone) for two whole years. Many of these young people will NOT be in the first stages of a lifelong disease with a biological basis at all! And even for those who may be, this course of treatment will exact a high price.

      THAT is the treatment approach NAMI will “educate” the parents of guys like Louis about. Your kid has a brain disorder that modern medicine understands, but he does not. Lifelong Medication Adherence is his only hope. Do what you gotta do to make that happen — and don’t forget our injectable products! Invega Sustenna (one month, $1667) and Invega Trinza (3 months, $7500).

      Half a million a year to NAMI? For J&J, that’s a bargain.

  13. I don’t quite get the reason for ’18 percent’. Zach’s intentions – presumably showing a genuine reaction to the loss of a friend – are, of course, plausible and could be set quite apart from the fact that he works for J&J. If so, then I would say that he’s rather naïve if he hasn’t thought through the fact that the followers here are going to mistrust that fact to some degree.
    Quite apart from that, MIND already run a similar service with their ‘Ele Friends’ here in the UK. Couldn’t Zach have linked up with that if his intentions are purely for the benefit of MH? Ele Friends is a ‘chat community’, a very close, supportive group, with the overseeing eye of MIND ever present in crises needing intervention beyond that which can be provided by fellow sufferers alone. Sharing is obviously helpful in MH but it can become burdensome if you do not have an ‘expert eye from above’ who can provide that ‘extra’ in real need.
    If their goal is genuinely to provide a ‘sounding board’ type of support then I would suggest that Zach and his friend David would do far better by getting in touch with MIND and linking in to a service that is already up and running……and would, possibly, make better use of any funds which they can raise!

  14. There is a small (I assume) self help organisation called “Mind Our Minds” in UK, run by a lady called Jade Burrell, who herself suffers bi polar disorder, and seems at the moment to be running the blog and posts whilst in hospital herself and unwell. I always took this group on face value, did wonder about their funding but tbh haven’t really dug very deep as they seemed such a self-running group. I have posted references to our son’s experiences with ADRs, RoAccutane, on there from time to time. I read it daily and lots of people suffering mental unwellness do write their ideas and experiences there. Sometimes they can be fairly strongly put, mostly they highlight inadequacies of the MHRA system in UK, and they advise each other on ways of coping. Currently Jade Burrell has been asking everyone for ideas of what therapies or pastimes have helped individuals cope with their illnesses with a view to compiling and publishing their own small handbook on this. I have been reading them and they are interesting. Nowhere are medications really promoted, as far as I can see. I have often made reference to RxISK and they do share RxISK articles from time to time.

    It would be brilliant if Annie could do some sleuthing on this organisation, who funds it etc. I do hope it’s nothing like the J&J set up.

    On a similar tack…..a truly wonderful service now up and running for 6 successful years…..
    ‘Suicide Crisis’ is a self funded fantastically effective Cheltenham- based organisation, started in 2012 by Joy Hibbins, CEO, ably backed up by carefully selected trained therapists as volunteers and a team of like minded psychiatrists who can be consulted if needed. Joy will not take any corporate money, she runs purely on small donations from people like us. Although the NHS are impressed by her results and might like to take her under their umbrella in some counties, she remains independant but is only too happy to share her method of working with them in seminars, which is actually incredibly simple and logical. See her website ‘Suicide Crisis’ and read her various articles in the Papers to understand exactly how she works. In a nutshell, it’s all about kindness, compassion and confidentiality for the suicidal person. It’s also about trying to enable a suicidal person to see the same therapist always, so they don’t have to repeat their story endless times. It’s very much about saying ‘we care about you, we do not want you to end your life, tell us how you are feeling and what we can do to help you find life worth living again.’ So far they have had zero suicides since 2012.

    Joy Hibbins has experienced derision from her own health authority about a person like herself, bi polar, thinking she can possibly start and run such a group, implying she’d be unstable. Her feeling appears to be, ‘people like me know what it feels like, we know what’s most helpful to us, so why not let us get on with it along with good, like-minded professional medical arms-length back up.’ Also, I myself would like to add that those of us who have friends who are bi polar know that often these people are also blessed with exceptionally insightful minds when they are well, great energy, and intelligence. They are the movers and shakers of this world, remember Churchill, where would we now be without him? But he was difficult to live with and work for at times.

    You can see Joy presenting her ideas on suicide prevention to the Parliamentary Health Committee when the Government were putting together their Report to which many of us contributed, (I need Annie’s help to find the link) to hear her speak and see what a calm, caring and thoroughly reasonable person she is. Well worth listening to.

    Finally – I am sick and tired of hearing the mantra “Oh, if you feel down/suicidal, don’t keep it to yourself, go and tell the NHS and there is help out there for you.” Frankly, there isn’t the listening compassionate sensible psychiatric help there now that there was in the 1950s,me hitch even then wasn’t ideal, often hit and miss, because there are too many of us, so many left worse than ever after ADRs, and the answer is to help each other. NHS, after the suicidal person has humbled themselves and poured out their heart, will stuff them with drugs or drown them in CBT and if they don’t get off their books pronto, they will brand them as attention seeking. So helping each other as far as possible is vital, to fill in the gaps. Obviously clever old Big Pharma can see the way the movement is going. Thanks DH with this latest post for alerting us to keep mindful of this and not to take everything at face value. Zach’s contacting you may have been a brilliant own goal!

    • Mind our Minds is listed, here, as one of the Groups in the SE described as National Survivor User Network.

      https://www.nsun.org.uk/south-east-england-groups

      Mind Our Minds

      Vision: to make sure UK citizens are provided with mental health services that give everyone that uses them a good quality service when they need them. Aims: • To campaign for better mental health services. • To work with people who care about NHS mental health services to make NHS better. • To hold NHS to account. • To represent Mental Health Users views and make sure these are expressed as much as possible. • To use experiences of NHS to show where there are issues with services and ensure that these experiences are learnt from and acted upon.

      Our Finance

      https://www.nsun.org.uk/our-finance

      NSUN organises meeting to promote a rights based approach to the mental Health Act

      A meeting to be held on 12 April, to put together ideas for letters to the government and Professor Sir Simon Wessely and for a press release which advocate a human rights approach to current plans to reform the Mental Health Act.

      http://www.suicidecrisis.co.uk/

      In 2016 we were asked to give oral evidence about our Suicide Crisis Centre to the Parliamentary Select Committee which undertook an inquiry into the measures needed to prevent suicide. We were also asked by the Government’s adviser on suicide to give a presentation about our work to the national advisory group which he chairs.

      We rely on small grants and public donations. We guarantee that public donations don’t go on staff salaries or advertising – the donated money goes directly towards services for people in suicidal crisis.

      News and Media
      http://www.suicidecrisis.co.uk/news/

      Joy Gives Evidence At Select Committee In Parliament
      Published on November 17, 2016

      Joy was invited to give oral evidence to the Parliamentary Health Select Committee on the 8th November. They are undertaking an inquiry into the action needed to help prevent suicide. Joy was asked to speak to the Select
      Committee about our Suicide Crisis Centre and how it works.

      The video of the Select Committee session is below and Joy’s evidence starts at around 15.26

      https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/health-committee/news-parliament-20151/suicide-prevention-evidence2-16-17/

      At 15.47, the mother of James describes how he died .. “our clients are surviving” says Joy.

  15. The ‘Remit’ Spreads ..

    Wendy Burn Retweeted

    RC of Psychiatrists‏ @rcpsych 6h

    “Although the drugs are not a cure, they do slow down deterioration. Research shows that patients who have access to both drugs do better than those who only have one.” @wendyburn on potentially providing Alzheimer’s patients with an extra drug on the NHS.

    Memantine
    https://www.drugs.com/sfx/memantine-side-effects.html

    RecommendReply

    Avicenna 4 days ago

    Memantine, a glutamate receptor drug, is a drug looking for a disease to treat. It has failed at everything from migraine to pain, now having a tilt at dementia.

    It has no effect at all in randomized trials and over blown claims about slowing brain shrinkage are a gross deception.

    If NICE approves this placebo they really are out of touch.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/drug-rules-on-memantine-eased-to-help-alzheimers-patients-k0fg7h3qw

    Supported by the U.K. Medical Research Council and Alzheimer’s Society.

    http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1106668

    ‘With respect to our third objective, determining whether the combination of donepezil and memantine treatment showed additive benefits, we did not find significant heterogeneity in the efficacy of donepezil or memantine in the presence or absence of the other drug. Subgroup analyses, however, failed to show significant benefits of adding memantine to donepezil treatment’.

    Simon Wessely Retweeted

    New York Times Books‏ @nytimesbooks Apr 3

    The field of psychiatry is, Lauren Slater writes, “still stuttering, with at best a slippery grasp on the science behind its pills and potions, a legion of medical men and woman who can help you in one way but hurt you in another.”

    A Reckoning With an Imperfect Science in ‘Blue Dreams’

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/books/review/lauren-slater-blue-dreams.html?smid=tw-nytbooks&smtyp=cur

    ‘Blue dreams’ ..

Leave a Reply