Psychiatrists and the APA now love to claim they “abandoned” the chemical imbalance theory long ago and that it was never really a core belief, yet this is nothing more than damage control. The truth is the American Psychiatric Association has never issued an official position statement debunking or retracting the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness — a theory that has since been thoroughly disproven by research, including Joanna Moncrieff’s landmark 2022 umbrella review. While Big Pharma flooded television and print with misleading advertisements featuring bouncing Zoloft balls and claims that antidepressants “correct” chemical imbalances in the brain, the APA and its leaders remained conspicuously silent.
They never launched a national television campaign or major public warning to counter the false narrative they knew was driving millions of unnecessary prescriptions. This decades-long failure to correct the record allowed pharmaceutical marketing to mislead the public and fuel the explosive rise in psychiatric drug use, all the while psychiatry continued to profit from the drug company narrative.
“We do not have an independent, valid test for ADHD, and there are no data to indicate ADHD is due to a brain malfunction.” – Final statement of the panel from the National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference on ADHD
This is a great blog by @psychgeist52. It spells out, very clearly & concisely, why the burden now falls on psychiatry to justify its authority, not on critics to justify their opposition.
https://t.co/9t6zthapwR
The late Loren Mosher — psychiatrist and former Chief of NIMH’s Center for Studies of Schizophrenia — in his 1998 resignation letter to the American Psychiatric Association (APA):
“Unfortunately, APA reflects, and reinforces, in word and deed, our drug dependent society… This is not a group for me. At this point in history, in my view, psychiatry has been almost completely bought out by the drug companies. The APA could not continue without the pharmaceutical company support of meetings, symposia, workshops, journal advertising, grand rounds luncheons, unrestricted educational grants etc. etc. Psychiatrists have become the minions of drug company promotions.
"APA, of course, maintains that its independence and autonomy are not compromised in this enmeshed situation.
“Anyone with the least bit of common sense attending the annual meeting would observe how the drug company exhibits and industry sponsored symposia draw crowds with their various enticements while the serious scientific sessions are barely attended. Psychiatric training reflects their influence as well; i.e., the most important part of a resident curriculum is the art and quasi-science of dealing drugs, i.e., prescription writing.
“These psychopharmacological limitations on our abilities to be complete physicians also limit our intellectual horizons. No longer do we seek to understand whole persons in their social contexts rather we are there to realign our patients' neurotransmitters. The problem is that it is very difficult to have a relationship with a neurotransmitter whatever its configuration…
“…We condone and promote the widespread overuse and misuse of toxic chemicals that we know have serious long term effects: tardive dyskinesia, tardive dementia and serious withdrawal syndromes. So, do I want to be a drug company patsy who treats molecules with their formulary? No, thank you very much.”
As Chief of NIMH’s Center for Studies of Schizophrenia, Mosher promoted drug-free schizophrenia treatment through his Soteria Project, which housed patients in supportive, home-like environments with non-professional staff emphasizing interpersonal care instead of antipsychotic drugs.
He was dismissed from his position as chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 1980, largely because of his strong advocacy for the drug-free Soteria Project and his vocal criticism of the increasing reliance on antipsychotics.
“Antidepressants are commonly prescribed to convicted sex offenders because they are so good at stifling the libido and causing sexual dysfunction. They are also the evidence-based first-line treatment for men who suffer from premature ejaculation.”
David Wayne (@DescribeHealth)
Here are interviews with psychiatrists at the American Psychiatric Association in 2006. Now 20 years later they still have no confirmatory tests for any mental disorder, they still play trial and error with drugs and still have no idea if the drugs will "work" or not.
@keepontruckin78 We are filing complaints with the review boards and oversight agencies in Canada but you are right, the law needs to be changed and that is not just in Canada. https://t.co/xdbghOQHbd
The APA has begun to develop deprescribing guidelines (40 years too late) not out of care for patients, but out of fear of power - the government has had enough & this scares them... To bias it, the APA has commissioned the most pharma-compromised Drs in the US to write them...😏
.@GSK aggressively marketed Paxil off-label for children from 1998 to 2003 until trials showed it increased risk of suicide in teens. A 2004 lawsuit revealed GSK had actively buried negative safety and efficacy data regarding children while publishing a fraudulent study (written by a ghostwriter) claiming Paxil is safe and effective for teens. This study (Study 329) was never retracted.
Full interview with psychiatric RN David Wayne at 4:30pm CT
Veteran journalist Douglas Kennedy exposed the links between antidepressants, suicide, and violence as well as the chemical imbalance fraud as far back as 2001 and continued with more than 25 exposes.