8 papers published so far from our ECT survey. 3 more have been submitted.
Thank you to the 1,000+ recipients and relatives who completed the survey. We are doing our best to give you a voice.
https://t.co/cvpwExmDFP
Good to see senior academics addressing an issue that affects the health and medical management of millions of people with sarcasm and disdain. Very sad that tribalism and reputational management takes precedence over managing a major public health issue.
Our analysis of the FDA approval of escitalopram in children with anxiety is finally published. In the approval trial, children were more likely to become suicidal on escitalopram than to improve, yet the drug was approved. We reveal the pro-drug bias of the regulatory system which is not protecting children's welfare. @markhoro@NaudetFlorian. https://t.co/7diqb3VjKo
Fantastic initiative from the true blue Aussie heroes at Adelaide University - the launch of the "Not Broken" project aiming to counter the harmful narrative of broken brains, chemical imbalances and lifelong mental illnesses that have been propagated by mental illness boosters and bring people's problems back into sensible, humanistic focus. Link below.
It is interesting to hear the internal debate of the APA here. I can see they are put in a difficult position. To agree that it is worthwhile for there to be official deprescribing guidelines (which is very hard to disagree with – disagreement involves the assumption that all psychiatric drugs should be given life-long, a claim even beyond the pale for even the most reductive biological psychiatrist) involves admitting guilt that this has not been done in 40 years of practice and that the government needed to step in.
The opposite option is to decry this as a radical step from a secretary of HHS who is known to hold other controversial views. This is made difficult as attempts to paint this as ‘the government coming for your drugs’ has been shown to be caricature of what is a sensible process to update guidelines and foster an ignored by important practice.
The canniest move on the chess board is the ‘fake fix’ – proffering a hastily put together deprescribing textbook by the pre-eminent architect of mass prescribing (Stephen Stahl) or a complex exercise in obfuscation by the ASCP in their deprescribing consensus statement, both of which minimise or ignore the major issues (minimise withdrawal, de-center tapering and re-iterate again and again that relapse is a major risk and people should not stop their drugs, ignoring all the obvious flaws with research that systematically mis-classified withdrawal as relapse) as evidence that they are already dealing with the problem. Never mind that these initiative both came out 40 years after these drugs came on the market, after these bodies have issued thousands of missives that have increased prescribing, and that Stahl’s book enshrines existing dogma (with very, very pretty but irrelevant diagrams) of reducing drugs in 4-8 weeks using existing tablets and readily diagnosing relapse or adding more drugs if unpleasant symptoms arise.
I certainly hope the more enlightened voices willing to face the reality of the problem rather than seek to take refuge in denial, minimisation or vilification of the messenger will prevail, but it seems like this may not be the case…
@MaryBowdenMD@GSK I was a teenager when the psychiatrist my parents sent me to told me I should take Paxil. Made me fat and lethargic, and suicidal when I stopped it a few years later. Withdrawal was misinterpreted as "treatment-resistant depression," and I became a permanently disabled patient.
@ICNurses@gnwhocc@Erica_BurtonRN We have to cancel psychiatric nursing and forge a new way forward - Wand - 2024 - International Journal of Mental Health Nursing - Wiley Online Library https://t.co/Oz1zadoVFG
A well-argued rejoinder to the bilious tide of saint-claiming going on right now. From a business owner/originator who clearly knows what he’s talking about. Bravo
@markhoro It is really sad that someone like Dr Mark Horowitz is attacked by senior Psychiatrists who block his career. He will be remembered as one of the few who spoke the truth about psychiatric drugs and, by so doing, helped thousands of people abandoned and misled by his profession
This study clearly illustrates the misinformation and yes I'm going to say it, lies being told to ECT patients and their families, when they're in a most vulnerable position. Appalling malpractice, but the ECT cheerleaders will always fail to account for this abysmal performance.
Psychiatry said there was no evidence of AD withdrawal.
"How can you say that when you don't even take stock of thousands of reports from patients who are going up the wall with withdrawal and the anxiety it creates for them."
Charles Medawar warned of a looming crisis in 2003.
@JDaviesPhD@ReadReadj Unsurprising when their lucrative and powerful (though flimsy) business model is under threat. Psychiatry controls the media narrative down here in Aus.
@ompsychiatrist This outdated tone deaf term 'treatment resistant' has to go. Implying the 'treatment' is not the problem, it's the person's fault for resisting the treatment. The 'treatment' is afforded no blame at all.
Such professionally self serving language!