Click. AUSTRALIA AND US SHRINKS COMPETE IN DRUGGING CHILDREN.
Click. PENTAGON INSPECTOR GENERAL'S REPORT FINDS DEUTCH BEHAVIOR "EGREGIOUS" (Link to the report.)
AUSTRALIA AND US SHRINKS COMPETE IN DRUGGING CHILDREN
From: Vera Hassner Sharav, President
CIRCARE: Citizens for Responsible Care & Research,
A
Human Rights Organization
Tel.
212-595-8974 FAX: 212-595-9086
veracare@erols.com
FYI
Although the incidence of schizophrenia among children under 12 "is almost
nill" powerful drugs approved for schizophrenia, are being dispensed to
young children in the U.S. and Australia--despite severe adverse side
effects, and despite the absence of medical justification. In Australia,
"At least 1,500 children under 13 had taken either risperidone or
olanzapine, a quarter of them under nine." (front page article from the
Sydney Herald, Nov 20 below)
In Los Angeles, an 11 year old boy, now locked up at Metropolitan Hospital, is a
living example of how a child's health is being destroyed by prescribed
psychotropic drugs in an institutional environment. [Cover story in the Los
Angeles NEW TIMES, "A Terrible Thing to Waste," by Susan Goldsmith,
Nov 16-22, 2000, (excerpt below)
full story:
http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/2000-11-16/feature.html/page1.html
]
Johnny Mack Dixon has been labeled with various psychiatric diagnoses, such as
bipolar disorder and childhood schizophrenia, and prescribed at least 15
psychotropic drugs.
According to New Times, the boy is being given "a combination of powerful
psychiatric drugs by government doctors" which his relatives say makes him
into a zombie. "He often drools, seems sleepy and disoriented much of the
time, and urinates on himself at night. His face is covered with a drug-induced
rash. In the last four years, he has been on at least 15 psychiatric
medications, most of which have never been tested on children and some of which
are not even approved for psychiatric purposes."
"According to Johnny's medical records, which New Times obtained, a county
psychiatrist who is treating him believes he is severely mentally ill -- a
danger to himself and others -- and needs heavy medication to keep his
unpredictable and frightening mood swings in check. But outside
mental-health experts who reviewed some of Johnny's records at New Times'
request say he has deteriorated badly in county care and is the victim of a
dangerous, four-year pharmaceutical onslaught."
"A horse couldn't function on the drugs this boy is on.... He's at risk for
permanent neurological damage," says Dr. Peter Breggin, a Maryland
psychiatrist who has authored several books about psychiatric medications, also
known as psychotropics, and who heads the International Center for the Study of
Psychiatry and Psychology. "He's got two abusers: abuse at home and
psychiatric drug abuse."
"According to medical records, the boy was diagnosed as suffering from
attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder (also known as
manic depression) shortly after arriving at Hillsides. It was then that he
became the target of a veritable deluge of pharmaceuticals under the direction
of a staff psychiatrist. It is not clear if some of Johnny's behavioral problems
were exacerbated and others created by the powerful drugs he was given."
" Within weeks of his arrival, Johnny began taking a laundry list of
medications, some of which were started, then stopped, then started again when
he developed side effects including dizziness, nausea, lethargy, and body
tremors. The staff psychiatrist put him on Tegretol, an anticonvulsant that acts
as a mood stabilizer; Dexedrine, an amphetamine used to treat hyperactive
children; and lithium, a powerful mood-altering agent. The psychiatrist also
kept prescribing Depakote, an antimanic drug, which Johnny had been put on
before arriving at Hillsides. Over the next several months, three different
antipsychotic drugs were tried, and the boy was put on a second medication for
mania."
" But instead of improving, Johnny deteriorated, which independent experts
say was probably a response to his heavy drug regimen. He started washing
his hands obsessively, sometimes 10 to 15 minutes per washing. He threw tantrums
if he found a speck of dirt on his clothing, sat for hours repeating the same
thing until he worked himself into a frenzy, and often refused to eat. According
to notes in his records by a Hillsides staff member, the medications caused
hand, head, and body tremors and other problems, including drooling, lethargy,
nausea, dizziness, and rigidity in his hands. At one point, he was "too
sleepy" to stand up."
"The staffer wrote that he "appears very lethargic, difficult to
communicate with, attempted to set him upon edge of bed, he was shaky and tipped
over."
"When contacted by New Times, the staff psychiatrist refused to comment on
Johnny's care, citing state confidentiality laws. He also declined to comment on
his general approach to medicating children. Because of Johnny's adverse
reactions to the medications, another psychiatrist was brought in to review
them. That doctor deemed the drugs appropriate. But the consulting psychiatrist
recommended that the boy be hospitalized and switched to a different
antipsychotic medication, since the one he was taking caused involuntary muscle
contractions."
" In May 1998, Johnny was placed in a psychiatric unit at Las Encinas
Hospital in Pasadena for six days. When he returned to Hillsides, he was put on
yet another cocktail of medications, records show. By July 1998 -- 10 months
after being sent to Hillsides -- Johnny had been on 11 different psychiatric
drugs in various combinations."
"Those medications just made him talk incoherently.... He would
drool and was sleepy all the time," Kathryn Winzer recalls from her visits
with her grandson at Hillsides. "They had him looking like he was really
crazy, and that wasn't right."
"Johnny's behavior became more bizarre. In the ensuing months, staffers
noted that the little boy was doing alarming and dangerous things. He
hallucinated, had delusions, stuffed a bedspread down his throat in an attempt
to choke himself, pulled out some of his eyebrows, wet his fingers and stuck
them in electrical sockets. He bit himself, and on one occasion declared "I
want to die" and ran into the path of an approaching car. A Hillsides
report last January said he was hearing voices, eating rocks and sand, had
swallowed a toothpick, and had tried to poke his eye out with a
fingernail......"
"The use of all these drugs is a psychiatric and medical assault on
this child," says Dr. Fred A. Baughman, a pediatric neurologist from San
Diego who has authored numerous articles decrying the absence of any scientific
studies of child psychiatric disorders. He recently testified before a
congressional subcommittee on the issue. "Psychiatry has no idea how one of
these drugs affects a kid's brain, let alone a combination of them." ...
According to Ted Chabasinski, an attorney who is an employee of the state Office
of Patients Rights, Metropolitan Hospital in Los Angeles "is a place that
offers children nothing but "drugs and despair." Though it costs
taxpayers $18,000 per year, per child, "It's a garbage dump for children
where they are being loaded with drugs," says Chabasinski. Children are
"locked up like maximum-security prisoners, whith their minds dulled with
drugs for years on end, you see these kids, and they've just given up on
life."
......
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Front Page, Sydney Morning Herald © 20 November, 2000
Adult schizophrenia drugs used to calm nine-year-olds
By JULIE ROBOTHAM, Medical Writer
Powerful drugs recommended for use only in schizophrenic adults
are being prescribed widely for Australian children as young as
four, new figures show.
Schizophrenia is virtually unheard of in such young children and the revelation
has raised fears of falsified diagnoses so that
patients can receive the anti-psychotic drugs.
As well, the calming medications may be masking learning difficulties or abuse
of the child, says Dr Jon Jureidini, head of the department of psychological
medicine at the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide.
Dr Jureidini disclosed the high prescription rate among children in a letter to
the Medical Journal of Australia, to be published today.
Nearly 3,000 Health Insurance Commission approvals, each for six months' supply
of the drugs, were granted in the year to May, he wrote. At least 1,500 children
under 13 had taken either risperidone or olanzapine, a quarter of them under
nine.
In NSW, the prescription rate for children aged nine to 12 was 60 per cent above
the national average - with 33 approvals for every 10,000 children in the State.
These figures refer to prescriptions for schizophrenia subsidised under the
Federal Health Department's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
But the rate could be higher because the drugs can also be obtained through
teaching hospitals and private prescription, for which
there is no central record keeping.
"We don't know they're safe while the brain is still growing," Dr
Jureidini wrote. "We don't know they're effective in children. Giving
medication and calming someone down might mask other issues like learning
difficulties or being abused."
The incidence of schizophrenia among children under 12 was "almost
nil", which meant doctors must be falsifying their diagnoses.
Dr Jureidini got the data from the Health Insurance Commission,
which administers the PBS, after he became concerned that pediatricians in
privatepractice were prescribing the drugs to manage behaviour.
But pediatricians and child psychiatrists criticised his conclusions, saying
they did nothing to help children with extreme behavioural difficulties.
"I have no qualms about using risperidone," said Dr Don Butler, a
Sydney pediatrician. "If it was cheaper and didn't have this stigma I'd use
it a lot more. These are children expelled from school, in homes or
respite care, children with mental retardation or
autism."
A Sydney child psychiatrist who did not want to be named said he used very low
doses of risperidone, which was "very, very useful for conduct disorders
... You get a window of opportunity to do remedial work with these
children".
The president of the pediatrics division of the Royal Australasian College of
Physicians, Dr Jill Sewell, said it was not unusual for doctors to prescribe
drugs which had no specific recommendation for children. This was because drug
companies avoided testing drugs on children.
Dr Sewell said she was surveying the prescriptions for children in order to
develop national guidelines.
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy © November 27, 2000
PENTAGON
IG REPORT FINDS DEUTCH BEHAVIOR "EGREGIOUS"
A new report of the Department of Defense Inspector General (IG) finds that the
conduct of former Deputy Secretary of Defense (and former Director of Central
Intelligence) John M. Deutch with respect to the handling of classified
information during and after his tenure at the Pentagon was
"egregious."
The new IG report, dated August 28, follows a report on the Deutch matter from
the CIA Inspector General that was issued last February. A parallel
investigation was completed by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory
Board in May. And yet another inquiry was initiated by the Department of
Justice which is still pending.
The new DOD IG report was first reported by Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg News and
Defense Week.
The report focuses on the disposition of the various computers that were used by
Deutch while he served at the Pentagon. Pentagon investigators criss-crossed
the country looking for discarded computers that Deutch might have used,
arriving at one point at a Mennonite School in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, where five
computers and six loose hard drives were retrieved. (Only one of the hard
drives at the school turned out to have DOD-related information on it but it was
unclassified and, in any case,
unattributable to Dr. Deutch.)
The inspector general report does not provide a damage assessment, but
specifically criticizes Deutch's storage of classified files on the computer
used to access his AOL account. "Dr. Deutch's practice of using
computers in this manner was extremely risky in that a computer 'hacker' could
have gained on-line access to Dr. Deutch's computer and the information stored
in temporary files on the hard drive."
The security violations committed by Deutch have frequently been compared to
those committed by Wen Ho Lee to highlight the sharp discrepancy in the
government's handling of the two cases.
But in several respects, the Deutch case bears closer comparison to that of Dr.
Glenn Seaborg, the esteemed Nobel laureate who chaired the Atomic Energy
Commission from 1961 to 1971, and who was accused by the Department of Energy in
the 1980s and early 1990s of improperly storing classified information at his
home.
Both the Deutch and Seaborg cases involved agency heads. Both men kept a
daily diary in which classified information was found. And both stored
their diaries and related records in unsecure facilities at their homes. (Seaborg's
records were all hardcopy, however, and immune to hypothetical cyber-theft.)
The different outcomes of the two cases tell us something about the shift in the
political climate that has taken place. The Seaborg case was handled with
kid gloves. "Considerations of Dr. Seaborg's stature precluded more
aggressive action," said one senior security official quaintly. Third
parties consistently sided with Seaborg in his dispute with the Energy
Department. Senator Moynihan even introduced legislation
that would have required DOE to declassify Dr. Seaborg's journal and return it
to him. In contrast, Dr. Deutch has been roundly vilified and investigated
over and over again. Roughly speaking, the Seaborg case is to the Deutch
case what the Deutch case is to the Wen Ho Lee case. There is, in other
words, a shifting and somewhat arbitrary double standard at work.
A copy of the new DoD Inspector General report may be found here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/ig_deutch.html