From: Andrew Johnson
Date: 2005-09-01 11:16:38
Below is part of a recent interview between JonRappaport and an American psychiatrist in theSoutheastern US. He sees patients privately and alsoworks at a large hospital. Increasingly, this man hasbeen expressing doubts about the drugs he has beenprescribing. You can hear John Rappaport on the debate about Health Freedom here: Robin Falkov John Rapparport etc Health Freedom Panel Coast to Coast – Jul 13 2005.mp3 Q: Why do you doubt the drugs?A: They’re toxic and injurious.Q: Which ones?A: All of them.Q: And in particular?A: The antidepressants. Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, and soon. They are not showing, on balance, good results,and patients have been experiencing adverse effects.Q: Such as?A: Sleeplessness, nightmares, erratic behavior, highsand lows, crashes, attempts to commit suicide,exacerbated depression, violence, dramatic personalitychanges.Q: Why do you think this is happening?A: To be honest, I don’t know. But my sense is, ingeneral, that the drugs interfere in unpredictableways with various neurotransmitter systems. I alsobelieve they can work extreme changes in blood sugarlevels and electrolyte levels. You know, it’s not hardto create these effects with chemicals. The body isnot able to integrate them in its normal functioning.I would compare it to suddenly setting up all sorts ofroadblocks and detours and forced lane changes on abusy highway. You will get big trouble.Q: Have you tried to communicate your concerns tocolleagues and medical groups?A: For a short time, I did. But I was given the coldshoulder. I got the distinct feeling I was beingtreated like some wayward child who had his facts allwrong.Q: Who do you blame for this drugging catastrophe?A: At the moment, everybody. The doctors, the drugcompanies, the FDA, the psychiatric teachinginstitutions, even the press. And at some point,patients are going to have to take responsibility andnot follow the orders of their doctors.Q: Do you believe that doctors should cut back andgive the drugs to some people and not others?A: That sounds good, but there is no way to know whateffects the drugs will cause in any given individual,especially as time passes. Even in the short term, Ihave seen some frightening things.Q: Do you believe the profession of psychiatry hasmade some kind of overarching deal with the drugcompanies?A: Yes. The drug companies are everywhere. They sticktheir noses into everyone’s business.Q: What lies about the drugs have you had to purgefrom your own mind?A: The main one is that they’re some kind of miraclebreakthrough. Another one is that I can rely on thejudgments and certifications of the FDA. We’re playingRussian Roulette out here. It’s a very dangeroussituation.Q: Do you believe that some of the school shootingshave resulted from children being on theantidepressants?A: I didn’t, until one day a sixteen-year-old patientof mine showed up for his appointment with a 9mm handgun. Then I began to comb back through reports on abunch of those shootings. I can tell you, it focusesthe mind to see a young patient sitting across fromyou—you’ve put him on an antidepressant and now he’stalking about “a new day” and he takes the gun out ofhis pocket and lays it on a table next to him by theKleenex. You think to yourself, “I may have created akiller and his first victim could be me.” People wantto outlaw all guns. I’d start with the drugs.Q: How about the diagnosis of depression itself?A: I’ve come to realize that you can’t do an interviewwith a patient and then come out with a shorthandassessment. It’s wrong. It reduces all sorts ofproblems down to a label, and then you have yourofficial gateway into the drugs.Q: Your colleagues think you’re over-reacting?A: I think I’m under-reacting. I think we have anepidemic on our hands, but it has nothing to do withmental disorders. It has to do with the chemicalswe’re facilitating.Q: This boy with the gun—were you able to talk himdown?A: I spent two hours with him that day. I told him hewas having a reaction to the drug. At first, it madeno sense to him. He was on a manic sort of ride. Thatreally scared me—that I couldn’t make him see whatwas happening to him. He was in the middle of anepisode and he couldn’t stand outside it. Finally, heeased up a little. He began to weep in my office. Itwasn’t really crying. Tears just ran down his cheekswhile he was talking. He didn’t seem to notice them.He had almost stopped being human. He wasa…creature. He was on a mission of some kind. Hisview of the world had totally changed. In his mindset, destruction was the only course of action.Q: And then?A: He calmed down a little. I was afraid to ask himfor the gun. He just picked it up and put it back inhis pocket. After he left, I called his mother. Shewent home from her job and met him. I had asked her tocall the police but she wouldn’t. Later, she told meshe sat and talked with him for a long time and thenhe handed over the gun. It was a very tense situation.I had her remove the bottle of pills from her medicinecabinet. Then I had to follow up. I weaned him slowlyfrom the drug. It took two months. He finally sort ofreturned to being the person he was. Even then Iwasn’t sure he’d be okay. He was definitely addictedto the drug. Luckily, I didn’t cut him off suddenly.He might have killed people during the withdrawalcycle.Q: Did you continue to see this boy as a patient?A: I did a nutritional assessment with the help of adoctor who is very good with that. We found the boywas having strange reactions to certain soft drinksthat have speed-type boosters in them. We graduallyweaned him off them. Then we discovered he wasreacting to dyes and other chemicals in junk food. Sowe had to change his diet. That wasn’t easy.Q: He was addicted in several ways to chemicals.A: That’s right. There was peer pressure for him tokeep eating junk. All his friends did. They called himweird for going off the food they were eating everyday. Finally, I discovered that, five years before Isaw him, he’d been on Ritalin for a year. You know,for ADHD. He’d been driven into depression by that. Hebasically felt, at eleven, that his life was over. Allpaths and interests were closed to him.Q: How is he now?A: Much better. But he’s not all the way back.Q: Do you think there is permanent brain damage?A: I don’t know. He’s now living outside the US withhis father. I get reports once in awhile.Q: How does he feel about his own experience?A: He wants it to be an example to other families.Q: You didn’t go into medicine to deal with this.A: No. In school, my ideals were high. But I allowedmyself to be led down the garden path. I fell for thesales pitch. I’m telling you, this is not a goodsituation. We are a society on the brink. Somethinghas to be done.Q: How do you feel about Bush’s mental healthscreening program for all children?A: All in all, it may turn out to be the worst thinghe’s done as president. It’s just a tip of his hat tohis pharmaceutical supporters. But theconsequences—if this plan gets rolling—will bedevastating.Q: Is there some underlying principle at work here?Some paradigm that everyone is accepting that isputting us into a bad situation?A: You know the answer to that. It’s the combinationof easy diagnosis plus the drug fix. The pill crazefor everything. Take a drug and everything will workout. I see it as the classic street-drug promotion.Feel good. Take this drug and you’ll feel differentand better. Combine that with the basic immaturity ofmost people and you have the interlock. Why work outyour problems and strive to have the life you wantwhen you can arrive at the best destination with apill? I’d take this a step further. If you stacked upall the tranquilizers and antidepressants, for adults,next to, say, marijuana, as a way of dealing withstress, I’d say that a very modest amount of a mildmarijuana would be more successful than all thoseother drugs at the levels they’re normally prescribed.If I were forced to recommend one or the other, I’d gowith the marijuana. And I’d say the drug companiesknow this. Which is one reason why, in the US, theenforcement on marijuana has been stepping up. Butagain, you’re always dealing with an individual. Eachperson is different. I’ve seen people who react verybadly to pot. It affects them like a psychedelic.Q: You’re saying the science behind theantidepressants is false.A: Absolutely. Judging by the effects of the drugs, ithas to be. It may sound good and proper. All the rightwords are used. But I don’t care about that anymore. Igo by results. My eyes have been opened.Q: Then why are the drug companies pushing thesedrugs?A: I’m not an expert to speak to about that. Certainlythere is the profit motive. But I think there is alsothe myth of progress.Q: What do you mean?A: That myth states that technology must keep makingadvances. It’s the legend of forward motion. Iftechnology is to be seen as good, it has to keepturning out better advances—otherwise something iswrong. And there can’t be anything wrong.Q: It’s like a hectic race.A: Yes. If you stop, you might fall down. Secretsmight be exposed. Shortcomings might show up. So youhave to keep pushing. You have to keep saying you’redoing better and better. I’m sure you can see wherethis gets you. You make new mistakes to cover up oldmistakes. You become careless. You lie. You hirepromotion people to tout your work. You keep the wholething rolling forward, no matter what. That’s where weare.Q: And you were carried on that wave.A: For many years. But now I’ve stopped.Q: Is it uncomfortable?A: Not so much anymore. But at first I was very upsetand angry. I was blaming everyone but myself. I feltlike I was in chains, that my whole education andcareer were at stake. And I was my career. What elsedid I have? Getting off the boat was quite difficult.I had every advantage this society has to offer. Iwas—Q: The expert.A: Yes. That’s a powerful feeling. People come to youwith questions and you have the answers. If you don’t,then you’re thrown down in the pit with everyone else.Part of being a doctor is being above the pit, out ofthe problem. You’re the solution. You don’t want tofall. And the only thing that keeps you from fallingis what you’ve learned. Your knowledge. When you seethat that’s based on lies, you don’t know what to do.It’s like being a priest and realizing that everyonegets to the far shore by his own means. You don’t wantto let go of the doctrine that put you on the pulpit.Q: So what would a new paradigm look like?A: For mental health? We have to get rid of all theold classsifications and disorders. We have to let allthat sink into oblivion. That was wrong. That waslargely fantasy.Q: It was a story.A: We told it, and now we have to stop telling it.Because we’ve ended up intervening in people’s livesin a very pernicious way.Q: Part of the story necessitated that kind ofintervention.A: Yes. And, not to take myself off the hook, butpeople want that kind of story, as you say. They wantthat “expert story.” They want someone else to come inand tell them what to do and what to think and whatdrug to take.Q: Why do you think that is?A: Because people have taken the easy path. They haveopted for what I would call a flat version of reality.If they started adding dimensions on their own—Q: They would be forced to tell their own story.A: In the terms you’re using, yes. That’s what wouldhappen.Q: And how would society look then?A: Much different. Much more risky, perhaps, but muchmore alive. Psychology and psychiatry don’t allow forthat kind of outcome. All mental disorders areconstructs. They’re named by committees, as I’m sureyou know. They’re a form of centralized pattern. Inthis context, the word “shrink” is very appropriate.That’s what we’ve been doing. Shrinking down theperception of what reality and the mind are all about.Q: Can you imagine what would happen if the lid weretaken off?A: I work with that idea every day now.Q: And how does it look?A: More and more appealing.__________________________________________________Do You Yahoo!?Tired of spam? Yahoo! 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