by Nelson, Dr. Christopher's Herb Shop
Today we live in an age of new medicines. Oddly enough, the most dominant forms of health care, the use of synthetic drugs and psychiatry, are both newborns in the field of medicine. Drugs have been around for less than 100 years. The use of psychiatry as it is now practiced is also pretty new.
It wouldn't be fair to say that mental disorders are something new, although many more people seem to be considered mentally impaired than in times past. Depression, anxiety and other diseases are receiving more attention now. The psychiatric drugs used to treat these conditions are what I consider to have some of the more horrifying side effects, yet they are so commonplace.
This is a topic I tend to get more emotional on. Partly because of the hell the patient goes through, partly because it epitomizes the corruption of the medical establishment in my eyes, and partly because the treatments are crippling. But the part that bothers me the most is that much of the disease is caused by the treatment itself, the damage is catastrophic, and worst of all, the natural protocol is quite simple and effective, making all the horror unnecessary in the first place. So we will have a special two part newsletter discussing how we can bring joy into the lives of those suffering from severe mental disturbances, while avoided the chemical rape of their minds.
That might have all sounded a little to harsh. But it isn't much different from what some of the former higher ups in the pharmaceutical industry had to say. I'll be sure to quote them and let you get it from the horse's mouth.
Let us go back to the recent origins of our psychiatric medications. Sigmund Freud is considered the father of modern psychiatry, and his work made Sweden the forerunner in psychiatric care. During his time, there were really only two widely used drugs- amalgamated mercury compounds and the addictive opium tincture. Some other drugs were later developed, but the need for better psychiatric drugs was still apparent.This little fact became very important when Elli Lily and Co. began to develop a revolutionary drug.
From the beginning, this drug was intended to primarily generate massive profits. That's not such a bad thing, but that was the reasoning for what then followed. Most people do not know that this drug, which is now known as Prozac®, was first intended as a weight loss supplement.(1) The market for weight loss is huge in America, and most health stores have enough supplements to prove it. But that was not good enough for Elli Lily and Co, because only fat people would need Prozac®. Then the idea came to use it for mood. Everybody feels sad now and then. If sadness were a disease, then everyone would need it!
Because it would be marketed as a psychiatric drug, if it got approval from Sweden for the treatment of mental disease, it would pass the strictest standards for a psychiatric drug and could be used worldwide with a glowing rating. And rightly so. The Swedish have relentless standards for psychiatric care and earn their place as No. 1 in the world for the approach they take, if that's the route you want to go.
That turned out to be the biggest obstacle though. Prozac® had a major problem. Perfectly happy people would take it and either become incredibly violent or commit suicide in the clinical trials. Sure, a nasty side effect can happen to one in a million people who take a drug, but it was happening much too often. Furthermore, it was causing depression.(2) None of that looks good for an antidepressant. Particularly when stable people with no history of depression violently murder their spouses then hang themselves.(3)
This was when trying to approve Prozac® in Germany in 1984 it was denied (back when it was called Fluoxetine). A German employee of Lilly and Co. provided this synopsis to his bosses:
"The clinical symptoms of depressive disorder used by Lilly were invalid because it did not correspond to any scientific standard. Furthermore, Fluoxetine was completely unsuitable for the treatment of depression, if you looked at the benefits and risks of the active ingredient. The German Federal Health office found almost no use, whatsoever. Instead they found more and more frequent side effects, some of which were particularly serious: among others, that patients without depression obviously became depressive after taking the drug.”
So how was it finally approved? More clinical studies or a change in the way it was made? No. It was up to a now former pharmaceutical representative named John Virapen to get Sweden's approval. In his autobiography documenting his work in the pharmaceutical industry, Side Effects: Death, Mr. Virapen explains how Prozac® was approved as a drug.
He first called the doctors testing it in Sweden and asked them to approve the drug. He said that they started laughing and said that it didn't work. After some digging, Varapen found out who would ultimately make the decision on whether or not it would be approved. He had a meeting with this individual and asked him what it would take to get Prozac® approved. "Moneys is always useful." was the reply. So after bribing this official with a mere $20,000, the drug was approved.(4)
So this is the foundation of the most common form of treatment for mental disorder in our country. My argument against Prozac® isn't so much the 1 in 4 who will feel suicidal, becoming dangerous to themselves or a group of other people, or that it turns people into zombies, that negative press is buried, or even that it isn't as effective as a natural protocol. My opinion is that it shouldn't be used because from the very beginning it was pronounced inneffective by the experts testing it. It is used now because it is cheap to produce, is sold with astronomical markup, and fraudulently approved with bribery and inflated test statistics.
So maybe you might ask yourself whether or not you want your kid, someone you love or even some person you don't even know using this drug or one of its duplicates. If you want to use a drug to 'cure' your depression, it's probably worth your time to get John Virapen's book and thoughtfully read it, and then make an informed choice. If you feel uncomfortable taking the conventional medical route, maybe something in the next newsletter will appeal to you.
1. Side Effects: Death [Pg: 74]
2. arznei-telegramm I/2005
3. (David Healy is a well known psychiatrist and expert on Prozac® who had knowledge of it’s test data. In 1999 he said it would be realistic for 250,000 out of 1,000,000 have tried to commit suicide as a result of taking Prozac.
3. Side Effects: Death [Pg: 93]
Find Dr. Christopher’s Herbal Formulas, single herbs, essential oils, books and more at Dr. Christopher’s Original Herb Shop: www.drchristophersherbshop.com.
NOTICE: All information in this newsletter is given out as information only and is not intended to diagnose or prescribe.
