August, 2005 - Nr. 8
OPINION LETTER:
by Dr. Paul Jaconello
Doctor Jaconello is the Medical Director of the Jaconello Health Centre for Nutritional and Preventive Medicine
Psychiatric drugs can be lethal and have caused death by suicide in the drug taker and death by homicide of innocent children, adolescents and bystanders.
A physician has as his or her prime directive,
"At heart do no harm".
Unfortunately and to the dismay of many, psychiatry is in the business of prescribing dangerous medications that change personality, have a myriad of side effects and cause a disruption in the internal environment of the nervous system under the guise of treating a "chemical imbalance" with no laboratory testing confirming such.
In fact, American Psychiatric President, Steven Shafstein admitted that there was no way to test for a "chemical imbalance" as the cause of mental disorders. People magazine (July 11, 2005) quoted Dr. Shafstein as saying, "We do not have a clean-cut lab test."
Tom Cruise increased the public’s awareness on the Today Show (Friday, June, 2005) in which he stated that " psychiatry is a pseudoscience" and criticized actress Brooke Shields in taking antidepressants for her postpartum depression.
In fact, too many "depressed" postpartum women are given antidepressants (SSRIs) instead of looking at the need for "pregnancy recovery", the necessities to replenish postpartum nutrient reserves. It is bad medicine to match a set of symptoms to the cure of a single medication, but this is being done without any attempt to find out the underlying causes and factors and treating these. This is exemplified by giving amphetamine-like drugs to children with "attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome" without any attempt to give a thorough examination and looking for nutritional, environmental and endocrine abnormalities.
The FDA, finally ordered labelling changes on June 28th, to methylphenidate (Ritalin) products, including Concerta to warn that these drugs can cause "psychiatric events". These are described as "visual hallucinations, suicidal ideation, psychotic behaviour, as well as aggression or violent behaviour.
In fact, it should be mandatory that all persons suffering from mental dysfunctional symptoms be subjected to a thorough examination and evaluation for the presence of nutritional deficiencies, toxic metal body burden, food sensitivities, endocrine imbalances such as hypothalamic/pituitary/adrenal axis abnormalities, blood glucose abnormalities and thyroid hormone imbalance; amino acid and essential fatty acid deficiencies, chronic infections and genetic polymorphic abnormalities associated with poor methylation activity and medical detoxification pathways.
These issues are rarely addressed it is much easier to issue a prescription of Paxil, Ritalin or whatever to the next patient.
A good diet, tailored nutrient supplementation, detoxification and exercise are the key treatments, not potentially dangerous drugs that can lead to suicidal behaviour and psychotic outburst. In fact, none of the SSRIs increase the net amount of neurotransmitters but only fool the brain into thinking the levels of neurotransmitters have increased.
These drugs deplete precursors to make neurotransmitters if there are not enough of these to work with, so that stores will become depleted. This is why people find it so difficult to off of them.
Also be warned that any individual who stops these drugs suddenly can suffer a severe rebound depression and even commit suicide and this deleterious effect can be sudden and profound. A person has to be weaned off the medication under medical advice and supervision.
I believe that our health system needs to address this situation as to the danger these medications have on people and that it addresses safe and effective ways to manage the mentally ill.
It may be easy to take a pill for whatever "ails" us but it is not an answer and does not address the underlying causes of why we become "mentally" ill and is just not effective and potentially dangerous.
Paul Jaconello, MD
Medical Practioner with a special interest in nutritional medicine.
The Jaconello Health Centre and other health letters
