Millions of Dollars of Pharma Money Went to the DSM-5-TR Authors

Source: Talk World Radio: Bruce Levine on Psychiatry and Spinoza

About 60% of the authors had financial ties to industry, which are not disclosed in the DSM. Studies show that conflicts of interest lead to pro-industry decision-making.

Millions of Dollars of Pharma Money Went to the DSM-5-TR Authors

H/T: Unorthodox Truth

Previously:

Scientific Misconduct and Fraud: The Final Nail in Psychiatry’s Antidepressant Coffin

Scientific Misconduct and Fraud: The Final Nail in Psychiatry’s Antidepressant Coffin

“. . . if the major media picks up on this story, they will have the chance to report on what arguably is the worst—and most harmful—scandal in American medical history”

Robert Whitaker, publisher of madinamerica.com, January 3, 2024

Historically, there have always been some patients who report that any treatment for depression—including bloodletting—has worked for them, but science demands that for a treatment to be deemed truly effective, it must work better than a placebo or the passage of time without any treatment. This is especially important for antidepressant drugs—including Prozac, Zoloft, and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), as well as Effexor, Cymbalta, and other serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs)—because all of these drugs have uncontroversial troubling side effects.

Scientific Misconduct and Fraud: The Final Nail in Psychiatry’s Antidepressant Coffin

Related:

Once Radical Critiques of Psychiatry are Now Mainstream, So What Remains Taboo?

Psychedelic Drugs Are Rushing Towards Approval for Therapy. Here’s What’s Next

Psychedelic Drugs Are Rushing Towards Approval for Therapy. Here’s What’s Next

Psychedelic Drugs Are Rushing Towards Approval for Therapy. Here’s What’s Next

Yet one glaring problem remains. Despite promising clinical results, no one knows exactly how psychedelic drugs work in the brain. Examining their actions on brain cells isn’t just an academic curiosity. It could give rise to variants that maintain antidepressant properties without the high. And because hallucinogens substantially alter our perception [management?!] of the world, they could be powerful tools for investigating the neurobiology behind consciousness.

This year, scientists found another common themepsychedelics seem to “reset” the brain to a more youthful state, at least in mice. Like humans, mice have an adolescent critical period, during which their brains are highly malleable and can easily rewire neural circuits, but the window closes after adulthood.

An earlier study showed that MDMA reopens the critical window in adult mice, so that they change their “personality.” Mice raised alone are often introverted and prefer to keep to themselves in adulthood. A dose of MDMA increased their willingness to snuggle with other mice—essentially, they learned to associate socializing with happiness, concluded the study.

It’s not that surprising. MDMA is well-known to promote empathy and bonding. The new study, by the same team, extended their early results to four psychedelics that don’t trigger fuzzy feelings—LSD, ketamine, psilocybin, and ibogaine. Similar to MDMA, adult mice raised alone changed their usual preference for solitude when treated with any of the drugs. Because habits are hard to change in adulthood—for mice and men—the drugs may have reopened the critical period, allowing the brain to more easily rewire neural connections based on new experiences.

These are just early results. But psychedelic research is gaining a new ally—artificial intelligence. Algorithms that predict protein structure, combined with rational drug design, could generate psychedelics that retain their psychiatric benefits without the high.

H/T: The Most Revolutionary Act

Related:

Psychoanalytic roots of CIA psychoprofiling/pseudoscience

Meaghan thought psychedelic therapy could help her PTSD. Instead it was the start of a nightmare

Why is the American right suddenly so interested in psychedelic drugs

What if a Pill Can Change Your Politics or Religious Beliefs? (archived)

Do Psychedelic Trips Change Your Political Views? (archived)

Canadian statistics on government sponsored suicide mark cause of death as ailment patient suffered before they were euthanized

Canada plans to hide its skyrocketing euthanasia deaths as a result of its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program by listing fatalities on the basis of “the disease or injury that initiated the train of morbid events.”

Canadian statistics on government sponsored suicide mark cause of death as ailment patient suffered before they were euthanized

H/T: Redacted with Clayton Morris

[10-11-23] UN and WHO call for ‘significant shift away from biomedical model of mental health’

UN and WHO call for ‘significant shift away from biomedical model of mental health’

WHO and UN are calling for significant shift away from the biomedical modelof mental health which encourages psychiatric diagnoses, medications, forced restraints, institutionalisation, imprisonment and other oppressive medical practices – towards a trauma-informed, social, human rights, person-centred approach to mental health

WHO and UN highlight the current ways the biomedical model of mental health harms, oppresses, controls, isolates, stigmatises and discriminates against those who have been told they have psychiatric disorders, and who have not been validated in their traumas, distress, poverty, environments, oppression, or experiences

WHO and UN recognise that women and girls, people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender are more likely to be labelled as mentally ill, and more likely to face forced sterilisations, coerced abortions, coerced contraception, and conversion therapies.

WHO and UN recognise that there are widespread human rights violations and harm being caused by current biomedical model approaches to mental health, which includes our psychiatric hospitals, services, treatments, and approaches

WHO and UN recognise that people who have been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders have been positioned as dangerous, unreliable and unstable, meaning that they are stigmatised and discriminated against in multiple systems of power (including health, criminal justice, family justice, education, employment, finances and their rights)

Gov. Phil Scott signs bill that prohibits paramilitary training camps

Gov. Phil Scott signs bill that prohibits paramilitary training camps

“It’s difficult to see any Second Amendment issue here,” Chris Bradley, a gun rights lobbyist and president of the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, told senators while testifying about the bill in February.

The law explicitly states that it does not cover law enforcement activity; lawful instruction of military science at educational institutions; and facilities and programs intended to teach the safe handling of firearms and lawful sports and activities, such as hunting, target shooting, self defense and firearms collection.

Activities that are “undertaken without knowledge of or intent to cause or further a civil disorder that is intended to teach or practice self-defense or self defense techniques, including karate clubs, self-defense clinics, and similar lawful activity” are also not affected by the law, according to its text.

Expecting more Second Amendment advocates to cover this without doing any research on the background of the case. The guy was a violent felon, with a mental disorder, who wasn’t even supposed to even own firearms.

Related:

Read More »

26-year-old man charged for the knife attack in Örebro, Sweden

26-year-old man charged for the knife attack in Örebro, Sweden (original)

A 26-year-old man believed his former classmate was a Russian agent.

He attacked her with a knife and killed her mother in their home.

He is now charged with murder and attempted murder.

On February 11, the police were called to an apartment in Örebro. A woman and her 25-year-old daughter had been very badly stabbed in an apartment.

The mother, who was in her 50s, died from her injuries. Now a 26-year-old man is charged with murder and attempted murder of the two women.

During interrogation, the daughter explained that she was at her mother’s house when suddenly someone pulled the letterbox. She recognized the 26-year-old from school, and thought it was strange that he was there.

When she opened the door, they both realized that they recognized each other. According to the daughter, the situation became tense, and the mother came to the door, then told them that she was going to call the police.

– In connection with that, they want to close the door. Then he prevents them from closing the door. He took out a knife that he had with him, and started attacking and slashing at them, says prosecutor Anders Persson.

When they want to close the door, he stopped them. Instead, the 26-year-old attacked with a knife. Her mother died from her injuries.

The 26-year-old thought she was a Russian agent

But the 26-year-old has a different story.

– He meant that the daughter is part of a network with Russian agents who persecuted and harassed him for some time, says prosecutor Anders Persson.

The man himself has said that he wanted to go there and talk to the daughter, with whom he also attended the same class.

– And he wants to talk to her about that and wants them to leave him alone. That is why he is there, says prosecutor Anders Persson.

According to him, he knocked, the daughter opened, and then the mother came out armed with a knife, and attacked him.

But the prosecutor is not buying his story – there is no evidence that anyone attacked him or that the mother and daughter were agents of any kind.

Given that he is judged to be seriously mentally disturbed and to have delusions, my opinion is that his description of this may not be quite consistent with how it actually is.

The state of evidence for a conviction looks good, according to the prosecutor. Among other things, the knife he used comes from another apartment.

A bloody note was also left at the crime scene.

“She was a Russian agent. Slava Ukraini!”

The 26-year-old admitted that he had written it during interrogation. He claims that he brought the note with him so that people would understand that those who possibly murdered him were Russian agents.

In addition, there is a video that captured parts of the sequence of events, and also the knife and traces of blood tie the 26-year-old to the scene.

The man has admitted that he has hurt the women, but believes that he should not bear criminal responsibility.