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Lenny: may you do no harm...
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.... researchers in Ireland reported in 2003 that since the introduction of the atypical antipsychotics, the death rate among people with schizophrenia has doubled. They have done death rates of people treated with standard neuroleptics and then they compare that with death rates of people treated with atypical antipsychotics, and it doubles. It doubles! It didn't reduce harm. In fact, in their seven-year study,
25 of the 72 patients died.
Source: Chemical Warfare: An Interview With Robert Whitaker
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Most Frequent Suspect Drugs in Deaths
Oxycondone (Opiate): 5,548
Fentanyl (Opiate): 3,545
Clozapine (Anti-psychotic): 3,277
Morphine (Opiate): 1,616
Acetaminophen (Analgesiac): 1,393
Methadone (Opiate): 1,258
Infliximab (Anti-rheumatism): 1,228
Interferon beta (Immunomederator): 1,178
Risperidone (Anti-psychotic): 1,093
Etanercept (Anti-rheumatism): 1,034
Paclitaxel (Atineoplastic): 1,033
Olanzapine (Anti-psychotic): 1,005
Rofecoxib (Anti-inflammatory): 932
Paroxetine (Anti-depressant): 850
Source: Furious Seasons - FDA Report [PDF File]
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There is an excess of death from natural causes among people with schizophrenia. Aims Schizophrenia and its treatment with neuroleptics were studied for their prediction of mortality in a representative population sample ... During a 17-year follow-up,
39 of the 99 people with schizophrenia died. There is an urgent need to ascertain whether the high mortality in schizophrenia is attributable to the disorder itself or the antipsychotic medication.
Source: Neuroleptic Medication & Mortality
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As for the abnormalities that researchers have found with brain scans, Mosher thinks the antischizophrenic medication accounts for much of this. He says, "The Germans, who invented neuropathology, looked at the brains of thousands of schizophrenics before there were any neuroleptics. And they were never able to find anything. They never reported increased ventricular volume, which at postmortem you can measure quite easily. And they also never reported any specific cellular pathology, and they studied many, many, many brains." He adds that "there are a whole lot of people who don't have schizophrenia and also have enlarged ventricles. And there are people who have other psychiatric conditions who have enlarged ventricles, and there are a number of known causes of enlarged ventricles that are not schizophrenia. So, yes, there is a statistical difference, but it is not specific."
"On the other hand," Mosher continues, "there are studies that have shown that people treated with neuroleptics have changes in brain structure that are at least associated with drug treatment, dosage, and duration -- and have been shown to increase over time as drugs are given." He cites one "horrific study" of children between the ages of 10 and 15 in which the researchers measured the volumes of the kids' cortexes. "The cortex is what you think with, the part on the outside," Mosher explains. Over time, "
They watched the cortical volume of these young people decline, while the cortical volume of the nonschizophrenic controls was expanding because they were adolescents and still growing." The researcher concluded that their schizophrenia had caused the decrease in the subjects. "And yet every single one was taking neuroleptic drugs," Mosher says.
Source: Still Crazy After All These Years
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The WHO Study of Schizophrenia is a long-term follow-up study of 14 culturally diverse, treated incidence cohorts and 4 prevalence cohorts comprising 1,633 persons diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses. Global outcomes at 15 and 25 years were assessed to be favorable for greater than 50% of all participants. The researchers observed that 56% of the incidence cohort and 60% of the prevalence cohort were judged to be recovered. Those participants with a specific diagnosis of schizophrenia had a recovery rate which was close to 50%. Geographic factors were significant in terms of both symptoms and social disability. Certain research locations were associated with greater chance of recovery even in those participants with unfavorable early-onset illness courses.
The course and outcome for persons diagnosed with schizophrenia were far better in the “developing countries” than for such persons in the “developed” world of Western Europe and America.
The first of the WHO studies, the International Pilot Study of Schizophrenia (IPSS), assessed 1,202 persons diagnosed with schizophrenia in nine countries. The results showed that persons with schizophrenia in the “developing” world (e.g., Columbia, India, Nigeria) had better outcomes than persons in the “developed” countries (e.g., Moscow, London, Washington, Prague, Aarhus, Denmark).
Source: Long Term Folluw-Up Studies of Schizophrenia
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The "Soteria paradigm" attempts to support people diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorders using a
minimal medication approach Interest in this approach is growing in the United Kingdom, several European countries, North America and Australasia.
The Soteria paradigm remains an intriguing example of medical parsimony in the treatment of schizophrenia, via its use of significant numbers of nonmedically indoctrinated staff and minimal use of medication. The studies included in this review suggest that
the Soteria paradigm yields equal (and in certain specific areas, better) results in the treatment of schizophrenia when compared with conventional, medication-based approaches.
Source: A Systematic Review of the Soteria Paradigm
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Jaakko Seikkula, Ph.D. is a professor at the Institute of Social Medicine at the University of Tromso in Norway and senior assistant at the Department of Psychology in the University of Jyvskyl in Finland. Between 1981-1998, he worked as a clinical psychologist at the Keropudas hospital in Finland where he and colleagues developed a highly successful approach for working with psychosis known as Open Dialogue Treatment (OPT). The approach
de-emphasizes the use of drugs and focuses instead on developing a social network of family and helpers and involving the patient in all treatment decisions. Ongoing research shows that
over 80% of those treated with the approach return to work and over 75% show no residual signs of psychosis. Official government statistics comparing 22 health districts in Finland found that Dr. Seikulla's district was the only one not to have any new chronic hospital patients in a two year period and led the National Research and Development Center for Welfare and Health to award a prize for "over ten years ongoing development of psychiatric care".
Source: Open Dialogue Treatment
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"...85% of our clients (all diagnosed as severely schizophrenic) at the Diabasis center not only improved,
with no medications, but most went on growing after leaving us."
Source: Trials of the Visionary Mind
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I didn't meet Benjamin. I met his mother. She was a truly beautiful person who was deeply grieving the loss of her son. Benjamin had died due to a rare complication of anti-psychotic medication known as Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome. The cause of death on his autopsy report was listed as, "Natural". Benjamin's mother didn't quite know how to wrap her mind around such a word. How could the death of her beautiful son be natural? How could he die as a result of the treatment that was supposed to help him? How could those within the medical community dismiss his death so callously as being "natural"?
Benjamin was 25. His mother is currently recovering.
Source: Dedication
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I hope you will not take it personally Lenny, if I continue to offer support, encouragement and information to individuals who have a stated preference of wishing to avoid the use of neuroleptic medication. People often have a number of perfectly valid reasons for why they might wish to withdraw from or not use medication at all. Other people have a stated preference for treatment with psychiatric medication. Although laws vary by geographical location, an individual is usually within their legal and moral rights to choose the treatment option they feel will be most beneficial and least harmful to them. Since there are some psychiatrists and psychologists who are producing very good recovery rates with minimial or no use of neuroleptics, if an individual is interested in pursuing that route I see no harm in passing on some links that will assist them in further educating themselves on treatment options.
As for me, I am not a professional and have never presented myself as such. What I am is an individual who has undergone the experience known as psychosis and/or schizophrenia in this culture and made a full recovery without hospitals, doctors, or medication. There is no law I'm aware of that prevents me from sharing with a fellow sufferer what I have found helpful in terms of my own recovery. Please note that at no point have I suggested that mayanbard should
not seek out professional advice, I have merely encouraged him to seek out medical advice from professionals who have a background in the area he has expressed an interest in -- recovery without medication.
~ Namaste.