Prozac
Prozac is hailed as a 'wonder-drug'. However, as far back as September
1993, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration had received 28,623 reports of
adverse reactions to Prozac; more than for any other product in the last 24
years!
A September 1989 article in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, estimated that between 10%-25% of persons on Prozac experience 'akathisia', a drug-induced insanity which includes hallucinations, aggression, self-destructive outbursts, suicide, hostility and rage. Add to this the reports of 1,885 attempted suicides and 1,734 deaths (1,089 by suicide), and the real 'wonder' of Prozac emerges.
With statistics such as the above, it is amazing that the
medical world would even consider the continued prescription of Prozac as
treatment for depression. It becomes less amazing when one looks at the profit
that the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has made on the sale of Prozac. In
1990 alone, Eli Lilly showed a profit of £230 million on the sale of Prozac.
Sales of Prozac have skyrocketed since then. With such huge profits involved, it
is easy to understand why they continue to promote Prozac to physicians and the
media. For an article which details the conflict of interests, that leads to the
USA's Food and Drug Administration allowing the continued promotion of Prozac,
click here
In the case of Ritalin, a drug widely prescribed to children with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), the 'bible' of the psychiatric profession, the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual, 3rd Edition, Revised (1987), states "suicide is the major complication" of Methylphenidate (Ritalin) withdrawal (1987: 136, 175). Furthermore, the Australian Drug Guide (1991) , a doctors manual, states the "habit forming potential" of Ritalin as "high". In other words, it is addictive, creating long-term patients (and profits).
U.S. children overdrugged & A.D.D. overdiagnosed.
Up to 12 per cent of all American boys aged between 6 and 14 are being prescribed this amphetamine to treat behavioural disorders. But, warns the United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board, behavioural problems are being over-diagnosed, and drugs like Ritalin overprescribed.
The UN had been asked by the US Drug Enforcement Administration to investigate the usage of Ritalin, which has increased dramatically in the US. In 1990, worldwide production was less than 3 tonnes but, just four years later, more than 8.5 tonnes were being prescribed. About 90 per cent of the prescriptions were for American children. The number of American children diagnosed as having ADD has risen from 900,000 in 1990 to more than two million last year.
One team of researchers looked at the records of 380 pediatricians who had prescribed Ritalin. They discovered that half of the children who were diagnosed with ADD had not been given any psychological or educational testing before receiving the drug.
The UN concludes that ADD has been too readily given as the reason for a whole range of behavioural difficulties by frustrated parents, public school administrators and doctors (Source: the British Medical Journal, March 16, 1996)
Even Eli Lilly's August 1993 Prozac 20 Consumer Product Information
pamphlet, casts doubt about the safety of these drugs:
"There can be no such thing as absolute safety with prescription medicines. Individual patients sometimes react differently to the same dose of the same medicine and it is possible that some unwanted side effects will not be known until a medicine has been widely prescribed for a number of years."In other words, the drug companies themselves acknowledge that the real guinea-pigs are the people who take a drug after it has been marketed.
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Click here for more
detailed information on prozac, ritalin, related drugs and natural alternative
treatments to them.
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authored by J. Citizen 1996.... some touch-ups done in 1999.
