Treating Depression: Is there a placebo effect?

A Harvard scientist says the drugs used to treat depression are effective, but for many, it’s the placebo effect that’s making people feel better. 

Do antidepressants work? Since the introduction of Prozac in the 1980s, prescriptions for antidepressants have soared 400 percent, with 17 million Americans currently taking some form of the drug. But how much good is the medication itself doing? “The difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people,” says Harvard scientist Irving Kirsch. Will Kirsch’s research, and the work of others, change the USD 11.3 billion antidepressant industry? Lesley Stahl investigates (CBS News, 2012).

 

Dead Wrong: How Psychiatric Drugs Can Kill Your Child

From the makers of the award-winning documentaries Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging and The Marketing of Madness: Are We All Insane? comes a searing new documentary (2010), exposing how devastating—and deadly—psychiatric drugs can be for children and families.

Behind the grim statistics of deaths, suicides, birth defects and serious adverse reactions is the human face of this global drugging epidemic—the personal stories of loss and courage of those who paid the real price.

Psychiatrists claim their drugs are safe for children?

Once you hear what eight brave mothers, their families, health experts, drug counselors and doctors have to say instead, you will come away convinced of one thing… Psychiatrists are DEAD WRONG.

 

Masks of Madness: Science of Healing

A Documentary on the Orthomolecular Treatment of Schizophrenia: 

Masks of Madness: Science of Healing (1998) explores the orthomolecular approach to treating mental illness, chronicling the experiences of patients and physicians who have gone beyond the inadequacies of conventional psychiatry to find real hope in orthomolecular medicine. Hosted by actor Margot Kidder, who herself suffered from bipolar disorder, the film recounts her journey to recovery using orthomolecular medicine.

Joining Margot, other patients participate in a candid roundtable discussion of their individual descents into mental illness, their difficulties in getting answers from conventional psychiatry, and their final recoveries using alterations in diet, vitamin and mineral supplementation, and a minimum of pharmacological intervention. Well known doctors and health professionals also share their experiences.

Abram Hoffer, Hugh Riordan, Hyla Cass, Bradford Weeks, Michael Janson, Patrick Holford and others describe the elements of their therapeutic approach, their satisfaction at seeing patients recover from the “incurable,” as well as the professional resistance they faced when incorporating orthomolecular treatment into their medical and psychiatric practices.

The major orthomolecular building blocks for optimal mental health are introduced in a comprehensive way to demonstrate that orthomolecular medicine is a real answer for people suffering from mental illness and for physicians who long to make significant changes in the lives of their patients. Everyone will benefit from seeing this absorbing, informative and inspiring documentary. (Excerpt from orthomed.org)

This video is produced by Sisyphus Communications in conjunction with the International Schizophrenia Foundation.

Generation RX

For decades, scores of doctors, government officials, journalists, and others have extolled the benefits of psychiatric medicines for children. Generation RX  (2008) presents “the rest of the story” and unveils how this era of unprecedented change in Western culture really occurred — and what price has been paid by our society.

International award-winning filmmaker Kevin P. Miller (Let Truth Be The Bias, The Promised Land) “delivers a jaw-dropping emotional ride,” and “weaves a terrifying tale of criminal conspiracy, the mass abandonment of medical ethics, and the routine betrayal of an entire generation.” By employing the expertise of internationally respected professionals from the fields of medicine, ethics, journalism, and academia, Generation RX investigates collusion between drug companies and their regulatory watchdogs at the FDA and focuses on the powerful stories of real families who followed the advice of their doctors — and faced devastating consequences for doing so.

Ultimately, Generation RX may help parents decide whether the perceived benefits of these medications outweigh the serious risks to children.  “Generation Rx is a film that every parent should see,” says Jason Buchanan of ALL MOVIE GUIDE.

Watch the full documentary now:

 

Interview with the author of Generation RX


Linked to Archive.org

 

The Marketing Of Madness: Are We All Insane?

The Marketing of Madness is the definitive documentary on the psychiatric drugging industry. Here is the real story of the high income partnership between psychiatry and drug companies that has created an $80 billion psychotropic drug profit centre.

But appearances are deceiving. How valid are psychiatrists’ diagnoses – and how safe are their drugs? Digging deep beneath the corporate veneer, this three-part documentary exposes the truth behind the slick marketing schemes and scientific deceit that conceal dangerous and often deadly sales campaigns.

In this film you’ll discover that… Many of the drugs side effects may actually make your ‘mental illness’ worse. Psychiatric drugs can induce aggression or depression. Some psychotropic drugs prescribed to children are more addictive than cocaine. Psychiatric diagnoses appears to be based on dubious science. Of the 297 mental disorders contained with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, none can be objectively measured by pathological tests.

Mental illness symptoms within this manual are arbitrarily assigned by a subjective voting system in a psychiatric panel. It is estimated that 100 million people globally use psychotropic drugs.

The Marketing of Madness exposes the real insanity in our psychiatric ‘health care’ system: profit-driven drug marketing at the expense of human rights.

This film plunges into an industry corrupted by corporate greed and delivers a shocking warning from courageous experts who value public health over dollar.

 

 

Mass Psychosis In The US

Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux.

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