Pharmaceutical Industry and Organized Psychiatry
Editorial By Greg Hitchcock
Peter R. Breggin, MD. argues in a report published by the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry & Psycholog that neuroleptic medications should be severely limited in treating patients with mental illnesses.
Neuroleptics, also known as “anti-psychotics”, have been prescribed to patients for a lifetime, while told they were free from harm. Breggin points out the inconsistencies in neuroleptic use with claims that the “miracle” drugs have emptied out hospitals and mental institutions due to their efficacy in providing patients with normal healthy lives.
To start, neuroleptics are scientifically proven to produce two neurological disorders after long use—tardive dyskinesia and tardive akathisia. As early as 1973, it was acknowledged by psychiatrist George Crane as a side effect. The disease is often disfiguring, with involuntary movements of the face, mouth, or tongue. Some grimace in a way that makes them look “crazy”.
The latest estimate from the American Psychiatric Association shows a growth rate for all patients of 5% per year, so15% of patients develop it within only three years. In long-term studies, the prevalence of tardive dyskinesia often exceeds 50% of all treated patients. It does not discriminate, but for older patients rates have increased. In a controlled study, 41% of patients aged 65 years and older developed tardive dyskinesia in a mere 24 months.
The other untreatable disorder is tardive akathisia involving painful feelings of inner anxiety and a compulsive drive to move the body. In some cases, individuals cannot sit still. Ironically it often develops in children treated for “hyperactivity”.
Dr. Breggin says that in spite of the evidence of both tardive dyskinesia and akathisia, certain medical professionals and psychiatrists fail to warn patients and their families, even to the extent of disregarding symptoms as they develop.
Brain damage can also result from long-term neuroleptic use causing irreversible loss of overall higher brain function. Dr. Breggin refers to a 1983 report that the basal ganglia in the brain are damaged by tardive dyskinesia, causing a corresponding impairment to cognitive processes in the higher centers. Defenders of the drugs sometimes claim that deterioration is the result of the mental disease itself, but Breggin points to more than 100 years of autopsy studies of schizophrenic patients whose brains failed to show any such deterioration.
Neuroleptics have been used as a form of social control by mental hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, children's facilities, public clinics, and even Cuban psychiatric political prisons. The drugs are capable of inhibiting mental processes, destroying individual will and volition. This is achieved by the drug’s actions on suppressing the brain's frontal lobe, creating in effect, a “chemical lobotomy”. Dr. Breggin believes these drugs do not have any effect on its intended purpose of eliminating hallucinations or paranoia.
Breggin points out another myth—that these “miracle” drugs helped mental hospitals across the country to discharge patients to an independent lifestyle. Starting in 1963, the federal government provided disability insurance coverage for mental disorders. States were allowed to relieve their financial burden by refusing admission to new patients and discharging old ones. The result was abandonment, many living on the streets. Follow-up studies proved that very few patients were independent or led healthier lives.
The alternative solution to neuroleptic use is “psychosocial” approaches to healing, which has proven more effective. Controlled studies show patients diagnosed with acute schizophrenia improve better without medication in small home-like settings run by non-professional staff who know listen and to care (Mosher and Burti, 1989). Even patients at traditional psychiatric hospitals prefer psychosocial treatment rather than drugs, according (Karon and Vandenbos, 1981).
If the answer is psychosocial vs neuroleptic treatment, and results from psychosocial practices from non-professional staff are more effective and less damaging, why continue prescribing drugs? Breggin says the reason is the power of the pharmaceutical industry and organized psychiatry. If the myth of these “miracle” drugs were known, they would lose power and have less reason to exist. What mainly distinguishes psychiatrists from other mental health professionals, and of course from non-professionals, is their ability to prescribe drugs. In providing psychosocial therapies, psychiatry cannot compete with less expensive, more helpful non-medical therapies, so it must create myths that support the need for medically trained psychiatrists.
According to Dr. Breggin, “Neuroleptics are a bane of the mental health community causing untold damage both psychological, financially, and biologically. If neuroleptics were used to treat anyone other than mental patients, they would have been banned a long time ago.”
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