(The following op-ed piece was published in the Sun., Nov.26th edition of
the Traverse City Record-Eagle, northern Michigan's largest daily newspaper.)
QUESTIONING DOCTOR'S DIAGNOSIS
by Ben Hansen
In the Northern Living section of the Nov. 7th Record-Eagle, in a
feature entitled "Were not such bad people : triumphing over mental illness
with medication and support," the story is told of a woman named Pat who
suffered psychotic episodes
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
to bad these are not described. Using the term
psychotic episode describes nothingratherit makes a diagnosis. It says the
person is out of their mind and need to be controlled by others]
until she was diagnosed and medicated for the "insidious disease" of
schizophrenia.
The psychiatrist overseeing Pats treatment, Dr. Lyn Conlon, calls
Pats illness a "biological condition" that is "easily treated with
medication."
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Called "biological," "biologically-based," "neuro-biological," as in
all psychiatric/psychological diseases-- called such things without an iota
of objective evidence. And the whole of the psychiatric/pharmaceutical
cartel, mental health, and the courts and legislatures that decree their
scientific and medical legitimacy--where none exists--assert you are diseased, you will
remain diseased and you will take your medication. After all, the supplier of
the medicationthe pharmaceutical industry--is the controlling partner of it
all]
Dr. Conlon adds approvingly, "Pat has come to grips with the fact that she has a lifelong disorder."
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Not having proved the existence of any disease, psychiatrist Conlon
asserts that she has and asserts, whats more that what it is will last for life.
How convenient for physicians not having enough real patients with real
disease]
The latest edition of the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and Statistical Manual states plainly, "no laboratory findings have been identified that are diagnostic of schizophrenia."
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
it is duplicitous of the American Psychiatric AssociationAPA to
assert "no laboratory findings have been identified that are diagnostic of
schizophrenia."
The blunt fact of the matter is there are no laboratory findings of any
kind that have ever been detected in any psychiatric condition/disorder with any
technology of any kind. And yet psychiatric researchers continue to apply
medical/organic/biologic/neurologic technologies to patients with
psychiatric diagnoses--not in hopes of finding a true abnormality (abnormality =
disease), because there are none--but to weave illusions of
medicine/biology/neurology with which to deceive patients and the public at large.]
Therefore I wonder how Dr. Conlon can be so sure that her patient has received a "proper diagnosis."
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
no abnormalities have been found in the brains or bodies of
schizophrenics not during life and not at autopsy--at death. With
nothing but symptoms (subjective) to go on--no physical or laboratory
abnormalities (objective), psychiatrists cannot claim they have diagnosed (proven) a
disease in any patient thus labeled.
Under the circumstances, Dr. Conlons insistence that Pat has received a
"proper diagnosis", and that Pat will accept the diagnosis, and that Pat will
accept the treatment, is nothing but tyrannical?]
If, as Dr. Conlon claims, schizophrenia is a biological condition that is "no different than having high blood pressure," then why are there no laboratory tests for schizophrenia like there are for other biological diseases such as diabetes? There is no blood chemistry, neurobiological, brain scan or any other clinical test that can be performed by any neurobiologist, biochemist or pathologist to prove a "proper diagnosis" of schizophrenia or any other mental "disorder."
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
this is psychiatrybiological psychiatry. You (and Pat too) must
accept that she has schizophrenia and that it is a biological conditiona
disease. Biological psychiatry says so]
Modern medical practitioners tend to focus on the symptoms of illness,
and they prescribe medications to treat those symptoms. This tendency is
especially prevalent in the psychiatric profession. Increasingly,
psychiatrists have become "psychopharmacologists" who simply manage symptoms
by dispensing pills, an approach that is fully endorsed by the
pharmaceutical industry.
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
physicians, modern or not, should be treating abnormalitiesdiseases,
not symptoms. In the vast majority of people with headaches, the tension and
stress of everyday life is the cause and if the patient is not lead to understand
this so he or she can adapt and cope with the sources of such stress they will
not get rid of their headaches. A pill approach would do nothing more than
alleviate the pain for 3-4 hours, while reinforcing the notion that a dire physical
cause may exist. Treating every patient with cold- and flu-like symptoms with
antibiotics reinforces patient fears that a serious infection exists and must be
treated. In the process such treatment fails to give the mild, self-limiting, viral
illness a chance to run its natural course. Such unnecessary treatment, while
profitable for the physician, contributes to the population-wide emergence of
antibiotic-resistant bacteria and to the emergence of truly grave diseases
and epidemics of infections with resistant, increasingly lethal bacteria. In
other words, physicians should not be treating symptoms, which are wholly
subjective
Psychiatrists are a breed apart. Although they go to medical school,
learn of diseases, and how to distinguish disease from lack of
disease--once they begin training and practice in psychiatry, they no longer practice
medicine, that is, they no longer examine patients or diagnose actual diseases (or the
absence of them). All they do is enumerate emotional and behavior symptoms and
match them to the symptom lists that comprise successive editions of the DSM.
So it is that their every diagnosis is an article of faith, and their every
prognosis is an article of faith. If they say you are sick, you have but to believe
them; if they say it is schizophrenia and you are a danger to yourself and others
and need, for your own good, to be put in a cell or on drugs that make you
zombie-like, or bothall you have to do is believe them. If they say you
will have your disease for life, all you need to do is believe. Every bit of
biological psychiatry is based on faith.]
The Record-Eagles story directs readers to www.schizophrenia.com, a
website sponsored by Janssen, maker of the drug Risperdal, commonly
prescribed for schizophrenia. Janssen touts its wonder-drug without
mentioning that like all neuroleptics, Risperdal may cause tardive
dyskinesia and neuroleptic malignant syndrome.
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
what a trade off: schizophrenia on the one hand, being symptoms in
the eyes of the beholder-psychiatrist, not a disease with objective,
unquestionable, diagnostic abnormalities, and neuroleptics, like Risperdal, on the
benefit side of the risk vs. benefit equation, that in time will virtually always
cause tardive (after a while on the drug) dyskinesia (incessant, involuntary
movements which tire and exhaust which defy all treatment and which truly last for
life) and neuroleptic malignant syndrome another, none-to-rare brain disease,
duenot to schizophreniabut to whichever neuroleptic you care to name and the
psychiatrist cares to treat your non-disease withyour schizophrenia.
Quite a trade-off. How may families/patients are appraised of the true facts of
the risk vs. benefit equation of the treatment of psychiatric diseases,
none of which are true diseases
The reason I post this article on my web site,
adhdfraud.com is that to understand that ADHD is a total, 100% fraud, you
must understand that all psychiatric diseases when represented as diseases,
as biologically-based, neuro-biologic, neuro-behavioral (all implying
something abnormal about the biology or neurology (brain) of the patient, are,
likewise, a total, 100% frauda psychopharm cartel deception contrived to sell mental
health and drugs. The very last thing they accomplish is to enhance
anyones health.]
After praising her patient for battling the stigma of mental illness,
Dr. Conlon declares, "I wish more people would step forward and carry the
banner."
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
Dr. Conlons "I wish more people would step forward and carry the
banner,"
translates to believe in your diagnosis and take your drug.
Increasingly, if
you do not they will take you to court and have a judge see that you do.
Nationwide this Nazi-like ideology is on the rise in the name of mental
health.
Nothing like has been seen since the assault on individual rights in the
name of
psychiatric help in pre-WW II Germany.]
As a psychiatric survivor
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
this is Ben Hansen speaking]
unafraid to use my full name, I hereby step forward to tell my story:
In August of 1999, following the death of my father and the suicide
of a friend on the same day, I suffered a breakdown and became psychotic.
The police transported me to the psychiatric unit of a local hospital,
where I was forcibly injected with the drugs Haldol
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
another of the
neuroleptics]
and Ativan.
When I awoke 26 hours later, hospital staff informed me that Id been
diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a disease requiring treatment with
medication for the rest of my life.
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
how convenientnot for the patient, but for the doctor and for the
mental
health industry. Imagine, diagnosed bipolar while asleep and drugged.
Actually, the particular diagnostic label is of little consequencewhat
matters
is that the label used be indelible, that it stick and that itand you,
become
legally certifiable]
I disagreed with the diagnosis, saying that Id had an extremely stressful
week and that what I needed was plenty of rest, not medication.
The psychiatrist overseeing my treatment told me that both my
unwillingness to accept the diagnosis and my refusal to accept medication
were symptoms of my disease, thus confirming the diagnosis.
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
As Church-Lady would say: "Now isnt that precious." In a similar
stroke, every one of the countless neurological/cardiological/physical/biochemical
side effects of the drugs even the deaths--are also called symptoms of their
psychiatric diseasesymptoms that confirm the diagnosis
Not only do
psychiatrists fail to recognize real diseases in patients arriving at
their offices and hospitals, insufficiently screened by referring physicians,
they usually fail to recognize the diseases (real) produced the drugs they
prescribe,
as well]
She explained that if she did not treat me with medications, she could lose her license, and therefore I would not be released from the hospital without being medicated.
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
What an industry! What a marketing plan! Wow! Is there a healing
motivation yet to be found? ]
With the support of my wife and the rest of my family, as well as my
dearest friends, I continued to steadfastly refuse treatment with
psychiatric drugs. Because the psychiatrist refused to treat me without
drugs, I was held in the hospital involuntarily for the next 39 days,
totaling a bill of $23,000.
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
"Because the psychiatrist refused to treat me without drugs, I was
held in the hospital involuntarily for the next 39 days, totaling a bill of
$23,000." Here we have the insistence upon treatment without informed consent, also
the insistence upon drugging where the psychiatrist/physicians knows there is
no bona fide disease. In Stedman Medical Dictionary, 25th Edition, "clinical
pharmacology" is defined as " the branch of pharmacology concerned with
the pharmacology of therapeutic agents in the prevention, treatment, and
control of disease in man." The use of drugs in biological psychiatry cannot be
called pharmacologic for the simple reason that there is no disease. Is the
appropriate term drugging? Is the person doing the drugging, a
pusher. ]
After a monumental battle which included a jury trial, I was finally
allowed to return home, where the real healing could begin -- without
medications.
Two weeks after my release from the hospital, a different psychiatrist
who took the time to actually talk to me concluded that the original
diagnosis of bipolar disorder was incorrect, and that more likely Id
suffered "brief reactive psychosis," a temporary condition caused by stress.
[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD:
caused by events, interactions, setbacks, failures, stresses of
everyday life. There being no diseases, i.e. no brain or body abnormalities, these
are the only sorts of things it could be. The psychiatrist who "took the time
to actually talk" to the patient had better not get caught appending a label
other than one to justify a drugging; other than one that makes drugging a
treatment. He or she just might lose their license]
If I would have accepted the hospitals diagnosis of a "lifelong
disease," I would have been released from the hospital much sooner, but I
would now be a permanent client of the mental health system, medicated with
dangerous drugs for the rest of my life.
[Ben Hansen, author of this article and victim of this encounter with
biological psychiatry has his eyes wide open and had a supportive family able to see
him through the expensive, lengthy, legal, battles needed to escape the
burgeoning, onerous, tyranny of biological psychiatry. Had he lived in most any
bigger city in the US, where the tyranny and its ties to the courts are better
organized, he may well have wound up "a permanent client of the mental health system,
medicated with dangerous drugs for the rest of my life." It is just such a
Nazi/fascist- like, end result that comes of mosts encounter with the
psychophar/mental health industry in the US today. ]
I encourage your readers to visit www.icspp.org, the website of the
International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, which is
not funded by pharmaceutical profits.
(editor's note:)
Ben Hansen is co-coordinator of the Michigan Branch of Support Coalition
International, a grassroots organization working for human rights in the
mental health system. In April he was appointed to the Michigan Dept. of
Community Health Recipient Rights Advisory Committee, a watchdog panel
that meets in Lansing. He lives in the village of Interlochen with his
wife, Silvia.