In 2007, Canada's largest and most prestigious university and has come under fire from two Nobel laureates and 25 other internationally respected scientists for withdrawing a job offer to a UK researcher after he questioned the safety of antidepressants like Prozac.
In a letter, the 27 scientists say the decision to send Dr David Healy packing violated the principles of academic freedom, 'besmirched' the name of the University of Toronto
and 'poisoned the reputation' of the centre for addiction and mental heath (CAMH), an affiliated teaching hospital.
Dr Healy, who works at the University of Wales, had been courted by the centre for more than a year to direct its mood and anxiety disorders program. But the job offer was hastily withdrawn last November after he gave a speech in which he said Prozac and similar antidepressants may trigger suicide or violent behaviour in some patients. He also said that Eli Lilly, the drug company who has sold the product to 40m people, has known about the problem for years.
Thus a mental health consumer in Ontario should really be careful lest her mental health may be compromised by the threat of loss of sponsorship by BigPharma at CAMH.
While BigPharma may deny they influence their government sponsees in the mental health and addiction industry, such government institutions such as CAMH and even BC's Mental Heath and Addiction services are sensitive about offending their major sponsors.
This may explain why government-run mental health clinics treat heroin addicts and clients whose behavior is acute and/or chronic enough to treat while advising people with mental health issues less severe to seek help from psychotherapists and/or psychiatrists on their own.
That the government funds mainly emergency care (first psychotic episode at the nearest hospital psychiatric ward, and at a community hospice thereafter) should remind the wary mental health consumer that his mental health issues are minor compared to the majority of the 10% of all Canadians in psychiatric care today.
This minimization of neurosis only contributes to the delusion of a few of the highly functional mental health consumers to falsely assume they are well, and to continue building the castles they will eventually dwell in when and if the stress of life finally precipitates a brief psychotic episode.
Hopefully, they continue to remain highly functional, because the lower functioning clients end up being treated just like methadone clients.
3 comments:
A prominent British psychiatrist who found his offer of a post at a University of Toronto teaching hospital rescinded after he criticized a popular form of antidepressants says he stands by his controversial view of the drugs.
Dr. David Healy said he continues to believe that Prozac and other drugs of its class -- known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors -- can be addictive and cause suicidal tendencies in some people.
'My views haven't changed at all,' said Healy, who recently reached an out-of-court settlement with the university and the hospital, the Centre for Mental Health and Addiction.
'I think the SSRIs can make people suicidal. I think you can get physically dependent on them and can have a withdrawal problem. . . . You may not be able to stop. Full stop.'
Healy, who teaches at the University of Wales, made the comments at a news conference Thursday, his first since he settled his $9.4-million lawsuit against the university and hospital.
The settlement, many of the terms of which remain undisclosed, has resulted in the university offering Healy a visiting professorship which will see him spend a week a year at the University of Toronto for several years, beginning next spring.
Healy's lawsuit occurred after UToronto withdrew in November 200, a five-year job offer to run the mood and anxiety program at the university.
Healy has other issues he wants to bring to the public's attention, such as the way drug companies selectively release safety and efficacy data on drugs and use ghost writers to author articles on their drugs for submission to scientific journals.
"And there's a real hazard that I go on about these things and the legal action was still there, people would say: 'Well, we don't need to pay any heed to that. He's just saying this because he's trying to sue the University of Toronto.'
"If I want people to listen to some of the other things, it seemed to be a good idea, (especially) when people on the other side (the university) were being reasonable and weren't awful people."
Yes, this article and the previous one is over 5 years old.
However, I want to know if Healy's activism has led to reforms in corporate sponsorship of universities.
As well, I object to the misinformaton campaign by BigPharma regarding the safety of their most profitable products.
It is quite obvious that ghost writing is being done to market profitable product while denigrating safer alternate herbal products' efficiency.
While herbal alternatives to meds may appear like placebo to the ignorant, the efficiency of the safer Chinese medicines have a longer history of safety than Paxil.
See Scientist stands by views of drugs after settling lawsuit with U of T
amore in-depth look at the Healy case: http://www.pharmapolitics.com/
UToronto reescinded their offer to Healy after Lily withdrew their funding of UToronto's psychiatri facility.
Thus, Lily put pressure on UToronto for daring to offer a job to a critic of their lucrative psychoactives.
"let them eat Prozac" website: http://www.healyprozac.com/
More dirt on the UToronto incident.
Post a Comment