I only find it funny...very funny indeed...

and hopeful...maybe some of the people involved will start taking a good look at their behavior and the behavior of their entire professions--both pharma and psychiatry...

I think it's the most hopeful thing that's happened in psychiatry and pharma in a long time...

here's to radical change and evolution in the care of those who suffer from extreme states of consciousness whatever that may be...

this may be one place where the cracks will start to be obvious...

why are you sad??

Oh, it's sad alright, because patients are the ones who will lose out in the long term. Like a political party rocked by scandal, psychiatry will adjust, clean house a bit, and go on. Fortunately the profession had such a low standing to begin with that these revelations don't change much.

We've come a long way in just the last 2 years with books like Comfortably Numb, Our Daily Meds, The Loss of Sadness sitting on the central display shelf at the local library. Fraud and corruption of the mental health system is common knowledge and more so everyday. Bruce Levine is on mainstream liberal blogs, The Icarus Project on NPR, everyone reads Furious Seasons at some juncture this may be the tipping point, the end of he medical model as we know it. But if this is a tipping point we can expect entrenched interests to redouble their efforts to maintain their dominance, so who knows?
There is a lot to undo and it hasn't even begun.

Isn't it possible that drug companies can be both extremely helpful and positive on many occasions, but also have engaged in practices that were harmful in other occasions?

Couldn't Dr. Goodwin have been promoting the efficacy of medications in psychiatric illness in general, but also have given specific advice around limiting their use in many situations?

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the necessary inconsistency here. Perhaps if someone had the actual transcript of what Dr. Goodwin was saying at that conference, then it may shed some light on the matter, but it may have been that he was emphasizing the positive aspects of medications and drug companies in Dr. Carlat's account, while being more tempered and realistic in his clinical practice, as McManamy described?

Dear Philip:

I'm sure these pro-pharma/Goodwin types would make a great argument philosophically for the Nazi Psychiatrist performing unimaginable torture upon people because their intent was to further science and they just got caught up in the theme of the times.

Goodwin, Biederman, Nemeroff, and the list goes on and on; knew exactly what they were doing; they went with the theme of the times with greed mongering, unethical, criminal behavior, and cooked the data books so to speak for Big Pharmaceutical for cold hard blood stained cash; and at the expense of who?

Children and those with mental health issues!

These people should be in prison by international law for crimes committed against humanity; but instead they all still have their medical licenses, tons of money in the bank, and the damage they directly caused just keeps piling up!

Yes, I compared them to Nazi Psychiatrist!!!! You can quote me on that over at any fantasyland site if you wish.

You ask the terrible and awful six to back off and yet these pro-pharmaceutical and McManamy butt kissers just continue to spew their horse manure!

“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions”

One of the S-Crowd, and proud member of the Awful and Terrible Six.

Live, love, and Learn,
Stan

What's going on in mental health is only part of a much larger picture. I read about similar problems in every specialty, in every area of the US medical system. I'm reminding us all of this because it gives us more power. We are part of a whole, we have not been singled out as especially vulnerable (though we may well be). Everyone's pockets are getting picked. The chronic nature of our problems (which, of course, wouldn't be nearly as chronic if the profession delivered half of what it promises) means we get way more opportunity than many people to see all this in action and to feel its effects.

I'm not saying this very well, I think. Obviously there are issues specific to us as partakers in the mental "health" system. But even more, there are commonalities with patients of all stripes in the general medical system (or lack thereof). We're all being used as guinea pigs, the drug companies aren't any more honest with asthmatics than they are with depressives.

I do think it will be interesting to watch all this heat up as the new US administration begins to deal with the health care "system" that is so broken. Please note: I'm not saying I think salvation is at hand. I'm saying the system is so broken they're not going to have any choice but to start doing something about it. And when you start to move the "junks" in a pile of cord wood, it disturbs the rats who've taken refuge there.

It's ironic how many shrinks and pharma-types only know to hurl the curse of "Scientologist" at those who criticize their lethal, lucrative scams.

The only psychiatrist who was ever actually kind to us - including my son, now dead from Zyprexa - lost it later on when I began to seriously challenge the medication, the lack of warning, the thousands dead or living with diabetes. First he tried telling me of his success with the drug with one patient. When I told him to have a heart and stop the story, I was in a loud tone of voice charged with being one of "them". That was our last conversation. Psychiatrists and pharmas have no good defences against us personally, unless they have us under their control as patients.