EL CAJON, Calif., June 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently four Charleston, WV-area veterans -- Derek Johnson, 22, Andrew White, 23, Eric Layne, 29, and Nicholas Endicott, with "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" (PTSD), treated with the Paxil, Klonopin, and Seroquel -- died in their sleep. All were said to be in good health. (Julie Robinson, Charleston Gazette, May 24, 2008).
In a democracy, we have a right to "informed consent." Physicians have a legal obligation to tell us the facts regarding (1) diagnosis and (2) treatment. Regarding diagnosis: Is there a disease or isn't there? Which disease? If there is no disease, that leaves emotional or psychological. Regarding treatment, physicians have a duty to tell us the facts, about all available treatments, not just the treatment they prefer. The choice is ours. This is informed consent.
Were these veterans and their families told by their psychiatrists that PTSD, bipolar disorder, clinical depression and other mythical psychiatric "diagnoses" are "disorders," "diseases," or "chemical imbalances" of the brain? Were these the reasons, according to their psychiatrists, that they needed psychiatric drugs? If they were told this to gain their "informed consent" to treat, then they were lied to, and their right to informed consent was denied.
In fact, there is no such thing in the annals of medicine as a
psychiatric disease. In 1948 neurology and psychiatry were made into
separate specialties -- neurology to deal with actual diseases, such as
multiple sclerosis, brain tumors, epilepsy, etc. -- and psychiatry to deal
with emotional and behavioral problems, none actual medical diseases. By
definition, the terms "disorder" and "disease" mean an objective physical
abnormality is present. Never the case in psychiatry. And yet it is
standard practice in psychiatry today, to tell patients they have "chemical
imbalances" of the brain; "chemical imbalances" needing "chemical
balancers" -- pills. In the DSM-IV, of
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| SOURCE Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD Copyright©2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved |