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Sunday, February 28, 2010

Antidepressants in Japanese market

This is an excerpt of the article "Did Antidepressants Depressed Japan?" by *Kathryn Schulz published in The New York Time in August 22, 2004:

"For 1,500 years of Japanese history, Buddhism has encouraged the acceptance of sadness and discouraged the pursuit of happiness -- a fundamental distinction between Western and Eastern attitudes. The first of Buddhism's four central precepts is: suffering exists. Because sickness and death are inevitable, resisting them brings more misery, not less. ''Nature shows us that life is sadness, that everything dies or ends,'' Hayao Kawai, a clinical psychologist who is now Japan's commissioner of cultural affairs, said. ''Our mythology repeats that; we do not have stories where anyone lives happily ever after.'' Happiness is nearly always fleeting in Japanese art and literature. That bittersweet aesthetic, known as aware, prizes melancholy as a sign of sensitivity.

This traditional way of thinking about suffering helps to explain why mild depression was never considered a disease. ''Melancholia, sensitivity, fragility -- these are not negative things in a Japanese context,'' Tooru Takahashi, a psychiatrist who worked for Japan's National Institute of Mental Health for 30 years, explained. ''It never occurred to us that we should try to remove them, because it never occurred to us that they were bad.''

The medical model of depression, by contrast, sees suffering as pathological and prescribes a pill in response. That outlook is partly pragmatic: call depression a disease and health insurance covers its treatment.

Patient advocates also argue that reclassifying depression as a disease helps to diminish its stigma. But probably most important, the pharmaceutical industry has the financial incentive to recast moods as medical problems, creating what Kleinman calls ''a pharmacology of remorse and regret.'' It is, Kleinman said, ''one of the most powerful aspects of globalization, and Japan is at its leading edge.''

In the late 1980's, Eli Lilly decided against selling Prozac in Japan after market research there revealed virtually no demand for antidepressants. Throughout the 90's, when Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or S.S.R.I.'s, were traveling the strange road from chemical compound to cultural phenomenon in the West, the drugs and the disease alike remained virtually unknown in Japan.

Then, in 1999, a Japanese company, Meiji Seika Kaisha, began selling the S.S.R.I. Depromel. Meiji was among the first users of the phrase kokoro no kaze. The next year, GlaxoSmithKline -- maker of the antidepressant Paxil -- followed Meiji into the market. Koji Nakagawa, GlaxoSmithKline's product manager for Paxil, explained: ''When other pharmaceutical companies were giving up on developing antidepressants in Japan, we went ahead for a very simple reason: the successful marketing in the United States and Europe.''

Direct-to-consumer drug advertising is illegal in Japan, so the company relied on educational campaigns targeting mild depression. As Nakagawa put it: ''People didn't know they were suffering from a disease. We felt it was important to reach out to them.'' So the company formulated a tripartite message: ''Depression is a disease that anyone can get. It can be cured by medicine. Early detection is important.''

Like the Bush administration, GlaxoSmithKline has spent the last four years staying relentlessly on-message. Its 1,350 Paxil-promoting medical representatives visit selected doctors an average of twice a week. Awareness campaigns teach general practitioners and the public to recognize the following symptoms of depression (the translation is the company's): ''head feels heavy, cannot sleep, stiff shoulders, backache, tired and lazy, no appetite, not intrigued, feel depressed.'' "

Read the entire article here.
Bob Fiddaman has dedicated some of his posts about the way Paxil/Seroxat is being sell in Japan. Read some of them here.

*Kathryn Schulz is a freelance writer and editor at large of Grist Magazine. She was a Spring 2004 Pew Fellow in international journalism.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Evidence, However, Is Clear... The Seroxat Scandal by Bob Fiddaman

This is Bob Fiddaman's, at Seroxat Sufferers, book. A must-read and you can have it here.
Cingratulations Bob and Thank YOU!
The evidence is clear still some people refuse to tell the truth and just keep on lying. Enough!

The Evidence, However, Is Clear…The Seroxat Scandal

By Bob Fiddaman

ISBN: 978-1-84991-120-7
Published: 2010
Pages: 331
Key Themes: depression, pharmacy, campaign, seroxat

Description

An estimated 2.3 million people suffer with depression in the UK. World-wide that figure is estimated at 340 million.

Pharmaceutical companies claim to have the cure that can lift your depression. The Medicines regulators, the body that regulate the drugs manufactured by pharmaceutical companies, main aim is to protect the public from unsafe drugs.

In 'The Evidence, However, Is Clear' patient campaigner, Bob Fiddaman, highlights that all is not what it seems with the UK regulatory system. He believes that not only the public are being kept from the truth with regard to antidepressant drugs but doctor's are too.

About the Author

Bob Fiddaman was born in London in 1964, the youngest of three children to his parents, Douglas and Teresa Fiddaman.

In 1967 his parents moved to Birmingham where he has lived since. Bob married in 1987 but divorced in 2006. He has three children, Danny, Marc and Gary.

He is currently unemployed but previously held down jobs at Land Rover, Solihull and the Royal Mail in Birmingham City Centre.

In 1999 Bob became the Poetry Slam Champion of Birmingham, beating a teacher of poetry in the final. Although unpublished, much of his work can be seen on the Internet.

In 2006, Bob created the SEROXAT SUFFERERS STAND UP AND BE COUNTED blog. To date he has had over 148,000 visitors and ranks in 5th place when entering the search term 'Seroxat' into the Google search engine.

Bob has met with the UK Medicines regulator [MHRA] on a number of occasions but has now ceased contact with them.

Book Extract

On Friday the 7th of April, 2006, I began what I thought at the time to be a mini protest against the Medicines Healthcare products and Regulatory Agency [MHRA] and the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world, GlaxoSmithKline [GSK]. The world of blogging [1] was new to me but it seemed a good outlet to get ones voice heard and a short way to cut through the red tape that exists at government level here in the UK. I wasn't happy with the way an antidepressant called Seroxat, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, was being widely prescribed and its serious adverse side-effects were being largely ignored by both the medical profession and the UK Medicine regulator, the MHRA.

The MHRA was founded in 2003 by merging the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) and the Medical Devices Agency (MDA). The MCA was created by the UK Medicines Act 1968, in the wake of the thalidomide disaster. [2] The thalidomide tragedy occurred over fifty years ago, when it came onto the market. The years that followed saw it causing serious deformities in children whose mothers had taken the drug during pregnancy. Many of them died. Both the pharmaceuticals industry and legislators learned lessons from this tragedy. The safety tests that a new drug is required to undergo before it can be administered to humans were made much more stringent... or so we were led to believe.

[1] A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse- chronological order.

[2] Drug which is a powerful human teratogen. [See Chapters 17 &18]

40 years on and prescription drugs are still slipping through the system and into the bloodstreams of humans. Some would say that the whole Seroxat scandal is on a par with the thalidomide disaster.

I would suggest, with respect, that it is far worse than that, worse because we actually have a regulator in place who has ignored the pleas of patients, articles and even doctors that have claimed Seroxat has ruined their lives or the lives of their patients. Of course, the fact of children born with abnormalities is far worse than those suffering withdrawal; those poor children were dragged into this world with defects, it is because of them that we have a drugs regulator in place. The Seroxat scandal should have been quickly nipped in the bud by the regulator, instead the denial continues and patients still suffer. This is what sets it aside from the thalidomide disaster. We have people in place to help us and they are clearly not.

Emails to the CEO of the MHRA, Prof. Kent Woods were being ignored. Freedom of Information requests [FOI's] to the MHRA were being returned to me with exemption rules and/or a vagueness that defied belief. Something just didn't sit right with me. My suspicions regarding the MHRA and their closeness to the pharmaceutical industry stemmed from a documentary aired on BBC TV almost two years before I started blogging. BBC's Panorama [1] had already aired two programmes regarding Seroxat and their third, 'Taken on Trust', delved deeper into how prescription drugs are regulated in the UK. The programme's investigative reporter, Shelley Jofre, exposed huge failings in the MHRA and revealed how patients' lives had been put at risk. It focused on one drug, a drug whose controversy was rising daily here in the UK. That drug was GlaxoSmithKline's Seroxat.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

SSRI Crime against humanity

You can search "SSRI crime against humanity" at Google and you will not have this answer:

"Your search - - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

  • Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
  • Try different keywords.
  • Try more general keywords."

I have to stop for a while because I am getting sad as it uses to happen whenever I think too much about psych-drugs harms. I feel like crying and when I pay attention at my thoughts I realize that this issue is the cause of my sadness because it is very serious but few people care or know about it. The word of a psychiatrist is the final and unfortunately there are few who are telling the truth.
I will be commenting at Furious Seasons from time to time or at friend's blogs.
Is there any journalist at the mainstream media that want to say anything about the it?
No! So it is not true. The official truth is that "these drugs save many people's lives and help millions".
Few people know that they are... blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah....
Okay! We keep waiting.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

That man went crazy and is in a mental institution - looks like a life sentence

I went to take breakfast and I heard that an acquaintance is in the mental institution nearby.
They said that he did broke the house and even hit the window so the firemen was called and he was sent to Pinel Hospital.
I know that this men is not very emotional stable and after his mother's death he started having problems and was having too much alcohol and street-drugs.
Today is the day that carnival ends here and I don't think it's a coincidence that he has acted this way this night. Maybe he has been taking drugs for the last days... I don't know what has happened and I don't want to start a list of guesses.
The problem is: as he is in a mental institution we know very well how little we can do. Even family members don't have access to the person who is institutionalized in such circumstances since he was acting crazy.
I don't know if it was caused by drugs or it was a psychotic episode but I think it was due to drugs. We know what three days without sleeping and consuming street-drugs can do.
I asked a psychiatrist who is my neighbor and knows him to help him but I don't know if she will or not because as she was not home I left her a message.
I am just thinking that after all I saw during a family member institutionalization and of many testimonies of patients I did read and listen when a person is put in a mental institution it is almost the same as if s/he was put in jail.
Nobody can see what is the treatment and the diagnosis will put a label in this person that will be part of the judgment of others for the rest of his/her life.
Being institutionalized is a moral issue. I will write about it later because I don't know what has really happened.
This is sad. Very sad.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Swine Flu - is the plague over? Rich countries are having trouble to get rid of the H1N1 vaccine

New York Times

  • FEB. 9, 2010 A poll finds that most Americans do not intend to get the H1N1 vaccine, assume the pandemic is over and think that the threat was overblown. — NYT
  • FEB. 2, 2010 There is now so much unused swine flu vaccine in the world that rich nations, including the United States, are trying to get rid of their surpluses. But the world’s poorest countries — a few still facing the brunt of the pandemic — are receiving very little of it. — NYT
  • JAN. 4, 2010 Although it is too early to write the obituary for swine flu, medical experts, already assessing how the first pandemic in 40 years has been handled, have found that while luck played a part, a series of rapid but conservative decisions by federal officials worked out better than many had dared hope. — NYT
  • DEC. 18, 2009 Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, said at a news conference it was time to “focus on the next phase of H1N1,” and she pressed everyone to get vaccinated. — NYT

We British are such a bunch of drama queens

"However, let's talk about overestimating. Chief medical officer Liam Donaldson said at worst swine flu could claim 65,000 lives. Health secretary, Andy Burnham estimated 100,000 new cases a day (figures now say 5,000 cases a week, far below the average for regular flu). Meanwhile, drug companies enjoyed an estimated £4bn pandemic bonanza. That's rather a lot of time, money, and angst expended on what was for the majority a bit of a heavy cold.

Even at the time, some of us had our suspicions (the new Black Death or just the new bird flu?), but we found ourselves screamed down by not just the powers that be but also the Tamiflu-crazed masses. Indeed, isn't it the case that, while diseases are said to be forever changing, the climate of public reaction in Britain has changed too – to over-reaction?"


This is part of the article and you can take a look at the discussion at the page the entire article is published. How can we trust the media?

Friday, February 12, 2010

Clinton and Bush Haiti Fund Org. - The two US ex-president's are united asking our donations



This is where you can donate to the "Clinton and Bush Haiti Fund Org."
Please, visit the site to see how much they have already received as contributions for relief and recovery. They also have a Facebook account, Twitter... just click and take a look.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Bid4aCure raises 1.7 million Linden dollars at Second Life to help American Diabetes Association (repost)

I am reposting it because it makes me feel good seeing people acting and reaching their goals when a health issue is in question.
Congratulations!

Visit their site:

Lindens raised as of

8:00 pm SLT, 6/28/09

Welcome to Bid4aCure.org and thank you

for taking the time to visit our website.

Bid4aCure is an effort by a group of concerned residents of the popular online virtual world of Second Life to raise both awareness and contributions for the real-world organizations: The American Diabetes Association and Diabetes UK. This June we held our third Bid4aCure benefit drive and it was our most successful one yet, having raised over 1.7 million Linden dollars! Our deepest appreciation goes out to all of our Sponsors and those who donated so generously to this effort.

If you want to know more about the benefit events that took place during the month of June 2009, click the Events link above. To learn more about Bid4aCure, our past fundraising drives, and view letters we have received from the American Diabetes Assoc. and Diabetes UK, click on the About link. Although our 2009 Bid4aCure drive has ended in Second Life, you may still donate to these organizations directly by clicking on their logos at the top right of this page.



L$1,769,155

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Juliette Binoche



Wow! She speaks good English but is it me or she said "Michael" in a very French accent?
:)
Have a great Thursday!

Sometimes we change our relationship with some people and there's nothing dramatic about it - it's part of being human

This is not quite original but we have to say it sometimes. I am a very radical person. If I like someone this person has all my attention, care and I capable of doing no matter what. If I don't like indifference is the best choice.
Some people are acquaintances and we don't pay too much attention to what they say about us and they also are not affected by us.
There are others we don't like and sometimes we simple change our minds and someone we admired and cared about are no longer in our list of loved ones.
I believe that everybody has the right not to like me as I have the right not to like others.
I also believe that we have the right to change our minds and when it happens we want to be as far as possible from this person exactly because once this person was important to us.
Funny because I never felt out of love of my boyfriends and ex-husband. Life and contingency made us apart so I didn't had to experience divorce and dramatic separations.
I noticed how mean people act when they separate and I never got married officially because I simply cannot picture myself in that position of hating and saying terrible things about someone I once said "I love you."; shared my intimacy and the whole universe that surrounds me and is part of me.
But I have the right to lose admiration of a person who I once thought was nice. They keep on being nice for many other people and admired and respected and loved and brilliant.
But not for me as I am not for them.
When it happens I stay far away from this person and the other person usually also feels the same towards me.
We don't want any kind of connection and there is nothing wrong with that and I truly believe this is very dignifying because we don't want to be hypocrite. Period. This is being faithful to what we believe. Nothing wrong or bad about it.
This is part of life and part of being human. The thin line between love and hate as the song says.
I will try to find a Sinclair Lewis text on friendship where I believe he talks about it.
Let's all be at peace each one doing activities without interfering with the other. This is fair.
Have a great Wednesday!

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Chocolat last scene

Storyteller: But still the clever north wind was not satisfied. It spoke to Vianne of towns yet to be visited, friends in need yet to be discovered, battles yet to be fought...
[Vianne throws her mother's ashes to the wind]


Storyteller: ...By someone else, next time.


Yes, By someone else...

SSRIs to treat rapers by suppressing sexual appetite (repost)

I have already publish it and there it goes again:

This is scary. I've just came across with this and I believe that if this use of SSRIs is not enough to convince that something very serious is happening I don't know what else is needed:

"In recent years SSRIs have been used to reduce sex offenders' deviant sexual thoughts and fantasies. Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, plays a role in regulating sexual drive, depression, obsessions, compulsions, anxiety, impulsiveness and anger. SSRIs are antidepressants that are also approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety. Although double-bind placebo controlled trials are needed, studies using self-report measures or PPG have found that these medications do reduce some repetitive sexually deviant fantasies and/or behavior (Greenberg& Bradford, 1997; Kafka, 1991, 1994; Kafka & Prentky, 1992, Stein et al, 1992), and to selectively decrease deviant arousal without significantly decreasing appropriate arousal (Bradford, Greenberg, Gojer Martindole & Goldberg, 1995; Kafka, 1992; Kafka & Prentky, 1994). Greenberg and Bradford (1997) have hypothesized that paraphilias may result when there is an inability to suppress conventional sexual appetites. Since serotonin affects sexual appetite, SSRIs may help alter a dysfunctional serotonergic system, thereby allowing suppression of unconventional sexual appetites."(emphasis mine)

"Furthermore SSRIs have been used in the treatment of PTSD. One study found that after a year of SSRI treatments, subjects with PTSD had a 5% increase in hippocampal volume and a 35% increase in memory function (Bremner, 2006)*. Together, these findings indicate a variety of reasons why SSRIs may be beneficial for offenders with multiple paraphilias." p. 547 (emphasis mine)
It's from this book:
Sexual Deviance: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment. edited by D. Richard Laws, William O'Donohue. New York, Guilford Publications, 1997.
A new edition fully revised was published in 2008.
This is the page from where I took the paragraph.
I had already thought reading on a fiction story, a movie or a novel, about using SSRIs to suppress arousal, women giving Paxil/Seroxat to their husbands and many other ways humankind can use this side effect.
But I never thought about this medical use.
I've stressed "
deviant sexual thoughts and fantasies" because it's widely reported on SSRI-sex Yahoo group people claiming that their normal sexual fantasies and thoughts have been altered or disappeared.
Claiming that "
SSRIs may help alter a dysfunctional serotonergic system" is not a good explanation. Why on earth people who have conventional sexual fantasies are also affected when they take SSRIs?
It's written here:
"
Since serotonin affects sexual appetite,..." and this is what really happens along with changes in sexual thoughts and fantasies which should be investigated because normal people are having sexual problems such as anorgasmia, lost of libido, lack of sexual thoughts and fantasies even after years off SSRIs.
It should be considered as a serious iatrogenic condition and not praised because it can fix paraphilias.

*This is quite scary! I wonder what kind of alterations this increasing of hippocampal volume can do.

Mindfreedom's Truth Injection - Health system lies x the truth

Download the entire file Click here to download your PDF of the MFI Truth Brochure.

Common myths about mental health
1. You have a “mental illness” that is caused by a biochemical imbalance, or some kind of brain defect or brain disease, or by a genetic predisposition.

2. The medication we give you will correct your “biochemical imbalance.”

3. “Recovery from mental illness” does not mean cure. Recovery just means learning tohave a better life despite continuing to have the illness.

4. Mental health medications are proven to be effective and reasonably safe. When people who have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness refuse medications, it is because they lack insight into their illness.

5. Because of your diagnosis, you will always have to take psychiatric medications.

6. If you have problems when you quit taking medications, this is proof you need to continue taking the medications.

7. If you really want to be healthy, you will take whatever medication your prescriber suggests, for the rest of your life.

8. If you do decide to get off medications, you cannot expect any help from your prescriber, whose job it is to keep you on your medications.

What you would hear if your mental health system told you the truth

1. This is all speculation. Science does not have proof of what causes mental and emotional
problems. There is no lab test for any of these conditions. Also, none of these theories are able
to explain how many people with mental and emotional problems recover completely.

2. Since no one knows if you have any “biochemical imbalance,” no one can promise to correct it!

3. There are varying degrees of recovery from mental and emotional problems. Some people
recover just enough to improve their life while mental and emotional problems continue. But
others go on to have a full recovery, and need no further mental health care.

4. The long term effectiveness of psychiatric medications has not been demonstrated in scientific
studies. Even in the short term, some psychiatric drugs may not be any more effective than
placebo. Many commonly used medications are quite dangerous, may potentially cause brain
damage, and are part of the reason people in the USA public mental health system are dying 25
years earlier than average. Proven non-drug options exist but are not widely offered.

5. For each diagnosis, there are people who have gotten off the medications, and then gone on
to have very successful lives.

6. Problems that arise upon quitting medications are often medication withdrawal effects, and
can be minimized by tapering down slowly. Also, if you have been relying on medications to solve emotional problems,
you may need to learn effective alternative solutions to these problems in order to accomplish a successful withdrawal.

7. It’s your choice. It is important not to stop taking medication before you are ready. But for at
least some people, getting off medication, even against a prescriber’s advice, may be the best
solution. For example, long term studies show high rates of recovery among people diagnosed
with “schizophrenia” who have gotten off medication successfully. Getting off medication can
mean avoiding long term health risks (including risks of early death) associated with many of the
medications.

8. Unless a court has taken your rights away, you have the right to decide to terminate any
given treatment. Since the mental health system got you started on medications, it also has a
responsibility to help you terminate that treatment as safely as possible if that is your choice.

Monday, February 08, 2010

Carrots good for your sight hoax - how it was created

Front page of Ministry of Food Carrot LeafletBack page of Ministry of Food Carrot Leaflet

"During the Second World War (1939-45) Carrots were one vegetable which was in plentiful supply and as a result were widely-utilised as a substitute for scarce foodstuffs and used in several "mock" recipes. It was also a major ingredient of the "Dig For Victory" Campaign. Dig for Victory, which was extensively publicised with songs and posters featuring Dr Carrot and Potato Pete, was run for most of the war by Professor John Raeburn, a respected agricultural economist, who joined the Ministry of Food in 1939 as a statistician and two years later was appointed to lead the Agricultural Plans Branch.

While much of the credit for the campaign went to Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food from 1940 to 1943, Mr Raeburn ran it until the end of the war and was responsible for its continuing success. At one point there was a glut of carrots, and the Government let it be known that carotene, which is believed to help night vision, was largely responsible for the RAF’s increasing success in shooting down enemy bombers.

People eagerly tucked in to carrots, believing this would help them to see more clearly in the blackout. This ruse not only reduced the surplus vegetables but also helped to mask the chief reason for the RAF’s success - the increasing power of radar and the secret introduction of an airborne version of the system.

The Ministry of Agriculture promoted carrots heavily as a substitute for other less readily available vegetables, fruit and other commodities. To improve its image of blandness, people were encouraged to enjoy the healthy carrot in different ways by promoting various recipes such as curried carrot and carrot jam.

The Ministry of Food produced several informative cookery leaflets including one specifically dedicated to carrots (see official carrot cookery leaflet here) . People were encouraged to enjoy the healthy carrot in different ways by the introduction of Dr Carrot in a series of magazine articles and posters.

The slogan "Carrots keep you healthy and help you see in the blackout" was used extensively.

Some war time recipes promoted by the Ministry of Food are also detailed below - click here..

There was even a homemade drink called Carrolade, made up from the juices of carrots and Swede (Rutabaga) grated and squeezed through a piece of muslin, clearly no one thought of just plain carrot juice!.

Other culinary uses included carrot marmalade and toffee carrots. The humble carrot, previously thought to be only good for animal feed had been elevated to a new high and set in motion started its rightful return to one of the countries favourite vegetables.

Also during the war many thousands of tons of carrots were dehydrated and shipped overseas in sealed metal containers in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide or nitrogen to prevent loss of carotene.

The Ministry of Food campaign to encourage people to eat more vegetables, resulted in the promotion of Woolton Pie, composed entirely of vegetables. Potato, carrot and Swede provided the basic ingredients, with onion and cauliflower added when available. Lord Woolton, was the Minister of Food from April 1940.

The recipe was the creation of the chef of the Savoy hotel and named after Lord Woolton. Many people had their own interpretation of this recipe, but they always used carrots! Basically it is mixed vegetables, a sauce and a topping , which could be pastry or potatoes mashed or sliced. The Official recipe as reported in "The Times" on 26 April 1941 is shown here:

The Official Woolton Pie Recipe as reported in The Times 26 April 1941:

INGREDIENTS

Take 1Ib each of diced potatoes, cauliflower, swedes and carrots;
Three or Four spring onions;
One teaspoonful of vegetable extract and
One teaspoonful of oatmeal.

METHOD

Cook all together for ten minutes with just enough water to cover.
Stir occasionally to prevent the mixture from sticking.
Allow to cool; put into a pie dish, sprinkle with chopped parsley and cover with a crust of potatoes or wholemeal pastry.
Bake in a moderate oven until the pastry is nicely brown and serve hot with brown gravy.

Read more about the famous Woolton Pie - click here.



Keep reading here and more here. ( Thanks to Susan for showing me Snopes.)

And a myth is born! Vitamin A is good for the eyes according to some experts the amount in carrots is not enough according to others and one should take supplements... blah blah blah
It's getting hard to know what is really good for health since if we have a problem we go to three physicians we will get three different approaches and many times different diagnosis.

Mindfreedom "Truth Injection" Campaign for Mental Health Rights"

Whether one agrees with some of the Mindfreedom's activities and concepts or not what they are doing is really good and efficacious. Unfortunately sometimes if a person doesn't agree with a tiny thing they leave the group and forget the good side. This is one of the problems when a revolution is being done: lefties take too much consideration on tiny things and forget that the goal is what matters. Righties (why not?) only focus on the main issue and act. Take a look at the political scene now and many examples will appear. Of course they have manipulation, repression, media, money and an amazing apparatus that keep themselves up there even when apparently the lefties are at the power. Sad times we leave when no opposition is strong enough to have a note at page 27 of newspapers or the official media. We have groups and individuals working without ever meeting.
Fighting for freedom is never over, it is eternal.
Here it is one of many Mindfreedom's campaigns:

Examples of myths that are getting busting:

  • "You have a 'mental illness' that is caused by a biochemical imbalance...
  • "The medication we give you will correct your 'biochemical imbalance'…
  • "You will always have to take psychiatric medications...”

The brochure was researched by MindFreedom Lane County Affiliate, and can be used internationally.

Ron Unger, a mental health counselor who is affiliate coordinator, led the effort to create the flyer, working with psychiatric survivors.

Said Ron, "The brochure does a good job of conveying the kinds of deceptions that people in the mental health system are commonly exposed to, compared to the kind of information people would hear if they were told the truth."

Links to citations and sources are also provided to back up the facts in the MindFreedom "Truth Injection" brochure.

The truth campaign launched 12 February 2009, Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, in honor of his reputation as "Honest Abe." In August 2009 the brochure was modified.

Download the brochure here if you want.

Sunday, February 07, 2010

What is raising awareness?

According to Wikipedia:

Raising awareness is a common phrase advocacy groups use to justify a particular event, brochure or even the entire organization. Raising awareness refers to alerting the general public that a certain issue exists and should be approached the way the group desires. Common theme include certain diseases (breast cancer, AIDS), conflicts (Darfur), movements (Greenpeace, PETA), and political parties/politicians.

Since informing the populace of a public concern is often regarded as the first step to changing how the institutions handle it, raising awareness is often the first activity any advocacy group engages in.

Alerting the general public; Informing the populace of a group concern, advocacy group...
Hmmm...
No! This is not being done.

Jeremy by Pearl Jam "Try to erase it from the blackboard" - "You can't get people to care"

I did publish the lyrics. Now the video.
I am dedicating to that teenager I heard that was singing it loudly while I was passing by his house. Hope he doesn't know about the true meaning of the lyrics and was having a good time singing in English in such a early age.
Happy Sunday!



Funny because I'm remembering one line of the movie Legally Blonde:

" Rep. Rudd: You can’t get people to care."

I agree. No mainstream media... people don't care. Period! They are the owners of the official concepts and if a new concept is not put in circulation nobody knows what is happening.
"Chemical imbalance" is the cause of depression no matter what people have experienced and no matter how many times on the web it is written "chemical imbalance" theory is not correct.
If one cannot name something it is impossible to spread the news. This is one of the biggest problems of the individual phase of blogosphere.
Every blogger is an island and even though experiences are the same only saying what has happened is not enough. It's necessary to name it and other people to validate it.
Maybe one day people who say that want something to change will realize that one can spend twenty years blogging and it is a personal adventure unless you create an organization,a movement, an online network or make friends bloggers speak together putting differences aside and make the truth be known by as much people as possible.
Funny because even though many people say that depression is not caused by the "chemical imbalance" we can still read that one must have nutrients with serotonin or make exercises to produce it.
It is really hard to go against the official version even if one knows it is a lie.


"Sid: An honest voice is louder then a crowd’s."
I always thought it is fullish now I'm sure it is just a catchy phrase not based in reality.
Okay! Elle Woods! She did it. Yes, she did it. Bruiser got his mother back.

International Day in Memory of SSRI Fatalities - raising awareness

I would only like to stress the most important reason why SSRIs, Prozac alike antidepressants, are at the market:



CORRUPTION



.

I will change the photo of my avatar as I said before and leave Traci in peace. I want to thank her once again for helping me keep going.
Thanks to those who has joined at Facebook and/or at Bloggers Unite.

Friday, February 05, 2010

Feb. 7, 2004 - In memory of Traci Johnson - Cymbalta victim




This is the second year I publish this post at the same date.
Traci Johnson, a healthy volunteer, joined Cymbalta's Eli-Lilly urinary incontinence clinical trial in early January, 2004 in a clinic at Indiana University Medical Center.
In February, 7 her body was found. She hung herself by a scarf from a shower rod at Eli-Lily's facilities.



..................................................................................RIP Traci Johnson (your candle is still burning)

Thursday, February 04, 2010