When it comes to psychiatric scientific research, there is a double standard that favors what makes money and disavows what does not make money. When we say “double standard” we mean some rule or principle which is unfairly applied in different ways to different groups or situations, or that favors one group or situation over another. The actual principle in question here is called “evidence-based science.”
Many scientists, particularly those in the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry, mouth that they favor “evidence-based science” when in fact they favor what can make the most money regardless of the evidence.
A recent Scientific American editorial (“The WHO Takes a Reckless Step“, April, 2019) denigrates Traditional Chinese Medicine because it is purportedly not “evidence-based.”
Yet Scientific American promotes psychiatry and psychiatric drugs, when it knows that every psychiatric drug on the market has somewhere in its fine print a statement to the effect that “we don’t know how it works,” while the FDA approves these drugs based on so-called “evidence.”
Here are some representative quotes:
- The fine print for Rexulti (brexpiprazole, an antipsychotic) says, “the exact way REXULTI works is unknown”.
- The fine print for Latuda (lurasidone, an antipsychotic) says, “It’s not known exactly how LATUDA works, and the precise way antipsychotics work is also unknown”.
- The fine print for Xanax (alprazolam, a benzodiazepine anti-anxiety drug) says, “Their exact mechanism of action is unknown”.
So much for evidence-based practice! The actual evidence is, they don’t have a clue how these drugs are supposed to work — it’s all conjecture!
As we continue to examine the actual evidence, we come up against the adverse reactions, or side effects, of these drugs. This is hard evidence, not conjecture.
What is a Side Effect?
Side effects (also called “adverse reactions”) are the body’s natural response to having a chemical disrupt its normal functioning.
One could also say that there are no drug side effects, these adverse reactions are actually the drug’s real effects; some of these effects just happen to be unwanted.
The FDA takes the adverse side effect of suicide seriously by placing a Black Box Warning on certain psychiatric drugs. For example, the FDA says that “Antidepressants increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children and adolescents with MDD [Major Depressive Disorder] and other psychiatric disorders.”
What about those who say psychotropic drugs really did make them feel better? Psychotropic drugs may relieve the pressure that an underlying physical problem could be causing but they do not treat, correct or cure any physical disease or condition. This relief may have the person thinking he is better but the relief is not evidence that a psychiatric disorder exists. Ask an illicit drug user whether he feels better when snorting cocaine or smoking dope and he’ll believe that he is, even while the drugs are actually damaging him. Some drugs that are prescribed to treat depression can have a “damping down” effect. They suppress the physical feelings associated with “depression” but they are not alleviating the condition or targeting what is causing it.
Once the drug has worn off, the original problem remains. As a solution or cure to life’s problems, psychotropic drugs do not work.
For the first time the side effects of psychiatric drugs that have been reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by doctors, pharmacists, other health care providers and consumers have been decrypted from the FDA’s MedWatch reporting system and been made available to the public in an easy to search psychiatric drug side effects database and search engine. This database is provided as a free public service by the mental health watchdog, Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR).
