A Cluster of Veterans' Deaths
By Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
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 the American Psychiatric Association (Introduction, page xxi, Definition of Mental Disorder), we read: "Although this volume is titled the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the term mental disorder unfortunately implies a distinction between 'mental' disorders and 'physical' disorders that is a reductionistic anachronism of mind/body dualism. A compelling literature documents that there is much 'physical' in 'mental' disorders and much 'mental' in 'physical' disorders." Here, the APA, unabashedly claims that psychiatric diagnoses are as much diseases as those in all other medical specialties. Saying a "compelling literature" makes it so, they reference not a single proof in the medical-scientific literature, making a single psychiatric entity an actual disease.
Because psychiatric diagnoses are not actual diseases, they must be psychological or psychiatric, not medical. This means they could not cause physical complications including death.
On the other hand, all drugs, even penicillin, are exogenous chemicals, and are poisons. The pivotal question in medicine is: Are they more helpful than harmful? Of the drugs the four veterans were on, the antipsychotic, Seroquel, is the most toxic. All antipsychotics carry this ominous black box warning: "Elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis are at an increased risk of death." "Warnings/Precautions" include: "neuroleptic-malignant syndrome" (usually fatal), "tardive dyskinesia" (permanent, grotesque, movements of the face, tongue, head, neck and body), "cerebrovascular events" "cardiovascular events," "diabetes," "obesity," "gynecomastia" (male breast development needing mastectomy), "suicidal tendencies," "impaired temperature control," "dysphagia" (trouble swallowing), "aspiration pneumonia," and "death." Nor are the other two drugs -- Paxil and Klonopin without their own long lists of side effects. The more drugs given simultaneously, the less the science and the greater the risks of injury and death. Only in psychiatry do patients end up with multiple "diagnoses" (none of them diseases), on multiple drugs.
"I want to know the cause of death," said Ray Johnson, Derek Johnson's father. "Stacie said he was fine. Everything was normal. He kissed her goodnight and went to sleep." All that is certain, is he never woke up.
Because there is no such thing as a psychiatric disease, none of the veterans mentioned in this article could possibly have died from a psychiatric "disease." By process of elimination, it can be assumed that they may have died from their drugs; from their "treatments" for diseases that do not exist.
Their loved ones should begin their painful quest for justice by writing the president of the APA, Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, (American Psychiatric Association, 1000 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1825, Arlington, VA 22209) and, to the current director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel, (National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 8184, MSC 9663, Bethesda, MD 20892-9663) and ask them for proof that PTSD or any of their psychiatric diagnoses or "disorders" are actual diseases, having, as they must a confirming, objective, physical abnormality, gross (visible to the naked eye), microscopic -- as in a Pap smear or biopsy, or, chemical -- as in the chemical abnormalities of diabetes, galactosemia, gout or phenyketonuria. I suggest they do this now, copying their US Representative, their own US Senator, Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, and Senator Charles Grassley, R-IA.
*Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD, has discovered and described real diseases. He assumes full responsibility for all statements herein.
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD, Neurologist
fredbaughmanmd@cox.net
1303 HIDDEN MOUNTAIN DRIVE
EL CAJON, CA 92019Author: THE ADHD FRAUD: —How Psychiatry Makes 'Patients' of Normal Children http://www.Trafford.com
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