Autistic 11 Year Old Left Alone. Starts Fire. Dies.
Dr. Steven Novella Makes The Case for Vaccine Autism Link... By Mistake

The Phoenicians: Autism Recovery Denial, Drug Profits and the Media’s Flat Earth

By Adriana Gamondes

What if the pharmaceutical industry had a formula for projected drug profits from a massive rise in autism? A formula such as:  PY=P×Y
 
And what if the same industry simultaneously rewarded scientists, media companies and organizations which disseminate the concept that there is no autism epidemic, that the rise is “false”, that the numbers have always been with us, but that there’s just increased diagnosis due to increased clinical and public recognition of autism? And what if this industry went on a massive campaign to proselytize the dangers of any treatment method—or any scientific authority— which threatened PY=P×Y?

Profiting from something while claiming it doesn’t exist isn’t anything new. According to some historians, the myth of the flat earth was perpetuated by the Phoenicians to prevent maritime trade rivals from voyaging to England to mine tin. Tin, which seems to have been scarce in ancient Canaan, was an essential ingredient to bronze; bronze was the essence of military power and trade at the time. Advantage in the tin trade gave the Phoenicians untold power.  As long as the lie held, Phoenician fleets regularly made mining expeditions north, trading freely with the natives of the British Isles—while neighboring states feared plummeting off the edge of the world if they dared to sail through the Straits of Gibraltar.
For the analogy, imagine the existence of the epidemic as “England”; autism recovery treatments as the “Straits of Gibraltar”; and maybe psychopharmaceutical drug profits as “tin”.

The epidemic-based profit formula actually exists. It was published in a 2003 study for Eli Lilly by researchers Robert and Julia Gerlai (
HERE). From the study:

The question whether the epidemic status of ASD is due to true increase of incidence of the disease or simply its better detection and diagnosis is debated. Nevertheless, according to a most recent report to the legislature on the principal findings from the epidemiology of autism in California, the M.I.N.D. institute has confirmed that the increase of incidence is real and cannot be attributed to changes in diagnostic criteria or misclassification. Autism was estimated to have a frequency of more than 1 in 500 children, while more recent studies found its prevalence as high as 1 in 150 (for examples, see; also see
CDC website). Researchers, private (e.g., Alliance for Autism Research), and government (e.g., National Institutes of Health, USA) agencies have recognized the enormous need. As a result, funding for research has significantly increased. Surprisingly, however, autism is still not among the neurological or neuropsychiatric diseases onto which large pharmaceutical research companies traditionally focus. This is unfortunate as ASD represents a significant unmet medical need with an enormous market size. Consider the following: ASD may be diagnosed as early as 2–3 years of age. Some even argue that successful diagnosis may be made at 8-12 months). Autistic persons can live a normal life span. The market size can thus be calculated as follows: 

 PY=P×
Y

where PY is the number of “patient years,” P is the number of patients and Y is the number of years for which patients live after diagnosis. Calculating with the conservative prevalence estimate of 1 in 500, there may be approximately 600,000 ASD patients in the USA alone. These persons may live for an average of 76 years. Using the conservative age of 3 years for the time of diagnosis, PY may be calculated as follows.

PY=600,000×73=43,800,000, i.e., almost 44 million patient years.

To put this number into perspective, let us consider Alzheimer's disease, a disorder that is considered to represent the largest market by big pharmaceutical research companies. Calculating with P=9 million (say 15% of people above 65 years of age will have Alzheimer's disease in the Unites States) and Y=6 (Alzheimer's disease patients live, on average, for 6 years after first diagnosis), PY=54 million for Alzheimer's disease. The actual numbers may slightly vary. The number of Alzheimer's disease patients is actually smaller than 9 million but the disease may be diagnosed earlier and patients may live longer than for 6 years after diagnosis. On the other hand, the number of ASD patients can easily be twice or even three times higher than the presently estimated 600 thousand. Thus, it is clear ASD represents an unmet medical need that is comparable in order of magnitude to the largest neurological disease market, that of Alzheimer's disease. Thus, ASD should be of major interest to pharmaceutical research companies even when the 17-year patent expiration rule is considered.

The study abstract was sent to me by Ben Hansen, a Michigan mental health activist and satirical blogger (Bonkers Institute). Hansen was covered by the New York Times when his Freedom of Information Act inquiry of Michigan Medicaid turned up evidence that an Eli Lilly account executive may have influenced drug prescribing within the program, which had generated a 100% rise in child drug prescriptions in just 10 months. 

Just as  PY=P×Y denotes profit potential, for every child whose DAN-type biomedical treatments result in recovery or significant behavioral improvements and supplant the justification for psychoactive drugs, the formula also represents potential financial loss.
An email written by a friend and tireless warrior mother sums up precisely why non-psychopharmaceutical treatments for autism represent such a threat to industry:

“The medication nightmare began when we were so desperate to keep our son in a mainstream situation…we did not even have a computer.  He had no real functional language and was a runner. God help me I want a do over...We started down the psych. drug path— I can't even remember some of them, he reacted so badly to many and then he ended up on Risperdal, and the side effects from that led to the use of Cogentin, Lamictal, Prozac. I can't believe he could even stand up.  We honestly believed that these were going to fix the Autism. We were so uninformed. He is left with what is probably a permanent movement or tic disorder. We thought that Prozac was keeping this under some control but we backed him off of this as well.  The tic is no worse without it. Plus when we got him off of the Risperdal and all of the other crap, his language and cognitive awareness exploded! All the drugs were doing was sedating him Being off of the Prozac has given him a sense of humor! It doesn’t just dull anger, or mood. It dulls ALL EMOTION! Once I was connected by a computer, to other parents and ARI in San Diego, things slowly began to change for us. Dr.Rimland actually spoke to me personally at least 4 times. We started the mega dose B vitamins, and fish oil,  and over [three year’s] time we got him off [all the drugs].There have been a few supplements that we have seen real change with. CoQ10 gave him curiosity! Magnesium, probiotics, zinc, VitC and epsom salt soaks have helped (but not eliminated) his constipation.”

As the original manufacturer of the mercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosal and the force behind Dick Armey’s addition of the “Lilly Rider” to the Homeland Security bill barring lawsuits against vaccine makers, Eli Lilly and Company is not exactly neutral on the issue of environmental causation for autism. Though the drug maker doesn’t currently manufacture vaccines, it maintains public lock step with vaccine manufacturers in terms of defending the “perfect safety” of vaccines and the “genetic” nature of autism. Eli Lilly funds such individuals as Dr. Bennett Leventhal (
HERE), whose response to the claim that the rise in autism rates represents a true increase was once  “Rubbish!” (HERE). 

Eli Lilly certainly has an interest in presenting the “increased recognition” theories, like those championed by GlaxoSmithKline grantee Eric Fombonne, for public consumption. If there’s an epidemic, and no epidemic can be solely genetic, then autism is environmental and this brings the magnifying glass too close to Eli Lilly’s ethylmercury-tainted door. 

Also, if there’s an epidemic and the condition is not genetic, then there’s hope for prevention and perhaps recovery.  As far as treatment is concerned, why would hopeful families tolerate the side effect profiles for certain psychiatric drugs when other, far safer remedies targeting or preventing the underlying mechanisms of autism and related conditions are available? Imagine another marketing formula in which H is the value of “effective treatment” + “prevention” and the sum is future autism drug profits. 

   

   HPY= goose egg


In terms of protecting industry’s interests, that just wouldn’t do. It would be better if the public were led to believe the “increased recognition/genetic” model of the disease. This is obviously for a host of reasons— a central reason being to protect vaccine manufacturers from litigation, and to protect their freedom to continue piling new combination shots and shots for diseases no one ever heard of onto an already overburdened schedule as old patents run out.

But, in the delicate words of Ronan Gannon, GlaxoSmithKline’s executive director of US marketing and member of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee’s financing working group, the pharmaceutical drug market “dwarfs” the vaccine market. The global vaccine market was estimated at more than $20 billion last year with surges from Gardasil and the H1N1 scare. Psychiatric drugs top $40 billion in annual sales in the US alone.
As far as autism’s impact on the psychopharm market, considering the following:

•  Psychopharmaceutical sales for the treatment of autism are currently at $3.5 billion a year, largely for the US market.

• The Lilly study enthusiastically projects that autism could eventually reach “Alzheimer’s” rates. Alzheimer’s rates are reported to be doubling every twenty years. 

• A significant percent of the 40 fold rise in pediatric bipolar disorder could be due to sub-autistic toxic injuries (another portion would be due to the drugs being prescribed to children themselves: mania is a listed side effect of all classes of psychotropes. See Sharna Olfman’s “Bipolar Children”, chapters by Healy, Whitaker and Landrigan respectively, here: 
HERE ).

• Children diagnosed with bipolar disorder are frequently prescribed the same drugs as children with autism, particularly the newer, on-patent antipsychotics, though many are being treated with autism recovery methods.

• Sales of atypical antipsychotics went from $0 to $16 billion a year since the start of the epidemic. 

Bearing in mind that vaccine litigation potentially represents a corporate-wrecking proverbial last straw, we have our pick of motives for industry’s perpetuation of the “genes-only/always been with us/no cure/no epidemic” rhetoric.

But the “bend sinister” is that, at the same time, acknowledgement of an epidemic in certain circles could enliven the psychopharmaceutical drug market. While some people might have thought that National Institute of Mental Health director Thomas Insel’s recent softening on environmental contributions to autism and admission that the rise is real (here
HERE) meant he might eventually concede to vaccine causation, I just assumed he was boosting investor confidence.

Thomas Insel, brother of a vaccine maker, chairman of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) who stealthily voted vaccine safety research off the agenda and, under whose oversight, the NIMH’s website on autism went from mentioning a few drugs by generic name in 2006 to presently promoting 15 psychiatric drugs by brand and five more by generic name—the man under whose direction IACC consistently leads all its published recommendations with promises to create more psychopharmaceutical drug algorithms for autism—is not interested in holding pharmaceutical companies to account. He’s unlikely to be interested in promoting non-psychotrope treatments for the underlying causes of autism.  If anything, we may see him cheerleading research for—God forbid— an “autism vaccine”. 

Thomas Insel is merely following the tradition of his post. For decades, the National Institute of Mental Health has been under heavy criticism for being a “captured” agency which acts chiefly as PR wing to psychopharmaceutical manufacturers. Several NIMH leaders have gone on to either lucrative industry careers or lucrative symbiosis. Frederick Goodwin, former head of the NIMH (and industry think tank advisory board colleague of Paul Offit and Steven Novella,
HERE), lost his NPR show “The Infinite Mind” when he was caught taking $1.3 million in supposedly undeclared fees from GlaxoSmithKline to promote drugs like Paxil and Lamictal on the air. Other examples of the “NIMH-Big Pharma revolving door”, as clinical psychologist Bruce E. Levine put it (HERE ), include Lewis Judd, former NIMH director, who joined the scientific advisory board of Roche Pharmaceutical in 2001 (Klonopin, Valium, Tamiflu); and Steven Paul, scientific director of NIMH, who left to become vice president of Eli Lilly in 1993 (Prozac, Zyprexa, Cymbalta, Strattera, Symbyax).

It’s not a matter of whether Thomas Insel will land at a pharmaceutical company once he leaves his agency, but a question of which one.

It would be a different story and we’d be living in a different world (one in which childhood vaccines in the US would have been safer and fewer; maybe one in which the epidemic never happened) if the “autism remedies” being presented by pharmaceutical companies were in any way effective towards underlying disease mechanisms. But the idea that psychiatric drugs correct anything in the brain has been repeatedly debunked. In fact, to date, other than dabbling in prenatal vitamins, etc., Big Pharma simply can’t compete with recovery treatment models—not fairly, in any case.  They won’t try either. Developing treatments which work by targeting vaccine injuries is out of the question. And research and development costs for such treatments go far beyond pharma’s traditional investment bounds.   

Antipsychotics—the main drug class being pushed for autism— were originally brought to the American market for a mere $30,000 research investment. Far more funds were spent on heavy lobbying of government agencies and the press to promote the drugs as a miracle cure which would liberate mental patients from institutions once and for all. Instead the opposite happened. As journalist Robert Whitaker documented in his book, “Mad in America”, an eight year World Health Organization study performed in the 1960s and 70s (the International Pilot Study,
HERE) found that outcomes for schizophrenia were three times worse in developed countries which relied primarily on the use of neuroleptics to treat the condition when compared to outcomes in a range of culturally heterogeneous underdeveloped countries which rarely employed the drugs.

In other words, in underdeveloped/developing countries, schizophrenia was known—as impossible as that may seem in the US— as a disease with more than a 60% chance of recovery. In developed countries, the reverse was true. The WHO conducted a more surgical follow-up study in response to protests by organized psychiatry, but the original findings were only reiterated.

Although— unlike autism—schizophrenia is sometimes distinguished as a grab-bag diagnosis (misdiagnosed due to racism, or out of cultural or medical incompetence), the degree to which schizophrenia shows itself to be, like autism, an environmentally or toxically mediated condition affecting a subset of susceptible individuals may account for the lower incidence of schizophrenia (at least in the 1960s and 70s) in less industrialized countries. But the WHO five year follow-up to the International Pilot study firmly demonstrated that severity of onset within agreed-upon parameters of the condition was not the determining factor in recovery rates. This hints that, whereas non-drug environmental factors could have triggered the condition in some, drugging rates almost certainly effected outcomes. The rates of relapse and direness of outcomes were in direct proportion to the percentage of patients in developed countries who were chronically exposed to the drugs, with the Soviet Union “winning” the distinction of worst outcomes with a drugging rate of 85%.

The US now drugs the growing population of patients with schizophrenia at a rate of more than 93%; outcomes and relapse rates have worsened accordingly. Other countries have been catching up as well, so that the pool of undrugged schizophrenics is shrinking globally (
HERE). In fact, schizophrenic patients have been drugged at such a pace in the past fifty years that most clinical and public concepts of symptoms and outcomes reflect the drugged condition, not the condition itself. For instance, schizophrenia’s clinical association with violence—which was not strictly associated with the disease process 100 years ago— increased with drugging rates. The same may prove true for autism.

The toxicity of the drugs and their capacity to induce or worsen environmental brain injuries shouldn’t be that surprising. Early psychiatric drugs were often derived from various industrial pigments and solvents (imipramine, for example, was once an industrial dye called “Summer Blue”). Neuroleptics in particular have a questionable history. The drugs were originally used to deliberately induce Parkinsonism, under the idea that Parkinson’s was somehow antithetical to psychosis. Those with advanced Parkinson’s disease—so the thinking went— generally don’t show any emotion at all, much less the throws of psychosis.
The dopamine theory still used in marketing antipsychotics was concocted after the drugs had been put into wide use in institutions, and has about as much basis as the “genetic brain chemical imbalance correction” theories  used to market antidepressants today (here
HERE). It was originally thought that neuroleptics “worked” (at least initially and only when they did) to reduce psychotic episodes by inhibiting dopamine in the brain on the theory that dopamine levels “flared” during psychotic episodes. That concept never bore out in actual research though: measured dopamine levels could be high, low or indifferent in patients enduring psychotic incidents. Even according to industry’s own dopamine theory, neuroleptics don’t “work” in the end because the brain swelling unilaterally seen within weeks of exposure to antipsychotics turned out to be caused by drug-induced mass  generation of dopamine receptors, causing the brain to become super-sensitive to the very brain chemical that was assumed to be inducing psychosis to begin with.

Few are aware that neuroleptics are often used as solely physical painkillers for certain conditions. It’s been speculated that the drugs initially “reduce disruptive behavior” in some (not all) in the “honeymoon” phase of drug treatment by partly acting as global, emotional-physical painkillers. Sadly, the very painkilling properties of many psychiatric drugs could partly hinge on their capacity to kill brain cells: the sensation that apparently comes with mass brain cell death, as in glue sniffing, is euphoria. This is relevant to autism in that many children with autism, for instance, live with chronic pain from inflamed GI tracts and other physiological injuries which can affect behavior, socialization, cognition. Within reason and depending on the health costs of using certain agents, temporary painkilling could be viewed as having at least partial clinical value.

But doctors can not only lose their licenses for overprescribing painkillers, they can go to jail, so the painkiller distinction does not serve the industry financial platforms of overprescription, overmarketing and “polypharmacy—the practice of adding new drugs to quell side effects of previous drugs,  ad infinitum (ad nauseum, ad mortem). This leads to the need for false clinical “correction” theories for certain drugs.
 
Painkillers also can’t be mandated. Does anyone wonder what happens to the scores of children with autism who are currently being arrested in schools for exhibiting behaviors associated with the disability?  Many are routed to “psychiatric courts” where treatments are decided by judges (
HERE). Those “treatments” tend to fall in line with National Institute of Mental Health guidelines. The mandated drugging of people in institutions and correctional facilities, and among children in foster care (those drugged against parental consent) and remanded juvenile offenders represents a good slice of drug profits.

In any event, the distinction of “neuroleptics as painkillers” only holds until the side effects kick in.  The current generation of antipsychotics— the “atypicals” once marketed as an improvement over the “old”, “bad” drugs like Thorazine—are nearly identical to older neuroleptics in terms of side effect profiles. Atypicals, like the older generation of drugs, have the capacity to induce agonizing and lethal conditions such as tardive dyskinesia, respiratory dyskinesia (often labeled “asthma”, “COPD”, etc.), tardive dementia, tardive psychosis, lethal cardiometabolic disorder, organ failure, GI disorders, mass brain cell death, diabetes, dystonia, suicide, gynecomastia, violence (especially on withdrawal) and much more. Current antipsychotics still induce Parkinsonism: the “flat” emotional affect—a primary, not “side”, effect of the drugs—is merely a “larval” phase of the condition.
Antipsychotics—old and new—also induce lipid metabolism, demyelinating and mitochondrial disorders which either mimic various genetic conditions (like Neimann-Pick’s), or which fully add up to conditions previously thought to be solely genetic such as MELAS (Mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes). MELAS shows certain lab findings which overlap with autism.

In patients who take them, regardless of observable manifestation of side effects, neuroleptics induce or increase the appearance of certain proteins in cerebrospinal fluid which are markers for Alzheimer’s and dementia. These proteins— APO-D or apolipoprotein D— are abnormally elevated to some degree in those with autism and Alzheimer’s who were never exposed to neuroleptic drugs. But after treatment with antipsychotics, the levels rise considerably. So here is evidence that neuroleptics actually make some of the clinical dysfunction underlying autism and Alzheimer’s worse.

Making conditions worse isn’t a great PR tagline for drug corporations. Insofar as industry does not wish for its drugs’ side effects to be widely understood, it also won’t tolerate the compounded menace of autism recovery science. Autism recovery science doesn’t just point to vaccine/environmental cause or pose safer and actually effective treatment options which result in direct treatment competition for pharma’s blockbuster drugs. Autism recovery science also—by incidentally corroborating the overlaps in types of brain damage induced by both vaccines and psychopharmaceuticals—potentially threatens PY for every cognitive, behavioral or psychiatric condition targeted by drug makers.

Furthermore, just as the existence of an unvaccinated population is threatening to industry because it provides the study “control” for comparison of injury rates, a drug-naïve population of children with autism provides a clearer picture of just which cellular processes are being disrupted and what might be causing the disruptions to begin with. Just as important, the existence of a drug-naïve population also spoils the pretense that adverse drug effects are attributable to autism itself—a “misattribution of contingency” that’s been played with nearly every drug side effect since “mental health” drugs were first marketed.
 The fact that children within the autism recovery community have such low psychiatric drugging rates when compared to the 70% of developmentally disabled children in the general population is a threat that won’t be allowed to stand without a fight. As psychopharmaceutical expert Dr. Grace Jackson argues in her most recent book, “Drug Induced Dementia: The Perfect Crime” (
HERE), distinguishing what underlies certain forms of behavioral disorders—whether these conditions are genetic or environmental, preventable or treatable— becomes more and more difficult as drug exposure increases and skews the evidence. 

Dr. Jackson, not incidentally, describes herself as a “big fan” of Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s “elegant” theory. Her book is the source for the above information on drug-induced mitochondrial dysfunction, lipid storage disorders and biomarkers for dementia. In 2007, I saw her present a case study of a typical seven year old boy who developed severe symptoms of autism when exposure to the drug Depakote compounded specific brain damage and mitochondrial dysfunction from chemotherapy treatment several years earlier. For an example of evidence-skewing, according to Dr. Jackson’s research, valproic acid apparently has a dozen or so overlaps with the effects of thimerosal and other vaccine toxins on the brain, including elevated serum ammonia, lipid metabolism damage, evidence of Alzheimer’s Type II astrocytosis; tubulin, glutamate, glutamine and carnitine disruption; myelin damage, alteration of cytokine activity and mitochondrial damage.  During the Autism Omnibus, a government attorney admitted that pre or neonatal exposure to Depakote could cause autism. Aside from his excessive confidence in stating age limits of exposure, the attorney’s statement was backed up by a 2008 study (
HERE).

As long as independent researchers can still differentiate the source of damage from one agent to another, the crime will not be perfect. The FDA helps to obfuscate these imperfections by making the statistical evidence of damage from drugs—which is supposed to be readily available through its Medwatch database—notoriously difficult to access. Add this to the fact that only about 10% of all adverse drug events are ever reported to Medwatch, and any search for injury and death statistics is a miserable procedure.
Fortunately, an activist and database programmer named Steven Helgeson figured out how to untangle the FDA Adverse Events Reporting System. He created a searchable site for the purpose of consumer education (
HERE). 

A quick search of the database by drug class, brand or generic drug name brings up the question of whether “death” is a particularly good selling point for drug corporations. As the autism recovery community finds itself, its doctors and information resources under increasing attacks by media and industry for advocating “dangerous” non-psychoactive treatments for autism,  it’s interesting to note that the full dangers of the most common mainstream “treatments” for autism—the very drugs frequently recommended by the industry “experts” these media sources quote— are never mentioned. 

In fact, while the mainstream media in the UK and US might protest the excessive drugging of certain populations deemed not to “need” the drugs (note the title of the Chicago Tribune article: “Psychotropic Drugs Given to Nursing Home Patients Without Cause”, here
HERE), the same outrage is absent when it comes to the deadly drugging of more “disturbing” populations, such as those with autism and schizophrenia. This disconnect on drugs is a media tradition: in the 1970s, the same publications which decried the use of neuroleptics as a form of torture against Soviet dissidents showed only contempt for the struggle of the “Mad Rights” movement to ban forced drugging in institutions. That members of the media may love grandma and despise designated foes of Democracy is not proof of principled reporting—only that the shape of reality may vary according to agenda and the perceived expendability of certain human beings. 

We’ve all seen the repeated coverage of the tragic and avoidable death of Tariq Nadama in news items denouncing the dangers of autism recovery treatments. Tariq was given the wrong chelator (here
HERE), for which his parents rightfully sued the physician responsible. There have been two other reported deaths from hypocalcemia as a result of the same medical mistake in the past seven years, though only the Nadama case involved a child with autism.

Using Steve Helgeson’s Medwatch-decrypting database, below is a list of US deaths due to just some of the drugs promoted on the NIMH autism website within a four year period. Helgeson reports that some of the cases of death associated with individual drugs were left out due to being listed irregularly on Medwatch, therefore the numbers below are conservative. 

Number of deaths by drug between 2004 and 2008:

Risperdal : 308: Abilify: 213: Zyprexa: 417; Geodon: 140;  Haldol: 46; Prozac: 371; Celexa: 411; Zoloft: 356; Luvox: 15; Anafranil: 16; Valium: 269; Ativan: 109; Ritalin: 76

The above death statistics include death by suicide, homicide, prenatal/neonatal death and “other”, such as drug-induced cardiac arrest, stroke, organ failure, etc.

Some might take exception to the use of suicide stats in the overall numbers, even though suicide statistics are far higher for those on the drugs than among unexposed patients with the same conditions. Objections are usually based on yet another goofy industry theory which sounds like something extemporized by a tween. It’s called “roll-back”. The idea goes something like this: people who are depressed don’t have enough energy to kill themselves but, when first taking antidepressants or other psychotropes—before the supposed “anti” part kicks in—the drugs perk them up enough to carry out their preexisting suicide plans.
The roll-back hypothesis doesn’t explain the sudden mania, violence and suicides among people given the wrong drug by pharmacy mistake (i.e., Xanax instead of Zantac; Celexa instead of Celebrex), and those without psychiatric or violent histories who take the drugs for nonpsychiatric purposes (temporary insomnia, etc.). And, as Grace Jackson asks rhetorically in her first book, “Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs”, how much energy does it take to perform the easiest form of suicide going—the intentional overdose?  The theory is stupid, really, and the drugs are known to induce a condition called akathisia, which can range from “restlessness” to a sense of profound inner torture (
HERE). Anything which potentially induces akathisia-like psychosis— such as the antibiotic Lariam, the anti-viral Tamiflu, and all classes of psychoactives to varying degrees— can induce violence and suicide. Many of the suicides and homicides we hear about in the news involving children in general and children with autism also involved psychiatric drugs (HERE).

Though he says he’s working on it, deaths by anticonvulsants and “mood stabilizers” are not included in Helgeson’s database yet.  According to another breakdown of the FDA AERS website, a total of 1,601 deaths are listed for “other” psychoactive drugs between 2004 and 2006 (two years less than the software’s search period), among 6,907 reported deaths from all classes of psychopharmaceuticals.

6,907 in two years. That’s two 9/11’s or the equivalent of 27 to 28 fully-loaded Boeing 737s dropping out of the sky every year. Since the reported statistics are estimated to be only one-tenth of the actual toll, imagine 69,070 deaths every two years—that’s 278.5  737s fatally crashing to the ground year in, year out.  

Every drug war has its casualties. For another analogy, pharma makes Ciudad Juarez look like a resort town. This seems more the case now that the Supreme Court has approved unlimited campaign contributions by what are frequently international corporate conglomerates. The cartels control everything. 

In response to my emailed remarks over the Chicago Tribune’s pre-Thanksgiving hit piece on autism recovery proponents, scientists and treatments (“Autism treatments: Risky alternative therapies have little basis in science”), Trine Tsouderos sent me the stock reply that everyone else got, except for one little addendum:

Thank you for your note.
I am sorry we cannot agree on the issue, but we stand by our conclusions, which  are based on exhaustive research and talking with some of the most highly regarded, best-credentialed experts in the field. I can assure you GlaxoSmithKline did not have anything to do with these articles.
Best wishes and hope you and your family have a lovely Thanksgiving, Trine

She can’t fool me. There’s no Thanksgiving in Juarez. My initial email to Tsouderos remarked on the two Glaxo ads which appeared next to her online article.

Now can anyone guess which psych drug wins the distinction of highest death count according to the FDA’s Medwatch database? GSK’s antidepressant Paxil. With a once-a-day price tag of over $1,500 a year, Paxil racked up 1,139 reported deaths in a four year period. GSK also has a glutamate-targeting antipsychotic in the pipeline, and is the maker of Tagamet and other “tummy” meds that children within the vaccine injury movement no longer seem to use to any great degree.

GlaxoSmithKline is the maker of the British MMR and more than 25 other vaccines for the global market, including H1N1, seasonal flu, human papillomavirus and the Engerix B vaccine which contained thimerosal up to 2007 and which—when compared to other Hepatitis B vaccines— was associated with the highest incidence of CNS inflammatory demyelination (
HERE). 

GSK also makes the anticonvulsants Keppra, and the blockbuster dual anticonvulsant/sixth-highest-selling antipsychotic Lamictal, with a once-a-day price tag of $1,883 a year. Since Lamictal is not yet listed on Steve Helgeson’s search site, we can only wonder how many of the 1,601 deaths from “other drugs” indicated on Medwatch were due to the use of Lamictal as an antipsychotic. I have to differentiate this from Lamictal’s use as an antiepilepsy drug, both because deaths of children who suffer from seizure disorders would generally not make the FDA drug-death roster (seizures become the alibi for almost any cause of death); and because I know that parents who give these drugs to children for severe seizures have no choice. The death toll among children with seizures and autism is generally attributable to “autism” itself as the rate of deadly seizure disorders among vaccine injured children rise every year.

This obviously wasn’t factored into Eli Lilly’s profit formula. Many children with autism don’t make it to age 9, much less age 76. Add to this the predictable death toll from psychopharmaceuticals, and it looks like PY=P×Y might need retooling.

I think it’s as cruel to judge parents cornered into drugging children who try to gouge out their own eyes and gnaw off their fingers as it is to judge parents forced to use anticonvulsants to keep vaccine-induced seizures from killing their children. For one, once in, it’s murder to get out: withdrawal from these drugs is often extraordinarily dangerous. And though the drugs themselves can induce self injury, obsessive behaviors and violence, some children with autism intractably self mutilate prior to drug exposure.  I have friends who live under these shadows and I sometimes open emails from them like I’m pulling crime scene tape off their doors. I never know when the worst of all possible news might come. But no one hates these medications more than those forced to use them at gunpoint, and who know perfectly well that these drugs are often manufactured by the very companies marketing the vaccines which robbed them of their once healthy children.  

In any case, Paul Offit—eight figure vaccine profiteer, PR capo, epidemic denier— put it well when he said that hope is “dangerous”.  He’s right, it is. He actually indicated “false hope”, but false to him is real enough to many and the meaning is clear considering what’s at stake for all concerned.  It’s politically dangerous for scientists and families to provide or pursue hope because this can only be done by exposing cause. Even success brings home the horror of what’s been lost by showing that it never had to happen to begin with. And hope undeniably represents dire straits for unregulated industry. 

Because industry can’t and won’t compete with this (
HERE), they give us this:  
NOHOPETAL A Gamondes

Adriana Gamondes lives in Massachusetts with her husband and is the mother of twins who are currently recovering from vaccine-induced GI disorders.

Comments

Angela

Wow! great article

camilla

Thank you for writing your incredibly thoughtful and generous piece. It will certainly help to save countless lives as people get the truth to help free them from the lies we have been programmed with.

Gammie

This does much validating of my experience over the last 27 years as: a special ed teacher's aide, administrative assistant in a residential treatment facility/school for psychiatrically diagnosed boys, a med tech in nursing homes and a county jail, a foster parent, and a retail pharmacy technician.

Two of my five grandchildren are on the spectrum. I live every day with the unspeakable fear mentioned in the article. Keep up the good work, freedom of speech will prevail in a free society. I have direct experience (oh,no! they'll call that anectdotal!) of the dire side effects of many of the drugs discussed, from tardive diskinesia -- yes, to death.

Thanks again, and now I have a new motto: Hope is dangerous! I think they are starting to be scared. Gammie

julie

Kim D--
Your story is just as anecdotal as the story of any parent whose child recovered through biomedical intervention.

It sounds like you had access to very good services. Most people don't. Even for parents able to pay out of pocket, the kind of intensive intervention you describe just isn't available in most of the country.

I'm glad your son was able to recover through behavioral intervention and his body healed itself.You are both very fortunate. But your story is not typical.

Try not to be judgemental of parents whose kids require a lot more.

michael framson

PY= PxY Pharmaceutical companies are "strip mining our health."

Thanks, this is just one of those "wow" articles.

Autism Grandma

What a masterpiece of logical deduction backed up with factual references!!!!

There is so much relevant information I need to re-read this again. The bottom line is that we are all just Big Money to Big Pharma... listed in numbers by Patient Years (like all those poor souls numbered in Hitler's concentration camps).

I found this intriguing at the onset. According to the drug industry market share analysis, our "non-existant" autism epidemic is acknowledged as very real:

"Calculating with the conservative prevalence estimate of 1 in 500, there may be approximately 600,000 ASD patients in the USA alone....the number of ASD patients can easily be twice or even three times higher than the presently estimated 600 thousand."

Calculating at the present acknowledged statistic of 1 in 100, 600,000 ASD patients is actually 5 times greater at 3,000,000. That is THREE MILLION straight from the horses mouth.

Obviously Big Pharma recognizes autism as an epidemic representing present and future profit margins. But in the media world of public relations, there is no epidemic. The unsuspecting American public would be shocked into reality if they ever had a glimpse of what is really going on behind closed doors. Big Pharma goes to great lengths to keep their agenda a closely guarded secret, but someday someone is going to get their hands on some dirty laundry email correspondence and/or some transcripts from secret sessions like Simpsonwood and WHAM.

Hey maybe Adrianna could hook up with Jake Crosby and David Kirby and the other great investigative journalists on Age of Autism and dig up some really big sh*t. (Oops I mean dirt) Actually collectively there has already been enough dirt dug up to make a mountain the size of Mt. Everest, but the general public isn't exposed to enough of it to connect the dots.

If they ever figured it out, NO ONE would be marching their precious children into the doctor's office to get vaccines. NO ONE.

Maurine Meleck

This is an incredible piece of work. So well written and so informative. Thanks for writing this on AOA. It truly is a keeper.
maurine

Teresa Conrick

Adriana,

This was so well researched and written. It was a great read! Thank you.

And remember,,,screw the NOHOPEETAL..."Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies."

Nora

Have you thought of submitting to Harpers or Vanity Fair. Really great work.

Roz Young

no wonder they want to take supplements away from us. years ago i listened to a report on free speech radio-it was about the company that made pesticides; this company also makes the anti-cancer drugs for prostate cancer and breast cancer. no connection there! thanks for a great article. i have not quite digested it yet. i had to stop since i am at work and i started to cry. they want us cradle to grave=PY=P×Y

Maria

Your writings never cease to *amaze*. Your insight is genius. Your contributions are priceless. Excellent research! THANK YOU!

Benedetta

Good article;

But already thought on this one.

I am always looking up to see what pharmy is making my son's seizure medication.

Not that it will do me any good.

Except to think dark thought of what I would like to do to them. which does no good.

When your stuck - You are stuck

Heather Z.

I really appreciated the in-depth explanation for why pharmaceutical companies would want the "better diagnosing" myth to stay circulating. I couldn't understand why after the real, noticable rise in these disorders, that there would still be so much emphasis on the possibility that we can diagnose these disorders better. It makes more sense to me that this myth would have to be encouraged, and perpetuated, by groups that would want to divert attention away from an environmental/toxic vaccines cause of the rise in ASD's.

The formula added a sense of realism to the issue that many of us don't get to see.. that there is a huge profit agenda with pharmaceuticals, which isn't tempered by a real desire to help people recover or feel better, but to get as many people in the target groups on medication.

nhokkanen

Thanks, Adriana, for your outstanding detailed analysis of historical parallels, current corruption and future profiteering. You understand the dualities of human nature, when ambition swells into greed and the bloated pharma cookie jar becomes too tempting to resist even for people charged with protecting the public's health. I hope to read your book one day.

No, cures aren't profitable. Drug companies aren't in the business of putting themselves OUT OF business. So consumers easily swayed by relentless TV ads during "newscasts" find themselves asking for medications that don't address root causes but instead mask or worsen symptoms.

Have any people recovered from Alzheimer's due to medications like Aricept? For a person I knew the drug appeared to slow onset, but it also introduced some unpleasant side effects. There's a nasty list of adverse effects at the manufacturer's website.
http://www.aricept.com/images/AriceptComboFullPINovember02006.pdf

So if reflux is a side effect, that creates another customer for antacids. Thus the prescriptions pile on. After a while the realization sets in -- your doctor has sold you out. Once you mentally process that sense of betrayal, you can start taking charge of your own wellness.

While mending today I heard an 18-year-old guy on "Judge Jeanne Pirro" report being picked on for having Tourette's syndrome. He mentioned how much he'd improved after stopping psych meds and starting to use a homeopathic remedy. Gradually consumers are wising up, rejecting the "here's your prescription, buh bye" model of medical service on the cheap... a false economy.

Kathy Blanco

And no fraud is EVER perpetuated on their parts? PLUEZZ...

It's being called the largest research fraud in medical history. Dr. Scott Reuben, a former member of Pfizer's speakers' bureau, has agreed to plead guilty to faking dozens of research studies that were published in medical journals.

Now being reported across the mainstream media is the fact that Dr. Reuben accepted a $75,000 grant from Pfizer to study Celebrex in 2005. His research, which was published in a medical journal, has since been quoted by hundreds of other doctors and researchers as "proof" that Celebrex helped reduce pain during post-surgical recovery. There's only one problem with all this: No patients were ever enrolled in the study!

Dr. Scott Reuben, it turns out, faked the entire study and got it published anyway.

It wasn't the first study faked by Dr. Reuben: He also faked study data on Bextra and Vioxx drugs, reports the Wall Street Journal.

As a result of Dr. Reuben's faked studies, the peer-reviewed medical journal Anesthesia & Analgesia was forced to retract 10 "scientific" papers authored by Reuben. The Day of London reports that 21 articles written by Dr. Reuben that appear in medical journals have apparently been fabricated, too, and must be retracted.

After being caught fabricating research for Big Pharma, Dr. Reuben has reportedly signed a plea agreement that will require him to return $420,000 that he received from drug companies. He also faces up to a 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.

He was also fired from his job at the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass. after an internal audit there found that Dr. Reuben had been faking research data for 13 years. (http://www.theday.com/article/20100...)


Darian (nickname)

Does anyone ever wonder whatever happened to "do no harm"?

The practice of medical treatment will never improove until Big Pharma and thier twin Insurance Companies get thier noses out of it!

The establishment gets us sick, insurance makes sure we can't pay for the treatment for the sickness.

Anyone for instant karma for these entities?

maggie

everyone send this and all age of autism posts to big noise films.

GennyGC

My jaw actually dropped with this extraordinary post - thank you Adriana

I want a tee-shirt that says Py=PxY together with "the problem is the problem"

Robin Rowlands

Profit sheets and Political Manifestos are flat.
Autistic kids and their parents are as ever left to wander threw the fog of moral indifference until they drop of the edge.

Robin Rowlands

Judith, RN

WOW! What a piece! I am so relieved that I am continuing to heal my ASD son bio medically and homeopathically, rather than try any form of anti-pychotic medication...
And at peace knowing my NT daughter will remain vaccine free..

Thank you!

Jenny

Thank-you so much. This was just an excellent piece of work, on so many levels. It obviously took a lot of work to put together. I look forward to reading more of your stuff.
And thank-you for the link that accesses the Medwatch. I've used Medalerts many times, but I had never even heard of this one. I'm sure it will be widely used as a result of your article.

Craig Willoughby

Wow...there is a lot of information here. I think I may have to read it in a couple of sittings. Excellent research, Adriana. Keep it up!

Andrea

Wow! This is a keeper. Thanks Adriana.

Parent

This is one of the best pieces in AofA that I have ever read. Going in the "keep file" for future reference.

Thank you very much.

Tanners Dad

Wow great piece... When will my diploma be delivered or at least CE Credits... I bet you that is more reading than any Mainstream Medical Doctor has done in the last few months.

Keep the research coming people. As long as Dr Nancy Snyderman can get on her soap box and say there is NO studies that connect Vaccines to Autism we have a lot to do. Good news is She is just wrong.

As Adriana has shown us the flaws in the thinking, Research, & Processes within the Pharmaceutical Mega Complex are many.

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