Midweek Mashup: Starts With An A, Will Wreck Your Life, and Isn’t Autism.
By Dan Olmsted
I can’t walk down the street anymore without being assailed by evidence that we live in a toxic world and that, healthy though we may be at the moment, there is always something lurking around the corner.
Like Alzheimer’s. Coming out of Starbucks today I saw a new building for assisted living going up. Right next to the smiling couple on a banner covering the chain link fence was the news that two – not one, but two! – floors would be devoted to memory care. I’ve heard Alzheimer’s called the autism of adulthood, which means that fewer and fewer of us are going to get out of this world with our minds intact. According to the Alzheimer’s Association:
“By 2025, the number of people age 65 and older with Alzheimer's disease is estimated to reach 7.1 million — a 40 percent increase from the 5.1 million age 65 and older affected in 2015.” (By the way, the group’s slogan, “the brains behind saving yours,” does nothing to make me think they are going to get a grip on this disease anytime soon. Yuck!)
Anyone who reads this blog already knows the damage inflicted on a generation and a half – and counting – by the autism epidemic. We hear the latest numbers are coming out later this month, but whether it’s 1 in 68, or 1 in 30 boys, or 1 in 50 based on the CDC’s own phone survey of parents of kids 6 to 17 in 2011-2012, or 1 in 25 as Andy Wakefield says it really is right now, or the 1 in 2 that MIT professor predicted for a couple of decades from now – well, it’s way too much.
Add ADHD on top of that, along with declining academic proficiency, asthma, allergies and so on. And that’s just the A’s, and that’s just the kids.
It appears the Seven Ages of Man that Shakespeare described have been reduced to a list of age-appropriate disabilities – all of it attended to by the only flourishing sector of the economy at the moment, health care.
Still, a ghastly end awaits an awful lot of us after all this lovely health treatment. Make it past 85 and you’ll have a one in three chance of having Alzheimer’s. One in nine of those over 65 (which I will be next year) have it.
I’m sure you’ve seen those ads, in which smiling, slow-motion couples like the ones on the building across from Starbucks convey how happy they are now that their loved one’s decline has imperceptibly slowed due to the latest miracle drug (which, the ads feel compelled to say, don’t change the outcome or progression of the disease).
It’s already being lost to history, but worth remembering even so that Alzheimer’s originally meant premature mental disability. It was a rare and striking loss of faculties well before the onset of age-related dementia, which was as well-known then as it is now. German psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer identified the first case in a 50-year-old woman in 1901. If you read the mainstream narratives, the fearsome spread of the disease is all due to living longer, diagnosis getting better, genes going wrong, etcetera etcetera etcetera.
But as someone who’s done a lot of research about modern diseases, I see a pattern in a disease first being identified in 1901 – and in Germany, no less. This looks like an industrial age illness of toxic exposure to me, along with other ailments like Parkinson’s, MS, hysteria and other mental illness, and so many other degenerative diseases.
It’s also an epidemic. WBUR reported a study in the journal Neurology “confirmed what clinicians and researchers have long assumed: Alzheimer’s deaths have been greatly underreported.
“The research found that 500,000 people die each year from Alzheimer’s — more than five times the number most recently reported by the CDC.
“That makes Alzheimer’s the third leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease and cancer. Currently the CDC ranks Alzheimer’s sixth as a cause of mortality, with 84,000 deaths reported on death certificates.”
Somehow, thinking about those two floors of memory care, I didn’t doubt it at all.
--
Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.
"Demonstration of aluminum in amyloid fibers in the cores of senile plaques in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease," S. Yumoto et al., 2009
"Aluminum (Al) exposure has been reported to be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease (senile dementia of Alzheimer type), although the role of Al in the etiology of Alzheimer’s disease remains controversial. We examined the presence of Al in the Alzheimer’s brain using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy combined with transmission electron microscopy (TEM-EDX)....The results support the following possibilities in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease: Al could be involved in the aggregation of Abeta peptides to form toxic fibrils; Al might induce Abeta peptides into the beta-sheet structure; and Al might facilitate iron-mediated oxidative reactions, which cause severe damage to brain tissues."
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/documents/barron/Demonstration%20of%20aluminum%20in%20amyloid%20fibers%20in%20the%20cores%20of%20senile%20plaques%20in%20the%20brains%20of%20patients%20with%20Alzheimer%C3%2582%C2%B9s%20disease.pdf
Posted by: Carol | March 18, 2016 at 05:36 PM
Gary,
Another interesting AD article. Note particularly the effects of synergy.
"Environmental pollutants act as risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD), mainly affecting the aging population. We investigated early manifestations of AD-like pathology by a mixture of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), and lead (Pb), reported to impair neurodevelopment. We treated rats with As+Cd+Pb at their concentrations detected in groundwater of India, ie, 0.38, 0.098, and 0.22 ppm or 10 times of each, respectively, from gestation-05 to postnatal day-180. We identified dose-dependent increase in amyloid-beta (Abeta) in frontal cortex and hippocampus as early as post-weaning. The effect was strongly significant during early-adulthood, reaching levels comparable to an Abeta-infused AD-like rat model. The metals activated the proamyloidogenic pathway, mediated by increase in amyloid precursor protein (APP), and subsequent beta secretase (BACE) and presenilin (PS)-mediated APP-processing. Investigating the mechanism of Abeta-induction revealed an augmentation in oxidative stress-dependent neuroinflammation that stimulated APP expression through interleukin-responsive-APP-mRNA 5'-untranslated region. We then examined the effects of individual metals and binary mixtures in comparison with the tertiary. Among individual metals, Pb triggered maximum induction of Abeta, whereas individual As or Cd had a relatively non-significant effect on Abeta despite enhanced APP, owing to reduced induction of BACE and PS. Interestingly, WHEN COMBINED THE METALS DEMONSTRATED SYNERGISM, WITH A MAJOR CONTRIBUTION BY AS. The synergistic effect was significant and consistent in tertiary mixture, resulting in the augmentation of Abeta. Eventually, increase in Abeta culminated in cognitive impairments in the young rats. Together, our data demonstrate that exposure to As+Cd+Pb induces premature manifestation of AD-like pathology that is synergistic, and oxidative stress and inflammation dependent."
Posted by: Ronald Kostoff | March 18, 2016 at 06:26 AM
Garry,
From: " Environmental pollutants as risk factors for neurodegenerative disorders: Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases"
"More worryingly is the evidence that pre- and post-natal exposures to environmental factors predispose to the onset of neurodegenerative diseases in later life. Neurotoxic metals such as lead, mercury, aluminum, cadmium and arsenic, as well as some pesticides and metal-based nanoparticles have been involved in AD due to their ability to increase beta-amyloid (Abeta) peptide and the phosphorylation of Tau protein (P-Tau), causing senile/amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) characteristic of AD. The exposure to lead, manganese, solvents and some pesticides has been related to hallmarks of PD such as mitochondrial dysfunction, alterations in metal homeostasis and aggregation of proteins such as alpha-synuclein (alpha-syn), which is a key constituent of Lewy bodies (LB), a crucial factor in PD pathogenesis. Common mechanisms of environmental pollutants to increase Abeta, P-Tau, alpha-syn and neuronal death have been reported, including the oxidative stress mainly involved in the increase of Abeta and alpha-syn, and the reduced activity/protein levels of Abeta degrading enzyme (IDE)s such as neprilysin or insulin IDE. In addition, epigenetic mechanisms by maternal nutrient supplementation and exposure to heavy metals and pesticides have been proposed to lead phenotypic diversity and susceptibility to neurodegenerative diseases."
AD tends to occur starting about the mid-60s. That means the safety of ANY potentially toxic stimulus (that could affect AD) introduced after ~1950 has NOT BEEN DEMONSTRATED IN HUMANS! Think about the myriad chemicals, drugs, and types of radiation (especially non-ionizing) that have been introduced since ~1950, and how their use (in many cases) has increased substantially. Not only have the long-term effects of these potentially toxic stimuli not been tested in humans individually, but the effects of combinations have not been tested in humans, and are basically unknown. When the latency periods for these combinations have completed, I suspect we will see a tsunami of chronic diseases globally.
Posted by: Ronald Kostoff | March 18, 2016 at 06:17 AM
Dan: I wonder what will happen as the mercury generation (those born between about 1990 and 2003) gets into their 30's and 40's. Even scarier is to contemplate what will happen to the aluminum generation (ongoing) as they age. Those of us in our sixties will have another twenty years or more to watch this unfold. It will bankrupt the nation, while the politicians play the Wall Street fiddle. Like those delightful folks in Spamalot say, I always look on the bright side of life, and have a rich and fulfilling life, but when I think about it, I see discord and ugliness in our future as a nation and world. If Trump or Bernie is elected will there be another coup D'etat, as in 1963?
Posted by: Gary Ogden | March 17, 2016 at 07:43 PM
@ Angus Files
Sorry to go off-topic:- If that district nurse was born c.1930 then she would have been 9-15 during WWII. There was heavy bombing of some areas of England/Scotland/Wales and heavy losses of civilians in incidents that were censored at the time so are often not known now (look up Bethnal Green Tube Station). Was she involved in one of these incidents which is now preying heavily on her mind? You see, there's often more than a grain of truth in the ramblings if only you can untangle the thread.
Posted by: British Autism Mother | March 17, 2016 at 06:18 PM
Find out the Facebook and Twitter pages of your State Governor, Senators and Representatives.
Send them links to articles concerning important health articles.
Hopefully someone on their staff will read the articles and alert them. It will take a lot of repetition to get your message across but they will not be informed otherwise because the regular news does not report anything bad about BigPharma because they are a major source of advertising income.
Posted by: Citizen Scientist | March 17, 2016 at 05:18 PM
"100 people dead,100 people dead" where I said "at the top of the street,wiped just wiped, dead dead" that's what my conversation was last week with a retired district nurse who up until last year had lived independently aged 86 years old.Such a shame that a woman who had delivered new borns, and helped thousands, should end up in such a mess.She is physically well and will go on for many years to come I would imagine, but what a terrible way to go when she does.
Big business has set us all up for this and worse to happen if we do not take matters into our own hands.
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | March 17, 2016 at 02:43 PM
Jenny,
Good point about the control group. I didn't realize that aspect.
Here is the psychologist's org ranting about how psychiatrists don't do their jobs, only prescribe so they can earn more, are losing their psychotherapy skills, and then the psychologists turn around and say that they're fighting for prescribing privileges. What, so they can practice like the psychiatrists that they're criticizing?
These are the people whose job it is to help people think straight!
Posted by: Linda1 | March 17, 2016 at 12:17 PM
More on the issue of citation context of Dr. Bredesen's paper on reversing Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and related dysfunctions. Nothing like a specific example to bring the point home, such as the following.
The most cited paper from 2014 related to AD (using the simplest possible query) was [1]. It was a Phase III trial of bapineuzumab, and concluded: "Bapineuzumab did not improve clinical outcomes in patients with Alzheimer's disease, despite treatment differences in biomarkers observed in APOE epsilon4 carriers.". It has received 244 citations, so far. One of its references was a Phase II trial of bapineuzumab, which concluded: "Primary efficacy outcomes in this phase 2 trial were not significant. Potential treatment differences in the exploratory analyses support further investigation of bapineuzumab in phase 3 with special attention to APOE epsilon 4 carrier status." [2]. It was published in 2009, and has received 353 citations, so far.
So, we have Dr. Bredesen's paper, published in 2014, that has received nine citations so far, and has demonstrated the full or partial reversal of AD and related cognitive impairment dysfunctions. We have the most cited AD paper of 2014 shown above, which, as far as I can see, demonstrated little effect from bapineuzumab Phase III trials (and in Phase II trials as well). Can anyone reading the above imagine how many citations any 2014 paper on a drug that had the positive results shown in Dr. Bredesen's paper would have received at present? My guess would be at least a thousand!
There's nothing new here. I've done some short studies of drugs for different diseases that were recalled after a few years of use. The initial clinical trials usually received very high numbers of citations, almost all very positive, and mainly after recall did the negative citations kick in.
That's the game here. Downplay the here-and-now simple low-cost approaches that work in preventing/halting/reversing disease by effective blacklisting through the citation process, and emphasize those treatments and substances whose impacts are minimal EVEN WHEN 'SUCCESSFUL'!
[1]. Salloway et al. Two phase 3 trials of bapineuzumab in mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease.
[2]. Salloway et al. A phase 2 multiple ascending dose trial of bapineuzumab in mild to moderate Alzheimer disease.
Posted by: Ronald Kostoff | March 17, 2016 at 12:10 PM
A great timeline David. I have no doubt this is the way things went down.
Posted by: Dan olmsted | March 17, 2016 at 09:39 AM
Linda1: once again pharma destroying the control group. Too many studies showing talk therapy and support providing results as good or better, and without side effects, as the psych drugs. Psychologists will feel so important, right, given the opportunity to provide drugs, like the psychiatrists they are jealous of? I wonder if any psychology organization actually even asked for these "privileges" or if some concocted pharma front groups went in acting as if they were representing psychologists?
Posted by: Jenny | March 17, 2016 at 09:23 AM
Reading is Fundamental,
"Nine citations is above average for Aging."
Completely irrelevant! The issue is not whether a paper published in Aging exceeds the norms for papers published in Aging; the issue is how well this paper is cited relative to other biomedical publications in the topical area of interest, and beyond. The journal Aging is indexed in ISI/Thomson, Pubmed, and Scopus. It is therefore easily accessible to anyone researching Alzheimer's Disease, or any other biomedical issue. Even if we restrict the scope of publication to Alzheimer's-only, the paper in Aging is cited an order of magnitude less than that of the leaders.
Posted by: Ronald Kostoff | March 17, 2016 at 06:17 AM
This isn't conservative, it's nonsensical. Nine citations is above average for Aging.
Posted by: Reading Is Fundamental | March 17, 2016 at 03:30 AM
Sorry; I am still wondering about if a certain place on earth has a higher than normal incidence in Alzheimer’s would they also have a higher incidence in autism. I am still looking.
I found this tidbit:
Diagnosis of autism in South America
In Venezuela, the prevalence of autism is estimated at 1.1 per 1000 people, while the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder is estimated at 1.7 per 1000 people.[19] This statistic may be an underestimation due to methods that Lopez-Duran used; he provided rates only for identified cases of autism and did not estimate unidentified cases of autism that had not been documented.[20] In Brazil, estimations of the international prevalence of autism suggest that 1.5 million Brazilians have Autism Spectrum Disorder. The first Brazilian Meeting for Autism Research indicated that one of the priorities for autism in Brazil includes promoting training in autism diagnosis and early detection. Schools can be used to facilitate early detection.[17] In one study conducted in Colombia, parents reported that onset of autism-related symptoms occurred around 21 months of age, while average age of diagnosis was 45 months. Similar to other research, reported symptoms of autism in this study included a delay in language acquisition and impaired social behavior.
I see the zika virus might now invade some cities in the US that are not typical of a - it is just getting weird - isn't it?
By the way did Columbia go along with WHO and vaccinate pregnant women with the DTaP.
Did I mention that I lost a baby after being vaccinated with a tetanus (DPT) some 30 years ago? I lost it at 4.5 months, a few weeks after receiving the vaccine. My son that had immediate reactions to the DPT was born a year and half later.
My son attended Early Childhood Development with a little girl with a very - very small head.
In the fullness of time all things will be revealed ---hump- after you have lived this one little, short flash of light life, after it has taken eons to get here. Unfair.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 17, 2016 at 02:13 AM
Has anyone considered the effects of the geoengineering weather modification programs (chemtrails) and how they might play into this? Where I live, aerosol spraying takes place on an almost daily basis, day and night. The levels of heavy metals in these trails far exceed the safe toxic level standard for human health. In an air quality test in Phoenix in 2008, they found aluminum to have the highest reading of all metals coming in at 6,400 times the toxic limit. Independent researchers such as Dane Wiggington (geoengineeringwatch.org) and Clifford Carnicom (carnicominstitute.org) have found: Aluminum Oxide Particles, Arsenic, Bacilli and Molds, Barium Salts, Barium Titanates, Cadmium, Calcium, Chromium, Desiccated Human Red Blood Cells, Ethylene Dibromide, Enterobacter Cloacal, Enterobacteriaceae, Human white Blood Cells-A (restrictor enzyme used in research labs to snip and combine DNA), Lead, Mercury, Methyl Aluminum, Mold Spores, Mycoplasma, Nano-Aluminum-Coated Fiberglass, Nitrogen Trifluoride,Known as CHAFF), Nickel, Polymer Fibers, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, Pseudomonas Florescent, Radioactive Cesium, Radio Active Thorium, Selenium, Serrate Marcscens, Sharp Titanium Shards, Silver, Streptomycin, Strontium, Sub-Micron Particles (Containing Live Biological Matter), Unidentified Bacteria, Uranium and Yellow Fungal Mycotoxins. It's no coincidence that Monsanto came up with aluminum resistant seeds. With so much aluminum in the air, a lot of the crops are failing. It's a synergistic effect along with adjuvants in vaccines, GMO food, fluoride in the water, personal care products full of toxins, radiation from smart meters, cell towers, NSA scanners at the airport, pHARMa drugs, MSG, aspartame, glyphosate, etc. Our bodies are under attack on a daily basis and we're basically in the survival mode. The dark cabal who runs this planet has bought and paid for all our "representatives" in government and they no longer work for us. We must wake others up who are unaware of this reality, come together and confront these politicians and call them out for breach of office and hold them accountable for their crimes against humanity.
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/climate-engineering-aluminum-and-alzheimers/
Posted by: Kate | March 17, 2016 at 12:00 AM
Another study finding relation with tlr2.
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/20090909_Alzheimers/index.html
Posted by: Greyone | March 16, 2016 at 09:18 PM
Another factor: wireless, EMF, RFR
http://www.bioinitiative.org/new-studies-show-health-risks-from-wireless-tech/
Bioinitiative Report - see section 13:
"2012 Replacement chapter: Melatonin Production – Alzheimer’s Disease and Breast Cancer – Dr. Davanipour and Dr. Sobel"
http://www.bioinitiative.org/table-of-contents/
Posted by: Linda1 | March 16, 2016 at 07:14 PM
Thank You all.
Posted by: Sun~Rose | March 16, 2016 at 06:27 PM
The contributing factors to Alzheimer's Disease (AD) go well beyond pharma, as can easily be shown. The 'good' news is that we have enough information today to prevent/halt/reverse progression of AD for many cases, especially where irreversible damage has not been done or there is not a strong genetic predisposition to AD. For example, in my eBook (https://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/53714 - p.262), I devote a substantial section to the work of Dr. Dale Bredesen, a researcher at the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, Department of Neurology, University of California, Los Angeles. He developed a therapeutic regimen using a total systems approach to 'treat' cognitive impairment, dementia, and AD.
Nine of the first ten patients who utilized this program/ regimen "displayed subjective or objective improvement in cognition beginning within 3‐6 months, with the one failure being a patient with very late stage AD. Six of the patients had had to discontinue working or were struggling with their jobs at the time of presentation, and all were able to return to work or continue working with improved performance. Improvements have been sustained", and at the time his paper was published [mid-2014] the longest patient follow‐up is two and one‐half years from initial treatment.
So, there it is! Why this obsessive focus on high tech diagnostics, high tech research, high tech treatment, high tech cures (none of which works), when at least one researcher has demonstrated that we have enough information here and now to reverse these so-called incurable diseases. Insufficient evidence from one study? Fine; why aren't the Federal agencies responsible for these diseases funding ten parallel clinical trials to validate or invalidate these results? Here is a list of National Institute of Aging clinical trials for AD (https://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/clinical-trials/all). Most are for specific drugs; some are alternative approaches. There is nothing listed that appears even in the same league as Dr. Bredesen's study, much less the expanded approach eliminating more causes that I proposed in my eBook.
Dr. Bredesen's study was published about eighteen months ago. According to the SCI, it has received nine citations. Nine citations for a paper by a credible researcher claiming to have reversed or at least halted the serious diseases mentioned above! This crystallizes the pathology of modern medicine and medical research today: focus on what benefits the GIMC and the bottom line, not the hapless patient.
Further on the context of Dr. Bredesen's paper. The paper was published in September 2014. How many citations did other papers published in that time frame, or later, receive? I did a quick search of all papers published in Medline in 2015, so I'm being very conservative in my approach. These papers had four less months to accumulate citations that the Bredesen paper. There were slightly over one million papers indexed in Medline in 2015. Of those, the 48 most highly cited had 100 or more citations, with the most highly cited paper receiving ~1000 citations!
The four most highly cited papers focused on disease statistics, with three of them focused on cancer, and the fourth focused on heart disease and stroke. About 30% of the top 48 papers focused on novel treatments (mainly drugs and mainly clinical trials), and a reasonable number of papers focused on different aspects of renewable energy (better solar cells, etc).
So, the one paper that offered the potential for halting/reversing AD et al, was one to two orders of magnitude below the top papers in terms of numbers of citations! The very top papers showed global statistics on cancer et al. Interesting, but how does that help prevent/halt/reverse the disease? Why aren't the top papers focusing on the many hundreds of foundational contributing factors to cancer et al about which we already have information, and stating quite clearly how and why these foundational contributing factors should be eliminated?
That's the shell game being played with the mainstream medical literature. We have a self-reinforcing network among the research sponsoring agencies, the research advisory panels, the drug and diagnostics and therapeutic equipment providers, the research institutions, the research community, the medical literature, and the mainstream media. They all quote each other, cite each other, and reinforce each other as a closed community. No better examples than what is happening with Dr. Bredesen's paper in the literature, or Dr. Thompson's allegations in the mainstream media and in Congress.
Posted by: Ronald Kostoff | March 16, 2016 at 06:06 PM
So many Gen Xers I know who managed to dodge the autism age are now suffering with digestive issues, allergies, MS, "optic neuritis", fibromyalgia. The common thread between them all are their regular flu shots and/or mandatory shots received in the army or other occupations which require it.
The fact that "Gulf War Syndrome" still remains as a euphemism is a sad testament to humanity's powers of observation. You'd think someone would've figured it out by now.
This physical weakness of those able bodied adults, the ones not brain damaged from infancy, is enough to bring the nation down, without factoring in their own dependent children who more likely than not will have issues related to this brain damage.
That's what I've started calling it, in everyday life. People need to be shocked out of their stupor, something needs to be said to cut through the benzodiazepene fog of the American worker bee, and soon, or it's game over.
Sorry I am a bit peevish but within the same week a good friend(flu vax every year) has been given an MS diagnosis, and my friend's 5 yr old was just diagnosed with Leukemia. He was the last truly healthy child in my circle of friends or so I thought.
Posted by: Joy B | March 16, 2016 at 05:40 PM
ps to Dan,
Not to worry about yourself being afflicted with Alzheimer's -- with all your knowledge.
But, that's assuming you don't go crazy from such knowledge, and get court-ordered instituted like the great medical hero Ignaz Semmelweis who was then likely murdered by the then 'medical powers that be' back in 1860 (exact year is close, can't remember).
Echos from Semmelweis reverberate today -- I hope everybody looks him up.
Posted by: david m burd | March 16, 2016 at 05:24 PM
I'm a volunteer in a nursing home. Dr. Alzheimer was apparently also considering a virus as the cause of his patients' mental decline. The medical powers that be do like to push those flu shots, and I always wonder just how badly they're contaminated by viruses. There are also quite a few people who had head trauma. (Think sports, vets, and occupational injuries.) I always like to say that if you're over 80, it's a crap shoot. Things just happen. The problem is the large number of individuals in the nursing home who are in their 60s. Living longer would explain the predicament of those over 80. I could buy that, even if I'm not all that sure it's true. But all those younger people? I didn't know anyone when I was growing up who was so badly impacted, and I would have heard. But as they used to say, doctors bury their mistakes.
Posted by: Margaret | March 16, 2016 at 05:17 PM
Excerpt from 2012 article by the American Psychological Assn:
"The use of psychotropic drugs by adult Americans increased 22 percent from 2001 to 2010, with one in five adults now taking at least one psychotropic medication, according to industry data. In 2010, Americans spent more than $16 billion on antipsychotics, $11 billion on antidepressants and $7 billion for drugs to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The rapid growth of all three classes of drugs has alarmed some mental health professionals, who are concerned about the use of powerful antipsychotic drugs by elderly nursing home residents and the prescription of stimulants to children who may have been misdiagnosed with ADHD..."
Health insurance reimbursements are higher and easier to obtain for drug treatment than therapy, which has contributed to the increase in psychotropic drug sales and a shifting of psychiatry toward psychopharmacology, says Daniel Carlat, MD, associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University and author of the 2010 book "Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry."
"There is a huge financial incentive for psychiatrists to prescribe instead of doing psychotherapy," he says. "You can make two, three, four times as much money being a prescriber than a therapist. The vicious cycle here is that as psychiatrists limit their practices primarily to prescribing, they lose their therapy skills by attrition and do even less therapy..."
"Of particular concern is the prescribing of antipsychotic drugs to vulnerable populations, including foster care children and elderly nursing home residents. Foster children are up to four-and-a-half times more likely to receive psychotropic drugs than other children covered by Medicaid, according to a Government Accountability Office report last year. The investigation of foster care programs in five states found that hundreds of children were prescribed multiple psychotropic drugs, including antipsychotic drugs at excessive dosages. Infants also were prescribed psychotropic drugs despite no scientific evidence supporting that use..."
"Prescription privilege programs for psychologists have been approved in New Mexico, Louisiana, Guam and the armed forces as well as Indian Health Service and the US Public Health Services. APA has been working with a number of other states to enable psychologists to prescribe. Among those states, legislators in Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee and Utah have also recently considered bills that would allow prescription privileges for psychologists, but the measures have been opposed by the American Medical Association and American Psychiatric Association over concerns that inadequate training of psychologists could jeopardize patient safety. Supporters of prescriptive authority for psychologists are quick to point out that there is no evidence to support these concerns."
http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/06/prescribing.aspx
Posted by: Linda1 | March 16, 2016 at 05:12 PM
Starting later Twentieth Century (i.e. around 1970), the Age of Pharma quickly inundated the U.S. - an iconic example is the psychotropic drug Zoloft (splg?). And then a flood of other psychotropic drugs and a tidal wave of new vaccines.
Such vaccines were not just pushed on babies/infants; Seniors were told and coerced into all kinds of anti-depressive and drugs to supposedly stave off memory difficulties (but NOT Alzheimer's progression that had yet to emerge).
The last several decades have seen scores of millions of seniors in Senior Care Facilities being put on, or injected, a wealth of toxic vaccines (the flu vax every year an obvious example) and other toxic pharma drugs.
In addition, these Seniors' children (ages of 50+) have also been conned by Gov't/ Pharma to tell their aged parents take the vast array of these toxicities. Before 1970, throughout time. great-grandparents did indeed become "senile" and lost mental faculties, but they were not like Alzheimer's upon us now.
Virtually none of this happened before the Age of Pharma -- erupting around 1970 - and by the same Alzheimer's Causing Cabal this is currently destroying our newborns via the Child Immunization Schedule.
Posted by: david m burd | March 16, 2016 at 04:12 PM
Alzheimers is not as much of a mystery as it was a while back...when it was just as mysterious and unexplainable as autism is now. Researchers have photographs of those amyloid tangles attached to filaments of aluminum. Like most diseases Alzheimer's could have multiple causes but it's practically a known fact that aluminum is the causal agent in many cases and could be the reason for the increase. Of course, our kids are getting shot up with aluminum that goes directly to the brain via the immune system--the little "pacman" like immune cells gobble up the aluminum along with the viral agents and they travel through the circuitry of the immune system through the lymph nodes, to the spleen, and then into the brain. The surface cells of the brain have a negative charge and aluminum is A3 with a positive charge. So it has a special attraction to certain brain cells over others. It screws up the gene expression...let's face it...it's a potent neurotoxin. Dr. Offit says that aluminum from vaccines is eliminated through the G.I. tract but that is not true. It does not (or at least not very much of it) travels that route. It is trojan horsing it toward the mind via the immune cells, and once deposited there doesn't seem to be a sure way of getting it out. How much of this toxic stuff do children have to inject in order to go to school in California--imagine schools that dumb down their students chemically to permit them to enter the classroom. Scream!!
Posted by: kapoore | March 16, 2016 at 04:01 PM
Undiagnosed celiac is also a cause of dementia and the only one we know of that is reversible. When my son first fell into autism after his MMR a after reacting and recovering from all the other shots I thought it looked exactly like what I had seen happen with my grandmother except with my grandmother as she had lived a life eveyone believed what they saw. With my son there were not many witnesses who could see the light and then see it start to fade. Then my mom told me about all the vaccine reactions over the years in our family. And parents told me. So I stopped his vaccines and put him on gfcf and chelated and on and on and now he is close to recovered and mainstreamed for the first time at age 14. And I wish that my mother who knowing this still got the flu shot every year for her job as activities director at a nursing home was not know suffering from Alzheimer's . And I wish I lived nearby and could try for her what worked for her grandson. Autism is baby Alzheimer's but because the baby can grow new brain cells there is much more hope.
Posted by: Anita Donnelly | March 16, 2016 at 03:58 PM
Woodford Monte in his book, While Science Sleeps, makes an overwhelming case that the primary cause of Alzheimer's is methanol toxicity. The damage predicted for methanol mirrors the damage we see in brain autopsies; the increase in methanol (Aspartame, smoking, and canned/processed fruits/vegetables) tracks caseload very closely. At a minimum, methanol has to be a major factor, even if it is not the primary cause.
Posted by: Tim Lundeen | March 16, 2016 at 03:46 PM
Country/Region Extrapolated Prevalence Population Estimated Used
Autism in North America (Extrapolated Statistics)
USA 587,310 293,655,4051
Canada 65,015 32,507,8742
I apologize; I should have used this one instead:
Columbia is near the bottom: I cut off most of the other countries.
Autism in Europe (Extrapolated Statistics)
Austria 16,349 8,174,7622
Belgium 20,696 10,348,2762
Britain (United Kingdom) 120,541 60,270,708 for UK2
Czech Republic 2,492 1,0246,1782
Denmark 10,826 5,413,3922
Finland 10,429 5,214,5122
France 120,848 60,424,2132
Greece 21,295 10,647,5292
Germany 164,849 82,424,6092
Iceland 587 293,9662
Hungary 20,064 10,032,3752
Liechtenstein 66 33,4362
Ireland 7,939 3,969,5582
Italy 116,114 58,057,4772
Luxembourg 925 462,6902
Monaco 64 32,2702
Netherlands (Holland) 32,636 16,318,1992
Poland 77,252 38,626,3492
Portugal 21,048 10,524,1452
Spain 80,561 40,280,7802
Sweden 17,972 8,986,4002
Switzerland 14,901 7,450,8672
United Kingdom 120,541 60,270,7082
Wales 5,836 2,918,0002
Autism in Asia (Extrapolated Statistics)
Bangladesh 282,680 141,340,4762
Bhutan 4,371 2,185,5692
China 2,597,695 1,298,847,6242
East Timor 2,038 1,019,2522
Hong Kong s.a.r. 13,710 6,855,1252
India 2,130,141 1,065,070,6072
Indonesia 476,905 238,452,9522
Japan 254,666 127,333,0022
Laos 12,136 6,068,1172
Macau s.a.r. 890 445,2862
Malaysia 47,044 23,522,4822
Mongolia 5,502 2,751,3142
Philippines 172,483 86,241,6972
Papua New Guinea 10,840 5,420,2802
Vietnam 165,325 82,662,8002
Singapore 8,707 4,353,8932
Pakistan 318,392 159,196,3362
North Korea 45,395 22,697,5532
South Korea 96,467 48,233,7602
Sri Lanka 39,810 19,905,1652
Autism in South America (Extrapolated Statistics)
Belize 545 272,9452
Brazil 368,202 184,101,1092
Chile 31,647 15,823,9572
Colombia 84,621 42,310,7752
Guatemala 28,561 14,280,5962
Mexico 209,919 104,959,5942
Nicaragua 10,719 5,359,7592
Paraguay 12,382 6,191,3682
Posted by: Benedetta | March 16, 2016 at 03:33 PM
Autism stats in various countries
Brazil 368,202 WARNING! (Details) 184,101,1092
Chile 31,647 WARNING! (Details) 15,823,9572
Colombia 84,621 WARNING! (Details) 42,310,7752
Paraguay 12,382 WARNING! (Details) 6,191,3682
Posted by: Benedetta | March 16, 2016 at 03:21 PM
I see that the whole province and surrounding area of this village is well known for violence and the drug trade.
I saw on brief clause from what I read that three brothers had Alzheimer’s and the fourth brother had Parkinson's disease.
They seem certain that it is a mutation on the 14th chromosome that has been passed down to some Spanish conquistador, that settled in the area in the 1800s. I am confused on the time table of the Spanish, but it seems like this one man must have really been - fruitful?
As a matter of fact it is not just this village, but the whole area surrounding the village that has high numbers of those with Alzheimer’s.
I can't find anything about their children's health though except the violence and drug trade.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 16, 2016 at 03:14 PM
I hope "memory care" doesn't equate to constant life shortening tranquilizer use, along with at least a dozen other pharmaceuticals for various symptoms, and annual flu vaccines to top things off.
Low income women have already lost 5 years of life expectancy, under our modern care:
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/09/29/life-s29.html
One in two children have a chronic illness or disability...that number does not seem to sink into consciousness of the "health" system.
Instead the "healthcare" sector seems to care mostly that the rate of vaccine uptake in Kindergartners is only 97 point something-or-other.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | March 16, 2016 at 02:59 PM
Back in the mid 70s a news show did a segment on a village in South America that had high incidence of Alzheimer.
It use to be the older people, now fast forward and looking up the village and how things have been going, it appears that :
Yarumal, a small village in Colombia, is now the center of Alzheimer’s research as it has the highest per capita rate of the disease in the world. Worst of all, it’s affecting the young people of the village.
Researchers are focusing on preventing the disease in Yarumal, rather than studying people who already have the disease. Most people who develop the disease are diagnosed at 40 or older, and 5,000 residents share the same blood line.
Eric Reiman, MD, director of Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix, has recruited 300 young residents of the town who haven’t yet developed Alzheimer’s. A third have tested for a mutation that guarantees they will develop the disease, and they’re receiving an experimental amyloid drug that blocks plaque formation in the brain. The other participants receive a placebo.
"There’s a growing concern that these amyloid treatments may be too little too late by the time the disease has already ravaged the brain," said Reiman. "If this study and other related studies fail, there’s going to be much more incentive to study outside amyloids," he added.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 16, 2016 at 02:39 PM
Perhaps we can rename the buildings to "camps"? Then we will see a rush of research docs willing to "care" for these prisoners (oops, I mean patients).
Posted by: Sad | March 16, 2016 at 01:42 PM
Somewhere I read that the first Alzheimer’s brain was dissected in about 1900.
An Alzheimer’s brain and a "normal brain" are easy to tell apart visually.
Alzheimer’s did not exist until 40 to 50 years after the use of mercury dental work starting in about the 1840's.
Posted by: go Trump | March 16, 2016 at 01:41 PM
I should say "he lived quite awhile"; and of course could have mentioned the effects of annual flu shots.
Posted by: TCBronson | March 16, 2016 at 12:56 PM
I suspect it's iatrogenic, just like most autism. An older family member, previously completely lucid, had a mild heart attack and was put on some combination of drugs - blood thinners? anticoagulants? I don't really remember the specifics, but he did suffer the common response of "intensive care unit psychosis" (I wonder how long that's been around?), from which he never recovered. I researched the drugs he was on at the time and discovered they were not supposed to be used in combination. But who's going to question the medications that are presumably preventing another heart attack? I lived quite a while but we lost him much earlier. I wonder how much of the "memory disability" is due to the routine use of such medications, statins, etc, to prevent heart attack; consider that exercise is a means to avoid both.
Posted by: TCBronson | March 16, 2016 at 12:53 PM
Most of the people I know who have or have died from Alzheimer's have been chemists. It's quite noticeable how many death announcements there are where it says: Donations are to be made to the Alzheimer's foundation. The connection used to be aluminum. But I think I read an article that stated that Burbacher connected the frequency of administered flu shots to the elderly with increased Alzheimer's disease.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | March 16, 2016 at 12:23 PM
Very interesting link, Greyone.
Posted by: Twyla | March 16, 2016 at 11:17 AM
In addition to considering toxic exposures and vaccines, when people have symptoms of Parkinson’s, MS, or Alzheimer’s we should consider Lyme disease, which has also greatly increased in recent decades and can cause physical and mental decline.
Posted by: Twyla | March 16, 2016 at 11:11 AM
Laura Hayes , can you advise the best way to protest ?
I try everything I can think of , but the weight of force against us is immense .
Yes I agree everyone is being swept up in the melee , whether they like it or not .
How does Offit and others expect to squeeze thru ?
Posted by: Hans Litten | March 16, 2016 at 10:59 AM
We have "Memory Care" homes popping up all over our city, too. This new term, memory care, is maddening to me because yet again they are trying to minimalize and normalize that which is monumentally tragic and not normal...in an attempt to hide and negate the fact that it is yet more manmade illness and disability, which has been induced and allowed for nothing other than monetary profits at many places along the line...with zero concern for the many costs we all will pay in many ways from here on out.
Thanks for writing about this important topic, Dan. Even if one makes incredibly healthy choices, it's becoming near impossible to avoid being poisoned in our country...without one's consent.
Posted by: Laura Hayes | March 16, 2016 at 10:36 AM
Dan,
I read in a reliable source about 6 years ago that if one lives to 84 that there is just under a 50% chance of getting there with Alzheimer's. If they're saying less now, that's interesting.
I looked at https://www.alz.org/facts/downloads/facts_figures_2015.pdf
and found:"In 2015, about 2 million people who have Alzheimer’s disease are age 85 or older, accounting for 38 percent
of all people with Alzheimer’s.120"
Glancing over the document, I didn't see an admission of almost 1 in 2 by age 84. Interesting how they put it as not how many at that age, but how many of all with Alzheimer's. And if 62% of people with Alzheimer's are younger than 84, then how is it a disease of aging, as doctors claim?
Posted by: Linda1 | March 16, 2016 at 09:49 AM
https://newsblog.drexel.edu/2016/02/10/do-infections-cause-alzheimers-disease/
Posted by: Greyone | March 16, 2016 at 09:19 AM
I was hoping you would notice.
Posted by: Dan Burns | March 16, 2016 at 08:06 AM
Great-Alzheimers plus autism equals disaster!
Posted by: Gayle | March 16, 2016 at 07:57 AM
I suspect they are going to need taller "assistance living" buildings .. providing a lot more than just "two floors devoted to memory care" .. if they have any success in meeting their 2020 goal of increasing required vaccinations for ADULTS.
The "strategic plan" calls for all ADULTS .. between the age of 19 and 75 .. receive annual flu vaccines .. thereby creating the need for more "buildings with more floors" .. probably good news for the construction industry and health care providers .. not so much for ADULTS themselves.
Posted by: Bob Moffit | March 16, 2016 at 06:04 AM