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Also included on the site is an array of articles on topics ranging from the medical causes of schizophrenia to the effects of toxic metals on mental health.

Special AlternativeMentalHealth.com T-shirts and bumper stickers are available at our online store.

A bookstore page lists top books that cover many areas of alternative treatments with titles like Natural Healing for Schizophrenia and Other Common Mental Disorders and No More Ritalin.

AlternativeMentalHealth.com has been created to educate the public, practitioners, and government officials on the medical conditions that create "mental illness" and the many safe resources available for addressing and often curing severe mental symptoms.

It was equally satisfying to hear from so many of those in attendance who said they would take the data learned back to their respective corners of the world and make good use of it.

"What a fantastic conference," one healthcare professional wrote us.  "You have no idea how much it energized me to do what I need to do back in New England.  I know a lot of people are going to be helped now in my area who have had no hope before."

Thank YOU.  Why do our staff and volunteers work long hours, usually for no pay?  It's so that some day the information in this ezine and on our website will be known and in use in mental health facilities around the world.  It's so that doctors and psychiatrists can some day be a Safe Harbor themselves where patients don't dread to go for fear of being drugged into oblivion or worse.  It's so that some day the word "recovered" will mean actually getting well and not "getting your meds fine-tuned."

Thanks for coming and doing your part.

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A 1996 study done by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to determine the need for routine screen of depression found "insufficient evidence to recommend for or against the routine use of standardized questionnaires to screen for depression in asymptomatic primary care patients... Clinicians should, however, maintain an especially high index of suspicion for depressive symptoms in adolescents and young adults, persons with a family or personal history of depression, those with chronic illnesses, those who perceive or have experienced a recent loss, and those with sleep disorders, chronic pain, or multiple unexplained somatic complaints."

However, In a press release of May 20, 2002, The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force announced that the panel has reversed it's decision, and now recommends that general practitioners screen their patients for depression.

However, instead of screening patients who have "a family or personal history of depression, ... chronic illnesses, ... recent loss, ... sleep disorders, ... chronic pain, or multiple unexplained somatic complaints," Task Force Chairman, Dr. Alfred Berg, Chair of the Department of Family Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, said that the panel now recommends the use of just two simple questions: "Over the past 2 weeks, have you ever felt down, depressed, or hopeless, and have you felt little interest or pleasure in doing things?"  He further states that these two questions "May be as effective as using longer screening instruments."

If the patient's answers are in the affirmative, further diagnostic tools may be used. If the problems have lasted throughout the previous two weeks, and have interfered with the patient's ability to perform day-to-day tasks, doctors may make a diagnosis of depression.

Award-winning investigative reporter Nick Regush, who also served as a consultant to the Center for Bioethics, University of Montreal, commented on the Task Force's recommendations in a recent Redflags Weekly (http://redflagsweekly.com) article:  "The over-prescription of anti-depressants is already epidemic..." this type of screening "will likely lead to mindless drug prescriptions for people who are having some common, momentary difficulties in their lives."

Mr. Regush goes on to say, "Only a cultural/social idiot, totally oblivious to the themes of our times, not to mention the overhanging, ever-present threat of terrorism and a world going to hell, would ask these types of questions as some sort of a screener for depression."

The German Federal Office for Environmental Protection issued a warning in February that medicine manufacturers must examine environmental risks more strictly in light of findings that even tap water was significantly affected.

After ingestion, hormones and other stable chemical substances, as well as their metabolites, pass into sewage and ultimately into groundwater and even drinking water. Experts estimated that German surface waters contain 2 micrograms per liter of the estrogen 17alpha-Ethinylestradiol from birth control pills, four times the concentration necessary to alter breeding patterns in fish resulting in fewer offspring.

In the year 2000, according to the agency's statistics, 29,000 tons of medicine were sold for human consumption in Germany including 7,000 tons of synthetic chemicals. An additional 2,320 tons of animal medications were sold in Germany that year.

While the drugs themselves have been tested on their intended users, the effects of drug metabolites - substances produced by the body after ingestion - are largely unknown, the agency warned.

Examining the effect of medicines on the environment is a relatively new function of the German Federal Office for Environmental Protection.

Without industry money at the gigantic Philadelphia Convention Center, added McDowell, "we'd be sitting in the basement of the YMCA."

"Let's face it -- they make the money back" through greater sales and prescriptions, said Robert Eilers, a psychiatrist in the state Office of Mental Health in New Jersey, in a session where several doctors assailed top APA officials. "It's totally out of control."

The quotes appeared in Shankar Vedantam's recent expose of pharmaceutical marketing practices at the convention. Vedantam is a science reporter on the national desk of The Washington Post.

In the days leading up to the meeting, pharmaceutical companies mailed attendees hundreds of free phone cards, as well as invitations to museums, jazz concerts and fancy dinners.

The 19,000 psychiatrists arriving for the meeting were greeted by a highway billboard advertising AstraZeneca's anti-psychotic, Seroquel. Outside the giant convention center, curb signs for buses ferrying doctors to their hotels advertised Prozac's manufacturer, Eli Lilly and Co. Each attendee was handed a gray bag with the insignia of the meeting and the orange logo of GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Paxil.

Boston Globe staff writer Ellen Barry described the contents of one Mexican psychiatrist's goody bag:

"As a reward for attending the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting, she had received a small egg-shaped clock from the makers of the antidepressant Prozac; a sleek thermos from Paxil, also an antidepressant; and an engraved silver business card holder courtesy of Depakote, an anticonvulsant. She got a neat little CD carrying case from Risperdol, an antipsychotic; a passport holder from Celexa, an antipsychotic; a neat green paperweight from Remeron, an antidepressant; and a letter opener, representing what drug she could not remember.

"For the duration of the weekend, though, Velazquez's loyalty belonged to Pfizer, which had paid her airfare from Mexico City (along with 30 of her colleagues and her 18-year-old nephew) and put them all up in hotels near the APA meeting. That night, also courtesy of Pfizer, she would attend a glittering banquet at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts."

Concern over psychiatry's ties with industry was widespread enough to be the focus of several panels at this year's convention. Some psychiatrists said the association should simply sever all ties with industry. Harvard Medical School psychiatrist David Osser suggested that companies pool symposium money into a common fund, which could then be used to conduct sessions chosen exclusively by mental health professionals. Andrew Ho, a UCLA psychiatrist, said the extent of industry involvement -- and the dependence of the association on the money -- raised questions about who was controlling the association and the profession.

Levine told APA officials that even patient organizations such the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill had been shunted to the "far, far corner of the auditorium" as funding companies got center stage in the exhibitors' hall. "It hurts me the APA this year has become part of that effort," he said.

"There are strings attached," agreed Stephen Goldfinger, APA's top monitor of industry sponsorship at the conference, at a session discussing potential conflicts of interest. "When you dance with the devil, you can't control all the steps."

The industry-sponsored symposiums at this conference are unusual - most major medical associations do not allow them -- said James Thompson, APA's deputy medical director. If companies want to take advantage of the conferences of those other groups, they have to set up their own, independent "satellite symposiums."

Part of the APA's dependence on industry sponsorship is because the association has been ailing financially, and revenue from the annual convention represents about 22 percent of all funding. That money is becoming increasingly important, as revenue from dues has dropped in recent years from $11 million in 1998 to $9.9 million last year, and is expected to drop further in the years ahead. The association has run at a loss for three out of the past four years.

What he reveals is often disturbing and sometimes shocking.  He removes the veneer of the entire mental health establishment, challenging the notion that today's madman is better off than those of yesteryear or even those in third world countries.

Whitaker takes a thorough look at the actual results of drug therapies and other treatments on modern-day patients and what he reveals may stun you.  He also gives a hard scrutiny to the politics behind the psychopharmaeutical industry.  This book will remain a landmark publication on mental health for a very long time.

The book is published by Perseus Publishing.

Her recently published book, "Children with Starving Brains:  A Medical Treatment Guide for Autism Spectrum Disorder", is the result of that immersion.  McCandless takes the reader into the latest scientific research on the many risk factors in autism:  toxic reactions, heavy metal contamination, wheat/milk allergies, viral causes, etc.

This is a much-needed, practical hands-on book for physicians and lay people alike that gives them real tools in bringing about improvements and sometimes complete recoveries for those children unfortunate enough to fall prey to the autism epidemic that has swept the world in recent decades.