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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.

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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.

This was the email we received from a mother when the news was released that major antidepressants have been banned on children in the UK (see story, this issue) because they can cause suicidal impulses.

Why should she care so much? Her young son killed himself while on Prozac.

Britain's paper The Guardian warns:  "The ban will cause problems for doctors because insufficient counsellors and psychotherapists are available to offer the alternative treatment of therapy, and the bill to the National Health Service for such treatment would be much higher than the cost of the drug prescriptions."

To add to the mix, now authorities are questioning whether adult use of antidepressants is safe.

During these times, Safe Harbor is proud to be offering our Mood Cure Workshop (see info below) so that practitioners DO have safe alternatives that are not only effective but much less expensive.

If you are not familiar with Julia Ross's solution-filled book The Mood Cure and the powerful, yet simple, amino acid treatments she uses, among many other nutritional solutions, then you are in for a treat. There is a reason why her book is Safe Harbor's most recommended.

The workshop will offer an in-depth look at these treatments "from the horse's mouth." You will get your questions answered and find out how they work in real clinical situations.

These are the treatments of the future. We hope to see you there!

Dr. Roses, an academic geneticist from Duke University in North Carolina, spoke at a recent scientific meeting in London where he cited figures on how well different classes of drugs work in real patients. Just days earlier, the news broke that annual drug spending by Britain's National Health Service has soared by nearly 50 per cent in three years to a total of 7.2 billion pounds.

GSK announced last week that it had 20 or more new drugs under development that could each earn the company up to £600 million a year.

"The vast majority of drugs - more than 90 per cent - only work in 30 or 50 per cent of the people," Dr. Roses said. "I wouldn't say that most drugs don't work. I would say that most drugs work in 30 to 50 per cent of people. Drugs out there on the market work, but they don't work in everybody."

Drugs for Alzheimer's disease work in fewer than one in three patients, whereas those for cancer are only effective in a quarter of patients. Drugs for migraines, for osteoporosis, and arthritis work in about half the patients, Dr. Roses said. Most drugs work in fewer than one in two patients mainly because the recipients carry genes that interfere in some way with the medicine, he said.

"Roses is a smart guy and what he is saying will surprise the public but not his colleagues," said one industry scientist. "He is a pioneer of a new culture within the drugs business based on using genes to test for who can benefit from a particular drug."  

Authors of the 2003 article "Recurrent Brief Depression in Celiac Disease" (Journal of Psychosomatic Research 55: 573-574) wrote in a follow-up letter:

"36% of celiac patients compared to 6.9% of 144 control patients were found with Recurrent Brief Depression (RBD). This association was stronger with RBD than major depression. There was no significant difference between the RBD rates between men (33%) and women (37%) but the association among women was found to be statistically significant.

"The heightened risks in celiac disease patients were for the following mood disorders: 1) major depressive, 2) dysthymic disorders, 3) adjustment disorders, and 4) panic disorders."

The authors said malabsorption of tryptophan leading to lower serotonin production might be a contributing factor.  

The list assigns a high severity rating to Prozac, Dalmane, Elavil, Miltown, Xanax in doses greater than 0.2 mg, Halcion in doses greater than 0.25 mg, and all barbiturates except when used to control seizures, among others.

Drugs that were well-tolerated for years become unpredictable and sometimes lethal as the body slows down.

An update of criteria established in 1997 by Dr. Mark Beers, who developed it for the Merck Manual, the report was intended as a guideline to potential risks, not a mandate. "We realize that aging is an individualized process, and there are some 65-year-olds who are healthy and do fine on these medications," said Donna M. Fick, a geriatric nurse with the Medical College of Georgia and principal author of the panel's report.

"The single most common problem that I see in my practice comes from the benzodiazepine group of tranquilizers like Valium and Xanax," said Dr. Tom W. Jackson, a geriatrician who served on the panel.

"These drugs tend to calm people down, but they also disinhibit them. The effects are much like alcohol," he added. "Folks who are on these medications ... are actually four times more likely to fall and break their hip than people who are not on these medications."

Daily fluoxetine (Prozac) was cited for "long half-life of drug and risk of producing excessive CNS [Central Nervous System] stimulation, sleep disturbances, and increasing agitation. Safer alternatives exist."

About amitriptyline (Elavil), the report warns: "Because of its strong anticholinergic [inhibiting the action of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine] properties, amitriptyline is rarely the antidepressant of choice for elderly patients."

Additional findings summarized in the report:

"Thirty percent of hospital admissions in elderly patients may be linked to drug-related problems or drug toxic effects. Adverse drug events (ADEs) have been linked to preventable problems in elderly patients such as depression, constipation, falls, immobility, confusion, and hip fractures. A 1997 study of ADEs found that 35% of ambulatory older adults experienced an ADE and 29% required health care services (physician, emergency department, or hospitalization) for the ADE. Some two-thirds of nursing facility residents have ADEs over a 4-year period. Of these ADEs, 1 in 7 results in hospitalization.

"In 2000, it is estimated that medication-related problems caused 106,000 deaths annually at a cost of $85 billion. Others have calculated the cost of medication-related problems to be $76.6 billion to ambulatory care, $20 billion to hospitals, and $4 billion to nursing home facilities. If medication-related problems were ranked as a disease by cause of death, it would be the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. The prevention and recognition of drug-related problems in elderly patients and other vulnerable populations is one of the principal health care quality and safety issues for this decade." 

The review was undertaken by the Expert Working Group of the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM). The CSM has advised that the balance of risks and benefits for the treatment of major depressive disorder in those under 18 is unfavorable for the sertraline (Zoloft), citalopram (Celexa) and escitalopram (Lexapro), in addition to the previously- contraindicated paroxetine (Seroxat, Paxil) and venlafaxine (Efexor).

British GPs have prescribed SSRIs for at least 50,000 children despite the fact that none of the drugs has been licensed in the UK for use in children with depression.

SSRIs are aggressively advertised and widely prescribed, despite reports of suicides and withdrawal symptoms and the drugs' frequent failure to outperform placebo in even company-controlled clinical trials. See The Emperor's New Drugs: An Analysis of Antidepressant Medication,
http://journals.apa.org/prevention/volume5/pre0050023a.html.

GlaxoSmithKline issued a letter warning physicians in the UK -- but not in the US -- about the hazards of Seroxat (Paxil) for children.

On Dec. 9, 2003, the UK's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) told doctors not to prescribe all but one of the antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). The exception is Prozac, which is licensed for use in depressed children in the US. But the MHRA warning says Prozac helps only one child in 10 at best. The Alliance for Human Research Protection reports that Eli Lilly's new Prozac Fact Sheet sent to UK physicians shortly after the UK ban -- but not to US physicians -- now states that Prozac is not recommended for children for any indication.

Public unease about reported side effects prompted the agency to investigate last year. It has looked at the details of clinical trials of depressed children that were in the hands of the drug companies in the late 1990s. These studies revealed the problem of suicidal behavior in children, but the companies did not draw it to the attention of the regulators in the US or the UK.

It has become clear from the investigation that the regulators generally see only a summary of the data resulting from trials. It is prepared for them by the drug company only when it is seeking a license.

Trials on children have not been carried out in all the drugs, but the completed studies show a worrying increase in suicidal behavior among those on SSRIs compared with those given a placebo (sugar pill).

Seroxat, said to have been prescribed to up to 8,000 children by June 2003, was banned after research showed it could trigger suicidal thoughts and thoughts of self-harm. The drug's maker, GlaxoSmithKline, disagreed with the Government's decision at the time, saying it would "limit the choices" available to doctors to treat depression. The Government's SSRI review group now plans to review the safety and efficacy of the drugs in adults.

The first major Seroxat trial in children was finished by 1996, but the results were not published until 2001. Data was also gathered in 1996 after a trial of Lustral, manufactured by Pfizer, showing that 9% of depressed children on the drug became suicidal.  

The findings come from a research team led by William A. Carlezon Jr., PhD, director of the behavioral genetics laboratory at McLean Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School.

"Rats exposed to Ritalin as juveniles showed large increases in learned-helplessness behavior during adulthood, suggesting a tendency toward depression," Carlezon says in a news release. "These rats also showed abnormally high levels of activity in familiar environments. [This] might reflect basic alterations in the way rats pay attention to their surroundings."

The learned-helplessness is a lessened ability to deal with stressful situations.

Ritalin and cocaine have different effects on humans. But their effects on the brain are very similar. When given to "preteen" rats, both drugs cause long-term changes in behavior.

One of the changes seems good. Early exposure to Ritalin makes rats less responsive to the rewarding effects of cocaine. But that could mean that the drug short-circuits the brain's reward system. That would make it difficult to experience pleasure -- a "hallmark symptom of depression," wrote Carlezon et al.

Early exposure to Ritalin increases rats' depressive-like responses in a stress test.

"These experiments suggest that preadolescent exposure to [Ritalin] in rats causes numerous complex behavioral adaptations, each of which endures into adulthood."

Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, commented:

"These studies remind us how limited our knowledge is of the neurochemical and functional characteristics of the human brain during childhood and adolescence and on the effects of psychotropic drugs on brain development."