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Safe Harbor Boston
Post Office Box 218
Newton, MA 02468
U.S.A.
Phone: 617-964-5544
SafeHarborB@aol.com

We have had intense interest in a Hamburg chapter so the meeting there will be over two days, for the creation of the chapter. Speakers include a nutritional therapist and a person who is now free of neuroleptic drugs through the use of Chinese Medicine.

Location of meeting:

Tomfort Hotel
Langenhorner Chaussee 579
22419 Hamburg

TIME:
The Founding Meeting is July 18, 2003, from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM
The Posting Meeting is July 19, 2003, from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM

The temporary address for Safe Harbor Hamburg is:

Safe Harbor
Bürgerweide 8
D-20535 Hamburg
Tel: +49-(0)40-254 911 77
Fax: +49-(0)40-254 911 78
Email: safeharbor@hamburg.de
Person to contact: Regina May

Speakers in Munich will include a man who recovered from psychosis through nutrient therapy and the mother of a woman who is now free of SSRI drugs. The meeting in Munich will take place at:

Pschorr Keller
(Jägerstube)
Theresienhöhe 7
80339 München

TIME: July 25, 2003, at 6:00 PM MET

For map of location see http://www.pschorrkeller.de/Anfahrtsplan/anfahrtsplan.html

To reserve a seat or for questions, contact:

München i.G.
Kiefernweg 32
85757 Karlsfeld
Tel.:& Fax: 08131-997432
Email: safeharbor@munich.com
 

On the first day of the Mini DAN!(^tm) conference, Jacquelyn McCandless, MD (author of Children with Starving Brains) will present evaluation information for parents on the most relevant tests that will help pinpoint their child's health issues. Parents will be given general guidelines on how to work with their pediatrician and/or DAN!-trained practitioner to interpret these test results as well as how to prioritize specific interventions. Talks will be given by Dr. Richard Lord of Meta-Metix Labs on Metabolism, by Dr. Ari Vojdani of Immunosciences Labs on immunology, and by Dr. David Quig from Doctors' Data Labs on detoxification issues.

Teresa Binstock, a well-known autism researcher, will report on published scientific studies relevant to the biomedical approach for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders). Becoming familiar with these studies helps parents, as they often encounter such comments as "there are no scientific studies proving the biomedical approach works." Dismissive comments such as these can easily be diffused by having citations and/or titles of articles that point to the credibility of the biomedical model for treating autism.

Dr. McCandless and Ms. Binstock will be joined by Maureen McDonnell, RN, the national coordinator of the DAN! conferences. Ms. McDonnell was trained in the DAN! approach and is currently supervised by Sidney Baker, MD, the co-author of Biomedical Assessment Options For Children With Autism and Related Problems (the DAN! protocol) and co-founder of the DAN! project. Ms. McDonnell will discuss implementation of the gluten/casein free diet, the importance of testing for IgG (delayed) food allergies, effective methods for healing a leaky gut, practical ways to get a picky eater to switch to a healthier diet and effective ways to get children to take supplements.

Dr. Jim Neubrander will be available both days for the 5-6 question and answer sessions.

Sunday July 20: 
Practitioners meeting at Immunoscience Laboratory, Beverly Hills, 8am - 6pm.

On the second day of the Mini DAN! conference, a limited number (20-25) of local practitioners are invited to attend a full-day intensive training. We ask that only licensed healthcare providers who are working (or planning on working) with autistic children using the DAN! approach attend this session.

James Croxton, Professor of Psychology at Santa Monica College, will discuss the use of nutrition to attempt to re-establish basic brain health and functioning. The techniques use restrictive diets, moderate to large doses of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, etc. A promising method now being experimented with widely is the use of essential fatty acids to treat depression and related mental disorders - "the biggest and most exciting discovery in the last 20 years in this kind of psychiatry."

Nutritionally-oriented psychiatry has been developing and improving for about 40 years, and this course will provide a detailed introduction and summary of fundamental ways to understand and treat mental disorders.

AGENDA

SESSION 1 - BASIC BRAIN HEALTH & FUNCTIONING
(Neurons, Glial Cells, Blood-Brain Barrier, Neurotransmitters, etc)

SESSION 2 - NUTRITIONAL CONNECTION
(Ascorbic Acid, Calcium, Essential Fatty Acids, Tyrosine, etc)

SESSION 3 - ACTUAL ILLNESSES AND CASES
(Hypo- and Hyper-Thyroidism, Celiac Disease, Anemias, Wilson's Disease, etc)

The cost for all 3 classes is $20. Registration is required.

Call (909)606-9959 for registration form at email pq21@juno.com.

As we covered in Issue 28, the recovery rate reported for the year 2001 was 0.05% -- four recoveries out of 7,831 patients. The recently-released 2002 report shows the exact same recovery rate - 0.05% again!

Overall, of the 9,304 consumers treated:

This despite the fact that "recovered" does not necessarily mean "functioning independently in society."

An individual may be living in supported housing and receiving "infrequent maintenance services" and still be considered "recovered" as long as he or she "is engaged in volunteer work, or pursuing educational or vocational activities, or employed full or part-time, or engaged in other culturally appropriate activities."

The report cited reduced funding from the last two legislative sessions as an obstacle to providing effective care. Despite budget cuts, the county's recovery rate works out to about $16 million per recovery achieved.

King County is the only county in America requiring such accountability. But since their treatment methods (primarily pharmaceuticals) are the same as those used across the country (and in other countries), there is little reason to believe that recovery rates would be significantly different in other counties and states.

"In the 1950's Drs. Abram Hoffer and Harvey Osmond developed orthomolecular treatments for mental illness based on vitamins and other natural substances. Claims that double-blind clinical trials document the success of this approach are ignored by many clinicians, but adherents work to ensure that thorough physical diagnosis and access to alternative treatments are available to clients concerned about the long-term use of medications."

"...Access to alternative providers and the freedom to make our own choices about health care are things we value deeply, but we are hesitant to offer similar options to clients in the public mental health system."

It is ironic - or perhaps not - that this report should appear in King County, home of the only mental health system that is required to keep track of its mental health recoveries. (See article, 2002 KING COUNTY MENTAL HEALTH RESULTS DISMAL: 5 OF 9302 RECOVERED, in this issue.)

"Since, the same results have been obtained in all who have come to me for depression, bipolar, schizophrenia."

-- Michael Sichel, D.O., N.D. Chittaway Bay, New South Wales, Australia
 

Major depression has been ranked as the fourth most disabling medical disorder by disability-adjusted life-years, a measure of burden. By 2010 major depression will be ranked second unless meaningful improvements occur in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Long-term use of antidepressant drugs may increase biochemical vulnerability to depression and worsen the long-term outcome and symptomatic _expression of the illness, decreasing both the likelihood of subsequent response to pharmacologic treatment and the duration of symptom-free periods.

...The occurrence of mania in depressed patients upon treatment with antidepressant drugs is a relatively old clinical observation, even with the use of "mood stabilizers." Antidepressants may double the incidence of a switch into mania (50% in some cases) compared with placebo (25% of cases).

Antidepressant-induced mania is not simply a temporary and reversible phenomenon, but a complex biochemical mechanism of illness deterioration.

The return of depressive symptoms during maintenance antidepressant treatment was found to occur in 9% to 57% of patients in published trials. Possibilities include pharmacologic tolerance, loss of placebo effect, increase in disease severity, change in disease pathogenesis, accumulation of a detrimental metabolite, unrecognized rapid cycling and prophylactic inefficacy.

Antidepressant drugs may yield changes in connections or sensitivity to neurotransmitters indirectly related to the specific actions.

The use of antidepressants drugs is so prevalent that it is difficult to recruit clinical populations who have never been exposed to them.

Patients with past antidepressant treatment had more episodes of depression and a longer duration of illness.

We strongly suspect that many patients who are simply unhappy or dysphoric receive these drugs, with predictable consequences in terms of morbidity from side effects, mortality from overdose, economic waste, and irrational, unproductive clinical management.
 

In a randomized, placebo-controlled study of 42 patients in Iran with mild to moderate Alzheimer disease, four months of treatment with Melissa officinalis extract (60 drops/d) reportedly improved cognitive function scores and reduced agitation.
 

"It probably seems odd to see a section in a book on drumstick spinning written by a doctor who spends his days chasing down lesions in the brain," Kuhn writes. "Imagine then how it was for Steve who got an e-mail from me telling him how his book was the best thing since sliced bread for kids with ADD/ADHD and other learning disorders.

"First I'd like to tell you about a little girl who was a patient of mine. She could light up a room with her smile. No kidding, it's a thousand watt smile. She came from a good home and even though her mother was a teacher, and even though she spent the time and worked hard, she had difficulty with math. She had never tested at her own grade level in math.

"Her problem was on the opposite side of the brain compared to a young man who was also a patient of mine. He was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He also was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and a few other things that can make it hard on an adolescent in high school.

"While the symptoms were unique to each individual, the origin of the problem in both cases was the brain. The brain is like a muscle, you use it or you lose it. In both cases developmentally these kids skipped a step in their brain's development. Although it was not the same part of the brain affected, it happened for the same reason. It happened because the brain didn't get the input it needed from the environment to cause normal health, growth and development.

"What's that got to do with Drumstick Spinology(^tm)? Simple. It was one of the therapies we used to rehabilitate these kids towards their potential. How well did it work? Excellent! For the first time that little girl tested at her grade level in math. And that young man will be listed in Who's Who in American High School Students. I believe they both can look forward to a whole new way of life.

"Why does drumstick spinning work so well with these kids? The science aside, because the kids take the time do it because its fun! Of all the home care that I have prescribed, this is the one that gets done. You see, it's important to have these kids constantly increase the input to their nervous system in a way that exercises the weak neurological pathways. And after all, what kid doesn't want to be a rock star?

"This is why you can look forward to more variations of spin material. Dr. Stix (alias Steve Stockmal) is working with me to give kids a chance to have a level playing field in school."