Skeptics claim the numbers reveal a system of scientific fraud. “This rapid increase in diagnosis of bipolar disorder can only be explained by either a runaway epidemic infection or a medical fraud that seeks to label people as ‘diseased’ in order to sell them more drugs,” said consumer health advocate Mike Adams.

According the new study, nine of 10 individuals diagnosed as bipolar are treated with at least one medication, and two-thirds of them are treated with two or more drugs. These drugs create profitable, reliable revenue streams for drug companies.

The data for the study were taken from annual government surveys of doctors.

The skyrocketing rate of psychiatric diagnosis’ has many people arguing over whether a mental disorder was previously under diagnosed, or whether psychiatrists are now over diagnosing it.

“There’s no question that there is misdiagnosis going on,” said Gary Sachs, director of the bipolar and mood disorders program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “You can dispute whether it’s under- or over-diagnosis.”

Misdiagnosis, in turn, may lead to inappropriate use of drugs. These patients often become addicted to the unnecessary medication, needing to seek out addiction treatment. People need to lead healthier life styles, stop opiate and illicit drug use, seek exercise and practice good nutrition.

by David B. Stein, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology and Criminal Justice
Virginia State University
www.drdavestein.com

One of the subjects that I have taught for over twenty-five years is psychopharmacology. It might be helpful to challenge one of the great myths about mental disorders, namely that they are caused by chemical imbalances. This myth is founded on some of the tricks that are pulled in so-called scientific research in psychology and psychiatry. First, there is a large volume of research claiming to discover all kinds of chemical imbalances in a wide variety of psychiatric disorders. The manipulation of research has become one of the most powerful and most unethical marketing tools ever devised. Not one study can be replicated at the testing labs of hospitals or by laboratories involved in clinical patient care. All that one needs to do is ask his or her doctor to order a blood or urine test to confirm any psychiatric disorder, and the response will be, “I’m sorry, but no such test exists.” Replication is a basic step for all sciences.

The second manipulation is a bit trickier to follow. An unethical researcher, earning grant money from the pharmaceutical companies, injects test subjects with a radioactive sample of a nervous system hormone, such as dopamine, serotonin, nor-epinephrine, and so on, and then trace, using either CT scans, MRIs, or PET scans, exactly to what parts of the brain the chemicals go. They can even trace the hormones to microscopic receptor sites on the ends on neurons. They then repeat the injection process with a radioactive sample of one of the drugs that supposedly correct chemical imbalances, such as antidepressants that elevate serotonin, or amphetamines that effect serotonin and dopamine, and so on and so forth. By golly the drugs go to the same exact parts of the brain and receptor sites as the hormones. Conclusion, the drugs are correcting chemical imbalances!

Not so fast. The part they do not tell the public, and even professional psychiatrists, psychologists, and practicing physicians, is that we can precisely measure hormone levels in all people, and diagnosis does not matter. We can measure the metabolites in the blood, which are the residue left after the hormones are metabolized i.e. used by the nerve and body cells. This tells us the precise amount of hormones carried in anyone’s body. When that is done, as it has by numerous honest researchers, we discover that the amount of hormones are exactly the same for anyone with a diagnosis, such as depression, attention deficit disorders (ADD/ADHD), bipolar, and schizophrenia, as with anyone diagnosed as perfectly normal.

There is a third part to the perpetuation of scam information. We are told that when a drug alleviates certain psychiatric conditions, such as depression and anxiety, that the drug is therefore correcting obvious chemical imbalances. However, this type of logic is not permitted in true science. This is called “allopathic logic”, which is a no no.

A quick analogy will help clear this up. If one drinks alcohol, then one experiences a relief from anxiety. Alcohol is a drug, a sedative. Can we say that alcohol clears up chemical imbalances that cause anxiety? If that were so then the entire human race is running around with chemical imbalances. The same is true for any drug used for any purpose, such as antidepressants for depression, tranquilizers for anxiety, mood stabilizer drugs for bipolar disorder, and even antipsychotic drugs for schizophrenia. This type of logic is not permitted within proper scientific circles. Sadly, proper scientific circles are evaporating within psychiatry and psychology. Those who are ethical researchers make no such claims.

Dr. David B. Stein is Professor of Psychology and Criminal Justice at Virginia State University. He is a best-selling author, and his books include: Ritalin is Not the Answer: A Drug-free, Practical Program for Children Diagnosed with ADD or ADHD; The Ritalin is Not the Answer Action Guide: An Interactive Companion to the best-selling Drug-Free ADD/ADHD Parenting Program; Unraveling the ADD/ADHD Fiasco: A Guide for Successful Parenting; and Controlling the Difficult Adolescent: The REST Program (Real Economy Program for Teens).

Chronic use of opiates has long been associated with multiple side effects, many of which are due to lower levels of androgens in this patient population.

Previous studies have shown that long-term opiate use may lead to opiate induced hypogonadism, resulting in significantly decreased testosterone levels in men. One area of chronic opiate use that needs to be looked at extensively is the correlation between opiate-induced hypogonadism and associated side effects such as osteoporosis and sexual dysfunction in male patients taking opiates. Marked testosterone deficiency is a well-established risk factor for both osteoporosis and altered sexual function, and recent information demonstrated that altered estrogen levels may play a role in these side effects as well.

Heroin is the most abused and most rapidly acting drug of the opiate class, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. It is estimated that 3.7 million Americans have used heroin at one point.

Originally developed as a possible alternative to morphine in 1874, heroin was legal until 1914 when its addictive properties were firmly established. Today, heroin is a Schedule I narcotic with no known medical utility. Heroin is derived from naturally occurring morphine secreted from certain varieties of poppy plants. Pure heroin is a white powder. Most heroin on the street varies from a light to dark brown depending on impurities left over from the manufacturing process. Black tar heroin found mostly in the west and southwestern states is often very unrefined with many impurities.

Many heroin users did not start out on heroin. Data shows that traditional pain medication such as Percocet and Oxycontin addiction often leads to heroin use. Demand for these drugs causes increased prices and many of the people addicted to these pain medications will switch over to heroin due to it’s cheaper price. The rise in heroin use in the last twenty years has correlated with an increase in purity and a decrease in price. Current purity levels are such that smoking, snorting and intramuscular injections are possible administration methods in addition to intravenous us, which is the most common route of use. With fears of diseases associated with intravenous drug use, a large portion of new users are smoking or snorting the drug. This is the usual route with a new heroin user. Data suggests that users may progress from inhalation to injection as tolerance levels demand higher drug potency and users soon realize that they can get the same effect with a much smaller amount when they “shoot it” into a vein.

NIDA research suggests that all administration forms are addictive, but differ in time of onset of drug potency. The “euphoria” associated with heroin use is short-lived and immediate. The temporary high results in average users injecting up to four times a day. However brief, heroin’s effects are immediate. Intravenous administration can result in a high being achieved in seven to eight seconds. The rapidity of drug action in crossing the blood-brain barrier is one of the reasons for heroin’s highly addictive nature. Continued use builds a high level of tolerance and physical dependence/addiction, which are powerful factors motivating addiction.

Chronic heroin use results in increased tolerance and severe physical addiction. Tolerance issues may be one reason that for the majority of heroin users, heroin is not the only substance they abuse. Sixty-one percent of people admitted to public facilities admitted to secondary substance abuse. Most commonly heroin use was combined with cocaine—40% or alcohol—24% and benzodiazepine use.

Beyond tolerance, medical complications of heroin use include the consequences of intravenous injection like collapsed veins, bacterial infections which can lead to blood infections and loss of limbs, liver and kidney disease, and transmittable infections like hepatitis B and C and HIV. They also include lung and respiratory problems, such as tuberculosis and pneumonia. Additives in street heroin range from sugar or starch to quinine, strychnine or fentanyl other poisons, which further escalates risks to drug users. Many heroin dealers will sell heroin mixed (cut) with crushed Benzodiazepines, Benadryl, etc. These additives still give a “high”, and they are cheaper and add more volume to the heroin so the dealer makes more money. Many heroin users are unaware that they are also addicted to Benzodiazepines, which can be a life threatening withdrawal.

Heroin withdrawal can be a painful process. Symptoms typically begin within a day of discontinuing use and include profuse sweating, malaise, mood disturbances including irritability and thoughts of suicide, chills, muscle aches, insomnia, vomiting, abdominal cramps, weakness, shivering or trembling, yawning, convulsions, dehydration, diarrhea, leg kicking and severe anxiety. However, the detoxification treatment with our Rapid Drug Detox Method along with the use of the opiate blocker, Naltrexone, provide hope for individuals who suffer from heroin use and for those around them.

Drug Detox and Long Term Therapy Would Offer Better Outcome For Long Term Sobriety

Success rates for drug rehabilitation are hard to obtain.

Did Lindsay Lohan attend private therapy sessions, etc. in a high-class rehab in Malibu after an accident with her Mercedes on Sunset Boulevard?

Was she given special treatment? Is the outcome and claims made by the rehab centers falsely optimistic. Lohan, in her early 20’s has gone through another treatment in rehab.

Promises of wonderful gourmet meals, group and private therapy, massage, swimming, jaunts on the beach, sound very promising but come with a hefty price tag. The luxurious retreats for patients like Lohan, are in the hundreds if not thousands, all boasting about their amenities, and success rates.

Hard to come by is evidence that these programs work. The unspoken truth in the rehabilitation industry is that lots of money can buy views of the ocean, massage therapy and gourmet chefs. But whether it buys sobriety is very uncertain.

Reliable and honest statistics of success of drug rehabilitation programs are impossible to determine. No rehab or detox center in the world has done in-depth controlled studies. This would include bringing patients back to the treatment location every 3 months for 1-2 years for hair analysis to see if a person was telling the truth and collecting the information into a very expensive and controlled study. This has NEVER been done at any drug rehab center in the world.  Yet you can call any number of them and they will tout a figure that sounds promising and hopeful, but is it honest? Government studies suggest that drug treatment does reduce drug abuse by 40 percent to 60 percent, but for how long? Are these figures influenced by use of replacement opiates, Suboxone and Methadone. Shouldn’t this “drug treatment therapy” be when a person is opiate free, be on-going (maybe a year or 2 or longer) and be convenient, near a person’s home to easily continue attending the sessions?

Government studies also suggest that 80 percent of addicts will relapse after rehab center treatment and some of the failure will be attributed to the use of Suboxone, (Buprenorhine). How can a program keep a person clean when now they are now addicted to Suboxone? Patients are discharged from the program after 2-4 weeks and then have to suffer with Suboxone withdrawal. Experts agree that the success rate for rehab center programs are possibly 20 percent at best, and below 10 percent at worst. There are even some statistics that say the success rates are only 1-3%. Without controlled studies, these figures mean nothing. Yet our politicians are lobbied to continue pushing these programs as the recommended treatment and to keep the insurance companies paying for them. Enormous profit is being made and the rehab centers would like to make sure it continues.

Promises owner, Richard Rogg, said: “There’s no way to effectively measure success rates. Any program bragging of a success rate is not telling the truth.”

Wonderland Rehab Center, which charges approximately $40,000 for a 30-day stay, agrees that statistics are not encouraging. He says that any treatment center that gives you high success rates is, I believe very arrogant. At Passages, Chris Prentiss, who founded the center with his son claims an 84.4 percent success rate since opening his doors in 2001, and charges around $67,550 per month,

Samuels, a clinical psychologist, said that “If you spend your whole time at a treatment center, when you leave you’re not prepared for the stresses and anxieties on the outside.”

Timothy P. Condon, the deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a part of the National Institutes of Health says “Setting up a program, making it luxurious, using things that are not rigorously tested, I don’t know the benefit of that. If I was going to spend a lot of money, I’d want to see outcomes.” Truthful outcomes are hard to come by.

By GARY FINEOUT
The News Service Of Florida

TALLAHASSEE – Florida will join 38 other states that have created prescription drug monitoring systems under a bill quietly signed into law today by Gov. Charlie Crist. But it will likely be months before the drug database becomes a reality: First the Department of Health must seek private and federal grants to pay the millions of dollars needed to design and create the tracking system, which some critics contend won’t go far enough to battle the growing problem of prescription drug fraud in Florida.

South Florida has become a haven for so-called pill mills where people from across the country have been able to get prescription painkillers such as Oxycodone. The increased scrutiny over Florida’s reputation persuaded lawmakers to create a tracking system, more than seven years after former Gov. Jeb Bush first called for its creation. “It has become an epidemic,” said state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, one of the main sponsors of the drug monitoring bill. “This all must end. This has to be stopped. Florida can no longer be looked at as the pill mill state of the nation.” National drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske in May even cited the legislation, saying he hoped it would be enacted because prescription drug fraud was an “acute problem” in Florida.

The new law requires that Florida track prescriptions of controlled substances designated as Schedule II, III and IV drugs, which includes drugs such as codeine, methadone, amphetamines, anabolic steroids and Ketamine. The legislation pushed by Fasano was backed by a large swath of lawmakers from both parties, but not everyone embraced the bill. A group of top House Republicans – including House Majority Leader Adam Hasner, Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, Rep. David Rivera and incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon – wrote a letter to Crist urging that he veto the bill.

Those Republicans, echoing past criticisms, said they were concerned that sensitive information would wind up in the hands of criminals and terrorists. They cited an incident in Virginia in which hackers reportedly broke into a database in that state. Fasano brushed aside those criticisms, pointing out that the state is enacting public records exemptions for the database. He also noted that insurance companies and pharmacists already track what drugs patients are receiving.

But Rep. Carl Domino, R-Jupiter, contends the bill may do little to prevent drug abuse because the new law gives physicians, health care providers and pharmacists up to 15 days to report that certain drugs were dispensed to a patient. “I think there are ways to reduce drug deaths,” said Domino, who sponsored a rival drug monitoring bill that went nowhere during this spring’s session. “This bill doesn’t stop it any way that I can see. … No one can point to me how it will stop a kid getting a prescription down the street 10 minutes later.” House sponsor Rep. Marcelo Llorente, R-Miami, said the 15-day deadline was placed into law to give flexibility to health care providers. He said many providers will be able to provide the information on a much quicker basis.

“I adamantly believe this bill will save thousands of lives on annual basis,” Llorente said. But first state officials have to create the database. And before that happens, the state will set up a task force to oversee the creation of the tracking system and create an organization to accept grants to help pay for the system.

Suboxone is used to treat heroin addicts; it’s being touted as a drug that saves lives. But used inappropriately the drug is highly dangerous and often deadly.

Investigators and specialists say that the drug world is ‘trendy’. These days Suboxone is becoming the street drug of choice and is an emerging threat in the U.S. Police are stepping up efforts to get the prescription drug off the streets. In 2008, the number of ‘busts’ for Suboxone was increasing. This year, as the demand for Suboxone on the streets increase, drug units across the country are making even more arrests.

Suboxone is fast becoming a much abused illicit opiate drug. Undercover officers believe the rise in Suboxone is tied to an increase in heroin use. They say that if users can’t find heroin or don’t want to go through the withdrawals they will seek out Suboxone. It is popular among younger people because it is relatively cheap; Suboxone is sold in pill form, which can go for as little as $3 on the street.

A few states have reported problems with doctors who are selling Suboxone prescriptions. It is ‘officially’ used to replace the opiate that addicts need to prevent withdrawal, but Suboxone is highly addictive and users often suffer tougher withdrawal symptoms than they would with a traditional opiate. Taken the wrong way Suboxone is deadly. Users, teenagers especially, often mix Suboxone with other drugs or alcohol; leading to higher chances of overdose and death.

At the SLEEP 2009 conference in Seattle this week, researchers from the University of California – Berkeley revealed results of a study that showed naps with rapid eye movement sleep refresh the brain’s perception of positive emotions. Study participants who took a 60 to 90 minute nap mid-day with REM sleep were much more receptive to happy facial expressions. Those who didn’t nap had an increased reaction to negative emotions.

Most opiate users never nap and during the night they do not experience good REM sleep. This may be another factor contributing to the sadness and depression that opiate dependent people experience.

Medical Misnomer
Addiction Isn’t a Brain Disease Congress…
By Sally Satel and Scott Lilienfeld as published in Slate Magazine

A full-scale campaign is under way to change the public perception of drug addiction, from a moral failing to a brain disease. Last spring, HBO aired an ambitious series that touted addiction as a “chronic and relapsing brain disease.” In early July, a Time magazine cover story suggested that addiction is the doing of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which courses through the brain’s reward circuits. And now Congress is weighing in.

A new bill sponsored by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., would change the name of the National Institute on Drug Abuse to the National Institute on Diseases of Addiction and change the name of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to the National Institute on Alcohol Disorders and Health. Called the Recognizing Addiction As a Disease Act of 2007, it explains, “The pejorative term ‘abuse’ used in connection with diseases of addiction has the adverse effect of increasing social! stigma and personal shame, both of which are so often barriers to an individual’s decision to seek treatment.” Addiction should be known as a brain disease, the bill proclaims, “because drugs change the brain’s structure and manner in which it functions. These brain changes can be long lasting, and can lead to the harmful behaviors seen in people who abuse drugs.”

As a psychiatrist who treats heroin addicts and a psychologist long interested in the philosophical meaning of disease, we have chafed at the “brain disease” rhetoric since it was first promulgated by NIDA in 1995. Granted, the rationale behind it is well-intentioned. Nevertheless, we believe that the brain disease concept is bad for the public’s mental health literacy.
Characterizing addiction as a brain disease misappropriates language more properly used to describe conditions such as multiple sclerosis or schizophrenia—afflictions that are neither brought on by sufferers themselves nor modifiable by their desire to be well. Also, the brain disease rhetoric is fatalistic, implying that users can never fully free themselves of their drug or alcohol problems. Finally, and most important, it threatens to obscure the vast role personal agency plays in perpetuating the cycle of use and relapse to drugs and alcohol.

It is true that a cocaine addict in the throes of a days-long binge or a junkie doubled over in misery from withdrawal can’t reasonably be expected to get up and walk away. Yet addicts rarely spend all of their time in the throes of an intense neurochemical siege. In the days between binges, cocaine addicts make many decisions that have nothing to do with drug-seeking. Should they try to find a different job? Kick that freeloading cousin off their couch for good? Register for food stamps? Most of the patients one of us treats hold jobs while pursuing their heroin habits.

In other words, there is room for other choices. These addicts could go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, enter treatment i! f they have private insurance, or register at a public clinic if they don’t. Self-governance, in fact, is key to the most promising treatments for addiction. For example, relapse prevention therapy helps patients identify cues—often people, places, and things—that reliably trigger a burst of desire to use. Patients rehearse strategies for avoiding the cues if they possibly can and managing the craving when they cannot. In drug courts (a jail-diversion treatment program for nonviolent drug offenders), offenders are sanctioned for continued drug use (perhaps a night or two in jail) and rewarded for cooperation with the program. The judge holds the person, not his brain, accountable for setbacks and progress.

The brave new world of brain scanning figures prominently in the new disease rhetoric. During imaging experiments in which an addict is shown drug paraphernalia, the reward centers in his brain light up like a Christmas tree. It’s easy to be misled into believing that these colorful images prove that the addict is helpless to change his behavior. In a powerful experiment, Deena Weisberg, a doctoral candidate at Yale University, and her colleagues presented non-experts with flawed explanations for psychological phenomena. They were adept at spotting the errors—until, that is, these explanations were accompanied by “Brain scans indicate … ” With those three words, Weisberg’s participants suddenly found the flawed explanations compelling. Yet in truth, at least at this stage of the technology, we rarely learn as much by visualizing addicts’ brains than by asking them what they are experiencing and what they desire.

Telling the public that addiction is a “chronic and relapsing brain disease” suggests that an addict’s disembodied brain holds the secrets to understanding and helping him. It implies that medication is necessary and that interventions must be applied directly at the level of the brain. But that’s not how people recover. For actress Jamie Lee Curtis, for example, quitting painkillers was a spiritual matter. When she appeared on Larry King Live recently, the guest host asked her, “What made you get clean?” She responded, “Well, you know what, that turning point was a—was really a moment between me and God. I never went to treatment. I walked into the door of a 12-step program and I have not walked out since.”

Finally, dare we ask: Why is stigma bad? It is surely unfortunate if it keeps people from getting help (although we believe the real issue is not embarrassment but fear of a breach of confidentiality). The push to destigmatize overlooks the healthy role that shame can play, by motivating many otherwise reluctant people to seek treatment in the first place and jolting others into quitting before they spiral down too far.

You would think Congress has better things to do than legislate name changes. And in the long run, the well-meaning effort to overmedicalize addiction could have baleful consequences. Addiction is not as hopeless or uncontrollable as the brain disease metaphor suggests. Yes, like other bad habits, it is in our brains—but like other bad habits, it can be broken.

We choose to detox our patients in a private, clean and relaxed environment at our JCAHO facility. We do not feel an anesthesia detox is safer if performed in an intensive care unit. In fact, we feel strongly the opposite. The following story tells the truth about the problems with hospitals and especially ICU’s. The ever increasing resistant bacterias found in the intensive care units of hospitals nationwide is something all patients should be concerned about. A person should not be exposed to this type of environment unless they are truly in critical or grave condition and this type of monitoring is necessary to risk the devastating health problems that could occur.

A well known Boston based surgeon recently examined the perils of managing the intensive care of hospitalized patients. He found that complications can arise in every area of an ICU. One of the most alarming among them is the risk of infection – either delivered by an IV line or from pneumonia. Hospital MRSA infection rates, among them, remain a problem and can be very serious if not deadly.

Also, during the 4 months of monitoring, 554 patient errors were detected. Of those errors, 147 of them had the potential to cause significant damage to the patient. More than any other preventable complication that caused concern for the ICU patient is the IV line infections.

On average, 4% of those lines become infected within 10 days. That contributes to 200,000 serious infections nationwide. Survival rates are as low as 72%. That means 50,000 patients or more are dying every year from infections acquired from an ICU admission.

We are the only anesthesia detox center that does not require our patients to be exposed to this type of environment. We do not accept patients that would have a medical need to be detoxed in an intensive care unit. We feel if a patient’s medical condition warrants admittance to an intensive care unit, they are not a good candidate and should not have the detox procedure.