Charlie Rose

jpke  08/21/2012 03:52 PM Report

Mr (Charlie)Rose,

You've had a series on the brain, brain "science" and psychiatry with various guests discussing developments and "discoveries" in their field(s). How about doing a show (or even a series) on a growing number of groups and activists in the field of "mental health" and psychiatric reform? I (and a growing number of others) believe it would be of great public service to broadcast in the "mainstream" media the views and work of individuals such as Peter Breggin, MD(author,psychiatrist), Jim Gottstein (atty, mental health activist), Robert Whitaker(psychiatric researcher and author), David Healy MD (author, psychiatrist), Ann Blake-Tracy(International Coalition for Drug Awareness), and others.

There is increasing, documented evidence on the harm done by the use of psychotropic drugs which should be made more "public".

There are also mental health/ psychiatric consumer (and "insider expert") voices rising on issues related to: Informed consent, coercion, disclosure, misrepresentation, false claims, conflict of interest, corruption, ghostwriting, fraudulent practice, physical/mental abuse, and professional ethics and standards issues in the psychiatric and mental health field.

Your response would be appreciated.

Sincerely, Jim Keiser

PS: I'm adding the following statements (by others) for your consideration and comment:

RE. DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS: "The thing that bothers me the most about psychiatry (outside of the harm done by its so-called "treatments") is the fact that psychiatrists almost NEVER look for underlying medical disorders. They just use their "Bible," the DSM, which is merely a collection of symptoms that could be caused by MANY THINGS. By not using differential diagnosis, psychiatrists are failing to practice actual medicine. Joe Blow off the street, with no medical training, could come up with a diagnosis after listening to someone describe their symptoms once he has flipped through the pages of the DSM. If I can accomplish one thing (and I have no idea of how to do this), I would like to create a standard that forces psychiatrists to do a thorough battery of medical tests before any medications are prescribed or labels given."~unk

___________________________________

STANDARD PRACTICE IN PSYCHIATRIC "DIAGNOSIS" AND TREATMENT (valid from my, and others' experiences):

"...Most people would agree that people need to (be) told accurate information about the validity of a diagnosis; including whether or not it is Biological in nature; or if this is a belief based on nothing more than a yet to be validated Hypothesis. Saying that a psychiatric diagnosis is a disease/chemical imbalance/neuro-biological in nature is a story told to 'bust the stigma' and to get people to take their meds; not because it is based on fact.

...Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud, but there have also been fraudulent 'discoveries', e.g., in science, to gain prestige rather than immediate monetary gain. ...

...Most people would agree that people need to given accurate, unbiased information about the drugs prescribed to them and their children. Most of us would agree it would be wrong to tell people that they in fact have a disease/chemical imbalance or a neuro-biological condition requiring drugs to treat it; when no imbalance, disease, defect or neuro-biological condition has been identified. These claims are being made without any physical, neurological or medical examination taking place. A conversation with the person and gathering information from others about their personal opinions and subjective observation of the patient or 'client' is not an examination; and even a consensus of informed opinions does not make the weakest of 'evidence' scientific or valid; it does not make the psychiatric diagnosis a medical condition either. ...

The fact is: no genetic condition, chemical imbalance, or neuro-biological pathology has been identified ever--in any human being alive or dead; that causes any mental illness, or psychiatric diagnosis. ...

...Failing to give people the very information which is necessary to protect their children and themselves is particularly heinous; despicable really, all things considered. ...

...For professionals to ignore their ethical duty to fully inform patients and parents of children about the nature of psychiatric diagnoses, about the potential for harm involved in taking psychiatric drugs is criminal; not just 'unethical.' It is, in reality fraud...

...This being the case, it is an unethical claim for any psychiatrist or mental health professional to make. It is dishonest, it is disrespectful and it is evidence of an utter lack of professional integrity. ...

...Many believe the drugs are treating a disease, because of the erroneous belief that doctors don't lie to patients. People take neurotoxic drugs believing that the drugs treat a brain disease they have. The drugs cause iatrogenic, or 'physician caused' diseases, neurological impairments, and can disable them; and even cause their untimely death. ...

...It is fraud. It is Standard Practice. It is criminal. "~from article in Systems of Care Yakima

thill94703  12/30/2010 07:43 PM Report

FOR Charlie Rose episode on ALS. Why not replace bad motor neuron with a conducting wire with interface at each end. Bypass failed biological pathway with electronic.

c824767  06/06/2010 11:06 PM Report

what do you mean, infants think their language is easy to learn. how many french can actually construct a grammatically correct french sentence ? how many people are able to write English correctly, when vowels are pronounced more inconsistently than maybe in any other language ? how many illiterate people do you think are there in Cambodia where they have a ridiculously difficult alphabet ? how many hours do you think do Japanese kids spend learning their alphabet. it is surprising that they ever get to subjects like biology geography or math. I hypothesize that people who are able to learn the grammar of their own language, are able to learn another language more easily. however, there are not many people whose brains are inclined to learn grammar.

naveen  03/02/2010 04:52 PM Report

@Bechard

It is very likely that we all have innate biases that make some languages easier to learn than others (and some non-attested languages impossible to learn); these biases, which make language learning possible, will almost certainly be universal, because all human infants (ignoring rare pathologies) can learn any of the natural languages. Therefore, all human infants will find the same languages easy/difficult to learn - i.e. all humans are predisposed to learning particular languages over others, and we all share the same predispositions for language learning.

kylewallace69  01/21/2010 02:50 PM Report

Bechard:

Chomsky has spoken to this issue.

Bechard  01/20/2010 12:22 AM Report

Watching this episode got me thinking about a question that I have been unable to find an answer to. "Can one have a genetic disposition to the mastery of a certain language over another?" If anyone is familiar with literature on this topic please, possibly send me an email pbechard@hotmail.com.

ShalomFreedman  01/18/2010 03:31 PM Report

An illuminating discussion. Now I know why trees do not have brains. That was a poor attempt at a joke. The discussion was informative, with each of the panelists contributing from their own specific realm of knowledge. A wonderful gift to laymen who can become 'up-to- date' to a degree on what is happening in this most important area of study and investigation. All praise to Charlie Rose and Eric Kandel in the way they conducted the discussion.