Patrick D Hahn
Science Writer
Unmasking the Truth: Part 3: Do Masks Cause Infections?
December 01, 2020
Why did anyone think wearing a warm, moist rag a millimeter away from his or her mouth, for hours at a time, creating the ideal conditions for bacteria to multiply, would be a good thing? This is a gigantic, uncontrolled experiment.
Unmasking the Truth: Part 2: A Fever Pitch of Hysteria
September 15, 2020
The hysteria is approaching a fever pitch. Writing in The Conversation, a professor of medical ethics opined that we need “morality enhancers” to induce people to wear their masks. Such morality enhancers might be taken in pill form, the professor helpfully explained, or added to the water supply.
Urgent Appeal to Readers: Fearless Investigative Reporter David Daleiden on the Hook for $195K Fine
June 18, 2019
Hidden camera stings have been used to uncover animal abuse in factory farms, industrial-scale pill mills, and child sex predators. If Daleiden loses in the California courts, this could have a chilling effect on freedom of the press reaching far beyond the boundaries of this one case.
Canada Free Press columnist Michael Fumento freed from Colombia jail, but his troubles are not over
June 06, 2018
For years, Michael Fumento has been the source of some of the hardest-hitting reporting around, speaking truth to power in an era in which bovine gullibility has become the main or even the sole virtue
"PLEASE DON'T FORGET ABOUT ME": ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND BIRTH DEFECTS: Part 4: "Patient safety is our highest concern"
June 08, 2017
Last March, a settlement was reached on behalf of Meah Bartram and 50 other Canadian children born with congenital defects whose mothers used Paxil during pregnancy. GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay out $6.2 million, but admitted no wrongdoing.
"PLEASE DON'T FORGET ABOUT ME": ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND BIRTH DEFECTS: Part 3: "I was absolutely distraught"
June 07, 2017
In a telephone interview Dr. Healy blasted SmithKline Beecham for not following up on early indications that paroxetine could cause birth defects. He likened their attitude to that of tobacco company executives confronted with evidence of the harm their product could cause: “Let’s not look too closely at this.”
"PLEASE DON'T FORGET ABOUT ME": ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND BIRTH DEFECTS: Part 2: A gigantic uncontrolled experiment
June 06, 2017
These drugs readily cross the placenta and become part of the environment bathing the developing fetus, and not one of them was tested for safety and effectiveness in pregnant women before being released.
A MANIA FOR DRUGGING CHILDREN: "A devastation beyond belief"
August 02, 2016
The bipolar boom continues. Once upon a time, children were taught religious parables and national myths that placed their lives in a larger context of meaning, as well as stories that taught the value of hard work (The Little Red Hen), foresight (The Three Little Pigs) and perseverance (The Little Engine That Could). They learned about the young Teddy Roosevelt overcoming his childhood asthma through strenuous exercise, and the young Abe Lincoln reading by the firelight and then walking miles to return books he had borrowed. Today tomes such as Brandon and the Bipolar Bear, Turbo Max, and My Bipolar Roller Coaster Feelings Book teach the little ones the importance of psychotropic medication compliance.
A MANIA FOR DRUGGING CHILDREN: "The bipolar brain is miswired"
July 31, 2016
In the year following the death of Rebecca Riley, Newsweek magazine, which had already published not one but two laudatory cover stories on Prozac as well as a puff piece on childhood depression, weighed in with yet another cover story, “Growing up bipolar: Max’s world,” which told the story of Max Blake, a boy who suffered from temper tantrums, attacking teachers and playmates without warning, biting and kicking and spitting at them.
A MANIA FOR DRUGGING CHILDEN: Rebecca Riley
July 30, 2016
The short unhappy life of Rebecca Riley is a parable for our times. Her diagnosis with bipolar disorder at the age of 28 months was followed by a downward spiral which parents, doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, and everybody else around her seemed powerless to halt.
A MANIA FOR DRUGGING CHILDREN: "Major therapeutic advances"
July 29, 2016
In a telephone interview Dr. Healy blasted the idea that antidepressants and stimulants “unmask” a pre-existing mental illness. “There’s absolutely no reason to think these pills reveal the underlying disorder,” he told me. “That is just nuts.”
A MANIA FOR DRUGGING CHILDREN: "A healthy productive life"
July 29, 2016
In December 1999, Demitri Papolos, M.D., and Janice Papolos published The Bipolar Child, the book that convinced Anne that her son William was bipolar. In the preface, the authors lay it on the line for us: “Many of these children were initially diagnosed as having attention-deficit disorder with hyperactivity and put on stimulant medications; or they were first seen in the throes of depression with little or no consideration of the opposite pole of a mood disorder. As a result, a shocking number of children were thrown into manic and psychotic states, became paranoid and violent, and ended up in a hospital—unstable, suicidal, and in worse shape than before the treatment began…”
A MANIA FOR DRUGGING CHILDREN: "Accident prone"
July 27, 2016
A paper published in the April 1976 issue of the Journal of Diseases in Childhood described five cases of childhood mania. All the children described came from obviously troubled families. In three of the five cases the authors explicitly state that the mania did not develop until after the children had begun taking stimulants or antidepressants.
CHANTIX: FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE DYING TO QUIT SMOKING: Is suicide an expected event?
May 20, 2016
Chantix surpassed all other drugs for serious events reported to the FDA, including but not limited to hostility, aggression, paranoia, hallucinations, psychosis, heart arrhythmias, heart attacks, visual disturbances, seizures, falls, traffic accidents, homicidal ideation, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts, along with 28 actual suicides.
PAXIL TURNED ME INTO A MONSTER: "It's shameful"
May 20, 2016
On 13 June 2013, a paper authored by Peter Doshi, David Healy, and several others appeared in BMJ. The authors noted that they had obtained access to 178,000 ages of previously confidential drug company documents pertaining to clinical trials which had either never been published in the scientific literature, or which had been misreported.
PAXIL TURNED ME INTO A MONSTER: The ghost writer
May 20, 2016
On 29 January 2007, the BBC news program Panorama aired the documentary, “Secrets of the drug trials.” This episode, presented by BBC reporter Shelley Jofre, detailed the behind-the-scenes attempts to spin the results of SmithKline Beecham’s Study 329 of Paxil.
PAXIL TURNED ME INTO A MONSTER: "An effective drug treatment"
May 20, 2016
On 13 February 1998 60-year-old Donald Schell of Gillette, Wyoming, took two guns and shot his wife and daughter and 9-month-old granddaughter dead. Each victim took at least at least three shots to the head. Afterwards, Schell turned one of the guns on himself and ended his life. All this took place two days after Don Schell began taking Paxil for sleep problems.
TWO YEARS ON, AUSTRALIAN DOCUMENTARY ON STATINS CONTINUES TO ROUSE IRE: "A straight-up question"
May 20, 2016
John Abramson is a medical doctor, the author of Overdo$ed America, and an outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical industry. He also is one of the experts featured in the Catalyst documentary, and he describes himself as an expert in litigation, including cases involving statins.
TWO YEARS ON, AUSTRALIAN DOCUMENTARY ON STATINS CONTINUES TO ROUSE IRE: "People will die"
May 20, 2016
A study by Australian medical researchers is the latest salvo in the battle triggered by the documentary, “Heart of the Matter,” which raised questions about the safety and effectiveness of statins, a class of drugs that block the body’s ability to synthesize cholesterol.
I'VE LOST SO MUCH: "Chemically lobotomized"
May 20, 2016
Beginning in 2009, television viewers were treated to a series of commercial messages featuring animated images of winsome young mothers whose lives had been turned around by taking Abilify. In one memorable spot, an actress declaims in voice over: “My antidepressant worked hard to help with my depression. But sometimes I struggled to get going – even to get through the day.”
I'VE LOST SO MUCH: "Works like a thermostat"
May 20, 2016
David Healy is a medical doctor, the author of Pharmageddon, and an outspoken critic of the psychopharmaceutical industry. He also is a practicing psychiatrist and he does prescribe neuroleptics to his patients. But, he cautions, “The drugs are tranquilizers, and they were originally called tranquilizers. They are not curative."
I'VE LOST SO MUCH: "Psychiatry has destroyed my life"
May 20, 2016
"Psychiatry has destroyed my life in so many ways.”
So says Jarrett, a young man from Orange County, who for the past three and half years has been taking a cocktail of various psychiatric medications, including America’s best-selling drug, Abilify.
A WALKING NIGHTMARE: "I can't enjoy anything"
May 20, 2016
Just last August, a study was published in JAMA in which adolescents were screened for depression and then randomized either to a collaborative care intervention or usual care. An accompanying editorial called for integration of depression screening into primary pediatric care, noting that “depression is associated with serious mental health problems (e.g., suicide).”
A WALKING NIGHTMARE: "Better than well"
May 20, 2016
Sadness, sorrow, and despair have been a part of the human condition from the beginning. More than two thousand years ago, the author of The Book of Job wrote, “I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” Around the same time, Siddhartha Gautama is said to have told his followers, “Life is suffering.”
IT'S A NIGHTMARE: "My quality of life is shot"
May 20, 2016
Between 1994 and 2007, annual per-patient spending on diabetes drugs more than doubled, from $495 to $1048 per. A study by Doctor Caleb Alexander of the University of Chicago Hospitals found that during the same period, the three-year death rate for people with type 2 diabetes dropped by less than one in two hundred.
MY SPIRIT IS BROKEN: The statinization of society
May 20, 2016
In 2011, the Cochrane Collaboration published a meta-analysis, or a study of studies, on the effectiveness of statins for primary prevention of CVD. They concluded that 223 people with no previous history of CVD would have to be treated with statins for three years in order to avert one death.
MY SPIRIT IS BROKEN: The selling of a disease
May 20, 2016
When he was nearing the end of his career, Henry Gadsden, then-CEO of pharmaceutical giant Merck, gave an interview to Fortune magazine in which he said that he regretted that he couldn’t sell drugs to healthy people. He said his dream was to be able to peddle his company’s wares to everybody, like chewing gum giant Wrigley’s.
MY SPIRIT IS BROKEN: A $29-billion-dollar-a-year industry
May 20, 2016
“You use them or you die.”
This is what a doctor told Sulette Brown, a psychotherapist from Oklahoma, when she balked at taking statins, after she’d been rushed to the emergency room for a heart attack. Since that night, her life has changed in ways she could not have imagined.