Category: General News

Long‑term use of common psychiatric drugs like Xanax and Valium can trigger a newly recognized condition that leaves users with years of fatigue, anxiety and cognitive damage.

Xanax, Valium, Librium, Ativan, Klonopin, Restoril.

On the street, they’re called “benzos”—psychiatric drugs that promise to reduce anxiety by slowing brain activity.

Considered “minor” tranquilizers (unlike antipsychotics, which are “major”), they are so culturally ubiquitous that in the Burt Reynolds film Starting Over, a character asks, “Does anyone have a Valium?” and every woman pulls out a pill bottle to offer one.

But benzos are no laughing matter. Only recently have researchers begun to document the extent of the prolonged and often devastating symptoms some users experience after stopping benzos.

“It takes everything in me to appear normal.… It was a nightmare. My brain has not been the same.”

A team at the University of Nebraska Medical Center recently reported a new disturbing condition resulting from long-term use.

They described a 57-year-old man with a 40-year benzo habit—originally begun to manage alcohol addiction, depression and anxiety. When he finally quit, he suffered debilitating fatigue, brain fog, uncontrollable anxiety, overwhelming emotional distress and panic far beyond the typical two-week withdrawal window.

His condition set off alarm bells for researchers, who recognized they were seeing benzodiazepine addiction as well as persistent damage to the nervous system, which they refer to as Benzodiazepine-Induced Neurologic Dysfunction (BIND).

BIND is real, underdiagnosed and dangerous. “While acute benzodiazepine withdrawal is well characterized, typically emerging within days and resolving in under two weeks, some patients experience prolonged symptoms such as fatigue, impaired concentration and anxiety that persist well past this time frame,” researchers wrote.

For patients trying to leave benzos behind, the road is long and grueling, The New York Times reported: “Many then get cut off from their medication or taper too quickly, and face dangerous and potentially life-threatening withdrawal symptoms that can linger long after the drugs are discontinued.”

The American Society of Addiction Medicine recommends lengthy tapering procedures, sometimes lasting more than a year, with monitoring even after the drug is fully stopped. Yet weaning millions of Americans off benzos is daunting: The FDA reports over 92 million prescriptions filled in 2019 alone.

Going cold turkey is often neither effective nor safe.

The human toll is severe. Tasha Hedges quit Xanax after 20 years and suffered hot flashes, cold sweats, restless legs, shaking and teeth grinding. Years later, she said: “It takes everything in me to appear normal.… It was a nightmare. My brain has not been the same.”

A University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus survey of 1,207 benzo users—63.2 percent still taking, 24.4 percent tapering, 11.3 percent fully off—found shocking results: 54.4 percent reported suicidal thoughts or attempts. Symptoms often lasted over a year, including low energy, memory loss, anxiety, insomnia, sensitivity to light and sound, digestive issues, muscle weakness and body pain. Over 40 percent reported 17 or more ongoing symptoms at least a year after quitting.

Dr. Christy Huff, one of the researchers and a former benzo user herself, explained: “Patients have been reporting long-term effects from benzodiazepines for over 60 years.… Even though I took my medication as prescribed, I still experience symptoms on a daily basis at four years off benzodiazepines.”

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Factors like sex, race or foster care status didn’t explain the fivefold jump in psychotropic stacking. The results expose a system primed to drug children rather than help them.

aston was introduced to drugs at the age of 3. Barely potty-trained, he was nevertheless diagnosed with ADHD and put on guanfacine, a blood pressure medication often prescribed for children who can’t sit still.

The physician assistant who wrote the prescription failed to mention that the FDA had never approved guanfacine—whose side effects include blurred vision, confusion, dizziness, severe weakness and depression—for toddlers like Easton.

The drug made Easton “like a zombie,” according to his aunt and adoptive mother, Kymberly Stacks. Yet each time she raised her concerns with the physician assistant, the answer was to increase the dose.

Up and up the doses went, until Stacks switched to a psychiatrist who promptly put him on the antipsychotic Abilify.

Then the stimulant Evekeo.

Followed by Concerta, ProCentra and Ritalin.

None “cured” him.

“We have made a mess and it’s dangerous.”

Now age 6 and a veteran of six psychiatric drugs, he’s presently on his seventh, Quelbree, another ADHD drug.

Its side effects include insomnia, blood-pressure problems, depression and suicide.

How will Easton’s story end? More drugs until the symptoms suppressing his symptoms are more palatable to society at large, or until he’s too drugged out to function at all?

“I constantly think he was put on medication way too young, but no doctor ever said anything,” said Stacks.

The doctors may not be talking, but the Medicaid stats speak loud and clear: Of roughly 166,000 children ages 3 to 14 who started ADHD drugs in 2019, over 39,000—more than 23 percent—were taking two or more psychiatric drugs at the same time by 2023. More than 4,400 of these children were on four psychotropics simultaneously. Children who were started on ADHD drugs at younger ages were considerably more likely to be prescribed additional psychiatric drugs over the ensuing four years.

“There are concerns about safety, because there can be additive adverse effects of different types of medications,” said Dr. Javeed Sukhera, of the Institute of Living at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.

“We have made a mess and it’s dangerous,” said Jennifer Havens of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “If a kid is on five, six, seven medications, that’s just wrong.”

Yet it continues.

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A landmark reform shuts down deceptive drug ads that fueled overprescribing, misinformation and billions in profits for Big Pharma.

ruthful and non-misleading Direct-to-Customer (DTC) advertising is protected under the First Amendment and has documented evidence of advancing patient awareness and engagement,” said Alex Schriver, senior vice president at Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

Because he said it in a statement, we have no way of knowing if his fingers were crossed or if he was stifling a smirk.

Schriver made the statement in response to a historic raft of reforms coming down from the FDA and Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) requiring pharmaceutical companies to include full safety warnings in DTC ads—with an emphasis on the word “full.” The reforms close a 1997 “adequate provision” loophole that allowed companies to minimize risk disclosures, referring the viewer interested in learning all the risks to a tiny print website address or phone number, while lulling them with images of delighted people doing joyous things.

DTC ads work just fine the way they are now—for drug companies.

PhRMA is a trade and lobby group that has worked tirelessly for the good of Big Pharma since 1958—lobbying against lower drug prices, price limits and price negotiations, and levying lawsuits while donating vast sums of dark money to groups that oppose reform. It wants no changes in the status quo, which is why it insists that DTC ads are “truthful and non-misleading.”

The evidence, of course, tells a different story.

Doctors themselves admit that when patients request drugs they’ve seen advertised, the doctor often feels pressured to prescribe—even when it isn’t medically appropriate. In fact, studies show physicians are 17 times more likely to write a prescription if a patient specifically asks for the drug, sometimes just to protect their own satisfaction scores. The results are predictable: unnecessary prescriptions for powerful, dangerous psychotropics like Adderall, along with an overall surge in inappropriate drug use.

A 2021 review likewise confirmed what doctors and patients already knew: DTC ads result in more prescription requests, more prescriptions written and more inappropriate prescribing. Even a brief exposure to a statin commercial made low-risk patients 16–20 percent more likely to be diagnosed with high cholesterol, and 16–22 percent more likely to walk away with a prescription.

And the ads themselves? A 2024 review found that nearly two-thirds were of poor scientific quality. Almost half were outright misleading, and more than a third were judged potentially harmful. Content analyses show why: Only about a quarter even bother to explain the disease or its mechanisms. A tiny fraction mention risk factors. But almost all—94 percent—lean on emotional manipulation (that syrupy music with the happy slow-motion people).

Worst of all, the ads drive patients toward pills at the expense of effective—and far safer—lifestyle changes.

So, yes, DTC ads work just fine the way they are now—for drug companies. They work so well, in fact, that prescription drug use among Americans increased from 39 percent (1988–1994) to 49.9 percent (2017–2020) in the last 30 years.

That means if you’re a six-year-old boy today, you can expect to spend 47.1 percent of the rest of your life on prescription drugs, while if you’re a baby girl, you can expect to spend 58.2 percent of your life popping pills.

Small wonder, then, that “drug makers spent a whopping $5.15 billion on national TV ads in 2024,” CNN reported. “They continued to open their wallets in 2025, spending just shy of $3 billion on national TV ads during the first half of the year, a 12.2 percent year-on-year increase.”

It’s to the point now where Big Pharma is currently fourth in terms of total TV ad spending by industry, accounting for 11.1 percent of the market. If you’re binge-watching “The Great British Baking Show” or Netflix’s “Wednesday”  right now, chances are you’ll see a drug commercial or six within the next hour or two.

Those of you who are old enough: Remember all those TV ads for prescription drugs before 1997?

You would be excused if you can’t. That’s because there were virtually none. In those days, pharmaceutical ads had to give full disclosure and report all risks. Some of those lists of side effects and dangers run to pages of small print. It would just take too long to read them out loud (the commercials would be the length of the TV shows they sponsored).

Thousands of sponsors will receive warning letters, while dozens of companies will be hit with actions for false and misleading promotion.

That all changed in 1997, with the FDA’s introduction of the “adequate provision” loophole. “Adequate provision” is an important-sounding term that describes permitting pharmaceutical advertisements to hide safety information by placing it in another format or location. As long as they recite a vague “major-risk statement” and then point viewers to a website, toll-free number or print insert for more complete information on how their drug can make you sicker, more miserable or suicidal, we’re cool.

The result: a 24/7 tsunami of pharmaceutical lies inundating America’s airwaves and assaulting our senses.

As HHS indicated in announcing the reform: “This loophole—which denies patients vital safety information required for them to make an informed decision—has had a clear negative impact on public health.”

The reform, HHS goes on to say, “simply returns to the status quo policy pre-1997. It requires the presentation of factual and uncontroversial statements which are already legally required to be communicated in drug advertising; goes directly to the core government interests of protecting the public from deception and protecting public health—as supported by voluminous evidence of public harm under the current system; and does not unduly burden advertisers, by preserving their right to engage in commercial speech under the standards that existed prior to 1997.”

But this time, with teeth.

The FDA is putting the drug industry on notice: Remove deceptive ads or face enforcement. Thousands of sponsors will receive warning letters, while dozens of companies will be hit with actions for false and misleading promotion. “No longer asleep at the wheel,” the FDA will wield its authority aggressively to crack down on misbranding.

This is welcome news. The FDA? Doing its job?? Hooray! And they’ve already begun. On the day of the announcement, the FDA issued approximately 100 cease-and-desist letters and thousands of warning letters directly to pharmaceutical companies.

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Swedish research finds involuntary psychiatric commitment deadly, confirming patterns seen in the US.

In a groundbreaking new Swedish study, the practice of grabbing people off the streets and locking them up in psychiatric facilities is referred to as “involuntary psychiatric care” (IPC).

What’s missing is the “care” part.

There is nothing caring about being abducted, locked away and subjected to abuse so violent, so dehumanizing, that some begin to see death as the only way to end the suffering.

That’s right: According to the shocking study by the nation’s Karolinska Institutet, IPCs are causing individuals to kill themselves.

The Karolinska study looked at 72,275 patients discharged after being forcibly institutionalized in 134,514 incidents of IPC from 2010 to 2020.

The study’s findings demonstrate that involuntary psychiatric treatment causes death.

To their horror, researchers found that one out of every 64 discharges ended with a patient dying by suicide.

The door to mental institutions, therefore, functions all too often like a chute leading straight to the killing floor. In fact, 38 of those deceased patients didn’t wait for their release before killing themselves—they died while still being confined in “treatment” centers.

The suicides ultimately add up to a rate that is nearly four times higher than voluntary psychiatric outpatients and a whopping 56 times higher than the general population.

“The results … show that involuntary treatment is a risk marker for suicide,” said John Wallert, associate professor at the institute and main investigator in the study. “It is important to point out that our observational study cannot be interpreted as meaning that involuntary treatment causes suicide.”

Really? Sure it can.

In fact, that is the only way to sensibly interpret the stats: The study’s findings demonstrate that involuntary psychiatric treatment causes death.

A study published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology backs this up: “A recent longitudinal study found that patients who reported perceived coercion during hospitalization admission were at greater likelihood of making a suicide attempt in the year following discharge.”

The United Nations Human Rights Office, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) advocate for banning involuntary psychiatric treatment.

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A state-licensed youth psychiatric facility is under fire after a three-year study found repeated abuses, high restraint rates and a string of broken promises to reform.

The Southern Peaks Regional Treatment Center (SPRTC) in Cañon City, Colorado, is a facility specializing in the housing and treatment of youth aged 10–18 who have “significant emotional, social, behavioral and/or psychiatric disorders.”

“Let me out. I didn’t know it was this bad.” —Youth Resident, Southern Peaks Regional Treatment Center

What exactly that “treatment” consists of was laid bare in a report by Disability Law Colorado (DLC), a nonprofit advocacy organization.

“Unsafe” is one of the delicate adjectives used in the report to describe conditions at SPRTC. “Often unkind” is the phrase used to characterize the staff, who, according to various children, will say things to them like, “you suck” and “you’re a piece of crap.”

One child said he was told to “go kill myself.”

Name-calling is one thing, but physical abuse in the form of excessive restraints and coercive “therapy” is another.

“SPRTC continues to be more broadly known for their use of restraints rather than treatment.”

The case of Brandy Fogle’s autistic 13-year-old son appears to be a typical one. Fogle, who has been at the facility since January, is restrained multiple times weekly, for up to one hour and 20 minutes. “I can’t imagine,” Ms. Fogle said, “being held down by four to five adults for a few minutes, let alone an hour and 20 minutes.”

The brutality inflicted on her son is among the roughly 75 documented restraint incidents per month at SPRTC as of May 2025—a rate significantly higher than other comparable facilities in Colorado.

The cruel use of restraints is mirrored in the facility’s unsafe conditions and its striking lack of care and compassion. “We have had numerous children report to us that they have received raw or undercooked food, including raw chicken,” says DLC. “Multiple children have reported getting food poisoning while in the care of SPRTC.”

And as for the housing, it “cannot be described as feeling homelike,” the report discloses. “Children have metal beds and dark rooms with breakable windows. Their common areas are filled with furniture that is often found in correctional settings like jails and prisons. This furniture is even less homelike and welcoming than the furniture in juvenile corrections facilities in Colorado.”

Or as one child expressed, “It’s like jail.”

SPRTC claimed to have set up a Youth Advisory Council to allow for feedback from residents about the facility, but when the DLC visited, there was no such council.

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Drug regulatory agencies in Germany and Australia have added warnings that atomoxetine can trigger violent or suicidal thoughts—sparking urgent concern over its long‑term use in children and adults.

Why on God’s little green earth would you give your child a drug that experts say can make them homicidal or suicidal?

And why would you ever take such a drug yourself?

The answer is: You wouldn’t. But for well over 20 years, millions of Americans have been taking—and giving their kids—the psychiatric drug atomoxetine.

And now, drug regulatory agencies in both Germany and Australia have issued warnings that the drug can cause homicidal and suicidal behavior and thoughts.

That’s right—the drugs you’re giving your children on the advice of psychiatrists can make them want to kill you.

“The idea that a drug prescribed to millions of children and adults could induce homicidal behavior is nothing short of astonishing.”

Read more here.

Psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff indicts her entire industry for falsely pushing deadly drugs as a “treatment” for depression. Her conclusion: They don’t work. And she’s got the evidence to prove it. 

This was not on their Bingo card.

The psychiatric community awoke one morning in mid-January to find the foundations of their cash-cow alliance with Big Pharma yanked out from underneath them—and by one of their own.

A new history of antidepressants, authored by a psychiatrist, doesn’t so much make the case for the falsehood of the chemical treatment of depression as it does annihilate it.

Granularly researched with evidence as airtight as it is brutal, Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth by Dr. Joanna Moncrieff, a professor of psychiatry at University College London, indicts and convicts her entire industry for knowingly hawking deadly drugs on the for-profit pretense of “treating” depression.

Dr. Moncrieff resolved to unmask the fraud after leading a team of five top UK and European specialists on a review of studies to determine if there was, in fact, a relationship between the chemical serotonin and depression. Since the 1960s, psychiatrists have insisted—in articles, papers, websites and every platform they could shout from—that a “below-normal” amount of the so-called “feel-good” chemical serotonin is the cause of misery. Then, with the advent of “Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor” (SSRI) antidepressants in the 1990s, “chemical imbalance” became the Golden Calf psychiatrists and pharmaceutical giants worshipped: Simply jack up the depressed person’s serotonin with antidepressant snake-oil drugs that enrich psychiatrists and Big Pharma and thus remedy that “chemical imbalance.”

But Dr. Moncrieff and her team have thrown cold water on the “you’re-depressed-because-you-need-your-chemicals-rebalanced” party. In findings published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, she concluded that “there is no evidence of a connection between reduced serotonin levels of activity and depression.”

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