Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Not So Fast, Great Letter!

[Change]

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Not So FAST GREAT LETTER!

FRED A. BAUGHMAN, JR. M.D.*
NEUROLOGY AND CHILD NEUROLOGY (Board Certified)
FELLOW, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY
fredbaughmanmd@cox.net
EL CAJON, CA 92019



Senator Diane Feinstein , 01/07/08
US Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC
20510

Dear Senator Feinstein

Dr. Sanjay Gupta and any other candidates for the Surgeon General should be required to report all money contributions, speaking engagements, lectureships, etc., from industry for the past 8 years.

Further he/they should be required to answer the question: Do you believe that any psychiatric diagnoses/diagnostic entities are actual diseases having—as they must--a demonstrable gross, microscopic, or chemical abnormality?

Each of the last 3 Surgeons General supported the psycho-pharmaceutical marketing ploy of psychiatric “chemical imbalances” or “diseases” when none such exist. Needing to reform health care we can have no more disease-inventing, especially not from psychiatry which does nothing but, doing untold damage in the process, wasting billions.

Sincerely,


Fred A. Baughman Jr. MD

CC Senator Barbara Boxer
CC Senator Chuck Grassley

[Change]

TOUGH QUESTIONS ON HEALTH BLOG CENSORED BY TV NEWS DIRECTOR
All over the country, daily journalists working on newspapers or on radio or TV are now also being asked to publish blogs – often without any additional pay for the additional work.

But I recently discovered a case where a reporter pressured to do a blog had that blog censored by a TV news director because he didn’t like what was in the blog.

The reporter – a TV health reporter – posted two entries about some questionable (I would call them unethical) practices in TV news. One referred to the practice of medical centers buying air time within newscasts and having the message appear as news. The posting asked blog visitors:
“What do you think of commercials for local health care behemoths that look like news? … Are you able to tell they are clearly commercials?”
The other blog entry was about subscription services that provide health news for stations to fill their newscasts. The reporter, whose station often uses such a service, wrote on the blog:
“I've noticed a lot of the subscription reports have to do with research. And not that I have anything against research -- in fact, I think it's a very important part of medical advancement -- but I believe the mass media need to be very careful about highlighting investigational procedures, products, and techniques. …I worry sometimes these packages peddle false hope, or at least, premature hope.
What do you think of these subscription pieces? Can you tell when it's something I've written versus a (subscription) piece? Do you think stations should even subscribe to (such) services?”

Without being told in advance, the reporter noticed that the blog entries had been deleted. The news director then called the reporter on the carpet and said that “He didn't think it was right to ask viewers what they thought about something management had already decided to do.”

The reporter no longer blogs on the station website. That reporter asks if other reporters have had similar experiences, stating “it's about reporters everywhere having viewpoints about what their own industry does, and not being able to express their views without fear of reprisal.”

Please weigh in if you know of other such in-house censorship of the free flow of ideas. In an era of transparency, there are apparently some editorial decisions that some news managers – at least this one – don’t want to shine a light on. That may be the best evidence there is for why the practices in question should be re-assessed.

[Dojo]

Climate Change Delusion makes the DSM-IV

Psychiatrists in Australia have identified “Climate Change Delusion” as the latest mental disorder sure to make it into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). That’s the head shrinker’s bible if you don’t know



If you thought your friends and family were normal, you may not be so sure after reading the DSM IV. For example, let's take your friend Suzy who, due to a series of failed relationships, thinks all men are brainless creeps. According to the DSM, Suzy is suffering from "Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder" (billing code 302.71). How about your buddy Allen who spends hours a day on the Internet. Allen definitely sounds like he has "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder" (billing code 300.3), not that he enjoys reading, researching or playing Internet games. Or how about Mom, who is depressed over the death of her brother? Mom is obviously "Bipolar I" (billing code, 296.51), or if she has been depressed more than 2 months she could have "Bereavement Disorder" (billing code, V62.82).

The book contains hundreds of approved billing codes...........er....... I mean mental illnesses, that a group of physicans with ties to pharmacuetical companies just VOTE in...... That's right, all it takes is a vote, no biological proof needed. $$$

[lucius]

Climate Change Delusion makes the DSM-IV

Psychiatrists in Australia have identified “Climate Change Delusion” as the latest mental disorder sure to make it into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). That’s the head shrinker’s bible if you don’t know



If you thought your friends and family were normal, you may not be so sure after reading the DSM IV. For example, let's take your friend Suzy who, due to a series of failed relationships, thinks all men are brainless creeps. According to the DSM, Suzy is suffering from "Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder" (billing code 302.71). How about your buddy Allen who spends hours a day on the Internet. Allen definitely sounds like he has "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder" (billing code 300.3), not that he enjoys reading, researching or playing Internet games. Or how about Mom, who is depressed over the death of her brother? Mom is obviously "Bipolar I" (billing code, 296.51), or if she has been depressed more than 2 months she could have "Bereavement Disorder" (billing code, V62.82).

The book contains hundreds of approved billing codes...........er....... I mean mental illnesses, that a group of physicians with ties to pharmaceutical companies just VOTE in...... That's right, all it takes is a vote, no biological proof needed. $$$

Not the first time either:

"Gay activists said they could "reinvent human nature, reinvent themselves." To do this, these reinventors had to clear away one major obstacle. No, they didn't go after the nation's clergy. They targeted the members of a worldly priesthood, the psychiatric community, and neutralized them with a radical redefinition of homosexuality itself. In 1972 and 1973 they co-opted the leadership of the American Psychiatric Association and, through a series of political maneuvers, lies and outright flim-flams, they "cured" homosexuality overnight-by fiat. They got the A.P.A. to say that same-sex sex was "not a disorder." It was merely "a condition"-as neutral as lefthandedness.

This amounted to a full approval of homosexuality. Those of us who did not go along with the political redefinition were soon silenced at our own professional meetings. Our lectures were canceled inside academe and our research papers turned down in the learned journals. Worse things followed in the culture at large. Television and movie producers began to do stories promoting homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle. A gay review board told Hollywood how it should deal or not deal with homosexuality. Mainstream publishers turned down books that objected to the gay revolution. Gays and lesbians influenced sex education in our nation's schools, and gay and lesbian seized wide control of faculty committees in our nations' colleges..."

Charles W. Socarides, M.D., is clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York.

[pacelli]

Climate Change Delusion makes the DSM-IV

Psychiatrists in Australia have identified “Climate Change Delusion” as the latest mental disorder sure to make it into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). That’s the head shrinker’s bible if you don’t know



If you thought your friends and family were normal, you may not be so sure after reading the DSM IV. For example, let's take your friend Suzy who, due to a series of failed relationships, thinks all men are brainless creeps. According to the DSM, Suzy is suffering from "Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder" (billing code 302.71). How about your buddy Allen who spends hours a day on the Internet. Allen definitely sounds like he has "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder" (billing code 300.3), not that he enjoys reading, researching or playing Internet games. Or how about Mom, who is depressed over the death of her brother? Mom is obviously "Bipolar I" (billing code, 296.51), or if she has been depressed more than 2 months she could have "Bereavement Disorder" (billing code, V62.82).

The book contains hundreds of approved billing codes...........er....... I mean mental illnesses, that a group of physicans with ties to pharmacuetical companies just VOTE in...... That's right, all it takes is a vote, no biological proof needed. $$$

Hi, I'm a psychologist. Could you please tell me the page number in the most current version of the DSM-IV, called the DSM-IV-TR, where I can find "Climate Change Delusion"? I can't seem to find it. The billing codes you mention are for insurance purposes. If a person is a private pay, outpatient, I have no need to use billing codes.

Your comments about certain people being "obviously" plagued with a psychological disorder are "obviously" simplified for dramatic effect. There are very clear criteria outlined for each disorder in order to diagnose someone with a particular mental illness. Also, many mental illnesses do not require medications to provide relief from the symptoms.

PS- You seem to have conveniently left out, v71.09, No diagnosis.

[brandon]

Pacelli, thank you for pointing out that Climate Change Delusion is not in the DSM-IV. After reading your post I re-read the original post. Dojo's post is extremely deceptive. It begins with the attention grabber "Climate Change Delusion makes the DSM-IV" and then goes on to imply that it has not yet made the DSM-IV. Notice the bolded part:

Climate Change Delusion makes the DSM-IV

Psychiatrists in Australia have identified “Climate Change Delusion” as the latest mental disorder sure to make it into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). That’s the head shrinker’s bible if you don’t know

So all that happened is some random psychiatrist somewhere in Australia suggested that denying climate change may be a mental disorder, and then this sensationalist "news" blerb was written.

[pacelli]

Pacelli, thank you for pointing out that Climate Change Delusion is not in the DSM-IV. After reading your post I re-read the original post. Dojo's post is extremely deceptive. It begins with the attention grabber "Climate Change Delusion makes the DSM-IV" and then goes on to imply that it has not yet made the DSM-IV. Notice the bolded part:



So all that happened is some random psychiatrist somewhere in Australia suggested that denying climate change may be a mental disorder, and then this sensationalist "news" blerb was written.

Yep, it would be unethical for me to pass it by without some clarification. And I agree, that's exactly what happened.

The new version of the DSM, called the DSM-V, is still in research phase. The diagnostic working group committees have been meeting since 2007, and the APA hopes to release a final version of DSM-V in May of 2012. If I wanted, I could submit, "Ron Paul Delusional Disorder" to the thought disorder committee and they would have to review my submission. Since there are no peer reviewed research articles backing this proposed disorder, the entire submission would be $#@!-canned.

I suspect that Climate Change Delusional Disorder will also be $#@!-canned. I can't find any peer-reviewed articles about it.

[Change]

"PS- You seem to have conveniently left out, v71.09, No diagnosis."

Maybe because their is no State and Federal Reimbursement for that Billing Code, therefore it is never used. It would be nice if the DSM billing bible actually gave a total dollar amount the taxpayers are paying for each DSM label in each State. How about a Statistical analysis, isn't that what the "S" stands for in DSM? Statistics? When do they start disclosing the numbers?