Canadian Mindscape Monitor

A U.S. News and World Report commentator rightly raises questions about a much bally-hooed “blood test” that supposedly helps screen women who “might” eventually get post-partum depression.
Ya gotta love how psychiatry, unsatisfied with its failed struggles to develop tests that can identify mental illnesses, is increasingly resorting to developing tests that identify mental illnesses that [...]

“Treat mental health problems early, avoid trouble later” is the headline for an article today in the Halifax, Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald on mental illness in children and youth.  The main source cited is Dr. Stan Kutcher:
“Caught early, the mental disorders that might otherwise derail young lives can be treated very effectively, said Dr. [...]

The inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski in the Vancouver Airport after being Tasered 5 times by RCMP officers has exploded across the national and international media again following the testimony of Richmond Fire Capt. Kirby Graeme. Graeme called the RCMP officers “unprofessional” and said the RCMP officers even “obstructed” paramedics who wanted to [...]

Sorry, dearest readers, that we’ve been delinquent here at CMM lately getting posts up… We’re trying to get back on the job after binge-working on the aforementioned feature article about the rights of seniors in BC care homes. But we couldn’t let you miss today’s New York Times coverage of the latest on the lawsuit [...]

The Vancouver Sun has published a lengthy story on a company that has begun marketing a multivitamin treatment for bipolar or manic depression. The concoction is called EMPowerplus from Truehope. Interestingly, they supposedly hit upon the idea after making batches of special calming feed for trapped, aggressive pigs. After some success stories, including the involvement [...]

San Jose Mercury News reports that Santa Clara University has recently replicated Stanley Milgram’s infamous 1974 study in which people were told to administer painful electrical shocks on others.  Due to appear in the journal American Psychologist, the new study found once again that the vast majority of people will continue to intensify torturous electrical [...]

In response to the enormous public embarrassment they’ve suffered in the past when it was revealed how much more political and economic the whole process is than scientific, all the psychiatrists working on the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders have had to sign non-disclosure agreements about the process, according [...]

With the release of Tom Cruise’s latest movie, Cruise has been prompted to apologize for the upbraiding of Matt Lauer he did in 2005 (watch the video here) while discussing Brooke Shields’ advocating of psychiatric drugs. Cruise was widely attacked and ridiculed along with his religion, Scientology, for questioning the scientific underpinnings of psychiatry. Yet [...]

Les Leyne has written a good column for the Victoria Times-Colonist about the decision not to press charges against the RCMP officers who infamously on video killed Robert Dziekanski while he was pleading for help in Polish in a Vancouver airport: “It’s easier to blame Robert Dziekanski”. Yes, that about sums it up, right down [...]

The Canadian Press is reporting that the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada is “endorsing the principles” of a April 2008 report from the Association of American Medical Colleges which recommended cutting off the stream of kickbacks and perks like free pizza parties, refrigerators and sunbelt trips being given to med students by pharmaceutical [...]

British Columbia police are pulling their X26 Tasers out of field use after BC’s Solicitor General also found, like many others before have found, that Taser shock levels can vary a lot and dangerously in actual field use. It’s little more than a show for the public, though — police will simply use other models [...]

The Globe and Mail cites perennial involuntary committal promoter and Schizophrenia Society rep John Gray as saying that 60,000 people are involuntarily treated in Canada each year. It’s a stunning statistic. And you can bet it’s actually much higher if we add in all the “treatment by forcible coercion” numbers, because it’s common practice for [...]

“Powerful antipsychotic medicines are being used far too cavalierly in children, and federal drug regulators must do more to warn doctors of their substantial risks, a panel of federal drug experts said Tuesday,” begins an article in the New York Times today. CMM would like to hope this marks the turning of the tide of [...]

CMM nearly died of a zap attack waking up this morning to an editorial in the Province, one of Vancouver’s two major daily newspapers.  Time to Zap the Taser flatly attacks police for committing “executions” on innocent people with the infamous pain-compliance mechanisms. Congratulations to the Province for its honesty and forthrightness, but they won’t [...]

Just ran across this wonderful statistic from the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health: “An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.”
!?!?!
Mental illness statistics such as these have been leapfrogging over each other for years like [...]

An article in Ontario’s Mississauga News reports on a nurse winning a $5,000 award from pharmaceutical giant Bayer’s “Bayer Dream Fund“, given “to support the dream of a Canadian who is effectively managing their diabetes”. That nurse’s dream? She is “creating a local exercise program for people with diabetes who also experience mental illness”.
It’s a [...]

A study published in the online edition of the journal Neurology today shows that multiple sclerosis is less likely to be diagnosed by doctors if the patients are obese or have other health issues or mental health issues. This isn’t surprising to anyone who has a mental illness diagnosis on their medical records; they know [...]

All hospitals and long-term care facilities in Canada seeking accreditation will now have to develop and implement suicide prevention programs, according to a Globe and Mail article. Lisa Priest, a usually critically-thoughtful researcher and journalist on health issues, inscrutably lets numerous sources gush on about how wonderful this is, without any contrary point of view [...]

A new short video on YouTube discusses the dangers of a lawsuit that’s been launched by CanWest Global, Canada’s biggest media empire, to strike down Canada’s laws against prescription drug advertising. Written and produced by Rob Wipond, sometimes rumoured to be the main person behind our very own Canadian Mindscape Monitor, the lawsuit is a [...]

An excellent overview in the New York Times discusses Senator Charles Grassley’s ongoing investigations into the huge amounts of money many high level, influential, widely respected psychiatrists and other medical doctors receive from drug companies. It’s a long overdue expose that’s making it clear that universities have been unable or unwilling to police conflicts of [...]