Body: | Psychiatrist L.R. Mosher resigns from the American Psychiatric Association
(APA) because of bogus scientific claims related to chemical imbalances and
corrupt support of the drug companies to perpetuate this myth.
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The money grab!
Drug companies make tons of money off the bogus chemical imbalance myth that has no scientific support.
This Psychiatrist with 35 years membership in the APA resigned in protest, but continued to practice legitimate psychiatry
See also: Reading list: Chemical imbalances are bogus. Drugs cause brain
damage by Loren R. Mosher M.D.
Dr. Mosher (1933-2004AD) was a pioneer in the field of psychiatry and wrote
a textbook in 1989 "Community Mental Health: Principles And Practice". His
most significant contribution was in founding the "Soteria Project", which
demonstrated that effective rehabilitation is possible without harmful
antipsychotic drugs. His final textbook, "Soteria: Through Madness To
Deliverance" was published posthumously in 2004.
Loren R. Mosher M. D.
2616 Angell Ave
San Diego, CA 92122
Ph: 619 550-0312
Fx: 619 558 0854
December 4 1998
Rodrigo Munoz, M.D., President
American Psychiatric Association
1400 94 Street N. W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
Dear Rod;
After nearly three decades as a member it is with a mixture of pleasure and
disappointment that I submit this letter of resignation from the American
Psychiatric Association. The major reason for this action is my belief that
I am actually resigning from the American Psychopharmacological
Association. Luckily, the organization's true identity requires no change
in the acronym.
Unfortunately, APA reflects, and reinforces, in word and deed, our drug
dependent society. Yet, it helps wage war on drugs. Dual Diagnosis clients
are a major problem for the field but not because of the good drugs we
prescribe. Bad ones are those that are obtained mostly without a
prescription. A Marxist would observe that being a good capitalist
organization, APA likes only those drugs from which it can derive a profit
- directly or indirectly.
This is not a group for me. At this point in history, in my view,
psychiatry has been almost completely bought out by the drug companies. The
APA could not continue without the pharmaceutical company support of
meetings, symposia, workshops, journal advertising, grand rounds luncheons,
unrestricted educational grants etc. etc. Psychiatrists have become the
minions of drug company promotions. APA, of course, maintains that its
independence and autonomy are not compromised in this enmeshed situation.
Anyone with the least bit of common sense attending the annual meeting
would observe how the drug company exhibits and industry sponsored symposia
draw crowds with their various enticements while the serious scientific
sessions are barely attended. Psychiatric training reflects their influence
as well; i.e., the most important part of a resident curriculum is the art
and quasi-science of dealing drugs, i.e., prescription writing.
These psychopharmacological limitations on our abilities to be complete
physicians also limit our intellectual horizons. No longer do we seek to
understand whole persons in their social contexts rather we are there to
realign our patients' neurotransmitters. The problem is that it is very
difficult to have a relationship with a neurotransmitter whatever its
configuration.
So, our guild organization provides a rationale, by its neurobiological
tunnel vision, for keeping our distance from the molecule conglomerates we
have come to define as patients. We condone and promote the widespread
overuse and misuse of toxic chemicals that we know have serious long term
effects: tardive dyskinesia, tardive dementia and serious withdrawal
syndromes. So, do I want to be a drug company patsy who treats molecules
with their formulary? No, thank you very much. It saddens me that after 35
years as a psychiatrist I look forward to being dissociated from such an
organization. In no way does it represent my interests. It is not within my
capacities to buy into the current biomedical-reductionistic model heralded
by the psychiatric leadership as once again marrying us to somatic
medicine. This is a matter of fashion, politics and, like the
pharmaceutical house connection, money.
In addition, APA has entered into an unholy alliance with NAMI [National
Alliance on Mental Illness](I don't remember the members being asked if
they supported such an organization) such that the two organizations have
adopted similar public belief systems about the nature of madness. While
professing itself the champion of their clients the APA is supporting
non-clients, the parents, in their wishes to be in control, via legally
enforced dependency, of their mad/bad offspring. NAMI, with tacit APA
approval, has set out a pro-neuroleptic drug and easy
commitment-institutionalization agenda that violates the civil rights of
their offspring. For the most part we stand by and allow this fascistic
agenda to move forward. Their psychiatric god, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, is
allowed to diagnose and recommend treatment to those in the NAMI
organization with whom he disagrees. Clearly, a violation of medical
ethics. Does APA protest? Of course not, because he is speaking what APA
agrees with but can't explicitly espouse. He is allowed to be a foil; after
all he is no longer a member of APA. (Slick work APA!)
The shortsightedness of this marriage of convenience between APA, NAMI and
the drug companies (who gleefully support both groups because of their
shared pro-drug stance) is an abomination. I want no part of a psychiatry
of oppression and social control.
Biologically based brain diseases are convenient for families and
practitioners alike. It is no fault insurance against personal
responsibility. We are just helplessly caught up in a swirl of brain
pathology for which no one, except DNA, is responsible. Now, to begin with,
anything that has an anatomically defined specific brain pathology becomes
the province of neurology (syphilis is an excellent example). So, to be
consistent with this "brain disease" view all the major psychiatric
disorders would become the territory of our neurologic colleagues. Without
having surveyed them.
I believe they would eschew responsibility for these problematic
individuals. However, consistency would demand our giving over "biologic
brain diseases" to them. The fact that there is no evidence confirming the
brain disease attribution is, at this point, irrelevant. What we are
dealing with here is fashion, politics and money. This level of
intellectual/scientific dishonesty is just too egregious for me to continue
to support by my membership.
I view with no surprise that psychiatric training is being systemically
disavowed by American medical school graduates. This must give us cause for
concern about the state of today's psychiatry. It must mean, at least in
part, that they view psychiatry as being very limited and unchallenging. To
me it seems clear that we are headed toward a situation in which, except
for academics, most psychiatric practitioners will have no real
relationships, so vital to the healing process, with the disturbed and
disturbing persons they treat. Their sole role will be that of prescription
writers, ciphers in the guise of being "helpers".
Finally, why must the APA pretend to know more than it does? DSM IV is the
fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by medicine in general.
Insiders know it is more a political than scientific document. To its
credit it says so, although its brief apologia is rarely noted. DSM IV has
become a bible and a money making best seller - its major failings
notwithstanding. It confines and defines practice, some take it seriously,
others more realistically. It is the way to get paid. Diagnostic
reliability is easy to attain for research projects. The issue is what do
the categories tell us? Do they in fact accurately represent the person
with a problem? They don't, and can't, because there are no external
validating criteria for psychiatric diagnoses. There is neither a blood
test nor specific anatomic lesions for any major psychiatric disorder. So,
where are we? APA as an organization has implicitly (sometimes explicitly
as well) bought into a theoretical hoax. Is psychiatry a hoax, as practiced
today?
What do I recommend to the organization upon leaving after experiencing
three decades of its history?
1.. To begin with, let us be ourselves. Stop taking on unholy alliances
without the members' permission.
2.. Get real about science, politics and money. Label each for what it is -
that is, be honest.
3.. Get out of bed with NAMI and the drug companies. APA should align
itself, if one believes its rhetoric, with the true consumer groups, i. e.,
the ex-patients, psychiatric survivors etc.
4.. Talk to the membership; I can't be alone in my views.
We seem to have forgotten a basic principle: the need to be
patient/client/consumer satisfaction oriented. I always remember Manfred
Bleuler's wisdom: "Loren, you must never forget that you are your patient's
employee." In the end they will determine whether or not psychiatry
survives in the service marketplace.
Sincerely,
Loren R. Mosher M. D.
(L.R. Mosher, Psychiatrist, resignation letter from the American
Psychiatric Association, 1998)
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