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Today's
Stories
September 11
/ 12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Swatting
at Flies
September 10,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Disappointment
at Samarrah?
Michael Donnelly
Democrats v. Democracy
Alan Farago
Mosquitoes in a Hurricane
Doug Giebel
Karl Rove's Terror Playbook
Mike Whitney
Bob Graham's Political Tsunami
David Domke
God's
Will, According to the Bush Administration
September 9,
2004
Joe Bageant
Karaoke
Night in Bush's America
Ed Kinane
Abducted in Baghdad
Peter Bohmer
The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future
Todd May
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution
Jeremy Scahill
The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad
Joshua Frank
Green House Party Gasses
Fran Shor
The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist
Act
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome
to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad
Website of
the Day
Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero
September 8,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
This
Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead
Bulent Gokay
Russian and Chechnia After Beslan
Lisa Viscidi
Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Byrd's Eye View
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony
Stan Goff
Body
Count: 1001
Website of
the Day
Bush and the Love Doctors
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
September 7,
2004
Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker
Joshua Frank
Greens
Unravel from Within
Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah
Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000
Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"
Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
Weekend Edition
September 11 / 12, 2004
Yet Another
Prozac Scandal
Eli
Lilly's Bitch: the NIMH
By
FRED GARDNER
Just about every newspaper and TV station
in America reported August 18 that a study in the Journal of
the American Medical Association showed Prozac and cognitive
behavior therapy, in combination, to be the most effective treatment
of depression in adolescents. Here are some of the headlines
with which we were bombarded: "Drugs and therapy aid depressed
kids, study says." "Drug + Therapy Combo Best for Teen
Depression." "Combined Approach Better Than Drugs or
Therapy Alone." "Depressed Teens Need Drug + Therapy."
Etc., Etc.
The research, conducted over
three years at 12 medical centers, was funded and coordinated
by the National Institute of Mental Health at a cost to US taxpayers
of $17 million. A total of 439 adolescents aged 12-17 were given
Prozac, Prozac plus cognitive behavior therapy, placebo plus
CBT, or placebo alone. After 12 weeks, 71% of those treated with
Prozac and CBT showed improvement (defined by the therapists
and the subjects' responses to questionnaires). Improvement
was reported by 60% of those taking Prozac without CBT, 43% getting
CBT alone, and 35% taking placebo alone.
NIMH Director Thomas Insel
told the media it was a "landmark study" because "it's
the largest publicly funded study and the only study this size
that doesn't have pharmaceutical funding." Insel would
have been accurate if he'd said the NIMH study didn't get direct
funding from the pharmaceutical industry. But lead investigator
John March of Duke University Medical Center is on the Eli Lilly
payroll, and five of his10 co-authors also get drug-company grants.
Data to which March et al did
not draw attention -and few stories about the study even mentioned-
showed a higher incidence of harmful behavior among teens taking
Prozac (11.9%) compared to those on placebo (5.4%) and CBT alone
(4.5%). Few stories mentioned that teenagers to whom suicidal
thoughts had occurred had been excluded from the study before
it began. A summary of the study by Jeanne Lenzer in the British
Medical Journal pointed out a structural flaw: two"arms"
were blinded (neither subject nor investigator knew whether Prozac
or placebo was being given), but the two arms involving CBT were
not. The BMJ also quoted a succinct criticism of the study by
David Antonuccio of the University of Nevada School of Medicine:
"The authors' value judgment is that the benefit of a few
extra improved patients is worth the cost of a few extra harmed
patients."
Reports in the popular media
failed to mention the ominous bottom-line conclusion of the NIMH
study:"the identification of depressed adolescents and provision
of evidence-based treatment should be mandatory in health care
systems." In other words, if Lilly has its way, screening
by a doctor or a school, followed by mandatory Prozac (with a
few hours of talk therapy thrown in for the Colin Powell effect),
may be coming soon to a teenager near you.
The NIMH has played a "handmaiden"
role at every key juncture in the peddling of Prozac. In 1987,
as Lilly was gearing up to market it, NIMH launched its Depression
Awareness, Recognition and Treatment (D/ART) Program to convince
the American people that they suffered from "clinical depression"
en masse and could get help from a prescription drug. The rationale
for D/ART was laid out in an article in the American Journal
of Psychiatry whose authors included past and future NIMH directors
Lewis Judd and Fred Goodwin. "Today, 80% to 90% of persons
with a major depressive order can be treated successfully,"
they wrote. "Yet only about one person in three who suffers
from a depressive order ever seeks treatment... Even when people
do seek help, current evidence suggests that too often depression
is poorly recognized, undertreated, or inappropriately treated
by the health care system."
The NIMH D/ART Program had
three objectives: "1. To increase public knowledge of the
symptoms of depressive disorders and the availability of effective
treatment. 2. To change public attitudes about depression so
that there is a greater acceptance of depression as a disorder
rather than a weakness. To motivate changes in behavior among
the public and treatment professionals." D/ART produced
"depression awareness" materials -drafted by private
sector "campaign consultants" on the Eli Lilly payroll
- that were distributed at government expense. It also launched
a "community partnership program" involving the nonprofit
National Mental Health Association to "identify sources
of private support to distribute print and electronic materials
and... to host talk shows, to encourage the development of professional
seminars on depression, and to make referrals to treatment
facilities."
A decade later Lilly used an
NIMH study (Emslie, et al, published in Archives of General Psychiatry)
to get FDA approval to market Prozac to children. The Emslie
study was also used by Lilly to get their Prozac patent extended
in 2001. According to Vera Sharav of the Alliance for Human Research
Protection, " At least two of 48 children treated with Prozac
in the NIMH-sponsored trial attempted suicide... In the single
published report of this trial, however, there is no mention
of any children attempting suicide. Instead, the published report
states: 'Side effects, as a reason for discontinuation, were
minimal, affecting only 4 patients who were receiving Prozac.
(Emslie et al., 1997, p. 1033)...'
"The NIMH posted an announcement
on its website entitled 'Antidepressant Medications for Children:
Information for Parents and Caregivers.' This announcement...
makes no mention of suicide attempts among Prozac-treated children.
Instead, parents were merely told: 'The studies found that [Prozac]
reduced depression for many children better than a placebo and
it did not increase suicide or suicidal thinking.''
According to Sharav, the FDA
reviewers in 2001 examined Lilly's integrated safety data summaries
(ISS) from three pooled Prozac pediatric trials and determined
that "22 children dropped out because of adverse reactions
in the Prozac-treated group compared to five in the placebo groups.
The FDA review also states that there were three suicide attempts
among the Prozac-treated group versus one such attempt among
the placebo group. FDA's review refers to additional children
being hospitalized for suicidal events...
"Furthermore, the ISS
summaries indicate that six of the Prozac-treated children, but
none on placebo, developed mania or hypomania."
Insights
from O'Connell
We were all systematically
miseducated on the subject of cannabis. It's only in recent years
that some of us have learned the distinction between marijuana
(cannabis grown for resin) and hemp (cannabis grown for fiber
and oil from the seeds); and that cannabis grown for resin was
widely used as a medicine in this country; and that it reduces
the suffering associated with diverse conditions.
A significant question arises
as we find out the true facts: why did the American people allow
the government to prohibit in 1937 a medicine that is inexpensive
and uniquely effective? Some might say we were and are just sheep,
but that's a facile overstatement. The answer, according to Tom
O'Connell, MD, is that gringos were only using cannabis as a
tincture, they weren't employing the delivery system that exploits
the drug's potential, i.e. smoking, so they didn't understand
what they were being deprived of until the modern era. (Blacks
and Mexicans were smoking pre-1937, but had no influence.)
O'Connell, 72, feels he has
been treated as a heretic by p.r.-conscious reformers (and even
fellow MDs) since reporting that almost all his San Francisco
Bay Area patients are using cannabis to cope with emotional rather
than physical pain. He seems to think that original, evidence-based
insights should be treated with respect. Sorry, doc: only money
matters.
Fred Gardner can be reached at journal@ccrmg.org
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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