Tag: Informed Consent

“Breaking the Narrative”

Written by Sheila Matthews on December 9, 2024. Posted in Articles, Events.

Breaking the Narrative, 2^nd Annual Awards Dinner

The Plaza
Vero Beach, Florida

Flying & Staying in Vero Beach, Florida
Saturday, February 8, 2025

RESERVE YOUR TICKET

Airports

Vero Beach Airport
https://www.verobeachairport.com/

A small airport that services private planes and Breeze Airlines.

Breeze Airlines
https://www.flybreeze.com/home

Melbourne Airport: Approximately 40-minute drive

West Palm Beach Airport: Approximately 1 hour 15 minutes

Orlando Airport: Approximately: 1 hour 15 minutes

Hotels

On the Island

Resort area of Vero Beach walking distance to restaurants & shops, Uber to Event

The Islander Inn
https://www.theislanderinnverobeach.com/

Costa d Este
https://www.costadeste.com/

Kempton Hotel
https://www.verobeachhotelandspa.com/

Ocean Breeze Inns
https://reservations.oceanbreezeinns.com/vero/

The Caribbean Court – South Beach walk to some restaurants
https://thecaribbeancourt.com

On the Mainland

Near the venue, box stores, and bustling Miracle Mile & downtown Historical Area

Hampton Inn & Suites Vero Beach Downtown
611 20th Place, Vero Beach, Florida, 32960, USA

Hilton
https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/flvrbhx-hampton-vero-beach

Vero Beach Chamber of Commerce Travel to Vero Links
https://business.indianriverchamber.com/list/ql/lodging-travel-15

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The Shooting Drugs – Prozac and its Generation Exposed on the Internet

Written by AbleChild on July 12, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

This book was written by Donna Smart, who is a Prozac survivor. At first she thought Prozac was really helping her, until she realized it was the very reason she lost everything – from her marriage to her successful career to her sanity. Smart learned that Prozac and other similar SSRI drugs such as Zoloft, Paxil and Wellbutrin are meant to create the illusion for the person taking the drug that they are doing “great” and as a result, the person often defends the drug vehemently. Meanwhile, they fail to notice their life falling apart and sanity being taken away from them; ultimately, these drugs create faulty judgement in the people taking them and create a false sense of self.

While Smart managed to come off Prozac and didn’t lose her life, many other victims succumbed to the darkness created in their life by the drug. Actor Phil Hartman was shot to death by his wife who was on Zoloft at the time, and then she proceeded to kill herself. And then there is rock star Del Shannon, civil rights leader Abby Hoffman, and the 50,000 other people that have lost their lives thanks to Prozac-induced suicide. These numbers are provided by a brain specialist who contributed thorough research to the book.

In The Shooting Drugs – Prozac and its Generation Exposed on the Internet, Smart provides over 200 accounts of Prozac side effects from over 200 individuals who took the drug. These side effects range from violent and suicidal ideations to significant weight gain to dysfunction with sex and love. Many have also reported that after taking SSRIs they were led into substance abuse and they became increasingly self-absorbed. Often, the side effects brought on by SSRIs cause patients to avoid coming off the drug.

This book also touches on the prevalent role SSRIs played in school shootings as well as workplace massacres. Smart warns readers about the role the psychiatric community plays and how many doctors do not lead patients to the truth about these drugs. The Shooting Drugs gives a thorough and clear account of the dangers of Prozac and other SSRIs, and makes an excellent case for why no one should take a prescription drug before researching it from every angle.

Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills That Kill

Written by AbleChild on June 17, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

This book, written by Kelly Patricia O’Meara, drives an important point home: there’s no question that people suffer, often severely, from mental and emotional issues, but what is in question is the scientific evidence that would categorize these mental issues as “diseases.” O’Meara lays out for us how these mental disorders that are now being sold as physical diseases are mostly based on theories, not actual scientific data. An example is the “chemical imbalance” theory. No psychiatrist can produce a test of a patient done to show the changing chemicals in their brain, yet much of the medical community, government and world population seem to accept the “chemical imbalance” theory as scientific fact.

Also mostly based on theory is the effectiveness of many of these psychiatric drugs prescribed for these mental “diseases.” In Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills that Kill, author O’Meara investigates the shifting of language the FDA has used to cover up potential risks and the lack of successful and effective clinical trials that have taken place with many of these psychiatric drugs. Not only are doctors and pharmaceutical companies not aware or honest enough about potential side effects, they have also failed to address the fact that many of these drugs make mental conditions worse. An example of this is suicidal ideations in children that have come after being prescribed these drugs. While it is up to the people whether they choose to take these drugs, they need to be making that decision based on truth, not blatant falsehoods.

About the Author

Kelly Patricia O’Meara is a former investigative reporter for The Washington Times’ Insight Magazine, and has written a lot of material on the fraud behind psychiatric diagnoses and the dangers of psychiatric drugs. In her 1999 cover story for the The Washington Times’ Insight Magazine, called “Guns & Doses,” she explored the connection between psychiatric drugs and senseless acts of violence. Prior to her work as a reporter, O’Meara spent sixteen years as a Congressional staffer to several members of Congress. She holds a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Maryland.

Reviews

Beverly K. Eakmen, The Free Library by Farlex:

“O’Meara’s well-researched statistics show that Americans are awash in prescription psychotropic drugs, especially antidepressants. She makes her case right up front.”

Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients

Written by AbleChild on June 17, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

This book, written by top health journalist Ray Moynihan and Canadian science writer Alan Cassels, is an analysis on pharmaceutical companies, and how they have colluded with medical science to expand their customer base and increase profits. This has been accomplished by lowering thresholds for certain disorders such as high cholesterol, creating narratives around common problems to turn them into diseases (such as sexual dysfunction), and to market their prescription drugs to not just sick people, but healthy people as well.

Moynihan and Cassels make it clear that there are definitely serious illnesses, conditions and disorders that require prescription drugs. Often, even powerful prescription drugs may be needed that come with side effects that may be worth enduring when weighed against the benefits of the drug. But in Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients, which was published in 2005, these authors illustrate how much of the world’s population, and even medical professionals, have been tricked into believing these pharmaceutical companies have altruistic intentions. The public has been warped into thinking they can trust the ads and commercials that are funded by these profiting pharma companies and say these drugs are safe and helpful, while downplaying potential risks.

As a result, many healthy people are on prescription drugs for normal everyday issues and these drugs are not only doing very little to help their condition, they are often creating even more problems for the patient thanks to various side effects. And sick people with conditions such as high blood pressure, for example, are now programmed to automatically turn to prescription drugs to fix their health problem, when natural remedies, such as diet and exercise, may be all they need. As more and more types and brands pharmaceutical drugs become available, and more and more medical diagnoses are created worldwide, this book is a must read.

About the Authors

Ray Moynihan

Ray Moynihan is one of the world’s leading health writers, with a background in academic research and investigative journalism. His work has appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, the Australian Financial Review, Crickey.com, The Conversation, The Saturday Paper, the British Medical Journal, Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine. He has given many presentations in universities, conferences and workshops worldwide.

Moynihan won a Harkness Fellowship, based at Harvard University, in 1999. Then in 2015 Ray completed his PhD on Overdiagnosis at what was then the Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice at Bond University in Australia. He is an honorary adjunct Assistant Professor at Bond University’s, Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare, and Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, and has been a cojoint lecturer at University of Newcastle, in Australia.

Moynihan has also done television and radio work with his investigative journalism, such as ABC TV’s investigative program, Four Corners and the 7:30 Report, and he recently hosted a series of podcasts from Australia called The Recommended Dose. He has written a total of four books and his most recent book, Sex, Lies & Pharmaceuticals, was released in 2010.

Alan Cassels

Alan Cassels is a Canadian writer who has been immersed in pharmaceutical policy research and healthcare journalism for the past 23 years. He has written several other books, including The ABCs of Disease Mongering: An Epidemic in 26 Letters, and Seeking Sickness: Medical Screening and the Misguided Hunt for Disease. His most recent book, The Cochrane Collaboration: Medicine’s Best Kept Secret (published in 2015) examines the history of a stellar international organization which produces some of the world’s highest quality medical information.

Cassel’s work has been heavily concentrated around exposing the large gap between the marketing and the science around prescription drugs, medical screening and other forms of disease creation. The head of RX&D, the research-based pharmaceutical association in Canada, refuses to debate Alan Cassels and his research on the drug industry’s practices.

Reviews

Gary Schwitzer, HealthNewsReview.org:

“It documents disease-mongering, how drug companies foster the creation of medical conditions to create markets for their pills, the marketing of fear, the “medicalization” of normal states of health, the hidden agendas of “disease-awareness campaigns,” problems with drug company relationships with celebrity spokespersons and patient advocacy groups, and other issues about which most consumers don’t have a clue. I highly recommend the book.”

Prescription for Disaster: The Hidden Dangers in Your Medicine Cabinet

Written by AbleChild on June 17, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

Prescription for Disaster: The Hidden Dangers in Your Medicine Cabinet is a book designed to create informed consumers. There is too little known about the long-term safety of many drugs that are prescribed to hundreds of thousands of children, such as Ritalin. Other drugs like Xanax are very addictive, and there are countless side effects for so many other drugs that are prescribed liberally by doctors. Thanks to lack of testing by the FDA and insufficient monitoring of side effects, and the failure of doctors to provide patients with adequate information about the potential risks for the drug they are being prescribed, it’s no wonder that prescription drugs are involved in 100,000 deaths per year, as the book states. And this is just the beginning of the statistics, shocking situational examples and thorough research that is laid out in this revolutionary book.

Consumers and patients have become part of the problem as well by not being informed, and this is why consumer advocate and prizewinning investigative journalist Thomas Moore wrote this eye-opening book. He provides a wealth of important information on side effects and potential dangers associated with common drugs prescribed for all kinds of medical conditions. Prescription for Disaster: The Hidden Dangers in Your Medicine Cabinet also guides the consumer on what many of the different warnings and labels mean that are found on prescription drugs, and what questions you need to be asking your doctor and pharmacist. Moore makes a strong and emotionally appealing case in this book that should be read by all prescription drug consumers.

About the Author

Thomas J. Moore is a award-winning investigative reporter who also spent six years researching and writing about prescription drug safety and dangers as a senior fellow in health policy at the George Washington Medical Center. He is co-author of more than 30 scientific studies focusing on clinical trials, US Food and Drug Administration regulation of therapeutic drugs, adverse event reporting, pharmacovigilance with electronic health records, and the risks of psychoactive therapeutic drugs.

Aside from Prescription for Disaster, Moore has written three other books total around the safety and dangers of prescription drugs. His book Deadly Medicine told the gripping story of the nation’s worst drug disaster that killed tens of thousands of heart patients. His other two books are called Heart Failure and Lifespan: Who Lives Longer and Why. For ten years Moore served as project director for QuarterWatch: An Independent Perspective on Emerging Drug Risks, a drug safety publication of the non-profit Institute for Safe Medication Practices. His consulting and research are conducted under the umbrella of Drug Safety Research, a sole proprietorship with offices in Alexandria, Virginia. Through his research, Moore has worked with lawyers, the national news media, and pharmaceutical fraud prosecutors on a wide variety of projects.

Reviews

Kirkus Reviews:

“The key to improving the system, Moore says, is an informed, concerned, and even demanding public, which this book is designed to create. Vintage Moore—sharp, readable, persuasive.”

Informed Consent: The Consumer’s Guide to the Risks and Benefits of Volunteering for Clinical Trials

Written by AbleChild on June 13, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

The decision to participate in a clinical trial should not be made on a whim or taken lightly. Thankfully, this one-of-a-kind, comprehensive and beyond helpful guide is designed for the very purpose of providing necessary information to patients, their family and advocates before giving consent to volunteer for clinical trials. The guide, written by Ken Getz and Deborah Borfitz, is also designed to help keep participants informed throughout the clinical trial.

Informed Consent: The Consumer’s Guide to the Risks and Benefits of Volunteering for Clinical Trials is an excellent resource for helping patients understand their rights as a clinical trial participant, what the process is like. It also clearly defines what the role is of research professionals, and what participants can expect overall from a clinical trial. The guidebook has been reviewed and acknowledged by research and regulatory experts, patient advocates and consumers.

The book also guides patients on how to find a clinical trial that meets their needs and interests, and how to determine if a trial is right for them. There are specific guidelines in the book for more vulnerable groups of individuals, such as children and the elderly. The guidebook is also a great resource for advice about what clinical trial participants should do when things go wrong, and has a helpful appendix containing reference information.

About the Authors

Ken Getz

Ken Getz is the publisher, president and CEO of Centerwatch, a company that provides a variety of clinical research products and services, including: clinical trials and results, drug approvals, study grants, news and analysis, career and training opportunities for patients and professionals. He is a widely recognized expert on the clinical trial process, having spoken at conferences, published articles in scholarly and trade journals and books, and appeared on major national radio and television programs.

He has served as Director of Sponsored Research Programs and Associate Professor a Tufts CSSD, Tufts University School of Medicine. He is founder and board chair of the Center for information and Study on Clinical Research Participation (CISRP). Getz also sits on several other boards, including the Institute of Medicine’s Clinical Research Roundtable, and the Dors Duke Foundation’s Consortium to Examine Clinical Research Ethics. Getz received his bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University, and his MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Deborah Borfitz

Deborah Borfitz has written for numerous health and business periodicals throughout her career, which spans over 30 years. She was a contributing writer for Centerwatch, and now serves as Senior Science Writer at Cambridge Healthtech Institute in Nashville, Tennessee. Other publications she has written for include Strategic Health Care Marketing, eHealthcare Strategy & Trends, and Medical Economics Magazine. Borfitz attended State University of New York College at Cortland and SUNY Oneonta.

Reviews

Carol Saunders, Executive Director, New England Institutional Review Board:

“…A comprehensive and balanced treatment, providing the research participant with the information and tools to make an informed decision.”

Paul Gelsinger, who wrote the foreword for Informed Consent: The Consumer’s Guide to the Risks and Benefits of Volunteering for Clinical Trials:

“This book informs the average human being about what to expect and ask when participating in clinical research.”

Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, 25th Anniversary Edition

Written by AbleChild on March 23, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

With over 100 years of mandatory schooling behind us now, we have seen the progression of issues such as illiteracy and learning disabilities in our children. Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling, which is John Taylor Gatto’s radical treatise on how the formal education system is damaging our children and families, is a true eye-opener. This New Society Publisher’s bestseller was originally published in 1992, had a 10th anniversary edition published in 2002, and the most recent 25th anniversary edition was printed in 2017, with a foreword from Zachary Stayback, who is an Ivy League dropout and cofounder of tech startup career foundry Praxis.

Gatto, who spent 30 years teaching in the public school system before writing this book, is an advocate for education being central to the family, instead of being used to separate children from their families. In the book, Gatto makes a strong case that effective education should promote individuality and privacy instead of conformity. Gatto is an advocate for home schooling, and points out how back in the 1800s children’s skill levels were developed much earlier than they are now, and far beyond what our school systems consider acceptable nowadays. The book also introduces the idea that genius is a very common quality that is being suppressed in our society, and we have been made to believe that genius is a rarity.

Dumbing Us Down, which opens with a speech given by Gatto in 1991 when he was named “Teacher of the Year,” is known to be a fairly easy read. In the book, Gatto explains how the modern public school system is driving out the natural curiosity and problem-solving skills children are born with, and replacing it with rule-following, fragmented time, and disillusionment. Gatto encourages children to be their own teachers and in charge of designing their own education. And he makes a strong case for why the mass education system that has developed in America does not support democracy or any of the values the United States was taught as a result of the American Revolution.

While Gatto explains how the school system itself is setting children up for failure, he also believes there are many humane and caring teachers in our schools that are just caught in a faulty system. Another key takeaway from this extremely valuable and timeless text is Gatto’s concept that “the teaching function, in a healthy community, belongs to everyone,” and that we should not just be looking to education professionals to define “good teaching.”

About the Author

John Taylor Gatto was born in on December 15, 1935, in Monongahela, Pennsylvania. He did his undergraduate work at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as Cornell and Columbia in New York. Gatto then served in the U.S. Army medical corps at Fort Knox, Kentucky and Fort Houston, Texas. After his military service, Gatto completed graduate work at the City University of New York, Hunter College, Yeshiva, the University of California, and Cornell.

Before and during Gatto’s teaching career, he served in various other occupations, many of which involved writing. He wrote scripts for the film business, wrote for advertising, was an ASCAP songwriter, and eventually founded Lava Mt. Records, which is an award-winning documentary record producer. Gatto’s record company has completed a variety of big-name projects, including presentations of speeches from Richard M. Nixon and Spiro Agnew.

Gatto’s teaching career garnered him quite a few awards. He was named New York City Teacher of the Year three times, and then held the title of New York State Teacher of the Year. After leaving his teaching career after 30 years, telling the Wall Street Journal that he was “no longer willing to hurt children,” he moved on to become a much-sought-after public speaker on the topic of school reform. His speaking engagements took him across all 50 states in the U.S., and to seven foreign countries.

Gatto had also recieved other awards, such as the Alexis de Tocqueville Award for his contributions to the cause of liberty. From 1996 on, he has been included in the Who’s Who in America. He has authored a handful of other books, including A Different Kind of Teacher and The Underground History of American Education.

Gatto passed away on October 25, 2018. His obituary on the website for the Foundation for Economic Education stated that after three decades in the classroom, “Gatto dedicated the rest of his life to repairing the damage done by the public education system.”

Reviews

Meryn Callander, author and co-founder of the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children:

“Gatto presents a credible case for his belief that school is an essential support system for a model of social engineering that condemns most people to be subordinate stones in a pyramidal social order, even though such a premise is a fundamental betrayal of the American Revolution.”

The Feingold Cookbook for Hyperactive Children

Written by AbleChild on February 17, 2022. Posted in Essential Books.

Dr. Ben Feingold, the pediatrician and allergist who wrote Why Your Child is Hyperactive, is a champion for dietary solutions to manage behavioral issues in children. In 1979, he published The Feingold Cookbook for Hyperactive Children. This book was developed on the basis that certain chemicals, such as artificial flavors, and artificial colors and preservatives that are in food can be detrimental to children, causing behavioral issues and interfering with learning ability. Feingold’s argument is that most neurotransmitters that affect mood and learning ability are developed in the gatrointestinal tract, from the foods we ingest. This book offers an alternative to pharmaceutical medication that has garnered successful results for many parents and children over the years, in achieving the goal of reduced hyperactivity in children, and improvements in the ability to focus.

The introduction of many of these “problem chemicals” in our foods began towards the end of Word War II, and Dr. Feingold was the first to notice how these chemicals triggered behavioral and learning issues due to their allergy-inducing properties. Some of the other symptoms Dr. Feingold observed at this time in patients of his were hives, asthma, headaches, stomach issues, urinary issues and nasal congestion.

The main food groups that the Feingold Diet eliminates are: 1) Synthetic (artificial) colors and flavors and preservatives BHT and BHA and 2) Fruits, vegetables and various other types of foods that contain natural salicylates. There are two stages for the diet. First, these two food groups are eliminated. Second, about 4 to 6 weeks later, if the child is responding with positive behavioral changes, food from the second group (salicylate fruits and vegetables) can be slowly re-introduced. But foods from the first group of synthetic flavors, colors and preservatives are not re-introduced at any point.

The Feingold Cookbook brings to light the scientific evidence that indicate diet can affect behavior and learning ability in children, and introduces a list of forbidden foods. And since it can be a challenge for many families to implement the dramatic changes the Feingold Diet requires, The Feingold Cookbook for Hyperactive Children offers helpful suggestions for recipes that have been used by families that follow this diet. Today, the Feingold Association has increased the Feingold food list to thousands of acceptable brand names of foods and non-food products.

About the Author

Dr. Ben Feingold is a pediatric allergist who taught pediatrics at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, and then moved to Los Angeles where he practiced pediatrics for 22 years. While in Los Angeles, Dr. Feingold served as chief of pediatrics at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital, was an associate in allergy at the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, and an attending pediatrician at the Los Angeles County Hospital. His research has been a source of controversy and heavy discussion among certain bodies in government. But much of his research has been of much interest to the U.S. Senate and State of California. Dr. Feingold can be thanked for the removal of certain harmful substances from our food supply, as well as the increased safety in food production around the world.

Feingold’s research led to more research done by others, which suggested in 1980 that artificial food dyes might indeed adversely affect the behavior of children. In 1951, Dr. Feingold married his wife, Helene. Together, they wrote The Feingold Cookbook for Hyperactive Children, which was published in 1979, four years after Why Your Child is Hyperactive.

Dr. Feingold was born in Pittsburgh in 1900 and did his undergraduate and medical work at the University of Pittsburgh. He was an intern at Passavant Hospital in Pittsburgh, and then went on to serve as a fellow in pathology at the University of Gottingen in Germany in 1927, followed by a fellowship at the children’s clinic at the University of Vienna from 1928-1929.

Though Feingold is gone, the Feingold Foundation continues his valuable work and research, and you can find more information on their website.

Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications

Written by AbleChild on September 1, 2021. Posted in Essential Books.

The withdrawal and long-term side effects of many psychiatric medications can cause symptoms that are similar or worse than the symptoms for which the patient is being medicated in the first place. Author Peter R. Breggin, along with David Cohen, Ph.D., were among the first to address these major issues, in this spectacular book which was way ahead of it’s time. Since the book’s first publication in 1999, there have been numerous studies confirming the harmful side effects and withdrawal symptoms of these drugs, and even the FDA acknowledges these problems.

Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications goes into great detail, backed by thorough research, about the particular side effects and withdrawal symptoms for all different kinds of psychiatric medications; from antidepressants to mood stabilizers to stimulants. The book explains how doctor’s often do not take enough time to examine the patient, misdiagnose the patient, and as a result prescribe psychiatric drugs that are not needed, and often do more harm than good. This quick decision made by the doctor can impact years or even decades of a patient’s life. Your Drug May Be Your Problem educates patients and doctors about the correct way to gradually stop taking psychiatric drugs, and outlines the process for withdrawing from the medications. The book has also been fully updated to include new research studies and medications 0n the market.

About the Author

Peter R. Bregg, M.D., is a a psychiatrist who is very well known for helping set the stage for modern criticism of psychiatric treatments and psychotropic drugging. He has promoted so much success in the field of mental health that he has acquired the nickname “conscience of psychiatry.” HIs reform efforts began in the 1970s, and resulted in almost a complete cease in the use of procedures like lobotomy and psychosurgery in the Western World. Then in the 1990s, he and his wife Ginger were able to stop a federal eugenics project that was planned on America’s inner-city children. You can find more details about this in the book he co-authored with Ginger, The War Against Children of Color.

Breggin has been a full-time consultant at NIMH, as well as for the FAA. He has published over 20 books and numerous scientific articles. Some of his books include Toxic Psychiatry, The Antidepressant Factbook, and Talking Back to Prozac. His latest book is Covid-19 and the Global Predators: We are the Prey. Dr. Breggin is also the founder and director of The Center for the Study of Emphatic Therapy, Education and Living. He attended Harvard, and currently resides in Ithaca, NY. Find out more on his website, www.breggin.com.