The Problem with Pastor Mike Huckabee
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Posted:Jan 8, 2008 4:44 am
Last Updated:Jan 16, 2008 7:04 am 1062 Views
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The Problem With Pastor Mike
Foreign-policy foolishness just won't suffice.
By Peter Wehner
Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has written an article for Foreign Affairs magazine, the first two paragraphs of which are stunningly silly, misguided, and unfortunately for Huckabee, deeply revealing.
The two opening paragraphs read this way:
The United States, as the world's only superpower, is less vulnerable to military defeat. But it is more vulnerable to the animosity of other countries. Much like a top high school student, if it is modest about its abilities and achievements, if it is generous in helping others, it is loved. But if it attempts to dominate others, it is despised.
American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up, and reach out. The Bush administration's arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad. My administration will recognize that the United States' main fight today does not pit us against the world but pits the world against the terrorists. At the same time, my administration will never surrender any of our sovereignty, which is why I was the first presidential candidate to oppose ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would endanger both our national security and our economic interests.
Where ought one to begin untangling this unholy mess?
Perhaps the place to begin is with his contention that America is ungenerous, which (according to Huckabee) explains the animus now directed at the United States. The fact is that the United States has sacrificed an enormous amount of blood and treasure to help other nations. Any suggestion otherwise is wrong and even offensive.
We have, for starters, liberated more than 50 million people from two of the most repressive regimes in modern history (the Taliban and the Baathist police state in Iraq). The global AIDS initiative qualifies as among the most humane and generous acts in the history of American foreign policy. We give billions in additional foreign aid, including the enormous generosity America displayed in helping Indonesia and other nations in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Indonesia and other nations in December 2004.
The United States, while imperfect, ranks as perhaps the most benevolent superpower (to say nothing of its status as a benevolent nation) in human history. Unlike past empires, we are using American power and influence for great good instead of as a means of advancing oppression.
Beyond that, the belief that if we are modest and generous we will be “loved” by other nations, and that anger at America is based on our attempts to “dominate,” is both naive and foolish. Some nations (like Cuba, Syria, Iran, North Korea, and others) will oppose us because they are totalitarian states that hate our efforts to curb their ambitions and advance freedom and self-determination.
They are not the loving kind.
Other nations (like France under Jacques Chirac) will oppose us because they can’t stand the idea of a unipolar world and want to counterbalance it. And other nations (like China and Russia) will oppose our efforts to end genocide in Darfur and keep Iran from gaining nuclear weapons because of their economic interests.
Memo to Mike Huckabee: Sometimes we are despised for all the right reasons.
Ronald Reagan engendered anger from nations because he called the Soviet Union an “evil empire;” deployed Cruise and Pershing Missiles in Europe; moved ahead with the Strategic Defense Initiative; and supported the contras in Nicaragua. Millions took to the streets in Europe to oppose his defense build-up. Does Governor Huckabee believe Reagan’s actions were wrong simply because in many countries they were unpopular? Of course we would prefer to have universal support for our actions rather than encounter opposition. But does Huckabee understand that sometimes right and wise actions elicit opposition, and sometimes even intense and widespread opposition?
The popularity of the United States decreased in many Muslim nations in the aftermath of taking down the Taliban regime for its role in harboring and supporting al-Qaeda, which in turn was responsible for the worst attack on the American homeland in our history. Was that anger against America justified? Would Huckabee base his foreign-policy decisions on how our actions poll in Waziristan or Gaza under Hamas, or in madrasas throughout the Middle East? Based on his Foreign Affairs essay, it’s reasonable to believe he might.
As for his claim that the Bush administration’s “arrogant bunker mentality” has been counterproductive at home and abroad, the same point applies. Many Middle East dictatorships recoiled at the president’s decision in 2002 to sideline Yasser Arafat (who in many ways is the father of modern terrorism), and his insistence that Palestinian authorities renounce terrorism as an instrument of state policy if they ever hope to have a homeland. Was it “arrogant” to do so? Does Huckabee wish the president had done more to stand with dictators in the Middle East? Does he wish the president still abided by the ABM Treaty with Russia?
Governor Huckabee also seems ignorant about the extent of cooperation that, on a daily basis, is garnered for the war against militant Islam. Contrary to the portrait he paints, we are seeing unprecedented cooperation in tracking, arresting, and blocking funding for terrorist organizations. Is Governor Huckabee familiar with the Proliferation Security Initiative, which more than 70 nations have joined in an effort to deny terrorists, rogue states, and their supplier networks access to weapons-of-mass-destruction-related material? Is he aware that America and its allies shut down a sophisticated nuclear black market network headed by A. Q. Khan?
Does he know that NATO has taken over command of international forces in Afghanistan – the first mission in NATO’s history outside the Euro-Atlantic region? Does he know (or care) that the United States won the unanimous approval of the U.N. Security Council for Resolution 1441, which said Saddam Hussein had to comply with previous resolutions or face “serious consequences” (which all parties took to mean war)? And if the president’s policies have been so counterproductive abroad, how does he explain the rise to power of Sarkozy in France and Merkel in Germany – two nations where anti-American animus is said to run deepest?
In his Foreign Affairs essay, Huckabee writes, “After President Bush included Iran in the ‘axis of evil,’ everything went downhill fast.” Everything? Is the former governor of Arkansas at all familiar with the history of Iran since the 1979 revolution? Is he aware of Iran’s actions when it comes to its nuclear ambitions, support for terrorism, and the oppression of its own people – actions which earned it a place on the “axis of evil” list? Does Huckabee dispute that the Iranian regime is evil – or is he only upset that President Bush spoke truthful words about it? And what does he make of the fact that according to the latest National Intelligence Estimate Iran in 2003 ceased production of its nuclear weapons program – a year after the “axis of evil speech” and in the immediate aftermath of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom?
Huckabee writes, “The Bush administration has properly said that it will not take the military option for dealing with Iran off the table. Neither will I. But if we do not put other options on the table, eventually a military strike will become the only viable one.”
Is Huckabee unaware of all the other options on the table, which Iran has so far rejected? And in arguing that we should re-establish diplomatic ties with Iran, Huckabee writes, “When one stops talking to a parent or a friend, differences cannot be resolved and relationships cannot move forward.” This echoes his opening reference to the United States being like a high-school student.
If Pastor Mike thinks that dealing with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sayyid Ali Khamenei is akin to tension arising between high-school juniors Sally and Sue, he has a few things to learn – and the presidency is not the place for such basic on-the-job training.
The role of commander-in-chief is the most important one we look to in a president, particularly when America is at war. Governor Huckabee’s article in Foreign Affairs, while fine (if largely conventional) in some respects, is fundamentally unserious; on national security matters, he is likewise. And when the final votes are tallied in the GOP race, Mike Huckabee’s words, on these issues and others, will cost him.
– Peter Wehner, former deputy assistant to the president, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
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Religions that were started by Angels
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Posted:Jan 8, 2008 3:17 am
Last Updated:Jan 8, 2008 6:12 am 1081 Views
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Angelic Visitations and Revelations
When one looks at history we find many major religion's that have been started from angel's. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Islam and almost anything new is no exception to this. The whole New Age movement receives their information from Spirit guides through channeling and automatic writing. The psychics also receive their impressions by familiar spirits who would be identified as fallen angels. One could even say Christianity has been started from the angel Gabriel who brought the message to Mary, Joseph and the shepherd’s in the field. However, they, nor the apostles did not commune with the angels to get their inspiration for Scripture. Christianity centers on Christ its message content does not come from angels.
There are some Christian healing ministries started by angelic visitations. William Branham at the early age of three and seven had an angel appear to him. In a cave in 1946 this angel appeared and stayed with him giving him the power to discern peoples thoughts and illnesses.
In his services he would wait for the angels presence before he could start the meetings. Branham was led away from orthodoxy stating that Trinitarianism was of the devil, that baptism should only be in Jesus name and taught that Eve had sexual relations with the serpent. He taught denominationalism is the mark of the beast and all denominations would be under the world council of church’s by 1977.
He later proclaimed himself to be the angel of Revelation 3:14, 10 . Today there is still about 10,000 Branhamites following his teaching after his death. Those who were influenced when he was alive were W.V. Grant, A..A. Allen, O.L. Jaggers, Paul Cain who was a disciple, and Oral Roberts. Many of today's healing evangelists point back to him as a mentor and influence such as Hinn, Copeland and Hagin and other Word faith movement practitioners.
Angels have always been involved in bringing revelation to mankind. They have also been involved in bringing false information. It all depends on which spirit you have made contact with. 42% of Americans believe they have been in contact with someone who has died and almost 15% endorse the work of spirit mediums.
All these and other religions have had communion with angels for their extra-biblical books or are given new revelation for a new interpretation on the Bible. Can the same angel say two different things on the same subject and they both be true? Obviously not, yet this is exactly what Islam claims has transpired in the Koran.
They believe the Koran was verbally dictated by the angel Gabriel based on eternal tablets that are in heaven. Naturally, if there is a conflict it must be in the Bible and not their own book. However there something else operating here that proves it is not the angel Gabriel as they claim.
In their own suras (chapter's) it states that God's word cannot change so if an angel several hundreds of years later comes with a different story, which one are we suppose to believe? Take for example in the Bible the angel Gabriel's announcement of the Christ to Mary, she is told he would be called the of God (which means having the same nature as God) Lk.1:35 also in Mt.1:23 he would be called “Emmanuel”, God with us. This is the same angel that told Mohammed that God has no , and that God is unable to incarnate as a man.
Suras 16 and 26 of the Koran tell us Mohammeds call was from the Holy Spirit who is supposed to be the angel Gabriel according to Islam. This to presents a problem, as the Holy Spirit according to the Bible participated in the creation of the earth and is God.
Obviously these are two contradictory accounts of a major doctrine, the incarnation and the nature of God. How can God be the author of both accounts? How can the angel Gabriel give differing revelations several hundred years apart of which this quote is from Isaiah 7:14 in the Old Testament. and that God has a is mentioned in other books ( Psalms, Zechariah, Daniel ).
Gen.3:15 promises the seed of the woman would crush the serpents head. A
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wonderful testimony
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Posted:Jan 8, 2008 2:07 am
Last Updated:Apr 26, 2024 2:8 am 960 Views
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I am a Pentecostal Christian, I believe the gifts of the Spirit are for today and for the purpose of furthering God's kingdom here on earth. But to get to that point, I had to completely lose all of my faith thanks to the teachings of "name it and claim it" theology.
I was raised to believe in Jesus. As a I made a personal decision for Christ, and was immediately indoctrinated into "word faith". I had not believed it made any sense prior to my salvation, and even afterwards it just seemed too good to be true that "whatever I wanted would be mine"! But that was the discipling I had. As a result, I lost my faith entirely after about five years of watching people treat God as a puppet. It never made sense to me, if these two people over here agree for thing A and another two for thing B contrary to A, who does God honor? The people with more Faith? I don't want to serve a god who isn't sovereign. The fruit that I witnessed in the lives of it's adherents were not very attractive at all. I saw a great deal of anger, and a constant focus on beating up the devil and demanding what is their 'right' from God.
I remember seeing people with headaches being told not to say they are hurting, but to just "calleth those things which be not, as though they were" and if they really believed they were free from pain, made a good confession, stood on the scripture "..by his stripes you were healed" they would be healed. Well, to be in pain and say you're not is to lie. Would Jesus encourage us to lie? We should be encouraging people in pain to seek help (as well as pray for healing), not deny their suffering.
Well then, where did that leave me? Maybe there is no God. But that can't be true either, look at a tree! There has to be a God! So I decided to research Creation Science, because everything I was taught to be "true" about God made no logical sense at all. I began to read "The Genesis Record" as a devotional. After a year of research I was convinced of God's existence so I began to pray every morning in earnest that He would reveal Himself to me as he truly is, and also I kept asking Him "why?" "what is our purpose?". I couldn't stand the thought of simply existing for existence sake. Unless there is a higher purpose, we should be zapped into heaven upon salvation, and if we aren't, then we are here for a reason. I couldn't buy into a completely personal God to the exclusion of a bigger picture. There HAS TO BE MORE TO IT! This was my prayer every morning.
God is so faithful to answer the prayer of people who truly seek His face, not for personal gain, but to know Him.
Our cell group leaders at the time were "missions mobilizers." People dedicated to teaching others about God's heart for the lost -- those who have not only never heard of Jesus, but have no opportunity to hear and will never have that opportunity unless someone goes to them intentionally. I became a volunteer with them. They provided a course called "Perspectives on the World Christian Movement" from the US Center for World Mission, an anonymous donor paid for me to take the class and it answered many of the "why" questions for me (of course as I have matured a bit, I have new questions...we never stop growing!).
What a thrill!!!!! To read the bible as a whole book, not just a collection of stories! To see the Abrahamic covenant as God's promise to mankind for redemption, repeated over and over...fulfilled in the heavens as Christ died on the cross...to be completed on earth as all nations hear the good news....so why aren't we zapped upon salvation? Because God desires that all should come to know Him and in his mercy he tarries before returning, that we should co-labor with Him to further His kingdom on earth! How he loves us and desires us to fellowship with him, and how His heart breaks for those who don't know Him!
This blows the entire word faith message completely out of the water. God blesses us to be a blessing...and the blessing isn't always money, or creature comforts, although God does bless that way. Our greatest blessing of all is to be adopted into God's family....and we are commanded to share that blessing over and over in scripture.
Then I read "Foxe's Book of Martyrs"....now why would a God who only desires us to be "blessed" allow such persecution? Should we tell the underground church to just have enough faith for their financial breakthrough and healing? That if they rebuke the enemy...bind Satan...they need not suffer anymore? That they simply don't have enough faith to escape their desperate situations? More Christians are being martyred today than in any other previous time in history. How can we believe that God is here to make our lives comfortable if he allows believers to suffer so? Could it be that there is more to being a Christian than being blessed? These are questions that you must ask yourself, and God, if you are an adherent to a prosperity gospel. God will answer those prayers -- he loves us all and greatly desires intimate fellowship with us, He desires to share His heart with those who have ears to hear His plans -- rather than telling God what He should be doing for us.
It's so difficult to be discerning when your spiritual leaders are telling you that people will try to dissuade you and you are to stand strong (or else you aren't "spiritual"). And frankly, I don't relish the thought myself of being labeled "unspiritual" any more than the next person, but I'm becoming less and less "spiritual" (tongue firmly planted in cheek) all the time! A major red flag with any theology being preached is when the man doing the preaching claims that if you don't believe what he says, you are not walking in the Spirit. Just two weeks ago I heard a preacher and I was in disagreement with what he was saying -- and his next words to the congregation were "ooo I see a lot of religious spirits out there, you don't like what I'm saying." Well, if we don't question our leaders we become blind followers -- that's never been God's intention for us.
I have learned, that I WILL NOT set my intellect aside, we are to be transformed in our minds.
I would challenge you, brothers and sisters, to seek God for His plans and purposes, not ours. If you find yourself spending more time fighting the devil than you do experiencing the peace and joy of the Lord....ask yourself "what's wrong with this picture?" If Paul himself was unable to have the thorn in his flesh removed -- and I'm sure he had a great deal of faith -- and yet be content in all his circumstances, who are we to do any less?
Yes, God does have a plan for your life, his plan for your life is that you would bring glory to Him, and therefore others would come to know Him through you -- you are to be a conduit of God's blessing to others who don't yet know Him. How you do that is the wonderful journey of discovery that the Lord is just waiting to take you on, will you join Him on that journey.....or will you insist he tag along with you as you go your own way?
LURMinistries
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Depression? Where is the Scientific Evidence of any "Chemical Imbalance?"
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Posted:Jan 6, 2008 4:39 am
Last Updated:Jan 6, 2008 1:17 pm 1457 Views
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SSRI-antidepressant advertising campaigns have claimed that depression is linked with an imbalance of the neurotransmitter serotonin, and that SSRIs can correct this imbalance. This theory of a "bio-chemical imbalance" is heavily flawed. Scientifically speaking, there is no causal relationship whatsoever between "low serotonin" and "depression."
Studies that were performed to evaluate the effect of depleting serotonin levels in humans in order to induce depression, reaped no consistent results. Low serotonin levels did NOT produce an increase in clinical depression in healthy human. In fact, researchers found that huge increases in brain serotonin, arrived at by administering high-dose L-tryptophan, were ineffective at relieving depression.
The revised monoamine theory of depression: a modulatory role for monoamines, based on new findings from monoamine depletion experiments in humans.
Heninger GR, Delgado PL, Charney DS.
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
The original hypothesis that brain monoamine systems have a primary direct role in depression has been through several modifications during the past 30 years. In order to test this hypothesis and more fully characterize the role of serotonin and catecholamines in the pathophysiology of depression and the mechanism of action of antidepressant treatments, our research group has conducted a series of studies evaluating monoamine depletion induced brief clinical relapse following different types of antidepressant treatment of depressed patients. We have also studied the effects of monoamine depletion (SD) on depressive symptoms in depressed and recovered patients off medication and in healthy controls. Relapse to serotonin depletion or to catecholamine depletion (CD) was found to be specific to the type of antidepressant treatment, i.e., patients responding to selective serotonin reuptake inhibilitors relapsed more frequently following SD than CD and patients responding to selective catecholamine reuptake inhibitors relapsed more frequently following CD than SD. Neither CD or SD increased depressive symptoms in clinically ill patients off treatment, or produced clinical depression in normal controls. However, recovered patients with a prior history of depression had a relapse with SD. Patients with obsessive compulsive disorder who improved on SSRI treatment, did not have an increase in OCD symptoms but those with prior depressive symptoms did have an increase in depressive symptoms with SD. The findings that relapse during treatment is specific to the type of treatment and type of depletion, that neither SD or CD produced an increase in clinical depression in healthy controls or depressed patients off medication, and that recovered patients off medication have a return of symptoms following SD, forces a major revision of the current monoamine theories of depression. The new hypothesis most consistent with this new data is that the monoamine systems are only modulating "other" brain neurobiologic systems which have a more primary role in depression. The modulatory or "antidepressant" function of the monoamine systems appears to be only necessary during drug induced recovery and the maintenance of recovery after a prior episode. These clinical studies point to the need for more fundamental research on the interaction of monoamine systems with other brain neurobiologic mechanisms relevant to depression.
part 2
Amine precursors and depression.
Mendels J, Stinnett JL, Burns D, Frazer A.
The amino acid precursors, levodopa and L-tryptophan, were given to a group of hospitalized depressed patients in a double-blind placebo controlled study. Relatively large doses were not associated with sufficient clinical improvement to allow the patients to leave the hospital. Previous studies using the precursor-load strategy have produced conflicting findings on the use of these compounds for depressed patients.
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So, are (SSR antidepressants an answer? Do they correct a particular chemical imbalance somewhere in your brain? No, they don't. Antidepressant-drugs are not correcting any "bio-chemical imbalance" but putatively interact with serotonergic neurons, whereupon serotonin levels raise in your complete body, not solely the brain, increasing the risk of the potentially fatal toxic hyperserotonergic state of the Serotonin Syndrome.
Since we now know that low serotonin levels do not have any scientifically proven causal relationship with depression, one could ask if it is worth taking any risks with one's system by ingesting an agent that can drastically alter and damage your entire personal system in ways that medical science doesn't even understand?
Medical research in a study dating 25 sept, 2004 shows us clearly that serotonin toxicity can even appear rapidly in a few hours after taking a single therapeutic dose of SSRI medication. In Bio-Psychiatry it is a common thought that SSRI's are believed to have their effect by inhibiting the re-uptake of serotonin (downregulation of transporters) and thereby gradually increasing serotonin outside the tissue cell wall (extracellular) in the synaptic gap between brain cells (neurons) in the brain.
In this important study, Zoloft (Lustral, sertraline) was given to monkeys for 4 weeks to establish how long it would take before Zoloft would have it's effect on serotonergic neurons and thus elevation of serotonin. In contrast with the commonly accepted SSRI theory, it was observed that serotonin levels raised NOT gradually, but rapidly and dramatically and kept on raising during these 4 weeks, an effect that can NOT be ascribed solely to a "re-uptake inhibition" of serotonin!
Seventeen (17) years after introducing the first SSRI-antidepressant on the market in 1987, "Medical Science" discovers its prescription drugs to "work" in toxic ways to be never expected... antidepressant-drugs that were brought onto the market as "safe and effective."... and still these toxic antidepressants are on the market.
~These were taken from National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health.
The "Chemical Imbalance"...just an unproven theory...
Are "chemical imbalances" real? Psychiatrist David Kaiser commented on psychiatry’s promotion of such imbalances to the public in the December, 1996 Psychiatric Times. "Unfortunately what I also see these days are the casualties of this new biologic psychiatry, as patients often come to me with many years of past treatment. Patients having been diagnosed with "chemical imbalances" despite the fact that no test exists to support such a claim, and that there is no real conception of what a correct chemical balance would look like."
Additionally, Kaiser points out that "modern psychiatry has yet to convincingly prove the genetic/biologic cause of any single mental illness. This does not stop psychiatry from making essentially unproven claims that depression, bipolar illness, anxiety disorders, alcoholism, and a host of other disorders are in fact primarily biologic and probably genetic in origin, and that it is only a matter of time until all this is proven".
Kaiser is not alone in his opinion. Psychiatrist Loren Mosher resigned from the APA after 35 years of membership stating that "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". [David Kaiser, Against Biologic Psychiatry, in Psychiatric Times, Vol. 13, Issue 12, 1996, internet article text does not include page numbers]
The "Chemical Imbalance" is Born...
In 1963, a time in U.S. psychopharmacological infancy, LIFE magazine introduced the broad public to the concept of brain chemical imbalances. Psychiatrists had been experimenting with drugs, particularly LSD, and astounding themselves at the wide variety of behaviors, emotions, and personality changes they could induce in someone with only a tiny spec of the drug. A hypothesis was born out this. If such wide variations in behavior could be made with such a small amount of a drug, which no doubt affected the brain, then any variations from "normal" behavior must be due to extremely fine changes in brain chemistry.
The idea that some other external cause of behavioral disturbance could exist seemed to be discarded. Brain chemistry simply needed to be "balanced". Psychologists such as B.F. Skinner said that scientists could and should control human behavior and predicted that in the future an individuals mood, emotions, and motivation would be maintained at any desired level through the use of drugs.
In 1967, psychiatrist Nathan Klien, an MK-Ultra participant, made a chilling prediction which showed just how much psychiatry wanted to use drugs for behavior control, not for "treating mental illness". Klien had been studying the effects of psychiatric drugs on "normal humans" and reported that "...the present breadth of drug use may be almost trivial when we compare it to the possible numbers of chemical substances that will be available for the control of selective aspects of man’s life by the year 2000...if we accept the position that human mood, motivation, and emotion are reflections of a neurochemical state of the brain, then drugs can provide a simple, rapid, expedient means to produce any desired neurochemical state we wish. The sooner that we cease to confuse scientific and moral statements about drug use, the sooner we can consider the types of neurochemical states that we wish to provide for people". [EIR, British Psychiatry: From Eugenics to Assassination, Anton Chaitkin, October 7, 1994, p.39]
Psychiatrists had decided they would provide the public with the types of chemical personality they saw fit. What would follow in the years to come would be the medicalization of any behavior psychiatry deemed "inappropriate". As David Kaiser had noted, psychiatrists cannot measure levels of neurotransmitters in the brain in the way doctors can measure sugar levels in a diabetic patient. The question must be asked then, how can you balance or adjust something which cannot be measured? More importantly, does an actual chemical imbalance exist? Parents are told routinely that given an ADD diagnosis have a chemical imbalance and that amphetaminelike drugs will balance the 's brain chemistry.
Thomas J. Moore, Senior Fellow in Health Policy at George Washington University Medical Center writes that while some "claim hyperactivity in is a ‘biochemical imbalance’ ...researchers cannot identify which chemicals...or find abnormal levels" in . "The chemical imbalance theory has not been established by scientific evidence." [Thomas J. Moore, Prescription for Disaster, 1998, p.22]
It has been pointed out by psychiatrists themselves that the downfall of psychiatric diagnosis is that psychiatrists never look beyond symptoms. If a is "hyperactive" - a symptom - the psychiatrists say, "He has hyperactivity!" Psychiatrist Sidney Walker says this is like telling your doctor you have a bad cough - a symptom - and getting a "diagnosis" of "coughing disorder", without finding out if the cough is caused from a cold, lung cancer, or tuberculosis. [Sidney Walker, The Hyperactivity Hoax, 1998 p. 6]
Psychiatrists never look beyond "symptoms", they merely classify symptoms as the "disease." Dr. Mary Ann Block says she hates to see given labels of "hyperactivity" or "attention deficit disorder". In fact, she refuses to use such labels. She says, "How sad it is to see drugged while their underlying health problems go untreated". [Mary Ann Block, No More Ritalin, Treating ADHD Without drugs, 1996 p.49]
"Theory Begging"...
In psychology and psychiatry there is a phenomenon called "theory begging" which can explain the notion of "chemical imbalances." Theory begging is the reporting of a scientific theory as "fact" so often that it becomes accepted as fact within the profession despite having never been proven. For example, it is taken for granted by psychiatry that patients said to have "mental illness" have a "chemical imbalance" in their brain. The "chemical imbalance" is taken for granted, not actually found and verified by medical test. As Nathan Klien had said, psychiatry had "accepted the position" of "chemical imbalances," a position that has yet to be verified.
While the rest of medicine has made great advances in diagnostic techniques, psychiatry has lagged behind. In 1994 psychiatrists Richard Keefe and Philip Harvey explained the current process of psychiatric diagnosis:
"The process of diagnosis is very different in psychiatry. Since there are no clear indications of a specific biological abnormality that causes any of the psychiatric disorders, no laboratory tests have been developed to confirm or refute any psychiatric diagnosis." [Richark Keefe and Philip Harvey, Understanding Schizophrenia, 1994 p.19]
In fact, they state that psychiatrists must rely only on what they observe and what they are told from friends or relatives to make a psychiatric diagnosis. Could a cardiologist accurately and safely treat patients using this type of diagnostic protocol? Psychiatrist Mark Gold says that "up to 40% of all diagnoses of depression are misdiagnoses of common and uncommon physical illness... There are as least 75 diseases that first appear with emotional symptoms. People with these diseases often get locked up in psychiatric hospitals." [Mark Gold, The Good News About Depression, 1986, p.XV]
Gold admits that psychiatrists do not rule out other medical problems, rather, they rule in their diagnosis, failing to diagnose the nearly one hundred medical illnesses which contain "depression" as a symptom of that disease process. In a Florida study, 100 consecutively admitted patients to a psychiatric hospital who had been given a psychiatric diagnosis were given a complete medical examination. Doctors concluded that nearly half of the patients’ psychiatric problems were secondary manifestations of an undiagnosed medical problem. According to Gold, nearly all of these patients would have ended up warehoused in state run mental health facilities, which costs the patients their health with tax dollars paying for the negligence. Some patients die confined in mental hospitals as there real illness, cancer for example, goes untreated.
In the Florida study, psychiatrists missed diagnosing physical illness in 80% of the cases. Gold said he was "embarrassed" at how bad psychiatrists were at "doctoring" and that one third of psychiatrists admit feeling incompetent to give a patient a complete physical examination. [Mark Gold, The Good News About Depression, 1986, p.22-24]
Doctor Sydney Walker III, a neurologist, psychiatrist and author of A Dose of Sanity, says that psychiatric labels have "led to the unnecessary drugging of millions of Americans who could be diagnosed, treated, and cured without the use of toxic and potentially lethal medications".
Charles B. Inlander, president of The People’s Medical Society, and his colleagues write in Medicine on Trial, "People with real or alleged psychiatric or behavioral disorders are being misdiagnosed - and harmed - to an astonishing degree... Many of them do not have psychiatric problems but exhibit physical symptoms that may mimic mental conditions, and so they are misdiagnosed, put on drugs, put in institutions, and sent into a limbo from which they may never return...." [CCHR publication, Psychiatry: Committing Fraud, 1999, p.14]
Doctor Walker refers to a case from Frederick Goggan’s book, Medical Mimics of Psychiatric Disorders, in which a 27-year-old executive was hospitalized after attempting to kill herself by overdosing on the antidepressants prescribed by her psychiatrist. The attempted suicide followed a year of psychotherapy that had failed to relieve her fatigue, cognitive problems, and despondency. This time, however, doctors did a thorough physical exam and found what the psychiatrist didn’t even look for. She had hypothyroidism which can manifest with "listlessness, sadness, and hopelessness" She was given thyroid supplements and has since been free of all "psychiatric symptoms" and has "thrived both personally and professionally."
In another case reported by Dr. Walker, John, a happy and successful family man, began suffering from inexplicable sadness and exhaustion. Unable to concentrate at work, he cut down his overtime, slept in late on weekends, and lost control of his emotions, inexplicably subjected to fits of uncontrollable weeping. He saw three doctors, two of them psychiatrists, who saddled him with a variety of DSM labels and treated him with 26 different drugs. A fourth doctor conducted a thorough medical diagnostic and physical evaluation and found that John was suffering from a slow-growing tumor of the brain lining. John’s tumor was removed, and his sadness and fatigue rapidly cleared. [CCHR publication, Psychiatry: Committing Fraud, 1999, p.15]
Prescription Medication-Induced Imbalance in Personal Bio-Chemistry...
If you don't have a biochemical imbalance before starting Prozac, you certainly will have one once you are on it! Prozac has been shown to have drastic effects on the brain's serotonergic system. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, or chemical messenger, that normally connects to receptor sites and fires nerves. Prozac prevents serotonin from being removed from the active place where it's working in the brain. It keeps the sparks alive longer, and as a result, a lot of excess firing takes place. The brain doesn't like all the overstimulation and eliminates 30-40 percent or more of receptors. The brain, in effect, is saying, I'm not going to have receptors for all this serotonin. It's a compensatory mechanism for the overstimulation. Receptors can be compared to catcher's mitts. The balls being thrown are like serotonin. After awhile the brain just eliminates its catcher's mitts. It says, I'm catching too much serotonin. I'm going to get rid of my catcher's mitts.
Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals knew about the disappearance of receptors from their laboratory experiments. What they failed to study, however, was whether or not receptors ever come back. The experiment, which would have been simple to perform, could have consisted of stopping the drug, waiting a couple of weeks, sacrificing some of the animals, and then seeing if their brains had come back to normal. The information could also have been indirectly gleaned from performing spinal taps on human beings before and after they had taken Prozac, to see if the breakdown products indicated that the brain returns to normal. Neither of these approaches were ever attempted. Obviously, Lilly is not concerned with this issue.
Mass Hysteria & Mind-Altering Meds: Lifting Mood? or just altering Perception as any other Street-drug?
Since Prozac's release, millions of Americans have come to depend on it and to believe that their lives are better because of it. Concerning this reality, Breggin says:
"First of all, I don't think Prozac should have been approved. But now that it's out there it shouldn't be taken away from anybody who thinks that it's helping them. People should be warned, however, about its dangerous effects. If, for example, Joseph Wesbecker committed a mass murder while on Prozac, then we're weighing the potential good of the drug against some real disasters. The other issue to look at is why people like to take drugs..."
The fact that people might feel helped by a legal pharmaceutical drug doesn't necessarily mean you or I would feel helped by it... Mind-altering medication such as Amphetamine, Cocaine, Ecstacy (XTC), Heroine.. (all once legal pharmaceutical drugs...) ALL make people feel like they are on top of the world... for a certain period of time... but at cost of what... we all know...
Evidence from the FDA trials suggests that Prozac is a very poor drug. Even a New York Times article recently said that follow-up studies show Prozac as not very effective. But when you give something to people and tell them it's a miracle, they'll believe it... Also, the drug does have stimulant effects... so does Cocaine and all of those other illegal street-drugs... And while we no longer believe that stimulants should be given for depression, certainly people can feel like it's helping them."...
Charly Groenendijk
The Netherlands
2000 - 2006
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