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Malloy: State has chance to combat mental illness stigma
Submitted by MrLogical on 01/04/2013 07:01 amHere's a daunting and scary list that the governor and his blue-ribbon commission should study:
Malloy: State has chance to combat mental illness stigma
By Arielle Levin Becker Thursday, January 3, 2013
The governor was trying to end the press conference, having said he'd take "one last question" several questions ago. But then the topic of mental illness came up and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he was glad for the chance to make a final point.
"This is a very important point," he said. "Having mental health services and getting to the point where a stigma that might otherwise attach to accessing those services dissipates is a very important process for our country to engage in."
"All too often, we think of treatment for mental illnesses very differently than we think about a broken arm or a broken leg, or, for that matter, a chronic illness."
Malloy was taking questions after announcing the creation of a commission to craft a response to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The panel is expected to address school safety, gun violence and mental health issues.
Malloy has not offered specific ideas about mental health changes he'd like to see. But he's spoken repeatedly about the need to eliminate stigma.
The response to the Newtown shooting is "an opportunity for Connecticut to lead the way," Malloy said, in eliminating the stigma that prevents some people from seeking help.
"That could be some good that comes out of this horrific incident," he said Thursday.
The governor is a policy wonk, well-versed in arcane details of most issues. But on this issue he also brings personal experience. One of his sons has struggled with mental illness, something that became public after his 2009 arrest on drug and robbery charges.
On Thursday, as he has in the past, Malloy said that Connecticut's Medicaid program gives access to mental health services to close to 84,000 poor adults who wouldn't be covered in most other states.
When a reporter noted that Adam Lanza, the Newtown gunman, did not come from a poor family, Malloy acknowledged the point. But he said coming from a well-to-do background doesn't assure access to mental health services.
"Just because someone has access financially doesn't mean that they could move beyond the stigma," Malloy said. "And by the way, I'm not prejudging that either in this particular case. But I know that there are people who cannot move beyond the stigma and therefore we have to address it."
A report released Wednesday by the Office of the Healthcare Advocate underscored the difficulty of accessing services even for people with means. The report said that often, people covered by Medicaid or other public programs are better able to get coverage for mental health and substance abuse services than those with private insurance.
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Malloy: State has chance to combat mental illness stigma
Submitted by MrLogical on 01/04/2013 08:01 amFrom an article by Barbara Cook, a middle-school teacher of developmentally-challenged students who sees - firsthand on a daily basis - the effects that pyschotropic medications have on children of all ages:
"...The question is why are the doctors prescribing antidepressants for almost every ailment? Money perhaps? (A subject of another article…)
Regarding my mentally ill students in the classroom, yes, they need medication. Many take anti-psychotic medications and we’ve seen them off the medicines – it is not a pretty sight.
Severely autistic people need help to keep themselves (and everyone around them) safe. Their thinking is not rational and generally they are very literal and linear in their thinking.
However, medication alone is not enough to help combat mental illness. Yes, I understand the shooter [Lanza] was mildly autistic, and I don’t know all the details about his illness but I do know that doctors frequently prescribe anti-depressants for AS and autism to help treat and manage symptoms without instructions for behavior modification.
I am not saying we should just leave people with mental illness alone to suffer, but let us use common sense and look for treatments that do work without life-threatening side effects.
Many doctors prescribe antidepressants thinking the medication will help the patient. Antidepressants are Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) and, ideally, they correct chemical imbalances in the brain. Serotonin controls everything from appetite to mood swings, and is one of the most important biochemicals in the brain, playing a vital role in the regulation of learning, mood, sleep and vasoconstriction (constriction of blood vessels). People lacking in serotonin could suffer from compulsive eating, just being moody, paranoia, depression or other manic behavior.
Prozac, Paxil, Luvox, and others are antidepressant drugs (SSRIs). The potential for very serious side effects include thoughts of suicide, homicide, restlessness, aggression, facial and body tics, dizziness, hallucinations, nausea, sexual dysfunction, addiction, and electric-shock-like sensations in the brain.
Remember Columbine? One of the shooters, Harris, was prescribed Luvox and it was in his system at the time of the shooting.
The Aurora shooter, Holmes, calmly told detectives he had taken 100mg of the prescription painkiller Vicodin, and identified himself as “The Joker.” Side effects of Vicodin can include paranoia euphoria and hallucinations.
The following is a quote from Health And Nutrition Secrets by Russell L Blaylock MD, p79:
It is also interesting to note that in all the cases of school shootings, the kids responsible for the violence were taking SSRI medications, which are known to produce suicidal and homicidal ‘side effects.’ It is also known that these medications increase brain levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which, in high concentrations, can also act as an excitotoxin."
Time to treat the underlying causes of these horrific events.
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