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SEPTEMBER 9, 2008

Out-FOXed Again!

Last night I got a chance to watch the rest of the Mike and Juliet Show entitled "M&J Investigates" Accutane on TiVo. I am glad they put "investigates" in quotes because the shoddy shuffling out of bogus MDs and random opinions hardly qualifies as "journalism". Well things only got worse after the commercial break. After showing images of my brain scans showing how Accutane is associated with a decrease in function of the frontal lobe, a part of the brain that regulates emotion, they had a psychiatrist named Petros Levounis, MD (whom I have never heard of) come on the show and state that yes, Accutane changes your brain function, "but I 100% agree with Dr. Karcher that there is no evidence that Accutane causes depression or suicide." Again, stated with absolutely no REASON for his opinion! A quick check of Dr. Levounis's profile showed FOUR publications, NONE of which were about Accutane.

For all of you out there who are STILL willing to sit there and UNQUESTIONINGLY BELIEVE everything that your doctor tells you without wanting to know the EVIDENCE that lies behind his or her opinion, I've got a great Venezualian dermatologist to recommend!

BOOK REVIEW: WHY ARE YOU MAD?

Speaking of Venezualian dermatologists, Crawford Harris is an author who got involved in my amazon.com battle over whether or not it was dangerous for people to educate themselves about their prescription medications, and now he has a book out called Why Are You Mad? Crawford offers the interesting perspective, would you go to China with a guide whose only qualifications were the fact that he liked to go to Chinese restaurants? Wouldn't you rather go to China with someone who had actually been there? Preferably someone who was Chinese? For the same reasons, one can best learn about mental illness from someone who has experienced mental illness for themselves, rather than from a psychiatrist who has never "been there." Crawford also offers interesting insights about what it is like to suffer from bipolar disorder, like going into a manic state is like "running downhill, and the slope keeps getting steeper". He also spotlights the use of neuroscience as a marketing tool for antidepressant medications, something we have heard in other books on the topic. All in all this is a well written and interesting account of an interesting topic. Get more information and purchase the book here.

Here is another interpretation of bipolar disorder provided to me by Peter Mueller, MD, who practises psychiatry in Princeton, NJ. He calls it bi-polar and says it is a "bullshit" diagnosis.

Bi-polar






















"Oh don't look so surprised. I told you that I was Bi-Polar."

Personally the only time I have seen someone diagnosed with bipolar in the past 20 years the conversation went something like this:

Patient: I need some medications to help me sleep.

Doctor: I see you were also previously taking Lithium. Would you like some of that.

Patient: Oh, lithium. I have never taken that. I just hid it in my attic for the ten years they were prescribing it to me.


SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Can You Put Some Sugar On That Crap That You're Feeding Me?

I had some time I didn't expect to have today since my anticipated appearance on Fox's Mike and Juliet Show to talk about the link between Accutane and depression was cancelled so I thought I'd write about my day so far. I guess someone told Fox that they are getting alot of advertising dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and what I had to say might not make some people happy. At first they asked if I would like to go on the show and "debate" someone. When I didn't seem too excited about that they said they would "get back to me" and then later left me a voice message saying that I wouldn't be going on the show but that I would be "credited" for my work. So I checked out the clip on the internet and low and behold Fox set up the story by starting out with a family's complaints about Accutane causing their son to commit suicide, followed by an attractive blonde dermatologist named Cheryl Karcher MD who sat there in her white coat and said "I'm SOOOO sorry for the Zimmers but there is no evidence that Accutane causes depression or suicide."

Dr Cheryl Karcher

Well I thought to myself "who the hell is this person?" I mean she didn't even offer any REASONS for her opinion, and we are just expected to sit back there and say "OK!" Was she a researcher? What was the basis for her opinion? I asked myself. So I looked up her bio on the internet and found that she was a "nationally recognized expert" whose qualifications included acting as a consultant to the Miss Universe Contest! (yippee!). The bio went on to state that 'Articles detailing the results of Dr. Karcher's research have been published in numerous peer-reviewed scientific journals including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of Investigative Dermatology, and The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.' Well I looked her up on pubmed and I couldn't find ANY articles that she had written. Then I realized that by saying 'results of her research' might indicate that she was part of a clinical trial but wasn't listed as an author of the paper.

Like the 5,000 authors of the ADVANTAGE trial of Vioxx? Pretty misleading!

I mean, viewers are supposed to look at the victim family and look at the doctor and say "OK, poor family but the doctor says there's nothing there, so I'll believe the doctor."

I have presented the evidence previously in this blog that Accutane is associated with depression and suicide. So if people want they can go read it themselves. I have never met anyone who wasn't on the payroll for Roche who has read the evidence who doesn't agree, and I have never met any dermatologist who could look me in the eye and tell me that she never had a patient become depressed or feel like they were in a haze while on Accutane.

So there you have it, folks. Out-FOXed again. That is how the media presents things to you. Nothing is ever "proven" and there are always two viewpoints that balance each other out.

So the next time you turn on your tube to feed yourself why don't you send FOX an email asking "Can you put some sugar on that crap you're feeding me?