||||| From: "Praxis" Subject: Tom Cruise's tirade about mental illness could kill someone Date: 30 Jun 2005 09:50:12 -0700 Message-ID: <1120150212.112881.230840@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com; posting-host=67.172.158.157; posting-account=9bujnwwAAAAIZiS0qBU7cyL_poNDnLmH From http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showfast.html?article=57075 Tom Cruise's tirade about mental illness could kill someone By KEN BRAITERMAN TOM CRUISE'S irresponsible, ideology-based denunciation of psychiatric medicine could actually kill somebody. Is he suggesting that people with mental illness should think themselves well or die trying? Would he say that to someone taking insulin for diabetes? What he did say with absolute certainty to millions of people is, "I've seen the studies... There is no chemical imbalance." Those studies actually say there is "no brain lesion or genetic marker specifically linked to [mental illness]" (Peter Breggin, M.D. et al.) That standard of proof is too high. How many other times in medical history have we used a treatment because we saw that it worked, with reasonable safety for most people, before we knew exactly how it worked or why? Modern scanning techniques seem to show some variations in the brain architecture of people with active schizophrenia and depression. And studies of the human genome are starting to suggest some genetic predispositions, but neither of these is enough to satisfy the absolute demand for a specific genetic marker or brain lesion. But is it enough proof, coupled with an 80-plus percent success rate and reasonable safety experience, to say that treatment works for many people? Or should we just throw out the medicines because somebody's ideology says they are bad? Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression are life-threatening illnesses. Ten percent of people with schizophrenia, 15 percent with bipolar disorder, and 20 percent with major depression commit suicide. These percentages do not include people who were never diagnosed because they never sought help, people who kill themselves one day at a time through substance abuse or people who die in preventable accidents because the illness has impaired their judgment. The World Health Organization estimates the cost of untreated mental illness in the hundreds of billions of dollars every year when you include lost productivity. Most of these deaths, and much of the suffering, are avoidable because these illnesses respond to treatment most of the time. When you combine psychiatric medicine, individual psychotherapy, and training in relapse prevention and coping skills, people stay alive, with an excellent chance for a successful family and career, more than 80 percent of the time. There are legitimate questions about psychiatric medications. Some people experience side effects, but there is usually something else to try when that happens. Questions remain about the long-term effects some of these medicines will have on children. Ritalin is being abused and sold as a street drug - as are prescription painkillers, stimulants, and over-the-counter cold remedies used in making street amphetamine. There probably are teachers who jump to a conclusion that a child has attention deficit or hyperactivity disorder and recommend medicine without looking into other factors in the child's home environment. None of this changes the fact that there are children who can't learn, or even remain in a classroom, without medicine. They can learn and go on to higher education with medicine. There are children who assault their parents and siblings without medicine, who can live at home with medicine. These children would cost their school districts more than $100,000 a year each for residential placement, where they would learn helpless, dependent institutional behavior that could keep them in prison or on welfare for a lifetime. Seventy-five percent of the children in the Youth Development Center, and 26 percent of the adults in state prison have mental illness. Many could have avoided that, and may avoid repeating it, with medication and therapy. Should we as a nation waste those lives because of an ideology Tom Cruise learned from Scientology? Where this discussion becomes a matter of life and death for some people is when a group like the Church of Scientology claims it has a mental discipline that will enable people to stop taking their medicine, or not seek treatment. The implied message is that if you are taking medicine you are not as good and strong as you can be. This is pure stigma. Encouraging people to stop or avoid treatment can ruin their lives and families - or kill them. Ken Braiterman is coordinator of recovery education programs for NAMI NH, the New Hampshire chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.