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On page 312 of Medication Madness, Peter Breggin says:
Here's a summary of reasons why we know that medication madness is biological:
* If we place children or adults in controlled clinical trials, where some receive a psychiatric drug and others receive a sugar pill, those receiving the psychiatric drug are far more likely to develop a wide range of adverse mental reactions, including depression, mania, and suicidality. This has been proven time and again in clinical trials involving every kind of psychoactive drug. Psychoactive drugs cause madness.
* If we study children and adults in clinics and hospitals who are being treated with medications such as antidepressants and stimulants, the treated patients will develop many more severe mental reactions than those who do not receive the drugs.
* The FDA-approved labels for drugs often cite the risk of patients developing drug-induced mental aberrations from agitation, anxiety, hostility, suicidality, and depression through hallucinations, delusions, and psychosis. This is true for all psychiatric drugs and also for many non-psychiatric drugs as well, even some antibiotics that affect the brain and mind.
* Many recreational drugs, including hallucinogens and alcohol, provide a familiar model for drug-induced spellbinding and madness.
* Episodes of medication madness can often be traced to starting the drug or to changing it's dose, and the madness usually abates once the drug is stopped. In clinical studies involving challenge, dechallenge, and rechallenge we have seen patients develop obsessive suicidality while taking an antidepressant, lose it when the drug is stopped, and reexperience it when the drug is restarted. Similarly, few of our cases displayed any bizarre or criminal acts before taking the medications and none displayed them after recovering from them.
* Spellbinding often (but not always) is associated with obvious biological symptoms such as tremor or sweating, as well as cognitive dysfunctions such as memory impairment and confusion, which are consistent with brain dysfunction.
* Physically traumatic events such as head injury, electroshock, and lobotomy can also cause spellbinding, and can result in bizarre, potentially destructive, and out-of-character behavior.
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