CELEBRITY-IN-CHIEF BARRY O JUST WANTED TO BE OPRAH TODAY.
HE HAD HIS OWN SHOW AND IT SEEMED LIKE EVERYONE WOULD BROADCAST BUT DISINTEREST AND POSSIBLY HIS BITCHY WAY OF DEALING WITH GUESTS MEANT THAT CNN, PBS, FOX AND EVEN HIS BELOVED MSNBC CUT AWAY FROM THE CHAT SHOW ALREADY IN PROGRESS.
SAID BARRY, "THE PROBLEM WAS I DIDN'T HAVE A WEIGHT PROBLEM AND A SEMI-CLOSETED MALE 'BOYFRIEND' WHO WOULDN'T MARRY ME. I'M NOW WORKING ON OBTAINING BOTH."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Yesterday, the House Committee on Veterans Affairs held a full committee hearing whose purpose, Chair Bob Filner explained at the start, was "to look at the potential relationship between psychiatric medicines and suicides. Not a lovely topic but one that I think we have to address." Filner noted that the suicide rate within the military "continues to increase at an alarming rate, far exceeding the comparable suicide rates among the general population." The committee had four panels. The first panel was composed of Dr. Peter Breggin (Ithaca, NY) and Andrew Leon (Weill Cornell Medical College), the second of Drs. M. David Rudd (University of Utah) and Annelle Primm (John Hopkins School of Medicine) and retired Commander Donald J. Farber, panel three was composed of the VA's Iraq Katz with other VAs as background singers and panel four was Dr. Bart Billings.
Dr. Breggin detailed Eli Lilly's efforts to disguise suicide as related to anti-depressants. He first came across paperwork of the German government's equivalent of the US FDA "in the late 80s" where they expressed their concern to Eli Lilly over suicide rates and asked the drug maker to check their clinical trials.
Dr. Peter Breggin: Lilly found, depending on how you count it, a 6 to 12 to 1 ratio of suicide attempts -- not just thinking, attempts -- in the control group compared to placebo. Lilly never made it public. They never gave this report that I found to the Germans, they never made it available to the FDA. I also found memos inside Lily explaining guilt and shame on the part of some German investigators for Lilly that the company was classifying suicides and suicide attempts reported by doctors to them as "no drug effect." or other harmless kinds of entities; thereby disgusing the suicide attempts and the completed suicides. In one of these memos, the gentleman declared, uhm, 'How am I going to explain this to my family?' It was a genuine shame.
Dr. Breggin testified about various reactions and various ways of monitoring in clinical trials where a great deal more monitoring will take place than in real life use. As he was detailing some of these, the chair asked a question.
Chair Bob Filner: Dr. Breggin, I don't want to interrupt but if an active duty soldier is given these medications, they may not even see that warning, right? I mean --
Dr. Breggin: Well, my experience, last year I spoke at the oldest military stress conference given -- Bart Billings, whom you know, retired army officer and psychologist, runs that -- and I talked to generals and I talked to mental health professionals and they all agreed that these warnings were hardly ever presented to the soldiers and that the army was, in a sense, acting as if it was unaware. And some of these people gave me estimates, not of the 15% on pyschiatric drugs that we often hear but up to 30% of soldiers in some sections -- marines in particular, was one that was mentioned to me.
Chair Bob Filner: So they're not even informed of the risks?
Dr. Breggin: No, no. And as we go on further, we'll see that the FDA tells doctors you should -- and the word "should" is in the label -- you should share this information with the patient and the family and make sure they understand it. It's not just you repeat it to them. You sort of, "Hey, this is, I want you to understand, this is what may happen to you." It's what I do in my clinical practice. I don't say, "By the way, the drug may cause this or that," you know, I just make sure over a period of many sessions that the person understands the risks.
We're not interested in Leon's testimony which was inaccurte in many parts. He was urged to come to a point by the Chair but couldn't or wouldn't, he and Breggin were asked questions by House Rep Ciro D. Rodriguez and Leon jumped all over Breggin for answering and implied that the question was only for him when Rep Rodriguez was not only asking them both, Rodriguez has made clear he was asking them both the same question by using "you both" in his question.
At one point, Leon insulted Breggin in what may end up the rudest moment in Congress for the year. "You don't know what you're talking about," Leon snapped at Breggin. Rodriguez redirected with another question. He also snapped at Rodriguez. Not concerned about tone here but including his rudeness to convey just how unprofessional Andrew C. Leon was. And to be clear, he attempted to give 'expert' testimony on psychiatry when he is not a psychiatrist. Myself, I prefer psychologists to psychiatrists (for historical reasons including the ingrained sexism to be found in psychiatry). So I don't say that as a sneer or to suggest the Leon, being a psychologist, is not a real doctor. But he is not a psychologist either. Translation, he's not a doctor. But he is not qualified to speak of what psychiatry does or does not do. (Breggin, for any wondering is a psychiatrist.) He was so offensive in his remarks that Chair Filner felt compelled to note, "Just your last sentence, Dr. Leon, I don't think anybody was ever suggesting not to treat people. I mean, you're setting up a false straw man there."
I'll leave our focus on the first panel or we'll get lost in this hearng. Yesterday's snapshot covered a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on Iraq chaired by Russ Carnahan. Kat covered it last night in "Subcommittee on Oversight hears about Iraq," Wally filled in for Rebecca and covered it in "Congress advances technology today via Carnahan" and Ava filled in for Trina and covered it in "The 'powerless' Stuart Bowen." Kat will be emphasizing some aspect of the Veterans Affairs Committee hearing at her site tonight. And Rebecca's just invited Wally to blog at her site tonight on the hearing so he's grabbing a rare moment that took place -- one that should take place in every hearing.
Well over a million Iraqis have died since the start of the illegal war. One is Baha Mosua whose 'crime' was going to work. The 26-year-old was arrested in a dragnet at the hotel -- arrested by British forces and he went on to die in their custody. As Adrian Shaw (Daily Mirror) reminds, Baha died of 93 injuries -- all while in British custody -- in September 2003. The ongoing inquiry into Baha Mosua's death is taking place in England. Today is day 66, we last noted it in the November 16th snapshot when Donald Payne testified that he and others repeatedly kicked and hit -- for over 48 hours -- a hooded and restrained Baha and Payne pinned some of his previous lying down to "self-preservation."
Today the inquiry heard from a retired British military colonel (retired in April 2006) who is identified as witness "S009." Gerald Elias began the questioning by noting a statement S009 signed August 17, 2009 and reviewing some basics from it such as S009 was "commission in 1981," immediately "attached to the Queen's Dragoon Guards," "served in Northern Ireland and in Bosnia . . . Kosovo," etc. Among 2009's duties in Iraq were building and running a Theatre of war Internment Facility (TIF).
He was asked about the "shock of capture."
S009: My understanding of "shock of capture" is that feeling of dislocation, of -- I think it is a spiritual thing more than anything else. You have just been captured by the enemy, you feel profoundly uncomfortable, you feel dislocated from your normal systems and hierarchies and processes and, as a result, my understanding is that produces a vulnerability in you. I mean a bit like me sitting here today, I wish you to like me to remove some of my stress. I would put it in those terms.
Gerald Elias: Were you given any training prior to your deployment to Iraq in relation to the maintenance of the shock of capture, for example?
S009: No. My understanding of the maintenance of shock of capture is really all about speed. You know, there is a window when the human psyche wishes to be loved and wanted and cosseted and, after a while, most people get used to new circumstances reasonably quickly. So the point of maintenance of shock of capture is to get the person that you have detained to the person who is going to question them as fast as possible -- no more than that.
Gerald Elias: So speed of delivery. But you didn't understand that there were any other techniques that might be used to maintain the shock of capture?
S009: No, and indeed if you are referring to things like sleep deprivation and all that, I would say that those would be inappropriate.
S009 testified that interrogations took place at the camp he was in charge of (April 2003) but he was prevented from observing them when they were carried out by Joint Forward Intelligence Teams (JFIT). JFIT is a mixture of military and civilians and is considered part of military intelligence.
Gerald Elias: Mr S009, may I move on, please, to your concerns about what was going on in the JFIT. First of all, in general terms, can you tell us briefly what it was that you saw or experienced which concerned you?
S009: Yes. I witnessed a number of prisoners of war, kneeling in the sun with what I believed to be plastic hoods over their heads and with their hands handcuffed behind their backs, in two rows, facing each other.
Gerald Elias: You considered that treatment to be wrong?
S009: Yes.
Gerald Elias: Unlawful?
S009: Yes.
Gerald Elias: Just before going into the detail of that and what you did about it and the conversations you may have had about it, was that the extent -- the full extent -- of what you saw that concerned you in the JFIT?
S009: Yes, pretty much. I mean I felt that the organisation was not running well, so I had concerns about the general efficiency of that unit and its effectiveness as well.
Staying with violence, Layla Anwar (An Arab Woman Blues) notes that Muslim Woman Org has announced that three Iraqi women -- Wassan Talib, Zainab Fadhil and Liqa Muhammad -- are now scheduled to be hanged on March 3rd. On the latest installment of Inside Iraq (Al Jazeera) Shatha al-Obosi -- deputy chair of the Iraqi Parliament's Human Rights Committee -- declared to host Jasim al-Azzawi, "We want to delay the execution orders after the elections because I receive many claims from people that they take their speech, their -- and they sign them under the torture. So many of them are innocent. We are afraid if there is a few number of them are innocent so we must protect all of them and make another investigation with them to guarantee if they are innocent or not." Apparently, the three women won't be protected.
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
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