Free Articles on Freedom Plaza: Drugs
by Kieron McFadden
The controversy rages on over the suicide of a 7 year old Florida foster child as an ugly scenario of large scale child drugging in Florida's foster care system reaches the attention of an outraged public.
While Florida psychiatry takes a pounding over what many see as the shocking and disgraceful abuse of children in care, events have taken another distressing turn with the recent news that the psychiatrist who prescribed Gabriel Myers a cocktail of mind-altering drugs at the time of the little boy's suicide is being sued by the mother of another child.
A Tamarac mother is suing Fort Lauderdale Hospital and the psychiatrist, Sohail Punjwani, who worked there, on the grounds that he overmedicated her teenage son with a cocktail of mental health drugs -- some of which have not even been approved for the treatment of children.
The son, Emilio Villamar, a swimmer and water polo player, died of a heart attack at the age of 16 and had been diagnosed with "bipolar disorder" by Dr. Punjwani in March 2002.
Bipolar Disorder is one of hundreds of "mental illnesses" listed in psychiatry's discredited Diagnostic Manual. The Manual is under heavy fire from watchdog groups and even many psychiatrists for the lack of proper scientific evidence for any of the so-called disorders it lists. This renders the diagnosis of anyone as "bi polar" highly suspect, as the actual existence of the "disorder" as a real illness has been called repeatedly into question.
Tellingly, such diagnoses are rarely accompanied by a full medical examination from a competent medical practitioner to test for the many physical illnesses, food intolerances, allergies and so on that could account for symptoms such as anxiety, depression, agitation and other phenomena of mood and behaviour.
Emilio was nevertheless diagnosed as suffering from "bipolar disorder" and this writer is unaware of any tests Punjwani may - and should- have done to locate and handle the myriad possible causes for Emilio's condition before prescribing powerful;- and dangerous - drugs known to have a range of harmful side effects
Within the next year, the teen was given a staggering cocktail of no less than 16 different psychiatric drugs, six of which were still being administered to him when he died, said the lawyer representing Emilio's mother, Norma L. Tringali.
According to Mts Tringali, 56, she asked Punjwani and other medical professionals why her son was being given so many powerful drugs and was told he "needed them."
''He was over-medicated,'' She said. ``He was like a zombie....''
The teen died of a heart attack on March 29, 2003 and his mother's lawsuit asserts that Punjwani provided healthcare to Emilio that ''deviated and departed from the prevailing professional standard of care exercised'' by most doctors by failing to monitor the effects of anti-psychotic drugs on Emilio's heart, failing to do regular cardiac testing, and failing to consult with a cardiologist or other doctor with more experience with the heart-related side effects of anti-psychotic drugs.
One wonders, given the known heart-related dangers of psychiatric drugs whether such warnings are given and monitoring done as a matter of routine by psychiatrists prescribing the drugs. If not, here may lie yet another minefield of psychiatric negligence requiring an investigation.
Be that as it may, psychiatric drugs are powerful and dangerous even for full grown adults, both for their mental effects on the individual and the physical damage they can do. Like all drugs, they are essentially poisons and "work" by blocking, disrupting or destroying the capacity of the body, brain and nervous system to carry out their natural functions.
''These are incredibly powerful drugs, and they require a tremendous amount of monitoring,'' said Mrs Tringali's lawyer.
I suggest they require more than just monitoring, they require being abandoned as obsolete in favour of safer, smarter and more effective alternatives
