On Wednesday, this blog had an intraday record of the most likes. I had a humble 5 people liking my posts on that single day. The WordPress notification area said so. I don’t mind sharing such metrics since its fun looking at web statstics. I wanted to share this little tidbit!
I edited some of this post to make my thoughts more clear before post originally went out.
I am no fan of drugs that are legal by the Government and made by drug companies. I am no freak when it comes to drugs (as I am not a Christian scientist) but drugs can do a lot of bad. I believe the body was designed to be a “self healing”, self correcting and self fixing of keeping the human healthy. Yes, I do take meds when its really necessary, but most often I say away from them.
I also believe that some medicines (read: drugs) are not good when its proscribed by a doctor that is probably paid by the drug companies.
I reported a while back from an article in The Wall Street Journal, when GlaxoSmithKline was found guilty of criminal charges for promoting “off label uses” of their medicines. They were found guilty of enabling doctors that it was OK to use Paxil for teenagers when it was clearly not supposed to be used for those groups and having marketing people to whore Wellbutrion as a “happy, horny and skinny” pill, and even used celebs like Dr. Drew Pinksy to promote the same pill for uses not authorized by the Food & Drug Administration.
I have issues with medicines.
How I (and my mother) felt like idiots for believing what these “doctors” were suggesting. In 1999, in the midst of falling apart, and when I was told I had autism, and experienced that hell from the local middle school; I was under the influence of Paxil. The neurologist, which had no practical knowledge of autism, suggested the acting out was made up so I could get off the Paxil. Wow! A doctor to make such shallow comment like that? Just WOW! Well what was worse, I had severe hyperventilation and had some chest pains. It was until May of the following year, that my psychologist, ordered my mother to call the doctor to detox off the Paxil.
My mother never had never had much of a skepticism. She believed that these professionals knew what they were talking about. The World Wide Web was still in its infancy when it came to medical information. (I remember the websites being 600 wide pixels – that’s equivalent to a website for a mobile device today!) Also the thought of using a search engine back then was just as effective as using a physical phone book – it was revolutionary, but not really that innovative until Google really took off a few years later. The other thing was until about 2008 I said to myself “why didn’t I think to search doctors?” to dig on dirt to see if the doctor was legit or not.
I was on the following medications (excuse the spelling issues in advance):
*Ones I am on now
I might had been on others, and I can’t come up with them – one too many in my opinion
There shouldn’t be a surprise that some are being used as lab rats. The real and troubling concern is that these doctors are being seriously unethical. They are likely getting kickbacks from these horrendously managed and executed drug companies and doing this at the risk of young and innocent victims of society. My last psychiatrist had kept drawerful of samples, and would essentially make me think that he was a dealer for legal medications. It was just freaky and scary that doctors are allowed to do this. I have gone to many indie businesses, so there isn’t that many ethics policies they establish.
The last set of anti-depressants was Risperdal. The medication had made me balloon to 220 pounds by the end of 2008. Not only that, but my blood results started to get concerning, and for some f—d-up reason, it can cause hepatitis and not only that potential liver damage! Jeez, how can the drug companies push these meds with a straight face without laughing their assets off? (pun intended) So for the first time ever in my life, I had an ultrasound earlier that summer.
After dealing with 9 years of getting toxic treatment of such shitty medication, I asked to get off the drugs near the end of that year. My psychiatrist had bluntly asked me near that time after self-admitting that I was crying in my sleep, “Why were you crying? and “Well, should we look into another medication?” and it came off a little nasty too. I went through the detox process and at the same time a historic icestorm came through the northern New England, knocking out power in my area for a few days. I went to the local mall (which had power) and went and bought $200 worth of new clothes and jeans. I got one to two sizes up in case I ballooned even more, to only find out in less than one month after the detox, I lost 29 pounds instantly. I am now hovering around 180, though given my 5′ 4″ figure, technically I need to be around 160, but I am much better off than being at 220 again.
I understand that some kids need it but, these medications have long term effects if people aren’t aware. And “doctors” need to wake up and learn that medicine isn’t the answer to all problems. Better diet, better anxiety treatment, better exercise and better schooling and teachers can cut the anxiety by lets say 60% Medication for many cases only makes the problems even worse.
Its like I wished I was them.
Every disability, whether its mental, physical, deaf or blind, they have such higher social status and acceptance level, its all good.
…but My God, if you look like an odd ball, and you appear to be a loner and you have a developmental disability, its like living in real hell! The world is so sick and fucking perverted its not even funny!
I can’t imagine what they go through (though I don’t cry and feel bad) but I sure as hell cry and feel bad for myself because developmental disabilities is apparently “still new” to understand never mind barely getting to the general acceptance level.
I don’t want to be one of those people living by their label even if I come off as such. But it really hurts me that every other disability is accepted (read: GENERALLY) and someone like me with an autistic disorder is not being accepted and people like me are treated as a imitate object like the wallflower.
Hell, I don’t call myself or this blog “The Forgotten Autistic” for nothing. I am BEING FORGOTTEN in society!
Well according to the libertarian people, its wrong. They think that living with their parents is causing them to become welfare dependents over time.
On the Fox News Channel’s business block on Saturday, August 4th, an extreme anti-government commentator on Cashin’ In, went way over the top, by yet again playing the sexism card. Jonathan Hoeing (a real jerk if you asked me) went against the “young men” population by subliminally calling them losers by not saying it by name. This mans opinions should scare the hell out of you with his 6th grade maturity of freedom of doing whatever the hell he wants with total individual freedoms (with no responsibilities if freedom gets abused mind you.)
What really pisses me off is how they have gotten so stuck on Obamacare’s “stay on your parents plan till they are 26” Well most kids are in college till they are ether 24 or 26 if they are going on a 6 year college degree, assuming its a full time job too. The way the fiscal center of right commentators are acting is like someone with autism getting too stuck on one issue. Hideous.
The only reason why I am very angry against these people, is they because they are snobby rich people. I came from a similar town in this state and when you have these kinds of social economic enviornments, it makes people like
I found some videos on YouTube that should make you really sick to your stomach. I don’t think I need to explain much details (unless I should say some in case I have visually impaired viewers.)
This first video is the infamous documentary produced by Autism Speaks entitled Autism Every Day on WrongPlanet and they had actually beaten the crap out of this when it first circulated. Unfortunately, they caved in to receiving funding from Autism Speaks and now they have a tainted reputation, again that Asperger Syndrome is still not officially connected to autism.
The video starts with such deepening and deathly like music. The entire video focused on the negative, even near the end, when they basically faked their way of turning the negative into a positive experience. These Manhattanite women (you could even consider a few of these characters as Sex and the City-esque mothers – by telling their demeanor) because you know the rich are just like us – rigght – just ask the head of the New York Stock Exchange as I reported in April acting as the boy next door type. One of the mothers was frustrated since she can’t go out to have a coffee date with one of her girlfriends because her daughter is taking up much of her life.
The worst offender was when the mother halfway through the video said that she was contemplating suicide by driving off the G.W.B. with her autistic daughter. (The context is still in question since maybe she was referring to her struggles finding a kindergarten program for her, might had been a run off rant so to speak.) As she was saying such heavy statement, her daughter was walking in the room right as she said such strong statement.
These women have no idea that at least in New York State, they have “area agency” systems, and in other states they might even have a state agency for disabled people. In this entire video, no mention at all of any public or public/private programs as I had just mentioned, only the frustrations with the insurance companies and the debt they had entailed finding sources of revenue to make their kids somewhat happy.
So in that video, they had effectively made autism a third person, a Commander Data like humanoid and they can’t talk so therefore they are dumb.
The next YouTube video, makes you want to think twice about those A Walk for Autism that you get spammed by your ignorant liberal friends. The video shows how much the receive in these bake sale type of fundraisers, and how they just spend it on themselves! From the lavish digs on 7th Avenue, to the obscene salaries of this alleged non-profit entity, the chief officers and VPs making about nearly a half of a million dollars! Not to mention the excessive expenditures for advertising, facilities, and fixtures. The end of the clip states this statement: “Still feel like walking? Grab your dog and go to the park. It’s much more productive”
If you want to attempt to ether confront to Autism Speaks directly or even reply to your liberal friends’ spam invitation, don’t try to even tell them that Autism Speaks is a fraud! They won’t listen to you. They’ll treat you as if you are mute and dumb since that is Autism Speaks’ goal – to only let grown ups who don’t have autism (since they are afterall child-like – to them) and silence anyone who disagrees with them.
Geez, and I liked Bob Wright, who made a crippled business of one of the Big 3 network into a strong one before it got ruined by other GE mismanagers. But the Wrights does posses mismanagement skills. By running an alleged non-profit as a profit seeking entity and misleading the public.
If it was legal for me to punch people that have that blue puzzle pin, I would. Because they are arrogant and ignorant jerks.
*
Kevin Malley was almost 30, and he was starting to lose his hair. He went to his doctor to see if there was a way to keep from going bald, and his doctor prescribed Propecia.
“I looked young for my age, so I wanted to hold off my hair loss for a little bit,” Malley said. “I didn’t plan on taking Propecia for more than a year.”
Malley started taking the drug in May 2011, and by October he was completely impotent and had no sex drive whatsoever. His body changed, even his genitals shrank, and he slipped into a mental fog that he just couldn’t clear. His doctor told him the side effects would go away if he stopped taking the drug, so he did. But nothing changed.
ABC News, July 11th 2012
This is really sad how people believe that medicine will fix problems, when in fact its causing other significant issues. I’d suggest take this story with a grain of salt, especially at the end where ABC News’ Dan Harris said that Kevin Malley “lost his job, his fiance and he blames Propecia.”
This dateline is in my own back yard of my homestate of New Hampshire. Last week, elderly woman got fired from a convenience store. The fireble offense? A 20 year old man was attempting to use his Electronics Benefit Transfer or EBT card to pay for cigarettes. The use for EBT cards in New Hampshire is supposed to be prohibited for purchases of cigarettes, booze and other things that aren’t a need so to speak.
In her words, to the local press, Jackie Whiton told the Union Leader on June 28th:
“‘What happened was, a young man came in and wanted to buy cigarettes and I asked him for his ID and he handed me his EBT card. I told him he couldn’t them with the card and he said yes he could’ The following day, the foster mother of the man, who Whiton estimates to be about 20, came into the convenience store to complain. Whiton still refused to accept the EBT card for cigarettes so the woman went to her boss, she said”
She also said to the Union Leader this:
“The next day, I got a call from the home office and they said I have to sell to him and I said at 65 years old, I have do anything I don’t want to do. I said I would bow out gracefully and gave my two weeks’ notice. The next day, they fired me.”
However the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services told the same paper that EBT benefits can be used to purchase anything. Theoretically, these “benefits” is used for spending money since if others are receiving Social Security benefits. From what I know, the media has wrongfully made public benefits very glamorous, while many are in fixed incomes, with disabled people, and people with autism having a cap of $700 a month of revenue in order to receive benefits and for their adult services programs as well.
Now the man was kinda arrogant. The EBT card is not a valid ID. Now in the defense of the State, its their responsibility to say no or cancel purchases on ciggies or booze. Says Terry Smith, the head of the Division of Family Assistance: “if the state were to enact restrictions on how cash assistance is spent, DHHS would have to set up a costly infrastructure to monitor use, We’d need more staff and travel budgets”
Of course they have no budgets – just look at the whole Managed Care drama over the last year! Obviously various bureaucrats and pols have been on the attack of ANY public assistance.
Now for Ms. Whiton, her stance is questionable both on legal and just plain wrong as a customer service perceptive. Yes, the question for ID is right on, but to deny it because the EBT card prohibits that, when in fact the DHHS said it’s ok – thats wrong part. (I am just being fair and honest.) She said to the Union Leader “I am not against EBT grocery cards. I am not. But a woman cant even buy toilet paper or tampons with those.”
Now Jackie Whiton has applauded by the feel-me-good-tough-love-excessively emotional conservatives and has made appearences on the Howie Carr Show, a column from Carr on this story and she appeared on the Fox News Channel and other outlets as well.
But this story hitting close in my home state, when the next legislative session starts this winter, I won’t be surprised to see legislation to not only limit funding for an agency that has had the bone cut, but more zero-government approaches of our ignorant legislatures to the New Hampshire General Court and the bureaucrats of the State of New Hampshire.
Glaxo was plead guilty in a criminal charges for misleading the government for various antidepressants. Now I find this funny, that they a) get criminally charged, b) they have to pay the Government about $1 billion for criminal fines, but yet no one goes into the slammer. Hey, Presidential Candidate Romney says “People are business”, does that ring true to Glaxo? Oh wait, they are a big business, Romney was referring to the small businesses!
In anyway, in Tuesday’s Marketplace section above the fold in The Wall Street Journal, GlaxoSmithKline had severely mislead the government of the the legal use of the drugs. They were, according to the Journal:
The Journal reports that the costliest health care fraud cases has been the biggest in many years. The U.S. Government had found the company guilty as “the company piling doctors with perks such as free spa treatments, Colorado ski trips, pheasant-hunting jaunts to Europe and Madonna concert tickets” that the Justice Department said
Quoting a paragraph from the Journal:
“At a news conference on Monday, and in documents posted online, the government said Glaxo spent six years – 1998 to 2003 [sic] – unlawfully promoting Paxil for patients under 18 when the drug wasn’t approved for non-adults. It said Glaxo helped prepare an article published in a medical journal in 2001 that falsely reported Paxil had proven effective at treating depression in children in a clinical trial when the trial showed no such thing.”
In reference to the other non-authorized purposes, the government accused that Glaxo had mis promoted Wellbutrin, “approved to solely to treat depression – for number of other reasons” such as another Viagra! The Journal quoted the government said “Glaxo sales representatives sometimes referred to Wellbutrin as ‘the happy, horny, skinny pill’ as to remind doctors of the unapproved uses.”
GlaxoSmithKline, PLC had to pay another $2 billion US dollars to to cover civil penalties such as misleading Medicaid (a US Government agency and program, hence the fines) that had mistakenly misauthroized the uses of the drugs. Additional fines included kickbacks to doctors to prescribe nine different drugs, according to the WSJ report.
In a side bar, the Journal quotes the “76-page complaint”.
Promoted Wellbutrion SR as an antidepressant, to treat obesity or sexual disorders. Example: Hired a PR firm and paid [TV’s] Dr. Drew Pinsky to ‘build buzz’ for off-label uses”
Marketed Paxil, an antidepressant, as safe for children, despite trials that raised concerns about suicide. Example: Give free samples to child psychiatrists”
I added the boldface
Glaxo had agreed to go into a Five Step Program, seriously they need to do a “five year ‘corporate integrity agreement’ in which it pledges to specific behavior” to change various policies such as compensation plans and show their financial statements post-charges and show where the money is going.
Takeaway
What drives me nuts, is why can’t the US Government not criminally prosecute “people” instead of just the company? Why did no one blow the whistle or get “cooperating witnesses” or get “bagmen” to ambush them. (Being from Boston, I know about mobs inside and out – as an outsider of course!) Why didn’t the government go after the doctors who were involved in favors and didn’t get them prosecuted? This is really a sick problem, and the free market has been abused, and I really wished this was taken even to a higher level of criminal prosecution, really in the sense of throwing people into federal prison for life! People had actually died because of the suicide (a lawsuit occurred with another company I can’t remember the details.)
This is what we call “corporate prostitution” – pay someone to suck up another in order to lure what the doctor wants. What’s worse is how a doctor’s office is whored with those tissue boxes, pens and oh I can’t say any more, because that’s going to be another post alone!
In all seriousness, this is a huge issue. Paxil was given to many children, and many with PDD, HFA, Asperger’s in the late 90s and they became very unstable, more unstable than not being on Paxil. I can disclose that I am currently on Welburtrion, but the first drug I had been on was Paxil. I’ll tell you that I had countless suicide attempts, and many aggressive episodes, that I suffered with hyperventilation, especially during restraints (the ignorant/arrogant staff thought because I was fighting with them during the restraint holds, was the cause. ) Not only those cause issues, but the worst case was that I had no eyebrows or eyelashes as I had plucked them out -for a crazy reason, this medicine gave me some weird side-effects.
Part of my middle school years were tainted because I was on drugs that now were – actually illegal to take. I also was dealing with a neurologist who didn’t understand PDD type of children, but yet I went through various doctors, and my psychologist (who is a prominent voice of autism, but doesn’t posses a M.D. background) was actually giving my mother and I recommendations for various medicines, that she shouldn’t been suggesting to use period given her PhD background.
Medicine isn’t the total solution, and I will explain more later, but this is a good starting point to discuss the drug industry, the “doctors” and the smartasses of the autism community.
If you interested in this story, this appeared in Tuesday’s Marketplace section of The Wall Street Journal. I quoted directly from the print edition with my dictating skills which is good to do with reading and typing skills.
F You WordPress! I am tired of the stupid constant changes and I am tired of this RETARDED infinite scrolling! I hate JAVA, I hate HTML5 and I hate using cloud services where the users have zero rights of a say (or give us options.) Its not that I don’t like change, its not that I don’t want to live in the past. Its about reteaching a human brain how to do things. Also this will probably cause a bandwidth spike because of this alleged “faster” and “better” bullshit. There is a problem about these clowns who don’t think about causes and effects or have any skills of making things more effective, and not for the closed minded reasons of speed and code bloat.
I have noticed my browser is A LOT slower thanks to this change that I feel like I have been raped. I also hate that fucking “bug” on the bottom of MY BLOG! (it looks like an annoying graphic from a TV network hence the bug reference.)
I really wished your stupid comments would still be open – but I probably would had been blocked thanks to your communist anti-1st Amendment agenda that many of you silicon valley jerks are!
This change SUCKS! I wish you people could understand my anger towards you progressive jerks that you can be.
I’ve had a long 25 years of baggage to wake up every morning and crawl out of my bed and trying to find the “next step” of my life that I have used for exactly 4 years now.
I’ve had more and more let-downs than comebacks. And that has nothing to do with my thinking, its the leadership of the ASD community, the leadership of adult services and the leadership of our political system that hasn’t help the manners. There has been quite a drama, and frustrations in Concord, and the political mess isn’t far from over. Its also not far from over with the the negative influence that people give to the individuals. The years leading to my last day of school on my 21st birthday, was really about the only thing going forward in my life was to work.
And lots of the skills were a decade behind the present standards, ranging from work ethics and how to find a job. I had my teacher saying in like 2007 that she was going to get the local Sunday newspaper because the Sunday editions have more classifieds. Around that time they were extinct in their existing form. Never mind the teachers of my school program were hesitant of teaching the students how to use Monster.com, Craiglist. Facebook was still in infancy to “everyone else” outside of the dot-edu addresses, and LinkedIn wasn’t even popular in the corporate world.
Oh and what drives me nuts, was even before the huge Facebook/MySpace/LinkedIn era, was the teachings of harassment, and the fear that was brought to us about the skeptical society. I wanted to give out business cards to pretty girls but after I was told that “after 9/11, people gotten creeped out” or it would be a “crapshoot in case” she was in a relationship or married.
What if I was doing a double prong approach to not only try to hook up, but you know, the networking word? The old fashioned way of giving cards out to people? Well since i am a “loner” type, I am often in the community by myself (thanks to my friends abandoning me) and you know i have that look that looks like I am the mute and dumb stereotype, I cannot do that. Then, thanks to elitists like Stephen Shore or Tony Atwood or Teresa Bolick, and other Asperger knowitalls of the world they, and including the school teachers also indoctrinate us about various “social” standards, “social status” and anything that has to do with “social.” At this point, it should be a vulgar word.
I can’t even be a salesman. My eBay record has really sucked. My resales of failed tech equipment, often had to be relisted on average of 3 times and a lack of interest. Its really crazy how a generation old technology can go down in price and be a lack of interest in only 9 months to a year! (Some of my Ci$co products were about 6 to 10 years old on the hardware side.) And I am not even sure if my Etsy account will do anything good.
I have been let down so much by various “adults” in my life, and what the hell am I supposed to do? I feel like I’m here without or I don’t have a reason to be here.
It’s a REAL SHAME to be suffering with what’s now becoming a “woman-made” disorder or disease, however you look at it.