Patrick D Hahn

Unmasking the Truth: Part 1: Do Masks Help?

I bring my car to a halt at the checkpoint. An obese young woman wearing a mask recites the obligatory incantation:

Urgent Appeal to Readers: Fearless Investigative Reporter David Daleiden on the hook for $195K fine

Fearless investigative reporter David Daleiden is now on the hook for a $195,000 fine imposed by a federal judge, for attempting to defend himself against criminal charges filed in a state court. Daleiden rose to national prominence in 2015 with the release of a number of surreptitiously obtained video recordings of conversations with officials from Planned Parenthood, discussing the procurement for research purposes of "tissue" from the remains of aborted fetuses.

Canada Free Press columnist Michael Fumento freed from Colombia jail, but his troubles are not over

Canada Free Press columnist Michael Fumento has finally been freed from the Colombian jail where he was incarcerated for more than six weeks on absurdly trumped-up charges – but his troubles are not over.

Canada Free Press columnist Michael Fumento held in Colombian jail on trumped-up charges

Iconoclastic journalist and Canada Free Press columnist Michael Fumento is currently being held in atrocious conditions in a Colombian jail on absurdly trumped-up charges. Michael Fumento is the author of numerous books including The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS and The Fat of the Land. More recently he saw combat as an embedded reporter with United States troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of his combat video recordings have been aired on the History Channel. Michael Fumento’s recent troubles began Easter Sunday 1 April when he was attacked on the streets of Bogota by a man armed with a knife. The police arrived and arrested Michael. He was brought before a judge and accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at a house owned by the father of the knife-wielding assailant. The bomb-thrower was described by witnesses only as “a man wearing blue jeans.” Michael was charged with arson and attempted murder.

Patient safety is our highest concern

Last February, Dr. Bérard and her colleagues published an updated analysis of the Quebec Pregnancy Cohort data. Between 1998 and 2009, the rate of antidepressant use during pregnancy for the study population doubled, from 2.1% to 4.3%. During that same period, the rate of major congenital malformations increased by more than 50%, and the rate of maternal depression went up slightly as well.

"I was absolutely distraught"

Lyam David-Kilker was born on 24 October 2005, the second son of Michelle David and Miles Kilker of Bensalem, Pennsylvania. At birth he seemed like a normal, happy, healthy infant, but all that soon changed.

A gigantic uncontrolled experiment

Since the beginning of the modern psychopharmaceutical era, the proportion of the population diagnosed with depression has skyrocketed. A condition that once affected fewer than one person out of a thousand now afflicts more than one out of twenty. Today major depression is the leading cause of disability for adults between the ages of 15 and 43.

“Please don’t forget about me”: Antidepressants and birth defects

“Life was amazing.” That is how Amery Schultz recalls life with his wife Christiane – before she began taking Wyeth’s blockbuster drug Effexor while pregnant. Since then, their lives have changed in ways they never could have imagined.

Part 2: "The task of childhood"

In an attempt to ensure psychotropic medications are being appropriately prescribed to children, the Maryland Medicaid Pharmacy Program has established the Peer Review Program for Mental Health, in collaboration with the Behavioral Health Administration, the University of Maryland Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and School of Pharmacy, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Any prescription for antipsychotic medication to any child under 18 is automatically referred to the program.

"An evil drug"

“It’s an evil drug.” So says Dam Le, who as a boy was prescribed Johnson & Johnson's blockbuster drug Risperdal while in the custody of the Maryland foster care system.

Feasting on the dead

“Hammerhead sharks feasting on the dead make a unique sound.” So says William, a disabled Navy veteran and survivor of a horrifying incident that occurred in the Persian Gulf. At the age of twenty, William enlisted in the Navy and served for six years, working on radar and weapons systems. On 18 November 2001, he was part of a team from the destroyer USS Peterson that boarded the Samra, a suspected oil smuggler sailing under the UAE flag. The Samra capsized on the port side, and William spent the night clinging to debris, waiting to be rescued, and listening to the sounds of sharks devouring those who hadn’t made it.

20 suicides a day

On 3 August of this year the US Department of Veterans Affairs released its long-awaited report, Suicide Among Veterans and Other Americans 2001-2014. This report was the most comprehensive analysis of veteran suicide in our nation's history, examining more than 55 million veteran records from 1979 through 2014, from all 50 states as well as four territories.

A devastation beyond belief

The bipolar boom continues. Once upon a time, children were taught religious parables and national myths that placed their lives in a larger context of meaning, as well as stories that taught the value of hard work (The Little Red Hen), foresight (The Three Little Pigs) and perseverance (The Little Engine That Could). They learned about the young Teddy Roosevelt overcoming his childhood asthma through strenuous exercise, and the young Abe Lincoln reading by the firelight and then walking miles to return books he had borrowed. Today tomes such as Brandon and the Bipolar Bear, Turbo Max, and My Bipolar Roller Coaster Feelings Book teach the little ones the importance of psychotropic medication compliance.

A tale of two psychiatrists

In the field of juvenile bipolar disorder research, one name towers above all others--Joseph Biederman.

The bipolar brain is miswired

In the year following the death of Rebecca Riley, Newsweek magazine, which had already published not one but two laudatory cover stories on Prozac as well as a puff piece on childhood depression, weighed in with yet another cover story, "Growing up bipolar: Max's world," which told the story of Max Blake, a boy who suffered from temper tantrums, attacking teachers and playmates without warning, biting and kicking and spitting at them.

Rebecca Riley

The short, unhappy life of Rebecca Riley is a parable for our times. Her diagnosis with bipolar disorder at the age of 28 months was followed by a downward spiral which parents, doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, and everybody else around her seemed powerless to halt.

Major therapeutic advances

Between 1994 and 2003, the rate of outpatient visits for juvenile bipolar disorder rose a staggering forty-fold. Meanwhile, the experts continued to maintain that treating children with antidepressants and stimulants was not causing bipolar disorder, but was merely revealing a pre-existing condition. A 2004 paper in the Journal of Affective Disorders suggested " In children genetically determined to develop bipolar disorder, the use of antidepressants and stimulants may advance the onset of bipolar disorder even before puberty."

A healthy productive life

In December 1999, Demitri Papolos, M.D., and Janice Papolos published The Bipolar Child, the book that convinced Anne that her son William was bipolar. In the preface, the authors lay it on the line for us: "Many of these children were initially diagnosed as having attention-deficit disorder with hyperactivity and put on stimulant medications; or they were first seen in the throes of depression with little or no consideration of the opposite pole of a mood disorder.

Accident prone

A paper published in the April 1976 issue of the Journal of Diseases in Childhood described five cases of childhood mania. All the children described came from obviously troubled families. In three of the five cases the authors explicitly state that the mania did not develop until after the children had begun taking stimulants or antidepressants.

Periodic and circular insanity

An epidemic is sweeping the nation, a crippling, perhaps lifelong, sometimes fatal condition known as juvenile bipolar disorder.