I made the following inquiry of JAMA and await reply.
Letter to the editors of JAMA:
My comments relate to the Nov. 8th article by Dr. Johnson about smoking and anxiety. First, I found it incredulous that otherwise perfectly fine and asymptomatic kids began to smoke and out of the blue developed agoraphobia, panic attacks, and generlized anxiety disorders for no other reason than smoking cigarettes. The article didn't include any of the data on the presmoking evaluations of the kids who smoked and developed these three anxiety symptoms nor any evaluations or data on the patients following development of these symptoms to attempt to relate them to causes other than smoking. There was no data on whether stopping smoking relieved these symptoms in any patients, nor was there any attempt, using other experimental methods or designs, to distinguish kids who were apt to develop these symptoms from those who wouldn't other than the standard tests used in the presmoking studies. My guess is that the writers of the article weren't even involved in the presmoking assessment of the kids prior to the actual epidemiologic statistical study resulting in the article you published. I had many other problems with the design and publishing of such an inadequate study and wondered whether there was any peer review involved prior to the article's publishing. If there was peer review, I'd be interested in reading the evaluations, especially since the article's conclusion was so contrary to current understanding of the side effects of smoking. I wondered why this supposedly causal association, with such a high incidence of severe side effects, 6%, was never realized before. You'd think someone would have noted this massive amount of anxiety caused by smoking at some time in the past. Additionally, they mentioned possible reasons why this association could be happening, such as hypoxia or ventilation difficulties without any attempt to get data on this either. All in all, I found the study, from beginning to end, poorly designed, poorly done, poorly evaluated, and poorly peer reviewed. I was deeply dismayed how the article could have been published with so many deficiencies. Moreover, this study received immediate press in many papers and on-line news services. How did this happen for such a poor study? My entire experience with this article made me wonder what is going on with science in this country. There is something deeply wrong here and I request an explanation.
I ask the readers of this dialogue and letter to JAMA to decide for themselves whether or not this nonsense should be allowed to continue unopposed. Please write the Times and JAMA if you feel I'm correct. They need to hear from you.
11/10/00
I applaud California for passing prop. 36. It shows a recognition by voters that addiction should be perceived within a medical rather than criminal context. However, because the correct medical context isn't appreciated or even recognized, addiction (and its ineffective and superstitious treatments) will continue unabated, as it has in the past, injuring a myriad of addicts unnecessarily. The most realistic and healthy solution to addictions will only arise from the correct etiological and pathophysiological paradigm of addiction and its corresponding effective recovery principles based on the actual brain mechanism causing the addictions rather than on superstition and delusion. All of modern medicine is based in this concept. Why shouldn't addiction be also? Only the correct medical paradigm can actually curtail addictions, those that are illegal as well as those to cigarettes, alcohol, sex, gambling and other legal ones, and their enormous consequences to public health and safety. One finger in the leaky dam will not keep the dam from bursting as it is. We need a new dam not more fingers plugging leaks.
11/14/00
Cornelia Dean
C/O Science Dept.
NY Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
Dear Ms. Dean:
This letter concerns the article by Linda Caroll, Genetic Studies Promise a Path to Better Treatment of Addictions, in today’s paper, and is a request for the Times to deal with the following information.
I have already written the book, Hypoic’s Handbook (Hypoism is the neurobiological entity that causes all addictions and HYPO is the prefix used in the name of this entity to highlight the genetic deficiencies upon which the paradigm is based), describing the paradigm to which her article alludes; a paradigm that has been ignored and censored by mainstream addictionology for years for a variety of reasons, but mainly because it turns the field of addictions as well as the recovery from addictions on their heads as Linda’s article begins to do, but falls short because of the missing connections made in my book. In fact, I’ve been writing the Times about the book and paradigm for over five years, and have also been ignored, probably because I’m not a member of the academic elite. I’m just a doctor who can think and write, and my ideas go against most current and deeply believed misconceptions of addictions even though I use the same neurobiology facts and concepts current addictionology misuses. Their emphasis has been to control and change addicts while mine has always been to help them.
The paradigm described in my book includes behavioral, people, and belief addictions in addition to drug addictions and, thus, forms a complete paradigm of all addictions. It discusses the biological evolution of the reward mechanism, the mechanistic template for all addictions, the genetic variations of this mechanism across the population responsible for addictions having a genetic basis in only certain people, and the etiology of addictions from the neurobiological-genetic level to the cellular level all the way to the behavioral level, filling in the missing pieces, including many of the concepts alluded to in Linda’s article, but with important distinctions and additions. The difference is: I complete the entire picture and formulate a recovery from these addictions that while being based on this neurobiology doesn’t necessitate the use of drugs to alter the brains of addicts in detrimental ways unknown to Linda. My use of the complete neurobiology, something current addictionologists can’t and refuse to fathom at this point in time for biased reasons, allows for recovery without blocking the addict’s reward mechanism, the basis of the proposed drugs in the article, and thus blocking normal feelings of well-being, a deep loss to the addict. There is a better way to produce recovery in addicts, based on current neurobiological precepts, without using drugs to change addict’s brains in hurtful ways not discussed in the article.
The theory in my book is complete and the implications are overwhelming in terms of how we perceive addictions, how we perceive addicts (as the article just touches upon), how addicts perceive themselves, and how to use these ideas to improve and magnify recovery and alter public policy for the better for all involved concerning addictions of all kinds. I would hope you at the Times would be able to appreciate my paradigm at this point in time, now that you’ve entered the realm of addiction neurobiological reality as this article begins to do.
It’s time we started dealing with addictions according to their reality rather than via the intellectual and emotional prejudices that have distorted this field for time immemorial. I would be willing to send you a copy of the book if we can talk about it first.
11/21/00
In Patient's Death, a Cautionary Tale, NY Times, 11/21/00, shows how arbitrary and unfair the Health Dept. and OPMC are in dealing with dangerous doctors in the name of patient safety. The doctors in the article, one already in trouble for other patient problems, received slaps on the wrist in the negligent death of their patient; this despite not taking responsibility whatsoever for the errors or death. I, on the other hand, had my license revoked (not suspended, or countless other ways to protect the public from my addiction) in 1992 for simple prescription drug addiction with no patient harm or any other medical issues whatsoever as stipulated in the written agreement when I voluntarily surrendered my license, while openly admitting my addiction. Moreover, I was refused relicensure in 1998 despite seven years documented recovery and full advocacy from the NYS CPH solely due to NYS's subjective judgment of "inadequate remorse," ten years later! I had previously built an exemplary practice in Nephrology on Long Island with a perfect patient care record and excellent reputation. I initiated the first free standing dialysis unit in Nassau County which led to the current modernization of Nephrology in community hospitals throughout southern Nassau County. I only benefited my patients who still miss me. My addiction was picked up by routine pharmacy checks, not due to any behavioral irregularities or patient related problems on my part, yet I'm being labeled too "dangerous" to practice despite full recovery and willingness to be monitored any way they deem necessary. My case needs to be publicized to show the other side of the issue, excessive punishment of excellent doctors with addiction despite recovery and their abuse of power for the sole purpose of producing statistics rather than public safety. Recovering doctors with excellent patient care records are treated like mass murders while doctors who repeatedly injure patients and even kill are slapped on the wrist. My medical life has been murdered because of discriminatory practices of the OPMC not unlike that of the dead patient by her doctors, diametrically opposite cases. The whole system for dealing with addicted and recovering doctors needs to be revised in this state and done publicly, and turned into one centered around doctor recovery at the earliest possible time rather than as one centered on punishment for addiction labeled "willful misbehavior" by the state! See: http://www.nvo.com/hypoism/thedoctordrugwarwrongandwastefulp1/ and, http://www.nvo.com/hypoism/committeeonphysicianhealthspeech/ Although the NYS Human Rights Act recognizes addiction as a disease, the Health Dept. and OPMC still label it "willful misbehavior" requiring "sufficient remorse" from the recovering doctor for evidence of public safety. The NYS Medical Society and the NYS CPH are too afraid of the OPMC to change this outdated qualification. Only the public, once they are made knowledgeable of this waste of medical expertise perpetrated on them by NYS, can accomplish this. Public safety based on reality rather than on perception, witch hunts for public display, and discrimination is the important issue, not the scapegoating of innocent and expert recovering doctors used as phony evidence for protecting the public safety while they simultaneously allow truly dangerous doctors who aren't addicts to practice. This discrimination is obvious on gazing at the Health Dept.'s web page on disciplinary actions taken against addicts vs. actually negligent and damaging doctors practicing in NYS.
11/23/00
Finding Strength in Home and Hymn, NY Times, 11/23/00, is warm and fuzzy but portrays alcoholism and its recovery in the same ole' time religion mythology that has warped the public's perception of recovery from addictions for the last 60 years. You just had to use the word, "miraculous," to describe how Mr. Lawrence stopped drinking, didn't you? This is superstitious and dangerous nonsense and it isn't about recovery whatsoever. Mr. Lawrence may well never have another drink of alcohol, I have no crystal ball, but he isn't in recovery from the disease that caused his alcohol addiction and is in jeopardy of relapse because of this, a relapse he will suffer and be blamed for. Superstition as treatment for addictions has never been studied to reveal its actually much higher failure and disaster rate in the face of an occasional "success." This kind of anecdotal reporting, as sweet as it feels for a short time, is actually perpetuating the nonsensical way people view addictions and keeping real recovery away from addicts. This article is part of the problem, not the solution. You must study the dismal history of superstitious recovery prior to and including AA to see this as a fact. Superstitious recovery gets 5% of addicts sober, a recovery rate a leukemic would not appreciate or seek. Why should an addict? It's time to portray addictions in the neurobiological, not superstitious, light they require for real recovery to be obtained for the millions of hapless addicts who need it, deserve it, and suffer and die because of its absence. Substituting superstition for real recovery is no different from what the people addicted followers of Jonestown, Heaven's Gate, and Waco did. These results weren't so warm and fuzzy.
12/4/00
Re: Downey's Prospects Cloudy Again, NYT 11/29/00, rehashed all the juicy stuff about Robert's countless failures with his recovery from addiction. As I've told you on many occasions, recovery under the current addiction paradigm is hit or miss and quite iffy. He's a victim of the current paradigm more so than his disease. This is because the current paradigm, its faulty basis, and its many invalid and superstitious forms of treatment and recoveries prevent recovery in most people rather than enable it. See: http://www.nvo.com/hypoism/11conflictofinterestinaddictionresearch/ Nothing about the current paradigm, run by biased and nonobjective "experts", is based on the actual neurobiology of the actual disease causing addictions. The current paradigm is ideologically rather than scientifically based. Here's another opportunity to let your readers know about the real disease of addictions. If you let your readers know about it, maybe someday you'll have more articles about successes than failures. Would that be so bad?
11/6/00
Antigang 'Role Model' Is Up for a Nobel and Execution, NY Times, 11/6/00, joins a long list of "great ideas" that can't work. People joining gangs is seen as a bad choice just as taking drugs is. In fact, gangs are drugs to gang members as much as drugs are to drug addicts according to Hypoism, the paradigm that explains and deals with all addictions. "Just say no" to gangs will work as well as "just say no" to drugs. "Just say no" doesn't work because the part of the brain responsible for the addiction isn't listening; there's no connection from the cerebral cortex to the addiction mechanism in the limbic system that can stop it from driving the addictive behavior. How would Tookie know that? He's merely instinctively relieving his guilt with his work, but his message is wrong. Only the correct message will alter gang behavior and only Hypoism has the means to understand and deal with it. By denying and ignoring the real mechanism behind gangs and other addictions you actively perpetuate that which you want to diminish. This may be a paradox, but it is what you are doing. Only a paradigm change can change addictions, and gangs is one of them.
12/12/00
Re: Exposing the Perils of Eating Disorders, NYT, 12/12/00. The statement, "As one therapist described it, breaking the cycle of bulimia is like giving up an addiction," shows how ignorant those "experts" are who are "treating" eating disorders. Eating disorders are addictions no different from drug addictions and are caused by the same underlying neurobiological disease, called Hypoism, as are all other addictions. No addict gives up an addiction. They either recover from the underlying disease causing the addiction or they continue to suffer from the behavioral consequences of this disease throughout their lives. Of course, your writers don't agree with this, so they will ignore this letter. Their opinions, however, aren't helping any addicts. Thus, recurrent articles about the same addictions over and over for years and years saying the same nonsense and with the same results, nothing. Addictions of all sorts are running rampant because of this bias and ignorance. Answer this: How could eating disorders be about 80% genetically transmitted (Kendler et al) and also be caused by the environmental and psychological "causes" listed in your article? If you and your "experts" can answer this question without implicating an underlying etiological neurobiological genetic disorder, please let me and the public know. If you can't, then please let the public know about the actual disease causing all addictions so addicts might be allowed to recover from it instead of receiving the false "cure" of the current paradigms which leave them open to relapses and substituting other addictions endlessly till death do they part.
12/15/00
Re: Dip in Youth Killing, but Not in Youth Drug Use, NYT 12/15/00. Except for cigarette use, all other drug use, including alcohol, are either unchanged or increased in the latest government drug survey, yet the drug czar claims, "We're going in the right direction," in a recent conference about this survey. This assessment of his agency's effectiveness is delusional. Instead of proving the current antidrug policies correct, the latest survey proves this policy is wrong. The reason our country is making no headway in the drug war is that its premise for drug use is wrong. This premise comes from NIDA and NIAAA who promote a "science based" paradigm that is ideologically derived rather than science derived. Out of this paradigm comes the ineffective policies of 1) prevention and control based on teaching fear of drugs and stigmatization of drug use, 2) criminalization of drug use, and 3) mandated ineffective treatment based on what MacCaffrey calls, "the magic of AA and NA." The real science of drug use and addiction is clearly genetic, neurobiological, unconscious, and inexorable, the exact opposite of the government's paradigm. Effective policies can and must be derived from this paradigm because it is the actual paradigm and must be the premise for any policies hopeful of dealing with drug use and addiction. Because this actual paradigm is so different from the current paradigm, its policies are diametrically opposite to the current policies of control and instead revolve around the true understanding of human drug use which leads to acceptance, destigmatization, decriminalization, harm reduction, and massive open (not anonymous) recovery as is the case in all other medical diseases known to mankind when subject to the correct etiological paradigm. The current drug war and its ineffective policies and treatments are symptomatic of the use of the wrong paradigm. Until we change the paradigm from one based on ideology and magic to one based on real science and understanding we will see no change in drug use and addiction, exactly what the latest survey showed. So, why are we persisting in this useless endeavor based on the wrong paradigm and ignoring the correct paradigm that will solve the problems we are currently failing to solve?
12/16/00
Re: 2 Killed by Violence Counselor on Midtown Street, Police Say, NYT 12/16/00. The first paragraph of the article is: "A domestic violence counselor walked up to his estranged girlfriend on a crowded Midtown street yesterday, fatally shot the man she was with and then opened fire on her, killing her with a point-blank shot to her forehead as she lay wounded, the police said."
This episode is predicted by Hypoism and only prevented by Hypoism recovery because only Hypoism understands "domestic violence" as part of an addiction, people addiction, just as cirrhosis is the result of alcohol addiction, OD a result of heroin addiction, bankruptcy and theft as results of gambling addiction. Moreover, as my book details, nonrecovering counselors we credential to help others are exactly the worst ones for the job. Real addiction recovery only comes from the real addiction paradigm, not the one we are currently using. If we want to see an end to the damage caused by a host of addictions, including people addiction and domestic violence, we had better switch to the addiction paradigm that understands and knows how to deal with them. If we stay with the current nonsensical addiction paradigm preached by psychiatry, addictionology and the government we will continue to get these kinds of results. As ye sow, so shall ye reap, no? Keep ignoring Hypoism at your own risk and to the detriment of the public.
12/27/00
Re: Averting more alcoholism in family, NYT 12/27/00. I don't know how to start except to say I am flabbergasted by the misinformation about alcoholism and the misapplication of it in this article. In fact, this article is thoroughly wrong about its facts and conclusions. The fact that the article religiously follows the current incorrect paradigm for alcoholism dictated by the NIAAA is indicative of the power the government has over its ignorant public which includes the author who hasn't critically reviewed the studies to which she refers. In fact, there's no evidence that anything she mentions will prevent alcoholism in her son or anyone else's son or daughter. If you substitute the word cancer for the word alcoholism in her article and reread it you will see how far off she is. The recitation of this nonsense may make people think they've got alcoholism under control but this is a delusion unsupported by reality. Control over addictions in general is a delusion even though it has been attempted for well over a hundred years. Despite consistent and abject failure of "education," "information," stigmatization, ostracism, and criminalization campaigns against addictions, the mainstay precepts of this article, these counterproductive activities are not only continued but increased yet addictions thrive untouched. This is because the paradigm behind these attempts is wrong. Not until we deal with all addictions, including alcohol addiction, under the correct paradigm, Hypoism, will any of the changes we desperately hope for occur. Moreover, that I've been writing similar letters to you for seven years while sons and daughters of our friends and families have died over these years from their untouched addictions and Hypoism has been ignored is unconscionable.