New Report Shows Drug Companies Lied and Overstated Their Drug’s Ability to Treat Autism
Doctor examines autistic child
by Dr. Mercola:
Up to one-third of autistic children are prescribed antidepressant drugs to treat repetitive behaviors, but their benefits have been greatly overstated.
A new analysis reviewed data from five published, and one unpublished, trials and found a strong suggestion of publication bias – so strong that it could no longer be concluded that antidepressants are effective in children with autism
Drug companies publish only a fraction of the studies they fund — the ones that promote their drugs. If a study does not have findings that are favorable to its product, it is unlikely it will ever make it into a journal for publication and they are under absolutely no mandate to disclose that to the public.
In order for independent researchers to be able to confirm or refute a drug’s safety and/or effectiveness, they need access to the same raw data and clinical study reports made available to regulators – but this data is often kept secret by drug companies
Oftentimes drugs are released to the market or prescribed for conditions without being proven safe or effective – and this includes antidepressants for children with autism
research appears to show the drugs have a modest benefit in patients, in reality they have little or no benefit at all.
Dr. Wilson comments:
I certainly concur that psychotropic medications have been grossly over-used for many medical conditions. In my experience SSRI type medications often cause more problems than they solve in autistic patients.
We new believe that many cases of autism are a form of food-induced brain dysfunction. When the brain is exposed to excessive fructose mainly from sucrose (sugar) and HFCS and high glycemic carbohydrates mainly from grains for a period of months to years, these food elements can trigger a subtle brain dysfunction called “sugar-brain”.
People with sugar-brain have what are initially mild brain dysfunction symptoms. The first symptom to develop is craving for sweet or starchy foods so people often end up eating more of the food that is frying their brain. Excessive fructose has been shown to drive central (beer belly) obesity and because the brain plays a key role in auto-regulating fat stores, people with sugar-brain start to store too much fat at any caloric intake.
Over time sugar-brain can transition to a serious chronic disease called Carbohydrate Associated Reversible Brain syndrome or CARB syndrome. People with CARB syndrome can develop up to 22 disabling brain dysfunction symptoms and they continue to store too much body fat. At this point they are often incorrectly diagnosed with depression, ADHD, PTSD, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, fibromyalgia, bipolar II and similar conditions.
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