Sexy Hot Photo Blogs

TORONTO STAR PHOTO BLOG HERE -

REUTERS PICTURES OF THE DECADE HERE -

By Joseph Menn in San Francisco

For more than a decade the common currency among cybercriminals has been pilfered credit card numbers, but some underground hackers have learned how to drain money directly from corporate bank accounts.
There has been a big rise in such frauds, raising the stakes in the war between financial institutions and criminals and costing some bank clients half a million dollars – or more.
The cyberhackers “are clearly ahead of the defence in terms of antivirus solutions, firewall solutions, etc,” Jeffrey Troy, chief of the FBI’s cybercrime section, told the Financial Times. Online bank thefts in 2009 had seen “a very dramatic increase from past years”.
Law enforcement warnings, recent reports from private security experts and lawsuits are focusing attention on the issue. Some professionals, citing the ongoing boom in virus infections through such social networks as Facebook and Twitter, fear the trends could combine in 2010.
Mr Troy estimated that criminals took about $40m from bank accounts this year, primarily targeting the small and mid-sized businesses that are themselves customers of small and mid-sized banks.
Such banks and their clients were less likely than their biggest competitors to have the highest-grade security procedures.
Targets have fallen victim to “spear phishing” and other tricks. In spear phishing, a misleading e-mail, instant message or social networking communication is aimed at one company or even a single person within that company, frequently a top executive. The message can be tailored convincingly with details of interest to that individual.
As with many generic phishing attacks that go to millions of users, the point is often to get the recipient to click on a link that installs software for surreptitiously logging keystrokes, so that passwords and account numbers can be recorded and transmitted over the internet to the hacker.
Aiming at small groups means that security programs that look for copies of previously reported attacks are less likely to recognise the software.
One of the most prevalent programs for stealing banking passwords, Zeus, can be bought and modified by anyone for about $700, Cisco Systems said in annual security study released this week.
Through both phishing and silent installs via compromised websites, Zeus has landed on some 3.6m machines. Another virus, URLZone, can rewrite online banking statements so that pilfered money does not appear to be missing.
Some businesses have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to thieves employing such tools. While banks typically indemnify consumers for online fraud losses that are spotted quickly, they can take a harder line against corporate clients. Such disputes are coming into the open with the first lawsuits over banking breaches.
This month a Baton Rouge equipment seller called JM Test Systems sued US bank Capital One. The suit says JM Test noticed an unauthorised $45,640 wire transfer to a Moscow bank a day after it went through.
Although the company complained immediately and Capital One pledged to investigate, it allegedly failed to freeze the account and a second fraudulent withdrawal of $51,556 went through six days later. The bank has refunded less than $8,000 of the losses, according to the suit, which accuses Capital One of having unreasonably lax procedures. The bank declined to comment, citing the litigation.
Banks were modifying their systems, said Mr Troy, but they had problems with authenticating account holders.
The same problem exists on the internet – and has been exacerbated with the trend toward shortened web links that deliberately compress – and disguise – the address of websites as they are passed along in e-mails or other messages.
Many social media users placed such trust in material posted by friends and colleagues “that they don’t stop to consider the dangers of clicking on an unidentifiable link”, Cisco found.

While covering Facebook's systematic elimination of privacy, we've been deluged with questions from readers asking how to restore certain Facebook privacy protections. Sadly, many such settings appear to be lost forever. Here are the most glaring examples.
1. Hide group and page memberships
Facebook changed its formal Privacy Policy to say that "pages you are a fan of... and networks" are now totally public information (along with many other things). There's apparently no setting to shield page and network data, which leads to terrible situation like this one, sent in as a reader plea:
All of a sudden my grandmother can see that I belong to the Queer Graduate Student Union and Open Relationships Networking Group. Please help. I can't bring myself to de-friend my grandmother!
2. Block Facebook activity from appearing on your wall
There used to be a setting that allowed users to prevent Facebook activity from automatically showing up on their Facebook wall, thus blocking updates like "John commented on Jane's picture," "John is now friends with Bob," "John is attending Uber Gay Circuit Party 2010," etc. This setting is apparently gone, and you have to remove such notices one at a time.
Writes one tipster:
It is extremely annoying not to mention a complete tell of how often I use Facebook during work hours:)
3. Prevent strangers from friending you
It used to be you could keep non-friends from sending you a Facebook friend requests, although they could confirm. That's not the most, well, social way to use a social network, but judging from our email, it was a frequently used and valued feature. Wrote one Gawker regular:
Before the changes I wasn't searchable on FB and hence friended only those I wanted to friend, in essence, I would initiate the request. But... I am now getting friend requests from people I don't know, or worse, from people I know but I don't want to befriend on FB...
Facebook now makes you offer the "Add friend" option to all friends of friends — you can't restrict any tighter than that, so strangers can still send you friend requests. Screenshot (click to enlarge):

4. Completely hide friends list
Your friends list, too, is considered public information. Though you can remove it from your profile, you can't keep friends of friends from seeing it. They just have to pull up one of your friends' friend list, click you name, and view your friends list.
Writes one reader: "Many of us are concerned, seeing as how there are thousands of people faced with the threat of stalkers." Another, right on cue:
I have been dealing with a deranged, threatening stalker... There is no way of keeping your Friend list private... I have been obsessively reading about this topic [overall Facebook privacy]... To say I'm outraged is an understatement.
We thought Facebook might be improving this, but we continue to receive emails like these, and Facebooks written Privacy Policy still states that friends lists are now public information.
5. Block Wall announcements that you've been tagged in a photo
You can keep photos of yourself out of the "Photos" tab on your profile, even if they've been uploaded by other people. But it seems you can't block from your Wall announcements that you've been tagged in someone else's photo , which sort of defeats the purpose: It leaves your profile as a very convenient central location for any incriminating pictures of yourself.
You can remove each notification manually, but that becomes a game of whack-a-mole.
Wrote one Facebooker:
I've already blocked everyone from viewing photos that I'm tagged in, but I'd prefer that my friends not even see that I've been tagged in the small preview photo that gets posted to my wall every time someone tags me.
UPDATE: According to a helpful tipster, this can be disabled by going to the Settings menu at the top right of your Facebook home page, then to "Application Settings," then the "Photos" application, then click "Edit settings." Then click the "Additional Permissions tab," and there is an option to "Publish to streams." Uncheck this. Like so (click to enlarge):

And more, we're sure
We'd love to be wrong about any of these privacy rollbacks, so if you know of settings or workarounds we've overlooked, do email us at tips@gawker.com. Conversely, if we've left out a lost privacy option you feel strongly about, let us know about that, too.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) originally said his social network's privacy changes were intended simplify and enhance the privacy experience on the site. Judging from our inbox, it would seem he's achieved neither.
Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at
Rot13.write('elna@tnjxre.pbz');
ryan@gawker.com.

The implications of Facebook's recent privacy rollback will likely take months to reveal themselves. But it's already clear they go beyond Mark Zuckerberg's stash of intimate pics; we're already starting to learn new things about Hollywood celebrities.
Take Angelina Jolie, for example: Did you know the sought-after actress has just 27 Facebook friends, and they're almost all A-listers? Talk about a meticulously curated list:

Then there are the surprising affiliations. Will Smith, for example, is a member of the Facebook page "Jesus Daily," which posts bible quotes from Jesus each morning, even though the actor has made repeated donations to groups affiliated with the Church of Scientology; echoes the cult's "spiritual physics" rhetoric; has set up a middle school staffed with Scientologists; and has said Scientology is filled "brilliant and revolutionary" ideas. Smith was raised Baptist and has insisted he takes ideas from multiple religions. A look at his page (click to enlarge):

And you can send direct Facebook messages to a surprising number of celebrities, right from the "Send message" command in the upper left corner of their profiles, though it's not clear to what extent, if any, this has been affected by the new privacy framework, since some celebrities, like Tobey Maguire, still have messaging turned off. Some who have it enabled:
Angelina Jolie
Brad Pitt (aka Bradpitt Bp, via Angelina's profile)
Orlando Bloom
Tom Hanks
Robert DeNiro
Sean Connery
Julia Roberts
More, we're sure, to come.
(Top pic: Jolie, giving an interview to NBC's Matt Lauer in 2008, via INF)
Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at
ryan@gawker.com.

Thank you Ryan Tate and Gawker.com

Personal details of Facebook users could potentially be stolen, the BBC technology programme Click has found.
The popular social networking site allows users to add a variety of applications to their profile.
But a malicious program, masquerading as a harmless application, could potentially harvest personal data.
Facebook says users should exercise caution when adding applications. Any programs which violate their terms will be removed, the network said.
Stealing details
Facebook is the darling of the moment, allowing friends to stay in touch, post photos, and share fun little games and quizzes. And it also lets you keep your details private from the rest of the world. Or at least that is the implication.
We have discovered a way to steal the personal details of you and all your Facebook friends without you knowing.
We made up the fictitious profile of Bob Smith. He keeps most of his details on his profile private from non-friends.
While we could not get all details, what we did get, included his name, hometown, school, interests and photograph, would certainly help us to steal someone's identity.
Mining data
So how did we do it?
Using a couple of laptops and our resident coder Pete, we created a special application for Facebookers to add.
One of the reasons Facebook has become so popular so quickly is because of the wealth of applications users can add to their profile pages.
Little games, quizzes, IQ tests, there are thousands of them available. And once you have added an application, your friends are encouraged to add it too.
Anyone with a basic understanding of web programming can write an application.
We wrote an evil data mining application called Miner, which, if we wanted, could masquerade as a game, a test, or a joke of the day. It took us less than three hours.
But whatever it looks like, in the background, it is collecting personal details, and those of the users' friends, and e-mailing them out of Facebook, to our inbox.
When you add an application, unless you say otherwise, it is given access to most of the information in your profile. That includes information you have on your friends even if they think they have tight security settings.
Did you know that you were responsible for other people's security?
Security
Now, many applications do need access to your details, in order to work properly.
We do not know of any specific application which abuses user information, apart from ours.
But the ease with we created our application has many people worried. If it is being used you would not even have to use the application we created to become a victim, you would just have to be a friend of someone who has.
“ Morally, Facebook has acted naively ” Paul Docherty, Technical Director of Portcullis Security
Because these applications run on third-party servers, not run by Facebook - it is difficult for the company to check what is going on, whether anything has changed, and how long applications store data for and what they do with it.
Although Facebook's terms and conditions contain a warning that this could in theory happen, and offer the option to stop an application from accessing your details, many games and quizzes would not work if this option is engaged.
In fact, the only way we can see of completely protecting yourself from applications skimming information about you and your friends is to erase all the applications on your profile and opt to not use any applications in the future.
So has Facebook done enough to protect its users from identity theft?
Paul Docherty is the Technical Director of Portcullis Security, which advises several governments on IT security matters including British government.
He told us he believed that Facebook's terms and conditions stated on the site meant that Facebook had legally covered itself from any liability.
But he added: "Morally, Facebook has acted naively."
He said: "Facebook needs to change its default settings and tighten up security."
He also believes it would be difficult to secure the current system because so many third party applications are now in circulation.
Removal team
We put these concerns to Facebook.
It told us that it has an entire investigations team watching the site, and removing applications that violate its terms of use which would include our Miner application.
It also advises users to use the same precautions while downloading software from Facebook applications that they use when downloading software on their desktop.
Now, all this comes in the month that competitor MySpace opened up its application platform. However, it handles them differently - here all applications run on its own servers so it can see what they are up to.
MySpace also manually checks all submissions and rechecks them if authors wish to change the code. We were unable to create a similar threat to users' security using the MySpace system.
It certainly seems that Facebook's standard security settings are not sufficient to protect your personal information, and those of your friends.
Are you a Facebook user concerned about your personal details? Have you had your data skimmed?
Your comments:
I'm a Facebook user and although I've not been skimmed (I can't even know yet until something flags it) it's really scary to hear that this is possible with the ever number of applications in the site. Everyday I get about 20 requests to join/add different applications onto my profile and this news makes me want to remove all of them. Problem is, if you do remove them, then what are you going to do on Facebook? Give us more security features Facebook. Ralph Ofuyo, Nairobi, Kenya
The only data an application can "steal" is that which has already been posted to Facebook by the user themselves. Common sense dictates "anything" you put on the internet can be found by just about anyone. Mark, Dallas, Texas, USA
Perhaps the problem lies not so much with Facebook than with our banking system. If your date of birth and address are enough to get a credit card or a mortgage, no wonder this is being abused. Isn't this yet another sign that we need a better way to prove one's identity? Surely a national identity card would go a long way towards this - other countries don't seem to have these problems. Bob, Oxford
This is why I lie to Facebook about things like date of birth, setting them to be roughly there but not accurate enough. I tend to do this to any site that insists on having this information but I don't see the need for. Richard, Leeds, UK
I use Facebook on a daily basis to keep in touch with friends. I've gotten very tight with my security settings but it never occurred to me to worry about the applications that my friends and I have added. Thanks for the heads up! Kate K, Washington DC, USA
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7375772.stm

55 and haven't saved a dime? Yikes!

No doubt about it: Your late start on building a retirement is going to cost you. But don't panic. You still have these 10 options for padding your golden years.

If you're in your 50s and haven't saved for retirement, you know you're in trouble.
You've also got company. A full 30% of workers age 55 and older said they had less than $10,000 saved, according to the 2009 Retirement Confidence Survey (.pdf file) by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
There's no sugarcoating the situation: Your late start is going to cost you. But it's still possible to cobble together a decent retirement, even if it looks different from what you might have originally planned.
Here's what you need to do now:
Run the numbers Finance expert Roger Ibbotson has done the math, as I wrote in "Your magic number for retirement," and says people who start saving for retirement after age 35 face increasingly strong headwinds. (You can try the magic-number calculator to the right as well.)
To have enough to retire at 65, late starters must put aside huge chunks of their income. The older you are and the more you make, the more you'd have to save to catch up if you want to maintain something like your current standard of living and be reasonably assured you won't run out of money.
At 55, for example:
Someone who earns $40,000 a year would need to put aside 27% of her income to retire at 65.
Someone who earns $60,000 should contribute nearly 33%.
Someone who earns $80,000 would have to save nearly 37%.
Someone who makes $100,000 would have to shovel in 40%.
Clearly, few people will be able to pull off savings rates anywhere close to those levels.
But not all is lost.
You can use the MSN Money Retirement Planner to fiddle with some of the assumptions that can make a big difference in how much you need to save. Working longer, for example, can make a big difference, as can living on less money in retirement (more on that in a moment). Speaking of which:
70 is the new 65 A few more years in the workplace will benefit you in three ways:
You'll earn more money to contribute to your retirement funds.
Your nest egg will have longer to grow before it's tapped.
Your retirement will be shorter.
Yeah, that last one is pretty grim. Deal with it.
Delaying retirement until age 70 might reduce your required contributions to 15% to 20% of your gross income rather than 30% or more. That's still a big chunk of change, but it might be doable if you get serious about trimming expenses.

You'll help yourself even if you just cut down to part-time employment rather than giving up work entirely. Every $5,000 you earn means you need $100,000 less in assets, financial planner Ross Levin says, assuming you'll tap 5% of your nest egg annually in retirement.
Besides, you won't be alone in working longer. AARP tells us that two-thirds of baby boomers plan to work past traditional retirement age.
Don't underestimate Social Security If the reason you haven't saved is that you don't make much, you may be pleasantly surprised at how helpful your future Social Security check will be. It probably won't pay all your bills in retirement unless you really cut costs, but it could replace 25% or more of your current income. The MSN Money Retirement Planner can give you an estimate of how much to expect, or you can check the Social Security statement you get in the mail about three months before your birthday.
Isn't it dumb to rely on Social Security, you ask? Well, sure, if you're young. By 2041, Social Security is expected to have enough money to pay only 75 cents for every dollar in benefits promised to workers.
But you'll be in your late 80s by that point, long since retired (we hope) and among the least vulnerable to benefit cuts. Congress is much more likely to trim future benefits for young and well-off workers than it is to snatch checks away from vulnerable old folks.
"There will be Social Security reform, but it will be things like (removing) the cap on earnings and taxing at a higher rate," says Levin, who works for Accredited Investors, a financial-planning company in Edina, Minn. "You can't pull the rug out from under" elderly people already receiving benefits.
Video: A retirement reality check
Get brutal Retirement savings must become your priority, period. Everything else has to take a back seat.
That will be tough to hear if you've got kids heading for college or elderly parents you want to support. But college students can get loans, and your parents may qualify for all kinds of benefits (start with the Eldercare Locator and check out GovBenefits.gov as well).
If you've been the go-to family member when others run into financial trouble, it's time to shut down the Bank of You. You can read "Should parents bail out their kids?" and "Should you bail out spendthrift parents?" for generation-specific advice, or just head straight to "How to say no to anything -- or anyone."

You may not be able or willing to shed obligations to your parents, but any adult child without disabilities may need to be cut loose.
"With kids, you really have to think about some tough-love issues," says Delia Fernandez, a financial planner with Fernandez Financial Advisory in Los Alamitos, Calif., who recommends the books "Ready or Not, Here Life Comes" by Mel Levine and "When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us" by Jane Adams. "You can't continue to support them at the level they were accustomed to when they were living with you."
Get radical The fastest way to reach retirement is to dramatically cut your expenses. That will help you save more and at the same time reduce the total amount you need to save.
To learn how some people are doing it, read "Retired at 50: What it really takes." Many people who opt for this approach cite the book "Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin as their inspiration. The authors encourage people seeking financial independence -- that is, enough money to retire -- to examine every expense, from shelter costs to snacks, for ways to cut back.
If you're serious about getting out of the rat race, "Your Money or Your Life" may help. Try your public library first.
Catch up with catch-up provisions Once you're 50, you're allowed to stuff considerably more money into individual retirement accounts and workplace retirement plans such as 401k's and 403b's.
In 2009 and 2010, for example, your younger co-workers can contribute an annual maximum of $16,500 to a 401k and $5,000 to a standard individual retirement account or Roth IRA. Those 50 and older, though, can contribute an additional $5,500 to their 401k's and an additional $1,000 to their Roths -- for a total maximum contribution of $28,000 a year.

Consider a side business You can put even more into tax-deferred accounts if you own a business. Sole proprietors who are 50 or older can stuff up to $54,500 into a solo 401k in 2009 (the limit is $49,000 for people younger than 50).
If you're able to save even more than that -- lucky you -- then a traditional pension plan may be the answer. These are complicated (read expensive) to set up and run, but they can allow you to put aside $100,000 or more a year toward your retirement.
Talk to a CPA or other tax pro experienced with small-business retirement plans for advice.
Don't count on your house When home prices were soaring, late starters had a backup plan: Sell the house and live off the equity.
Falling home prices have made that more difficult for today's retirees, and it may take years for real-estate values to recover.
In any case, trading down is usually more desirable in theory than in practice. To free up enough money to live on, Levin says, you may have to buy a much smaller place in a much less desirable neighborhood than where you live now.
"We've hardly seen anybody want to do that," Levin says. "They're not necessarily comfortable with what that looks like."
Moving to a cheaper area is also a possibility, but the majority of retirees want to "age in place" rather than start life over somewhere else.
Still, millions of retirees do opt to move, and some even go abroad to make their retirement funds stretch (read "Why retirees are fleeing the U.S."). If you've got plenty of equity and are considering such a change, consider spending at least a few weeks in your destination area to make sure it's a good fit before putting your house up for sale.
Video: A retirement reality check
Get help You can't afford to delay any longer. If your finances are a mess or you're intimidated by investing or you just need someone to hold your hand, then find an objective, qualified financial planner to help you get started.
You can get referrals to fee-only financial planners from the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors and the Garrett Planning Network. (Why fee-only and not fee-based or commissioned? Read "Can you trust your financial adviser?")
"If you're 55 and have credit card debt and you don't know what you're spending," Fernandez says, "you need to go to the emergency entrance of a financial planner's office."
Don't give up!

No matter how huge the task seems, even a partial victory is better than nothing. Wouldn't you rather face old age with something -- anything -- in the bank than wait for the mail carrier the first of each month?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
Can anything be done to turn this around?
Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?
Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.
Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?
No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.
Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?
In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance, and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting this betrayal.
Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested these circumstances.
Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Yet, even this provoked few demonstrators.
When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice. Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.
U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
Maybe.
Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves-more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.
Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts and fear of having no health insurance.
The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation created by corporate-governmental policies. A 2006 American Sociological Review study ("Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades") reported that, in 2004, 25 percent of Americans did not have a single confidant. (In 1985, 10 percent of Americans reported not having a single confidant.) Sociologist Robert Putnam, in his 2000 book, Bowling Alone, describes how social connectedness is disappearing in virtually every aspect of U.S. life. For example, there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face contact with neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by governmental-corporate policies. And union activities and other formal or informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to resist oppression have also decreased.
We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity. A few examples:
Schools and Universities: Do most schools teach young people to be action-oriented -- or to be passive? Do most schools teach young people that they can affect their surroundings -- or not to bother? Do schools provide examples of democratic institutions -- or examples of authoritarian ones?
A long list of school critics from Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, John Holt, Paul Goodman, Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Ivan Illich, and John Taylor Gatto have pointed out that a school is nothing less than a miniature society: what young people experience in schools is the chief means of creating our future society. Schools are routinely places where kids -- through fear -- learn to comply to authorities for whom they often have no respect, and to regurgitate material they often find meaningless. These are great ways of breaking someone.
Today, U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly become places where young people are merely acquiring degree credentials -- badges of compliance for corporate employers -- in exchange for learning to accept bureaucratic domination and enslaving debt.
Mental Health Institutions: Aldous Huxley predicted today's pharmaceutical societyl "[I]t seems to me perfectly in the cards," he said, "that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude."
Today, increasing numbers of people in the U.S. who do not comply with authority are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric drugs that make them less pained about their boredom, resentments, and other negative emotions, thus rendering them more compliant and manageable.
Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers. The official symptoms of ODD include, "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules," and "often argues with adults." An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than the overt defiance of ODD is some type of passive defiance -- for example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all children diagnosed with ADHD will pay attention to activities that they actually enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the "disease" goes away.
When human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a "passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and not doing anything -- this is one reason why the Soviet empire crumbled. However, the diseasing/medicalizing of rebellion and drug "treatments" have weakened the power of even this passive-aggressive revolution.
Television: In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich) compiled a list of the "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy."
Mander claimed that television helps create all eight conditions for breaking a population. Television, he explained, (1) occupies people so that they don't know themselves -- and what a human being is; (2) separates people from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5) encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription-drug advertising); (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7) eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and (8) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.
Commericalism of Damn Near Everything: While spirituality, music, and cinema can be revolutionary forces, the gross commercialization of all of these has deadened their capacity to energize rebellion. So now, damn near everything – not just organized religion -- has become "opiates of the masses."
The primary societal role of U.S. citizens is no longer that of "citizen" but that of "consumer." While citizens know that buying and selling within community strengthens that community and that this strengthens democracy, consumers care only about the best deal. While citizens understand that dependency on an impersonal creditor is a kind of slavery, consumers get excited with credit cards that offer a temporarily low APR.
Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness, socializing self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating people from normal human emotional reactions, and by selling the idea that purchased products -- not themselves and their community -- are their salvation.
Can anything be done to turn this around?
When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is morale.
What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down.
The last people I would turn to for help in remobilizing a demoralized population are mental health professionals -- at least those who have not rebelled against their professional socialization. Much of the craft of relighting the pilot light requires talents that mental health professionals simply are not selected for nor are they trained in. Specifically, the talents required are a fearlessness around image, spontaneity, and definitely anti-authoritarianism. But these are not the traits that medical schools or graduate schools select for or encourage.
Mental health professionals' focus on symptoms and feelings often create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously. In contrast, people talented in the craft of maintaining morale resist this kind of self-absorption. For example, in the question-and-answer session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, "Yeah, every evening . . ."
If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what's the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what's the point? . . . First of all, those predictions don't mean anything -- they're more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you're guaranteeing that'll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism."
A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the advertised reality too seriously. In the early 1960s, when the overwhelming majority in the U.S. supported military intervention in Vietnam, Chomsky was one of a minority of U.S. citizens actively opposing it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, "When I got involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that we would ever have any effect. . . So looking back, I think my evaluation of the 'hope' was much too pessimistic: it was based on a complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read."
An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers" think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise. An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications. Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale.
Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and his latest book is Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007). His Web site is http://www.brucelevine.net/

By Keith Andrew Bettinger KUALA LUMPUR - In casual conversations about geopolitics here, it is common to hear charges that Israel controls US foreign policy or that Jews run the world (one of these more virulent indictments came from former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who stated just before stepping down last year that "Jews rule the world by proxy"). This is a truth that "everyone knows" and is a common view around the world. The problem with this "truth" is that the evidence to back it up is sketchy at best, relying on questionable facts and a selective interpretation of events and information. There is a vacuum of conclusive data, and corroboration can't be found in the mainstream media. But an emerging trend suggests that US and European extremist groups are recognizing demand among Southeast Asian Muslims for anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism and are moving to adjust their message to spread the broader message of anti-Semitism. One clear instance of this is the recent visit to Malaysia of American "journalist" Michael Collins Piper, a writer and editor for the American Free Press. Piper addressed several groups, including the Bar Council of Malaysia, on a trip that also included a stop in Japan. Piper's talks ostensibly were about the hidden motivations for US foreign policy, but some basic research reveals that Piper's musings are characteristic of an effort by anti-Semites and white supremacists to repackage themselves as "alternative media voices" claiming to tackle stories the mainstream media in the US won't touch. The formula is easily recognizable to American readers: analyze any event and bend, shape and twist facts to reveal a Jewish influence. To spread his message, Piper also spent time promoting his books, which were given out free at several speaking engagements. As anti-Semitism spreads from the Middle East to moderate Muslims around the world, anti-Semitic literature is selling faster than it can be restocked on bookstore shelves. Publications that contributed to the zeitgeist from which the Holocaust sprang have now begun finding readers in Malaysia. Universal disapproval of Israeli foreign policy is fueling a resurgence of anti-Jewish sentiment. And anti-Israel becomes anti-Jew. Of course, many people here do not know the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Israel; some say book sales simply reflect Malaysian's love for conspiracy. But due to their lack of a Jewish experience - the only evidence of a Jewish presence in Malaysia is an old Jewish cemetery in Penang - people are groping to understand world events. And people like Piper are ready with a framework that explains all the unfairness and injustice that exists. In the process, though, the seeds of anti-Semitism are planted. The messengerMichael Collins Piper has written and been an editor for The American Free Press and its predecessor, the Spotlight, for the past 20 years. Both papers, as well as the now-defunct Liberty Lobby, were founded by Willis Carto, one of the most notorious American anti-Semites in the post-World War II era. Carto's ideological genealogy can be traced back to Francis Parker Yockney, an American anti-Semitic writer/philosopher and supporter of the Hitler regime in Germany. Carto's career has had its ups and downs, but critics maintain that he more than anyone else has been responsible for keeping anti-Semitism alive in the United States. He was also instrumental in the creation of the National Alliance, the most notorious neo-Nazi organization in the US. Piper has been a close associate of Carto's for years and also contributes to the Barnes Review, a "scholarly journal" founded by Carto and devoted to "Holocaust Revisionism". Piper's own writings have disputed recognized historical truths and have suggested, for example that the Zyclon-B used to gas Jews in Nazi concentration camps was really used only to delouse clothing. Particularly illuminating, though, was an American Free Press article he penned shortly after the events of September 11, 2001, arguing that the Israelis and the Jews were responsible for the attacks. "Did Ariel Sharon help orchestrate the September 11 terrorist attacks to instigate all-out US war against Israel's enemies?" he asked. "Don't discount it," the article concludes. This sort of writing is typical of Piper, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish human-rights organization dedicated to "fostering tolerance and understanding". "[Piper] never found a conspiracy he didn't like," explained Cooper, who is well acquainted with Piper's activities. Piper, who has attributed everything from the Monica Lewinsky scandal to Watergate to the Israelis, is from the school of writers that disregards the mountains of evidence and facts pointing to one conclusion in favor of rumors, whisperings and innuendo that point to the hidden hand of a nefarious enemy. The main theses of Piper's books are that the Mossad, Israel's spy agency, was complicit in the assassination of John F Kennedy and that the Israel lobby (in his writings and interviews Piper uses the terms "Jews" and "Israel" interchangeably) controls US foreign policy. They are "the hidden power behind Washington", according to an interview that ran in the Star, Malaysia's largest English-language daily. Piper insists that his motives are "to help Palestinians get their land back, keep American kids from getting their hands and legs blown off, and keep some Jewish people from their own excesses". But an examination of his writings clearly reveals a lifetime crusade against a singular villain - the Jews. Repeated phone calls to the Star editor responsible for the interview over the course of the week requesting an interview, or even an informal lunch discussion, were to no avail. To his credit, though, the editor did mention in the article that "regardless of views and beliefs, open discussion and exchange usually serve better" the cause of divining truth. The Star article suggested that Piper doesn't get play in the US press because he brings up unpleasant truths, implying that there is a campaign to suppress Piper's writings. Piper himself works up this angle in interviews, speeches, articles and books, frequently lashing out at the Anti-Defamation League, a watchdog group that he contends is out to get him. Piper says the Jewish-controlled media giants and publishing companies won't go near his books because they are afraid of the truth. A more accurate description, however, would be that the mainstream media ignore Piper and his ilk, as his scribblings were recognized long ago for what they are. "Nobody takes him seriously in the United States," said one media watcher who attended one of the lectures. "He's pretty extreme, to say the least." Rabbi Cooper explained: "People like Piper and the others are free to write just about anything they want because we champion the freedom of the press ... but it's hard to over-exaggerate how irrelevant the lunatic fringe is in the US." Western journalists in Kuala Lumpur echoed this assessment. Common sense works against Piper as well; it would stand to reason that if he was as dangerous as he claims to be, Mossad would have killed him long ago. Until recently Piper has been the darling of white supremacist bulletin boards such as Stormfront.org and has been a speaker at meetings of the Counsel of Conservative Citizens, as well as a noted guest at reunions held by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Recently, however, Piper has found some attention on the worldwide lecture circuit, speaking at events in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Moscow, Japan and Malaysia. "There is a market for Americans who are prepared to say nasty things about America," explained Cooper. Piper told the Zayed Center in Dubai, also in the UAE, that he became a journalist to "combat the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias on the part of the mass media in America". That visit has been something of a feather in Piper's cap; he asserted that the anti-Jewish Zayed center was closed down because it hosted him and that the visit sparked an international controversy. During that visit he sounded the trumpet against the Jewish plutocrats who allegedly control America, insisting that "everyone of the major television networks is dominated by Jewish financial interests". He also asserted that antipathy in the US toward Saudi Arabia is a result of Anti-Defamation League propaganda. Piper didn't respond to an interview request. There is no shortage of "alternative media" available to the curious reader with an Internet connection. The proliferation of bloggers and e-papers is a testament to the fact that people are searching for more than the mainstream line. With the rise of the Internet, however, there is also no shortage of hate-motivated "reporting", and stories originating in the US and disguised in a veneer of legitimacy can make it around the world in seconds, to be read by people lacking the experience to put the "news" in proper context. Fertile ground for conspiracy theoriesIn preparing for this article, I wrote several e-mails and called the Malaysian Bar Council a number of times. The human rights officer and the communications officer both refused to comment, but only after they asked me if I was a Jew. No one at the Bar Council of Malaysia was willing to discuss anything about Piper. I was able to speak with Dr Chanda Muzaffar, director of the International Movement for a Just World or JUST, a Kuala Lumpur-based organization that works to increase cross-cultural dialogue in an effort to "discover that the spiritual and moral worldviews and values embodied in all religious and cultural philosophies can offer the human race much needed guidance in our common quest for a just world". Dr Muzaffar said his group helped to organize one of Piper's speaking engagements. He told me that Piper had spoken mainly about the influence of the neo-conservatives and "the hidden power behind Washington". Piper was an interesting draw, explained Dr Muzaffar, because he discussed "manifestations of Washington's overwhelming military power." JUST's website is consistent with the aforementioned mission; its essays are aimed at increasing understanding and most of its analysis centers on the exercise of power to protect its own interests. Although the US government is a common target, there is no mention of Jewish influence or conspiracy theories. The website also has essays describing the difference between anti-Semitism and radical Zionism. In my discussions with people in Malaysia, I discovered an unfortunate reality that derives from lack of experience. Many people here do not know the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Israel. The two are conflated. A senior journalist at Malaysiakini.com, a popular online newspaper here, explained to me that the concept of anti-Semitism doesn't really exist in Malaysia. "People say things about the Jews," he said, "but it's not at the level of racism." He explained that most people have not met Jews, so the remarks stem from a sort of benign ignorance. He suggested that it would take a push from the outside to create true racism. Another discussion with a Malaysia-based American human-rights advocate confirmed this: "To have anti-Semitism, to classify it as such, you need to have incidents, like spray-painting a synagogue, or something like that. Here that just doesn't happen, because there are no targets." Thus, people are groping to understand world events, and people like Piper are ready with a framework that explains all the unfairness and injustice that exists. The International JewA recent trip through a bookstore at Kuala Lumpur's central train station revealed a treasure trove of anti-Semitic literature, including two versions of Henry Ford's The International Jew, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The New International Jew. There were also numerous titles in Malay. I asked the manager about the books, and he said they can't keep them on the shelves. "This one [The International Jew], we must sell 50 a day. We have already had to reorder three times." When asked why people are buying them, the manager said it's because they want to know about Jews, especially now. Some of the books were published by the Thinker's Library, a local publishing house that takes its name from the renowned Thinker's Library of London, which once published works by Brave New World author Aldous Huxley, among others. I called and spoke to the director of the Thinker's Library, who had his whole line of English-language books couriered to my office the next day. He said the books about Islam weren't big sellers but The International Jew was about to go into its third print this year; the first two runs of 3,000 books each had sold out. So why is the book selling so well? "People here love anything about conspiracies," the bookstore manager said, adding that he got the text off the Internet. The International Jew originally was published in the 1920s. It is now part of the public domain, meaning that any publisher can print it freely. Extremist publishing houses in the US such as Noontide Press make these works conveniently available online. Another Thinker's Library title, Gordon Mohr's The New International Jew, is published "by special arrangement" in Malaysia. These books are widely available in other bookstores around the capital as well. The synopsis on the jacket of the abridged version of The International Jew, which is also available on the Internet, explains that "the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion reveal a concerted plan of action, or intention, and achievement, through centuries of world history". The Protocols has been recognized as one of the most pernicious hoaxes in history, and was used to justify pogroms against the Jews in czarist Russia, as well as by the Nazis to support "the Final Solution", the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish people. Conversations with book dealers in the night markets of Kuala Lumpur reveal that the Protocols is kind of an underground favorite. And while it is understood in the West that this book is a hoax, it is sold as an authentic document here. Publications such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The International Jew contributed to the zeitgeist from which the Holocaust sprang. People believed what they read. Now these works are finding readers in Malaysia. The same thing is happening throughout the world, it seems. Universal disapproval of Israeli foreign policy is fueling a resurgence of anti-Jewish sentiment. Anti-Israel becomes anti-Jew. "It's not the ideas that we're afraid of," says Rabbi Cooper, "It's the blind embrace of hatred. The hate is not new, the ideas are not new." But there are new opportunities to spread the hatred. The Internet, it has been written, is a massive, unregulated "Wild West" technological frontier in which anything goes. Hatred and racism seem to go very well, and the Internet has indeed facilitated the dissemination of racist propaganda. For example, RadioIslam.org, a Sweden-based organization founded by Ahmed Rami, claims to reveal the truth of the Jewish conspiracy and carries the text of the Protocols in 11 languages. The Protocols has become so widespread that the Wiesenthal center has translated its "Debunking the Big Lie" into Arabic and will soon make it available on its website. The Anti-Defamation League's website says that "the Internet has given free access to the hatemongers in the US to cross-pollinate with anti-Semites globally to spread their venom of hate on a scale [like] never before possible". Roots of anti-Semitism in MalaysiaRabbi Cooper said that the most virulent anti-Semitism comes from the Middle East, but that it is spreading among moderate Muslims around the world. "It's a kind of cancer that started in the Middle East in which thinkers have borrowed classic anti-Jewish themes to paper over the lack of democracy in the Arab world ... It has little to do with Islam and everything to do with hate." Malaysians watch the Israel/Palestine conflict very closely, and feel sympathy for the latter. Much of the anti-Israel sentiment in Malaysia comes from former prime minister Mahathir. Mahathir is well known for tirades against the Jewish conspiracy made during his 22-year reign. His most famous remarks were aimed at financier George Soros and include a speech he made at the Organization of Islamic Conference last year, where he stated that "the Jews rule the world by proxy" and insisted that "1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews". Mahathir discusses global Jewish hegemony matter-of-factly and says he has lots of Jewish friends. He invited the Israeli cricket team to play a game in Malaysia to enhance understanding. That may be the case for Mahathir, but it's not the case for most Malaysians. And while analysts debate the motivations behind Mahathir's comments, some claiming that he is forced to say such things due to domestic political considerations. Others maintain he is, in his heart, anti-Jewish. Whatever the case, the fact remains that his opinion carries weight in Malaysia, and since there is no debate, argument, or counterweight, people reasonably take his word as truth. The only evidence of a Jewish presence in Malaysia is an old Jewish cemetery in Penang. There are no synagogues here, and nobody to refute the allegations that Jews control the world. An intellectual veneerEveryone from the National Alliance to French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen are scrambling to identify themselves with more moderate positions. Le Pen's championing of the cause of Iraqi children is a good example of extremists attempting to show their "human side". This move has been hijacked by the more esoteric elements of global hegemonic theory by the Jewish conspiracy crowd. The fact that International Movement for a Just World was willing to host Piper is evidence enough of this conflation of world views. But the differences are fundamental; one outlook makes an argument based on power and money, while the other is purely racial in nature. It is integral to the new anti-Semitism that common cause be found with anti-establishment intellectuals, those who see global politics as manifestations of power and money. By adopting elements of these more palatable world views, the Pipers of the world are able to find a forum among intellectuals not familiar with their true motivations. US extremists contacted for this article confirm that meshing of ideals. Tom Metzger, leader of White Aryan Resistance, explains that their "anti-transnational corporation, anti-imperialist position" finds a great deal of like-minded people around the world. Piper and the writers at American Free Press have learned to tone down the language a bit, but the message remains the same. US hate-group leaders have expressed admiration for the September 11 terrorists on numerous occasions and admit to an ideological affinity with extremists. Public Eye, the online portal of the American non-profit organization Political Research Associates, explains that the extreme right in the US has three ideological affinities with fundamentalist Muslims: 1) A hatred of Jews who are seen in the traditional anti-Semitic caricature of running the world through secret conspiracies; 2) A hatred of the US government, which is seen not just as a global bully but also as a tool of the Jews; and 3) A desire to overthrow existing governments and replace them with monocultural nation states built around the idea of supremacist racial nationalism. Thus, there is an ideological marriage of convenience. As Metzger puts it, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". Does it really matter?One political analyst suggested that the concept of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy is a coping mechanism. "It makes it a lot easier to understand the world if you can pick out a few bad guys, a plan, or a plot, and blame all the bad things that are happening in the world on that," he said. Rabbi Cooper suggested that there is a "need to find conspiracy theories that will get Islamists and jihadists of the hook". So in Malaysia, where there are no Jews, it may seem irrelevant. "What's the harm?" one might ask. But Cooper explained that for a nation determined to be recognized as "developed" by the year 2020, it is very dangerous. "Bringing in a guy like Piper to speak to your decision-makers is like bringing in the lunatic fringe to provide analysis of the Bush administration's plans over the next four years ... It's a terrible signal to investors in the US," Cooper said. Whether Piper's appearance here indicates a lack of research by his hosts, or a genuine anti-Jewish bent, his cause is served. He and others like him will continue to bang the drum of Jewish conspiracy now that they have found a new audience. Perhaps the most telling excerpt from Piper's interview with the Star was a comment on the US election: "The pro-Israel influence will remain, whichever party wins the election ... Israel wins whoever wins the presidential election." And either way, people like Piper will still be in business. Keith Andrew Bettinger is a researcher and journalist currently based in Kuala Lumpur. His interests include development and environmental issues, as well as US and international politics. He is a native of Shreveport, Louisiana, and has advanced degrees in international affairs and education. He can be contacted at kisu1492@yahoo.com.

Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased 50 percent with children in the US, and 73 percent among adults, from 1996 to 2006, according to a study in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs. Another study in the same issue of Health Affairs found spending for mental health care grew more than 30 percent over the same ten-year period, with almost all of the increase due to psychiatric drug costs.On April 22, 2009, the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported that in 2006 more money was spent on treating mental disorders in children aged 0 to 17 than for any other medical condition, with a total of $8.9 billion. By comparison, the cost of treating trauma-related disorders, including fractures, sprains, burns, and other physical injuries, was only $6.1 billion.In 2008, psychiatric drug makers had overall sales in the US of $14.6 billion from antipsychotics, $9.6 billion off antidepressants, $11.3 billion from antiseizure drugs and $4.8 billion in sales of ADHD drugs, for a grand total of $40.3 billion.The path to child drugging in the US started with providing adolescents with stimulants for ADHD in the early 80s. That was followed by Prozac in the late 80s, and in the mid-90s drug companies started claiming that ADHD kids really had bipolar disorder, coinciding with the marketing of epilepsy drugs as "mood stablizers" and the arrival of the new atypical antipsychotics.Parents can now have their kids declared disabled due to mental illness and receive Social Security disability payments and free medical care, and schools can get more money for disabled kids. The bounty for the prescribing doctors and pharmacies is enormous and the CEOs of the drug companies are laughing all the way into early retirement.Psychiatric Drugs ExplainedDuring an interview with Street Spirit in August 2005, investigative journalist and author of "Mad in America," Robert Whitaker, described the dangers of psychiatric drugs. "When you look at the research literature, you find a clear pattern of outcomes with all these drugs," he said, "you see it with the antipsychotics, the antidepressants, the anti-anxiety drugs and the stimulants like Ritalin used to treat ADHD.""All these drugs may curb a target symptom slightly more effectively than a placebo does for a short period of time, say six weeks," Whitaker said. However, what "you find with every class of these psychiatric drugs is a worsening of the target symptom of depression or psychosis or anxiety, over the long term, compared to placebo-treated patients.""So even on the target symptoms, there's greater chronicity and greater severity of symptoms," he reports, "And you see a fairly significant percentage of patients where new and more severe psychiatric symptoms are triggered by the drug itself."Whitaker told Street Spirit that the rate of Americans disabled by mental illness has skyrocketed since Prozac came on the market in 1987, and reports: (1) the number of mentally disabled people in the US has been increasing at a rate of 150,000 people per year since 1987, (2) that represents an increase of 410 new people per day and (3) the disability rate has continued to increase and one in every 50 Americans is disabled by mental illness.The statistics above beg the question of how could this happen when the so-called new generation of "wonder drugs" arrived on the market during the exact same time period. The truth is, the "wonder drugs" cause most of the bizarre behaviors listed by doctors to warrant a mental illness disability.Psychiatric Drug GoldmineThe CIA "World Factbook" estimate the world population to be about 6.8 billion and the US population to be a mere 307 million. In an April 2008 report, the market research firm Datamonitor reported that the "US dominates the ADHD market with a 94 percent market share."ADHD drug prices at a middle dose for 90 pills at DrugStore.com, are: Adderall $278, Concerta $412, Desoxyn $366, Strattera $464 and Vyvanse $385. Daytrana costs $437 for three boxes of 30 nine-hour patches.The SSRI and SNRI antidepressants include GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil and Wellbutrin, Pfizer's Zoloft, Celexa and Lexapro from Forest Labs, Luvox by Solvay, Wyeth's Effexor and Pristiq and Lilly's Prozac and Cymbalta. The average price of these drugs is about $300 for 90 pills at DrugStore.com.The prices for anticonvulsants can run as high as $929 for 180 tablets of Glaxo's Lamictal, and $1170 for 180 tablets of Johnson & Johnson's Topamax.In 2008, the atypical antipsychotics took over the slot as the top revenue earners in the US, and include Seroquel by AstraZeneca; Risperdal and Invega marketed by Janssen, a division of J&J; Geodon by Pfizer; Abilify from Bristol-Myers Squibb; Novartis' Clozaril and Eli Lilly's Zyprexa. The average price on these drugs for 100 pills at DrugStore.com is about $1,000. Lilly also sells Symbyax, a drug with Zyprexa and Prozac combined, at a cost $1,564 for 90 capsules at DrugStore.com in May 2009.The briefing material submitted to an FDA advisory panel in April 2009 reported that an estimated 25.9 million patients worldwide had been exposed to Seroquel since its launch in 1997 through July 31, 2007, in the US, and the second quarter of 2007 for countries outside the US. Of that number, an estimated nearly 15.9 million took Seroquel in the US, compared to only ten million patients in the rest of the world. In 2008, the US accounted for roughly $3 billion of Seroquel's $4.5 billion in worldwide sales.For the full-year of 2008, Eli Lilly reported worldwide Zyprexa sales of about $4.7 billion, with US sales of $2.2 billion and only $2.5 billion for the rest of the world.FDA as Promotional ToolOn June 12, 2009, an FDA advisory panel gave the green light to expand the marketing of Zyprexa, Seroquel and Geodon for use with 13 to 17 year-olds diagnosed with schizophrenia and 10 to 17 year-olds diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The FDA usually follows its advisers' recommendations."Such approval gives manufacturers a shield from liability - for illegally promoting the drugs for off-label use," said Vera Hassner Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection."And such approval ensures increased use of these drugs," she warned. "Manufacturers and mental health providers will profit while children's physical and mental health will be sacrificed.""The body of evidence showing these drugs to be harmful is irrefutable," she said, "it is documented in FDA's postmarketing database, and in secret internal company documents uncovered during litigation."According to Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the atypicals increase the risk of obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks and stroke.He said the drugs were marketed as safer and easier to tolerate than the older, cheaper antipsychotics because they would cause fewer neurological injuries like tardive dyskinesia and akathisia.Those claims turned out to be totally false, he said, and "they continue to cause same neurological side-effects as the older antipsychotics.""Children are known to be compliant patients and that makes them a highly desirable market for drugs, especially when it pertains to large-profit-margin psychiatric drugs, which can be wrought with issues of non-compliance because of their horrendous side effect profiles," according to a June 29, 2009 paper titled, "Drugging Our Children to Death," in Health News Digest.com, by Gwen Olsen, who spent over a decade as a pharmaceutical sales rep, and authored the book, "Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher."Children are forced to take their drugs by doctors, parents and school personnel, she said. "So, children are the ideal patient-type because they represent refilled prescription compliance and 'longevity.'""In other words," Olsen noted, "they will be lifelong patients and repeat customers for Pharma!""The initiative to drug our children for profit has exceeded all common sense boundaries and is threatening the welfare of every American child," she stated, and it "is up to each and every one of us to stop this madness!"Drug Makers BustedMost all of the psychiatric drug companies have come under investigation over the past several years for promoting their drugs for off-label use, especially with children. However, the fines they end up paying are trivial compared to the profits earned through the illegal marketing campaigns.In September 2007, Bristol-Myers Squibb entered into a $515 million civil settlement with the US Department of Justice for illegally marketing drugs, including Abilify, for off-label uses. In the first six months of 2009, Abilify had sales of $1.9 billion. In 2008, the salary and compensation package of Bristol-Myers' CEO, James Cornelius, was $23,150,236, according to the AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch Database.On January 29, 2009, Paxil and Wellbutrin maker, GlaxoSmithKline, announced that it would record a legal charge in the fourth quarter of 2008 of $400 million relating to an ongoing investigation initiated by the US attorney's office in Colorado into the US marketing and promotional practices for several products for the period 1997 to 2004. The government inquired about alleged off-label marketing as well as medical education programs for doctors, "other speaker events, special issue boards, advisory boards, speaker training programmes, clinical studies, and related grants, fees, travel and entertainment," according to a Glaxo annual report.In January 2009, Eli Lilly settled with the DOJ and more than 30 states for $1.4 billion over the off-label marketing of Zyprexa. The agreement included a $615 million fine for a federal criminal charge. But $1.4 billion was chump change considering that Zyprexa was still Lilly's best seller in 2008, with sales of $4.69 billion. Lilly also has paid over $1 billion to settle lawsuits filed by Zyprexa patients. In the first six months of 2009, Zyprexa sales were $1.5 billion. In 2008, Lilly's CEO, John Lechleiter, had a pay package worth $12,856,882In September 2009, the DOJ reached a $2.3 billion settlement with Pfizer related to the off-label promotion of several drugs, including the psychiatric drugs, Geodon, Zoloft and Lyrica, in the largest health-care fraud settlement in history. But even though Pfizer took the entire $2.3 billion as an earnings charge for the fourth quarter of 2008, the drug maker was still able to post a fourth quarter profit of $268 million. Pfizer's CEO in 2008, Jeffrey Kindler, had a salary and pay package of $15,547,600.Johnson & Johnson is also dealing with the DOJ and state-level investigations into the off-label marketing of Risperdal. The company's latest SEC filing lists nine subpoenas received by the company involving promotions of Risperdal, including one "seeking information regarding the Company's financial relationship with several psychiatrists." In the first six months of 2009, Risperdal earned $660 million. J&J's CEO, William Weldon, had a pay package worth $29,127,432 in 2008.AstraZeneca's third quarter SEC filing lists a $520 million tentative settlement agreement with the US attorney's office in Philadelphia to resolve allegations related to the off-label marketing of Seroquel. At "least 34 states are pursuing separate investigations of AstraZeneca's marketing practices as part of a joint investigation and others may be conducting their own probes," according to Ed Silverman on Pharmalot."A half a billion dollar one-time settlement is just a small cost of doing business for a company that sold $17 billion worth of the offending drug in the last five years," Dr. Roy Poses points out on the Health Care Renewal web site. In 2008 alone, Seroquel had world-wide sales of more than $4.4 billion.As of July 13, 2009, AstraZeneca was also defending approximately 10,381 served or answered personal injury lawsuits and approximately 19,391 plaintiff groups involving Seroquel, according to SEC filings. Some of the cases also include claims against other drug makers such as Eli Lilly, Janssen Pharmaceutica and/or Bristol-Myers Squibb, the filing notes.On September 23, 2009, Shire Pharmaceuticals received a subpoena from the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General in coordination with the US attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeking production of documents related to the sales and marketing of Adderall XR, Daytrana and Vyvanse, according to Shire's third quarter report for 2009.In a November 6, 2009, SEC filing, Abbott Labs said the federal prosecutor for the Western District of Virginia was conducting an investigation for the US Justice Department of whether the company's sales and marketing of Depakote violated civil or criminal laws, including the Federal False Claims Act and an anti-kickback statute related to reimbursement by Medicare and Medicaid programs to third parties.In 2008, Depakote had sales of $1.36 billion and Abbott CEO, Miles White, had a salary and compensation package of $28,253,387.In February 2009, the DOJ unsealed a lawsuit alleging that Forest Laboratories marketed the antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro for unapproved uses in children, and paid kickbacks to induce doctors to promote the drugs, including Dr. Jeffrey Bostic at Harvard University. In its latest SEC filing, Forest disclosed that it reached an agreement in principle in May 2009 to settle the civil aspects of US federal and state probes. "Penalties in the civil settlement are covered by a $170 million reserve Forest created in April," according to a November 9 report by Dow Jones.Forest also disclosed that the agreement "does not resolve the government's ongoing investigation into potential criminal law violations" related to Celexa and Lexapro, and thyroid drug Levothroid, Dow Jones notes. In 2008, the salary and compensation for Forest CEO, Howard Solomon, was $6,565,324.Over the past year and a half, a large number of so-called "Key Opinion Leaders" in the field of psychiatry have been exposed for not fully disclosing money received from many of the drug companies above through an investigation by the US Senate Finance Committee under the leadership of Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.The list so far includes Harvard University's Joseph Biederman, Thomas Spencer and Timothy Wilens; Charles Nemeroff and Zackery Stowe from Emory; Melissa DelBello at the University of Cincinnati; Alan Schatzberg, president of the American Psychiatric Association from Stanford; Martin Keller at Brown University; Karen Wagner and Augustus John Rush from the University of Texas and Fred Goodwin, the former host of a radio show called "Infinite Minds," broadcast by National Pubic Radio.Fines as a Business ExpenseThe fraud settlements are "merely a cost of doing business to these pharmaceutical Goliaths and, in fact, caps their liability for these crimes," said Alaskan attorney Jim Gottstein, the leader of the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights), a public interest law firm."Most importantly," he noted, "these settlements have not stopped the practice of psychiatrists and other prescribers giving these drugs to children and youth and Medicaid continuing to pay for these fraudulent claims.""Because of the massive, harmful, increase in the psychiatric drugging of America's children and youth, who are inherently forced, PsychRights has made addressing the problem a priority," he said.Gottstein conducted an investigation and determined that the vast majority of off-label psychotropic drug prescriptions for children and youth that are paid for by Medicaid constitute Medicaid fraud.PsychRights now has a national "Medicaid Fraud Initiative Against Psychiatric Drugging of Children & Youth," designed to address this problem by "having lawsuits brought against the doctors prescribing these harmful, ineffective drugs, their employers, and the pharmacies filling these prescriptions and submitting them to Medicaid for reimbursement," according to its web site."Anyone who submits or causes claims to be submitted to Medicaid for drugs that are not for a 'medically accepted indication' is committing Medicaid Fraud," said Gottstein, in a July 27, 2009 press release announcing the launch of the national campaign."Those guilty of this Medicaid Fraud include psychiatrists and other physicians prescribing these drugs, their employers, and pharmacies submitting the false claims to Medicaid," he pointed out.PsychRights estimates that over $2 billion in such fraudulent Medicaid claims are being paid by the government each year."Once one sues over specific offending prescriptions, all of such prescriptions can be brought in, which means that any psychiatrist on the losing end of such a lawsuit will almost certainly be bankrupted, because each offending prescription carries a penalty of between $5,500 and $11,000," PsychRights explained.It is hoped that once the doctors and pharmacies realize they are subject to financially ruinous Medicaid fraud judgments, the practice will be stopped or substantially reduced."Each prescriber may have a million dollars or few, at most, to lose, but the pharmacies' financial exposure can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars and it is hoped this will attract attorneys to take these cases," the web site noted.In September and October 2009, Gottstein gave presentations on the initiative at the annual conferences of the National Association of Rights Protection and Advocacy and the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology in order to find people who are potentially interested and willing to pursue such cases."This was successful and we have at least a few such cases cooking," he reported. "PsychRights stands ready to help people interested in bringing such suits."In late 2006, Gottstein won international fame by subpoenaing and releasing thousands of documents involving Eli Lilly's illegal marketing of Zyprexa, which resulted in front page stories in The New York Times.PsychRights also has an appeal pending on a lawsuit filed against the state of Alaska and responsible state officials seeking declaratory and injunctive relief that Alaskan children and youth on Medicaid have the right not to be administered psychotropic drugs unless and until a number of specific conditions are met. The lawsuit seeks to prohibit the state from paying for psychiatric drugs prescribed off-label to children and youth.In responding to the lawsuit, the state claimed that they do have any control over or responsibility for the psychiatric drugging of children in their custody, or any responsibility under Medicaid, and moved for dismissal on the grounds that PsychRights does not have standing, or the right to bring the suit, because it was not harmed by the state's actions.The court agreed and dismissed the case. "We think the judge is wrong and have filed an appeal," said Gottstein.In May 2009, Gottstein sent letters to Sens. Charles Grassley and Herb Kohl and Reps. Henry Waxman, Bart Stupak, John Dingell and Barney Frank, describing the massive Medicaid fraud involved in the prescribing of psychiatric drugs to children in the US and asked for "assistance in stopping these illegal reimbursements."As of November 8, 2009, Gottstein reported, "I haven't gotten as much as an acknowledgment of receipt from any of the members of Congress to whom I wrote."While pursuing causes on behalf of PsychRights, Gottstein donates all of his time on a pro bono basis.

Jared Rodriquez Truthout photo page;http://www.flickr.com/photos/truthout

see also,http://www.teenscreentruth.com/WhatYouCanDo.html & http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=400008

& http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260376459428599.html#mod=rss_whats_news_us_business

Poor Children Likelier to Get Antipsychotics