Medicating Normal: Nicole Lamberson Interviews Jim Gottstein
MEDICATING NORMAL, the award-winning feature-length documentary. Millions of people worldwide take prescribed psychiatric medications daily. Medicating Normal follows five high-functioning people, including two military veterans, whose doctors prescribed pills to help with common problems such as stress, insomnia, anxiety, trauma and grief. The arguments extolling the benefits of these drugs are often the only ones presented to the public. Medicating Normal tells another story, one rarely reported. It is a story of harm done.
Jim Gottstein grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, where his father was a prominent businessman and his mother one of the most beloved women in town. Jim was on track to go into the family grocery and real estate empire, studying for a business degree at the University of Oregon when the law found him during his required Business Law class. He didn’t miss a question the entire class and realized law was a good fit. He managed to get into Harvard Law School as the only sky-diving applicant from Alaska that year. After graduating from law school in 1978, Jim went into private practice in Anchorage with Robert M. Goldberg, primarily representing Alaska Native organizations. In 1982, he experienced a psychotic break due to sleep deprivation and was introduced firsthand to the mental illness system. He was told he would be permanently mentally ill and to forget about his law career. Luckily, he escaped psychiatry and the experience led him to legal representation and other advocacy for people diagnosed with serious mental illness not as lucky as he. Jim opened his own law office in 1985, generally focused on business matters, and is now mostly retired from the private practice of law. In 2002, Jim founded the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) to mount a strategic litigation campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock and to inform the public about the counterproductive and harmful nature of the drugs and shock.
Nicole Lamberson is a Physician Assistant residing in Virginia. She obtained a BS at James Madison University in 2000 and then went on to complete the Master of Physician Assistant program at Eastern Virginia Medical School in 2004. She practiced in Urgent Care and Occupational Medicine settings until severe iatrogenic illness from prescribed psychiatric medication polypharmacy, withdrawal and protracted neurotoxicity left her unable to work. Aside from her outreach role with Medicating Normal, she co-founded The Withdrawal Project and serves on the Medical Advisory Board of Benzodiazepine Information Coalition. In the future, Nicole hopes to practice again with a focus on prescribed medication withdrawal management and also participate in education initiatives around psychiatric drug withdrawal for medical prescribers.
RELEVANT LINKS:
“The Zyprexa Papers”: https://thezyprexapapers.com/
“The Zyprexa Papers” on Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/The-Zyprexa-Pa…
Law Project for Psychiatric Rights IPsychRights), founded by Jim: http://psychrights.org
International Peer Respite / Soteria Summit: https://www.peerrespite-soteria.org
FIND JIM AND PSYCHRIGHTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
Jim Gottstein on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jimgottstein
PsychRights on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?…
PsychRights on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PsychRights
NEW YORK TIMES ZYPREXA COVERAGE BY ALEX BERENSON:
New York Times, “Eli Lilly Said to Play Down Risk of Top Pill”: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/bu…
The New York Times, “One Drug, Two Faces”: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/bu…
The New York Times, “Lilly Settles With 18,000 Over Zyprexa”: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/05/bu…
The New York Times, “Lilly Adds Strong Warning Label to Zyprexa, a Schizophrenia Drug”: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/06/bu…
The New York Times, “U.S. drug agency investigating accuracy of Lilly’s Zyprexa data”: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/bu…
The New York Times, “33 States to Get $62 Million in Zyprexa Case Settlement”: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/bu…
The New York Times, “Lilly Settles Alaska Suit Over Zyprexa”: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/bu…
The New York Times, “Eli Lilly E-Mail Discussed Unapproved Use of Drug”: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/bu…
The New York Times, “Lilly Waited Too Long to Warn About Schizophrenia Drug, Doctor Testifies”: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/he…
The New York Times, “Mother Wonders if Psychosis Drug Helped Kill Son”: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/bu…
The New York Times, “Lilly Said to Be Near $1.4 Billion U.S. Settlement”: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/bu…
The New York Times, “Drug Files Show Maker Promoted Unapproved Use”: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/bu…
The Zyprexa Papers, Hardcover edition
Buy: The Zyprexa Papers on Amazon.com
Author: Jim Gottstein
Edition: Hardcover
Publisher: Samizdat Health Writer’s Co-operative Inc.