One might wonder if TMZ host Harvey Levin is getting special access in the case of Nick Reiner as he apparently is doing his best to make the case that the double murder of Rob and Michele Reiner was not a cold-blooded attack by their son but, rather, is due to 32-year-old Nick Reiner’s reported schizophrenia.

There are many problems with Levin focusing so much on Nick’s reported schizophrenia diagnosis. Levin makes the case that the diagnosis is not new and that Nick has been living with schizophrenia for some years. What Levin fails to address is that Nick’s mental illness problems go back decades, long before the schizophrenia diagnosis.

There is no doubt that Nick’s first diagnosis was not schizophrenia. No. Rob and Michele had an out-of-control child and, as the family bought into the psychiatric model, took Nick for help very early on.  

One might make the case that Nick’s first diagnosis was attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and was “treated” with a stimulant like Ritalin (methylphenidate). And given the reported anger issues associated with Nick’s behavior, the ADHD diagnosis also could have been coupled with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) which often is “treated” with an antipsychotic or even an antidepressant if there is underlying depression or anxiety. 

That Nick was on a cocktail of prescription psychiatric drugs from a very young age is completely within the realm of possibilities and, of course, raises a host of issues. First, why have Nick’s mental health records been sealed by the court? Knowing Nick’s entire mental health record is a necessity.

First, though, it is necessary to correct Levin when he says that schizophrenia is a “disease.” Schizophrenia is NOT a disease – an objective, confirmable abnormality. Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis, like all psychiatric diagnoses, with no known abnormality in the brain. In other words, there are behaviors that make up the schizophrenia diagnosis like hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking and behaviors to name a few. But there is no abnormality in the brain that can be targeted and “treated.”

The prescription psychiatric drugs utilized as “treatment” can cause the same symptoms that make up the schizophrenia diagnosis. It appears that Levin wants to make the case that Nick did not receive the appropriate focus on schizophrenia “treatment” at the numerous rehabs but, rather, those rehabs focused on Nick’s extracurricular drug addictions. 

What Levin is not explaining is that Nick’s life, for decades, was prescription psychiatric drugging. Levin is making a case for the schizophrenia being responsible for the brutal murders when the TMZ host has failed to take into consideration all of the mental disorder diagnoses Nick surely received over three decades and the number of drug cocktails Nick had been subjected to as “treatment.”

Specifically, though, Levin has not explained to his audience that nobody knows what causes schizophrenia and any “treatment” that is utilized does not target an abnormality. In fact, the pharmaceutical companies that make the drug “treatments” have no idea how the drugs work in the brain as “treatment” for schizophrenia.

Abilify is a medication used as “treatment” for schizophrenia, and its mode of action is explained by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this way. “The mechanism of action of aripiprazole, as with other drugs having efficacy in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, is unknown.” Clueless. But the fact that nobody has any idea how the drug “works” as “treatment” for schizophrenia doesn’t stop the mental health industry from pushing the drugs on unsuspecting people.

Levin has even suggested that Nick’s mental health experts were in the process of getting his drugs “right.” Of course, the mental health experts have no idea what “right” is because there is no abnormality that is being “treated.” The “experts” have no idea what they are doing when they prescribe cocktails of psychiatric mind-altering drugs because none of the drug cocktails, whatever they may be, have ever gone through rigorous clinical trials to determine efficacy. 

If anything, Nick was a typical modern mental health patient. Despite spending $70,000 a month on mental health services, Nick received the same “treatment” as what is normally provided to the poorest on Medicaid. The extent of Nick’s “treatment” was all about getting repeatedly diagnosed and drugged.  Blaming Nick’s troubles on extracurricular drug use is a stretch, especially in light of father Rob’s admission in a September interview for NPR that Nick “has been clean for six years.” 

Despite Levin’s push to blame the alleged schizophrenia for Nick’s murderous behavior, there is another answer. The known side effects of antipsychotics like Abilify include homicidal ideation, severe agitation, distress, uncontrolled movements, anxiety, irritability, insomnia, restlessness, aggression, depression, psychotic disorder, panic reaction, suicidal ideation, abnormal dreams, hostility, hypomania, and delirium to name a few. 

Now, assuming that the mental health “experts” being paid $2,300 a day were mixing cocktails of psychiatric drugs to help Nick, let’s assume an antidepressant was thrown into the mix. What are some known side effects of antidepressants? Side effects associated with the antidepressant Zoloft, for example, include agitation, anxiety, nervousness, insomnia, aggravated depression, aggressive reaction, depersonalization, mania, suicidal ideation, psychotic disorder, and abnormal dreams and thinking to name a few. 

The fact that Levin has not reported any of this information to his substantial audience is telling. It’s not a secret. The very psychiatric drugs used as “treatments” can cause the psychiatric diagnoses. The mental health “experts” concocting the “cocktail” of drugs to “treat” Nick’s alleged schizophrenia have no idea how the drugs “work” in the brain. It literally is a craps shoot, and Nick had a lifetime of these “treatments.” 

Rather than push the “untreated” schizophrenia line, Levin would do a world of good if his sources could release the very lengthy list of psychiatric drugs Nick had been prescribed throughout his 32 years. The answer to the brutal murders lies there. Of course, being whacked out on psychiatric drugs does not meet an insanity plea.

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AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization that has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.

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