Emergency notification: methylene blue is highly neurotoxic to your brain and mind

methylene blue is a Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor (MAOI). As such, it is one of the most toxic agents ever used in medicine and psychiatry, and the mother of the most dangerous drugs used in psychiatry

In reality, methylene blue is a lethal neurotoxin, a poison to the brain. It has the same basic chemical composition and harmful clinical effects as the oldest and most neurotoxic “antidepressants,” the monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). It also has similarities to the neurotoxic phenothiazine “antipsychotic” drugs, including the original Thorazine (chlorpromazine), but methylene blue is more stimulating or activating.

Methylene blue is not a miraculous new discovery. It’s the opposite. Created in 1876 in a lab, it is the oldest manmade chemical to be used in medicine. But for well over a century, methylene blue has never been FDA-approved for psychiatric purposes. Later, its chemical structure was modified in labs to create many of the earliest, most neurotoxic psychiatric drugs.

Methylene blue is widely marketed over the counter to the general public as well as to the natural health, health freedom, and freedom communities, often on the internet. It’s flooding America.

Some sellers are touting methylene blue as a “miracle” tonic that improves “cognitive function”¹ and boosts energy to previously unimagined heights. Some have given live demonstrations on TV and podcasts demonstrating how the oral form hyperactivates some people within 35 minutes of the first dose — a typical stimulant drug rush—which is actually a danger signal for potentially activating them into a dangerous manic episode during future exposures or even more deadly outcomes.

Methylene blue suppresses or destroys forms of the enzyme monoamine oxidase that are used by the brain for controlling or modulating four different powerful neurotransmitters — serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. In short, by crushing monoamine oxidase, methylene blue causes overstimulation of four of the brain’s major neurotransmitters, all of which profoundly impact the mind.

After the FDA was created in 1906, methylene blue was grandfathered into the market by the agency as an obscure antidote for methemoglobinemia, but it must be emphasized that the FDA has never tested the safety of methylene blue for any purpose. Furthermore, the FDA, based on its adverse reporting system and scientific reports, has published serious warnings about potentially lethal adverse reactions from methylene blue, especially when combined with numerous other drugs.²

The first MAOIs used as depressants were derived from methylene blue, and they turned out to be so toxic that the first two were quickly taken off the market by the FDA. One caused lethal liver disease, and the other caused hypertensive crises. Methylene blue is known to impair liver function tests and to cause hypertensive crises. Early on, all MAOIs were removed for a while from the international list of approved drugs. Please go to this endnote in my report for a list of historical and scientific studies about the extraordinary history and the nature of methylene blue and the other MAOIs.³

Psychiatry and the psychopharmaceutical complex are so driven to impose neurotoxins upon our brains that some MAOI antidepressants remain on the market today. FDA Full Prescribing Information for the existing MAOI antidepressants, readily available online,⁴ provides quick access to the kinds of adverse effects caused by methylene blue. These FDA documents also provide lists of the foods and of some of the many, many drugs you cannot take with MAOIs, like methylene blue, without risking death from serotonin syndrome or a hypertensive crisis.

Meanwhile, all of America is being made a market for the original mother of them all, methylene blue, without requiring a prescription, with bizarrely distorted claims, and with unlimited supplies handed out as easily as a new caffeinated soda.

All of the three approved MAOIs, as well as methylene blue, carry repeated warnings at the FDA and in the scientific community about causing the two potentially crippling and lethal outcomes, serotonin syndrome and malignant hypertension (see below). These potentially lethal outcomes, as with all MAOIs, become much more serious and higher risk when methylene blue is taken with certain foods such as cheese and bananas, or literally with so many other drugs that it is impossible to memorize them or to keep track of them.

Here is one version of a short summary of the long list of dangerous interactions between MAOIs, including methylene blue, and other drugs and foods, taken from Goodman and Gilman’s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics (2018, p. 274):

Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors

Serotonin syndrome is the most serious drug interaction for the MAOIs (see Adverse Effects). The most common cause of serotonin syndrome in patients taking MAOIs is the accidental co-administration of a SHT reuptake-inhibiting antidepressant or tryptophan. Other serious drug interactions include those with meperidine and tramadol. MAOIs also interact with sympathomimetics such as pseudoephedrine, phenylephrine, oxymetazoline, phenylpropanolamine, and amphetamine; these are commonly found in cold and allergy medication and diet aids and should be avoided by patients taking MAOIs. Likewise, patients on MAOIs must avoid foods containing high levels of tyramine: soy products, dried meats and sausages, dried fruits, home-brewed and tap beers, red wine, pickled or fermented foods, and aged cheeses.

I am presenting this detailed summary in the hope of gaining the immediate attention of people and businesses who are promoting methylene blue and anyone who is unfortunately taking it. Please share this summary or the entire document as widely as possible and with proper attribution.

This article continues with my professional experience in psychopharmacology, followed by a lengthy scientific analysis with more than two dozen endnotes containing an even greater number of scientific citations.

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My Background in Psychopharmacology Related to Analyzing Methylene Blue

In presenting this emergency notice on the dangers of methylene blue, I am drawing on a lifetime of professional work, starting with my own published animal laboratory research while a medical student.⁵ My research demonstrated for the first time that exposures of animals to intramuscular adrenaline (a combination of epinephrine and norepinephrine) might give initial activation or stimulation, but that more prolonged exposure over a few minutes or hours made the animals sedated, exhausted, sluggish, or blunted for the duration of their drug exposure. I hypothesized that a feedback mechanism to the hypothalamus caused a compensatory reaction that slowed down the brain and made the animals sluggish.

Methylene blue is in the biochemical and clinical classification of Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs) used as “antidepressants,” but it has no FDA testing for safety! It has all the same hazards as the FDA-approved MAOIs for depression and is probably biochemically more harmful or neurotoxic. It is made even more dangerous in the manner in which it is sold, marketed without medical supervision as a powder or liquid, with unlimited doses made available at once, and with enormously unrealistic expectations and no extensive warnings.

Since becoming a psychiatrist, I have written many scientific papers and many books⁶ showing how human beings who take psychiatric drugs sometimes are initially stimulated when the drug over-activates the monoamine neurotransmitters, including epinephrine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine; but eventually, similar to the animals, the human drug recipients typically become more subdued, apathetic, or disengaged from their own feelings, those around them, and with life itself.

Since the 1970s, I have researched, published, lectured, consulted, and testified in court about adverse drug effects. I have been a medical consultant and expert in hundreds of malpractice, negligence, and product liability lawsuits against drug companies, medical facilities, and medical doctors who make, market, or prescribe these neurotoxins, including consultations to the FAA (about pilots taking antidepressants), to a committee of U.S. attorneys general, and to several committees of the U.S. Congress.⁷ I have also testified in court more than 100 times, mostly about adverse drug effects causing very serious outcomes such as psychosis, mania, violence, and suicide.

Because they do more harm than good, I do not prescribe psychiatric drugs as a treatment in my clinical practice. Instead, I offer individual and family therapy, as well as education on more effective and healthier principles of living. However, I have specialized for decades in withdrawing patients from the medications given to them by other prescribers, which continues to provide me with considerable personal experience with prescribing these medications.

I am the author of the only medical textbook on the subject, called Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and Their Families.

Destructive Claims for Methylene Blue

Within the general population as well as the freedom and health freedom communities, methylene blue is now being heralded as a nearly harmless potion that will improve all of our lives, backed online by testimonials of well-known freedom fighters and researchers. One demonstration shows that in 30 minutes, we will feel better than ever, lifting our usual physical and mental functioning to new levels. Some of the individuals look and sound very “hyper” and even mildly euphoric, with some distortions in perception and thinking. That means that the individual has taken a truly toxic drug and is in more grave danger with continued use.

In particular, methylene blue is credited with “cognitive enhancement” and who among us wouldn’t like more of that — especially when we’re so stressed or overworked? Methylene blue is being marketed by businesses and people within the health freedom and freedom movements as a “miracle” and a “silver bullet” for everything you can imagine.

I will not at this time name any person or any business who is promoting methylene blue, some of whom I know and even love. My hope is that they will hear the truth and simply stop marketing it, and hopefully stop taking it themselves. Ultimately, the widespread use of methylene blue, especially among freedom-oriented people and some of their most revered leaders, is one more threat to the survival of human freedom.

Overview of the Impact of Neurotoxins on the Lives of Humans

Most people taking psychiatric drugs eventually lose the intensity of caring required to defend freedom. All psychoactive drugs, and MAOI “antidepressants,” are especially neurotoxic, eventually robbing individuals of their own personal sovereignty and their motivation and ability to defend their rights. And as we shall demonstrate, these same drugs rob individuals of their ability to understand how badly impaired they have become by the drugs. I call it medication spellbinding (see below).

Methylene Blue is a Highly Toxic Monoamine “Antidepressant”

As already emphasized, methylene blue is a Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor (MAOI). As such, it is one of the most toxic agents ever used in medicine and psychiatry, and the mother of the most dangerous drugs used in psychiatry today.

Their severe adverse effects can be confirmed by looking at the FDA’s Full Prescribing Information or Label for any of the other MAOI antidepressants. Although most psychiatrists know enough to avoid prescribing them, several of these drugs remain FDA-approved for depression. Methylene blue is at least as dangerous as these very dangerous medications and is sold to an unsuspecting public, hearing promotions such as “three bottles for the price of two.”

When you take methylene blue, you are exposing yourself to the original lab-manufactured “psychiatric drug” from the 1890s that is so toxic to the brain and body and has so many bad interactions with other drugs and foods that even Big Pharma has not tried to get it approved by the FDA. Methylene blue can cause deadly serotonin syndromes and hypertensive crises, but much more commonly, it produces an artificial euphoria and manic reactions. The brain dysfunction that causes euphoria is very dangerous because it disinhibits people and is an early phase of the continuum of neurotoxicity that can lead to psychosis, mania, and violence. Ultimately, continued use of any such antidepressant can cause long-term chronic impairment of the brain and mind, and other organs of the body. All regularly used “antidepressants” act in this manner because they are modeled on and often derived from methylene blue.

Drugs.com Warns Healthcare Providers of Dangers of Methylene Blue, Even When Used Orally

Drugs.com⁸ provides several pages with long lists of adverse reactions from methylene blue. It is too long to include here. Then, in a section for “healthcare professionals,” it estimates the frequencies of some of the adverse effects. The top of the section specifically indicates that these reactions pertain to the compounded powders and tablets, which is how the drug is being dispensed as a liquid, powder, or tablet without prescriptions:

---

For healthcare professionals

Applies to methylene blue: compounding powder, injectable solution, intravenous solution, oral tablet.

Psychiatric

• Common (1% to 10%): Anxiety

• Frequency not reported: Confusional state, agitation

Nervous system

• Very common (10% or more): Dysgeusia (20%) [taste decreased or lost], dizziness (16%), headache (10%), paresthesia [tingling, numbness or “pins and needles” on or under your skin]

• Common (1% to 10%): Headache, paresthesia oral, dizziness postural

• Frequency not reported: Serotonin syndrome (with concomitant use of serotonergic drugs), tremor, aphasia [disability comprehending or producing speech]

Cardiovascular adverse events

• Common (1% to 10%): Chest pain, chest discomfort, presyncope, syncope

• Frequency not reported: Cardiac arrhythmia, tachycardia, hypertension, hypotension, palpitations

Gastrointestinal

• Very common (10% or more): Nausea (13%)

• Common (1% to 10%): Vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, hypoesthesia oral, oral discomfort

• Frequency not reported: Feces discoloration (blue-green), dry mouth, flatulence, glossodynia [burning mouth syndrome], tongue eruption, thirst, oropharyngeal pain, blue colored saliva^]

Immunology

• Common (1% to 10%): Influenza-like illness, Influenza

Musculoskeletal

• Very common (10% or more): Pain in extremity (84%)

• Common (1% to 10%): Musculoskeletal pain, back pain, muscle spasms, chills, arthralgia

• Frequency not reported: Serotonin syndrome, myalgia

Metabolic

• Common (1% to 10%): Decreased appetite, limb discomfort

• Frequency not reported: Local tissue necrosis at the injection site

Genitourinary

• Very common (10% or more): Chromaturia (blue-green) (74%)

• Frequency not reported: Dysuria [difficult or painful urination]

Hematologic

• Common (1% to 10%): Ecchymosis [bruising]

• Frequency not reported: Hemolytic anemia, hemolysis, methemoglobinemia, hemoglobin decreased, hyperbilirubinemia (in infants only)

Hypersensitivity

• Frequency not reported: Anaphylaxis

Local [injection site]

• Common (1% to 10%): Injection site pain, injection site discomfort

• Frequency not reported: Infusion site extravasation, infusion site induration, infusion site pruritus, infusion site swelling, infusion site urticaria, peripheral swelling

Ocular

• Frequency not reported: Mydriasis, eye pruritus, ocular hyperemia, vision blurred

Hepatic

• Frequency not reported: Elevated liver enzymes [indicators of liver dysfunction]

Respiratory

• Common (1% to 10%): Dyspnea [shortness of breath]

• Frequency not reported: Dyspnea, tachypnea, hypoxia [loss of oxygen, potentially life-threatening],⁹ nasal congestion, rhinorrhea, sneezing

Other

• Very common (10% or more): Feeling hot (17%), fever

• Common (1% to 10%): Feeling cold, discomfort, catheter site pain

• Frequency not reported: Genotoxicity [damage to the genetic information within a cell causing mutations, which may lead to cancer], fever, lack of effectiveness, interference with in-vivo monitoring devices, interference with laboratory tests

Dermatologic

• Very common (10% or more): Skin discoloration (blue) (13%), hyperhidrosis (13%), sweating

• Common (1% to 10%): Pallor, contact dermatitis, pruritus, cold sweat, erythema

• Frequency not reported: Urticaria [hives], necrotic ulcer, papule, phototoxicity, rash (blue macules, severe burning pain)

  ---

The above is the complete list for “healthcare providers,”¹⁰ including some reactions from Short-term injection rather than ingestion. The frequencies of adverse effects are very high, which is typical of MAOIs, but surprising when there are few long-term exposures in regard to the accepted uses for methylene blue.

Remember, this list applies to the liquid, powder and tablet forms that are routinely on sale without prescriptions.

FDA Publishes Serious But Incomplete Warnings About Methylene Blue

The FDA has issued serious warnings about methylene blue, titled FDA Drug Safety Communication: Serious CNS reactions possible when methylene blue is given to patients taking certain psychiatric medications.¹¹

Although these warnings are based on combining methylene blue with other antidepressants, it is a matter of degree, and all the adverse effects can be caused by methylene blue alone. The reports are mostly based on brief injections of methylene blue, commonly requiring a single dose. The FDA warns that methylene blue is a “potent” “monoamine oxidase inhibitor” and elaborates on safety measures to be taken after potential adverse events. It states:

The reported adverse events include the following: lethargy, confusion, delirium, agitation, aggression, obtundation, and coma. These symptoms were frequently accompanied by neurological symptoms, such as myoclonus, expressive aphasia, hypertonia, and seizures, or autonomic symptoms, such as pyrexia and elevated blood pressure.

The FDA notes the danger of an extreme serotonin syndrome caused by methylene blue in combination with other similar drugs:

It is believed that when methylene blue is given to patients taking serotonergic psychiatric medications, high levels of serotonin can build up in the brain, causing toxicity. This is referred to as Serotonin Syndrome. Signs and symptoms of Serotonin Syndrome include mental changes (confusion, hyperactivity, memory problems), muscle twitching, excessive sweating, and fever.

How the Brain Is Injured and then Injures Itself by Fighting Against Methylene Blue and All Psychoactive Substances

The direct injuries of neurotoxins on our complex brain are infinite. Innumerable research papers are published every year on how various psychoactive drugs, including psychiatric drugs, injure the brain on the cellular and biochemical level, and too often it is gross enough to be detected using sophisticated functional analyses as well as PET scans. Basically, any psychoactive substance that affects the brain and mind, even if it “feels good,” is poisoning the highest centers of the brain and harming or destroying multiple brain functions on a cellular and biochemical level. I have discussed this in many scientific articles and books, especially in great detail in my medical textbook, Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Second Edition.¹²

In that book, using the SSRI antidepressants as a model, I described at least three compensatory actions by the brain that go into action to inhibit the drug-induced excitatory neurotransmissions while adding new imbalances to the brain. First, when the brain senses the drug-induced pathological changes, the cells of origin of the particular monoamine transmitter stop producing it. Second, the receptors on the cells that receive the neurotransmission become less sensitive or die. And third, the transport mechanisms for removing serotonin from the synapse increase their power to remove the neurotransmitter.

These changes in the brain, forced on it by the neurotoxins, add to the harm from the drugs. In animal studies, these compensatory changes can persist long after the drug has been stopped. That is one cause of withdrawal reactions.

While I was able to unearth this research early in my career by simply looking for it in the scientific literature, it is practically a secret in the profession of psychiatry. Even professionals rarely learn about how the brain resists drugs because it is rarely taught in medical schools or residencies, and rarely mentioned in textbooks of medicine or psychiatry, which essentially promote drugs as part of the Psychopharmaceutical Complex.

How People Significantly Harmed by Methylene Blue, or Any Psychoactive Drug, Often Mistakenly Believe It is Helping Them

In my private practice, I regularly withdraw patients from psychiatric drugs with similar biochemistries to methylene blue. As the patients recover, they often realize for the first time how blunted they have become since starting on the drugs. I have characterized this lack of self-awareness about the neurotoxic effects of neurotoxic substances while under their influence as “medication spellbinding” or, more technically, medication anosognosia—the failure to identify one’s mental and emotional decline while taking psychiatric drugs. As I describe in my book, Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal, it derives from the dysfunction in the frontal lobes invariably produced by psychiatric drugs given at normal, effective doses. Medication spellbinding applies to all psychoactive substances, both medical and non-medical, and helps to explain why people continue to take harmful drugs.

Another reason many individuals stay on harmful drugs is that they become confused and discouraged by painful withdrawal symptoms, which definitely can occur with methylene blue (see below). Withdrawal effects often confuse patients, family members, or doctors because they can be misunderstood as proving the need for the drug when they, in fact, reinforce the need to get off the harmful drugs. Withdrawal symptoms prove that the drug is having a negative effect that is being covered up until the person tries to withdraw.

Both medication spellbinding and withdrawal are especially confusing to the person who is taking the medication, so even if methylene blue is “helping you,” you may be dead wrong.

The emotional insensitivity can last for a lifetime as long as the drugs are still taken. As I help patients carefully and gradually withdraw from the drugs, almost everyone becomes more able to reengage with their own inner life, with the lives of the people they love, and with every aspect of their own lives.¹³

The Brain-Disabling Principle of Psychiatric Drugs, including Methylene Blue

Methylene blue has so many destructive impacts on the body that it is beloved by researchers who imagine it will still someday prove to be a miracle drug in psychiatry, and even in neurology and elsewhere.¹⁴ This twisted thinking is the source of all psychiatric drugs — that by pouring neurotoxins into the brain, and disrupting its most basic processes, we are going to somehow cure “mental illnesses” by making the brain function better. This is what I have, for many decades, researched and called “the brain-disabling principle of psychiatric drugs.” It not only applies to neurotoxic psychiatric drugs, but more grossly to lobotomy and electroshock (ECT).

Poisoning the brain with neurotoxins, burning holes in it with psychosurgical electrodes, and traumatizing it into a coma with huge overdoses of electricity in ECT, would be simply ludicrous if were not the cause of tens of millions of deaths and untold billions of injured brains and minds, and the mainstay of psychiatry and the psychopharmaceutical industry.

I have researched and written about the “brain-disabling principle of psychiatric treatment” in many scientific articles and in easily available books, including the textbooks Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock, and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex, second edition (2008) and Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and their Families (2013), as well as in the popular book, Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime (2008).

Marketing methylene blue as especially “pure” and “strong” may sound good, but since methylene blue is a neurotoxin in the same class as the oldest so-called anti-depressant, Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors (MAOIs), purity and strength make it potentially far more dangerous.

Marketers may also claim the drug is being dispensed in small, safe doses, but that has no basis. First, people vary highly in how they react to low doses of neurotoxins. Second, if you are beginning to “feel good” or “energetic” or “highly focused” or “filled up with buoyancy and clarity,” your brain is already being made sick. It is being poisoned, and many poisons, especially those of a stimulant nature, make us feel good — and the better we feel the more our brain is being hyper-energized into a continuum of over-stimulation that can cause very bad judgement, disinhibition, anger and irritability, and eventually mania and violence, followed by crashing into depression and suicidality.

There are no drugs that interfere with your neurotransmitters without harming your brain and mind. Because psychoactive drugs cross the blood-brain-barrier, their effect is always widespread enough to reach the most elaborate or highest centers of your brain that control functions like love, reason, judgment, self-control, and overall sanity.

Methylene blue, which is considered a “potent” MAOI by the FDA, suppresses or breaks down the function of an enzyme called monoamine oxidase. The scientific process describes MAOI inhibitors as “degrading” the enzymes, making them ineffective in controlling these neurotransmitters, in effect unleashing four of the best-studied, most powerful, and stimulating neurotransmitters in the animal and human brain.

Monoamine oxidase is essential to the equilibrium system of the brain. It acts to inhibit at least four well-studied monoamine enzymes from becoming too active or energized: serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine and epinephrine.

Imagine the danger. With your first dose of an MAOI drug, your control mechanism over four potentially stimulating or activating neurotransmitter systems is inhibited or abruptly disrupted in your brain. Yes, in a flash, it may seem good, great, or extraordinary, but at considerable potential cost in terms of injury to your brain, mind, and life.

This destructive process involved in destroying the monoamines in our brains is called “modulating” neurotransmitter systems by advocates of the MAOIs. In fact, these neurotoxic agents are vastly impairing the natural, existing modulation system in the brain by inhibiting or destroying monoamine oxidase. To this day, continuing with the SSRIs and the SNRIs, this is the primary mechanism of action for many or most psychiatric drugs, especially the antidepressants and stimulants.¹⁵

Cocaine is another drug that causes hyperactivation of these same four neurotransmitters—serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine.¹⁶ Another is methylphenidate (Ritalin, Focalin, and other names), and others are methamphetamine (rarely used in psychiatry) and amphetamine (often used as Adderall). Textbooks of pharmacology put all these stimulants into the same chapter about stimulants.

Serotonin Syndrome as a Cause of Brain Damage and Death

The worst adverse effect of methylene blue is death from serotonin syndrome — a state of extreme central and peripheral nervous system excitation that can be lethal. I have considerable experience with this potentially deadly and brain-damaging syndrome because it can also be caused by the so-called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) antidepressants, such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro and Celexa and the selective serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) including duloxetine (Cymbalta), venlafaxine (Effexor XR), and desvenlafaxine (Pristiq).

With MAOI antidepressants, the serotonin syndrome is a particular threat (along with malignant hypertension). The following is from the Parnate FDA Full Prescribing Information:¹⁷

Manifestations of the serotonin syndrome may include mental status changes (e.g., agitation, hallucinations, delirium, coma), autonomic instability (e.g., tachycardia, labile blood pressure, dizziness, diaphoresis, flushing, hyperthermia; with possible rapid fluctuations of vital signs), neuromuscular symptoms (e.g., tremor, rigidity, myoclonus, hyper-reflexia, incoordination), seizures, and/or gastrointestinal symptoms (e.g., nausea, vomiting, diarrhea). Fatal outcome of serotonin syndrome has been reported…

Many years ago, I had a new patient come to me, a sophisticated health professional in his thirties named John, who was receiving an SSRI from his psychiatrist and getting worse as the psychiatrist increased his dose. John’s more astute therapist noticed that John was having a bad reaction to his medication and made the referral to me. I could tell John was cognitively impaired and very anxious, and he seemed physically ill. He did not seem overstimulated or sedated, but he mentioned that he felt jumpy and stiff, and that when he crossed his knees on one occasion the night before, one of his legs jumped oddly.

I asked permission to give John a brief neurological examination — something most psychiatrists rarely or never do—and the first thing I did was to lightly tap one of his knees. Instantly, John’s entire body went into a spasm with arms and legs flexing uncontrollably. This was not a convulsion or seizure, but one enormous spasm of all his large muscles from over-stimulation.

Fortunately, I was able to arrange with John’s internist to admit him for examination and treatment on a medical ward — not a psychiatric ward — where my diagnosis was confirmed and he was quickly and safely given treatment for a serotonin syndrome. Because his psychiatrist had failed to diagnose him and continued his exposure to the SSRI antidepressant, John had a long physical recovery and wrestled with memory and concentration difficulties for years.

Serotonin syndrome can occur in varying degrees. Without going into a potentially lethal serotonin syndrome, you might have a fever, a sense that your mind is a little off, or feel your muscles stiffening. But if you had no idea that methylene blue was causing it, and if you then took more because you felt in more need of relief, your life would be at risk.

Hypertensive crises are another problem with MAOIs. They can become serious without being recognized if no one is taking blood pressure. If untreated, they can be fatal.

Recognition of the serotonin syndrome and hypertensive crises has greatly curtailed the use of MAOI antidepressants in psychiatry, making it more obviously egregious to spread them out into the community in the form of methylene blue with unlimited supplies and without any realistic warnings.

Documenting Adverse Reactions to the Oral Use of MAOIs Similar to Methylene Blue Through FDA Analyses of MAOI Antidepressants

Pages of adverse reactions are documented in the labels or Full Prescribing Information for MAOI antidepressants, including serotonin syndrome and hypertensive crises. Here are some especially relevant descriptions of adverse events for Parnate (tranylcypromine) tablets:¹⁸

Psychiatric disorders: excessive stimulation/overexcitement, manic symptoms/hypomania, agitation, insomnia, anxiety, confusion, disorientation, loss of libido Nervous system disorders: dizziness, restlessness/akathisia, akinesia, ataxia, myoclonic jerks, tremor, hyper-reflexia, muscle spasm, paresthesia, numbness, memory loss, sedation, drowsiness, dysgeusia, headaches (without blood pressure elevation)

Here are some warnings from the Nardil (MAOI) FDA Full Prescribing Information in the section on Adverse Drug Reactions:¹⁹

• Common (1% to 10%): Anorgasmia, hypersomnia, hypomania, insomnia, sleep disturbances

• Uncommon (0.1% to 1%): Agitation, behavioral changes, confusion, euphoria, frank psychosis, hallucinations, nervousness, vivid nightmares

• Rare (0.01% to 0.1%): Acute anxiety reaction, delusional parasitosis, manic reaction, precipitation of schizophrenia, toxic delirium

• Frequency not reported: suicidal behaviors, suicidal ideation

Withdrawal Problems with MAOIs

Making matters worse, after prolonged use over several weeks or a few months, withdrawal from drugs like methylene blue and all antidepressants can cause serious withdrawal reactions, and so stopping the drug requires cautious withdrawal.

Here are warnings from the Mayo Clinic about withdrawal or discontinuation symptoms from MAOIs:²⁰

Stopping treatment with MAOIs

Talk with your healthcare professional before you stop taking an MAOI.

Typically, MAOIs are not habit-forming. But if you stop an MAOI suddenly, you’re more likely to have discontinuation symptoms. This is sometimes called discontinuation syndrome. These symptoms can include:

Restlessness, irritability, or anxiety.

Upset stomach.

Feelings of tingling or burning.

Flu-like symptoms, such as chills, sweating, feeling generally unwell, and muscle aches.

Trouble sleeping.

Sluggishness, tiredness, or sleepiness.

Headache.

Confusion.

Dizziness.

The Mayo Clinic warning on MAOIs continues:

You’ll likely need to wait two or more weeks after the use of MAOIs before starting other antidepressants. This will help you avoid serotonin syndrome, where you have dangerously high levels of serotonin. During those two weeks, continue food and beverage restrictions and don’t take medicine that can cause serious interactions with MAOIs.

Many Other Drugs and Even Foods Can Cause Fatal Adverse Interactions with Methylene Blue

The risk of enduring a serotonin syndrome — or most of the other adverse effects of methylene blue and other MAOIs — is that the risks vastly increase with accidental exposure to innumerable other drugs, including all those that stimulate any of the four neurotransmitter systems that are stimulated by methylene blue.

Anyone taking psychiatric drugs, opioids, and alcohol is at risk of a bad interaction. And because methylene blue is likely to be unknown to your own doctor, you need to tell him or her that it is a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) like the older and relatively dangerous MAOI antidepressants. As mentioned earlier, these are phenelzine (Nardil), tranylcypromine (Parnate), selegiline (Eldpryl, Emsam, Zelapar), and isocarboxazid (Marplan). Even St. John’s Wort can interact negatively with MAOIs.²¹

Here’s a warning from Drugs.com that specifically addresses the vast numbers of dangerous drug interactions, specifically for methylene blue:

Many drugs can interact with methylene blue. Tell your doctor about all your current medicines and any you recently stopped using, especially: alfentanil, fentanyl; buspirone; digoxin, digitalis; dihydroergotamine, ergotamine; phenytoin; pimozide; quinidine; warfarin (Coumadin, Jantoven); an MAO inhibitor – isocarboxazid, linezolid, phenelzine, rasagiline, selegiline, tranylcypromine, and others; an “SSRI” antidepressant – citalopram, escitalopram, fluoxetine, paroxetine, sertraline, Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, and others; an “SNRI” antidepressant – desvenlafaxine, duloxetine, levomilnacipran, milnacipran, venlafaxine, Effexor, Cymbalta, Pristiq, and others; other antidepressants – bupropion, clomipramine, mirtazapine; or medicine to prevent organ transplant rejection – cyclosporine, sirolimus, tacrolimus.”

Drug Facts and Comparisons was a pharmacology book I frequently used until it went online as an expensive business product. The last edition was in 2017. It had a special section on methylene blue.²² Going through three pages of fine print, I counted more than 100 dangerous drug interactions listed and many of those were for large numbers of drugs in a single category. Here is a selection of dangerous interactions listed alphabetically: Amphetamines, Analgesics (opioids), Antipsychotic agents, Blood glucose lowering agents, Cannabinoid-containing products, Cyclobenzaprine (Flexeril)’ Dextromethorphan (cough medicine), Epinephrine, Fentanyl, Hydrocodone, Levodopa, Methylphenidate, Potassium chloride, Reboxetine, Thiazide and Thiazide-like diuretics, Trazodone, Tricyclic antidepressants.

The current massive promotion and distribution of methylene blue is in many ways worse than the massive distribution of prescriptions. Methylene blue is promoted with incredibly unrealistic claims for cognitive improvement, high energy, and profound feelings of well-being — all of which are really danger signs of brain dysfunction from over-stimulation of four key neurotransmitters in the brain. In respect to methylene blue, there is little or no informed consent, and hardly anyone realizes they are taking a highly toxic neurotoxin at least as dangerous as the worst prescription antidepressants and worse than most.

Conclusion

Our freedom and health freedom movements are surprisingly involved in the promotion and use of methylene blue. Is this sudden prolific marketing and use of methylene blue one more aspect of the assault on our movements? I know that this definitely is not the intention of many who promote it. If anything, they are looking for relief from their strenuous efforts for truth and freedom.

Remember, all psychoactive drugs impair our higher mental functioning, easily and quickly rendering us unable to care about or defend our human rights or to make the best decisions on behalf of ourselves and others. That robs us of our own personal sovereignty and adds to the defenselessness of our society and nation against oppression. And further remember, you may be the last person to realize what happens to you under the “influence” of drugs, so pay attention to when trusted friends or family members tell you about the negative impact on your mind and behavior. When you are temporarily feeling your best, you may be suffering from a euphoria or “high” caused by drug-impaired brain function, and that can lead to mania, psychosis, violence, or suicide.

I began this effort to publicize the dangers of methylene blue in my regular guest hour slot on the Tamara Scott Show on Worldview TV, where her moral and ethical insights added greatly to my presentation.²³ This May 6, 2025, video of the show may be a useful way for people to learn about the risks of methylene blue. In the closing remarks, my friend Tamara declared I had really dropped a bomb when I declared, “I think this is a CIA program,” and went on to explain how the CIA would want to destroy the Health Freedom Movement, and how the drug company Eli Lilly found a way to make tons of LSD and began giving huge amount to the CIA for its experiments on unwitting, involuntary people and also sold it into large crowds of Americans. The documentation is in an endnote from a CIA document from December 23, 2024, a book about the CIA and MKUltra, and from two of our radio interviews with a physician who survived CIA drug-involved abuses as a child.²⁴

If you feel that your well-being is dependent on psychoactive drugs, except for the judicious use of prescribed opioids for pain of physical origin, you are probably taking your life in the wrong direction. The good feelings you are getting are a sign that the drug is actually interfering with your natural brain function and that your brain is being compelled to make compensatory changes that will harm your functioning as well. In fact, as a medical expert, I have found that “feeling great” after starting an antidepressant such as an MAOI, an SSRI, or an SNRI is often a signal of impending mania, depression, or delirium that can lead to suicide or violence.

Living a mentally and emotionally good life takes self-understanding, ethical principles, and conducting ourselves on the basis of reason, love, and devotion to higher ideals including a loving God. All psychoactive substances impair the highest human functions required for living life as best as possible and methylene blue is among the most dangerous.

Dare to trust in a Loving God
Express gratitude for your gifts and opportunities
Take responsibility at all times
Stand firmly for freedom
Become a source of love

Listen to the podcast on this story here: Emergency notification for methylene blue! It’s highly neurotoxic to your brain and mind

By Peter R. Breggin MD

Published first on AmericaOutLoud.news May 16-17, 2025

End Notes

¹ All stimulants from caffeine to Ritalin (methylphenidate) and on to methamphetamine and cocaine, and including MAOIs, can produce subjective feelings of improved concentration or memory, and some short-term studies show a brief improvement. This is caused by obsessive-compulsive mental focusing and is driven by a narrowing of general awareness and judgment. No FDA-approved stimulants, for example, have been proven to help cognition or academic performance, and all harm the brain long-term. Here is as study that is negligent in its claims and its lack of warnings about methylene blue that may have encouraged the current epidemic use: https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.pn.2016.pp8a5 I have researched these issues in multiple scientific papers and books, including Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock, and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex, second edition (2008). For an easily accessible, comprehensive look at stimulant drug effects, also see my free resource center on children and stimulant medications: https://breggin.com/Childrens-Resources-Center

² Drug Safety Communication: Serious CNS reactions possible when methylene blue is given to patients taking certain psychiatric medications | FDA and FDA Drug Safety Communication: Updated information about the drug interaction between methylene blue and Drug Safety Podcasts > FDA Drug Safety Podcast for Healthcare Professionals: Updated information about the drug interaction between methylene blue and serotonergic psychiatric medications (methylthioninium chloride) and serotonergic psychiatric medications | FDA and much more comprehensive coverage of methylene blue adverse effects with special warnings for professionals can be found at Methylene Blue Monograph for Professionals – Drugs.com

³ Half_a_century_of_antidepressant_drugs_-20151101-21548-vmvosk-libre.pdf. Also see Methylene Blue: The Long and Winding Road From Stain to Brain: Part 2 – PubMed and Methylene Blue in the Treatment of Neuropsychiatric Disorders – PubMed; and Iproniazid | Antidepressant, Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor & Mental Health | Britannica; Methylene Blue: The Long and Winding Road From Stain to Brain: Part 2 – PubMed; Monoaminergic neurotransmission: the history of the discovery of antidepressants from 1950s until today – PubMed. These cover the fascinating history of MAOIs and Methylene Blue.

⁴ The currently approved MAOI antidepressants are phenelzine (Nardil), tranylcypromine (Parnate), selegiline (Eldpryl, Emsam, Zelapar), and isocarboxazid (Marplan).

⁵ Breggin, Peter. “The Psychophysiology of Anxiety.” Journal of Nervous Mental Diseases, 139, 558-568, 1964 and Breggin, Peter. “The Sedative-like Effect of Epinephrine.” Archives of General Psychiatry, 12, 255-259, 1965.

⁶ Especial see these books by Peter Breggin: Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock, and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex, second edition (2008). Springer Publishing Company; Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime (2008). St. Martin’s Press; Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and their Families (2013). Springer Publishing Company.

⁷ Microsoft Word – Peter-R-Breggin-MD-resume-121024.docx. For actual descriptions of many of my legal cases, see Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime (2008) in the index under “cases” and for additional earlier cases, see Breggin, P. and Breggin, G. Talking Back to Prozac (1994) in the index under “Prozac case studies/testimony).”

⁸ https://www.drugs.com/sfx/methylene-blue-side-effects.html

⁹ According to Mayo Clinic, “Hypoxia is low levels of oxygen in your body tissues. It causes symptoms like confusion, restlessness, difficulty breathing, rapid heart rate, and bluish skin. Many chronic heart and lung conditions can put you at risk for hypoxia. Hypoxia can be life-threatening. If you are experiencing symptoms of hypoxia, call 911 or go to the nearest ER. Hypoxia: Causes, Symptoms, Tests, Diagnosis & Treatment

¹⁰ The order of the list of adverse effects has been changed to put some of special interest or relevance nearer the top, including psychiatry and neurology. The brackets contain my explanatory notes and the parentheses from the original.

¹¹ Drug Safety Communication: Serious CNS reactions possible when methylene blue is given to patients taking certain psychiatric medications | FDA

¹² The discussion of compensatory reactions is under the subheading “The Brain Resists the Impact of SSRIs, “ pp. 175-178) and “Causing Brain Dysfunction and Shrinkage,” pp. 178-182).

¹³ Especially see, P. Breggin. Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Guide for Prescribers, Therapists, Patients and their Families (2013). Springer Publishing Company.

¹⁴ Methylene Blue: The Long and Winding Road From Stain to Brain: Part 2 – PubMed and Methylene Blue in the Treatment of Neuropsychiatric Disorders – PubMed

¹⁵ Monoaminergic neurotransmission: the history of the discovery of antidepressants from 1950s until today – PubMed

¹⁶ Epinephrine is often overlooked in scientific papers about cocaine, because there is less of it in the body than norepinephrine, but it is also activated by cocaine. Intravenous cocaine increases plasma epinephrine and norepinephrine in humans – ScienceDirect

¹⁷ PARNATE® (tranylcypromine) tablets, for oral use

¹⁸ PARNATE® (tranylcypromine) tablets, for oral use

¹⁹ Nardil Side Effects: Common, Severe, Long Term under the term adverse effects.

²⁰ https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-depth/maois/art-20043992#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20side%20effects%20of%20MAOIs%20include%3A,lightheadedness.%208%20Skin%20irritation%20at%20the%20patch%20site.

²¹ Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) – Mayo Clinic

²² Drug Facts and Comparisons, pp. 587-589, small print, double spaced. The subject heading is specifically for methylene blue. It is from the 2017 edition (its last book form).

²³ https://worldviewtube.com/tv/video/medical-monday-tamara-scott-dr-peter-breggin-5

²⁴ Here are some documents pertaining to CIA abuses using drugs: The book is Stephen Kinzer (2019). Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, see its index for LSD as a start. The CIA document is CIA Behavior Control Experiments Focus of New Scholarly Collection | National Security Archive. Our interviews with Juliette Engel, MD, are https://gingerbreggin.substack.com/p/surviving-ciamkultra-and-overcoming?r=ae2lk and https://gingerbreggin.substack.com/p/surviving-ciamkultra-and-overcoming?r=ae2lk. The CIA document says that Eli Lilly may have donated the LSD but the book says the CIA paid them $400,000. For more about Eli Lilly, I was appointed by consortium of lawyers and confirmed by a federal judge to the single scientific expert on discovery from Eli Lilly in what was supposed to be innumerable trials eventually but Elli Lilly literally fixed the first trial, as determined by the Kentucky Supreme Court, and that dissuaded dozens of unwitting attorneys from continuing to pursue the cases or to take minimal settlements. It was only later that the Kentucky Supreme Court gave its opinion condemning the drug company and lawyers. See my book, Medication Madness, “The Infamous Wesbecker Case,” in Chapter 18: Drug Companies.