New Antidepressant Warnings In the UK

Posted on November 9, 2026 by cchrstl

UK Strengthens Antidepressant Warnings While FDA Continues to Lad Behind

CCHR Continues Its Decades-Long Fight to Hold the FDA Accountable for Psychiatric Drug Risks

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is requiring clearer warnings about the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in antidepressant users of all ages, along with warnings about persistent sexual dysfunction that can continue long after the drugs are discontinued.

Once again, history repeats itself, with UK drug regulators taking action while the U.S. FDA lags behind.

In 2003, the UK’s MHRA was the first to warn of increased suicide and self-harm risks associated with SSRI antidepressants in young people. This prompted the FDA to finally act in 2004, despite having possessed evidence of these risks for decades. Even today, the FDA’s black-box suicidality warning identifies increased risk only through age 24—as though the danger magically disappears on one’s 25th birthday. The FDA has also yet to require a specific warning about Post SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD).

CCHR has been fighting to expose these risks for more than 35 years. Beginning in the late 1980s, CCHR received hundreds of reports of severe adverse reactions to Prozac, including agitation, suicidal ideation and violence. CCHR responded with a Citizen Petition, pressed for FDA scrutiny and helped bring these concerns before a 1991 FDA advisory committee hearing, where patients and families testified about devastating consequences.

?When the FDA failed to fully disclose its safety records, CCHR pursued Freedom of Information Act requests and sued the agency, challenging the withholding of critical information. Internal manufacturer documents revealing serious safety signals would not become public until years later.

CCHR fought to expose it. Yet decades later, American patients are still waiting for the FDA to fully acknowledge and warn about these drug risks. For decades, CCHR has continued to bring pressure to bear on the FDA, demanding full disclosure of psychiatric drug risks and accountability for regulatory failures. History has shown that it is public pressure, not regulatory benevolence, that drives the FDA to issue psychiatric drug safety warnings.

CCHR will continue that fight – with your help.

Please continue to support the cause.

DONATE to CCHR St. Louis

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Psychiatrists Must Be Held Accountable

Posted on October 26, 2026 by cchrstl

57 Regulatory Alerts Document Psychotropic Drugs’ Links to Violence

Recent court cases and media reports continue to link psychiatric drugs to senseless acts of violence. CCHR’s latest research makes it very clear: consumers need far stronger warnings, and psychiatrists must be held responsible when they prescribe these drugs without truly informing patients of the risks of aggression, violence, or suicide.

After years of CCHR campaigning, the FDA and international regulators have added agitation, aggression, and even homicidal thoughts to the labels of antidepressants, ADHD stimulants, and other central nervous system drugs.

CCHR has compiled 57 regulatory warnings and label updates since 2004 specifically tied to violence, aggression, or hostility. Of those, 13—nearly 23%—explicitly cite homicidal ideation or thoughts of harming others. Separately, CCHR identified 82 warnings and label updates related to suicide or suicidal ideation, with 72 percent involving antidepressants.

In 2004 the FDA issued a public health advisory linking antidepressants to anxiety, agitation, hostility, and impulsivity, then required boxed warnings on suicidality. Later updates extended similar language to stimulants and other drugs. Product labels for some of these drugs now list hostility, aggression, and, in some cases, homicidal ideation. Printing those words on a drug label, however, does not equal informed consent.

Courts are beginning to confront the consequences. Defenses of involuntary intoxication—where a patient took a prescribed drug as directed and had no reason to anticipate a psychotic or violent effect—have been raised in high-profile cases. Judges have allowed juries to consider the impact of prescription drugs on intent and criminal responsibility. A federal appeals court rejected the idea that a general label warning automatically means a patient “knew” the risk of becoming psychotic. 

When a drug triggers violence or suicide and the patient was never properly warned, the prescribing psychiatrist’s duty of care is directly at issue. Even the Psychiatric Times ran an article in late August entitled, “Psychiatry on Trial: Are Psychiatrists Responsible for Their Patients’ Criminal Behavior?”

Prescribers must disclose the risks of violence, aggression, and suicide, provide those warnings to patients in writing, and discuss them directly with patients and families. Patients need this information so they can recognize emerging aggression, agitation, or suicidal thoughts and seek prompt medical help without abruptly stopping the drug.

CCHR has been sounding this alarm since 1989. The issue is also beginning to receive legislative attention. Tennessee enacted a law in 2025 requiring testing for psychiatric drugs in deceased suspected mass shooters and expanded it in 2026 to allow testing of surviving suspected perpetrators with their consent. These measures show that authorities are beginning to formally investigate the potential drug factor. We are working to get ALL states to adopt similar legislation. 

However, real protection for patients also depends on accountability at the point of prescription. 

Your support makes this work possible. CCHR continues to document regulatory alerts and press for psychiatrists and other prescribers to be held responsible when they fail to inform patients of these life-threatening risks.

Please stand with us! Donate today to help CCHR keep these warnings in the public eye and demand informed consent.

Thank you for your commitment to protecting consumers from psychiatric drug harm!

Donate to CCHR St. Louis

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‘Plant-Based’ Psychedelics Push Masks Synthetic Drugs and Billion-Dollar Profits

Posted on October 19, 2026 by cchrstl

Fast-tracked psychedelics risk repeating psychiatric drug disasters as synthetic compounds are promoted as safe and natural, violating informed consent.

By CCHR International
The Mental Health Watchdog
May 5, 2026

An Executive Order signed April 18, 2026 directs federal agencies to fast-track Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of and expand patient access to psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin and ibogaine, to treat “mental illnesses.” The order calls for accelerated research, priority regulatory reviews, and new access pathways under the federal Right to Try Act, a law originally designed to help patients with life-threatening illnesses obtain experimental treatments that have passed early safety testing but are not yet fully approved.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) warns that this initiative risks repeating the documented shortcomings of earlier psychiatric drugs, such as antidepressants, now with serious documented adverse effects. CCHR further cautions that the claim psychedelics are “natural” or “plant-based” is deceptive marketing, as these substances are typically laboratory-synthesized compounds, similar to conventional antidepressants.

Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, states: “Switching one mind-altering drug with another is like switching seats on the Titanic. Consumers—many desperate from the failure of other psychiatric drugs and electrical ‘therapies’—are being misled about psychedelics being ‘plant-based,’ just as they were in the 1990s with claims that a serotonin imbalance in the brain caused depression requiring an SSRI antidepressant.”

She further states: “Calling psychedelics a ‘plant-derived’ market is egregiously misleading and violates informed consent. They call it ‘plant-derived,’ but you’re swallowing factory-made chemicals. The plant’s name is borrowed, but the plant is skipped to produce it chemically. It is akin to calling lab-manufactured psychedelics herbal tea in a capsule.”

CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.

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International Movement to End Forced Mental Health Treatment is Well-Supported by Research

Posted on September 28, 2026 by cchrstl

International mental health standards call for mental health services that are person-centered, recovery-oriented, and adhere to human rights standards.

by CCHR National Affairs Office

International mental health standards have been shifting in recent years away from involuntary mental health treatment and towards mental healthcare provided only to those consenting to receive it, as a growing number of research studies indicate the ineffectiveness and harm for many people from forced treatment. 

Involuntary mental health treatment includes detention against one’s will in psychiatric facilities, psychiatric drugs forcibly administered, the use of restraints and seclusion, and the administration of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT, or electroshock) without the consent of the individual. 

The exact number of individuals held against their will in psychiatric facilities in the U.S. is not known, as many states do not require providers to report it.  A 2021 study found there were more than 590,000 involuntary psychiatric holds in 2014 in 24 states that, at the time, accounted for 52% of the U.S. population.  It also found that from 2011 to 2018, the average state rate of psychiatric detention increased three times as much as the average increase in state population.  Estimates suggest that as much as 54% of U.S. admissions to psychiatric inpatient settings are involuntary.

State laws allow individuals in the U.S. to be detained in psychiatric facilities and treated against their will if they are a danger to themselves or others or are unable to care for themselves.  State laws also provide for the protection of certain rights during psychiatric confinement. 

But media investigations suggest, and lawsuits allege, that mental health service providers have ignored the laws, wrongly admitting, holding and treating individuals against their will in psychiatric facilities, then charging them and their insurance companies for the stays.  The recent National Health Care Fraud Takedown by the U.S. Department of Justice included allegations of over $220 million in fraud by behavioral and mental health providers.

Many concerns over involuntary mental health treatment

The decision of whether to involuntarily commit a person can be influenced by factors unrelated to their actual mental health condition.  Research indicates the likelihood of being detained in a psychiatric facility is increased by an individual’s male gender, single marital status, lower level of education, homelessness, lower income, unemployment, and geographic region of the country, as well as the personal attitudes and beliefs of the psychiatrist involved in the decision.

Racial disparities exist in psychiatric confinement and treatment.  Compared with White patients, Black patients are not only more likely to be admitted against their will, but are also 85% more likely to be restrained with a physical or mechanical hold or with medication than White patients, and often for longer periods.

There is little research supportive of the use of involuntary psychiatric hospitalization, but many studies have found it harmful. 

Research suggests the shame and self-contempt felt by many in reaction to being involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, along with the stress experienced, may lead to self-stigma, reduced empowerment, and poor quality of life.

Many patients perceive involuntary psychiatric hospitalization and treatment as more punitive than therapeutic, staff as more judgmental than empathetic, and the hospitalization overall failing to meet their needs.

People whose admission to a psychiatric facility was coerced were more likely to attempt suicide after being released than those whose admission was not, according to a 2020 study.  Another study found that compared to those who had not received any psychiatric treatment, those who had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital were at a 44 times greater risk of suicide, even after taking their worse mental health conditions into account.

The use of psychiatric drugs as the primary treatment for individuals deemed to be a danger to themselves has also been called in question.  A 2019 reanalysis of FDA data on the safety of antidepressants found evidence that the rate of (attempted) suicide was 2.5 times higher in those using antidepressants compared to those not taking the drugs. Antidepressants are first-line treatment in the U.S. for depressed individuals.

As for danger to others, “psychiatric drugs cannot protect against violence unless the patients are drugged into a zombie-like state,” according to physician and medical researcher Peter Gøtzsche, M.D., director of the Institute for Scientific Freedom.

What’s more, many psychiatric drugs have been linked to an increased risk of violence. A 2010 analysis of the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System found that 31 out of 484 prescription drugs were disproportionately associated with violence, and 25 of those 31 were psychiatric drugs. The most recent documentary from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, Prescription for Violence, details a deadly link between psychiatric drugs and acts of mass violence.

The use of restraints and seclusion in involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations is another area of serious concern. Legally, these practices can only be used in emergency safety situations and only when all less restrictive interventions have been attempted.

However, restraints and seclusion still carry the risks of psychological distress, physical injury to the patient or staff, and even death. The incidence of so-called PTSD after seclusion or restraint ranges from 25% to 47%, especially adversely impacting patients with past trauma, according to the findings of a 2019 study.

The power imbalance between staff and patients in inpatient psychiatric facilities can lead to physical, psychological, and sexual abuse by staff, leaving patients feeling threatened, humiliated, dehumanized, and powerless. In particular, sexual abuse and sexual assault are recognized risks in mental health care settings. The perpetrators may be mental health staff or other patients.

Shifting international mental health standards

The evidence of negative outcomes for many patients subjected to involuntary commitment and treatment has led to the shifting of international mental health standards towards supportive, person-centered treatment that patients freely choose from options whose risks and benefits are fully disclosed. Individual liberty would no longer be involuntarily restricted as a means of social control.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has taken the unequivocal position that involuntary psychiatric treatment does more harm than good and should be ended. “Coercive practices are pervasive and are increasingly used in services in countries around the world, despite the lack of evidence that they offer any benefits, and the significant evidence that they lead to physical and psychological harm and even death,” WHO has reported.

“People subjected to coercive practices report feelings of dehumanization, disempowerment, being disrespected and disengaged from decisions on issues affecting them,” WHO continues. “Many experience it as a form of trauma or re-traumatization leading to a worsening of their condition and increased experiences of distress.” WHO has called on U.N. member nations to enact laws to replace coercive psychiatric practices with person-centered, rights-based mental health treatment.

Coercive practices also may be considered violations of several articles of the U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), a document signed but not yet ratified by the U.S. Rights laid out in the CRPD for people with disabilities – including mental disabilities – include the right to be free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 15) and the right to freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse (Article 16) – rights which are viewed as prohibiting involuntary psychiatric treatment.

Europe’s leading human rights assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, has also moved towards eliminating involuntary mental health practices. It passed a resolution in 2019 entitled, “Ending coercion in mental health: the need for a human rights-based approach,” which advised its 46 member nations that they should “immediately start to transition to the abolition of coercive methods in mental health settings.”

Since 1969, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) has been a global leader in the fight to eliminate coercive and abusive psychiatric practices and expose the harm and fraud in involuntary psychiatric detention and treatment.

CCHR calls for legislative action to require the collection of standardized data for more transparency on the extent and effects of involuntary inpatient civil commitment; to advance towards the goal of ending all use of coercive measures and repealing the laws enabling them; and to redirect state and federal funding to programs and services that address the real causes of, and provide real solutions for, the stresses causing poor mental health.

The content on this site is for informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for personal medical advice given by a physician or other healthcare provider.

Anyone wishing to discontinue or change the dose of a psychiatric drug is cautioned to do so only under the supervision of a physician because of potentially dangerous withdrawal symptoms or other complications.

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Time to Ban Electroshock Treatment

Posted on September 14, 2026 by cchrstl

Torture Passed Off as “Therapy” Must End

Electroshock treatment or “electroconvulsive therapy” (ECT) is not, and has never been, a “modern medical advance”. It is psychiatry’s barbaric holdover from the 20th century that continues to inflict lasting harm under the guise of “therapy”—and it should be banned.

CCHR has campaigned against ECT for decades. CCHR helped secure the first U.S. ban on ECT for children under 12 in California (1976), in Texas (1993) for those under 16, and in Western Australia in 2014, with criminal penalties that include a $15,000 fine and two years’ imprisonment. CCHR is now working with a coalition of like-minded professionals to expose how damaging ECT truly is so it can be banned once and for all.

After decades of exposing this, the media is finally beginning to catch on 

  • The Times published an article in 2025 entitled “Electric shock therapy used on 1,000 patients against their will.”  It reported that more than 1,000 patients in Scotland received ECT against their will in 2024.
  • Mad in America published an article in 2025 entitled “Nearly All ECT Recipients Report Negative Effects, Study Finds.”
  • A recent Daily Star article on ECT in the UK was entitled “Controversial treatment still used on 2,500 Brits a year as survivor says it ‘felt like rape.’”
  •  Another article in The Observer, entitled “Is ECT therapy safe?” quoted clinical psychologist Lucy Johnstone, who called ECT “one of the major unrecognized medical scandals of our time.”
  • Professor John Read recently wrote an article published in Mad in America entitled “To the Few Psychiatrists Who Still Believe in ECT: See You in Court.” The article argues that litigation may ultimately do more than research to curb ECT. It cites a 2005 South Carolina verdict awarding more than $600,000 to a woman who suffered severe memory loss, and a 2023 Florida federal jury verdict finding ECT-device manufacturer Somatics liable for failing to warn about risks including brain damage and permanent memory loss. Another lawsuit, which named two psychiatrists and the hospital as defendants, settled shortly before trial in May 2026 after surviving efforts to dismiss it. Read says it was the first California case in which individual psychiatrists and a hospital were successfully sued over alleged ECT injuries or failure to warn.

Other international organizations are also exposing this. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture classifies non-consensual electroshock as torture. The World Health Organization has flagged additional risks from ECT including cardiovascular complications, severe memory impairment, and even death. 

The momentum is building against this horrific practice. CCHR remains committed to banning ECT and now others are jumping on the bandwagon. We are steadfast in this goal, but we can only reach it faster with your support, so please help us by making a generous donation today. 

Your support helps expose the damage psychiatrists are inflicting with ECT, assist survivors, and fight for a full ban. Please stand with us today!

DONATE to CCHR STL

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Government Report Provides Updated Evidence of Entrenched Racism in U.S. Mental Health Services

Posted on September 7, 2026 by cchrstl

Black Americans receiving mental health services are disproportionately diagnosed with disruptive, defiant and psychotic disorders, and are nearly twice as likely to be physically, mechanically, or chemically restrained in mental health facilities, restrained for a longer time, and more likely to die in restraints.

by  CCHR National Affairs Office 

African Americans and other Black Americans are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups to receive mental health diagnoses of psychiatric disorders related to disruptive, defiant and psychotic behavior, according to an updated government report on Americans’ use of mental health services. 

In mental health programs operated or funded by state mental health agencies, psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health providers disproportionately diagnosed Black people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), schizophrenia, conduct disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), the  2026 annual report from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) indicates.  The report is based on data collected in 2024.

Black people comprised 19.6% of those utilizing state mental health services, but accounted for 32.7% of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders – significantly higher than their proportion in the population serviced. 

Black young adults aged 18 to 24 years, comprising 19.7% of young adults serviced, accounted for an even more disproportionate 35.4% of young adults diagnosed with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders.

Black children aged 0 to 17 years comprised 18.7% of all children receiving mental health services from state agencies, but received a disproportionate 26.2% of diagnoses of oppositional defiant disorder and 27.3% of diagnoses of conduct disorder.

An exceptionally large proportion of Black children – one in three (36.2%) – were diagnosed with ADHD, the most frequent mental health diagnosis for these children. 

The typical treatment is ADHD drugs, many of them stimulants, often prescribed  before changes in behavior management   are even tried.  Research has  found, however, that any initial benefit from stimulants decreases over time, with little if any long-term benefit.

Patients continue to be exposed to stimulants’ side effects, including loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping, anxiety, headaches, nausea and vomiting, tremors, and increased heart rate and blood pressure.  Stimulants have also been linked to delayed growth in children.  

Additionally, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires the prescribing information for prescription stimulants to warn of   the potential of misuse, abuse, addiction, and overdose of the drugs.   

People receiving a diagnosis of schizophrenia or other psychotic condition are typically prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs.  Data from recent  research  indicated that any benefit from antipsychotics compared to placebo (dummy pill) may be so small that it might not be noticeable by the patient.  Users are exposed to antipsychotics’ risks of harmful side effects that include weight gain, heart and cardiovascular problems, metabolic disorders, stroke and death.

Black people are more likely to have worse side effects and are more likely to be overdrugged on antipsychotics.  Studies have suggested that 33% of African Americans are  slow metabolizers, meaning that toxic levels of antipsychotics build up more readily, potentially resulting in an overdrugged effect.

Black people are also more likely to experience cardiac and metabolic problems, with one study finding that nearly half of cases of  new-onset diabetes  from antipsychotics occurred in African Americans.

Longer-term use of antipsychotics can lead to  tardive dyskinesia, an involuntary movement disorder that is characterized by tics, spasms or other jerky or uncontrolled movements of the body.  The condition can be disabling and permanent.

More fundamentally, psychiatric diagnoses, including the ADHD, schizophrenia, conduct disorder, and ODD diagnoses disproportionately given to Black people, lack scientific validity, as they are based on subjective assessments of behavior.  The psychotropic drugs that are prescribed are meant to alter or “rebalance” brain chemicals, but there is  no scientific basis  or proof for the theory that an imbalance of brain chemicals causes behavioral conditions. 

Still more evidence of ongoing racism in the mental health system is found in recent research revealing that Black patients are nearly twice as likely as their White counterparts to be  physically, mechanically, or chemically restrained  in mental health facilities and to remain restrained for a longer time.

Tragically, one study found that an exceptionally large 38% of 229  deaths from prone restraint  in mental health facilities were African American.  The World Health Organization (WHO) has long called for  an end to the use of restraints and other coercive mental health practices  because they can be traumatizing, re-traumatizing, and even deadly to patients.

Psychiatric diagnoses and drugs that are the standard of care in today’s mental health system have failed to improve mental health conditions in the U.S.  Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs do not address the underlying causes of people’s emotional and behavioral problems, while the drugs’ harmful side effects may make handling those problems even more difficult.  Black people continue to bear a disproportionately large share of the harm in the mental health system. 

What is needed is replacing psychiatric diagnoses, drugs and coercive treatment with consensual, patient-centered solutions to the underlying causes of emotional and behavioral conditions, delivered with empathy and respect.  In this way, human rights and dignity may be ensured in the field of mental health.

The content on this site is for informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for personal medical advice given by a physician or other qualified healthcare provider.

Anyone wishing to discontinue or change the dose of a psychiatric drug is cautioned to do so only under the supervision of a physician because of potentially dangerous withdrawal symptoms or other complications.

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The Fraud Triangle

Posted on August 31, 2026 by cchrstl

The framework composed of Motive/Pressure/Incentive, Opportunity, and Rationalization/Justification is known as the Fraud Triangle. It originated from the sociological research of Donald R. Cressey, an American penologist and criminologist, in his 1953 book “Other People’s Money: A Study in the Social Psychology of Embezzlement.”

His theory is that all three components of the Fraud Triangle must be present where there is fraud. The theory is currently a standard criterion for measuring and investigating fraud risk.

The truth or falsity of this theory is not our subject here, but the fact that it has been taken up and elaborated by the psychiatric industry.

While the Fraud Triangle originated in sociology and criminology, forensic psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and behavioral health researchers have written extensively on it, typically by examining the phenomenon via psychiatric mental health diagnosis and clinical pathology.

This theory is followed up by the Dark Triad, a psychological concept introduced in 2002 by researchers Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams, involving three personality traits of Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy; then extended again starting in 2009 with the trait of Sadism by a longer list of psychological researchers.

As you can see, the concept keeps getting more complex as more contributors chime in, tending to obfuscate the basic meanings of fraud. The psychiatric industry has been complicating and explaining fraud away by turning the crime of fraud into a mental illness. Perhaps that is an attempt to draw attention away from their own fraudulent industry.

Psychiatric literature treats fraud as a symptom driven by underlying mental disorders, mapping this criminal behavior onto categories in the already fraudulent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Here are some of the DSM diagnoses that have been used to excuse fraud:

  • Antisocial Personality Disorder
  • Narcissistic Personality Disorder
  • Factitious Disorder
  • Malingering
  • Gambling Disorder
  • Substance Use Disorder

Essentially, What Is Fraud?

Fraud: the intentional use of false information, trickery, or deceit to gain an unfair or illegal advantage; something or someone that is not what it seems or is represented to be; the attempt to obtain support without furnishing a product–i.e. the attempt to get something for nothing.

[Middle English fraude, from Old French fraude, from Latin fraudem, fraus, “cheating, deceit, injury, or harm”]

In legal terms, fraud involves intentional deception or deliberate misrepresentation to secure money, rights, property or privilege. In general terms, fraud is understood to mean dishonest dealings, cheating or trickery. Fraud in these senses is a criminal activity, not a mental illness.

Psychiatric Fraud Is a Criminal Activity

Psychiatrists may attempt to soften the criminal aspect of fraud, for example by discussing “imposter syndrome” — giving the fraud a psychiatric diagnosis instead of a criminal perspective.

When we speak of psychiatric fraud, we are particularly speaking of psychiatrists or psychiatric facilities which promise help for one’s mental health, or which promise help in return for insurance or government funds, but which actually harm one’s mental health or waste those funds.

The unscientific and spurious nature of psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) invites fraud.

Psychiatry cannot and never could cure mental problems. Factually, it is an unmitigated and verifiable failure. As psychiatry today increasingly operates above the law, and at the cost of individual well-being and lives, it requires constant alertness and vigilance to preserve true human rights. Psychiatry is a global menace and a roadblock to real progress in the field of mental healing and the mind.

The real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems (they Rationalize [Rational Lies] them) as an “illness” or “disease.” Psychiatry’s false diagnoses, labels, programs and treatments are junk science.

Recommendations

1. Establish or increase the number of psychiatric fraud investigation units to recover funds that are embezzled in the mental health system.

2. Clinical and financial audits of all government-run and private psychiatric facilities that receive government subsidies or insurance payments should be done to ensure accountability; statistics on admissions, treatment and deaths, without breaching patient confidentiality, should be compiled for review.

3. The DSM and/or ICD (International Classification of Diseases mental disorders section) should be removed from use in all government agencies, departments and other bodies including criminal, educational and justice systems.

4. Provide funding and insurance coverage only for proven, workable treatments that verifiably and dramatically improve or cure mental health problems.

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Schools Are Pushing Mental Health Screening

Posted on August 12, 2026 by cchrstl

Research Shows It Does More Harm Than Good

A recent (July 30, 2026) article by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. in The Defender published by Children’s Health Defense takes up the question of mental health screening in schools.

“An increasing number of children are likely to face mental health screening when they return to school this fall. But experts warned those screenings pose more risk than benefit — and urged parents to opt out their child.”

“Nearly one-third of U.S. schools now conduct some form of mental health screening — and that number is likely to increase, as more states work to pass mental health screening mandates.”

The article references Citizens Commission on Human Rights:
“Some schools may use a passive consent system that presumes consent unless the parent actively opts out, said Jan Eastgate, president of Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog.

“That’s why CCHR created a printable parent’s exemption form that parents can proactively give to their school leaders. The form states that school staff may not subject the child to any form of mental health, psychological, social service, or counseling screening or tests without the parent’s written consent.”

Mental health screening based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Disease (ICD) —a key international psychiatry strategy—is a major situation right now that not only is the means by which psychiatry and pharmaceutical companies drum up new business, it is a major threat to the civil liberties and freedoms of all those in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Mental health screening aims to get whole populations on drugs and thus under control. The kinds of drugs used create further medical and social problems, and these subsequent complications require additional taxes and laws to handle them. The net result is a sick and fearful population dependent on the government to “solve” all their problems.

[See The History of Mental Health Screening here.]

Recognize that the real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior or study problems as “diseases.” Psychiatry’s stigmatizing labels, programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of “mental disorders” are a hoax – unscientific, fraudulent and harmful. All psychiatric treatments, not just psychiatric drugs, are dangerous, and can cause crime.

Psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatric institutions, and other medical doctors prescribing psychiatric drugs and treatments must be made fully accountable for their funding, practices and treatments, and their results, or lack thereof — including prescribing antidepressants whose only results are harmful side effects.

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Psychiatrist Louis “Jolly” West: The CIA’s MKULTRA Mastermind Exposed in Government Hearing

Posted on July 20, 2026 by cchrstl

Decades of deception unraveled at the first congressional MKULTRA hearing since 1977, revealing West’s central role in mind-control experiments, memory manipulation, and links to high-profile cases.

By CCHR International
The Mental Health Industry Watchdog
July 10, 2026

“The legacy of Louis Jolyon West—and psychiatrists like Ewen Cameron—is one of deception, racial targeting, and crimes against humanity enabled by the CIA. As new documents emerge and hearings continue, the full truth about MKULTRA must be brought into the light.” –CCHR International

On June 30, 2026, the U.S. House Oversight Committee held the first congressional hearing on the CIA’s MKULTRA mind-control program since the 1975-1977 U.S. Senate Church Committee hearings. Titled “Mind Control and Accountability: Uncovering the Truth of the CIA’s MKULTRA Project,” among the revelations was the central role of the late psychiatrist Dr. Louis Jolyon “Jolly” West (1924-1999). 

West, a prominent professor and department chair at major universities, conducted inhumane and barbaric experiments on humans as one of the key architects and implementers of the CIA’s MKULTRA mind-control program. For decades, Dr. West publicly denied his deep involvement, lying to the public, the press, and investigators—even threatening legal action against critics who accused him of being part of MKULTRA.

While the psychiatric community stayed silent, Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) was one of the only organizations consistently exposing West’s crimes and his central role in MKULTRA.

At the recent hearing, Stephen Kinzer, author of Poisoner in Chief about Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA chemist who directed MKULTRA, testified: “Gottlieb believed that in order to find a way to implant a new mind into someone’s brain, it would first be necessary to destroy the mind that was there already.”

Jolly West was ideally positioned to carry out that mission.

West repeatedly claimed the CIA had only approached him, but he had refused to participate, insisting LSD, which was prominently used in the MKULTRA experiments, was too dangerous for human use. He upheld this deception until his death in 1999.

Investigative journalist Tom O’Neill, author of Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, presented research at the hearing that dismantled West’s deception, using documented evidence from West’s own files.

CONTINUE READING THE FULL CCHR REPORT HERE!

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DOJ Takedown Exposes Over $220 Million Defrauded in Behavioral Mental Health Fraud Schemes

Posted on July 13, 2026 by cchrstl

Thirty-seven mental health, psychiatric, behavioral health, and substance abuse cases reveal alleged false claims, falsified records, kickbacks, and phantom services—patients harmed while providers pocketed luxury gains.

By Jan Eastgate
President, CCHR International
July 6, 2026

The U.S. Department of Justice’s 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown has exposed rampant fraud in mental health, behavioral health, psychiatric, and substance abuse services. As part of a nationwide operation uncovering over $6.5 billion in alleged fraud, 37 cases in these areas represent well over $220–250 million in defrauded funds. These scandals highlight deep systemic failures in the psychiatric and behavioral health industry, where profit-driven motives put vulnerable patients at risk.

Psychiatric and behavioral health providers repeatedly billed government programs—primarily Medicaid—for services never provided, substandard care, treatment by unqualified staff, and inducing beneficiaries to sign for services they barely or never received. In some cases, providers billed for counseling, therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), or other services on dates when the supposed professionals were out of the country. A number of the schemes the DOJ uncovered involved professionals using defrauded funds for luxury purchases, including real estate, vehicles, jewelry, and a yacht.

“Every fraudulent dollar diverted into a criminal scheme is a dollar unavailable for patient care, for medical innovation, or for services for vulnerable Americans,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.

Read the full CCHR report here.

As a nonprofit mental health watchdog, CCHR St. Louis relies on memberships and donations to carry out its mission. To become part of the world’s largest movement for mental health change, join the group that has helped enact more than 180 laws protecting citizens from abusive psychiatric practices.

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