Lies About Missouri’s Mental Health Budget
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an article about suicide prevention on May 4, 2015 which began with a blatant lie. They said, “Missouri whacked the state’s mental health department budget from 2007 through 2012,” which they used to claim that suicides rose during that time, as if there were a causal connection.
In fact, the Missouri department of mental health (DMH) annual budgets for 2007 through 2012 were:
2007: $1,071,888,631
2008: $1,159,524,427
2009: $1,211,794,318
2010: $1,199,029,884
2011: $1,238,073,489
2012: $1,393,104,435
As you can see, the DMH budget increased every year except for 2010, ending up 30% higher in 2012 than in 2007. We got these numbers from the Missouri House appropriations bills, so we know they are correct.
This is the kind of disinformation being fed to the public by the mental health industry in order to justify asking for more money. If they had actual positive outcomes, meaning people getting better, they would not have to justify the ask.
For decades psychiatrists and psychologists have claimed a monopoly over the field of mental health. Governments and private health insurance companies have provided them with billions of dollars every year to treat “mental illness,” only to face industry demands for even more funds to improve the supposed, ever–worsening state of mental health. No other industry can afford to fail consistently and expect to get more funding.
The scientific research documenting the connection between violence, suicide and psychiatric drugs is overwhelming; yet despite 22 international drug regulatory warnings on psychiatric drugs citing effects of mania, hostility, violence and even homicidal ideation, and dozens of high profile shootings/killings tied to psychiatric drug use, there has yet to be a federal investigation on the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence.
Between 2004 and 2012, there were 14,773 reports to the U.S. FDA’s MedWatch system on psychiatric drugs causing violent side effects. While there is never one simple explanation for what drives a human being to commit such unspeakable acts of violence, all too often one common denominator has surfaced in hundreds of cases—prescribed psychiatric drugs which are documented to cause mania, psychosis, violence, suicide and in some cases, homicidal ideation.
The risk of suicide is actually increased with the use of (or withdrawal from) psychiatric drugs. In fact, suicide is the major complication of withdrawal from Ritalin and similar amphetamine-like drugs.
While suicide may have been escalating in some cases, too often this has been falsely attributed to their “mental illness,” when, in fact, the very methods used to “treat” such “illness” are the cause of the suicide.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of experts in primary care and prevention, said it had “found no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality.”
So tell us, how will increasing the Missouri Department of Mental Health budget make a dent in suicides, since their treatment actually causes the condition?
For more information, actual facts, and recommendations, download and read one or more of the several booklets on the connection between violence, suicide and psychiatric drugs from www.CCHRSTL.org.
Like this:
Like Loading...
