Tolerance and Intolerance in Psychiatry

Our reference here is the book Tolerance – The Liberation of Mankind, by Hendrik Willem van Loon, originally published in 1925. The volume we have was independently published on June 12, 2021, by an unnamed source. As the book says, it is “The history of Tolerance (or the lack thereof) in the history of man as described by one of the best popular historians of all time.”

The book introduces the word by saying, “I refer to the Encyclopedia Britannica. There on page 1052 of volume XXVI stands written: ‘Tolerance (from Latin tolerare — to endure): – The allowance of freedom of action or judgment to other people, the patient and unprejudiced endurance of dissent from one’s own or the generally received course or view.'”

Some additional dictionary definitions are:
— capacity to endure pain, hardship, harm, or unpleasantness
— a permissive attitude toward beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own
— the allowable deviation from a standard
— the diminished effect of a drug over time with its regular use.

One colloquial phrase representing tolerance is “live and let live.”

The book is basically a history of the world from the viewpoints of tolerance and intolerance. (Mostly intolerance, as the case may be.)

Tolerance and Racism

In the U.S., one generally thinks of intolerance as black/white racism or religious intolerance, with anti-semitism rising rapidly alongside. It isn’t necessarily the same in other countries or times. For example, in Belgium intolerance also exists between white Flemish speakers and white French speakers.

Tolerance and Psychiatry

It should be plain to see that psychiatry cannot tolerate any deviance from what they imagine is normal behavior, and seeks to compulsively and coercively “treat” it. Since psychiatry has never been able to understand, control or successfully cure such deviance, their efforts lead to continual failure.

When we speak of “coercive psychiatry” we mean that psychiatry is used as a means of social control against which one has no recourse and cannot fight back, which is destructive of one’s self-determinism, causing distrust instead of faith. Psychiatry intends to substitute their own vision of “normal” for any individual beliefs one may hold; which fits the definition of intolerance pretty closely.

The literature abounds with scholarly articles about tolerance and mental health, often involving exhortations to accept others’ differences. This corresponds with psychiatry’s insistence that one must adapt to one’s environment rather than control one’s environment.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders revision 5 (DSM-5) deals with tolerance only in the sense of Substance Use Disorders, when an individual requires increasingly higher doses of a substance to achieve the desired effect, or the usual dose has a reduced effect. Such tolerance as one criteria for a Substance Use Disorder does not apply in the case of a prescription drug used in the context of appropriate medical treatment (i.e. “generally accepted practices”).

One example of psychiatry dealing with tolerance/intolerance in patients is called the “Intolerance of Uncertainty;” the conjecture is that such individuals tend to be less tolerant of ambiguity, uncertainty, and unpredictability in their lives, and that this is a mental disorder. These individuals can then be labeled with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (or any one of several other diagnoses from the DSM) and prescribed harmful psychiatric drugs to suppress their anxiety. In particular, we noticed a number of psychiatric research articles examining this issue in relation to COVID-19, pregnancy, education, stress and burnout, autism, pain, religion, depression, vaccination, … in other words, pretty much in all areas of life.

The Root of Intolerance

Whenever there is so much unresolved discussion over a topic, we can be sure that there is a general lack of understanding about it. There is certainly an excessively long historical preoccupation with intolerance. Perhaps one can observe that intolerance of uncertainty is not really a psychiatric condition to be treated with drugs, but an expression of a human aberration which should be treated by increasing one’s ability to observe and confront different, unknown, confusing, or uncomfortable conditions.

This basic characteristic about tolerance is the ability to tolerate views; that is, the ability to look, to know by looking. Thus intolerance is an inability to tolerate views, viewpoints, or looking; it’s a decision to refuse to observe.

Intolerance as discussed in the cited Tolerance book is essentially concerned with a dismissive, antagonistic or hostile attitude toward others’ different beliefs, leading toward repeated attempts to suppress or eliminate those other beliefs. These beliefs run the gamut from political, economic, religious, racist, to just plain cussedness; and the political and economic conditions often seem to be behind a lot of the intolerance.

While many have perished for their contrary beliefs, we observe that there is a general failure to permanently stamp these out. We make no judgments here about the truth or falsity of any particular beliefs.

Consider what happens when one tries to control another person or situation, but fails to do so. One then attempts to justify one’s failure. One way to justify such a failure is to attack the other and make less of them. One way to attack another is to say oneself is right and they are wrong.

Thus we see a definite relation between tolerance/intolerance and the human condition which causes an individual to make oneself right by making another wrong.

The book reaches its final conclusion about tolerance by saying that “fear … is at the bottom of all intolerance.” This can be fear of another’s politics, economics, religion, race, or just plain fear of difference. It’s actually an inability to recognize similarities, and observing (and misunderstanding) only differences. Both sanity and intelligence are intimately related to one’s ability to recognize differences, similarities and identities.

How to Overcome Intolerance

The solution to tolerance should be fairly obvious: rehabilitate and enhance one’s ability to observe and recognize differences, similarities and identities. Find out how to identify what makes something logical or illogical by taking this short, free online course: “The Investigations Course“. We trust you understand that psychiatric labels install fear of behavior; and that psychiatric drugs or other treatments can only suppress the fear and not eliminate it.

It should also be obvious that psychiatry is not your friend when it comes to tolerance. Contact your local, state and federal officials and representatives and urge them to stop funding psychiatry.

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Historical Underpinnings of Psychiatric Medical Training

The evolution of mental healing from a spiritual undertaking to a brain and chemical based atrocity follows a number of historical paths.

One such path was carved out by “oil baron John D. Rockefeller’s ‘strategic philanthropy’ of using the Flexner Report and his funding of Johns Hopkins University to mold medical training into a model by which he could multiply his market,” since 80 percent of pharmaceuticals are oil-based.

[See page 193 in The Hidden Horrors of Psychiatry, C.F. Van Der Horst, 2022 Per Veritatem Vis Foundation.]

The Flexner Report of 1910 by Abraham Flexner contained recommendations on the restructuring of medical education and the establishment of the biomedical model as the gold standard of medical training.

[Medical Education in the United States and Canada, July 8, 1910, Science magazine. See the National Lirarary of Medicine analysis here.]

The Report “contained recommendations requiring that medical educational institutions be funded by the big Foundations. It gave oil baron John D. Rockefeller the opportunity to steer medical education in such a way that the largely petroleum-based pharmaceuticals would play a central role and alternative medicine such as homeopathy would be barred. In writing the report, Abraham Flexner was directly coached by two Rockefeller Foundation employees.”
[See additional details in Deadly Lies: How Doctors and Patients Are Deceived, by C.F. van der Horst, 2023, Per Veritatem Vis Foundation.]

Today, the psychopharmaceutical marketing machine shamelessly pushes psychiatric drugs in spite of their known failures, leading the late Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus Dr. Thomas Szasz to say, “Psychiatry is probably the single most destructive force that has affected society within the last 60 years.”

Psychiatrists tell us that the way to fix unwanted behavior is by altering brain chemistry with a pill — the legacy of the Flexner Report.

But unlike a mainstream medical drug like insulin, psychotropic medications have no measurable target illness to correct, and can upset the very delicate balance of chemical processes the body needs to run smoothly.

Nevertheless, psychiatrists and drug companies have used these drugs to create a huge and lucrative market niche.

And they’ve done this by naming more and more unwanted behaviors as “medical disorders” requiring psychiatric medication.

How did psychotropic drugs, with no target illness, no known curative powers and a long and extensive list of side effects, become the go?to treatment for every kind of psychological distress?

And how did the psychiatrists espousing these drugs come to dominate the field of mental treatment?

Find out by watching the Citizens Commission on Human Rights® (CCHR) Documentary “The Marketing of Madness – Are We All Insane?

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Fraud in the Psychiatric Industry

The March 31-April 6, 2023 St. Louis Business Journal “Highest-Paid St. Louis Occupations” list (on page 47) shows Psychiatrists having the second-highest Mean Annual Wage ($307,910) and Mean Hourly Wage ($148.04), with 170 estimated local psychiatrists.

Unfortunately, psychiatry’s baseless promises to improve mental health are promises that have repeatedly failed to deliver positive results, encouraging up to $20 billion a year lost in the U.S. due to fraudulent practices in the mental health sector.

Government funding, without accountability for successful patient outcomes, has enabled massive financial fraud, waste and patient harm from psychiatrists and psychiatric facilities.

Greater oversight could help reduce government waste and isolate and eradicate harmful practices and introduce patient protections so that lives could be saved.

Amid a rise in the use of telehealth for mental healthcare, fraud, and the consequent enforcement activities are increasing. More than 20 states report fraud, waste, and abuse as a “concern” with respect to telehealth services used to provide behavioral healthcare, according to information collected by the U.S. Office of Inspector General. But even greater oversight is needed and stronger penalties for violations.

Fraud- or theft-related crimes account for the second largest part of all the crimes conducted in the mental health industry in the U.S.

No one denies that people can have difficult problems in their lives and that they can be mentally unstable. However, the emphasis must be on workable mental health healing methods which improve and strengthen individuals by restoring them to personal strength, ability, competence, confidence, responsibility, and well-being.

Contact your local, state and federal officials and urge them to stop funding harmful and fraudulent psychiatric practices; and urge them to provide greater oversight and stronger penalties for violations to help curb psychiatric fraud.

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Take Action – Missouri Legislature

Psychiatry’s Attack on 1st Responders

A “1st Responder” is typically a person with specialized training who is among the first to arrive and provide assistance or incident resolution at the scene of an emergency such as an accident, fire, or other rescue or Emergency Medical Service situation. First Responders typically include law enforcement officers, paramedics, emergency medical technicians, and firefighters.

This session of the Missouri Legislature has several bills demonstrating the psychiatric industry’s attempts to make First Responders a new patient category.

Why Is This Bad?

We all support First Responders, and are particularly grateful for their training and services. We also recognize that they can be subject to many stresses on their jobs; stresses which may compromise their good mental health. Mental health care is thus both valid and necessary.

However, the emphasis must be on workable mental healing methods that improve and strengthen individuals and thereby society by restoring people to personal strength, ability, competence, confidence, stability, responsibility and spiritual well-being. Psychiatric drugs and psychiatric treatments are not workable.

The issue is that, while these bills may have some helpful provisions for First Responders, they also serve to funnel First Responders into the psychiatric mental health “care” system, where they will likely be prescribed harmful, mind-altering psychotropic drugs and other harmful psychiatric “treatments.” Read the text of the bills to see how this can be, and urge your Missouri state legislators to reject these bills in their current form.

The Missouri Legislature

Periodically we let you know the progress of various proposed legislation making its way through the Missouri General Assembly and suggest ways for you to contribute your viewpoint to your state Representative and state Senator.

The Missouri General Assembly is the state legislature of the State of Missouri and is composed of two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The General Assembly is responsible for creating laws for governing the State of Missouri. The Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo) are electronically available on this site:  http://revisor.mo.gov/.

You can find your Representative and Senator, and their contact information, by entering your 9-digit zip code here.

The 2023 Regular Session (102nd General Assembly, 1st Regular Session) convened on Wednesday, January 4, 2023, and will end on Friday, May 12, 2023. You can see the House Bills (HB) by clicking here; and the Senate Bills (SB) are listed here.

If you are not a voting resident of Missouri, you can find out about legislation in your own state and write your own state legislators; also, we are looking for volunteers to monitor legislation in Missouri and the states surrounding Missouri — let us know if you’d like to help out.

Check out our handy discussion about How to write to a legislator.

We Urge You To Contact Your Legislators To Express Your Own Viewpoints.

We’d like to describe some bills about which we’d particularly like you to contact your legislators. Please write, call or visit to express your viewpoint as an individual or professional, and not as a representative of any organization. Let us know the details and any responses you get. The full text of each bill can be found on the House and Senate Joint Bill Tracking site. Just put the bill number into the search box (e.g. SB123 or HB123).

Four Very Very Bad Bills

SB24 Creates the “Missouri First Responder Mental Health Initiative Act”, promoting First Responder access to psychiatric behavioral health care services.
Sponsor: Senator Lincoln Hough (Republican, District 30, Part of Greene County)

SB654 Establishes a pilot program for certain medical services for veterans and other first responders. It promotes transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for veterans, first responders, and law enforcement officers. Physically intrusive and damaging practices such as TMS create the appearance of scientific progress, but in the end, psychiatry is no closer to identifying any causes or effecting any cures.
Sponsor: Senator Bill Eigel (Republican, District 23, Part of St. Charles County)

HB539 Creates the “Missouri First Responder Mental Health Initiative Act”. This is similar to SB24, promoting First Responder access to psychiatric behavioral health care services.
Sponsor: Representative Adam Schwadron (Republican, District 105, St. Charles County)

HB1274 Creates new provisions relating to occupational diseases diagnosed in first responders, defining certain psychiatric diagnoses as an “occupational disease.”
Sponsor: Representative Anthony Ealy (Democrat, District 036, Jackson County)

Summary

The real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior 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.

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Take Action – Missouri Legislature

Periodically we let you know the progress of various proposed legislation making its way through the Missouri General Assembly and suggest ways for you to contribute your viewpoint to your state Representative and state Senator.

The Missouri General Assembly is the state legislature of the State of Missouri and is composed of two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The General Assembly is responsible for creating laws for governing the State of Missouri. The Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo) are electronically available on this site:  http://revisor.mo.gov/.

You can find your Representative and Senator, and their contact information, by entering your 9-digit zip code here.

The 2023 Regular Session (102nd General Assembly, 1st Regular Session) convened on Wednesday, January 4, 2023, and will end on Friday, May 12, 2023. You can see the House Bills (HB) by clicking here; and the Senate Bills (SB) are listed here.

If you are not a voting resident of Missouri, you can find out about legislation in your own state and write your own state legislators; also, we are looking for volunteers to monitor legislation in Missouri and the states surrounding Missouri — let us know if you’d like to help out.

Check out our handy discussion about How to write to a legislator.

We Urge You To Contact Your Legislators To Express Your Own Viewpoints

We’d like to describe some bills about which we’d particularly like you to contact your legislators. Please write, call or visit to express your viewpoint as an individual or professional, and not as a representative of any organization. Let us know the details and any responses you get. The full text of each bill can be found on the House and Senate Joint Bill Tracking site. Just put the bill number into the search box (e.g. SB123 or HB123).

Four Very Very Bad Bills

HB1154 (Sponsor: Representative Dan Houx, Republican, District 54, Johnson county)

and

SB614 (Sponsor: Senator Holly Thompson Rehder, Republican, District 27, Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Iron, Madison, Perry, Reynolds and Scott counties)

These bills require the Department of Health and Senior Services, in collaboration with a Missouri university hospital and medical center operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs in Missouri, to research and conduct clinical trials on the efficacy of using psychedelic drugs such as MDMA (Ecstasy), psilocybin, and ketamine, for the treatment of patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, treatment-resistant depression, substance abuse disorders, or who require end-of-life care.

The mythical and debunked theory that a chemical imbalance in the brain causes depression, which launched an antidepressant industry in 1989, is being rephrased today to sell Americans on taking psychedelic drugs for their mental health instead.

In the wake of SSRI antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil having been exposed as being no more effective than a placebo—with a threat to industry profits—psychedelics are being peddled to replace antidepressants and capture a projected $10 billion a year market. But this change in treatment and theories is like switching seats on the Titanic.

The theories behind how psychedelics “work” today remain hype rather than science. We are seeing the same rapturous reception given psychedelics, buoyed by a re-hashed brain chemical theory and claims of a “renaissance” in mental health treatment. It took 30 years for the “chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain-causes-depression” myth to be fully recognized as pseudoscience and dangerously misleading to consumers. We should recognize the trademark signs of this same marketing scam with psychedelics and prevent America from “turning on and tuning out” to these mind-altering drugs before it is too late. 

Read more about this fraud here.


HB1123 (Sponsor: Representative  Mike Stephens, Republican, District 128, Hickory and Polk counties)

This bill establishes the “Dialectical Behavior Therapy Task Force” which shall recommend standards and procedures for certifications in dialectical behavior therapy, and requires health benefit plans to provide coverage for dialectical behavioral services. This bill is similar to SB 397, sponsored by Senator Greg Razer (Democrat, District 7, Jackson county).

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a psychotherapy for people who experience emotions very intensely (so-called “mood disorders”). It’s a type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is a form of psychotherapy that attempts to modify dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and thoughts — by evaluating for the person, challenging the person’s behaviors, and getting the person to change those behaviors, often in combination with psychiatric drugs.

While DBT may be advertised as a method to reduce psychiatric drug use, psychopharmacologic interventions are oftentimes considered appropriate adjunctive care.

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.

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How to Cultivate Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing; to “walk in their shoes” so to speak.

[Derived from Ancient Greek ???????? (empatheia, “physical affection or passion”).]

We notice a huge amount of social media commentary about this concept, including a surfeit of pithy quotes. Wikipedia, for one example, discusses empathy extensively. We’re not going to go into it in such extraordinary depth, but we hope to add some useful observations.

One observation is that whenever there is so much back and forth discussion about a concept, there tends to also be major misunderstandings about it. We’d like to add our two cents.

Besides the obvious usefulness of empathy in the general social contexts of communication and understanding with others, there is also a practical application in marketing and public relations. For example, a product or service gets empathy by tying it in to one’s public using their local environment. This makes it more acceptable and improves its reach. As a local example, many products and services in the St. Louis metropolitan area are tied in name or picture with the Gateway Arch.

Some confuse empathy with compassion or sympathy. These are closely related but definitely different. Consult any good dictionary to understand the differences. (I recommend https://onelook.com/ to look up words online.)

One of the abiding concerns of commentary on empathy is how to teach it, how to develop it in a person when it is lacking. It is really a function of a living being’s awareness.

A large part of awareness training would be learning how to confront others and situations, while being open to all perceptions and remaining unrestimulated by noise and confusion. In this context, confront means to face without flinching.

People are not naturally aware of other people; they have to be drilled on observing others in order to bring about awareness. In many cases this normally occurs during one’s upbringing; in other cases this ability to observe may be lacking to greater or lesser degree and requires training. A century of psychological “know-best” that people are animals, not spiritual beings, has blunted this ability to observe in many unfortunate cases. Thus we get so much conversation on social media about how to develop empathy for others, which basically depends upon observing and being aware of others.

At the bottom of the scale of awareness there is delusion, in which a person sees one thing but thinks it is something else. This is more prevalent than one might suspect. Observational drills may not be enough to repair this failing.

Ways to Bring About a Heightened Sense of Empathy

A sensitivity to Human Rights is one way to cultivate empathy. Some notice that teaching about Human Rights brings about changes in attitude and behavior leading to more empathy toward others.

Another way to approach this is to recognize ways in which one’s awareness is turned to unawareness, and remedy those. A prime example of creating unawareness is psychiatric drugs.

These drugs create many of their effects by modifying the expression of neurotransmitters in the brain, which we call “playing Russian Roulette with your brain.”

Common and well-documented side effects of many psychiatric drugs include hallucinations, delusions, emotional disturbance, emotional numbing, confusion, akathisia (restlessness), brain damage, forgetfulness, memory lapses, hostility, aggressive behavior, and vision problems.

One can easily see that such side effects may contribute to one’s unawareness of what is going on around them, thus bringing about a destruction of empathy. The obvious remedy is to wean off taking these drugs and find non-drug alternatives for one’s troubles.

We hope these few observations have contributed to your understanding of empathy, and lead to a resurgence of your awareness of others.

Alien Mind Wipe
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Treatment Resistant Depression is Apparently a Thing

Psychiatrists like to fund research studies for so-called “Treatment Resistant Depression” (TRD). They say that if someone has been given antidepressant drugs but their symptoms haven’t improved, they may have treatment-resistant depression.

Of course, the treatments of choice for TRD are more psychiatric drugs, such as ketamine and esketamine (dissociative anesthetics), olanzapine (an atypical anti-psychotic drug) and fluoxetine (Prozac). Some claim that Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT or shock treatment) “work” for this. Of course, all these “treatments” just knock your brain for a loop, so you don’t feel depressed, or much of anything anymore. None of these actually address the root causes for these symptoms, which psychiatrists conveniently forget to tell you.

One study suggests that between 29% and 46% of patients are still depressed after taking antidepressant drugs. Another study claims 20%-60% do not respond to psychiatric drugs. Well, we’ve known for years that not only is there no such “mental illness” as depression, but also that these mind-altering drugs don’t help.

People can, of course, experience symptoms commonly labeled as depression. In fact, there are hundreds of genuine medical conditions which can produce such mental symptoms — each of which has clinical tests and recognized medical treatments which do not involve psychiatric drugs.

While the fraudulent psychiatric “brain chemical imbalance” theory has been debunked for many years, it has been held firmly in place by the psycho-pharma public relations machine in order to sell more harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs. These drugs make patients for life since the drugs do not cure anything and have devastating side effects.

Psychiatrists have known since the beginning of psychopharmacology that their drugs do not cure any disease, and that antidepressants do not have any legitimate medical value. These are just public relations theories to support the marketing and sale of drugs. This is why the words “depressed” or “depressive” occur 77 times in various fraudulent diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), in a vain attempt to legitimize this so-called “disease.”

Troubled patients being misled about what causes their problems and being told that they need to take a psychotropic drug to “correct” this is a form of coercion. Giving patients such misinformation prevents their making an informed decision and has already resulted in many millions of people taking antidepressants or other psychotropic drugs with harmful side effects, erroneously believing these would “correct” something that simply never existed.

These drugs mask the real cause of problems in life and debilitate the individual, so denying him or her the opportunity for real recovery and hope for the future. This is the real reason why psychiatry is a violation of human rights. Psychiatric treatment is not just a failure — it is routinely destructive to the individual and one’s mental health.

If you know someone who has bought into these lies, suggest they investigate non-psychiatric, non-drug alternatives. Contact your local, state and federal representatives and demand that they stop government funding of these drugs.

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Alternatives to Psychiatric Drugs

There are non-drug alternatives for adverse mental conditions.

Any significant metabolic disruptions can impact brain function. Specific clinical biomarkers can reveal how to help correct a biochemical excess or deficiency having toxic side effects including mental trauma. Once these are identified, targeted non-drug nutrients may be enough to correct such an overload or deficiency, leading to recovery from such disturbing mental symptoms.

One place to examine is The Walsh Research Institute in Naperville, Illinois, a non-profit organization dedicated to unraveling the biochemistry of mental disorders and development of improved drug-free clinical treatments through scientific research and medical practitioner education.

Dr. Walsh’s book Nutrient Power: Heal Your Biochemistry and Heal Your Brain (2014, Skyhorse Publishing), presents a science-based nutrient therapy system that may help people falsely diagnosed with ADHD, autism, behavior disorders, depression, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, using individualized natural nutrient therapies tailored to such biochemical imbalances.

For example, patients with a copper overload may experience depression or high anxiety. Copper toxicity can be determined with diagnostic lab testing, and is treated with an individualized, prescribed treatment of vitamins, minerals and amino acids, instead of with harmful antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs.

Another example is called Pyrrole disorder, diagnosed with a urine test. This condition can have side effects of mood instability, anxiety, depression, or other behavioral disorders, caused by an imbalance of zinc and vitamin B6. Without proper clinical testing, this can be falsely diagnosed as ADHD or autism, and fraudulently treated with harmful psychiatric drugs.

Current research suggests that more than 60% of ADHD, anxiety, depression and psychosis patients exhibit a serious methylation imbalance. Methylation is a set of biochemical processes in the body for which overproduction or underproduction are both known to exhibit deleterious mental symptoms. The interesting thing about it is that there are clinical tests that show up the imbalance and suggest non-drug targeted nutrient therapy which may correct many of these challenges.

We point this out to emphasize that a psychiatric diagnosis is not based on any clinical tests, it is strictly an opinion that is treated with psychiatric drugs that have known side effects of violence and suicide. Therefore we think it is worthwhile to investigate methods which do have clinical tests and can pinpoint actual imbalances that have natural nutrient treatments.

Psychotropic drugs are unworkable and dangerous, and while they may temporarily mask some symptoms they do not treat, correct or cure any physical disease or condition. Once the drug has worn off, the original problem remains. As a solution or cure to life’s problems, psychotropic drugs do not work.

It is dangerous to self diagnose these disorders, just as it is dangerous for a psychiatrist to do so. The correct action on a mentally disturbed person is a full searching clinical examination by a competent non-psychiatric medical doctor, since there are no clinical tests for the fraudulent psychiatric diagnoses used in the psychiatric industry.

Although CCHR does not provide medical advice, we have found various resources such as these to be helpful for individuals looking for more information about alternatives to psychiatry.

Contact your local, state and federal officials to express your opposition to funding harmful psychiatric “solutions.”

There are non-drug alternatives for adverse mental conditions.
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Wasted Billion$ Spent On Violence Prevention

Ignores How Psychotropic Drugs Cause Hostility, And Their Role In Mass Shootings & Stabbings

Although there are numerous reasons for acts of mass violence, funding poured into violence prevention mental health programs has ignored a potential pivotal source, especially in schools: the treatment.

By Jan Eastgate
President, CCHR International
July 11, 2022

Mental health professionals suggest that the latest spate of mass killings require more psychiatric services and stronger involuntary commitment laws to prevent future violence. However, this would most likely increase acts of violence because psychiatric drugs are usually the first line of treatment and carry a risk of inducing suicide and hostility in a percent of those taking them. Taxpayer appropriations have been funneled into everything related to prevention except investigating psychotropic drug links to acts of violence. A financial audit of violence prevention mental health programs should be conducted to show accountability for results.

Since the Columbine high school massacre in 1999 where two students—the ringleader on an antidepressant—killed 13 and injured 24, national violence prevention programs in schools have been implemented, with billions of dollars invested in this.

Another $1 billion of federal funds was recently allocated for community violence intervention (CVI), which includes mental health services.[1]

Funding has been a bottomless pit without a commensurate decline in mass violence. The Safe Schools Act of 1994 had a goal that by the year 2000, every school in America would be free of violence.[2] The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed in 2015 allocated more federal funds for school-based violence prevention programs.[3]

Yet school shootings increased by 37% between the 1990s and 2013 and continued unabated.[4] This figure doesn’t factor in acts of school violence that do not involve guns.

Since 2000, there have been at least 27 acts of mass violence in schools committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs or having undergone unnamed mental health treatment, resulting in 33 deaths and 83 wounded. At least seven of the killings involved stabbings.[5] Something drove them to kill.

Some 76 million Americans take psychotropic drugs, of which over 2.1 million are children and adolescents taking antidepressants despite a Food and Drug Administration suicide black box warning for teens and young adults. Between 1999 and 2014, there was a 64% increase in the percentage of people of all ages using antidepressants.[6]

Increased mental and/or physical agitation has caused about 5% of subjects taking antidepressants to drop out of clinical trials. When that percentage is applied to the 41 million individuals in the U.S. taking antidepressants, it begs the question how many of that 2.05 million could potentially become so agitated that they would kill?[7]

The antidepressant market is a highly lucrative one that would be protected at any cost. The global market was estimated at $5.2 billion in 2019 and over $80 billion is spent in a year worldwide in psychiatric drug sales. The Central Nervous System drugs (including ADHD drugs) market is expected to reach $131 billion by 2025.[8]

Psychiatrists, often backed by Big Pharma, misdirect policymakers by saying there is no “scientific” evidence of psychiatric drugs causing violence, even though violent behavior, including homicide are reported side effects.

“Most people who commit these kinds of acts of severe violence are only prescribed medication because of their horrible thoughts, moods, and ideas,” Dr. Gwen Adshead, a forensic psychotherapist stated.[9]

But that’s the point: having been prescribed the drugs, they acted on those thoughts and killed.

“Violence and other potentially criminal behavior caused by prescription drugs are medicine’s best kept secret,” international psychopharmacology expert Prof. David Healy says.[10]

What role such drugs may have had on San Antonio, Texas teen Rodolfo Aceves (19) who was arrested on June 27th, 2022, for planning a mass shooting at an Amazon Delivery Station where he worked in unknown. He has a history of mental health treatment and was institutionalized at age 16.[11]

Robert Crimo III, 21, the July 4th Illinois parade shooter was reported to have experienced personality changes a few years ago when he and his girlfriend broke up. He started taking psychedelic drugs, seemingly illicitly.[12] While not confirmed which hallucinogens he took, as an example, psilocybin adverse effects include: Impaired judgment and feelings of detachment, psychosis, anxiety and panic attacks.[13] In April 2019, police went to the family home after receiving a report Crimo had tried to take his own life a week earlier. They were told mental health professionals were handling the matter!

Psychiatrists are currently trying to have psychedelics re-introduced as mainstream mental health treatment after being banned in the 1970s.

Missing the Mark

The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) has been collecting data on school-associated violent deaths since 1992, defined as a fatal injury (e.g., homicide, suicide, or legal intervention). Only violent deaths associated with U.S. elementary and secondary schools, both public and private, are included.[14] CDC uses the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System that monitors “health-risk behaviors of students.” The high school survey, for example, is 21 pages of questions, none of which identify if the student is taking prescription psychotropic medications or abusing them—missing the mark entirely on a potential source of violent and suicidal behavior.[15]

Blaming the “Illness,” Not the Drug

Many psychiatrists deflect legislators’ attention away from iatrogenic drug-induced violence by arguing that no studies have been done on the association between the risk of committing homicide and the use of psychotropic drugs.[16] That’s also the point. It’s a safe bet that they won’t because, how could a legitimate study be ethically approved to deliberately induce violent behavior using a prescription drug?

Until now, this seems only to have been done clandestinely in the 1970s under the CIA’s MK-Ultra program when psychiatrists carried out experiments to search for a mind control drug that could be weaponized against enemies.[17] CCHR has copies of CIA documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showing psychotropic drugs were tested to see if a subject could be chemically induced to assassinate.[18]

While not excusing the crime, today, courts recognize the “overwhelming probable” relationship between antidepressant and murder, “treatment-induced psychosis” and, in one case a jury determined that the antidepressant paroxetine “can cause some people to become homicidal and/or suicidal” and that the drug was 80% responsible for a normally calm and caring father to kill his family.[19]

Drug Withdrawal Creates Violence (Not Mental Illness)

Another key point ignored is the debilitating withdrawal effects some people taking prescription psychotropic drugs can experience which are documented to include violent and suicidal behavior. Many of the studies on withdrawal effects are published in CCHR’s report Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide.

Psychiatrists obfuscate withdrawal effects by blaming the person’s “untreated” mental illness. By involuntarily committing prospective aggressive individuals and keeping people incarcerated for longer periods (usually on psychotropics) they argue the person can get the treatment he or she needs.

But close inspection shows that not to be true. Consider the history of Brandon Scott Hole, 19, who shot and killed eight people and injured seven others at a FedEx building, before committing suicide in April of 2021 in Indianapolis, Indiana.[20] From age 10, he’d received psychiatric treatment. In September 2011, his agitated behavior spurred his mother to take him to a center where he was given anxiety medication. A year later, after starting 5th grade, he was still aggressive and prescribed more of the same medication, with records showing only “mild benefit.” Yet another drug was added, and he also underwent behavioral therapy. In 2013, he spent a period in juvenile detention and put on probation for several months, then released. By 2020, he was suicidal. Medical records indicated that he suffered from six different disorders. The teen originated: “I can get very, very angry. I have very little control over myself when that happens” to which records say he will benefit from medication for psychiatric symptoms. On March 31, 2022, he meets a social worker for therapy. On April 15, he murdered eight innocent people described as an act of “suicidal murder.”[21] Hole had suicidal thoughts “almost daily” in the months prior to the attack and attempted suicide on “more than one occasion,” according to an FBI special agent.[22]  Clearly, the six different mental disorders he’d been given during his short life were not effectively treated and the medication may have exacerbated his thoughts.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) stresses, “It is important to note that the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness are not violent.”[23] But as one online writer puts it: Psychiatrists argue that “mental illness does not cause violence…. Why, then, do we think that expanding access to mental health services will reduce mass violence?”[24]

A man who allegedly attacked the Cuban Embassy, firing at it 32 times in April 2020, had been evaluated at a psychiatric hospital and prescribed an antipsychotic in March. Although he may not have been compliant in taking it daily, antipsychotic withdrawal effects include hostility. The drug remains in the system, potentially impacting upon mental faculties and emotional behavior.[25]

On July 3rd in Denmark, a suspected gunman, Noah Essenes, 22, said his antipsychotic drugs weren’t working before a shooting spree in a Danish shopping center that left 3 dead and 27 injured.  He was remanded into psychiatric “care”—which clearly had previously failed him—and charged with murder and attempted murder.[26]

John Read, Ph.D.’s article “The experiences of 585 people when they tried to withdraw from antipsychotic drugs,” published in the June 2022 edition of Addictive Behaviors Reports reported that in an online survey of 585 antipsychotic users from 29 countries, who had tried to stop taking the drugs, 72% reported classical withdrawal effects, including anxiety and agitation; 52% of these categorized those effects as “severe,” 18% reported psychosis as a withdrawal effect and 23% took at least one year to successfully withdraw completely.[27]

When an antipsychotic, and thereby the dopamine neurotransmitter blockade, are removed, or reduced, “the brain is overwhelmed with dopamine…. This can result in a withdrawal psychosis,” Read said.[28]

Antidepressants also have serious withdrawal effects that can last years.

In 2012, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Journal published a study about persistent withdrawal effects six weeks after cessation of taking SSRI antidepressants. Researchers reviewed self-reporting adverse events and found post-withdrawal symptoms “may last several months to years.” Symptoms included disturbed mood, emotional liability, irritability, and poor stress tolerance.[29]
As Healy and others wrote in Children of the Cure: Missing Data, Lost Lives and Antidepressants, an antidepressant manufacturer that recognized the withdrawal effect, held a meeting of “opinion leaders” and invented the term “antidepressant discontinuation syndrome” to deflect from dependence problems.[30]

From the 14 studies that provided usable data, researchers calculated that 56% of antidepressant users experienced withdrawal symptoms when they discontinued the drug. The duration of symptoms varied widely, but some patients reported problems lasting up to 79 weeks after stopping the antidepressant.[31] 

Time magazine once listed the top 10 prescribed drugs linked to violence, of which eight were psychotropic drugs—five which were antidepressants.[32]

Finnish researchers published the findings in a 2015 study that determined benzodiazepines could increase the risk of a consumer committing a homicide by 45% and antidepressant by 31%. A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology also found that “…benzodiazepines and [SSRI antidepressants] are the main pharmacological classes able to induce aggressive behavior.”[33]

Funding Violence-Causation?

It seems that in the U.S. with the spate of mass killings involving teens, and with massive funding of violence-prevention programs in schools is not decreasing.

Funding continues to be invested in programs without ever looking at the potential psychotropic drug link to violence.

In the wake of Columbine, the School Emergency Response to Violence was Created, where “Project SERV” funds were used for a variety of activities, including mental health assessments, referrals, and services for victims and witnesses of violence. and more.[34]

In December 2012, the Attorney General’s Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence developed “Project Prevent” to provide grants for mental health services. Laudably, counseling was to be provided to help students cope with the effects of violence. But also funded was conflict resolution programs and other school-based violence prevention strategies, which have also been implicated in some of the cases of mass violence in schools. [35]

As of 2019, 15 states require character development or social and emotional learning in schools.[36]
CVI programs employ “violence interrupters” or “neighborhood change agents” who are skilled in intervention.[37]

Forced Treatment: The Wrong Way to Go

As for increasing involuntary commitment laws to lock up and maintain individuals on psychiatric drugs, an estimated 54% of admissions to psychiatric facilities in the U.S. are involuntary.[38]

Recent United Nations Agency and World Health Organization reports condemn coercive-forced psychiatric treatment, especially because there is an overreliance on mental health drugs, as a February-April 2022 Annual Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, points out.[39]
The Commissioner’s 2018 report noted that “forced medication, and other forced measures” should be repealed. “States should reframe and recognize these practices as constituting torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.[40]

An Alaska Supreme Court decision in 2006 was pivotal in protecting patients from forced “medication,” because of their risks. Represented by attorney Jim Gottstein Esq., Faith Myers challenged the constitutionality of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API) to force her to take psychotropic drugs when she was involuntarily committed to the facility on February 3, 2003. The court found in her favor because of “the nature and potentially devastating impact of psychotropic medications….” Further, “Psychotropic drugs ‘affect the mind, behavior, intellectual functions, perception, moods, and emotion’ and are known to cause a number of potentially devastating side effects…Courts have observed that ‘the likelihood [that psychotropic drugs will cause] at least some temporary side effects appears to be undisputed.’”[41]

WHO said that countries must ensure that patients have “the right to refuse admission and treatment is also respected.”[42] Importantly, “People wishing to come off psychotropic drugs should also be actively supported to do so, and several recent resources have been developed to support people to achieve this.”[43]

For good reason. No one should suddenly stop taking a psychotropic drug without medical approval and supervision.

Acts of Violence During Withdrawal

Of nearly 410 drug regulatory agency psychiatric drug warnings, 17 were for addiction or withdrawal effects.[44]

A small example of cases of killers going through withdrawal includes:

2008: DeKalb, Illinois: 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking prescribed drugs Prozac (antidepressant), and anti-anxiety/sedative-hypnotics, Xanax (alprazolam) and Ambien but had stopped taking Prozac three weeks before the shooting. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amount of Xanax in his system.[45]

December 2006: North Vernon, Indiana: 16-year-old Travis Roberson stabbed a Jennings County High School student in the neck, nearly severing an artery. Roberson was in withdrawal from the antidepressant Wellbutrin, which he had stopped taking days before the attack.[46]

April 2006: Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 17-year-old William Barrett Foster took a shotgun to East Chapel Hill High School, where he took a teacher and a fellow student hostage. After being talked out of shooting the hostages, Foster fired two shots through a classroom window before fleeing the school on foot. Foster’s father testified that his son had stopped taking his antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs without telling him (which can cause severe withdrawal effects).[47] 

Acts of Violence Involving Antipsychotics

January 2019 – Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Dakota Theriot, 21, was accused of killing five people in Louisiana. The victims included his parents and three members of a family with whom he’d been living for a short time. Investigators said he smoked weed and drank alcohol that mixed poorly with the antipsychotic drugs he’d been prescribed.[48]

June 2018 – Westminster, Colorado: Jeremy Webster, 23, killed a 13-year-old and injured the boy’s mother and brother in a road rage shooting. A man in another car was also shot. Webster had a psychiatric history and had changed medication that day. He had been prescribed an antidepressant and an antipsychotic.[49]

December 2014 – Montgomery County, Pennsylvania: Iraq War veteran Bradley Stone, 35, killed his ex-wife, her mother, grandmother and sister, and the sister’s husband and 14-year-old daughter and then committed suicide. According to the Medical Examiner, he had both the antidepressant trazodone and the antipsychotic risperidone in his system at the time of his death. Just one week prior to the murders, he had seen his Veterans Affairs psychiatrist, whose evaluation stated Stone had no suicidal or homicidal ideation.[50]

November 2014 – Tallahassee, Florida: Myron May, 31, entered a library where hundreds of students were studying, began shooting and, wounding three before he was shot and killed by police. He had checked himself into a psychiatric center about three months prior. Shortly after this, his friends discovered a new pill bottle among his prescriptions, the antipsychotic Seroquel (quetiapine).[51]

June 2014 – Seattle, Washington: 26-year-old Aaron Ybarra opened fire at Seattle Pacific University, killing one student and wounding two others. Ybarra planned to kill as many people as possible before killing himself. In 2012, he reported that he had been prescribed the antidepressant Prozac and antipsychotic Risperdal (risperidone). A report from his counselor in December of 2013 said that he was taking Prozac at the time and planned to continue to meet with his psychiatrist and therapist as needed. His lawyer said Ybarra had a long history of mental health issues for which he was taking Prozac at the time of the shooting.[52]

February 2013 – Chalk Mountain, Texas: Eddie Ray Routh, 28, shot and killed Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was the subject of the movie, American Sniper, and Kyle’s friend, Chad Littlefield, at a firing range. He had been prescribed the antipsychotic risperidone and the antidepressant, Zoloft, the latter not recommended for anyone aged younger than 25 because of the risk that it may cause suicide. Routh’s father would later report that the cocktail of pharmaceuticals “made Eddie worse,” adding, “I ain’t no doctor. I ain’t no rocket scientist or nothing, but I could tell a difference in him.” He had various hospitalizations over the next few years and was said to be “paranoid and impulsively violent” and was prescribed a cocktail of psychotropic drugs that included two powerful antipsychotics, Haldol and Seroquel and the antidepressant Paxil. He was also mixing prescription drugs known to cause aggressive and psychotic behavior with alcohol and marijuana.[53]

Recommendation: A financial audit on all government funding of violence-prevention mental health/behavioral programs should be conducted with outcome evaluation to show accountability for results.

Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide is a compelling resource detailing more than 30 studies and over sixty cases of mass shootings and acts of violence committed by those taking or withdrawing from prescribed psychotropic drugs. 

References:
[1] https://bja.ojp.gov/program/community-violence-intervention/overview; “APA Statement on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” Psychiatric Times, 24 June 2022, https://www.psychiatry.org/News-room/News-Releases/APA-Statement-on-the-Bipartisan-Safer-Communities

[2] “School Safety Policies and Programs Administered by the U.S. Federal Government: 1990–2016,” A Report Prepared by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice

[3] Ibid.

[4] Allison Paolini, “School Shootings and Student Mental Health: Role of the School Counselor in Mitigating Violence,” ACA (American Counseling Assoc.) Knowledge Center, Vistas, 2015

[5] https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters

[6] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/people-taking-psychiatric-drugs/; “By the numbers: Antidepressant use on the rise,” American Psychological Assoc., Nov. 2017, citing Pratt L.A., Brody D.J., & Gu Q. Antidepressant use among persons aged 12 and over: United States, 2011–14. NCHS Data Brief, No. 283. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/11/numbers

[7] Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide, CCHR International, 2018, p. 3

[8] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/11/08/psychiatrists-and-the-hallucinogenic-drug-industry-are-seeking-to-replace-failed-antidepressants/; “A view into the central nervous system disorders market,” Nature, 1 Sept. 2020, https://www.nature.com/articles/d43747-020-01119-8

[9] https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/aug/16/whats-behind-dubious-claim-psychiatric-drugs-fuel-/

[10] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/06/01/drug-induced-acts-of-senseless-violence-need-investigation/

[11] Snejana Farberov, “Texas teen arrested for plotting mass shooting at Amazon warehouse: cops,” New York Post, 5 July 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/07/05/texas-teen-accused-of-plotting-mass-shooting-at-amazon-warehouse/

[12] Safia Samee Ali, Natasha Korecki and Corky Siemaszko, “Highland Park shooting suspect’s past littered with ‘red flags,” NBC News, 5 July 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/highland-park-shooting-suspects-littered-red-flags-rcna36766

[13] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/01/09/cchr-warns-against-psychedelic-trips-potentially-planned-for-55m-americans/;https://drugabuse.com/drugs/hallucinogens/psilocybin-mushrooms/effects-use/

[14] Op. cit., “School Safety Policies and Programs Administered by the U.S. Federal Government: 1990–2016”

[15] https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/questionnaires.htm

[16] “Psychotropic drugs and homicide: A prospective cohort study from Finland,” World Psychiatry. June 2015, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471985/

[17] “The CIA’s Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A ‘Poisoner In Chief,’” NPR, 9 Sept. 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief

[18] Project Artichoke Document, on file at CCHR

[19] Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence and Suicide, CCHR International, 2018, pp. 3-4

[20] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/04/20/cchr-renews-calls-for-investigation-into-psychiatric-drug-induced-mass-killings/; “Suspect in Indianapolis mass shooting was former FedEx employee, known to law enforcement,” Fox 59 News, 17 Apr. 2021, https://fox59.com/news/indianapolis-fedex-shooting/ap-officials-identify-suspect-in-mass-shooting-at-indianapolis-fedex-facility/

[21] Tony Cook and Johnny Magdaleno, “Timeline: FedEx shooter had over a dozen mental health care, law enforcement encounters,” Indianapolis Star; Yahoo! News, 16 Nov. 21, 2022, https://news.yahoo.com/timeline-fedex-shooter-had-over-155332886.html

[22] “Indianapolis FedEx Shooter Who Killed 4 Sikhs Was Not Racially Motivated, Police Say,” NPR, 28 Jul. 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/07/28/1021935687/indianapolis-fedex-shooting-sikhs-not-racially-motivated-police-say

[23] https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/apa-statement-on-firearm-violence

[24] Megan Wildhood, “Expanded Mental Health Services Won’t Stop Mass Shootings,” Mad in America, 24 June 2022, https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/06/mental-health-services-mass-shootings/

[25] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/06/01/drug-induced-acts-of-senseless-violence-need-investigation/;https://web.archive.org/web/20220221184646/http://cubamoneyproject.com/2020/05/03/shooter-trump/

[26] James Crip, “Pictured: ‘Gunman’ charged with killing three in Copenhagen shopping mall attack,” Daily Telegraph (UK), 5 July 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/07/05/pictured-gunman-charged-killing-three-copenhagen-shopping-mall/

[27] John Read, Ph.D., “The experiences of 585 people when they tried to withdraw from antipsychotic drugs,” Addictive Behaviors Reports, 15 June 2022, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9006667/

[28] Ibid.

[29] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/side-effects-can-persist/

[30] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/08/25/new-study-further-confirms-severe-withdrawal-effects-of-antidepressants/, citing: David Healy, M.D., Joanna Le Noury, Julie Wood, Children of the Cure: Missing Data, Lost Lives and Antidepressants, (Samizdat Health Writer’s Co-operative Inc., 2020), pp. 43-44

[31] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/04/06/antidepressant-withdrawal-warning-vital/; “How Hard is it to Stop Antidepressants?” American Psychological Assoc., 1 Apr. 2020; https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/stop-antidepressants

[32] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/04/06/antidepressant-withdrawal-warning-vital/, citing: Maia Szalavitz, “Top Ten Legal Drugs Linked to Violence,” TIME Magazine, 7 Jan. 2011, https://healthland.time.com/2011/01/07/top-ten-legal-drugs-linked-to-violence/

[33] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/06/01/drug-induced-acts-of-senseless-violence-need-investigation/, citing: David DiSalvo, “Common Painkillers And Sedatives Linked To Increased Risk Of Homicide, According To Study,” Forbes, 4 June 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2015/06/04/common-pain-killers-and-sedatives-linked-to-increased-risk-of-homicide-according-to-study/#1083a9581aef and Nadege Rouve, Haleh Bagheri, et al., “Prescribed drugs and violence: a case/noncase study in the French PharmacoVigilance Database,” European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 7 June, 2011, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21655992

[34] Op. cit., “School Safety Policies and Programs Administered by the U.S. Federal Government: 1990–2016”

[35] Ibid.

[36] https://www.childtrends.org/blog/state-laws-promoting-social-emotional-and-academic-development-leave-room-for-improvement

[37] https://www.vera.org/community-violence-intervention-programs-explained

[38] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/06/29/us-could-learn-from-reform-of-coercive-mental-health-practices/; “Involuntary Commitments: Billing Patients for Forced Psychiatric Care,” The American Journ. of Psychiatry, 1 Dec. 2020, https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20030319

[39] Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General, 49th session, Human Rights Council, “Summary of the outcome of the consultation on ways to harmonize laws, policies and practices relating to mental health with the norms of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and on how to implement them,” 28 Feb.–1 Apr. 2022

[40] Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mental health and human rights, 24 July 2018, A/HRC/39/36.

[41] Faith Myers vs. Alaska Psychiatric Institute, Supreme Court, 2-11021, Superior Court No. 3AN-03-00277, Opinion, No. 6021, 30 June 2006, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ak-supreme-court/1004032.html

[42] “Guidance on Community Mental Health Services: Promoting Person-Centered and Rights-Based Approaches,” World Health Organization, 10 June 2021, p. 6, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240025707 (to download report)

[43] Ibid., p. 201

[44] Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide, CCHR International, 2018, p. 3

[45] “Report of the February 14, 2008 Shootings at Northern Illinois University,” NIU, https://www.niu.edu/forward/_pdfs/archives/feb14report.pdf; “Girlfriend: Shooter was taking cocktail of 3 drugs,” CNN, 20 Feb. 2008, http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/20/shooter.girlfriend/index.html; Dave Newbart, “NIU shooter had trace amounts of drugs in system,” The Chicago Sun-Times, 15 Mar. 2008, http://schoolshooters.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/41/

[46]  https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/; “Authorities: Teen’s Knife Attack At School Was Planned,” The Indy Channel, December 5, 2006, https://ssristories.org/teen-knife-attacks-fellow-student/

[47]  https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/; Meiling Arounnarath, “Forum to ponder school gun incidents, Fraser will discuss the situation nationally and locally,” NewsObserver.com, posted November 28, 2006, http://ssristories.com/show.php?item=1310; Leah Friedman, “Police keep tabs on teen suspect,” NewsObserver.com, February 24, 2007, http://sip-trunking.tmcnet.com/news/2007/02/24/2367179.htm; “Student Charged In April Hostage Incident At Chapel Hill School,” WRAL.com, June 19, 2006, http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1055759/

[48] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/, citing: Emma Kennedy, “Sheriff: Dakota Theriot case is ‘extremely horrific example’ of failed mental health system,” The Advocate, 3 Feb. 2019, https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/article_bef1127c-25c4-11e9-a111-8b4106437e1b.html; Emma Kennedy, “Dakota Theriot, accused of killing five, faces the death penalty. Coronavirus may delay his trial,” The Advocate, 8 July 2020, https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/communities/livingston_tangipahoa/article_a6b433fe-c151-11ea-a3da-5f0c20c13ed4.html

[49] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/ citing: Janet Oravets, “Judge enters not guilty plea, sets trial date for Westminster road rage suspect,” 9News.com, 7 Jan. 2019, https://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/judge-enters-not-guilty-plea-sets-trial-date-for-westminster-road-rage-suspect/73-fc8c9737-e6a7-4fd4-b80e-9ee7e8c458bc

[50] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/, citing, Ralph Ellis, Susan Candiotti and Ashely Fantz, “Police in Pa. search for man suspected of killing ex-wife, 5 former in-laws,” CNN, 15 Dec 2014, https://www.cnn.com/2014/12/15/us/pennsylvania-shootings/; Jacqueline Klimas, “Bradley Stone cleared by Veterans Affairs doctor one week before murders, suicide,” Washington Times, 17 Dec 2014, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/17/bradley-stone-cleared-veterans-affairs-doctor-one-/; Dan Stamm and Vince Lattanzio, “Montgomery County Spree Killer Bradley Stone Dies of Drug Overdose: ME,” NBC 10 Philadelphia, 24 Dec 2014, https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/bradley-stone-death-overdose-report/159969/

[51] https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/ Michael Laforgia, “FSU shooter’s friends tried to get help for him months before the shooting,” Miami Herald, 22 Nov 2014, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article4064977.html; Jordan Culver, et al., “Shooter identified as Florida State alum Myron May,” Tallahassee Democrat, 21 Nov 2014, http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/fsu-news/2014/11/20/shooter-identified-fsu-alum-myron-may/70007494/

[52] https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/; “Seattle Pacific University shooting: Gunman says he “wanted to kill many more,” The Independent, 9 Jun 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/seattle-pacific-university-shooting-gunman-says-he-wanted-to-kill-many-more-9505394.html; “Suspect in Seattle Pacific killing had well-documented demons,” The Seattle Times, 6 Jun 2014, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/suspect-in-seattle-pacific-killing-had-well-documented-demons/; Steve Miletich, et al., “Report: SPU suspect ‘wanted to hurt himself and others’ in 2010,” The Seattle Times, 6 Jun 2014, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/report-spu-suspect-wanted-to-hurt-himself-and-others-in-2010/

[53] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/, citing, Rick Jervis, “‘American Sniper’ killer found guilty in murders,” USA Today, 24 Feb. 2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/24/american-sniper-murder-trial-verdict/23896859; Nicholas Schmidle, “In the Crosshairs,” The New Yorker, 3 Jun. 2013, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/03/in-the-crosshairs; Mike Spies, “Inside the Tortured Mind of Eddie Ray Routh, the Man Who Killed American Sniper Chris Kyle,” Newsweek, 23 Nov. 2015, https://www.newsweek.com/2016/01/08/inside-tortured-mind-man-who-killed-american-sniper-chris-kyle-397299.html

Psychotropic Drugs' Role In Mass Shootings
Posted in Big Muddy River Newsletter | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Wasted Billion$ Spent On Violence Prevention

The Prediction of Violence

You know we keep saying that psychiatry cannot predict violence.

Psychiatrists are unable to predict whether a person is a danger to oneself or others as this relies upon subjective opinion, not science.

Behavioral threat assessment is not based on science but mostly conjecture, and such an inexact “science” means prediction can be futile.

The popular refrain that psychiatry can determine if a person is a danger to self or others is a complete fraud.

In fact, psychiatrists cannot predict, treat or cure violent behavior, and they know it. Prediction is a characteristic of awareness, so an inability to predict is a barrier to full awareness. This would also lead to an inability to contemplate consequences.

In 1979, an American Psychiatric Association’s task force admitted in its Brief Amicus Curiae to the U.S. Supreme Court (Case No. 79-1127) that psychiatrists could not predict dangerousness. It informed the court that “‘dangerousness’ is neither a psychiatric nor a medical diagnosis, but involves issues of legal judgment and definition, as well as issues of social policy. Psychiatric expertise in the prediction of ‘dangerousness’ is not established and clinicians should avoid ‘conclusory judgments in this regard.'”

To quote from the APA Task Force on Clinical Aspects of the Violent Individual (1974): “The ability of psychiatrists or any other professionals to reliably predict future violence is unproved.”

Psychiatrists do not have any scientific or medical test to diagnose a person’s condition, and rely upon faulty observation and opinion of behavior. They admit to not knowing the cause of a single mental disorder or how to cure them. The error in their opinions is enormous—they condemn the innocent, release the dangerous, induce violence in others through drugs and commit people who are not in need of help or turn those away who may genuinely be in need of it.

Really, what is psychiatry all about? Psychiatrists are really playing the game “Let’s find something wrong with them.”

What game should they be playing? “Let’s improve their abilities.”

The Importance of Prediction

Prediction is the process of weighing the consequences of projected action; it is an estimation of risk plus cost versus gain. Prediction is part of knowing and creating the future. Problems begin with an unpredictability, and humans would be bored to tears without a few problems to spice up Life. It is valuable to be able to make such considerations.

Interest is intimately connected to prediction. If one could predict the future with certainty, interest would be very low. Example: if everyone knew everyone else’s hands in a game of cards, there would be little interest in playing the game. On the other hand, if one could never predict at all, one would be easily overwhelmed and would likely quite playing that game. Example: what if everyone’s hand in a card game were made up solely of jokers? You get the idea. Each person has their own optimum ratio of prediction to surprise in order to maintain their interest.

It is not possible to look directly at the future, since it has not happened yet. One can, however, recall the past, look at the present and imagine the future. Lacking the ability to look at the present or imagine the future, however, leaves one only able to think. So thinking, in an aberrated fashion, is a substitute for prediction. Thus we get someone lost in thought instead of actively living the game of Life.

It is certainly possible to predict someone’s actions. Psychiatry then is missing a significant chunk of knowledge about humanity, and remains lost in thought instead of doing something about it.

The end result? Psychiatry has turned to violence themselves, since creating it is the only way they have of predicting it. Shock treatment, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) — the ultimate violence as a “treatment.”

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