No Benefit, Possible Harm From Routine Depression Screening

No Benefit, Possible Harm From Routine Depression Screening

PsychSearch News

September 23, 2011 — Routine screening for depression in primary care, as recommended by organizations in the United States and Canada, has not been shown to be beneficial, and may even be harmful, according to new research published online September 19 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. In addition, in this era of fiscal restraint, this screening is a waste of precious healthcare dollars, the authors write.

“Canadian and US task force recommendations suggest screening, and there are many places in Canada where there is screening going on, or healthcare bodies are putting in place provisions to screen patients for depression. Essentially they assume that it’s a good thing, but there is no evidence that it is,” lead author Brett D. Thombs, PhD, from McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, told Medscape Medical News.

They came to the conclusion that although the prevalence of depression and the availability of relatively easy-to-use screening instruments make it “tempting” to endorse widespread screening, they could find no benefit in the practice.

Read the full article on PsychNews.

Mental Health Screening

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.

Click here for more information about the history, practice, and hoax of mental health screening.

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Anesthesia and Learning Disabilities

Scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota have found a strong association between children undergoing surgery requiring general anesthesia before they are 2 years old and learning disabilities later in childhood.

Over a third of the children who had more than one surgery developed a learning disability later in life.

The study concludes that, “Repeated exposure to anesthesia and surgery before the age of 2 was a significant independent risk factor for the later development of LDs [Learning Disabilities] … We cannot exclude the possibility that multiple exposures to anesthesia/surgery at an early age may adversely affect human neurodevelopment with lasting consequence.”

The article appears in the journal Pediatrics,Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes After Early Exposure to Anesthesia and Surgery,” published online October 3, 2011 (10.1542/peds.2011-0351).

So-called Learning Disabilities are typically treated with harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs. In the cases cited here, one observes that an LD might be misdiagnosed as a mental disorder instead of as the result of a toxic drug overload which has vastly different treatment options.

There are hundreds of common prescription and over-the-counter drugs whose side effects masquerade as mental symptoms. Look for a future newsletter about drug-induced nutrient depletion and how this can cause many symptoms appearing as mental distress.

For more information about psychiatric misdiagnosis, download and read the CCHR booklet, Pseudoscience — Psychiatry’s False Diagnoses — Report and recommendations on unscientific fraud perpetrated by psychiatry.

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Mental health worker dies after restraining patient

Mental health worker dies after restraining patient

The Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services says a mental health worker at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown died after being involved in restraining an unruly psychiatric patient who was being held to forcibly administer drugs.

We have previously discussed psychiatric restraints and the harm this does to patients, but we have not addressed the harm it can do to psychiatric workers.

Is it any wonder that a patient fought back when five of his “caretakers” held him down to give him psychiatric drugs?

Thousands of people of all ages continue to die from such callous, physical assault in psychiatric facilities across the globe; and now, regrettably, we can add mental health workers to this list.

“Assault” is by definition an attempt or apparent attempt to inflict injury upon another by using unlawful force, along with the ability to injure that person. “Battery” is defined as any unlawful beating or other wrongful physical violence or constraint inflicted on a human being without his consent. Psychiatric restraint procedures, and all other psychiatric procedures for that matter, qualify as “assault and battery” in every respect except one — they are lawful.

Download and read the CCHR report, Deadly Restraints — Psychiatry’s “Therapeutic” Assault — Report and recommendations on the violent and dangerous use of restraints in mental health facilities, and draw your own conclusions about the danger psychiatry poses, not only to our mental health, but to our very lives.

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Bedlam

As a student at Trinity College, Cambridge (1810-1812), the English mathematician Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was a member of the Extractors Club, dedicated to liberating its members from the madhouse, should any be committed to one.

Of course, at the time the most famous psychiatric institution was the Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, variously known as St. Mary Bethlehem, Bethlem Hospital, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam.

Bedlam became notorious for the brutal ill-treatment meted out to the mentally ill. In the 18th century people used to go to Bedlam to stare at the lunatics. For a penny one could peer into their cells, view the freaks of the “show of Bethlehem” and laugh at their antics. Entry was free on the first Tuesday of the month. In 1814 alone, there were 96,000 such visits.

The word “bedlam” became synonymous with an insane asylum, or any place or situation of noisy uproar and confusion.

One might be confused and noisy indeed if one were involuntarily committed to such an institution and forcibly given psychiatric drugs, as happens frequently today. The fact is, every 1¼ minutes, someone in the U.S. becomes the next victim of involuntary incarceration in a psychiatric hospital.

While involuntary commitment laws enrich the psychiatric industry, they not only deprive individuals of their freedom of choice, but milk millions of health insurance dollars annually from private, state, national and military health plans.

For more information about involuntary commitment, download and read the CCHR booklet Involuntary Psychiatric Commitment – A Crack in the Door of Constitutional Freedoms.

A Living Will lets you specify decisions about your health care treatment in advance. Should you be in a position where you are to be subject to unwanted psychiatric hospitalization and/or mental or medical treatment, a Letter of Protection from Psychiatric Incarceration and/or Treatment directs that such incarceration, hospitalization, treatment or procedures not be imposed, committed or used on you. Download the document and follow the instructions now.

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Psychiatry to blame for abduction and rape of 11-year-old girl

Citizens Commission on Human Rights’ (CCHR) mission has always been to investigation and expose psychiatric violations of human rights, and crime and fraud in the mental health industry. One aspect of this has been to educate the public about the erosion of the justice system that started when psychiatric “expert witnesses” and mental health evaluators were allowed into our courts.

Courts, ignorant of psychiatry’s complete lack of medical and scientific substance, have put entirely too much value on the psychiatrists’ evaluations and recommendations.

A recent report issued by the El Dorado County (California) District Attorney solidifies this reality by systematically showing how law enforcement reliance on psychiatrists and other mental health evaluators in the legal system put the public in danger and enabled one of the most heinous federal crimes in recent memory.

On June 10, 1991, Phillip and Nancy Garrido abducted 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard in South Lake Tahoe, California and held her as a sex slave for the next 18 years, during which Dugard gave birth to two daughters fathered by Garrido.

In his August 2, 2011 report, the El Dorado County District Attorney (DA) points out that in March 1977, Garrido was given a 50-year federal prison sentence for kidnapping a young woman and was concurrently given a Nevada state prison sentence of five years to life for forcibly raping her (he’d handcuffed and sexually assaulted her for hours). Garrido’s “reliable documented criminal history” includes:

  • A May 1970 conviction and probation for possession of marijuana and LSD
  • A March 1972 conviction and jail sentence for possession of marijuana
  • An April 1972 arrest for Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor, Possible Rape and Adult Providing Dangerous Drugs to a Minor (case was dismissed)
  • The kidnapping and rape of a 14-year-old girl in 1972
  • The kidnapping and rape of a 19-year-old young woman in June 1976
  • The attempted kidnapping and rape of a 25-year-old woman in November 1976, just hours before the kidnap-rape that got him put in prison
  • “Garrido alluded to many additional crimes that may never be solved.”

Further, Garrido later admitted to abducting two other women and to having a deviant sexual interest in young children. Yet, rather than consider his past conduct as grounds for his continued incarceration, the courts relied instead on psychiatrists’ evaluations of Garrido, based largely on Garrido’s own statements about his “rehabilitation.”

One psychologist was willing to recommend parole for the convicted rapist after he’d been in prison a little over a year, finding him to be “a likeable young man whose bearing excites the positive regard of others.”

This, the DA points out, was because Garrido knew how to use psychiatry to his advantage: act in the right manner and say the right things and the psych would write a glowing report of the criminal’s rehabilitation and value to society. Psychiatry’s utter lack of medical substance, coupled with the court’s reliance on psychiatric opinion, allowed a sexual psychopath to get out of jail after only eleven years and go mostly unnoticed before, during and after the abduction of Dugard.

The DA does not merely make passing mention of psychiatry in the matter but repeatedly raises the point throughout:

  • “When looking at the Garrido case…it is hard to ignore the role that the psychiatric profession played…Garrido manipulated the system with the assistance of the psychiatric profession…”
  • “Far too often, the psychiatrist focuses on what the criminal says (rather than their past actions and conduct) to evaluate their risk for future dangerousness. This runs counter to common sense.”
  • “…the ultimate failure of the system and its dealing with Garrido was the result of a complete over-reliance of criminal justice system upon the opinions of psychiatric professionals…and a parole system that gives too much weight to a prisoner’s institutional adjustment and psychiatric evaluations…”
  • “Far too often, these psychiatric reports are taken as gospel, and overly relied upon by parole boards (and many others in the criminal justice system).”
  • “Should these psychiatric evaluation continue to be conducted, however, they should be given less weight in determining parole suitability…”

We urge you to download and read the DA’s entire report, as it contains valuable professional insight into the actual workings (and repeated failings) of psychiatry in the justice system and contains as well the seeds of the reforms that will prevent future tragedies like the abduction of Jaycee Dugard.

For more information about psychiatry’s infiltration of the justice system, download and read the CCHR report, “Eroding Justice—Psychiatry’s Corruption of Law — Report and recommendations on psychiatry subverting the courts and corrective services.”

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Mental Health Counselor Gets 35 Years in Prison

Mental Health Counselor Gets 35 Years in Prison

By Jay Weaver The Miami Herald jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
 A federal judge Monday (9/19/2011) issued another lengthy sentence in one of the nation’s biggest mental-health fraud cases, sending a Miami therapist to prison for 35 years.

The sentencing of Marianella Valera, 40, came only days after the same judge sent her 49-year-old boyfriend, Lawrence Duran, to prison for 50 years. The pair ran Miami-based American Therapeutic Corp, which prosecutors say defrauded the taxpayer-funded Medicare program of more than $200 million.

The couple’s company, with clinics stretching from Miami to Fort Lauderdale to Orlando, collected $87 million in Medicare payments after submitting $205 million in false claims. The couple paid kickbacks to recruiters to supply patients suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s and addictions, but they could not have benefited from the company’s purported group therapy sessions.

Valera and Duran also threw “charting” parties, where they and other American Therapeutic employees altered patients’ records to make it look like they needed the purported group therapy sessions when they didn’t.

A total of 34 people, including American Therapeutic employees, doctors, therapists, nurses and recruiters, have been charged in the ongoing fraud case, which is being investigated by the FBI and Health and Human Services-Office of Inspector General.

Previously, federal agents busted 42 South Florida suspects on Medicare fraud charges as part of a Justice Department sweep, including the owners of Biscayne Milieu Health Center, a Fort Lauderdale psychiatrist, Dr. Gary Kushner, patient recruiters and assisted living facility landlords. Out-of-state patients, suffering from disabilities and addictions, were lured to South Florida with the promise of a roof over their head. But once they arrived, with their valuable Medicare cards in hand, they would be squeezed into rundown assisted-living facilities and steered to purported mental-health programs — at a multimillion-dollar cost to taxpayers, authorities say. If they dropped out of the group therapy sessions, the assisted living facility owners would toss the patients out into the street.

Crime in Mental Health Care

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.

A significant portion of these appropriations and insurance reimbursements has been lost due to financial fraud within the mental health industry, an international problem estimated to cost more than a hundred billion dollars every year. The United States loses approximately $100 billion to health care fraud each year, with up to $40 billion of this due to fraudulent practices in the mental health industry.

For more information about psychiatric fraud, download and read the free CCHR booklet, Massive Fraud – Psychiatry’s Corrupt Industry – Report and recommendations on the criminal mental health monopoly.

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Parents’ Rights

Parents’ Rights: The Brave Detroit Mother Who Stood up to Child Protective Services

Maryanne GodboldoThe case of Maryanne Godboldo and the defense of her daughter against forced drugging by the state has quickly become legendary.

Earlier this year Godboldo, the mother of a 13-year old girl, was being accused of neglecting her child by refusing to administer the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, a drug so dangerous it is documented by international drug regulatory agencies to cause aggression, cardiac arrest, fatal blood clots, liver failure, mania, suicide and violence. Child Protective Services, accompanied by armed police officers, a SWAT team and a tank, arrived at her door with a court order to take her child away.

So what did Godboldo do? A 12-hour standoff ensued, and this mother, who was simply acting within her rights to protect her child from harm, was arrested.

Months later a web of lies and deceit involving Child Protective Services has been uncovered, and Maryanne Godboldo is not only still fighting, but winning the battle.

Click here to read more about the twisted web of lies in the Maryanne Godboldo case.

Click here to read how Johnson and Johnson, Risperdal’s drug makers, currently face $1 billion in federal and state lawsuits.

Watch the video from the Fox Business Channel below:

Maryanne Godboldo

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Dozens arrested in Medicare mental health fraud

Dozens arrested in Medicare mental health fraud

Sep 7th, 2011
By Jay Weaver
Miami Herald

Federal agents busted 42 South Florida suspects on Medicare fraud charges as part of a Justice Department sweep targeting hotspots from Miami to Los Angeles.

Out-of-state patients, suffering from disabilities and addictions, were lured to South Florida with the promise of a roof over their head. But once they arrived, with their valuable Medicare cards in hand, they would be squeezed into rundown Assisted-Living Facilities and steered to purported mental-health programs — at a multimillion-dollar cost to taxpayers, authorities say. If they dropped out of the group therapy sessions, the ALF owners would toss the patients out into the street.

Collectively, they’re accused of submitting $160 million in false claims to Medicare for services that were either not needed or provided to patients.

The biggest case was the new indictment of Biscayne Milieu and 23 defendants, including the family owners, a psychiatrist, Dr. Gary Kushner, patient recruiters and ALF operators. The clinic owners are accused of paying recruiters and landlords to lure out-of-state patients into the scheme.

Crime in Mental Health Care

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.

A significant portion of these appropriations and insurance reimbursements has been lost due to financial fraud within the mental health industry, an international problem estimated to cost more than a hundred billion dollars every year. The United States loses approximately $100 billion to health care fraud each year, with up to $40 billion of this due to fraudulent practices in the mental health industry.

For more information about psychiatric fraud, download and read the free CCHR booklet, Massive Fraud – Psychiatry’s Corrupt Industry – Report and recommendations on the criminal mental health monopoly.

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Teen involuntarily intoxicated by depression drugs

According to an August 17, 2011 news article in the Edwardsville Intelligencer (Madison County, Illinois), “A teenager was insane and ‘involuntarily intoxicated’ by prescription depression medicine when he gunned down two sleeping neighbors in a tiny southern Illinois town before trying to kill himself with a staple gun in his garage, his lawyer told jurors at the boy’s murder trial.”

Sixteen-year-old Clifford Baker had been prescribed an antidepression drug two weeks prior to the shooting.

Psycho/pharma spends billions of dollars a year marketing mental “disorders” and drugs for kids—yet these drugs are documented by international drug regulatory agencies to cause mania, psychosis, hallucinations, suicide, violence, homicidal ideation, heart attack, stroke and death. What’s more, they are being prescribed for psychiatric disorders that are simply a checklist of behaviors.

Define Better

Big Pharma—Define ‘Better’
Click here to watch video featuring Chill EB

Get the facts here http://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-disorders/.

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Violence and Psychiatric Drugs

The relationship between psychiatric drugs and violence has been known for some time. You may be wondering, however, why it is apparently either not known or ignored.

In the news this past week was the sad story about a woman, Yokeia Smith of East St. Louis, accused of killing two of her young children with a shotgun and then hitting two pedestrians with her car. There was apparently no known motive, however the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote on September 1 that, “Smith had recently been prescribed medication to treat depression or some sort of mental illness.”

We see stories like this in the news quite often.

Senseless violence is a side effect of the psychotropic drugs prescribed by doctors and psychiatrists for various symptoms falsely characterized as mental illness. This fact has been documented over and over again, and the information is supposed to be transmitted by doctors to their patients anytime they prescribe such drugs. The patient has a right to this information before consenting to treatment. This is called Informed Consent.

In 2004 the FDA warned that antidepressants could cause anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia, hypomania and mania. Also in 2004 the FDA ordered pharmaceutical companies to add a “black box” warning to all antidepressants because the drugs could cause suicidal thoughts and actions in children and teenagers. The agency also directed the manufacturers to print and distribute medication guides with every antidepressant prescription and to inform patients of the risks. In 2005 a study published in the British Medical Journal determined that adults taking SSRI antidepressants were more than twice as likely to attempt suicide as patients given placebo. In 2007 the FDA officially extended the age group for the black box warning about antidepressants inducing suicide from 18 to 24. There are many more studies and warnings, worldwide, about the danger of psychiatric drugs causing violence.

From the prevalence of cases like Ms. Smith, apparently these warnings are either not told or go unheeded; apparently the police still think that incidents of senseless violence after taking (or withdrawing from) psychiatric drugs have no cause.

As each new incident is reported, we gape in stunned horror and wonder what is happening to our way of life. How can we continue to find ourselves without a solution to the escalating number of acts of random, senseless violence? The reason is that we have been fed all manner of wrong reasons for why these tragedies have taken place, and so they continue.

It is not guns, cars, age, gender or politics that are the common denominator to these horrific events. Psychiatric, mind-altering drugs have been found to be the common factor in an overwhelming number of these acts of random senseless violence.

On the surface, the idea of antidepressants or other psychiatric drugs creating hostility and violence may not make sense. After all, they are supposed to make people calm and quiet. But the reality is that they can and do create such adverse effects. The scientific evidence, only a part of which is presented above, is overwhelming.

Perhaps it is just too incredible to be believed. A thorough review of the facts should dispel that disbelief. What should you do about it? Find out the truth for yourself. Pass this information along. Tell your family, friends, co-workers and associates. Write your local, state and federal representatives. Speak at your school boards and your churches. Have them watch the CCHR documentary DVDs. Write a letter to the editor when stories about senseless violence appear in the media. Volunteer for CCHR projects. Donate money to CCHR so we can continue spreading this word.

Or, you can do nothing and continue to gape in horror every time some mother on antidepressants shoots her children with a shotgun.

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