Citizens Commission on Human Rights of St. Louis

The Chantix Fraud

A study published July 4, 2011 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal concluded that smokers who take Chantix, a smoking cessation drug, could increase their risk of heart problems.

The study found that there are “safety concerns about the potential for an increased risk of serious adverse cardiovascular events associated with the use of varenicline among tobacco users.”

The heart problems are the latest in a growing list of concerns raised by patient reports, lawsuits and studies since the drug’s approval in 2006.

The drug could cause changes in behavior, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, according to its warning label. Chantix carries a boxed warning — the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s most restrictive safety labeling — because of the risk of psychological events.

Chantix has been banned by the Federal Aviation Administration for pilots and air-traffic controllers because it may cause loss of consciousness and blackouts. Truck and bus drivers are also not allowed to take the drug.

Among all this is the apparently deliberate attempt to mislead the public regarding the true nature of Pfizer’s Chantix. What are they not saying?

Guess what? Chantix is an addictive benzodiazepine-based psychotropic anti-anxiety drug.

That’s a mouthful.

Just don’t put it in your mouth.

It might just stop you from smoking – permanently.

Click here for more information about the side effects of psychiatric drugs.

How Big Pharma got Americans hooked on anti-psychotic drugs

A recent opinion article in Al Jazeera English is an interesting read (“Mass psychosis in the US” by James Ridgeway, a senior Washington correspondent with Mother Jones Magazine.)

The article starts with, “Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux,”

and ends with “Stop Big Pharma and the parasitic shrink community from wantonly pushing these pills across the population.”

This reminds us about one of the truly abhorrent uses of psychotropic drugs, and the role of psychiatry in international terrorism.

Terrorism is created; it is not human nature. Suicide bombers are made, not born. Ultimately, terrorism is the result of madmen bent on destruction, and these madmen are typically the result of psychiatric or psychological techniques aimed at mind and behavioral control.

Suicide bombers are not rational—they are weak and pliant individuals psychologically indoctrinated to murder innocent people without compassion, with no concern for the value of their own lives. They are manufactured assassins. Part of that process involves the use of mind–altering psychiatric drugs.

For more information, go to http://www.cchrstl.org/terrorism.shtml.

Federal Court Rules Against Loughner’s Forced Medication

Jared Lee Loughner — who was accused of shooting Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 18 more people in Tucson, Ariz., in January — can continue to reject psychotropic drug treatment, a federal appeals court decided Tuesday, July 12, 2011.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the prison’s interest in protecting other inmates from Loughner does not override Loughner’s “strong personal interest in not being forced to suffer the indignity and risk of bodily injury” resulting from forced medication, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The court order goes on to say, “Because Loughner hasn’t been convicted of a crime, he is presumptively innocent and is therefore entitled to greater constitutional protections than a convicted inmate.”

Although we cannot presume that our newletter of July 5th about the human rights abuse of involuntary commitment and enforced psychiatric drugging was a decisive factor in the court’s ruling, we are pleased to see a federal appeals court agree with us. However, we must also note that involuntary commitment and enforced psychiatric drugging are human rights abuses regardless of the criminal conviction status of an individual.

The court order to temporarily halt the forced medication of Mr. Loughner by officials at the Missouri federal prison where he is being held calls for a further hearing the week of August 29 to fully consider the medication issue. You may express your opinions regarding enforced psychiatric drugging to the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s office at USAAZ.ComplaintAtty@usdoj.gov.

For more information download and read the CCHR information letter, “Involuntary Psychiatric Commitment – A Crack In The Door Of Constitutional Freedoms.”

An article in The Economist (25 June 2011, “Mass observation”) discussing the 2006 health care reform legislation in Massachusetts, and on which the current federal health care legislation was based in part, makes the point that, although the percent of those lacking health insurance in Massachusetts dropped from 6.4% to 1.9%, the costs of health care and health care insurance have increased, and according to The Economist these costs are “unsustainable.”

Costs for MassHealth rose 40% between 2006 and 2010, and costs for the subsidized health program for adults was 32% more than expected in 2008 and 11% more than expected in 2009. Also, uninsured hospital visits in 2010 were 14% above the level in 2009. Insurance premiums rose 12% between 2006 and 2008.

There are so many ifs, ands and buts about these figures that it is hard to make generalizations. However, one thing we can say for sure is that there is a general unwillingness to acknowledge and confront the contribution of fraud to the rising costs of health care and health care insurance, in particular the amount of patient abuse and fraud in the mental health industry.

Mental health practitioners perpetrate more fraud than any other sector of medicine. The U.S. loses about $100 billion to health care fraud each year, and up to $40 billion of this is due to fraudulent practices in the mental health industry.

The mental health monopoly has practically zero accountability and zero liability for its failures. This has allowed psychiatrists and psychologists to commit far more than just financial fraud. The roster of crimes committed by these “professionals” ranges from fraud, drug offenses, rape and sexual abuse to child molestation, assault, manslaughter and murder.

With mental health care insurance coverage being mandated in the U.S. through state and federal legislation, levels of fraud and abuse can be expected to continue to escalate, in spite of health care reform legislation.

What is the alternative? Provide funding and insurance coverage only for proven, workable treatments that verifiably and dramatically improve or cure mental health problems.

For more information download and read the CCHR booklet, “Massive Fraud — Psychiatry’s Corrupt Industry — Report and recommendations on the criminal mental health monopoly.”

An article in Science News Daily (April 11, 2011, “Pharmacogenetics Testing Offers Way to Reduce Deaths from Drug Toxicity”) discusses the field of pharmacogenetics (also called pharmacogenomics,) the study of an individual’s variation in DNA sequence related to drug response.

Putting a foreign substance such as a psychotropic drug into the body disrupts the body’s normal biochemistry, and can be considered as the introduction of an unnatural and toxic substance into the body. These drugs “work” by changing the normal functions of the body: they speed them up, slow them down, dam them up or overwhelm them. This is why there are side effects with psychiatric drugs.

Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Yolande Lucire (in her paper “Psychotropic Medication and Cytochromes“) makes these statements:

“Since 1994, a substantial number of papers have been published in major refereed medical journals on Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs). The ballpark estimate is that each year 2.2 million Americans are hospitalised for ADRs and over 100,000 die from them. These are simply adverse reactions to drugs, which are often but not always, unpredictable, and appear only in the fine print of prescribing information.

“Psychiatric drugs have hardly rated a mention, as psychiatric side effects in psychiatric patients have been routinely missed or dismissed by the pharmaceutical companies with ‘It’s the disease, not the drug, doctor.’

“With the drugs used in psychiatry, (and this is very general,) many are metabolised in the liver by an enzyme system called cytochrome P450 (and other cytochrome systems). There are genetic, biological differences between individuals, some of whom do not produce certain cytochromes at all. In practice this means that somewhere between 12 and 20% of Caucasians cannot metabolise certain drugs, for example, SSRIs, at all or they do it slowly. [Cytochrome means “cellular pigment” and is a protein found in blood cells.]

“The following drugs are only a few of the scores that use the cytochrome P450 system for their metabolism: alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, amphetamines, Amitriptyline, Celebrex, Cipramil, Lexapro, Codeine, Valium, Warfarin, Dilantin, Efexor, Feldene, Brufen, grapefruit, Luvox, Aropax, Prednisone, Prozac, Serzone, Risperdal, Tegretol, Voltaren, Zoloft and Zyprexa.”

One of the possible conclusions to be drawn from this emerging area of research is that the toxic effects (side effects) of psychiatric drugs in the body can be significantly multiplied in a large proportion of individuals who lack this ability to effectively metabolize and deal with these toxins.

Dr. Lucire’s research points to the result that persons with abnormal P450 metabolism who are given psychiatric drugs may reach a level of toxicity within hours or days which correlates with the onset of intense and harmful side effects.

The psychopharmaceutical industry has expanded its influence far beyond its ability to be effective, if indeed it ever was. One must also always keep in mind that while these drugs have been repeatedly shown to be not only ineffective but also harmful, the real underlying problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior or study problems as “diseases,” combined with the profit-motives of pharmaceutical companies vying for a piece of the resultant psychiatric “treatment.” 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.

[Thanks to Eileen Dannemann, Director of the National Coalition of Organized Women, for acquainting us with this information.]

Department of Justice

“A federal judge on Wednesday June 29 refused to order prison officials to stop forcibly medicating Arizona shooting suspect Jared Loughner with anti-psychotic drugs.

“U.S. District Judge Larry Burns rejected a request by defense attorneys for Loughner, 22, to halt the procedure at a federal prisoners’ hospital in Missouri.

“Last month Loughner was declared mentally incompetent to stand trial on charges he killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, during a January 8 shooting in Tucson, Arizona.

“His defense team filed an emergency petition arguing the U.S. Bureau of Prisons had decided, without the permission of the court, to “involuntarily and forcibly medicate him on the grounds that he is a danger to others.”

“In response, prosecutors said that after Loughner had declined to take medication, the Bureau of Prisons determined at an administrative hearing that he should be involuntarily medicated.”

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-shooting-loughner-medication-idUSTRE75S85P20110629]

Without becoming involved in the legal case for or against Loughner, one can still remark on the subject of involuntary commitment and enforced drugging.

Knowing what we know about psychiatric treatment and psychiatric drugs [and if you are not familiar with the truth about this, we recommend you review the material on our web site,] we cannot help but observe and decry the inhumanity of involuntary commitment and enforced drugging.

Can this really happen in America today? Can this happen in a country where even criminals are set free if they are not given their rights, where the strongest Constitution in man’s history guarantees the individual his liberties? It not only can, but it does. The fact is, every 1¼ minutes, someone in the U.S. becomes the next victim of involuntary incarceration in a psychiatric hospital. And there’s nothing they can do about it.

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. And while psychiatrists and psychiatric hospitals are today being investigated nationally and in state hearings for insurance fraud, mistreatment of patients, sexual violations and other crimes, the crux of their power—involuntary commitment laws—receives no focused attention.

The undeniable fact is that basic human rights granted even to killers or terrorists are denied people labeled mentally disordered. Restraints, imprisonment and other violations of civil liberties are the least people have to fear from involuntary admission into psychiatric institutions. A far worse fate is treatment, especially enforced drugging.

The common thread of all these procedures is the incapacitation in some manner of the individual. And when one considers that most psychiatric cases address those who indulge in behavior not approved of by others, this form of control becomes a logical and even acceptable goal—to those who seek such control.

The fact that these actions are couched in such Orwellian doublespeak as “for his own good,” “to prevent him from committing harm,” etc., is unfortunate, for it obfuscates this evil intention.

The dangerous person who is violent must be dealt with independent of psychiatrists. In his book, The Therapeutic State, Dr. Thomas Szasz wrote, “To be sure some people are dangerous. We in America—especially if we live in the big cities—need hardly be reminded of this painful fact. But in American law, dangerousness is not supposed to be an abstract psychological condition attributed to a person; instead, it is supposed to be an inference drawn from the fact that a person has committed a violent act that is illegal, has been charged with it, tried for it, and found guilty of it. In which case, he should be punished, not ‘treated’—in a jail, not in a hospital.”

For more information about this sorry state of affairs, download and read the CCHR information letter, “Involuntary Psychiatric Commitment – A Crack In The Door Of Constitutional Freedoms.”

The Illusions of Psychiatry

by Marcia Angell in the New York Review of Books

This is a seriously great article exposing all the inner workings of psychiatry’s billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), including the complete lack of medical legitimacy for psychiatric diagnoses, the birth of the psychiatric-pharmaceutical alliance to push DSM disorders off on an unsuspecting public, and the funding behind psychiatrists and their front groups pushing the brain based “disease” model which they all know is bogus.

“Unlike the conditions treated in most other branches of medicine, there are no objective signs or tests for mental illness—no lab data or MRI findings—and the boundaries between normal and abnormal are often unclear. That makes it possible to expand diagnostic boundaries or even create new diagnoses, in ways that would be impossible, say, in a field like cardiology. And drug companies have every interest in inducing psychiatrists to do just that.”

Read the full article here:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jul/14/illusions-of-psychiatry/

Judy Clarke, defense attorney for the Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner, wrote in a court filing the first week of June that giving Loughner psychiatric drugs could have “serious and possibly permanent side effects.” [Quote from the Nevada Missouri Herald-Tribune, June 11, 2011]

While we agree with this statement about the side effects of psychiatric drugs, we also know that Thomas Szasz in his book, The Myth of Mental Illness, said, “The introduction of psychiatric considerations into the administration of the criminal law – for example, the insanity plea and verdict, diagnoses of mental incompetence to stand trial, and so forth – corrupt the law and victimize the subject on whose behalf they are ostensibly employed.”

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns previously ruled that Loughner is mentally unfit to stand trial, and Loughner was sent to the Springfield, Missouri federal prison for psychiatric treatment.

Psychiatry’s increasing influence in criminal justice has produced only escalating crime rates internationally. Although incapable of either predicting future dangerousness or of rehabilitating criminals, psychiatrists still testify, in court on behalf of the highest bidder, asserting that offenders are not responsible for what they have done, but are instead “victims” of fictitious mental disorders. The result is rising crime, as lawbreakers are put back on the streets to wreak more havoc, unrepentant and uncorrected.

The rehabilitation of criminals is a long-forgotten dream. We build more prisons and pass even tougher laws in the belief that these will act as a deterrent. Meanwhile, honest people are losing faith in justice itself as they see vicious criminals avoid conviction through the use of bizarre and incomprehensible defense tactics. First and foremost it should be recognized that every person is responsible for his or her own actions and must be held accountable for their actions.

It is an old maxim that if a person wants to break the law with impunity he must become the law – a maxim taken to heart by psychiatrists. Psychiatry was posed as a solution to crime and became the problem. The first step to recovery is to remove psychiatric influence from the courts, police departments, prisons and schools.

For more information, click here to download and read the complete CCHR report, “Eroding Justice—Psychiatry’s Corruption of Law — Report and recommendations on psychiatry subverting the courts and corrective services.”