Citizens Commission on Human Rights of St. Louis

Newsweek magazine, in the February 8, 2010 issue, has an interesting cover story about antidepressant drugs by Sharon Begley [http://www.newsweek.com/id/232781] with the tag line, “Studies suggest that the popular drugs are no more effective than a placebo, in fact, they may be worse.”

Here are a few choice quotes from the article:

“[The benefit of antidepressants] is hardly more than what patients get when they, unknowingly and as part of a study, take a dummy pill — a placebo. As more and more scientists who study depression and the drugs that treat it are concluding, that suggests that antidepressants are basically expensive Tic Tacs.”

Dr. Irving Kirsch, author of a new book, The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth, is quoted as saying, “The belief that antidepressants can cure depression chemically is simply wrong.”

“Unfortunately, the serotonin-deficit theory of depression is built on a foundation of tissue paper. … Direct evidence doesn’t exist.”

and

“Maybe it is time to pull back the curtain and see the wizard for what he is. As for Kirsch, he insists that it is important to know that much of the benefit of antidepressants is a placebo effect. If placebos can make people better, then depression can be treated without drugs that come with serious side effects, not to mention costs. Wider recognition that antidepressants are a pharmaceutical version of the emperor’s new clothes, he says, might spur patients to try other treatments.”

If you are taking these drugs, do not stop taking them based on what you read here. You could suffer serious withdrawal symptoms. You should seek the advice and help of a competent medical doctor or practitioner before trying to come off any psychiatric drug.

Prescribed for everything from learning and behavioral problems, bedwetting, juvenile delinquency, aggression, criminality, drug addiction and smoking, to handling the fears and problems of our elderly, antidepressants are among the most widely prescribed drugs on Earth, with fifty-four million worldwide currently on them.

But for many, taking antidepressants comes at a severe cost. For more information about the side effects of psychiatric drugs, go to www.cchrstl.org/sideeffects.shtml. Needless to say, allowing yourself to be treated with psychiatric drugs is very risky, since there is very little science to back it up.

According to top experts, the majority of people having mental problems are actually suffering from nonpsychiatric disease that is causing emotional stress. For more information about medical causes of psychiatric symptoms, go to www.cchrstl.org/causes.shtml.

A central figure behind the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) claims disputing the link between vaccines and autism and other neurological disorders has disappeared after officials discovered massive fraud involving the theft of millions in taxpayer dollars. Danish police are investigating psychiatrist Dr. Poul Thorsen, who has vanished along with almost $2 million. Thorsen was a leading member of a Danish research group that wrote studies supporting CDC’s claims that mercury-laden vaccines were safe for children. His study has long been criticized as fraudulent. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/central-figure-in-cdc-vac_b_494303.html]

Approximately 1.5 million people in the United Kingdom are addicted to prescription or over-the-counter drugs, many of which were legally acquired. In July, the Department of Health launched a review of the problem, after the House of Commons All-Party Group on Drug Misuse called for greater awareness, better doctor training and more treatment options. Although medical guidelines discourage doctors from prescribing benzodiazepine tranquilizers such as Valium for more than four weeks at a time, many patients still become addicted. [http://www.naturalnews.com/028375_painkillers_addiction.html]

The study data from the National Institute of Mental Health’s Sequence Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression, or STAR*D trial, did not report a “real-world” number for remission rate of depressed patients given several different prescriptions trying to find one that “worked.” It’s a number that tells of a “theoretical” remission rate, and it hides the fact that many remitted patients then quickly relapse. [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad-in-america/201003/fact-checking-the-new-yorker]

GlaxoSmithKline has paid out close to $1 billion to resolve lawsuits involving Paxil since the drug came on the market in 1992, according to a December 14, 2009 Bloomberg report. But the billion dollars does not cover the more than 600 Paxil birth defect cases currently pending in multi-litigation in Pennsylvania.

Click here to read the whole article.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported an obituary March 11 (page A21 in the print edition) for actor Corey Haim, who died March 10 in Los Angeles at the age of 38, apparently from pulmonary congestion.

The article quoted a 2004 interview with Mr. Haim, “After a period in rehab … Mr. Haim was put on prescription drugs. ‘I started on the downers … but one led to two, two led to four, four led to eight, until at the end it was about 85 a day … and that was just the Valium.'”

Other news reports speculate that Mr. Hain’s death may have involved a drug overdose; police reported recovering four prescription drugs in his room. One can also speculate about the damage done by Mr. Haim’s previous use, or abuse, of Valium.

Valium (diazepam) is a psychiatric antianxiety drug, also called a minor tranquilizer, benzodiazepine, or sedative hypnotic.

Daily use of therapeutic doses of benzodiazepines is associated with physical and psychological dependence, and abrupt cessation can lead to severe withdrawal symptoms, including suicide. Withdrawal from drugs like Valium is more prolonged and often more difficult than withdrawal from heroin.

The benzodiazepine’s exact mechanism of action is unknown. Clinically, all benzodiazepines cause a dose-related central nervous system depressant activity varying from mild impairment of task performance to hypnosis.

Unlike medical drugs, which commonly may prevent or cure disease or improve health, psychiatric drugs are only designed to suppress symptoms that return once the drug wears off.

Like illicit drugs, psychiatric drugs provide no more than a temporary escape from problems, unwanted behavior or unpleasant emotions.

Psychiatrists keep on prescribing these drugs in spite of the known problems of addiction and harmful side effects. Today, at least 20 million people worldwide are prescribed these “minor tranquilizers.” Meanwhile, we are facing epidemic levels of citizens hooked on these drugs. In fact, an estimated 60% of people taking antianxiety drugs become addicted and suffer adverse reactions to the drugs, such as extreme anger and hostile behavior.

There is no question that people do experience problems and upsets in life that may result in mental troubles, sometimes very serious. But to say that these can only be treated with dangerous drugs is dishonest, harmful and often deadly. What psychiatric drugs do instead is mask the real cause of problems, often denying one the opportunity to search for workable, effective solutions. While Mr. Haim may have abused prescription drugs, he was also abused by those prescribing those drugs to him.

Everyone is encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit the FDA MedWatch website or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

For more information about psychotropic drugging, watch the Making A Killing video. For more information about psychiatric drug side effects, go to www.cchrstl.org/sideeffects.shtml. For more information about alternatives to psychiatric drugs, go to www.cchrstl.org/causes.shtml.

Green Mental Health Care: The Alternative to Toxic Psychiatric Drugs

(Click to watch video)

An important new study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry reveals that fish oil supplements beat mental illness. The study involved 81 people deemed to be at high risk for psychosis. The randomized, placebo-controlled study provided fish oil supplements to half the study subjects for just 12 weeks (the other half received placebo supplements). The results? While 11 people in the placebo group developed a psychotic disorder, only 2 in the fish oil group did.

The study concludes, “[omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids] reduce the risk of progression to psychotic disorder and may offer a safe and efficacious strategy for indicated prevention in young people with subthreshold psychotic states.”

For more information read this article at Natural News.

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®) announces the unsealing (1/25/2010) of a major Medicaid Fraud lawsuit against psychiatrists, their employers, pharmacies, state officials, and a medical education and publishing company for their roles in submitting fraudulent claims to Medicaid.

(http://psychrights.org/pr/100125MatsutaniUnsealingNR.pdf)

The defendants are:

Osamu H. Matsutani, M.D.
William Hogan, Commissioner Of the Alaska Department Of Health And Social Services
Tammy Sandoval, Director Of The Alaska Office Of Children’s, Services
Steve McComb, Director Of The Alaska Division Of Juvenile Justice
William Streur, Director Of The Alaska Division Of Health Care Services
Juneau Youth Services, Inc.
Providence Health & Services,
Elizabeth Baisi, M.D.
Ruth Dukoff, M.D.
Charter North Star Behavioral Health System
Kerry Ozer, M.D.
Claudia Phillips, M.D.
Southcentral Foundation
Sheila Clark, M.D.
Hugh Starks, M.D.
Lina Judith Bautista, M.D.
Heidi F. Lopez-Coonjohn, M.D.
Robert D. Schults, M.D.
Mark H. Stauffer, M.D.
Ronald A. Martino, M.D.
Irvin Rothrock, M.D.
Jan Kiele, M.D.
Alternatives Community Mental Health Services, D/B/A Denali Family Services
Anchorage Community Mental Health Services
Lucy Curtis, M.D.
Fairbanks Psychiatric And Neurologic Clinic, Pc
Peninsula Community Health Services Of Alaska, Inc.
Bartlett Regional Hospital Foundation, Inc.
Thomson Reuters (Healthcare), Inc.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Safeway, Inc.
Fred Meyer Stores, Inc.

Law Project for Psychiatric Rights v. Matsutani, et al., United States District Court, District of Alaska, Case No. 3:09-cv-0080-TMB.

The lawsuit, which was filed on April 27, 2009, and required to be kept under seal (secret) until now, is brought under the federal False Claims Act, which authorizes private parties to bring fraud actions on behalf of the Government. These cases are also called “whistleblower suits” or “qui tam” actions, and those who file them are entitled to a share in the recovery, if any. Each offending prescription carries a minimum penalty of $5,500.

The Complaint walks through the lack of science supporting the practice and the methods used by the pharmaceutical industry to induce psychiatrists to improperly prescribe these drugs. “Even though the drug companies have been using these methods to induce psychiatrists to prescribe these drugs, it is the psychiatrists’ responsibility to base their decisions on the facts, not drug company marketing,” said Mr. Gottstein, continuing, “the uncritical acceptance of pharmaceutical company hype represents a massive betrayal of trust by the psychiatrists prescribing these drugs to children and youth.”

PsychRights has also developed a streamlined model Qui Tam Complaint for use around the country. See, PsychRights Launches Campaign Against Medicaid Fraud With Model Lawsuit, July 27, 2009. The model Qui Tam Complaint is drafted for former foster youth to bring the lawsuits and receive the whistleblower’s share of the recoverey, but anyone with knowledge of specific offending prescriptions, such as parents and mental health workers, can bring these suits.

Last fall, Mr. Gottstein gave talks at two national conferences, the National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA), and the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP), where he presented on how to bring and conduct these cases. Mr. Gottstein is also gave a presentation in New York City, February 2nd following oral argument in Lilly v. Gottstein.

Mr. Gottstein indicates a number of these cases are percolating around the country. In one that is not as far along as some others, Ted Chabasinski, a Berkeley, California, lawyer, is seeking a former foster youth as a client to bring such a lawsuit in the Bay Area. Any former foster youth in the Bay Area who was given psychiatric drugs within the last 6 years can call Mr. Chabasinski at (510) 843-6372 to talk to him about bringing such a case. “Foster children are singled out for psychiatric drugging because they and their foster parents have almost no legal protections and no way they can refuse these damaging drugs,” says Mr. Chabasinski, who as a foster child, was electroshocked at the age of six as part of an experiment involving hundreds of foster children.

While PsychRights and Mr. Chabasinski are not bringing these cases for the money, such cases represent a tremendous financial opportunity for attorneys to do well by doing good.

“These are about as open and shut as cases can get,” said Mr. Gottstein, “it is Medicaid fraud to cause or submit prescriptions to Medicaid for reimbursement if they are not for a medically accepted indication. End of story.” PsychRights has developed a Medically Accepted Indications Chart showing what is allowable for common psychiatric drugs. Every other use of these drugs in children and youth and submitted to Medicaid is fraudulent. PsychRights conservatively estimates that at least half of psychotropic drug prescriptions to children and youth submitted to Medicaid are not for medically accepted indications and therefore fraudulent.

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is a public interest law firm devoted to the defense of people facing the horrors of forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock. PsychRights is further dedicated to exposing the truth about psychiatric interventions and the courts being misled into ordering people subjected to these brain and body damaging drugs against their will. Extensive information about these dangers, and about the tragic damage caused by electroshock, is available on the PsychRights web site: http://psychrights.org/.

James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq.
President/CEO
Law Project for Psychiatric Rights
406 G Street, Suite 206
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
USA
Phone: (907) 274-7686) Fax: (907) 274-9493
jim.gottstein[[at]]psychrights.org

TOURING EXHIBIT TARGETS PSYCHIATRY AS AN “INDUSTRY OF DEATH”

With public distrust of psychiatry mounting—and government agency warnings about psychiatric drugs at an all-time high—a new exhibit in St. Louis, Missouri shows that it could get much worse.

Denouncing the facts that internationally more than 100,000 patients die each year in psychiatric institutions, and every month psychiatric drugs kill an estimated 3,000 people worldwide, the St. Louis Chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR)is launching the Grand Opening of “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” international touring exhibition and documentaries.

You are invited to hear the featured Keynote Speaker, Mr. William Garrett, Vice President for Information and Public Contact at Applied Scholastics International in Spanish Lake, Missouri, officially open the exhibit at 2:30 PM on Saturday, February 13, 2010 at Jamestown Mall in Florissant, Missouri.

The exhibit features display panels that incorporate audio-visual presentations depicting human rights abuses by psychiatry, and carry statements from health professionals, academics, legal and human rights experts, and victims of psychiatric brutalities. The exhibit also addresses a federal plan that would screen the state’s children for “mental illness” that could lead to a threefold increase in the number of children being subjected to the devastating effects of psychotropic drugs.

The exhibit exposes psychiatry as an industry driven entirely by profit. It traces the origins of psychiatry, the role psychiatrists have played in the oppression of blacks and minorities, the roots of their eugenics programs and the pivotal part they played in the Holocaust. It also reveals how psychiatric drugs are behind gun-toting teens today going on shooting sprees, and how millions of federal dollars allocated to screen all 52 million American schoolchildren could increase both child deaths and acts of school violence. People touring the exhibit can sign a petition opposing funding and implementation of mental health screening in schools.

“The touring exhibit shows psychiatry’s deadly ‘treatments’ in graphic detail,” warns CCHR St. Louis chapter spokesperson, Moritz Farbstein, who listed out psychosurgery, shock treatment, deadly restraint and the prevalent inhumane conditions of psychiatric facilities, and the forced drugging of children as young as six months old. “Most importantly, though, this exhibit provides practical guidance for lawmakers, educators, doctors, human rights advocates and private citizens so they can take action in their own spheres to bring psychiatry to account for their abuses.”

The touring “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” exhibit theme is patterned after a permanent museum by the same name at the Los Angeles headquarters of Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, a psychiatric watchdog group with 300 chapters worldwide. Co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, CCHR investigates and exposes psychiatric violations of human rights.

Mr. Farbstein said, “Our exhibit shows very clearly how, in the name of ‘help,’ psychiatry, in fact, destroys lives.”

A sampling of current statistics and facts shown in the exhibit bears this out:

• 20 million children worldwide are taking psychiatric drugs, including 9 million in the United States, which can cause suicide, hostility, violence, mania, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes and death.
• Antipsychotic drug prescriptions for children increased fivefold between 1993 and 2002 in the United States, during which time 45 children died from the drugs.
• In recent years, stimulant drugs have caused 19 child deaths, although as only 1% to 10% of drug adverse reactions are reported, the death toll from children taking antipsychotic drugs, stimulants and antidepressants could be as high as 15,000.
• 10% of American teens (2.3 million) are abusing psychiatric stimulants.
• More than 100,000 patients die each year in psychiatric institutions around the world.
• Psychiatrists are using electroshock, drugs and other barbaric means to torture political dissidents.
• Internationally, psychiatrists kill up to 10,000 people each year with their use of electroshock—460 volts of electricity sent searing through the brain. Three-quarters of all electroshock victims are women.
• Psychiatrists and psychologists have raped 250,000 women. Studies show that 10 to 25 percent of psychiatrists sexually assault their patients; of every 20 of these victims one is likely to be a minor.

A recently published study [“National trends in psychotropic medication polypharmacy in office-based psychiatry”, Mojtabai and Olfson, Archives of General Psychiatry 2010 Jan;67(1):26-36] investigated patterns and trends in what is known as psychotropic polypharmacy, meaning the prescribing of two or more psychiatric drugs to be taken at the same time.

The study concludes that, “There has been a recent significant increase in polypharmacy involving antidepressant and antipsychotic medications. While some of these combinations are supported by clinical trials, many are of unproven efficacy. These trends put patients at increased risk of drug-drug interactions with uncertain gains for quality of care and clinical outcomes.”

In other words, drugs are being given to patients in all sorts of combinations without sound science showing they even work well together, much less that these drug cocktails are safe to take. In fact, the researchers point out specific dangers of taking multiple psychiatric drugs.

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

The Insane Bloat of the Missouri Department of Mental Health Budget from 1971 to 2009 – now over $1.2 Billion

Vital Statistics – Order of Magnitude:

1. Every 12 seconds another child takes drugs for the first time. Every 20 seconds a child in the U.S. takes an antidepressant so dangerous that the FDA has issued its strongest “black box” warning, alerting the public that these drugs can cause suicidal thoughts and actions.

2. 20 million children worldwide take psychiatric drugs daily, 9 million of those in the U.S. These drugs potentially cause violent behavior, psychosis, hallucinations, strokes, heart attacks, obesity, life-threatening diabetes and even suicide.

3. Psychiatric drugs do not improve academic performance. The National Institutes of Health reports “there is little improvement in academic achievement or social skills” by children taking stimulant drugs.

4. 628,000 violent crimes occur every year in our schools.

5. $600 billion is generated by the legal and illegal drug trades.

6. 100,000 deaths occur in psychiatric facilities each year.

7. Over 100 million people worldwide are taking psychiatric drugs right now.

8. Psychiatric drugs can cause serious adverse reactions.

9. Every 75 seconds another citizen is incarcerated by psychiatry.

10. Every month psychiatric drugs kill an estimated 3,000 people worldwide.

11. Today, an estimated 70 percent of all psychiatric drugs are prescribed by general physicians.

12. Pharmaceutical companies have expanded their roster of psychiatric drugs from 44 in 1966 to 174 today.

13. The top five psychiatric drugs combined gross more money than the gross national product of each of over half the countries on Earth.

14. Altogether, the psychiatric industry rakes in a third of a trillion dollars a year.

15. Studies show that as many as 20 percent of psychiatrists have sex with patients. One of every 20 of their victims is a minor.

What will it truly take to halt psychiatric fraud and abuse?

[Opinion – Editorial]

* Giving more tax dollars to the Department of Mental Health merely perpetuates the cycle of state tax largesse. Curtailing and cutting the budget will force the Department of Mental Health to reduce their costs, thereby forcing useless and unnecessary state institutions either to improve their services or close shop.

* A budget cut will force the Department of Mental Health to re-evaluate all citizens held in state custody and thus force the Department to recommend release of those who are no longer deemed a threat to the body politic thus saving the state more money. It is an obvious fact that the more patients, residents and clients the Department must care for, the more tax money they can ask for.

* Those citizens who are no longer deemed a threat need to be unconditionally released. This will allow these citizens to return to their families and to make the readjustment back into a tax paying citizen.

* Increasing the Department of Mental Health’s budget covers expensive and debatable psychiatric drugs as necessary medical costs. Many international warnings have been issued on the harmful side effects of various psychiatric drugs, which include suicide, violence, addiction, liver damage, and heart attacks.

* The state is not primarily responsible for a person’s entire life, thus the Department of Mental Health is not responsible for a citizen’s entire life. Some citizens need to be cared for but the primary responsibility lies first with the individual, then his family, then his religious affiliation, then the state government and finally the federal government.

* The Department of Mental Health is also an easy place to cut spending in the long, difficult effort to save our health-care system, as the citizens of this state have long used the Department of Mental health as an emergency health care provider. The unprecedented use of Missouri’s Mental Health psychiatric facilities as emergency health care has hidden a long overlooked problem that the state’s poorer citizens are enduring.

* It may be time to consider the idea of folding the Department of Mental Health into the Department of Health and Senior Services; to restructure the Department of Mental Health and allow the new system to provide emergency medical services to this state’s poorer citizens.

* The Department of Mental Health’s motto should be “We care for those who cannot care for themselves”; not “We want to care for all”.