Citizens Commission on Human Rights of St. Louis

Jim Gottstein is a lawyer in Alaska and is the founder of the organization PsychRights,  the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (http://psychrights.org/) which has been around about 25 years, working to bring the mental illness system around to a culture of recovery.

He had a successful verdict for a patient in the summer of 2006, in which the patient’s rights to refuse forced drugging were upheld.

He brought to our attention a paper that he wrote and presented at a seminar in 2005 (“How the Legal System Can Help Create a Recovery Culture in Mental Health Systems”). We are presenting it to you as it contains much useful information on what is required to successfully handle involuntary commitment hearings. Download and read the paper here.

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.

Gottstein’s concept of a culture of recovery means the elimination of both involuntary commitment and the forced use of antipsychotics and other psychiatric drugs, in favor of the least restrictive alternative.

Antipsychotics, of course, are not a path to recovery. Several court rulings acknowledge the side effects and how patients have a right to decide what goes in their bodies. Of course, most all less restrictive alternatives to antipsychotics have been suppressed out of sight, making it appear that antipsychotics are the only answer, especially in a psychiatrist’s professional judgment.

According to Gottstein, the elimination of the forced use of psychiatric drugs is attainable through upholding of Constitutional Rights and extant legal opinions which have been subverted by:

1) Lying psychiatric expert witnesses,

2) Legal systems that accept, without evaluation, the utterances of such experts, and

3) The counter-intention and general failure of public defenders to actually defend the legal rights of the involuntarily committed person.

The paper shows an actual instance where mental health systems have knowingly acted in violation of the law in the guise of doing what is best for the patient (forced drugging)!

Point #3 above is what Gottstein emphasizes as the why of involuntary commitment. He cites one study that showed that the legal representation of people with mental disabilities was so bad that patients had a better chance of being released in a commitment hearing defending themselves pro se (without the aid of an attorney).

One of his projects is to cultivate willing lawyers who will zealously defend such plaintiffs and to have coordinators in every state working with these lawyers to actually handle cases.

Bringing Total to 54 Dead and 105 Wounded in Recent Drug-Induced School/Teen Shootings

MARCH 14:  Illinois police have confirmed that toxicology results show Illinois gunman Steven Kazmierczak had antidepressants in his system during his school shooting rampage—when he shot and killed five before committing suicide—bringing the total of recent psychiatric drug induced shootings to 54 dead and 105 wounded. Kazmierczak is the 12th school or teen shooter in the past decade under the influence of psychiatric drugs documented by international drug regulatory agencies to cause suicide, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, hostility and in the case of one antidepressant, “homicidal ideation.” In response to an increasing number of these violent attacks, the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) says it is time to stop vested interests from spouting their usual propaganda about psychiatric drugs, and instead demand a federal investigation for the sake of public safety. While the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industries have persisted in vehemently denying that antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs cause violence, or quickly denying any possible correlation, CCHR is quick to point out that it was similar vested interests that stalled the FDA from issuing suicide warnings on antidepressants in 1991. 13 years later CCHR was vindicated for its efforts when the FDA finally issued the long overdue black box warning in 2004. (See CCHR’s 1991 FDA hearing video.)

In a new 11-minute documentary entitled Psychiatry’s Prescription For Violence, psychiatrists, psychologists, professors, attorneys and medical experts join CCHR in exposing the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of violence that have been buried by those putting profit before public safety. CCHR’s battle for full public disclosure on the risks of these drugs spans nearly two decades and is chronicled in a new report entitled CCHR: Exposing the Dangers of Antidepressants and Other Psychotropic Drugs—Despite FDA/Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical Cover-Ups.

Today growing numbers of medical professionals, scientists and doctors are publishing studies exposing the facts that have been kept from the public. In September 2006, Dr. David Healy, Director of Cardiff University’s North Wales department of psychological medicine, and colleagues published the findings of their study of the antidepressant, Paxil, in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine stating: “We’ve got good evidence that the drugs can make people violent and you’d have to reason from that that there may be more episodes of violence.” In a 2003/2004 analysis of psychiatric drug-induced violence/suicide, published in International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, psychiatrist Peter Breggin concludes, “There are many reports and studies confirming that SSRI [Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor] antidepressants can cause violence, suicide, mania and other forms of psychotic and bizarre behavior.”

CCHR’s new documentary is featured on its website http://www.cchr.org, on a section entitled “Psychiatric Drugs, Violence and School Shootings.” The website also features medical studies regarding treating patients without the use of psychiatric drugs under “Solutions/Alternatives.”

What others are saying about the documentary:

“An excellent tool to educate and empower parents on the abuse and proliferation of psychoactive drugs throughout our families and school systems. Parents need to be made aware of the devastating effects of these poisons on our most cherished resource.”

-Dr. Colbey Forman, Dean of Barron University, School of Psychoneurology

“The documentary is not only excellent qualitatively but extremely accurate. The public and the professional communities need to see it.”

-Dr. David Stein, psychologist

“I know that I have to go back to my own state and do what I can to stop the overuse and overprescription of these psychiatric drugs. It is imperative that we educate the public and I am sure they will be as outraged as I am.”

-Georgia Senator Donzella James

“A screeching wake-up call to the desensitizing of the human soul.”

-Carlos Ramirez, actor

To obtain a copy of the documentary click here.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights. Visit CCHR St. Louis at www.cchrstl.org.

54 Dead and 105 Wounded in Recent Teen and School Shootings

SAINT LOUIS: On February 14, Illinois gunman Steven Kazmierczak became the 12th shooter in the past decade under the influence of psychiatric drugs documented by international drug regulatory agencies to cause suicide, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, hostility and in the case of one antidepressant, “homicidal ideation.” With casualties from school or teen shootings now totaling 54 dead and 105 wounded, the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) says it is time to stop vested interests from spouting their usual propaganda about psychiatric drugs, and instead demand a federal investigation for the sake of public safety. While the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industries have persisted in vehemently denying that antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs cause violence, CCHR is quick to point out that it was similar vested interests that stalled the FDA from issuing black box warnings on suicide for more than 13 years. (See video from 1991 FDA hearing.)

In a new 11-minute documentary entitled Psychiatry’s Prescription For Violence, psychiatrists, psychologists, professors, attorneys and medical experts, join CCHR in exposing the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of violence that have been buried by those putting profit before public safety. CCHR’s battle for full public disclosure on the risks of these drugs spans nearly two decades and is chronicled in a new report entitled CCHR: Exposing the Dangers of Antidepressants and Other Psychotropic Drugs—Despite FDA/Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical Cover-Ups.

Today growing numbers of medical professionals, scientists and doctors are publishing studies exposing the facts that have been kept from the public. In September 2006, Dr. David Healy, Director of Cardiff University’s North Wales department of psychological medicine, and colleagues published the findings of their study of the antidepressant, Paxil, in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine stating: “We’ve got good evidence that the drugs can make people violent and you’d have to reason from that that there may be more episodes of violence.” In a 2003/2004 analysis of psychiatric drug induced violence/suicide, published in International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, psychiatrist Peter Breggin concludes, “There are many reports and studies confirming that SSRI [Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor] antidepressants can cause violence, suicide, mania and other forms of psychotic and bizarre behavior.”

CCHR’s new documentary is featured on its website http://www.cchr.org, on a section entitled “Psychiatric Drugs, Violence and School Shootings.” The website also features medical studies regarding treating patients without the use of psychiatric drugs under “Solutions/Alternatives.”

What others are saying about the documentary:

“An excellent tool to educate and empower parents on the abuse and proliferation of psychoactive drugs throughout our families and school systems. Parents need to be made aware of the devastating effects of these poisons on our most cherished resource.”

  -Dr. Colbey Forman, Dean of Barron University, School of Psychoneurology

“The documentary is not only excellent qualitatively but extremely accurate. The public and the professional communities need to see it.”

  -Dr. David Stein, psychologist

“I know that I have to go back to my own state and do what I can to stop the overuse and overprescription of these psychiatric drugs. It is imperative that we educate the public and I am sure they will be as outraged as I am.”

 -Georgia Senator Donzella James

“A screeching wake-up call to the desensitizing of the human soul.”

 -Carlos Ramirez, actor

To obtain a copy of the documentary click here.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights. Visit CCHR St. Louis at http://www.cchrstl.org/.

Report on Psychotropic Drug Crimes Launched on Online Tracking Database

 SAINT LOUIS: Two U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigations into doctors who prescribed cocktails of drugs, including tranquilizers and painkillers, leading to patient deaths, have prompted a new report released today online. The report, “When Prescribing Psychotropic Drugs Becomes Criminal Negligence: Cases and Convictions”, published by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), shows legal precedents where psychiatrists or doctors prescribing psychiatric drugs have been convicted of manslaughter when patients have died as a result of those prescriptions.

 

Published on the website, psychcrime.org, which features the world’s only searchable database of criminally convicted psychiatrists and mental health practitioners, the report calls for referral for criminal investigation of all deaths or injury due to poly-pharmacy or negligent prescribing—rather than to medical boards who can only suspend the license of those found culpable.

 

A case in point is the once prominent Arlington County, Virginia psychiatrist Martin H. Stein. On January 31, Stein lost his five-year effort to regain his medical license when the Virginia Board of Medicine declared him unfit to resume practice. In 2000, Stein’s 48-year-old patient Anita Kratzke died after Stein prescribed her 12 different drugs. No autopsy was performed, but Stein wrote on the death certificate “cardiac arrest” without examining the body. Two years later, in 2002, Stein surrendered his license after the Virginia Board of Medicine ruled that he was a danger to public health and that signing the death certificate without proper investigation was part of a pattern of negligence. The 22-page order from the board describes ethical violations, misdiagnoses and the inappropriate / excessive prescribing of drugs, in the treatment of 10 patients Stein saw between 1991 and 2000. The board also found that Stein “engaged in sexually intimate behavior” for more than two years with a patient he billed for accompanying him on shopping sprees and another incident where an adolescent was given 33 prescriptions. Despite the severity of these acts, Stein was never criminally charged. Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR, says the lack of accountability is astounding, “Cases like these should be referred for criminal investigation instead of a slap on the wrist, particularly when deaths are involved.”

 

The unique psychcrime.org database is searchable by first and last name, type of crime and location. In its nearly 40 years of investigating criminal abuse in the mental health system, CCHR has found that criminal convictions do not always stop practitioners from moving to another state or country and continuing to practice on unsuspecting patients. CCHR has tracked such cases and reported them to local authorities that have been able to locate them and prevent further patient abuse. The database provides a list of almost 1,000 convicted mental health workers. Recent cases include:

 

• On February 1, 2008, Pennsylvania psychiatrist Harold Pascal pleaded no contest to charges of issuing illegal medical prescriptions and Medicaid fraud. He was sentenced to 6-18 months in jail. Narcotics Agent Troy Serfass, who posed undercover as one of Pascal’s patients said, “He was motivated by greed. He prescribed illegal medications even after being told patients were selling those medications on the streets.”

 

• On October 24, 2007, psychiatrist Michael Mavroidis of Massachusetts was sentenced to a year in prison, 10 years probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine for illegally prescribing drugs, including the sedatives Klonopin, Ativan and Xanax and the painkiller Oxycontin. He came under investigation following patient overdose deaths and accusations that he extorted oral sex from at least one patient in exchange for prescription drugs.

 

Pending cases include Christian Hageseth, a psychiatrist registered to practice in Colorado, who prescribed 90 capsules of fluoxetine, an antidepressant, over the Internet to John McKay, a 19-year-old student at Stanford University in California, who subsequently committed suicide. Toxicology tests confirmed alcohol and fluoxetine in McKay’s bloodstream. In 2004, the FDA warned that antidepressants could cause suicidal thoughts and actions in children and adolescents and recently increased the warning to age 24. In 1998, the American Psychiatric Association expelled Hageseth and his Colorado medical license was revoked for a relationship with a patient who later became his wife. After his license was reinstated on a probationary basis, he began authorizing prescriptions for an online pharmacy. Hageseth was extradited to California to face trial for practicing without a license in the state of California.

 

“CCHR is dedicated to exposing these crimes for the protection of consumers and invites authorities and the public to make use of this unique database,” Ms. Eastgate stated.

 

CCHR is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.  Contact CCHR St. Louis at 314-727-8307 or email cchrstl@cchrstl.org.

Fuels Demands for Prohibiting Funds to Child Psychiatric Services and Deadly Drugs

SAINT LOUIS: A New York appeals court decision last week found that psychiatrists were wrong for force-feeding potentially lethal psychiatric drugs to a 14-year-old girl against her parents’ objections. The case has fueled calls for insurance coverage and governments to cease funding child psychiatric services. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) that for nearly 40 years has investigated psychotropic drug risks in the pediatric population is calling for a hard-line approach to this abuse of children. Millions of children are prescribed drugs that more than 50 international drug regulatory agency warnings in recent years say can cause suicide, life-threatening diabetes, heart attacks and death. CCHR’s co-founder, eminent professor of psychiatry emeritus, Thomas Szasz says, “Labeling a child as mentally ill is stigmatization, not diagnosis. Giving a child a psychiatric drug is poisoning, not treatment.” The renowned author added, “The child psychiatrist is one of the most dangerous enemies” of children and “must be abolished.” (Click here to watch a speech by Dr. Szasz.)
 

The group says the case brought against Payne Whitney Hospital in New York and two psychiatrists exemplifies psychiatry’s arrogant belief that it can override parents’ right to make decisions in the best interest of their children. A court hearing, which the parents were not a party to and in which a psychiatrist was the only witness, allowed him to administer psychiatric drugs to the girl, identified as Christine W., despite the parents’ repeated objections. The Supreme Court’s Appellate Division determined this was “constitutionally defective and fatally flawed.” Ms. Jan Eastgate, CCHR’s international president, said, “Psychiatry thinks it can override the legal rights of parents and convince courts that it has the right to force kids onto drugs that can cause serious harm and even death. Putting children in the hands of psychiatrists is a life or death gamble and, given the growing number of fatalities, a roll of the dice not to be taken lightly. Government and private insurance should not be funding this assault on children’s lives.”
 

There is at least a 30% profit margin for a psychiatric bed occupied by a child, compared to 20% for an adult and rakes in well over $1 billion a year in inpatient revenues. More than $184 million in federal grants is also given for pediatric “mental health” services while $29 million is spent annually to fund treatment of “behavioral and learning disorders” through Special Education. CCHR says the cost to children’s lives is chilling:

§    More than 8 million American children are prescribed psychiatric drugs documented to cause suicide, psychosis, hallucinations, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and death.

§   Each year an estimated 1,155 children and adolescents die or commit suicide due to psychiatric drugs.

§    An estimated 1,200 under 18-year-olds attempt suicide, while about 280 become homicidal when taking these drugs.

§    In 2005 in the state of Florida alone, $680,000,000 of Medicaid funds was expended on “behavioral health drugs” for foster care children. This included more than 19,000 children prescribed antipsychotic drugs, of which 4,556 were 5 years of age or younger. In all, 59,697 Medicaid children were put on psychotropic drugs in 2005, a 528% increase over 9,500 in 2000.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health watchdog group established by the Church of Scientology, has helped secure legislative protections against children being forced onto psychiatric drugs. But, Ms. Eastgate says, “There needs to be a tougher approach by governments and insurance companies in clamping down on funding for pediatric psychiatric services, given the propensity for psychiatrists to rely upon potentially lethal drugs.”

People in desperate circumstances must be provided proper and effective medical care. Medical, not psychiatric, attention, good nutrition, a healthy, safe environment and activity that promotes confidence will do far more than the brutality of psychiatry’s “treatments.”

The following quotes from the cookbook, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, show the severe mental (and physical) consequences of dietary and nutritional imbalances. Look no further for a “chemical imbalance” than your kitchen cupboard. One highly recommends this book for its sane approach to diet and nutrition. Why is this information not more widely known? Perhaps because vitamins are a lot less expensive than psychiatric drugs and require no doctor’s prescription. Follow the money to find the fraud.

“All the water-soluble B vitamins work as a team to promote healthy nerves, skin, eyes, hair, liver, muscle tone and cardiovascular function; they protect us from mental disorders, depression and anxiety.” p.38

“Low cholesterol levels have been linked to aggressive and violent behavior, depression and suicidal tendencies.” p.12

“Cholesterol is also needed to produce a variety of steroids that protect against cancer, heart disease and mental illness.” p.17

“A diet high in unfermented whole grains, particularly high-gluten grains like wheat, puts an enormous strain on the whole digestive mechanism. When this mechanism breaks down with age or overuse, the results take the form of allergies, celiac disease, mental illness, chronic indigestion and candida albicans overgrowth.” p.453

“Food allergies afflict a large portion of our population and can cause such diverse complaints as sneezing, itching, arthritis, nervous disorders, concentration problems, insomnia, headaches and chronic fatigue. More recently, diseases like cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia have been linked to food allergies.” p.56

“Gluten intolerance is associated with a family history of alcoholism, arthritis, Down’s syndrome and mental disorders such as schizophrenia and dementia.” p. 56

“Those who possessed enough will power to remain fat-free for any length of time [on the Pritikin diet] developed a variety of health problems including low energy, difficulty in concentration, depression, weight gain and mineral deficiencies.” p.4

“Lowfat diets are associated with increased rates of depression, psychological problems, fatigue, violence and suicide.” p.222

“When the endocrine system thus becomes disturbed [by a diet high in refined carbohydrates like sugar], numerous other pathological conditions soon manifest — degenerative disease, allergies, obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, learning disabilities and behavioral problems.” p.22

“Sugar consumption is associated with hyperactivity, behavior problems, lack of concentration and violent tendencies.” p.24

“Sugar consumption rapidly depletes vitamin B1.” p.38

“…sugar and white flour, being mildly to severely addictive, are harder to renounce.” p.25 [read the book to find out how to remedy this condition!]

“The most widely used artificial sweetener — aspartame or Nutra-sweet — is a neurotoxic substance that has been associated with numerous health problems including dizziness, visual impairment, severe muscle aches, numbing of extremities, pancreatitis, high blood pressure, retinal hemorrhaging, seizures and depression.” p.51

“According to some researchers, at least 40 percent of all Americans suffer from a deficiency of the thyroid gland with its accompanying symptoms of fatigue, weight gain, frequent colds and flu, inability to concentrate, depression and a host of more serious complications like heart disease and cancer.” p.117

“Deficiencies [of vitamin B12] can manifest as the living hell of depression, multiple sclerosis, dementia and psychiatric disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive behavior and manic-depression.” p.227

“The evidence points to MSG sensitivity of epidemic proportions among the general population. But for most people the symptoms are vague: depression, headache, mild nausea, pressure around the eyes, tingling of the face, behavioral disturbances in children and mood swings, accentuating those already present in adolescents and also in adults.” p.383

“Inquiry into the dietary history of patients diagnosed as schizophrenic reveals the diet of their choice is rich in sweets, candy, cakes, coffee, caffeinated beverages and foods prepared with sugar. These foods, which stimulate the adrenals, should be eliminated or severely restricted.” p.283

Nourishing Traditions

The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats

Sally Fallon, with Mary G. Enig, Ph.D.

Revised Second Edition, New Trends Publishing, 2001

ISBN 0-9670897-3-5

But in U.S., Legislation May Result In More New Mothers Prescribed these Dangerous Drugs

SAINT LOUIS: Due to innovative patient safety legislation in Sweden passed in 2005, expanding the information available in the country’s Medical Drugs Registry, researchers were able to uncover that a staggering 52% of all women who committed suicide in Sweden in 2006 were taking antidepressants (Psychiatric Services, “Ethnic Differences in Antidepressant Treatment Preceding Suicide in Sweden,” Jan 2008). Although concerns about suicidal / violent side effects plague the antidepressant market worldwide, instead of increasing the scrutiny of these deadly risks, as was done by the Swedish legislators, the U.S. Congress is being coerced by vested into enacting legislation to get more women on these dangerous drugs.

Already, the consumption of antidepressants is 4,000% greater in the U.S. than in Sweden, raking in a profit of $13.5 billion in 2006. The latest attempt by the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries to increase their customer base for these drugs is a bill called the “Mother’s Act”. This bill calls for increased screening of new mothers for “postpartum depression”—a diagnosis that stigmatizes effects of pregnancy and childbirth as “mental illness” and needing “treatment” with powerful, mind-altering drugs. The mental health watchdog, Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), says that with the international controversy surrounding the suicide and violence inducing effects of antidepressant drugs, Congress must withdraw support from the Mother’s Act and instead enact similar regulations to Sweden that would make prescription data available for an analysis of how many women and children committing suicide were taking these drugs.

Another report published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine sheds light on exactly how these vested interests have been able to mislead the public for so long about the safety and efficacy of antidepressants. The researchers revealed that negative studies on antidepressants are either not being published, or are skewed in a way that makes them appear positive.

CCHR says the issue of buried side effects is particularly important given the current push by vested interests to prescribe these drugs to new mothers for “postpartum depression”, which cannot be confirmed through any physical tests, and may be a manifestation of hormonal changes, lack of sleep, nutritional deficiencies and a myriad of other situations accompanying pregnancy and birth which do not require the prescription of dangerous, psychotropic drugs.

For more information on the dangers of psychiatric drugs, read CCHR’s publication, The Report on the Escalating International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs. To learn more about financial ties between psychiatrists and drug manufacturers, read Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual Link to Drug Manufacturers.

US Falling Behind Britain in Addressing this Harmful Practice

SAINT LOUIS: With more than 25% of US seniors in the Medicare program being prescribed antipsychotic drugs documented to increase the risk of death, diabetes and weight gain, the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is demanding an end to the government funding of this harmful practice. CCHR says that Medicare, as well as Medicaid—which spent $5.4 billion on antipsychotics in 2005—should adopt firm policies preventing financial reimbursement for the administration of these drugs to the elderly and follow the UK’s lead in launching an investigation into the widespread use of these drugs on the elderly.

In December 2007, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia (APGP) in the UK launched an inquiry into the use of antipsychotics in nursing homes due to serious concerns about the drugs’ risks and complaints that the UK’s National Health Service is wasting £80 million ($157 million) on prescribing these drugs to the elderly. The Alzheimer’s Society, run in partnership with the APGP, is calling for an end to what it calls “prescribing unnecessary sedative drug treatments.” UK Member of Parliament Jeremy Wright stated, “It is right to investigate a practice that may be putting some of the most vulnerable people in our communities at risk.” The next month, the UK medical journal The Lancet, published a study reinforcing these concerns, which found that the drugs were less effective at lessening aggression than placebos.

In the US, the drugs have increasingly come under fire:

• In 2003, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked six antipsychotic manufacturers to add a caution to the labeling warning of the potential risk of diabetes and blood sugar abnormalities.
• In 2005, the FDA warned that the drugs increase the death rate in elderly.

 Beginning in Oct. 2004, states began to file lawsuits against antipsychotic makers to recoup money spent on these drugs, alleging that they were fraudulently marketed and caused damaging side effects. Arkansas became the most recent state to file such a lawsuit in November 2007.

• As of the most recent settlements in June 2007, drug manufacturer Eli Lilly has paid out more than $1.2 billion in settlements to more than 30,000 individuals who suffered serious side effects from the antipsychotic Zyprexa.

Despite these risks, through heavy marketing, antipsychotic sales raked in $11.5 billion in US sales in 2006, up from $6.6 billion in 2002.

The “chemical abuse” of elderly with powerful, dangerous drugs has not escaped notice—generating much controversy recently, including national exposés in Wall Street Journal (“Nursing Homes Struggle to Kick Drug Habit,” Dec. 20) and BBC News (“Please Look After Dad,” Dec. 3). The Wall Street Journal reports, “The widespread use of antipsychotics among the elderly has begun to draw criticism from regulators, researchers, lawmakers and some in the nursing-home industry. Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, this month asked several drug manufacturers for records on how they may have marketed these drugs for use in geriatric patients. He also has asked the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate use of the drugs in nursing homes.”

Due to the life-threatening side effects of antipsychotics, CCHR says that the government must not continue to fund this dangerous chemical restraint of the elderly. According to CCHR, the public should also be warned that the drugs are prescribed based on subjective diagnoses, which are literally voted into existence by psychiatrists, many of whom have financial ties to drug companies. So-called “mental disorders” cannot be validated by any physical tests, such as blood tests, brain scans or X-rays, yet the diagnoses are used to create consumers for a multi-billion dollar psycho-pharmaceutical industry.

For more information on the dangers of psychiatric drugs, read CCHR’s publication, The Report on the Escalating International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs. To learn more about financial ties between psychiatrists and drug manufacturers, read Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual Link to Drug Manufacturers.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights. Contact CCHR St. Louis at 314-727-8307 or CCHRSTL@CCHRSTL.org.

SAINT LOUIS: After decades of warning the public that vested interests were burying psychiatric drug risks, vehemently denied by the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industries, the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) says new research published Jan 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine vindicates their demands for full public disclosure.

CCHR has filed Freedom of Information requests to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for adverse reactions reports of antidepressants, helped to orchestrate FDA hearings into the suicidal side effects of antidepressants and filed complaints to government officials and agencies about the conflicts of interest of FDA advisory committee members ignoring the drugs’ side effects. In addition, CCHR has issued numerous publications about the cover-up of psychiatric drug side effects and has filed complaints worldwide with licensing boards and other agencies on behalf of people harmed by psychiatric drugs including stimulants, antidepressants and antipsychotics.

Now, a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled, “Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy,” has revealed that negative studies on antidepressants are either not being published, or are skewed in a way that makes them appear positive. (See stories running on Fox National News, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal)  CCHR says the psychiatric-pharmaceutical cartel is not only misleading the public about the drugs, but also about the disorders for which they are prescribed.

Just this month, U.S. News and World Report confirmed that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) failed to fully disclose the substantial pharmaceutical ties of its task force members, charged with updating and expanding psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, comprised of subjective checklists of symptoms which are then used to categorize new “mental disorders” and bill insurance companies. Even high-ranking psychiatrists such as Steven Sharfstein, former president of the APA, have pointed out the financial corruption in their field. In 2006, Sharfstein admitted, “We have allowed ourselves to be corrupted in this marketplace with lucrative consulting to industry, speaker panels, boards of directors and visits from industry representatives bearing gifts.”

For more information on the financial ties between psychiatrists and drug manufacturers, read CCHR’s publication, Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual Link to Drug Manufacturers.