Posts Tagged ‘Military’

The White House Taking Action on Veteran Suicides

Saturday, February 10th, 2018

Presidential Executive Order on Supporting Our Veterans During Their Transition From Uniformed Service to Civilian Life (January 9, 2018)

Relevant quotes from the Presidential Executive Order:

“It is the policy of the United States to support the health and well-being of uniformed service members and veterans. … our Government must improve mental healthcare and access to suicide prevention resources available to veterans … Veterans, in their first year of separation from uniformed service, experience suicide rates approximately two times higher than the overall veteran suicide rate. To help prevent these tragedies, all veterans should have seamless access to high-quality mental healthcare and suicide prevention resources as they transition, with an emphasis on the 1-year period following separation.”

Mr. Trump’s order makes a wide range of mental health services available to all veterans as they transition back to civilian society.

It sounds nice; it sounds appropriate; it sounds like everyone would support it. What’s the “but?”

But, in this society at this time, “mental health services” generally means psychotropic drugs. “Psychotropic” means “acting on the mind; affecting the mental state,” meaning that that the drugs change brain function and result in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness or behavior. They don’t actually fix anything, they just suppress both good and bad feelings.

There is another “but” — these drugs also have serious adverse side effects, and three of the most troubling of these are addiction, violence and suicide.

So the preferred “treatment” for veterans’ mental health and suicide are drugs which have suicide as a side effect. Which came first? The drugs, of course.

The psychiatric industry protests that they have many services available, not just drugs. Well, let’s see —

  1. They can talk about it, which they call “cognitive-behavioral therapy” — which is when a therapist evaluates for the patient and tells them what behaviors they need to change.
  2. They can cut out part of the brain with surgery; like you’re going to let them do that to you.
  3. They can shock the brain with high-voltage electricity; and if you believe that is going to help, we’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn we know you’ll be eager to buy; and once you’ve had a course of electroshock treatments you won’t remember we told you so.
  4. They can wire your vagus nerve, which controls such things as heart rate, to send short bursts of electricity directly into the brain. Uh-huh.
  5. They can wrap a huge magnet around your head, called transcranial magnetic stimulation, and zap the brain with induced electric currents. You might as well just shoot yourself. Whoops, many veterans are already doing that.
And then there are all the other efforts to prescribe “breakthrough” drugs, since the normal psychotropic ones are so damaging — drugs like marijuana, magic mushrooms, MDMA (Ecstasy), Ketamine, etc. Talk about desperation!

What are the alternatives? What can the White House and the Veterans Administration do that would actually be effective help for veterans? If enough people tell the White House and the VA about the horrors of psychiatric treatments and the availability of workable alternatives, they might start to listen. Can you call the White House and make a comment about this?

Contact the White House at https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/ and/or leave your comments at 202-456-1111. Contact the various key White House personnel mentioned in the President’s Executive Order as well, but WH musical chairs may make it difficult to nail down their names and contact information. Last we knew, here are some of the names:

Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council- Andrew Bremberg
Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council – either Paul Winfree or Lance Leggitt
Healthcare Policy- Katy Talento
Secretary of Defense – Gen. James Mattis, USMC
Secretary of Homeland Security – Kirstjen Nielsen
Secretary of Veterans Affairs – Dr. David J. Shulkin

You can reference the CCHR STL blog here for more information.

GAO Will Review PTSD Treatment in the VA

Monday, October 16th, 2017

U.S. Representatives Mike Coffman (R-CO) and Ann McLane Kuster (D-NH) requested the Government Accountability Office to study how heavily the Veterans Administration relies upon psychotropic drugs to treat their patients for so-called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The GAO agreed September 27, 2017 to conduct the review.

Many people are concerned that the use of psychotropic drugs is a contributing factor to the alarming rate of suicides among veterans.

Express your concern about this by contacting:
Rep. Mike Coffman – https://coffman.house.gov/contact/ and jeremy.lippert@mail.house.gov
Rep. Ann McLane Kuster – https://kuster.house.gov/contact/email-me and lisbeth.zeggane@mail.house.gov
GAO – contact@gao.gov; youngc1@gao.gov; congrel@gao.gov; spel@gao.gov

Today, PTSD has become blurred as a catch-all diagnosis for some 175 combinations of symptoms, becoming the label for identifying the impact of adverse events on ordinary people. This means that normal responses to catastrophic events have often been interpreted as mental disorders when they are not.

The favored “treatment” for PTSD is psychotropic drugs known to cause violence and suicide.

According to the CCHR documentary The Hidden Enemy: Inside Psychiatry’s Covert Agenda, all evidence points in one direction: the soaring rates of psychiatric drug prescribing since 2003. Known drug side effects of these drugs such as increased aggression and suicidal thinking are reflected in similar uptrends in the rates of military domestic violence, child abuse and sex crimes, as well as self-harm.

Pull the string further and you’ll find psychiatrists ever widening the definitions of what it means to be “mentally ill,” especially when it comes to PTSD in soldiers and veterans. In psychiatry, diagnoses of psychological disorders such as PTSD, personality disorder and social anxiety disorder are almost inevitably followed by the prescription of at least one harmful and addictive psychiatric drug.

Psychiatrists know that their drugs do not actually cure anything, but merely mask symptoms. They are well aware of their many dangerous side effects, including possible addiction. If you are in the military, a veteran, a member of a military or veteran support group, or family or associate of a member of the military or a veteran, you quality for a free Hidden Enemy DVD.

Also watch the documentary online here.

Suicides in Missouri

Saturday, December 24th, 2016

The Columbia Missourian newspaper thinks that training various professionals in how to recognize and treat suicidal impulses would help prevent suicides in Missouri.

Not to say they are wrong, but they are missing some information about the causes of suicide.

They say that in Missouri, one person dies by suicide every 8.5 hours, and suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in Missouri; Missouri is ranked 18th out of the 50 states for the highest suicide rate. Nationally, 117 people die by suicide every day.

Mental health groups are lobbying to pass laws requiring mental health professionals to undergo specific suicide prevention training. We suspect these are the groups that would benefit monetarily from providing the training.

Of course, what they don’t say is that there is overwhelming evidence that psychiatric drugs cause violence and suicide: 22 international drug regulatory warnings cite violence, mania, hostility, aggression, psychosis and even homicidal ideation as potential side effects of psychotropic drugs.

Despite these international drug regulatory warnings on psychiatric drugs causing violence and suicide, there has yet to be a federal investigation on the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence. Between 2004 and 2012, there have been 14,773 reports to the U.S. FDA’s MedWatch system on psychiatric drugs causing violent side effects.

For example, The Commission of the European Communities in 2005 issued the strongest warning against child antidepressant use stating that the drugs were shown to cause suicidal behavior including suicide attempts and suicidal ideation.

In 2009 the U.S. FDA required warnings on some antidepressants for symptoms of suicidal thoughts and behavior.

Congressman Ron Paul in 2013 said, “Right now we’re suffering from an epidemic of suicide in some of our veterans, and we have a lot of violence in our schools and somebody just did a study in which they took the last ten episodes of violence where young people went and took guns and irrationally shot people, all ten of them were on psychotropic drugs.”

The Eli Lilly corporation for nearly fifteen years covered up their own internal investigation that showed that anyone on Prozac is twelve-times more likely to attempt suicide than those using other antidepressants.

Harvard Medical School psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, author of Prozac Backlash, says antidepressants could explain the rash of school shootings and mass-suicides over the last decade.

Rather than reducing suicide, a review of published SSRI antidepressant clinical trials determined that they increase the risk of suicide. Suicide is the major complication of withdrawal from Ritalin and similar amphetamine-like drugs.

Suicide and violence have been escalating among youths. Too often this has been falsely attributed to their “mental illness,” when, in fact, the very methods used to “treat” such “illness” are the cause of the problem. In a report that Health and Human Services and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published in August 2013, it stated, “Antidepressant medications have been shown to increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior.”

A study of 950 acts of violence committed by people taking antidepressants found 362 murders, 13 school shootings, 5 bomb threats or bombings, 24 acts of arson, 21 robberies, 3 pilots who crashed their planes and more than 350 suicides and suicide attempts.

Furthermore, an independent panel of experts in primary care and prevention (U.S. Preventive Services Task Force) said it had “found no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality.” Which speaks against the Columbia Missourian‘s push for suicide training.

In the U.S. Military, potentially up to 50 percent of those committing suicide had at some point taken psychiatric drugs and up to nearly 46 percent had taken them within 90 days. The suicide rate increased by more than 150 percent in the Army and more than 50 percent in the Marine Corps between 2001 to 2009. From 2008 to 2010, military suicides were nearly double the number of suicides for the general U.S. population, with the military averaging 20.49 suicides per 100,000 people, compared to a general rate of 12.07 suicides per 100,000 people.

Yet the practice of prescribing seven or more drugs documented to cause cardiac problems, stroke, violent behavior and suicide (to veterans) is still prevalent.

What causes violence in people who take psychiatric drugs? One reason may be a common side effect called akathisia commonly found in people taking antipsychotic drugs and antidepressants. Akathisia is a terrible feeling of anxiety, an inability to sit still, a feeling that one wants to crawl out of his or her skin. Behind much of the extreme violence to self or others we see in those taking psychiatric drugs is akathisia.

It is not just the taking of antidepressants that can cause extreme violence. Withdrawal from antidepressants can cause extreme violence too.

The first step toward creating less violence and self-harm is to recognize the role that psychiatric drugs play. “Given the nature and potentially devastating impact of psychotropic medications…we now similarly hold that the right to refuse to take psychotropic drugs is fundamental.” [Alaska Supreme Court, 2006]

The bottom line — by all means train professionals about suicide; but include the real causes, and don’t push psychiatric drugs as the solution.

Missouri Mental Health News

Thursday, August 18th, 2016

Recent information from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch indicates some progress in reducing psychiatric fraud and abuse in Missouri. Of course, the Post-Dispatch slants the information to beg for more government and insurance money for psychiatrists and psychiatric facilities; but we can take a win seeing the number of psychiatrists declining.

We do understand that people can have mental trauma needing compassion and effective care. Psychiatric drugs and other “treatments” such as shock therapy, however, are harmful. Not only do psychiatrists not understand the etiology (cause) of any mental disorder, they cannot cure them. In effect, psychiatrists are still saying that mental problems are incurable and that the afflicted are condemned to lifelong suffering—on psychotropic drugs. Psychotropic drugs, however, are unworkable and dangerous, and while they may temporarily mask some symptoms they do not treat, correct or cure any physical disease or condition.

We generally take cure to mean the elimination of some unwanted condition with some effective treatment. The primary purpose of any mental health treatment must be the therapeutic care and treatment of individuals who are suffering emotional disturbance. The only effective measure of this treatment must be “patients recovering and being sent, sane, back into society as productive individuals.” This, we would call a cure. Psychiatry produces no cures.

There are plenty of healthy alternatives to psychiatry. The correct action on a seriously mentally disturbed person is a full searching clinical examination by a competent medical, not psychiatric, doctor.

The real problem with the psychiatric industry 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.

There is no licensed psychiatrist in 72 Missouri counties. That’s some progress. People needing help in those areas need competent medical care, not psychiatric abuse.

A majority of psychiatrists don’t accept Medicaid, and a growing number refuse all health insurance plans. That’s some progress. We should be providing funding and insurance coverage only for proven, workable treatments that verifiably and dramatically improve or cure mental health problems.

The average wait to see a psychiatrist in the St. Louis area is estimated at 10 to 30 days and can reach six months for children and teens; what are they doing in the meantime? They should be exploring non-psychiatric alternatives.

There are 1,174 psychiatric hospital beds in the state, down from 2,600 in 1990. That’s some progress. Contact your Missouri state legislators and encourage them to continue reducing psychiatric hospital beds in favor of real and effective medical treatment.

Many people with mental trauma end up in county jails when they fail to find treatment elsewhere. This is not progress; this is overloading an already failing system with more failures. A major part of the treatment for prison inmates (used less for rehabilitation than for managing and disciplining inmates) is a regimen of powerful psychiatric drugs, despite numerous studies showing that aggression, violence and suicide are tied to their use. Prisons and jails have become America’s new mental asylums. The number of individuals with serious mental symptoms in prisons and jails exceeds the number of patients in state psychiatric hospitals tenfold. The cost of maintaining these inmates in prison skyrockets when psychiatric drugs are being used.

The Veterans Health Administration has also been actively recruiting psychiatrists from private practices to help treat an increase in so-called post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, CCHR has investigated how psychiatrists are using the “War on Terror” to broaden their niche within the military to push mind-altering drugs on not only the fighting forces, but on veterans and the public at large.

Contact your Missouri state legislators to introduce and pass legislation designed to curb psychiatric fraud and abuse. For examples of Model Legislation, click here.

H.R.271 Creating Options for Veterans Expedited Recovery Act

Friday, December 25th, 2015

Elf On A ShelfThis bill, H.R.271, introduced in the U.S. House by Rep. Gus Bilirakis [R-Florida] on 1/12/2015 and forwarded to the full Veterans’ Affairs Committee on 5/15/2015, would “establish a commission to examine the evidence-based therapy treatment model used by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs for treating mental illnesses of veterans and the potential benefits of incorporating complementary alternative treatments available in non-Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities within the community.”

Effectively, this bill calls for an official government investigation into the drugging of veterans and into the treatment of veterans diagnosed with mental illness.

When we checked, it had 30 co-sponsors, although none yet from Missouri. Please contact your U.S. Congressional Representative and ask them to help pursue the passage of this bill.

The drugging of the military is off the charts, especially in the United States. From 2005 to 2011 the U.S. Department of Defense increased its prescriptions of psychiatric drugs by nearly seven times. These powerful mind-altering psychiatric drugs carry warnings of increased suicidal thoughts, anxiety, insomnia, and psychosis, especially with high dosages or when abruptly stopped.

In early 2013, the official website of the United States Department of Defense announced the startling statistic that the number of military suicides in 2012 had far exceeded the total of those killed in battle – an average of nearly one a day. A month later came an even more sobering statistic from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: veteran suicide was running at 22 a day — about 8000 a year.

The situation became so dire that the U.S. Secretary of Defense called suicide in the military an “epidemic.”

According to the CCHR documentary The Hidden Enemy: Inside Psychiatry’s Covert Agenda, all evidence points in one direction: the soaring rates of psychiatric drug prescribing since 2003. Known medication side effects of these drugs such as increased aggression and suicidal thinking are reflected in similar uptrends in the rates of military domestic violence, child abuse and sex crimes, as well as self-harm.

The Hidden Enemy reveals the entire situation in stark relief, while urging that soldiers and vets become educated on the true dangers of psychiatry and psychiatric drugs. The answer lies in their right to full and honest informed consent—as well as exercising their right to refuse treatment. Our service members need to know there are safe and effective non-psychiatric solutions to the horrors of combat stress, and that these solutions will not subject them to dangerous and toxic treatments that will only send their health spiraling downward.

For more information:

Download and read the CCHR reportA Review of How Prescribed Psychiatric Medications Could Be Driving Members of the Armed Forces and Vets to Acts of Violence and Suicide.

Watch the CCHR documentary onlineThe Hidden Enemy: Inside Psychiatry’s Covert Agenda.

If you are in the military, a veteran, a member of a military or veteran support group, or family or associate of a member of the military or a veteran, you quality for a free Hidden Enemy DVD. Fill out this form to receive a free DVD.

Psychiatric Abuse of Veterans

Saturday, October 3rd, 2015

Psychiatric Abuse of Veterans

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) has for many years lobbied for veterans rights, informed consent, and treatment alternatives to psychiatric medication of America’s military personnel. In keeping with its mandate to restore human rights and dignity to the field of mental health, CCHR has advocated reforms in the military’s mental health practices so personnel and veterans are informed and protected from abuse.

“It’s quite easy to lie to the American public because they don’t do their homework,” former NATO Command Sgt. Major Robert Dean once said in a documentary about government secrecy. His pithy sentiment explains how the U.S. Government can continue to assert that the welfare of military personnel and veterans is a top priority, while statistics tell another story.

Military suicides may well be traced to the soaring rate of psychiatric drugs prescribed to servicemen and women since 2003.

One of the front lines in this battle is treatment for so-called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Roughly 80 percent of vets labeled with PTSD, the reports show, are being given psychotropic drugs, despite numerous studies indicating they are ineffective and addictive.

“We have never drugged our troops to this extent, and the current increase in suicides is not a coincidence,” says Bart Billings, retired colonel and former military psychologist. The numbers indicate that top brass appear more concerned with getting soldiers back into service as quickly as possible through drugs that merely treat their symptoms temporarily, rather than addressing root causes of mental distress.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, CCHR has investigated how psychiatrists are using the so-called War on Terror to broaden their niche within the military to push mind-altering drugs on not only the fighting forces, but on veterans and the public at large. Within days of the attacks, psychiatrists were predicting that as many as 30 percent of people affected by the attacks would develop PTSD. In October 2001 alone, Pfizer pumped $5.6 million into advertising Zoloft as a treatment for PTSD.

“From our perspective, it was human rights abuse,” CCHR President Jan Eastgate said in a recent interview. “The last thing people need to be [in the wake of such tragedy] is numbed out with mind-altering psychiatric drugs.”

In an effort to raise awareness about these issues, CCHR’s 2013 documentary, The Hidden Enemy: Inside Psychiatry’s Covert Agenda, was shown to congressional staff in the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee room on Capitol Hill in May 2014. It has been shown to veteran groups in D.C. and to National Guardsmen in California, aired on six U.S. TV stations and mailed to thousands of military personnel.

CCHR submitted a white paper on military drugging to the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “A Review of How Prescribed Psychiatric Medications Could be Driving Members of the Armed Forces and Vets to Acts of Violence & Suicide” became part of the Congressional Record and was posted on the U.S. Veterans’ Affairs Committee website.

CCHR also collected 15,000 signatures encouraging Congress to investigate connections between psychotropic drugs, active-duty and veteran suicides, and violence. In May last year, hundreds protested in New York against the American Psychiatric Association for turning a blind eye to psychotropic drugs and hundreds of sudden deaths of soldiers and vets.

Click here for more information about this.

Diagnosisgate: Conflict of Interest at the Top of the Psychiatric Apparatus

Sunday, March 8th, 2015

Diagnosisgate: Conflict of Interest at the Top of the Psychiatric Apparatus

“Diagnosisgate” — It is probably the most stunning story of corruption in the history of the modern mental-health system. Mysteriously, it has been kept out of major media for two decades.

In recent years, the man who has been called the world’s most important psychiatrist has painted himself as the white knight who warns the public about the dangers of Big Pharma and psychiatric diagnosis. But Allen Frances, the longest-running head of psychiatry’s “bible,” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — which earned more than $100 million under his reign — actually worked hand-in-glove with a major drug company to misrepresent research on a massive scale in order to market misleadingly one of their most dangerous drugs, Risperdal.

Nearly a year ago, my attention was drawn to a blockbuster of a document that revealed these distortions of science and the whopping conflicts of interest. It was essential to inform the public, because it is the mental health system’s Watergate and has led to enormous harm. One editor after another of both general publications and scholarly journals fled from publishing the story. This surprised me, given how important the story is and the fact that it was almost completely unknown to the public and professionals.

The brave Dr. David Holmes, editor of the journal APORIA, based at the University of Ottawa, has just published the article, and I hope that you will read it at http://www.oa.uottawa.ca/journals/aporia/articles/2015_01/commentary.pdf and help spread the word.

This scandal affects vast numbers of people … two enormous groups are military servicemembers and veterans (though by no means only them). Have a look at this quotation from http://www.nextgov.com/defense/2012/04/broken-warriors-test/55389/:

“Veterans Affairs Department reported in August 2011 that Risperidone was no more effective in PTSD treatment than a placebo. VA spent $717 million on the drug over the past decade. The military has spent $74 million over the past 10 years on Risperidone, a spokeswoman for the Defense Logistics Agency said.”

Thank you for any assistance you can give in making sure this truth will be widely known — feel free to forward this email, post the URL on Facebook and Twitter, etc.

Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D.
Associate, DuBois Research Institute, Harvard University

www.paulajcaplan.net

The Truth About PTSD

Saturday, October 4th, 2014

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Pathologizing Tragedy and War to Sell Drugs

So-called post-traumatic stress disorder emerged in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, when veterans were having difficulties overcoming the brutal events they had witnessed.

Three American psychiatrists coined the term PTSD and lobbied for its inclusion in the 1980 edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. While the effects of war are devastating, psychiatrists use people’s logical reactions to it to make money at the expense of their vulnerability.

Some experts say that most of the soldiers suffering the effects of participating in particularly dangerous missions were experiencing battle fatigue, or in other words, exhaustion, not “mental illness.”

Today, PTSD has become blurred as a catch-all diagnosis for some 175 combinations of symptoms, becoming the label for identifying the impact of adverse events on ordinary people. This means that normal responses to catastrophic events have often been interpreted as mental disorders.

Psychiatric trauma treatment at best is useless, and at worst highly destructive to victims seeking help. By medicalizing what is a non-medical condition and introducing harmful drugs as a therapy, victims have been denied effective treatment options.

Dr. Frank Ochberg, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University, who at that time was involved in updating the DSM, said he and his colleagues wanted it called a disorder because — only half–jokingly — “we figured if we did, then Blue Cross would pay for it.”

The favored “treatment” for PTSD is psychotropic drugs known to cause violence and suicide.

The cornerstone of psychiatry’s disease model today is the theory that a brain-based, chemical imbalance causes mental illness. Despite the billions of pharmaceutical company funding in support of the chemical imbalance theory, this psychiatric “disease” model is thoroughly debunked. The whole theory was invented to push drugs.

In an effort to create the “Super Soldier,” the U.S. military spends hundreds of millions of dollars on psychiatric research programs that can only be described as science fiction-esque experimentation. It’s no secret that the nation’s military forces long have been used as guinea pigs for psychological and pharmaceutical experiments. Recent history is littered with examples of the botched experiments brought to light in the form of lawsuits and congressional investigations. As for the troops, well, it appears they truly are expendable. The military is spending billions of dollars on psychiatric drugs. In a 2012 assessment, the Institute of Medicine found that the majority of patients in the VA diagnosed with PTSD receive more than one psychotropic drug, and that 80 percent of them receive an antidepressant.

The Army and the other fighting services form rather unique experimental groups since they are complete communities and it is possible to arrange experiments in a way that would be very difficult in civilian life.

Psychiatrists used the Second World War as an opportunity to try some very risky treatments on soldiers who had very little to say in the matter.

From the 50’s through the 70’s psychiatrists in countries like Britain, the United States, and the USSR, continued to use their militaries as proving grounds for an arsenal of new experimental treatments such as LSD.

The drugging of the military is off the charts, especially in the United States. From 2005 to 2011 the U.S. Department of Defense increased its prescriptions of psychiatric drugs by nearly seven times. These powerful mind-altering psychiatric drugs carry warnings of increased suicidal thoughts, anxiety, insomnia, and psychosis, especially with high dosages or when abruptly stopped.

In early 2013, the official website of the United States Department of Defense announced the startling statistic that the number of military suicides in 2012 had far exceeded the total of those killed in battle – an average of nearly one a day. A month later came an even more sobering statistic from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: veteran suicide was running at 22 a day — about 8000 a year.

The situation became so dire that the U.S. Secretary of Defense called suicide in the military an “epidemic.”

Some have claimed that this spate of self-harm is because of the stresses of war. But the facts reveal that 85% of military suicides have not seen combat — and 52% never even deployed.

So what unsuspected factor is causing military suicide rates to soar?

According to the CCHR documentary The Hidden Enemy: Inside Psychiatry’s Covert Agenda, all evidence points in one direction: the soaring rates of psychiatric drug prescribing since 2003. Known medication side effects of these drugs such as increased aggression and suicidal thinking are reflected in similar uptrends in the rates of military domestic violence, child abuse and sex crimes, as well as self-harm.

Pull the string further and you’ll find psychiatrists ever widening the definitions of what it means to be “mentally ill,” especially when it comes to post traumatic stress disorder in soldiers — and PTSD in veterans.

And in psychiatry, diagnoses of psychological disorders such as PTSD, personality disorder and social anxiety disorder are almost inevitably followed by the prescription of at least one psychiatric drug.

Psychiatrists know that their drugs do not actually cure anything, but merely mask symptoms. They are well aware of their many dangerous side effects, including possible addiction. However, they claim that the risks of the medication side effects are exceeded by their benefits. And while the soldier’s real problem goes unaddressed, his health deteriorates.

In the face of these grim military suicide statistics, more and more money is being lavished on psychiatry: the U.S. Pentagon now spends $2 billion a year on mental health alone. The Veterans Administration’s mental health budget has skyrocketed from less than $3 billion in 2007 to nearly $7 billion in 2014—all while conditions continue to worsen.

The Hidden Enemy reveals the entire situation in stark relief, while urging that soldiers and vets become educated on the true dangers of psychiatry and psychiatric drugs. The answer lies in their right to full and honest informed consent—as well as exercising their right to refuse treatment. Our service members need to know there are safe and effective non-psychiatric solutions to the horrors of combat stress, and that these solutions will not subject them to dangerous and toxic treatments that will only send their health spiraling downward.

For more information:

Download and read the CCHR reportA Review of How Prescribed Psychiatric Medications Could Be Driving Members of the Armed Forces and Vets to Acts of Violence and Suicide.

Watch the CCHR documentary onlineThe Hidden Enemy: Inside Psychiatry’s Covert Agenda.

If you are in the military, a veteran, a member of a military or veteran support group, or family or associate of a member of the military or a veteran, you quality for a free Hidden Enemy DVD. Fill out this form to receive a free DVD.

The Deadliest Enemy

Sunday, September 7th, 2014

The Deadliest Enemy

is the one you never suspect

“The use of psychotropic drugs, especially combined use of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs, is strongly associated with an increased risk of SCD [Sudden Cardiac Death].” —European Heart Journal

“Prior to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the use of prescribed antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs was never part of military policy.

“In a June 2010 report, the latest available on the subject, the Defense Department’s Pharmacoeconomic Center noted that 213,972, or 20 percent of the 1.1 million active-duty troops surveyed, were taking some form of psychotropic drug.

“Since that report was released, those figures have greatly increased and are now considerably beyond the 20 percent level for psychiatric medications prescribed to active-duty soldiers. These are precisely the sort of drugs cited in an overwhelming majority of veteran suicides.

“These substances significantly impair motor skills and reaction times, and cause confusion, disorientation and forgetfulness—critical damage to a skill set vital to soldiers in combat.

“Other numbers are even more staggering, showing that the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs poured more than $4.5 billion into purchases of antidepressants, antipsychotics and anti-anxiety drugs in the decade after 9/11. The mass prescribing of these dangerous drugs continues in high gear once the soldier, sailor, Marine or airman comes under the authority of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“In return for the billions of dollars spent on these substances, suicides and cases of sudden cardiac arrest have soared.”

Click here to read the full report on deaths in the military due to psychotropic drugs.

If you are in the military, a veteran, a member of a military or veteran support group, or family or associate of a member of the military or a veteran, you quality for a free Hidden Enemy DVD. Fill out this form to receive a free DVD.

You can also watch the full Hidden Enemy documentary here:

Fort Hood Shooting: A Wake-up Call for Lawmakers

Saturday, April 5th, 2014

Fort Hood Shooting: A Wake-up Call for Lawmakers

Violence and psychiatric drugs—a deadly formula America is becoming too intimately familiar with. The mental health watchdog group, Citizens Commission on Human Rights says that rather than continually sending heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, it is time for lawmakers to investigate the connection between prescription psychiatric drugs and violence.

America learned within hours of the April 2nd shooting at Ft. Hood that four people were dead (including the shooter) and 16 had been wounded in the attack. The shooter, 34-year old Army Specialist, Ivan Lopez, served in Iraq for four months in 2011 and according to The New York Times, Secretary of the Army, John McHugh, said Lopez had been “examined by a psychiatrist within the last month, but showed no signs that he might commit a violent act.” Secretary McHugh further explained to the Senate Armed Services Committee that Lopez “had been prescribed Ambien, a sleep aid, and other medication to treat anxiety and depression.”

CCHR says this sounds sadly familiar to the September 2013 Washington Navy Yard attack by Aaron Alexis, who had been taking the antidepressant, Trazadone, when he killed twelve innocent people.

CCHR continues that, “psychiatric treatment, in the form of prescription mind-altering drugs, once again is connected to a mass shooting. Yet, despite data showing a connection between psychiatric mind-altering drugs and violence, lawmakers have yet to investigate the connection.”

Click here to read the full article.

Ambien (generic name zolpidem) is a non-benzodiazepine hypnotic and anti-anxiety drug often prescribed for insomnia, and whose known side effects include aggressive behavior, agitation, anxiety, confusion, fear, hallucinations, hostility, psychosis, rage, suicide attempts, and transient amnesia.