Annual Protest of the American Psychiatric Association May 4, 2014, NYC

via CNN iReport:

Invitation to the Annual Protest of the American Psychiatric Association May 4, 2014, NYC

By Lauren10e  |  Posted April 27, 2014  |  New York

#StopPsychAssault; #FreeJustina; and #StopMurphyBill: 

MEDIA ADVISORY 
April 26, 2014 

Contact: Lauren Tenney, PhD, MPhil, MPA, Psychiatric Survivor 
Phone Number (516) 319-4295 
https://www.facebook.com/events/246150788902655/. 
https://www.facebook.com/events/624125897669908/ 

WHO: People everywhere. MindFreedom International and the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®) 

WHAT: Annual Protest of the American Psychiatric Association’s Annual Meeting and the #StopPsychAssault; #FreeJustina; and #StopMurphyBill Twitter campaigns 

WHERE: Behind the barricades on the Corner of 34th Street and 11th Avenue, NYC, NY (Across the Street from the Jacob Javits Convention Center) on the Internet. 

WHEN: May 4, 2014 @ NOON 

WHY: An invitation to protest the American Psychiatric Association. Everyone is at risk. 

James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq., President/CEO of the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, is traveling from Alaska to attend the protest in New York City on May 4, 2014. Gottstein stated: "Psychiatry is a morally and scientifically bankrupt enterprise causing great harm and must be held accountable." 

Al Galves, PhD and Board member of MindFreedom International stated: 
“If you believe, as I do, that our mental health system is hurting rather than helping people who are going through hard times, then the place to protest is at the annual convention of the people who control mental health treatment in our country – the psychiatrists.” 

Dorothy Dundas, who is affiliated with National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery,and the creator of the “Behind Locked Doors” poster, will be traveling from Massachusetts to attend the protest. Dundas stated: “As a survivor of forced shock, seclusion and drugging, the Murphy bill would take us back 30+ years! STOP the Murphy bill!” 

It is crucial that we come together and say #StopPsychAssault, #FreeJustina, and #StopMurphyBill at the Annual Protest of the American Psychiatric Association. If you cannot come to the protest in person, please post your letters of protest on these event pages: 
https://www.facebook.com/events/624125897669908/ and 
https://www.facebook.com/events/246150788902655/. 

Your written protests will be compiled and given to the APA and the MEDIA. 

DETAILS: Photo/Video Opportunities 

SPONSORING ORGANIZATIONS: 
MindFreedom International and the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: 

MindFreedom International www.MindFreedom.org 
MindFreedom International is a nonprofit organization that unites 100 sponsor and affiliate grassroots groups with thousands of individual members to win human rights and alternatives for people labeled with psychiatric disabilities. 

MindFreedom Goals 
• Win human rights campaigns in mental health. 
• Challenge abuse by the psychiatric drug industry. 
• Support the self-determination of psychiatric survivors and mental health consumers. 
• Promote safe, humane and effective options in mental health. 

MindFreedom Mission Statement 
"In a spirit of mutual cooperation, MindFreedom leads a nonviolent revolution of freedom, equality, truth and human rights that unites people affected by the mental health system with movements for justice everywhere." 

Law Project for Psychiatric Rights www.PsychRights.org 

The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®) is a public interest law firm whose mission is to mount a strategic legal campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock in the United States akin to what Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP mounted in the 40's and 50's on behalf of African American civil rights. The public mental health system is creating a huge class of chronic mental patients through forcing them to take ineffective, yet extremely harmful drugs. 

Currently, due to the massive growth in psychiatric drugging of children and youth and the current targeting of them for even more psychiatric drugging, PsychRights® has made attacking this problem a priority. Children are virtually always forced to take these drugs because it is the adults in their lives who are making the decision. This is an unfolding national tragedy of immense proportions. As part of its mission, PsychRights® is further dedicated to exposing the truth about these drugs and the courts being misled into ordering people to be drugged and subjected to other brain and body damaging interventions against their will. 

#FreeJustina http://justiceforjustina.com/ 
Justina Pelletier is but one example of a young person who is currently knapped by psychiatry. Justina is imprisoned in a psychiatric institution and barred access to her family. Justina's family has broken legal gag orders preventing them from speaking about what is happening to Justina, to bring attention to the fact that Justina is being tortured while true medical treatment is being withheld from her. 

#StopMurphyBill Stop the Murphy Bill HR3717 
On a national level, the Murphy Bill, HR3717, if passed, will reverse thirty years of progress in public psychiatric service delivery systems, including wiping out Alternatives, PAIMI (Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness), and instituting a national involuntary outpatient commitment law, ordinarily carried out in racist and classist ways. HR3717 expands forced psychiatry and eliminates choice and informed consent. 

Protest Posters by Lauren Tenney, PhD

The over-diagnosis of early onset schizophrenia and other irregularities in psychiatry

Judith L. Rapoport, M.D.
		Judith L. Rapoport M.D. is Chief of the Child Psychiatry Branch NIMH. She is a graduate of Harvard Medical School. She did her clinical and research training at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center (Boston), Children's Hospital (DC), and the Karolinska Hospital (Stockholm). Her research has focused on diagnosis in child psychiatry, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Over the past decade, her group has been studying the clinical phenomenology, neurobiology and treatment of Childhood Onset Schizophrenia. She is an author or coauthor of over 300 scientific papers, a member of the Institute of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A brief clip of a recent webinar:

Out of 361 kids initially screened as potential participants in a phenomenology, neurobiology and pharmacologic response study, 37% of them, a total of 132 kids were determined to have been incorrectly diagnosed with schizophrenia, and were excluded. 229 were presumed to have been accurately diagnosed with schizophrenia, and 228 of these were observed at an inpatient setting over a period of several weeks. Upon discharge, only 126 of the 228 were believed to have a diagnosis of schizophrenia, e.g. 34.9% of the original 361 kids who had been diagnosed and were screened for potential participation in this study by Rapoport and her colleagues had been (presumably) accurately diagnosed with schizophrenia....

Diagnostic disagreement is not simply a problem caused by a lack of inter-rater diagnostic agreement, it is more a problem caused by the lack of empirical data to support and validate the diagnostic criteria. The rate of diagnostic disagreement in this study effectively demonstrates how dangerous and unreliable the DSM is.



The current psychiatric treatment guidelines adopted by the APA and the AACAP are developed using a quasi-democratic process to achieve consensus. The first line treatment always recommended for a diagnosis of schizophrenia in professional guidelines, practice parameters, and treatment algorithms is neuroleptic drugs. 

Expert opinions are not a valid substitute for empirical evidence; nonetheless, expert opinions are relied on (presumably) because the available evidence does not support the treatment recommendations promulgated through a political process in which psychiatrist's expert opinions are used to pseudo-validate the recommendations and used to justify the prolific prescription of teratogenic drugs, as a "necessary medical treatment" regardless of the therapeutic value to psychiatric patients who are labeled and targeted for psychiatric treatment... 

Psychiatry is obviously NOT an ethical medical specialty! 

watch on youtube      the slides for Judith Rapoport's presentation

Here is what the NIMH website says about this project:

"Since 1990, the NIMH has been recruiting patients with onset of schizophrenia before age 13. Major goals are to study brain development during childhood and adolescence in early onset schizophrenia patients. Preliminary genetic studies show association with a number of schizophrenia risk genes such as GAD and NRG1, supporting continuity with the adult disorder. In addition, abnormal brain developmental trajectories in patients and their full healthy siblings are seen in relation to risk alleles for these genes. Treatment studies have shown the unique benefit of clozapine for treatment resistant patients. A new study of transient cortical electrical stimulation has begun for control of selected symptoms. (emphasis mine)

"Children and adolescents meeting DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia are being recruited nationally for a study of the phenomenology, neurobiology and pharmacologic response of childhood onset schizophrenia. Over 300 medical records have been reviewed from which 320 patients and their families, appearing to meet DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia with onset of psychosis prior to age 12, were screened in person. Of these 225 were hospitalized for medication free observation.  A total of 112 received the diagnosis of schizophrenia at NIMH screening. A large number of children are receiving the diagnosis of schizophrenia improperly resulting in inappropriate treatment, even at academic centers. " here

Remember, according to Judith Rapoport's webinar and the slides she used, of the 361 kids screened for potential participation in the study, only 126 (34.9%) were believed to have schizophrenia at discharge.

The lack of empirical validity means psychiatric diagnosis is unreliable; the fact that mental health professionals have police powers to detain people make psychiatric diagnosis and treatment a risky proposition. The risk of disability and premature fatality are inherent, unavoidable risks for people of all ages who take psychotropic drugs; children and adolescents are known to be have an even greater risk for experiencing adverse effects, including drug-induced fatality. These pertinent facts make Jeffrey Lieberman's claims utterly irresponsible; being without a factual basis, his claims are unethical.

via Hearing Voices Network:

Basic information about voices and visions

via Intervoice:

Children Hearing Voices: What you need to know and what you can do

Free booklets for parents and supporters

What you can do if your child tells you they are hearing voices

1. Try not to over react, although you will be understandably worried, work hard not to communicate your anxiety to your child.
2. Accept the reality of the voice experience for your child: Ask them about their voices, how long they have been hearing them, who or what they are, do they have names, what they say etc.
3. Let your child know that lots of children hear voices and mostly they go away after a while.
4. Even if the voices do not disappear your child can learn to live in harmony with his/her voices
5. It is important to breakdown your child’s sense of isolation and differentness from other children. Your child is special, unusual perhaps, but normal.
6. Find out if your child has any difficulties or problems that they are finding very hard to cope with and work on trying to fix these problems. Think back to when the voices first started, what was happening to your child when they first heard voices? When did the voices arise for the first time? Was there anything unusual or stressful that might have occurred?
7. If you think you need outside help, find a therapist who is prepared to accept your child’s experience and work with your child in a systematic way to understanding and cope with their voices better.
8. Be ready to listen to your child if they want to talk about their voices and use drawing, painting, acting and other creative ways to help them describe what is happening to them.
9. Get on with your lives and try not to let the voice experience become the centre of your child’s life or your own.
10. Most children who live well with their voices have supportive families living around them who accept the experience as part of who their child is. You can do this too!

My informed consent wasn't necessary

When I wrote about Jeffrey Lieberman in Caught Being Offensive...I focused on Lieberman's ridiculous assertion that critics of the DSM and the American Psychiatric Association are "prejudiced against psychiatrists, and psychiatry." Lieberman implied that any criticisms specific to psychiatric treatments used at an ephemeral point in the past; a point in time that is never clarified by Lieberman. Perhaps it is because Lieberman characterized mental health professionals and psychiatric survivors who are critical of the DSM and the American Psychiatric Association as being "anti-psychiatry" in a Scientific American blog post titled, DSM-5: Caught between Mental Illness Stigma and Anti-Psychiatry Prejudice. 

Unlike Dr. Judy Stone's articulate response to Lieberman's strange diatribe castigating critics of psychiatry, my response is that of a betrayed parent who now takes care of a 25 year-old son who was iatrogenically disabled as an adolescent in a research facility by neuroleptic drugs prescribed off label without Informed Consent by a federally funded psychiatric researcher, Jon McClellan. McClellan, acting as an agent of Washington State, repeatedly told me my informed consent wasn't necessary. He claimed I had no say in my son's psychiatric treatment. This unethical psychiatric researcher actually claimed telling me anything about how he was "medically treating" my son by repeatedly traumatizing and torturing him was only done as a "courtesy" to me.

My vehement protests were used to malign me as a parent. The psychiatrist who disabled my son recorded in my son's medical record that I am an "unreliable" source of information about his psychiatric history, symptoms and problems. Every other professional up to that point had noted that I have a great deal of insight and understanding of my son's issues. My complaints of unethical and illegal behavior include an estimated $1 million being defrauded from the federal child welfare and Medicaid programs, and Civil Rights violations intentionally perpetrated by agents of the state acting Under Color of Law using perjured testimony and fraud for "evidence." 

Human Experimentation without fully informed consent is a violation of the Nuremberg Code. Grievous harm was inflicted upon my son by unethical mental health and child welfare "professionals" acting Under Color of Law.  These public servants violated both my son's and my Civil Rights repeatedly with impunity, they broke State, Federal, and International Laws as agents of the state. None of these crimes have been investigated by Law Enforcement...

My son was repeatedly traumatized; in reality, tortured, abused and used as a human guinea pig by a federally-funded research psychiatrist and co-investigator in the TEOSS drug trials, namely, Jon McClellan who is the Medical Director of Child Study and Treatment Center in Lakewood, Washington and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Washington.  

For over twenty years, employees of the State of Washington and it's contracted providers have consistently abdicated their legally mandated responsibilities and have failed to ethically perform duties owed to my son, Isaac. The initial failures when my son was a pre-schooler, were criminally negligent. Instead of acting in defense of my 3-year-old son when he was victimized by a Washington State licensed foster parent, public employees who were mandated reporters working in Washington State's federally-funded child welfare program violated the ethical guidelines of their chosen profession and violated State law to cover up the felony assault of my 3 year old son by a foster parent who is suspected of killing four infants. 

I have good damned reason to be angry---I have been proceeded against in child welfare custody hearings by public employees who proffered perjured testimony and fraud as 'evidence;' to  'legally' strip me of my parental rights and prevent me from acting on my son's behalf.  I bore witness to my son being repeatedly assaulted, traumatically abused, medically neglected and ultimately disabled by mental health "professionals" who were aided and abetted by child welfare workers who violated federal law and claimed that it was necessary that my son to be made a ward of the state for his medical treatment to be reimbursed by the Federal Medicaid program---I later discovered since my son was already on Medicaid and his eligibility was never at risk, it was against Federal Law to require me to give up custody.

I believe this lie was offered in order to coerce my cooperation to sign an "Agreed Order to Place" to make my son a ward of the state, which would enable Washington State to commit fraud by illegally claiming child welfare funds for my son from the Federal Child Welfare program. 

I was misled by the state's publicly funded mental health program employees as well who falsely claimed Child Study and Treatment Center, CSTC, is a hospital; it is licensed as a psychiatric research facility for children and adolescents---it is not a hospital. Once at CSTC, the medical director, research psychiatrist, Jon McClellan, violated the ethical guidelines for Informed Consent of the medical profession while breaking multiple State, Federal and International laws governing the treatment of human beings, and the protection of children who are wards of the State of Washington.  

In the last three years, 3 different psychiatrists have lied to us; the last two actually had the audacity to immediately demand my "respect" after denying the drugs prescribed to my son do in fact cause brain damage. The third psychiatrist told me 3 times that the drugs do not cause brain damage, he then demanded my respect...

Caught Being Offensive: DSM-5, Caught Between Mental Illness Stigma and Anti-Psychiatry Prejudice

Jeffrey Lieberman, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association, wrote an invited commentary for Scientific American's MIND Guest Blog.  Lieberman's commentary is most remarkable for the lack of respect Lieberman apparently has for other professionals and for others with a different perspective than his own about the DSM, which has a profound influence on how we, as a society, treat people who experience emotional and/or behavioral difficulties.  I don't believe that Lieberman is unaware, uninformed or ignorant; however, in this commentary, he attempts to paint professionals and others who are critical of harmful, discriminatory psychiatric practices that are coercive and cause serious iatrogenic impairments; some fatal, as "real people who don’t want to improve mental healthcare."  

It's as if Lieberman believes there is only one way to look at the issues involved; if one's perspective in not aligned with his own, one is unworthy of consideration, possibly mentally ill, and undeserving of respect.  Presumably, Lieberman states, professionals who are "against the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses;" i.e. biological based hypotheses firmly believed in by the folks who arrive at the diagnostic criteria and treatment standards a consensus of p subjective opinions. Consensus is the foundation of psychiatry. Lieberman presumes too much about a diverse group of people. He seems to be intentionally misleading readers about the core issues the American Psychiatric Association and it's bible, The  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual are widely criticized for.  The DSM is being boycotted by some concerned professionals. 

a few excerpts from  "DSM-5: Caught between Mental Illness Stigma and Anti-Psychiatry Prejudice" via Scientific American:

"But there’s another type of critique that does not contribute to this goal. These are the groups who are actually proud to identify themselves as “anti-psychiatry.”

"These are real people who don’t want to improve mental healthcare, unlike the dozens of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and patient advocates who have labored for years to revise the DSM, rigorously and responsibly. Instead, they are against the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses—which improves, and in some cases saves, millions of lives every year—and “against” the very idea of psychiatry, and its practices of psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. They are, to my mind, misguided and misleading ideologues and self-promoters who are spreading scientific anarchy."

"Being “against” psychiatry strikes me as no different than being “against” cardiology or orthopedics or gynecology—which most people, I think, would find absurd. No other medical specialty is targeted by such an “anti” movement."

"This relatively small “anti-psychiatry” movement fuels the much larger segment of the world that is prejudiced against people with disorders of the brain and mind and the professions that treat them. Like most prejudice, this one is largely based on ignorance or fear–no different than racism, or society’s initial reactions to illnesses from leprosy to AIDS. And many people made uncomfortable by mental illness and psychiatry, don’t recognize their feelings as prejudice. But that is what they are." end quote (emphasis mine)

The dubious claim that "mental illness is like any other illness" is (allegedly) used to "fight stigma."  According to grass roots advocates for the seriously mentally ill, who "fight the stigma" by claiming that having a "psychiatric disease" or "mental illness," is like having diabetes, and taking teratogenic drugs is like using insulin to regulate blood sugar...

Let's be real, this comparison is a spurious claim purportedly made to "bust the stigma of mental illness" and encourage people to seek psychiatric diagnosis and treatment.  The depression is caused by a chemical imbalance "metaphor" is a discarded hypothesis, a disproved hypothetical explanation for what was once called "endogenous depression." It was utilized to manipulate patients, and the general public in order to sell the psychiatric diagnosis = brain disease idea. Just as importantly these compaisons were drawn from thin air as part of a mass marketing strategy to sell psychopharmacology as an ethical, evidence based Standard Treatment for EVERY psychiatric diagnosis AS a putative disease. Once the general public in effect believe that any psychiatric diagnosis is evidence a person has a brain disease,  the public supported legislation allowing psychiatrists to have unwilling patients adjudicated as a person with a brain disease requiring psychiatric treatment...

Lieberman uses some sort of pseudo-logical nonsense to assert psychiatry is the like any other medical specialty. In reality, there are glaring exceptions: the primary one being psychiatrists, subjugate both the Police and the Courts, utilizing them as medical instruments to have unwilling patients adjudicated in Courts of Law---No other medical specialty substitutes legal adjudication for a medical diagnosis.  Once a psychiatrist or other designated mental health professional asserts the person has a brain disease, and further attests the alluded to "disease" can be effectively treated with neuroleptic and/or other psychotropic drugs and/or electrical shocks to the brain. 

The Rules of Evidence used by the Police and the Courts in any and every other type of legal procedure or process, are not required for these adjudicative procedures. The designated medical professional's claims are a professional opinion proffered in accordance with a political process developed by consensus. Ironically, the lowered standards are seemingly "justified" by widespread acceptance of, and presumably belief in the idea that a psychiatric diagnosis, or a mental illness means one is less than one once was, one is less than "normal;" one is less human. That  a person has a disease is at best, a shared professional opinion that is substituted for "evidence."  Serving in effect, as the evidence, this "fact" becomes the sole justification for mandating psychiatric treatment regardless of any actual benefit or adverse effect experienced by the person who is legally adjudicated and Court Ordered to psychiatric treatment under color of law.  

"tolerable side effects of diagnosis and treatment"

evidence of actual iatrogenic,  
"physician caused" harm

Conveniently,  Lieberman and biological psychiatry practitioners in general minimize the nature of the psychotropic drugs used by psychiatrists, psychopharmacologists develop the treatment standards by consensus. Imagine an oncologist diagnosing and treating cancer using diagnostic criteria and treatment standards derived through a political process, consensus. Imagine the uproar at "treating sick people like that!" The neuroleptic or so-called "anti-psychotic" drugs are only minimally effective for a minority of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.  Teratogenic drugs, they cause a myriad of iatrogenic diseases and impairments that are then medically neglected; increasing the risk a person will die an untimely iatrogenic, death.  Common drug-induced impairments specifically drug-induced brain damage, impairs a person's ability to realize they have been harmed, prevent further iatrogenic harm.  

Can there be any doubt medically neglected iatrogenic injuries and impairments have a profound effect on a psychiatric patient, adversely effecting length and quality of life?

The civil commitment laws in the U.S. lower the evidentiary standards used in civil and criminal legal procedure. Court hearings do not follow standard court procedures--- The courts in the U.S. do not require any evidence the person has a disease, to support a psychiatrist's expert opinion.   Psychiatrists need not offer any evidence the recommended treatment will "effectively treat" the person who is being adjudicated.  Psychiatric diagnoses and the treatment protocols used by psychiatry were created using a quasi-democratic political processes; not medical or scientific processes.  When any other medical specialist  testifies in a court of law, they are required to submit empirical evidence of the factual basis of their testimony in compliance with the Rules of Evidence used in Police procedure and Courts of Law. For example, psychiatrists who offer professional opinions in court in person or by affidavit, will attest, "patient x has schizophrenia, a brain disease that requires medical treatment." However, no supporting evidence to substantiate the assertions made is offered, or required. Evidence that psychiatric drugs and/or electroshock will effectively treat the person isn't needed to obtain a Court Order to force treatment upon a person who has been adjudicated.  That unsupported attestations instead of factual evidence can be accepted on faith, then used as a basis to deprive a person of their liberty, is evidence that attorneys assigned to defend people facing adjudication proceedings, are failing to defend their client's Constitutional Rights.

The DSM5 has been much discussed and debated, but it is more than an exaggeration to state the DSM5, "ignited a broad dialogue on mental illness and opened up a conversation about the state of psychiatry and mental healthcare in this country."   While the DSM5 has, and continues to be a catalyst for debate and discussion, it seems to me that the APA and the professionals involved with the DSM5, have stifled debate, and have refused to acknowledge, or respectfully listen to critics.  The fact is, Lieberman like most psychiatrists, is disparaging of people who self-identify as psychiatric survivors, ex-patients, or as "anti-psychiatry;" some of whom have been "discussing the state of psychiatry and mental healthcare in this country" longer then I've been alive...  

All due respect to Jeffrey Lieberman, his commentary reads like a juvenile justification, proffering lame excuses and abdicating having any personal or professional responsibility while offering no explanation for the lack of scientific basis for his "medical" specialty. The misguided attempt to rewrite history with the strange claim that asylums were, "humane warehouses," and opining that Freudian theory was a "brilliant fiction;" borders on being sci-fi fantasy. The first assertion evinces a bias for the psychiatric disease hypothesis, as well as willful blindness to the grievous harm done to real people in standard psychiatric practice. read  here

Lieberman and the American Psychiatric Association collectively refuse to acknowledge psychiatry's victims; in effect, invalidating an entire class of people. It's utterly despicable and adds insult to injury that the doctors who vehemently defend themselves, and their chosen profession, are willfully blind to those grievously injured by psychiatric treatment.

Psychiatry is failing to perform an ethical medical duty: to HELP those with iatrogenic injuries recover, psychiatry forgets to "First, do no harm..." Lieberman, is not unusual, he abdicates responsibility for the harm caused real people by treatments he vehemently defends as effective and necessary medical treatments.  Lieberman seems to be encouraging a perspective that pretends my son, Isaac, and others with profound, disabling iatrogenic injuries from psychiatric treatment aren't worthy of being respected or having their human rights preserved. Equally important, Lieberman seems unaware of having an ethical duty to the victims, the countless current and former psychiatric patients who are in critical need of medical treatment for their profound iatrogenic injuries and impairments.

I'm biased from the experience of witnessing the horrifying manner psychiatrists have treated, and in reality, mistreated and disabled my son before he was an adult.  My son at the age of 7 had an IQ of 146, and could do triple digit addition in his head, without using his fingers.

Christmas 2011, he used his fingers to count the seven remaining days until Christmas. He is 25 years old and I take care of my precious son, who was disabled by psychiatrists who acted with impunity. It is a bittersweet privilege; it is an honor. Lieberman's attitude seems prejudiced to me, but like I said, I'm biased. I'm a MadMother who knows that my son deserved to be heard, who knows he needed to be helped to process the violence which caused the traumatic injuries he sustained as the victim of violent crime at 3 years old. Instead, he was repeatedly traumatized by mental health professionals, social workers who allowed psychiatrists to inflict the iatrogenic injuries that he will likely die from. 

@href="https://twitter.com/drjlieberman">drjlieberman Your implication that any conceptual critique of psychiatric assumptions must be motivated by ideology or self-promotion is >>
— Sam Thompson (@uilleannair) May 21, 2013

@drjlieberman >> deeply offensive. Many are sceptical of the medical model because they feel it serves distressed people poorly. You may >>
— Sam Thompson (@uilleannair) May 21, 2013

@drjlieberman >> disagree, but to impugn bad faith on behalf of psychiatry's critics is insulting, and unworthy of someone in your position.
— Sam Thompson (@uilleannair) May 21, 2013

. @nasw @apa @unboundradionet Jeffrey Lieberman, incoming president of the APA---> #DoucheCentral twubs.com/DoucheCentral
— SocialWorkUnplugged (@URTRiPiN) May 21, 2013

Psychiatry, Medical Treatment, and FDA Approved Fraud

1956 ADVERTISEMENT

From the above advertisement, it more than plain that neuroleptic drugs called,  "antipsychotics" were marketed and prescribed to control children's "unruly behavior" from the time they were first developed...

It is plain that every Federal authority with a legal duty to protect the American people from the adverse effects of prescription drugs, has failed to do so diligently. The illegal marketing continues, while the off-label prescriptions for dangerous teratogens, i.e., FDA-approved psychotropic drugs, are fraudulently billed to the Federal Medicaid program.  Fraud continues unabated while mental health professionals "monitor" the prescription rates of teratogenic drugs prescribed to children that can disable and even kill them. These young patients and their parents are often not informed or the risks.; many are never told what the drugs mechanism of action is, nor are they told of the potential for experiencing serious adverse drug effects that may disable, or eve kill them. Corporate criminals are aided and abetted by regulatory failure; unethical medical professionals who use "standard practice" as an affirmative defense i.e. off label prescriptions that are unsupported by definitive evidence of safety and effectiveness; and Key opinion Leaders whose professional opinions are used to aid and abet the criminal marketing of FDA approved drugs. They're making a killing...

FDA-approved drugs kill far more people 

than alcohol and illicit drugs combined...

via Public Citizen
(a nonprofit organization that does not participate in partisan political activities or endorse any candidates) 


In 2008, Sidney M. Wolfe, M.D. testified before a House subcommittee that, "The situation at the FDA has never been worse than now and this can be attributed to a confluence of 3 factors:

  1.Terrible leadership at the FDA, including the Commissioner and most of the Center                          

• Directors
• 
  
• 2. Increasing reliance on industry to fund FDA activities, with almost 2/3 of the drug approval     budget coming out of the $400 million+ Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) drug  allocation for FY 2008

  3. Relative to the 1970’s and 1980’s, a perilously low level of Congressional oversight and 

   oversight hearings by the same Congresses that have, since 1992, increasingly turned 

   over FDA funding to the industry" read here

via PloS Medicine:

Questionable Advertising of Psychotropic Medications and Disease Mongering

Jeffrey R. Lacasse1*, Jonathan Leo2 1 Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, United States of America, 2 Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, Tennesseee, United States of America 

an excerpt:
"Wayne Goodman, Chair of the FDA Psychopharmacological Advisory Committee, admitted that the serotonergic theory of depression is a “useful metaphor”—and one that he never uses within his own psychiatric practice [6]." read here

via the FDA Warning Letters and Notice of Violation Letters to Pharmaceutical Companies:

Shire Pharmaceuticals Warning Letter 2011 for Vyvanse an excerpt: "the subject of this letter is dated March 2008" --a warning sent three years after the fact?!

Noven Pharmaceuticals, Inc warning letter for Pexeva® (paroxetine mesylate) Tablets here

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation Focalin XR® here

Pfizer Inc. CHANTIX®  (varenicline) Tablets CADUET®  (amlodipine besylate/atorvastatin calcium) Tablets NORVASC®  (amlodipine besylate) Tablets here

Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. warning letter for Latuda, a neuroleptic, or 'antipsychotic' drug an excerpt: "The sales representative’s statements are false or misleading because they promote an unapproved use and minimize the risks associated with Latuda.  Thus, this promotional activity misbrands Latuda in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act"(emphasis mine) here these are all of the warning letters sent for psychiatric drugs in 2011 listed on the FDA website here.

via Mad in America Should the Medical Literature Be Cleansed of All STAR*D Articles?

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Robert Whitaker   a brief excerpt:

"In short, the falsely-reported results are driving prescribing practices and instilling a medical delusion about the effectiveness of these drugs." read here

The Code of Federal Regulations states that prescription drug advertisements must contain, "a true statement of the effectiveness of the drug for the selected purpose(s) for which the drug is recommended or suggested in the advertisement. The information relating to effectiveness shall include specific indications for use of the drug for purposes claimed in the advertisement"

Well it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the drug companies do not adhere to Federal Law.  Even when the drug industry is caught breaking the Law, the penalty does not serve as a sufficient deterrent; pharma has not stopped using illegal methods to gain FDA approval, or market it's products.  The FDA is failing as a regulatory authority; providing little, to no protection for the American people from iatrogenic harm and fatalities caused by FDA-approved drugs. It appears the drug industry is directing FDA approval and regulatory activity.  

The SSRIs (as the story goes) supposedly, 'safely treats depression thought to be caused by a 'serotonin imbalance.'   It is a disproved hypothesis, that became a fraudulent claim; a myth that has been used for decades to market SSRI antidepressants, and used to convince patients to take their antidepressants.  No serotonin imbalance, or any other neurotransmitter has ever been identified or validated as an actual biological cause of depression, or any psychiatric diagnosis!  It appears this hypothesis took on mythological proportions, and came to be accepted as a "fact, " but it is an "urban legend," without any basis in reality. This hypothetical myth, is a fraudulent claim that was repeated incessantly in drug advertisements, in professional journal articles, and in doctor's offices in "informed consent" discussions with patients and parents.  It is, and always was, a drug marketing strategy---a very lucrative and successful marketing strategy that has defrauded billions of dollars mainly from publicly funded medical programs...The FDA never sent a single warning letter to any of the drug manufacturers or the medical professionals who were promoting the chemical imbalance / brain disease mythology to advertise and market drugs; and to coerce patients into treatment compliance. The FDA allowed drug manufacturers, salesmen, medical professionals and Key Opinion Leaders to perpetrate fraud in order to sell FDA approved drugs with serious risks; risks that the FDA helped unethical researchers and manufacturers bury.  Not informing doctors or informing the American people in order to protect them from harm, makes it an FDA-approved fraud.

via NIMH Directors Blog December 14, 2011

Treatment Development: The Past 50 Years 

a few excerpts:

"Over the past year, several companies, including Astra Zeneca, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Sanofi Aventis, and recently Novartis, have announced either a reduction or a re-direction of their programs in psychiatric medication R&D. Some of these companies (such as Novartis) are shifting from clinical trials to focus more on the early phases of medication development where they feel they can identify better targets for treating mental disorders. Others are shifting from psychiatry to oncology and immunology, which are viewed by some as lower risk.

"There are multiple explanations for these changes. For instance, many of the blockbuster psychiatric medications are now available in inexpensive generic form. In addition, there are few validated new molecular targets (like the dopamine receptor) for mental disorders. Moreover, new compounds have been more likely to fail in psychiatry compared to other areas of medicine. Studying the brain and the mind has proven to be much more difficult than the liver and the heart. Most experts feel the science of mental disorders lags behind other areas of medicine. The absence of biomarkers, the lack of valid diagnostic categories, and our limited understanding of the biology of these illnesses make targeted medication development especially difficult for mental disorders." emphasis mine read here

The last sentence emphasized above is ample evidence that Thomas Insel does not understand basic scientific principles; yet, he is the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health. The absence of an identified biological dysfunction or disease pathology, i.e. a treatment target, is characterized as a "difficulty" by Thomas Insel; it is a barrier. In medical research, development of targeted treatments follow the identification of a biological dysfunction or disease that is then "targeted" for treatment. Is it possible that Thomas Insel is unaware that conforming to scientific principles is required in ethical research?  An unknown, unidentified biological dysfunction or disease is a 'hypothetical' cause for psychiatric diagnoses; it cannot ethically become a target for treatment, unless it is a validated cause of a mental disorder. Without identifying a biological dysfunction or biological disease, it's impossible to validate the disease hypothesis. To proceed without valid evidence of a disease pathology, is unethical, unscientific and belies the ethical principles of scientific research. Using a hypothesis as means of explaining a diagnosis is entirely unethical, and dishonest; yet it is standard clinical practice, and has been for decades. Pharmachological treatment for undesirable emotional and behavioral symptoms in the belief they are caused by biological dysfunction or disease, without ever identifying or validating a biological dysfunction or disease that is validated as a cause of any mental disorder, is not and cannot be a valid or ethical medical treatment. Psychiatry's "medical diagnoses" that are not supported and validated by ethically conducted research, are mythological "diseases." Psychiatry's treatment standards that are supported not by empirical evidence, but by errors of attribution, corrupt data, and subjective, i.e. biased opinions;  are not medical treatments that conforms to ethical medical principles, or even "medical treatment"...

It is Human Experimentation and it is Standard Clinical Practice. 

It is standard "medical treatment" that can be forced Under Color of Law. 
Does that sound like good medicine that is "therapeutic? 

Update February 2, 2011 at 7 pm
Six FDA scientists and doctors have filed a Federal Lawsuit alleging the FDA retaliated against them  for voicing safety concerns about medical machines the FDA approved. 

via The Washington Post Federal Eye Blog on February 1, 2011 Grassley Investigates FDA monitoring of whistleblowers By Lisa Rein and Ellen Nakashima

an couple excerpts:  

"The plaintiffs contend the monitoring was a blatant form of retaliation. Information gathered this way eventually contributed to the harassment or dismissal of all six workers, the suit alleges.

"Grassley warned Hamburg that it is illegal for a government agency to interfere with an employee’s right to air concerns to members of Congress. He said the FDA had “no evidence” that one of the device reviewers, Paul J. Hardy, disclosed confidential business information about the devices, yet fired him after he exchanged Gmail messages with congressional staff, including an investigator who worked for Grassley."

“It is troubling to me to see your Agency actively pursue the dismissal of an employee ... not because they violated procedure and leaked genuinely confidential classified information, but simply because you “cannot trust him,” Grassley wrote. He told Hamburg the FDA’s retaliation against Hardy “directly contradicts” testimony she gave during her 2009 confirmation hearings of her intent to protect whistleblowers by “creating a culture that enables all voices to be heard.” read here

Fox in the hen house source
Vintage Drug ad source 
Regulatory and Ethical Failure in Mental Health Treatment and Drug Advertising 2-2-12