I have a question for Disability Rights Washington

Lady Justice holds scales of justice against clear, blue sky.

via Disability Rights Washington:

"According to the US Constitution, every citizen must be afforded due process of law. This means no one can be denied legal rights and all laws must have standard protections. This is more than being able to understand and confront an accuser if accused of a crime. Due process upholds educational service rights, or the quality or availability of public benefit entitlements.

"People with disabilities are disproportionately entangled with the criminal justice system. The number of youth with disabilities in what has come to be called 'the school to prison pipeline' has grown with the advent of zero-tolerance policies. Access to accommodations is an imperative component of making sure justice is accessible to everyone. (Imagine someone who uses sign language being handcuffed during court.) Even when convicted, people with disabilities may experience abuse, discrimination, treatment refusal or other neglect in correctional or psychiatric facilities."

In poking around on the internet looking for information on my home state's public policies and procedures to protect vulnerable adults, I came across a report published in 2008 by Disability Rights Washington, Washington State's designated protection and advocacy office titled, "Improving Washington's Response to Abuse and Neglect. Analysis and Recommendations." Here is the Executive Summary:
:


C. Individual Accountability
No state agency is holding non-licensed individuals civilly accountable for abusing or neglecting vulnerable adults receiving services from DSHS licensed providers.

As the parent of a young man who is a 25-year-old vulnerable adult, I have a question for DRW, "What state agency holds licensed mental health professionals who violate a vulnerable adult's civil rights accountable? None. Crimes are not investigated or prosecuted when victims are vulnerable adults and the perpetrators are mental health or social service professionals who are acting as agents of the state Under Color of Law.  In 2010, my son was Court Ordered to Involuntary Treatment in Yakima County Superior Court when Designated Mental Health Professional, Nancy Sherman, and psychiatrist, Jeffrey Jennings, used perjured testimony and a forged affidavit as "evidence" to support their petitions to detain and treat my son.

Disability Rights Washington offered no assistance, advocacy, legal representation or protection to my son...


Read the whole report DRW 2008 

It is not something one can forget or forgive in the absence of Justice.

"If we should perish, the ruthlessness of the foe would be only the secondary cause of the disaster. The primary cause would be that the strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards of the struggle; and the blindness would be induced not by some accident of nature or history but by hatred and vainglory."  Reinhold Nieghbuhr in The Irony of American History  

I'm a MadMother.  

I was stripped of my inalienable rights without Due Process of Law. 

I was prevented from performing a sacred duty: 

to protect my own precious child from harm.

It is not something one can forget or forgive in the absence of Justice.

June 30, 2011, Robert Whitaker posted an article in Psychology Today titled, "Now Antidepressant-Induced Chronic Depression Has a Name: Tardive Dysphoria" six months later, he left this  comment:

"This is a very important issue, and it goes to how our society (and researchers) are willing to think of illegal drugs as harmful, but avoid such thoughts when the drugs are prescription drugs. There is evidence of cognitive impairment in many long-term users of SSRIs (researchers called this impairment "quite common"). And Grace Jackson, a psychiatrist, has written a book on this risk, called "Drug-Induced Dementia."

a couple of excerpts from the article:

"El-Mallakh detailed how tardive dysphoria may develop in patients who initially respond to an antidepressant and then stay on antidepressants long term. But what if patients respond well to an antidepressant and then stop taking the drug?  Their brains have been modified by exposure to the antidepressant (i.e. oppositional tolerance has developed), and thus, upon withdrawal of the drug, are they more likely to relapse than if they hadn’t been exposed to an antidepressant in the first place?"

"This same basic mechanism—oppositional tolerance to a psychiatric drug—has been proposed to be a cause of tardive dyskinesia (TD), which develops with some frequency in long-term users of antipsychotic medications. TD is characterized by repetitive, purposeless movements, such as a constant licking of the lips, which is evidence that the basal ganglia has been damaged by the drugs."

"But now here we are 40 years later, with perhaps ten percent of American adults taking an antidepressant, and researchers are writing about “oppositional tolerance,” and drug-induced “tardive dysphoria.” That is surely a health outcomes story that needs to investigated, and if we want to put this into an even sharper moral context, we need only consider this: Many teenagers are now being prescribed an antidepressant, and when they take the drug, their brains will develop “oppositional tolerance” to it. What percentage of these youth will end up with drug-induced tardive dysphoria, and thus suffer a lifetime of chronic depression?" read here.

Robert Whitaker makes a very important point in the last paragraph questioning the morality of the bio-medical paradigm of psychiatric treatment.  In all reality the abuse of power which underlies standard practice for treating symptoms associated with psychological distress whether the care is provided by a psychiatrist, by a pediatrician, a general practitioner or other medical professional: the prescription is invariably accompanied by a claim that the drug prescribed will treat an underlying condition in the brain which is causing the symptoms.  The cruel reality is the drugs used actually  alter brain function, causing normally functioning neurological processes to become dysfunctional.  The end result is cognitive impairment, which can be permanent.  

It is realistic and logical to think illegal drugs are harmful--the evidence is abundant and definitive. The same is also true for FDA approved mind and mood altering drugs used to treat psychiatric symptoms.  The evidence is being obscured by the direct-to-consumer marketing of the drugs; the "patient advocacy" groups with their campaigns to decrease the stigma of mental illness; the regulatory failure of the FDA; and the blind devotion to the idea that a revolutionary neuro-biological translational discovery is "right around the corner" of Thomas Insel, Director of the NIMH.  What is abundantly clear is that Conflicts of Interest have apparently prevented each of these "stake holders" from serving the best interests of the people given a psychiatric diagnosis ethically or altruistically. 

Each of these entitites has betrayed the trust of the American people.  I don't believe it's a conspiracy, nor do I think it's necessarily done with ill intent---with the exception of the drug industry and the research psychiatrists who ignored medical ethics and the harmful consequences of illegally marketing dangerous drugs as a panacea to "treat" emotional and behavioral problems caused by societal and environmental deficits. The drug industry has in all reality, been aided and abetted in a criminal enterprise, reliant on fraudulent claims about the diagnoses treated and the drugs used due to a successful albeit illegal marketing strategy. Federal authorities and "patient" advocacy groups remain silent about the pervasive fraud and corruption ans continue to benefit from the largess of their Big Pharma benefactors. Silence in effect is complicity in an ongoing criminal enterprise; the FDA and "patient advocacy" groups financially benefit by remaining silently complicit...

Each has colluded with the drug makers in perpetrating fraud.  These drug manufacturers have been found guilty several times of criminally marketing psychotropic drugs; the NIMH, the FDA and the patient advocacy groups have not warned the American people about the fraudulent claims used by the manufacturers to gain expedited FDA approval of the drugs; or about pHARMa's illegal marketing schemes. Drug Makers fail to perform the after market testing supposedly "required" by the FDA, while the FDA turns a blind eye to the failure.  In the illegally marketing phase of this criminal enterprise, it is clear that government regulatory authorities are utterly and completely worthless; it is also abundantly clear that advocacy groups have been willing participants. It is in this phase that the collusion comes clearly into focus:  each and every regulatory authority and patient advocacy group who receives funds from the drug industry has either actively participated and/or passively allowed this ongoing fraud, remaining silent and denying the horrific impact on the people with a psychiatric diagnosis who are disabled or killed the drugs. It is an egregious breach of the American people's trust that belies the self-proclaimed altruistic intent to advocate for the best interests of patients. It is made worse by the fact this collaboration relies on defrauding the American people whose tax dollars fund "patient" advocacy groups and the FDA, who approves the drugs and theoretically provides after-market regulatory enforcement on behalf of the American people. Relying on assurances of the safety and effectiveness of pharmaceutical drugs, without reliable evidence, could be hazardous to your health; it may even be fatal.     

Each government entity whose primary purpose is to serve the interests of the American people has utterly failed to do so; the failure has put our most vulnerable loved ones at risk.  Each has purposely lied about and/or concealed the results of federally funded research.  Each has lied to the American people about the safety and efficacy of psychotropic drugs, as well as the subjective nature of the diagnoses themselves.  Each has purposely misinformed the general public, the people diagnosed, and their families members with a fraudulent claim that was developed in an effort to lessen the stigma of a psychiatric diagnosis; but which has no basis in fact.  The claim that psychiatric diagnoses are caused by a genetic, neuro-biological, chemical imbalances or brain defects, is an idea that some had hoped would encourage the general public to be nicer to people with "mental illness;" that it would increase psychiatric patients inclusion into mainstream society.  

Ten years after this massive media campaign to inform Americans about how to help people with a psychiatric diagnosis, using this ill-conceived strategy, essentially, propaganda; it is discovered this "anti-stigma" campaign had the opposite effect. Now that the general public believe that mental illnesses are caused by brain diseases, people with psychiatric diagnoses are shunned and excluded even more by the general public than they were before this "anti-stigma" campaign.  Despite this failure, and in spite of the claim being a ploy with no scientific validity, it is still stated as if it is a fact by mental health professionals---including NIMH Director, Thomas Insel.   

The vast majority of NIMH research funding is directed towards searching for evidence to substantiate the disease hypothesis; the vast majority of public funds are expended for pharmaceutical drugs as if the disease hypothesis has been validated and is a medical certainty.

We have a publicly funded treatment system which is based on medically treating people with a psychiatric diagnosis as if psychiatric diagnoses are evidence of a biological defect in the absence of definitive evidence.  We pay for the prescription drugs prescribed to psychiatric patients and treat them under color of law by force if they are not cooperative.   A psychiatric diagnosis is now adjudicated in Courts of Law; a psychiatric diagnosis is a legal determination of one's social, political and legal status. The scientific evidence is insufficient, so a legal determination is substituted. It's not constitutional, nonetheless, it is legal in most states.  The laws passed do not require that evidence offered need not comply with the Rules of Evidence applicable in any and every other criminal and civil Court proceeding, nor do Standard court Procedures need to be followed---this is a separate, not equal, lower standard for the "mentally ill."

Under the guise of public service and benevolent assistance and advocacy, mental health practitioners and volunteer "advocates for the mentally ill" have, with the drug industry's help, misinformed millions of patients and families and have violated many individuals Substantive and Procedural Due Process Rights, to force "treatment" that violates a patient's Human Rights. These people are the primary victims, their families are also primary victims---the secondary  victims, are the taxpayers who pay for the Court Proceedings, and pay for the drugs, pay the subsistence disability payments made to those who are iatrogenically disabled.   The secondary victims are also passive perpetrators. This may harsh, but there are injustices that once one knows about them a failure to protest them and the refusal to act in defense of the victims becomes complicity. Human Rights crimes carried out under the Color of Law, would definitely qualify as a circumstance in which one's failure to act would make one complicit.

Every Federal Authority and patient advocacy group that has failed to inform, and has denied the deleterious negative effects of psychotropic drugs while simultaneously reassuring people in crisis and their family members, of the the safety and efficacy of the drugs; is guilty of fraud. They are using the same tainted inaccurate misinformation used to illegally market the drugs, and in effect, are aiding and abetting in an ongoing criminal enterprise.   People relied on this information have been disabled and have died, yet we are supposed to believe this is for their "benefit" and it is in their , "best interest."  Others have been forced to take drugs after being stripped of their dignity, deprived of their Human Rights and devoiced. Some can no longer speak up in their own defense, because they are traumatized and afraid, or the "necessary medical treatment" disabled and killed them.  

This is the worst Human Rights disaster in Human History. Who cares? Society has been trained not to care for or about "the mentally ill" by psychiatrists who are proponents of  biological reductive explanations for symptoms of distress, and it is propounded by unethical  government authorities and "patient" advocates. All are recipients of public funding from We the People, but also from pHARMa. It's apparent that pHARMA, the primary beneficiary of this ongoing fraud, is getting an excellent return on it's investment--and We the People are being royally screwed...Psychiatrists and "patient" advocates will tell you that the victims lack insight and have a disease that is genetic.  I fail to see how believing psychiatric symptoms are caused by a disease or defect would justify inhumane treatment. The fact is psychiatrists and self-appointed advocates who are devoted to the disease hypothesis, are advocating a perspective and a treatment agenda; this is NOT the same thing as advocating for an individual or an entire class of people.

Criminal mistreatment of the "mentally ill" is widely accepted and standard practice. I am haunted by memories and living an ongoing nightmare. We were traumatized by the inhumane manner both of us were treated by "professionals." It is the deleterious, traumatic impact the drugs have had on my brilliant, precious son that make it difficult to stand;   and  almost impossible to breathe because being forced to choke back my outrage and denied the right to defend my own child against those who tortured him, have made me a different person.  My spirit is altered in profound ways by the trauma of witnessing the torture that was  inflicted upon my child, and knowing that the harm is not yet, finished. Grieving parents can be ignored---after all, just like their "mentally ill" children just don't know what's "good for them," the parents can't possibly be right to protest the manner in which their children are mistreated and harmed by "professionals." (the obvious, but unspoken implication is that family members who object or protest about how a loved one is treated, mistreated or flat out tortured can be ignored. After all, the parents are probably genetically inferior don't you know...they probably just don't know...they have a lack of insight!) I was told by one psychiatrist, "in psychiatry, curing symptoms reigns suppreme(sic) over a collaborative approach. Parents who objected to medical treatment they would see as at best ill informed and at worst impaired themselves."

People in distress are getting "medical treatment" that is in fact not based on Ethical Medical principles, nor is it developed from ethically conducted or honestly reported research. This means it is treatment that is neither therapeutic or medical in nature; it is political in nature with psychiatry functioning as a social control authority. This fraud is still used in Standard Clinical Practice. Doctors are not supposed to lie to patients, and nobody is supposed to lie to the Police or in testimony offered in a Court of Law. Nonetheless, in Courts of Law around the Country, psychiatric diagnoses are adjudicated and become in effect, a legal sentence requiring psychiatric treatment compliance without needing to be supported on an evidentiary basis. How to "legally" justify forced psychiatric treatment: Abrogate the Rules of Evidence, Standard Court Procedures and Individual Rights under the Constitution.  

Gee, I think I know what the source of the stigma is!  The psychiatric diagnostic label itself is the stigma, always has been.  The very way that some advocacy is carried out is perpetuating stigma, yet claiming it's done to, "bust the stigma."  Worse than this, it is used as a justification for the grossly unethical treatment provided by “professionals” both in clinical research and clinical practice.

Driven by a small number of "psychiatric researchers" who are Key Opinion Leaders who minimize or dismiss the relevance of subjective experiences and minimize and dismiss the impact of political, environmental and societal causal factors, these psychiatrists are hell bent on finding the evidence to validate the disease hypothesis; dismissing as irrelevant any information which does not support the hypothesis.

Clinical trials are structured in a way that is biased, in a deliberate attempt to gather the data which will validate what is and has been Standard Practice in the provision of psychiatric treatment----This is BACKWARDS; the effort has been unsuccessful, yet it persists.  Psychiatrists are seeking definitive evidence for a hypothesis that they have been using to gain treatment compliance by telling patients and family members that it is brain disease that is the cause of mental illness, as if it is an objective fact, not merely a hypothesis. A hypothesis, that is not even validated isn't even a theory, let alone a medical certainty!    Psychiatric researchers have been saying that the discovery of the elusive definitive proof is right around the corner for decades now. People who hope it's true state the claim as if it is a fact, those who are advocates for the mentally ill, spread this misinformation and the safety and efficacy of the drugs.

It is a cruel deception, and it is fraud.  How could it be seen as anything else?  Medical professionals are telling people that they have a disease when they have not found one.  Why is psychiatry even considered a Medical Specialty?  Doctors who lie and say there is a disease, then treat this mythical disease with drugs that cause actual diseases; many frequently do not warn patients of the risks.  Many will deny the reported negative effects for what they are--early warning signs for neurological damage, frequently will be dismissed as "tolerable side effects."  This is abuse, and it is medical neglect of their patients who end up permanently impaired.  This is what is and has been happening to children in foster care, and at home with their parents---for decades.

Psychiatrists refuse to treat the iatrogenic diseases they cause; it is criminal medical neglect. The bio-medical model of psychiatry depends on deception, coercion and corruption of the scientific method, and necessitates ignoring the Ethical Guidelines of Informed Consent.  It also relies on the blind trust of a deceived populace: the public is informed that the people do not want  "help" and refuse this “medical care” ONLY due a lack of insight which they claim is another symptom. Psychiatrists and other medical professionals have been given the police powers, the Courts and the Police are psychiatry’s agents, Under Color of Law.

Psychiatry practiced in this way, is not therapeutic, and is not medicine.  Psychiatry has encouraged parents of minor and adult children to emotionally abandon them; stating that their child's pleas for help, protection and rescue are symptoms of their "disease."  It is one of the many things that I find utterly and completely despicable.  These "doctors" have managed to convince some parents to emotionally and physically abandon their own flesh and blood; denying them unconditional love and emotional support needed for them to recover.  Psychiatrists encourage parents to deny their victimized children protection "for their own good;" how is this not seen for the evil that it is?

It is immoral.  It is inhumane.  It is also clear that there is no intent to ameliorate the damage done to primary victims who are still living.  The Justice Department's Office of Civil Rights, Criminal Division has denied it has a duty to investigate Federal Crimes committed against my son---claiming it is not their "department" that deals with Civil Rights complaints when a mentally ill person's Civil Rights are violated Under Color of Law, even if the felony crimes were committed by Mental Health Professionals, acting under State Authority, paid with Federal funds.  I was informed that it is NOT their job...

The DOJ's Office of Civil Rights Criminal Division expects me to believe that the criminal complaint I filed on my son’s behalf remained for over a year in it's office, is in the wrong place. (12-2011)  I sent the complaint where I was told to send it by overnight mail, return receipt requested.  When it was received, I was assured it was in the right place, and told to call if I had additional information.  I wanted to inform them that Jon McClellan, who testified in a Senate Hearing, is the psychiatrist who disabled my son when he used him in Drug Trials without Informed Consent, and inspite of my vehement protests. The clerk asked me what was my new information, THEN told me The Depratment of Justice Office of Civil Rights Criminal Division doesn’t investigate crimes committed under color of law which violate the civil rights of people diagnosed mentally ill.

I may not have perfect insight--who the hell does?!  From the top of my head to soles of my feet, to the tips of my fingers and with every fiber of my being I know this: My right to perform my duty as a mother was denied by a federally funded psychiatric researcher who tortured and disabled my son.  

photo credit

Portions of this post first published December 21,2011 "Not Something One Can Forget or Forgive in the Absence of Justice"

I'm Wide Awake

I'm not sleeping...

via: Crossroads to Change  

"Crossroads to Change Campaign’s 17-Year Legacy to End State Inaction with Protection of Rights

Carole’s final analysis is that there is no enforcement of the law and there is a refusal to enact Revised Code of Washington (RCW) Chapter 71.05.520 that would have DSHS assign appropriate staff with authority to examine records, inspect facilities, attend proceedings necessary to monitor, evaluate, and guarantee dedication of protecting both Washington State and US Constitutional rights of people with mental disabilities."

RCW 71.05.520  - Protection of rights.

The department of social and health services shall have the responsibility to determine whether all rights of individuals recognized and guaranteed by the provisions of this chapter and the Constitutions of the state of Washington and the United States are in fact protected and effectively secured.

To this end, the department shall assign appropriate staff who shall from time to time as may be necessary have authority to examine records, inspect facilities, attend proceedings, and do whatever is necessary to monitor, evaluate, and assure adherence to such rights. Such persons shall also recommend such additional safeguards or procedures as may be appropriate to secure individual rights set forth in this chapter and as guaranteed by the state and federal Constitutions.”   [1973 1st ex.s. c 142 § 57.]

"Due to a letter and request to Washington State Governor Christine Gregoire in early 2008, Carole Willey, a social justice activist & community organizer, Chair of CCC, received a letter from the Governor stating that she would assign David Reed, a staff person to work with Carole on these violations. With the documentation of the WA ST Mental Health Division finally acknowledging the “concerns,” the state agency agreed to forward his concerns to their Licensing staff, which they never did.
On July 10, 2008, Carole, along with witnesses Therese Holiday & Ann Clifton (two healthcare advocates), met with David Reed of the Department of Social and Health Services / Mental Health Division (DSHS / MHD). They met to review her analysis of the two reports and discuss violations of inpatients’ rights at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, WA."  more at :  Crossroads to Change

I found Carole Willey's website on July 8th, and immediately after reading the above, around 11:30 in the morning, I called Mr. David Reed.   Mr. Reed denied knowing of any instance or any history whatsoever of violations of individual's Constitutional Rights in the State of Washington in Involuntary Commitment proceedings; including my son's case from last summer.  However, I know this is a lie.  Recently, in "Constitutional Rights Violations Committed Under Color of Law in Washington State," I posted some email communications between staff members of Department of Social and Health Services,  Yakima County,  elected representatives and myself. 


One of the emails I posted is dated September 1, 2010 and is from Ronald Moorehead to me;  it is cc'd to two State employees; one of them is the same David Reed, who like Mr. Moorhead, is an Administrator at DSHS/HRSA/DBHR and knows about my complaint.  He obviously knows Carole Willey; he sent her two letters on this subject, as she reports on her website.  In a letter she received from Governor Gregoire,  "stating that she would assign David Reed, a staff person to work with Carole on these violations." (emphasis mine)

I have since been in contact with Carole Willey, who has given me permission to post two letters from Mr. David Reed she received from him as a result of his being assigned to work with her by the Governor.  David Reed told me in our brief phone conversation that if I  had a complaint, he could give me the number of the person to call.  I asked,  "Do you mean Ronald Moorhead?"  To which he responded, "Yes."  I informed Mr. Reed I had Mr. Moorhead's number; but then, I know he knew that!  He also knew I had filed my complaint, since he was one of the people involved in not "resolving the issues."  I knew when I called Mr. Reed, that he knew about my son's case; and I suspected that he would lie when I asked him whether he had any knowledge that the department has a history of ignoring complaints about improperly obtained illegal Court Orders for Involuntary Treatment, and people's Constitutional Rights to Procedural Due Process being violated.  Unfortunately, I was right. He lied and said he had never heard of any such complaints...

Letters on Crossroads to Change Website

The department's failure to do any investigation when these violations are reported, or to, "assign appropriate staff who shall from time to time as may be necessary have authority to examine records, inspect facilities, attend proceedings, and do whatever is necessary to monitor, evaluate, and assure adherence to such rights. Such persons shall also recommend such additional safeguards or procedures as may be appropriate to secure individual rights set forth in this chapter and as guaranteed by the state and federal Constitutions."  as the Washington State law requires in RCW 71.05.520  


The Law is clear, DSHS has an obligation that it has failed to meet and actually has employees who take these complaints, DENY any DUTY whatsoever.  Mr. Moorhead advised me to file more complaints with other entities, while first denying the department has any authority to investigate; when in fact the department has a legal:  

DUTY TO INVESTIGATE

Every legally authorized representative of the State of Washington failed to perform their duty lawfully, thus far.  Federal Crimes were committed against my son by two people, because he has a "mental illness."   Once these crimes were reported, there was no investigation, and further crimes were then committed. (in a cover-up?)  The Federal Crimes committed violated my son's individual right's to Procedural Due Process under the United States Constitution, the right to be free of undue restraint, and the right to keep and bear arms.  These crimes were committed by employees of the State of Washington and/or it's duly authorized representatives; these  violations of my son's Civil Rights were committed 

UNDER COLOR OF LAW

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The War is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Patrick Henry

feeling old this morning...