Dr. RICO Child Psychiatrist

updated April 25, 2014 first published May 20, 2012

Dr. RICO

Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act

I am disappointed by the lack of integrity that permeates the psychiatric profession. I see no evidence of any effort to be responsible or accountable for the harm done to patients. Bio-medical psychiatry has a foundation reliant on dishonesty. Psychiatrists who falsely reported of research results, fraudulently obtained FDA approval for drugs, and participated in illegally marketing of psychiatric drugs, help formulate public policy. It is plain that these psychiatrists are continuing to participate in what is a widespread ongoing criminal enterprise that continues to pick America's pocket and continues to harm thousands of patients. These doctors see nothing wrong with failing to warn other professionals away from corrupt 'evidence.' Psychiatrists don't petition medical boards to take away the medical licenses of the criminals among the APA and AACAP membership who have lied about 'the medicine;' not even those who have disabled and killed patients in drug trials and clinical practice. Doctors who buried the evidence of their wrongdoing, along with the bodies of their patients are considered 'Key Opinion Leaders.' Some are teaching in Institutions of Higher Learning using texts filled with their corrupt work. Discredited and fraudulent research remains in psychiatry's so-called 'Evidence-Base.' Coercive and manipulative social control strategies are standard clinical practices; this is social/political control by use of torture under color of law; if psychiatry is in fact an ethical medical specialty, I'm Mary Poppins...

At a Senate hearing that took place on December 1, 2011 Senator Tom Carper said the hearing was the culmination of the third investigation into the prolific use of psychiatric drugs particularly those prescribed off label then fraudulently billed to the Federal Medicaid program. What I want to know is WHY has there been no effort to prosecute obvious criminal activity, or better yet, STOP unethical pseudo-medical, i.e. fraudulent, standard practices? Psychiatrists adopting the bio-medical model by a political process have effectively functioned as social architects who willingly partnered with pharma and sold out their patients for financial and academic reward. Don't fool yourselves, psychiatrists are acting as eugenicists; psychiatrists have abused medical privilege, forgot ethical medical principles, lied about what is and is not known about psychiatric diagnoses---it is not the first time psychiatrists have done this. Psychiatrists have blatantly lied about the efficacy and the safety of prescribed drugs and their direct teratogenic mechanisms of action...Apparently lacking insight into the horrific human toll of their professional conduct, blinded to the iatrogenic harm inflicted on their patients, seemingly, absent any ability to truly empathize with or understand the meaning and the nature of their own tortured patients; psychiatrists determined by consensus that what they BELIEVE to be true about their patient is a fact, regardless of what their patient states. No need to ask the patient if they feel "effectively treated;" unless of course the patient is treatment compliant, i.e. successfully treated...

Somehow shared opinion is magically transformed it into scientific evidence by psychiatry. This 'evidence' is used by psychiatrists to 'practice medicine,' abusing their medical privilege to have noncompliant patients adjudicated as mentally ill in Courts of Law; while using subterfuge and coercion as 'medical instruments.' Psychiatrists are doctors treating 'brain diseases' but are not honest with their patients or the general public. Psychiatrists do not conform to ethical medical standards and violate the Human Rights of their patients as a matter of course. As a result, Human Experimentation has become the Gold Standard in clinical psychiatric care standards. The vast majority of psychiatric drugs are prescribed to people on Medicaid. When prescriptions are not FDA-approved, they are "off-label prescriptions;" e.g. prescribed experimentally. If the prescription is not supported by DRUGDEX, or another compendium of approved drugs recognized by Medicaid, both the prescriber and the pharmacist who cause a claim to be submitted for payment to Medicaid, are filing a fraudulent claim, it's a crime. This criminal activity continues unabated, and continues to cost billions; the human toll is inestimable.

The APA and AACAP professional associations are not regulatory bodies, both appear to be unable to accurately assess any ethical deficits in the "science" or the "medical practice" of psychiatry.  Albert Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.” Psychiatry's ethical failure is the antithesis to medicine in the Hippocratic tradition, made more pronounced by it's consistent failure to recognize or respect the human rights of psychiatric patients. It is indeed criminal medical negligence for an individual, let alone almost an entire profession to abdicate any and all responsibility for the iatrogenic harm done to psychiatric patients; patients who are disabled and killed, without regard for the fact disability and death are consistent, if not desired outcomes. Willful blindness to obvious iatrogenic harm done by psychiatric drugs, including homicide is evidence of psychiatry's non-medical nature. Thomas Insel crowing about the need for using psychiatry's "evidence base" and recommending psychiatry implement even more reckless prescribing "standards" through "Translational Science;" is indicitive that Insel doesn't seem to realize there has to be actual 'ethical, medical science' to translate.

In reality, any actual medical science is too often obscured with the APA's pseudo-democratic manner of gathering "evidence" to validate the APA consensus driven diagnostic and treatment standards. Consensus is no substitute for ethical medical research. The willful blindness to a wide variety of cognitive, neurological, and metabolic iatrogenic damage inflicted on psychiatric patients is compounded by the medical neglect of psychiatric patient's iatrogenic injuries. Society is paying for the mentally ill to be legally compelled to be "medically treated" with neuroleptic and other psychoactive drugs; sometimes in combinations known to be fatal. Psychiatrists recklessly abuse prescription privileges off label prescribing is NOT license to prescribe for no good reason, without any evidence.... Psychiatry's psychopharmacological pseudo-medical treatments with or without electro-shock are potentially fatal. The fact some people subjected to psychiatric treatment describe it as torture, should not be ignored. Far too many people "medically treated" in reality, have been tortured. One never hears of the APA or the AACAP validating survivors and victims of iatrogenic drug induced disabilities much less honoring the memory of victims of iatrogenic fatality.
 
Psychiatrists who willingly participated in research that effectively served as a marketing tool for pharma and published 'peer-reviewed' articles in support of marketing agendas are considered 'KOLs;' BMOC basically. The APA and the ACAAP membership fail to value ethical medical standards. As a whole, the profession has functioned without ethical integrity. Lead researchers have actively and passively participated in an ongoing criminal enterprise that is subverting science and defrauding the American people while using medical fraud as a standard clinical practice. It is little surprise that these geniuses who are so called KOLs are recommending that nothing in the practice of psychiatry change.

via AACAP The Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

FAQs on Child and Adolescent Depression

"What causes depression in children?

"Depression has no single cause. Both genetics and the environment play a role, and some children may be more likely to become depressed. Depression in children can be triggered by a medical illness, a stressful situation, or the loss of an important person. Children with behavior problems or anxiety also are more likely to get depressed. Sometimes, it can be hard to identify any triggering event."

The claim that depression is caused by a 'chemical imbalance' is no longer being made; paltry evidence of what should be a concerted effort to start providing factual information to the public. It is apparent to me that these professionals do not appear to concerned about regaining the public trust that has steadily eroded due to a serious lack of integrity in academic research, fraudulent marketing and abdication of ethical duty to patients. and . However, after reading this: "Are medications safe? Do they increase risk of suicide? When prescribed and monitored carefully, medications are both safe and effective ways to treat of depressed youth. Fluoxetine or Prozac, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, is the medicine that so far has proved most safe and effective. There are times, however, when other medications can and should be used. While medications have been associated with a small increase in thoughts of suicide, there is no evidence that antidepressants actually increase the risk of suicide. For moderate to severe depression, the potential benefits from medication treatment seem to outweigh the potential risks. Click here for a complete discussion of the use of medication in childhood depression." I realized that no real changes are planned (to actually become ethical or evidenced-based medicine) Psychiatric drugs will continue to be recommended as a "First-Line" treatment for depression; and apparently, other drugs as well. I also realized (once again) that psychiatrists in positions of leadership at the ACAAP, seem to have no problem at all flat out lying about the drugs they are using.

The use of SSRI antidepressants on children and adolescents is based on the TADS Drug Trial. In the trial there were a total of 18 suicide attempts all but one was a kid who was on Fluoxetine, or Prozac, and there was an obvious attempt made by the researchers to present the data in a way that would misrepresent the suicide data in journal articles. Robert Whitaker reported, "The TADS study has been used to justify the prescribing of Prozac—and really, by extension—other SSRIs to children and adolescents. The TADS researchers reported that the drug treatment was effective and didn’t increase the risk for suicidal events, as compared to placebo. Adding CBT to medication “enhances the safety of medication,” the TADS researchers wrote.

"All the while, the real suicide data was being hidden. The TADS investigators weren’t disclosing the number of suicide attempts, and they weren’t reporting that all but one of the suicide attempts were in fluoxetine-treated youth. Instead, they made it appear that a similar number of suicidal events had been seen in the placebo group, and, at one point, even wrote that 15 in this group had attempted suicide." read here

Dr. David Healy reports, "The FDA became party to a myth that somehow Prozac was ok where other antidepressants given to children weren’t.

"Because FDA had licensed Prozac for depression before the 2004 suicide controversy blew up, they became party to a myth that somehow Prozac was ok where other antidepressants given to children weren’t. Prozac in fact shows no more efficacy than other antidepressants for children and has just as bad a suicidality profile, along with a range of other harms such as sexual dysfunction, inhibited growth, and other problems, as other antidepressants. emphasis mine

"This is not an argument against Prozac. Suicidality can be anticipated and forestalled by warning patients. I once thought that an appeal to patient safety would get doctors on board." here

In a large NIMH trial of 4,041 “real-world” outpatients, only 108 patients remitted and stayed well and in the trial during the one-year followup. Efficacy and Effectiveness of Antidepressants. Pigott, H. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 79 (2010), 267-279.

Retract Study 329 from 1Boring Old Man

photo credit sciencephoto.com

Informed Consent: An Understanding

Ethics in Clinical Research - Ethical Issues in Human Subjects ... from Medresearch

In September of 1999 the American Journal of Psychiatry had an Op-ed about Informed Consent in clinical research written by Dr. Carpenter, of The Maryland Psychiatric Research Center: Dr. Carpenter wrote the editorial because he said, "I am concerned that more harm to the future of individuals with mental illness is being caused by the rush to allegation and redress than is justified by anticipated benefit." To document Informed Consent he suggests the following:

1. Have patients or their advocates comment on proposed research and consent forms.

2. Ensure that informed consent is an educational procedure taking place in a time frame that enables the prospective subject to understand, appreciate, reason, and freely exercise choice.

3. Include clinicians other than key investigators in the informed consent process and assessment of decision-making capacity, but do not exclude the investigator from personal responsibility and participation.

4. Include significant others as the patient considers participation, but do not compromise the patient’s autonomy and dignity rights if decision-making capacity is adequate.

5. Provide material to all concerned clarifying that clinical care involving research is importantly different from ordinary clinical care. Work with patient subjects to minimize the therapeutic misconception that is commonplace in biomedical research (17).

6. Ensure that patient subjects have contact with a noninvestigator who can help resolve issues relating to research participation.

7. When accepting a consent form, document understanding of basic facts relating to the protocol (the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center administers an ­evaluation-of-signed-consent test [18]).

8. Provide educational and sensitivity-raising sessions in ethics for investigators and staff. Include an appreciation of the fundamental role in subject protection incorporated in institutional-review-board-related procedures.


My son was used in drug trials; on or off the books--it is the only explanation for the number of neuroleptic drugs a federally funded researcher pumped into my precious son after he was 13. Jon McClellan, like most psychiatrists and other mental health treatment professionals in Washington State, claim that parental consent is not necessary if the patient is 13 years old. This federally funded researcher claimed he did not need my Informed Consent consent for my  minor son's "medical" treatment because my son was 13; he then claimed since my son was a Ward of the State, my Informed Consent wasn't needed.

McClellan, intentionally or not, ensured that my son would have a psychotic break by withdrawing him off of Risperdal too rapidly. Risperdal is a neuroleptic drug my son had been on for YEARS, (I was oblivious back then to the corruption and fraud; I still trusted doctors, etc.) The Risperdal wad prescribed off-label, and fraudulently billed to Medicaid; my son is a victim of Johnson and Johnson's illegal marketing of Risperdal. To treat my son's horrific withdrawal psychosis, Jon McClellan pumped massive amounts of neuroleptic drugs with terrible adverse effects into my son; sometimes 2 and 3 neuroleptic drugs concomitantly, along with other psychotropic drugs. It's many miracles my son survived at all. I remember being utterly devastated--I thought my son was going to die.  I know he felt tortured.  I know he was begging me to rescue him.  I know will never forgive myself for not doing more to stop what (what the fuck do you call it/him?!) was doing to my son.  I know I was ridiculed for standing up for my son's Human Rights. I know I was denied my parental rights; specifically my right to make medical decisions and give Informed Consent for my by then floridly psychotic son. By law, I retained my parental rights to make mental health treatment decisions on Isaac's behalf; nonetheless, my rights were effectively denied by the Medical Director of Child Study and Treatment Center, Jon McClellan. He initially claimed he didn't need my consent because Isaac was over the age of thirteen. When I pointed out that Isaac lacked the capacity to give consent, he claimed he didn't need my Informed Consent because Isaac was a ward of the state. I was reassured prior to signing the agreed order for a Consent to Place, that  by law, I retained my parental rights to give consent for Isaac's mental health treatment.  I had to be coerced to sign the agreement-- The order effectively made my son a foster child, e.g. qualified for federal Child Welfare benefits. The Agreed Order was NOT necessary to ensure that Isaac's medical care would continue to be paid for through Medicaid, as I'd been told. Isaac was on SSI & Medicaid as a handicapped child, there was no risk he would lose his medical coverage...

The fact that my son was in fact a ward of the state was somehow perceived as proof I was a bad parent, undeserving of respect.
Dr. Carpenter's Op-Ed in it's entirety: 
The Challenge to Psychiatry as Society’s Agent for Mental Illness Treatment and Research

Society has a moral responsibility for its sick and disabled citizens. Psychiatry assumes this responsibility when clinicians provide care and treatment to mentally ill patients. But these very patients often lack insight into the nature of their afflictions, their causes, and their need for treatment. Experiencing altered perceptions, affects, and beliefs is very different from experiencing other somatic dysfunctions. Both patients and society view the latter as illness requiring medical intervention, whereas the former all too often are viewed as personal attributes rather than disease. Society is uncertain how to assert responsibility, looking simultaneously to law enforcement, religion, psychiatry, the family, and social planning. Given complex and competing themes, psychiatry’s capacity to assert and validate illness models and therapeutic interventions is invaluable. A major advance over the past 40 years has been establishing society’s confidence that psychiatry can identify individuals who suffer from mental disorders and intervene with effective therapeutics. At the same time, society has also advanced the cause of civil liberties for the mentally ill. Here, too, much good has been accomplished, but disquieting problems remain, problems that stir passions as the ethics and politics of personal autonomy and free will clash with the consequences of honoring these virtues.

Gardner and colleagues tackle a vexing paradox in this issue of the Journal. Psychiatry accepts a clinical responsibility for determining which individuals, on the basis of mental disease and law, shall be deprived of autonomy rights and dignity by involuntary commitment to receive protection and (perhaps) treatment through clinical services. This burden of judgment and responsibility weighs heavily on the physician-patient relationship and on the professional identity of the physician. Psychiatrists experience their discipline at risk when their assertion of this authority is criticized by society and by the patient whose autonomy rights are compromised. Nothing is quite as reassuring in the exercise of this responsibility as a grateful patient who has come to appreciate the physician’s action. Stone’s "thank you" theory (1) captured this important dynamic and has been used in support of psychiatry’s wise exercise of this authority.

Gardner and colleagues tested the theory’s validity with empirical data. They found that many patients who did not believe that hospital admission was needed entered as voluntary patients anyway. There is room for negotiation when physician and patient have discordant views. Patients who did not believe that they needed hospitalization but who believed they had a mental illness and accepted voluntary admission were most likely to change their view and agree that a need for hospitalization existed. However, patients who denied that they had a mental illness, felt coerced, and entered as involuntary patients most often sustained their view that hospital care was not needed. The "thank you" from these patients remained theoretical. Most of the patients in this study were given affective or "other" diagnoses, and substance abuse was common. It is uncertain how these results generalize to more specific populations where insight is commonly impaired (e.g., patients with schizophrenia or mania), but results are not likely to be more gratifying.

Psychiatrists most often must accept the responsibility of denying autonomy and dignity rights without the appreciative endorsement of their patients. Clear role definition regarding clinical and social responsibility, valid concepts and assessment procedures to meet legal and clinical standards, and an acceptable degree of predictive validity regarding safety and therapeutic advantage are essential. Most important is that society sanction this role assigned to the psychiatrist in addressing the moral obligation of protection and treatment for the very ill citizen. However, the tension will remain as long as the patients we serve fail to understand their illness and the physician’s purpose. Change in this regard is importantly dependent on new therapeutic advances through scientific research.

The role of the psychiatric investigator in meeting society’s obligation to develop new knowledge to benefit ill citizens is also a vexing paradox: society simultaneously expresses "best hope" and "worst fear" images. No responsible commentator doubts that new knowledge through science is critical to advancing treatment and prevention of mental illness, but current attention in the popular media involves harsh criticism of psychiatric investigations (2–11). Clinical research is not a perfect endeavor, and errors in subject protection procedures and occasional fraudulent investigators have been noted. Much of the criticism, however, is based on misunderstanding of science, misrepresentation of facts, and unsubstantiated allegations. Nonetheless, there is a common ground of concern on the issue of the capacity to make decisions in providing informed consent to research participation.

Subjects in mental illness research are usually presumed to be competent. This may be viewed as respect for the autonomy and dignity rights of persons with mental illness, but the question has also been raised that the presumption of competence permits too many patients with impaired decision-making capacity to sign consent forms they do not understand. Those who believe that valid informed consent can be (and usually is) obtained believe that optimal procedures require continual evolution and that better documentation is needed to enable society to judge the adequacy of the informed consent process. Those who believe that mental illness research is substantially conducted without valid informed consent doubt that investigators and institutional review procedures can ever ensure that this lynchpin of ethical research will be routinely secured. All agree on the urgent need for data that address decision-making capacity for providing consent among prospective subjects for mental illness research. It is here that Appelbaum and colleagues make an important contribution of empirical data in this issue of the Journal.

Using an experimental, but carefully constructed, assessment of decision-making capacity, Appelbaum and colleagues found that depressed patients in a clinical trial had largely unimpaired decisional capacity and, therefore, were likely to be able to exercise their right to self-determination regarding research participation. Moreover, the patients maintained this capacity over time, suggesting that they remained able to exercise important elements of informed consent such as a sustained understanding of the purpose of the research and the right to withdraw. Appelbaum et al. report that decision-making capacity was not significantly related to severity of depression, a finding compatible with the commonplace observation that many psychiatric patients maintain competence for most aspects of everyday life despite severe symptoms. This study involved moderately depressed outpatients. It is not certain how these results apply to more severely depressed or psychotic patients.

Adequacy of informed consent in psychiatric research was the leading issue when the National Bioethics Advisory Commission addressed subject protections in mental illness research (12). The commission’s focus on the mentally ill was not based on evidence of informed consent deficiencies or other abuse of subject protections that distinguished psychiatric research. Nonetheless, the commission made its report and recommendations on mental illness rather than a broader consideration of brain dysfunction, which increases risk for cognitive impairment, or a narrow consideration of individuals who actually lack decisional capacity for the purpose of informed consent. The commission made recommendations for regulatory redress in psychiatric research alone. In testimony to the commission, Dr. Appelbaum presented data from the depression study reported in this issue of the Journal and similarly reassuring data that most subjects with schizophrenia at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center were able to achieve decision-making capacity similar to that of normal control subjects when participating in an educational informed consent process. Dr. Appelbaum’s view that problems that could be documented should be addressed with solutions that had been tested and subjected to a cost-benefit analysis was not apparent in the recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. The result, at least in part, is another expression of society stigmatizing the mentally ill and those who serve them.

I am concerned that more harm to the future of individuals with mental illness is being caused by the rush to allegation and redress than is justified by anticipated benefit. Optimal and ever-evolving procedures for the protection of research subjects, including the mentally ill, are of fundamental importance. Stigmatizing those citizens who receive a psychiatric diagnosis, however, and creating a veil of mistrust between society and psychiatric investigator can be rationally justified only if research procedures in psychiatry are both unique and flawed. Commissions in New York (13) and Maryland (14) recently addressed issues of subject protection in medical research with populations at risk for impaired decision-making capacity. Michels (15)called attention to the substantial difference in tone and content of the New York and Maryland commissions compared with the National Bioethics Advisory Commission report, and the interested reader will see this contrast extended when reading the companion articles by Michels (15) and by Capron (16), a member of the national commission. Michels suggested that the failure of the national commission to include any member with experience and expertise in psychiatric research may explain the difference. In this regard, the two state commissions focused on the decision-making capacity of individuals rather than diagnostic groups, on investigator and review procedures that would enhance capacity assessment and ensure adequacy of consent, on how to design protections in a more realistic relationship to risk, and on how to avoid costly new procedures that would interfere with acquisition of knowledge unless evidence for need and effectiveness was presented. Involvement of psychiatric investigators in these two commissions also reflects the field’s commitment to examining problems and evolving optimal procedures.

The psychiatric investigator lives in interesting times. Although I believe much of the present public attention is ill-informed and unfair, the field has received a wake-up call. Adequate decision-making capacity for providing informed consent to research participation can be assessed and documented. But how well is this being done in all the various settings where research is conducted? What constitutes adequate capacity, and how is this to be determined and documented? Who should participate in informed consent, and how should research be conducted if the person is judged to be too impaired for competent consent? How should these procedures be reviewed, and which stakeholders should participate in the review? These and many other questions are on the table. As they are addressed in new federal procedures and regulations, there is already much to do at the local level to address subject protections. The following suggestions seem reasonable, helpful, not too demanding, and protective of both patient subjects and investigators. Not intended as comprehensive guidelines, these suggestions illustrate actions that can be initiated by clinical investigators and their institutions and have worked well at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.


1. Have patients or their advocates comment on proposed research and consent forms.

2. Ensure that informed consent is an educational procedure taking place in a time frame that enables the prospective subject to understand, appreciate, reason, and freely exercise choice.

3. Include clinicians other than key investigators in the informed consent process and assessment of decision-making capacity, but do not exclude the investigator from personal responsibility and participation.

4. Include significant others as the patient considers participation, but do not compromise the patient’s autonomy and dignity rights if decision-making capacity is adequate.

5. Provide material to all concerned clarifying that clinical care involving research is importantly different from ordinary clinical care. Work with patient subjects to minimize the therapeutic misconception that is commonplace in biomedical research (17).

6. Ensure that patient subjects have contact with a noninvestigator who can help resolve issues relating to research participation.

7. When accepting a consent form, document understanding of basic facts relating to the protocol (the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center administers an ­evaluation-of-signed-consent test [18]).

8. Provide educational and sensitivity-raising sessions in ethics for investigators and staff. Include an appreciation of the fundamental role in subject protection incorporated in institutional-review-board-related procedures.

This last point merits brief comment. The media and a handful of severe critics have taken findings of procedural errors and reported them as unethical research and implied that unethical scientists are harming patients (2–11). This I condemn, but clinical investigators have also sometimes regarded such findings as merely procedural. We need to inculcate a deep appreciation of the regulations for review and approval and the monitoring of research as fundamental to the protection of human subjects. These procedures must be conducted with care, and shortcomings must be addressed as a first priority in the ethical conduct of human research.



Address reprint requests to Dr. Carpenter, Director, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, P.O. Box 21247, Baltimore, MD 21228.



References



1
Stone AA: Mental Health and Law: A System in Transition. Rockville, Md, NIMH Center for Studies of Crime and Delinquency, 1975

2
Hilts PJ: Agency faults a UCLA study for suffering of mental patients. New York Times, March 10, 1994, p A1

3
Hilts PJ: Medical experts testify on tests done without consent. New York Times, May 24, 1994, p A13

4
Hilts PJ: Consensus on ethics in research is elusive. New York Times, Jan 15, 1995, p 24

5
Hilts PJ: Psychiatric researchers under fire for experiments inducing relapse. New York Times, May 19, 1998, p C1

6
Hilts PJ: Psychiatric unit’s faulted. New York Times, May 28, 1998, p A26

7
Wilwerth J: Tinkering with madness. Time, Aug 10, 1993, pp 40–42

8
Whitaker R, Kong D: Testing takes human toll. Boston Globe, Nov 15, 1998, p AO1

9
Kong D: Debatable forms of consent. Boston Globe, Nov 16, 1998, p AO1

10
Whitaker R: Lure of riches fuels testing. Boston Globe, Nov 17, 1998, p AO1

11
Kong D: Still no solution in the struggle on safeguards. Boston Globe, Nov 18, 1998, p AO1

12
Research Involving Persons With Mental Disorders That May Affect Decisionmaking Capacity, vol I: Report and Recommendations of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Rockville, Md, NBAC, Dec 1998

13
New York State Department of Health Advisory Work Group on Human Subject Research Involving the Protected Classes: Recommendations on the Oversight of Human Subject Research Involving the Protected Classes. Albany, New York State Department of Health, 1998

14
Final Report of the Attorney General’s Working Group on Research Involving Decisionally Incapacitated Subjects. Baltimore, Office of the Maryland Attorney General, 1998

15
Michels R: Are research ethics bad for our mental health? N Engl J Med 1999; 340:1427– 1430

16
Capron AM: Ethical and human-rights issues in research on mental disorders that may affect decision-making capacity. N Engl J Med 1999; 340:1430– 1434

17
Appelbaum PS, Roth LH, Lidz CW, Benson P, Winslade W: False hopes and best data: consent to research and the therapeutic misconception. Hastings Cent Rep 1987; 17:20–24

18
DeRenzo EG, Conley RR, Love R: Assessment of capacity to give consent for research: state of the art and beyond. J Health Care Law and Policy 1998; 1:66–87

My connection to my children is all that I have that is real and true

Start new day with a strong heart.
Oshimaru Kung

It has been a struggle over the last twenty years to access appropriate care and services for my son who is now twenty-five.  I am a different person than who I once thought I was, or hoped to become. And my son, is not only a grown man; but he is altered in ways that I have not yet found a way to accept gracefully. The lack of acceptance is due to the disparity between what I thought and believed at one time to be true; and what I now know to be true as a result of twenty+ years of experience with the publicly-funded mental health and social service systems. Experiences with psychiatrists and mental health professionals altered what I believe about life, social justice, my Country and my fellow man. 

I can't help but continue to believe that the values I once thought were guiding principles that public institutions rely upon, are still important; I am saddened to not have evidence these principles are valued today in actual practice. My continued belief in the importance of the ethical principles of Justice are borne from my desperate hopes for my son's safety and recovery. I will do everything in my power to protect him from further harm, and to sustain my belief that there will come a day he will be safe from further harm being inflicted by the systems that have harmed him so very badly already. 

My connection to my children is all I have that is real and true.

It is what it is.  There are no words that can accurately describe my visceral pain or explain the intellectual dissonance that permeate the events my family has had to withstand. What was done to my little boy to "treat" his emotional and behavioral difficulties have caused so much harm to him; to all of us.  It is impossible to escape the negative effects of his (mis)treatment on all of us; much less, it is impossible to justify the unethical and even illegal means that were used with impunity. The Real Word Outcome for my son from the "mental health treatment" provided by Washington State's Child Welfare and mental health systems resulted in profound iatrogenic disability. 

My son's "best interests" were never a primary focus; or even considered, his needs were callously ignored. 


It is hard for me to breathe sometimes remembering.  It is even harder when I am confronted with the reality that 'mental health treatment' still consists only of the drugs that caused my son his profound iatrogenic injuries---Psychiatry's reliance on the neuro-biological disease hypothesis makes a mockery of ethical medical practice.  For my son, this "treatment" has been, and continues to be, ineffective and harmful. 

An adverse effect of a drug's mechanism of action is NOT a "side-effect." The direct adverse effects from psychotropic drugs are rarely, if ever, given the consideration necessary to realistically, or ethically assess whether the possible benefits outweigh the potential disabling, fatal risks. In Psychiatry, a primary measure of treatment effectiveness is treatment compliance; outcome is a secondary measure. If psychiatry were practiced ethically, a patient's real world outcome would be paramount.

When my son feels threatened in any way, he retreats inside himself; into his safe place. It is how he survived what were horrific conditions. I am clear in my understanding of why he does this.  It's how he coped and how he continues to cope; it serves the purpose of granting him a feeling of safety--He tells me it is how he 'works things out.'  He first started using this coping strategy when he came to the realization that he had been betrayed, and that those who were supposed to be helping him were not listening to, or helping him; but simply continuing to drug him in a maniacal attempt to prevent symptoms. No mental health professional ever addressed my son's initial trauma; every one I asked refused to even try. Mental health professionals then refused to believe their lack of compassion and respect coupled with the direct adverse effects of psychotropic drugs only compounded the harm and inflicted additional trauma on my precious son. His symptoms of anger and aggression were a reaction to what he believed were threats to his life. What my son perceived as threats, may not have been actual lethal threats, but to my son, with severe PTSD, they were lethal threats. Naturally, he fought as if he were fighting for his life---in his mind he was. It is well established that severe early childhood trauma alters how young children's brains process information; mental health professionals consistently refused to help process the initial trauma that caused his PTSD.  By misinterpreting my son's anger and aggression, they in effect, blamed a victim for his injuries.  Ultimately, my son came to believe that the "only safe place left" for him to be was inside his own head shortly after going to Child Study and Treatment Center in October of 2000.  


He wasn't safe, he wasn't respected, or protected; he was used and abused. In effect, he was traumatized and tortured--these are the words he used to describe being at Child Study and Treatment Center to me; and that's what it looked like was happening to me. I have no difficulty believing Isaac when he shares what it felt like for him. I am outraged that these experiences are, and have always been, consistently unrecognized by mental health professionals as traumatic experiences.  He was there to get help. All of us were betrayed from the beginning---ultimately, what we had been led to  believe, and what in reality happened, is totally incongruous; irreconcilable and unacknowledged for the harm it caused all of us.  As Isaac has said, "The people who were supposed to be helping me, had no compassion for me."  CSTC was not a safe place, it was not even a therapeutic place. CSTC is in fact licensed as a research facility; it is not a hospital, as I had been led to believe.  The four plus years he spent in that place are a blur of devastating inhumane treatment that he does not want to think about or remember---I can't say that I blame him. It was a place to survive, and Isaac survived.  

I'm a witness, with overwhelming grief and loss that is always with me. I am haunted by the abject terror I felt when I realized I'd been betrayed, and effectively stripped of my parental rights to protect my son and to provide parental consent for his treatment. From the beginning, I was repeatedly told I had no say in any medical decisions on behalf of my son by Jon McClellan, the unethical federally funded psychiatric researcher who is still Medical Director of the State of Washington's only psychiatric research facility for children. Allowed only to bear witness to the trauma that McClellan ruthlessly inflicted upon my precious son; the memories still manage to take the wind out of me... 


Events that all but obliterated my confidence in my fellow man, thankfully did not rob me of my family. We have been blessed; we have survived intact as a family; it is a testimony to the unbreakable bonds forged by the profound love we have for one another. Isaac has told his brother and I that it is because we know what happened to him, and have confidence in him, that he can recover. This simple statement is a testimony of the innate need we human beings have to be connected to people who love and accept us unconditionally. It is also evidence of Isaac's profound insight. I know having this fundamental need fulfilled is critical to his well-being. I'm a MadMother humbled by these events, and humbled by both of my sons' utter confidence in me. Their confidence is a testament of the power of a mother's love for her children. I hold onto hope with a tenacity that is borne out of my profound love for my sons. Isaac suffered horribly and sustained profound disabling iatrogenic injuries. I nurture my hope, so I that I may sustain Isaac's hopes when he feels discouraged and afraid. It is an honor. It is a bittersweet privilege. I sustain hope in order to validate the confidence both my sons have in me. 

I am a witness, I am MadMother still haunted from having borne witness when my beloved son was traumatized and disabled by the teratogens mental health experts called "necessary medical treatment." 

Without hope, I am a only a MadMother crushed by a cruel truth: 

I didn't rescue my son nearly soon enough. 

And now these three things remain: faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love. 

1 Corinthians 13:13

"all that I have that is real and true" first posted August 22, 2011 rewritten and reposted in April 2013

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"

Clinically Tested or NOT: Using Risperdal for children's behavioral issues is NOT yobluemama approved!

NOT yobluemama approved!

My youngest son has paid a horrific price for the malfeasance of psychiatry, the FDA and the drug industry.  I would think no consumer's health should be risked because the prescriber's information and judgement is compromised by flawed, incomplete, or otherwise questionable data. Prescription drugs are marketed directly to the American public in advertisements with exaggerated claims of efficacy and safety, that minimize actual risks---No consumer protection laws prohibiting false advertising apply...


Altogether, psychiatry has failed to be honest about what is and what is not known about any and all psychiatric diagnoses and treatments!  The practice of psychiatry is permeated with deception, a lack of medical ethics, and a history of  using 'Standard Practices' that are not supported by clinical research.  Psychiatry uses social control strategies which are coercive and abusive.  The physical and emotional harm patients complain of is attributed to the patient's "lack of insight," or failure to be "treatment compliant."  Even worse, some practitioners deny the harm patient's experience altogether; or insist the harm is just the "tolerable" side effects of the "safe and effective" treatment they provide.  Using the Courts to force patients to take drugs or have "electro-convulsive therapy" because these are  the "only treatments" psychiatry has; it is the only treatments that the bio-psychiatry devotees use, but it is not the only treatments available.  It is morally reprehensible to state this as a justification for forcing people to have this "treatment."  Psychiatry has garnered the Force of Law using corrupt rearch, unethical medical practices and subterfuge.  A person targeted in this way has no rights at all once Court Ordered; my son was stripped of his Individual Rights to procedural due process just by having a Court Order sought.


via Jim Edwards on BNET on August 3, 2011:
"The FDA told Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) in 1997 that its(sic) request to market the antipsychotic drug Risperdal for children was “without any justification.” In the following years, J&J’s army of pharmaceutical sales reps made 100,000 sales calls on child and adolescent psychiatrists, justifying this by “qualifying” the docs if they had as few as one adult patient exhibiting signs of schizophrenia,"  


read the entire article:
Claim: J&J Wrongly Marketed Antipsychotic Drug Risperdal to Kids  on BNET by Jim Edwards


I am certain they started this crap before 1997 since my son was prescribed Risperdal in 1995---for a reason that is not an approved use for this neuroleptic to this day...I refer to the drugs called "antipsychotics" as neuroleptics; it is a more accurate term for the drugs.  It is misleading and deceptive to call them "antipsychotic," since the drugs are not "antipsychotic" for the majority of patients who experience symptoms of psychosis. The neuroleptic drugs are now more commonly prescribed for other psychiatric diagnoses and for symptoms other than psychosis. 


Neuro meaning nerve, or neurological and leptic meaning to seize, take hold of.  The drugs work on the central nervous system, and were first described as being as effective as a frontal lobotomy; no need for surgery.  How did neuroleptics become "treatment" for children with behavior problems?!  

Civil Rights violations are committed as a matter of course in stand practice which is not surprising given psychiatry's lawless conduct historically, acceptance of this fact permeates Academia, both in Educational and Research programs.  It is morally reprehensible that psychiatry's 'Standard Practices' were developed using fraud, deception, the Un-Informed Consent from patients, and coercion.  Why are patients and family members misled, and out right lied to about the 'safety and efficacy' of drugs, and why are people being given drugs that do not benefit them to the degree that the benefits actually outweigh the very serious adverse effects?   Why is  virtually every person who legitimately claims substantial harm due to psychiatric 'treatment' disparaged, mocked or ridiculed---if not ignored altogether?  


Why is psychiatry not demanding that adverse events caused by psychiatric drugs, including death, be reported to the FDA so they have a clearer picture how safe and/or effective the drugs really are?  


We know how many Americans are prescribed psychiatric drugs---we need to know how many are being harmed.  It seems to me that collecting this data is necessary to determine the validity of the safety and efficacy claims.  It is the real world outcomes that we need data on.  In the real world the damage caused by psychopharmachology is growing exponentially with a myriad of chronic iatrogenic illnesses, neurological impairments and social, moral, financial devastation. The iatrogenic harm experienced by psychiatric patients and their families must not be ignored any longer.  IMHO, the fiscal and social damage is contributing to the increase in discriminatory attitudes towards those who are labeled by psychiatric diagnosis and their families. Americans are bombarded with direct to consumer advertising  grass roots advocates allow education and advocacy programs to function as venues for pharmaceutical marketing campaigns.  Psychopharmacologists in effect, act as if the people they label are no longer worthy of having their Human Rights protected or defended.  The labeled are denied Equal Protection Under the Law---by 'doctors.'  


Psychiatry, as a profession does not hold it's practitioners accountable.  Discredited Harvard research psychiatrist, Joseph Biederman, is on the Scientific Advisory Board of a Consumer Advocacy group, CABF---or whatever they call themselves now.... The man is a crook who now 'advises' a nonprofit "consumer advocacy" group about the very condition he invented, and treatments he falsified research about which he then lied about it when he was caught!?!   


The so-called 'doctor' who insisted he had no duty to obtain Informed Consent for drugging my minor son, because in Washington State the Age of Consent for mental health and substance abuse treatment is thirteen; is still the 'Medical Director' of the only state-run psychiatric facility for children. My son could not have a conversation longer than two minutes, so there is NO WAY in HELL he had the capacity to give Informed Consent; and every staff member at that facility knew it.  This shining example of ego-driven psychiatry acted as if he were God; and needed no Informed Consent; his own approval for his 'treatment' plan which traumatized and disabled my son are all that Quack Master Jack required.  Apparently his intellectual superiority, allow him to abuse his authority and ignore medical ethics altogether.  Jon McClellan appears to not have a moral compass, professional integrity or sound clinical judgement. 

I almost vomited when I read in his CV he has received Awards for 'helping kids' recover and that he gives speeches on Ethics to non-profit groups.  The man is a thug in a white coat who broke the law, broke my son's spirit and Isaac says, "He stole my intelligence mom!"  This 'doctor' lied to my face so many times it makes me sick.  A doctor who uses his medical license as a symbol of infallible superior judgement while lying to patients and parents; and ignoring the Ethics Guidelines of the Medical Profession and the Hippocratic Oath, is not qualified to teach Ethics!  These two 'doctors' are not ethically qualified to be members of the Medical profession; let alone qualified to conduct reasearch and teach students, or advise patients, parents, and advocates or inform public policy!   


If you heard about a mechanic who had fixed a friend's car so well it that the car no longer could run; would you take your car to that mechanic?  Would you ask for advice from that mechanic?  Jon McClellan advises the State of Washington to this day; he is a criminal more than he is a "doctor."  


Massive financial fraud, corruption and the Civil Rights violations of those who are court ordered and forced to take drugs and/or receive electroshock  'treatment' both of which can disable or kill them; is not just,  is not Humane, and it certainly is not therapeutic; it is criminal.  The US District Court in Alaska dismissed a Medicaid Fraud claim brought by The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, because fraud is widespread and ongoing!  What was the judge smoking!?!  This should in fact be a priority for the Department of Justice, as it has fiscal, social and moral relevance for all Americans.  The fraud and corruption has decimated Medicaid and Medicare budgets while causing some to became disabled and who then are forced to rely on other federally-funded social service programs.


This deception is eerily reminiscent of psychiatric 'Standard Practices' of the first half of the 20th Century. It is more than reminiscent, it appears to be using the same tactics.  A small group of individuals have laws passed which in effect, declare that some people are of a lower class, this is  determined by a psychiatric diagnosis; and being of this class means they do not need Equal Protection or have the same Human Rights as those without a diagnosis. Those who are labeled by psychiatry can lose their Liberty, and do not have the an effective means to defend against this loss of liberty, the loss of Liberty can be permanent, and may in fact cause their death.  Once Court Ordered, they must receive 'treatment' regardless of the treatment 's safety or efficacy, or lack thereof.  In Washington State people who have been Court Ordered to psychiatric treatment are entered into a tracking system for life; so they can be more easily identified and to make it easier to Court Order them again.  Didn't any of the so-called "advocates" for the mantally ill who lobbied for the passage of these Unconstitutional Laws, ever read any History books or the Constitution of the United States of America?   

The effects of drugs are commonly not shared with those who are taking them willingly; there must be a reason....Could it be they are not as safe or as effective as is being claimed?  To justify continuing this misguided 'treatment' strategy, and (inconceivably) to legitimize this pseudo-medical profession; more lies were told to subvert the truth. The 'treatments' were proclaimed to be, 'safe and effective' and psychiatric diagnoses were declared by psychiatric decree, to be 'brain diseases,' 'brain disorders' and 'chemical imbalances' which require life-long psychiatric 'treatment.'  


I am more than a little disappointed the American Medical Association has not taken a stand on the loss of health, liberty and life caused by psychiatry and it's pseudo-medical treatments. Psychiatry virtually ignores the Ethical Guidelines for Informed Consent and the Hippocratic Oath to, "First do no harm..." 

"Whenever a doctor can not do good, he must be stopped."  Hippocrates.

a final note:

What is with our public servants, don't State and National elected officials take an oath to protect and defend the preeminent Law of the Land as WE the People's elected representatives?  There appears to be little evidence of representing the interests of the people when formulating public policy, or the legislation that effectively enacts those same public policies.  It appears that when formulating public policy, elected officials find ways to erode and subvert, rather than Protect and Defend the Law.   


Sworn Oaths do not have any significance once a person is in the grip of a new diagnosis being considered for the DSM 5 that afflicts psychiatrists, "advocates" of bio-psychiatry and those elected to Public Office it is called, "Special Interest Mania," is a disease that robs it's victims of ethical integrity, and allows them to abuse their authority. It's symptoms emerge when Conflicts of Interest are ignored and no longer recognized. Symptoms include a lack of remorse, a lack of empathy, and intense feelings of fulfillment and euphoria when close to a funding source, or special interest lobbyist. A unique feature of this condition is how it affects everyone who does not have it: It causes those who are not afflicted with it to be screwed over, and may lead to being stripped of their Human Rights and may include being labeled with a psychiatric diagnosis in need of life-long psychiatric treatment with or without consent.


graphic credit