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Mental Health Industry Facts

  • The U.S. loses approximately $100 million (€78.7 million) to healthcare fraud, with a large percentage of this due to fraudulent practices in the mental health industry.

  • One of the largest health care fraud suits in U.S. history was in mental health, yet it is the smallest sector within health care.

  • A study of U.S. Medicaid and Medicare insurance fraud, especially in New York, over a 20-year period, showed psychiatry to have the worst track record of all medical disciplines.

  • Germany reports roughly $1 billion (€787,835) in the healthcare system is defrauded each year.

  • In Australia, health care fraud and patient over-servicing has cost taxpayers up to $330 million (€259 million) a year.

  • Today, $2 trillion (€1.57 trillion) is spent worldwide on mental health, $100 billion (€78.7 billion) in the United States, but with no workable methods of helping people, psychiatrists promote an ever-increasing rate of “mental illness” to solicit more government appropriations

  • Government mandates in the United States requiring insurance companies to cover mental health treatment at the same rate as for medical conditions such as cancer and heart disease, are driving up health insurance premiums and, subsequently, the number of uninsured.

  • Were psychiatry effective, the rate of people suffering from mental illness would decrease and so would the number of mental disorders in its diagnostic manual. Yet the number of disorders has increased more than 200% since 1952, when the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was first published.

  • A review of acts of violence in U.S. schools since 1998 reveals that 38% of children and teens responsible for these crimes were taking psychiatric drugs. The relationship of psychiatric drugs in the remaining school shootings has not been publicly disclosed or the student’s records are sealed.

  • Despite a public warning from the FDA that stimulants can cause psychosis, hallucinations, heart attacks and death, nearly $30 billion of Special Education funds in the United States are spent on children diagnosed as “learning disordered,” who typically are prescribed psychiatric drugs. Moreover, a federally-funded-study found that 80% of those children simply had never been taught properly to read.

  • Numerous medical and educational experts have been critical of the fact that there is no medical test to substantiate that “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” (ADHD) or any learning disorder as a neurobiological or physical disability. In September 2005, the Oregon Health & Science University’s Evidence-Based Practice Center published a report, “Drug Class Review on Pharmacologic Treatments for ADHD,” which had reviewed 2,287 studies—virtually every study ever conducted on ADHD drugs—and determined that there were no trials showing the long-term effectiveness of these drugs on academic performance.

  • Millions of children and adolescents are also taking antidepressants that British, Australian, European and U.S. drug regulatory agencies have warned can cause psychosis, aggression, hallucinations, and suicide.

  • There were at least 45 child deaths between 2000-2004 attributed to antipsychotic drugs (tranquilizers) in the United States alone and potentially 35,000 child deaths from all psychiatric drugs

  • Another threat to schools is proposals to screen students for “mental illness,” using such fraudulent programs such as TeenScreen. Lawsuits have already been filed against school officials. Educators are not informed that there is no science behind any psychiatric diagnosis, especially those attributed to children’s behavioral or learning problems.

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