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Mental Health Week: Psychiatry Making America Mindless; A System Plagued by Lawsuits, Congressional Hearings and Child Drugging

LOS ANGELES: In the wake of a highly publicized Congressional hearing last month about the widespread psychiatric drugging of children, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) International, a psychiatric watchdog, says that Mental Health Week (October 6-16, 2002) is nothing more then a desperate attempt to hook millions more Americans on mind-altering drugs. Today, parents such as New York mom, Patricia Weathers, have been forced to file suits to protect their child's rights against unscientific psychiatric diagnoses and prescribed cocaine-like drugs. "The drugs turned turned my son into a mindless zombie," she said.

Weathers' story is not an isolated one. Parents across America are not being given accurate information about the subjectivity of child "mental disorders," such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, (ADHD), or about the dangers of the drugs used to treat them. Weathers' lawsuit charges that a school psychologist and a psychiatrist violated her right to informed consent and committed medical malpractice. The suit, filed on September 20th on behalf of her 13-year-old son, Michael, alleges he was forced onto psychiatric drugs through his Millbrook elementary school after he was fraudulently diagnosed with ADHD. Weathers was coerced by school personnel to drug her son and was never warned about the side effects of the drugs or the lack of scientific merit to support diagnosing the disorder. After witnessing her son's increasing violent and bizarre behavior while taking the drugs, she weaned him off them. The final blow came when Child Protective Services charged her with medical neglect for taking Michael off the drugs that had been destroying him.

On September 26, the House Government Reform Committee, chaired by Congressman Dan Burton (R-IN), held a very high profile hearing to examine the alarming number if children being diagnosed with subjective mental disorders, and the fact that parents are not being given full information about the lack of scientific validity of these disorders, or what easily treatable problems could be affecting a child's learning or behavioral problems. The committee heard from experts such as Dr. Mary Ann Block, author of No More ADHD, who said that children could be suffering from allergies, lead poisoning, eyesight or hearing problems, or be simply in need of tutoring, or something even more basic than that-phonics, all problems that are easily treatable without subjecting children to drugs.

Block, who has successfully treated thousands of children without the use of drugs, stated, "I cannot imagine any reason to give a child an amphetamine to cover up symptoms when the problem can be fixed and no drug is required. Let's give our children the medical and educational evaluations they need to diagnose the real problems, without drugs."

Weathers, a key witness at the hearing, was never given any options other then a drug solution, "As a mother, I should have been given all of the information to make an informed decision on behalf of my child. After all, it is we who are ultimately responsible for the nurture, care and protection of our children. We are unable to fulfill that obligation and make sound educated decisions without all the facts. Accountability is what I am seeking. I would never have subjected my son to being 'labeled' with a mental disorder, if I had known that it was a subjective diagnosis. I would not have allowed my son to be administered drugs if I had been given full information about the documented side effects and risks."

According to CCHR, "mental health awareness week" is used to blatantly promote unscientific diagnoses that have led to six million American children being placed on mind-altering drugs. Jan Eastgate, the international president of CCHR said, "Apparently the mental health industry's idea of 'awareness' doesn't extend to giving parents the vital information they are entitled to in order to make an educated, sound decision on behalf of their children. Parents are only being given pro-drug solutions because childhood labeling and drugging is a profit-driven industry: In 2000, the sales of two stimulants prescribed for 'ADHD' were $384.5 million. These drugs and the groups that promote them are making America mindless."

In order to assist parents, citizens and government officials with obtaining vital information on this issue, CCHR offers their website, http://www.fightforkids.com/.

Hundreds of parents have contacted CCHR through this website detailing similar stories to Weathers'. The website provides the information parents won't get from psychiatrists or groups that support only a drug and behavioral model approach to addressing childhood problems. "In many cases, FightForKids.com may be the only avenue parents have to access alternative information to assist them to make a more informed and educated decision, one not based solely on information promoted by a mental health system with a financial interest in pushing drugs," says Eastgate.

CCHR was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology, and co-founded by Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, Dr. Thomas Szasz. For more information contact Marla Filidei at 800-869-2247.


Published: October 10, 2002
Author: Marla Filidei

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