May
17, 2005
Press
Release:
Contact
Information:
Patricia
Weathers
President
845-677-4118
Sheila
Matthews
National
Vice President
203-966-8419
Mental
Health Vendors Woe Senators with talk of “Reform”
Abuse
and Tragedies Portrayed as “Distortions and Misinformation”
Proponents
of the mental health system, including service providers, victims of mental
health propaganda, administrators, and benefactors recently targeted senators at
a private lobbying seminar this past week. Their latest sales pitch was launched
publicly to address what was described as “misinformation” and
“distortions,” which they say stem from children’s mental health and its complexity.
This latest effort called “The Campaign for Mental Health Reform,” initiated
by groups with financial ties to pharmaceutical dollars, comes at a time when
considerable negative attention has greatly damaged the core of these pro-mental
health group’s.
A series
of unfortunate events continue to plague pro-mental health, pro-pharmaceutical
groups which they have not been able to extricate themselves from. These
events include:
·
Within the
last six years a growing number of complaints of schools coercing parents to
place children onto Controlled Substances in order to remain in school led to
school board resolutions, state and federal legislation to ban this serious
abuse of mental health.
·
Federal
lawsuits filed on school coercion matter detailing violations of informed
consent rights and denials of a person’s right to refuse psychiatric
“treatment.”
·
The
·
Media
Coverage of Antidepressant Issue does not allow for the FDA to ignore the
factual data on suicide link. FOX National News had first
exposed this point in November 2002, when confidential documents from
GlaxoSmithKline suggested that a patient taking their antidepressant drug Paxil
was 8 times more likely to commit suicide then a patient on placebo (sugar
pill).
·
The FDA’s
own investigation and hearings into SSRI Antidepressants in early 2004 brought
to light an onslaught of victims of mental health abuse at the hands of doctors
and pharmaceutical giants.
·
The
Pharmaceutical industry was exposed when certain companies were caught deceiving
the public by failing to disclose clinical trial data of drug risks and
ineffectiveness.
·
The FDA
member’s ties with Big Pharma companies reveal real conflict of interest
discrediting its decision making process.
·
Congressional
Hearings convened to investigate the matter reveals conflicts of interest,
distorted data, discrepancies, and cover-up by pharma and FDA.
·
FDA convenes
new hearings regarding its further investigation into antidepressants and their
link to suicide. More victims of mental health “treatment” driven to
suicide and violence come forward in swarms.
·
FDA issues
Black Box Warnings on all antidepressants spelling out suicide risks.
·
Pharmaceutical
company’s failure to comply with Black Box Warning advertisement disclosures.
This
negative attention comes as a wake up call to the nation that real mental health
reform is needed and that this reform needs to be with substance!
Children’s
mental health is not a complex topic as proponents of mental health continue to
allege. Statements like, “Only 20% of children with mental
disorders are identified and receive mental health services, leading to school
failure, substance abuse, involvement with the juvenile justice system, and
suicide,” are good sound bites that lack provable merit. Sadly these fear
tactic catch phrases have been repeated so often that the public has
been indoctrinated with what constitutes as no more than unscientific
“voodoo.” The mental health industry itself knows that it lacks a proven
tracking system to account for such figures.
What
is real is the victim’s of mental health abuse continuing to come forward to
publicly air their tragedies. This cannot be denied or downplayed.
It is neither, complex or subtle. These tragedies occurred as a result of
mental health abuse, corruption and deceptive statements. The fact is that
many have died from drugs being marketed by the industry in the guise of
“treatment.”
It is
their blood, the blood of many that lies with an industry driven to profit at
all cost. Such is mental health today!
For more
information on mental health abuse and reform, antidepressants and their risks,
please visit us at www.ablechild.org