citizens commission on human rights · 2016. 2. 13. · psychiatry’s for profit ‘disease’ a...

PSYCHIATRY’S FOR PROFIT ‘DISEASE’

A Public Service Report from Citizens Commission on Human Rights

SCHIZOPHRENIA

CCIITTIIZZEENNSS CCOOMMMMIISSSSIIOONN OONN HHUUMMAANN RRIIGGHHTTSS

The Citizens Commission on HumanRights (CCHR) was established in 1969 bythe Church of Scientology to investigateand expose psychiatric violations of humanrights, and to clean up the field of mentalhealing. Its co-founder is Dr. ThomasSzasz, professor of psychiatry emeritus andan internationally renowned author. Today,CCHR has more than 130 chapters in over30 countries. Its board of advisors, calledCommissioners, includes doctors, lawyers,educators, artists, business professionals,and civil and human rights representatives.

CCHR has inspired and caused manyhundreds of reforms by testifying beforelegislative hearings and conducting publichearings into psychiatric abuse, as well asworking with media, law enforcement andpublic officials the world over.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:CCHR International

6616 Sunset Blvd.Los Angeles, CA, USA 90028

Telephone: (323) 467-4242(800) 869-2247 • Fax: (323) 467-3720

www.cchr.orge-mail: [email protected]

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19137 CCHR Pamphlet - Myths 10/28/04 5:14 PM Page 2

PHOTO CREDITS: 2: Peter Turnley/Corbis; 8: NewsPix (NZ); Reuters News Media Inc./Corbis; APWide World Photos.

1 People in desperate circumstances must be providedproper and effective medical care. Medical, not psy-chiatric attention, good nutrition, a healthy, safe envi-ronment and activities that promote confidence willdo far more than the brutality of psychiatry’s drugtreatments.

2 Mental health facilities must be established to replacecoercive psychiatric institutions. These must havemedical diagnostic equipment, which non-psychiatricmedical doctors can use to thoroughly examine andtest for all underlying physical problems that may bemanifesting as disturbed behavior.

3 If you or a family member or friend has been coer-cively treated or abused by a psychiatrist, consult alawyer to determine your right to prosecute criminal-ly and civilly the responsible psychologists or psychi-atrists, their colleges and associations.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Robert Whitaker, Mad in America: Bad Science, BadMedicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of theMentally Ill (Perseus Publishing, New York, 2002), p.166.2. Ibid., p. 203.3. Ty C. Colbert, Rape of the Soul, How the ChemicalImbalance Model of Modern Psychiatry has Failed itsPatients (Kevco Publishing, California, 2001), p. 106.4. L. Jeff, “The International Pilot Study ofSchizophrenia: Five-Year Follow-Up Findings,”Psychological Medicine, Vol. 22, 1992, pp. 131–145;Assen Jablensky, “Schizophrenia: Manifestations,Incidence and Course in Different Cultures, a WorldHealth Organization Ten-Country Study,”Psychological Medicine, Supplement, 1992, pp. 1–95.5. Op. Cit., Whitaker, p. 182.6. Ibid., p. 188.7. David Grounds, et. al., “Antidepressants andSide Effects,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of

Psychiatry, Vol. 29, No. 1, 1995.8. “Acute Drug Withdrawal,” PreMec MedicinesInformation Bulletin, Aug. 1996, modified 6 Jan. 1997. 9. Elliot S. Valenstein, Ph.D., Blaming the Brain (TheFree Press, New York, 1998), p. 225.10. Stephen Soreff, M.D. and Lynne Alison McInnes,M.D., “Bipolar Affective Disorder,” eMedicineJournal, Vol. 3, No. 1, 7 Jan. 2002.11. Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., Prozac Backlash (Simon & Schuster, NY, 2000), p. 206.12. Ibid., p. 196.13. Studies on file with CCHR, from Journal ofClinical Psychiatry (1886), Archives of GeneralPsychiatry (1978), American Journal of Psychiatry(1967).14. Patrick Holford and Hyla Cass, M.D., NaturalHighs (Penguin Putnam Inc., New York, 2002), pp.125-126.

15© 2004 CCHR. All Rights Reserved. CITIZENS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, CCHR and the CCHR logoare trademarks and service marks owned by Citizens Commission on Human Rights. Printed in the U.S.A. Item#FLO 19137

Caution: No one should stop taking any psychiatric drug without the adviceand assistance of a competent non-psychiatric medical doctor.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the United StatesInternational Association of Scientologists Members’ Trust.

IINNTTRROODDUUCCTTIIOONNIN DESPERATE

NEED OF HELP

L ife can sometimes be a real challenge. It can getvery rough indeed. A family faced with a seri-ously disturbed and irrational member can

become desperate in their attempts to resolve the crisis.To whom can we turn when this happens?

According to psychiatrists, you should consult themas the mental health experts. But that is a deception,as many people who have turned to them in the hopeof finding answers to their personal dilemmas havediscovered.

Dr. Megan Shields, a practicing family physicianfor more than 25 years warns: “Psychiatrists know nothing about the mind, treat the individual as no more than an organ in the head (the brain) and have about as much interest in spirituality, stan-dard medicine and curing, as an executioner has insaving lives.”

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treatment had undiagnosed physical illnesses; inanother study, 42% of those diagnosed with “psy-choses” were later found to be suffering from a med-ical illness, and in a further study, 48% of those diag-nosed by psychiatrists for mental treatment had anundiagnosed physical condition.13

Several diseases closely mimic schizophrenia,fooling both patient and doctor. An Archives ofGeneral Psychiatry study lists 21 such conditions,beginning with an increasingly common one, “thetemporary psychosis brought on by amphetaminedrugs.” Study author Dr. A. A. Reid, explains thatdrug-induced psychosis is complete with delusionsof persecution and hallucinations, and “is oftenindistinguishable from an acute or paranoid schizo-phrenic illness.”14

As an example, “Mrs. J,” diagnosed as schizo-phrenic after she began hearing voices in her head,had deteriorated to the point where she stopped talk-ing and could not bathe, eat or go to the toilet with-out help. A thorough physical exam determined shewas not properly metabolizing the glucose that thebrain needs for energy. Once treated, she dramati-cally changed. She completely recovered and showsno lingering trace of her former mental state.

In a wish list for mental health reform, authorRobert Whitaker stated, “At the top of this wish list,though, would be a simple plea for honesty. Stoptelling those diagnosed with schizophrenia that theysuffer from too much dopamine or serotonin activityand that the drugs put these brain chemicals backinto ‘balance.’ That whole spiel is a form of medicalfraud, and it is impossible to imagine any othergroup of patients—ill say, with cancer or cardiovas-cular disease—being deceived in this way.”

Mental healing treatments should be gauged onhow they improve and strengthen individuals, theirresponsibility and their spiritual well being—with-out relying upon powerful and addictive drugs.Treatment that heals should be delivered in a calmatmosphere characterized by tolerance, safety, secu-rity and respect for people’s rights.

A workable and humane mental health system iswhat the Citizens Commission on Human Rights(CCHR) is working toward.

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In the film “A Beautiful Mind,” Nobel Prize win-ner John Nash is depicted as relying on psychiatry’slatest breakthrough drugs to prevent a relapse of his“schizophrenia.” This is Hollywood fiction, howev-er, as Nash himself refutes the film’s portrayal ofhim taking “newer medications” at the time of hisNobel Prize award. Nash had not taken any psychi-atric drugs for 24 years and had recovered naturallyfrom his disturbed state.

This is not to suggest that anyone taking pre-scribed, psychotropic drugs should immediately dis-pense with them. Due to their dangerous sideeffects, no one should stop taking any psychiatricdrug without the adviceand assistance of a compe-tent non-psychiatric, med-ical doctor.

We wish to highlighthowever, that there aresolutions to serious mentaldisturbance that avoid theserious risks and flawsinherent in psychiatric the-ory and practice.

There is abundant evi-dence that real physical ill-ness, with real pathology,can seriously affect anindividual’s mental stateand behavior. Psychiatrycompletely ignores this weight of scientific evidence,preferring to assign all blame to illnesses and sup-posed “chemical imbalances” in the brain that havenever been proven to exist, and limits all practice tobrutal treatments that have done nothing but perma-nently damage the brain and the individual.

The information in this publication is a warningfor people who may be experiencing serious difficul-ties in life, or know of someone who is, and who arelooking for answers.

Jan EastgatePresidentCitizens Commission on Human Rights International

“Psychiatrists know nothing about the mind, treat the individualas no more than an organin the head (the brain) and have about as much interest in spirituality, standard medicine andcuring, as an executionerhas in saving lives.”— Dr. Megan Shields, familyphysician, advisory boardmember of CCHR International

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CCHHAAPPTTEERR TTHHRREEEEACHIEVING REAL MENTAL HEALTH

P sychiatrists promote mental health as beingof equal priority to physical health. To con-tinue this analogy, just as physical health

would be the outcome of effective physical healing,so would mental health have to be the outcome ofeffective mental healing.

U nder the management of psychiatry today,there is no mental healing. Logically this means that psychiatry achieves no improvement in mental health.

It is a matter of sound medical fact that undiag-nosed physical illness or injury can trigger emotion-al difficulties. Dr. William Crook, in his bookDetecting Your Hidden Allergies, says those botheredby irritability, depression, hyperactivity, fatigue andanxiety, need an immediate full medical physicalexamination and a complete test for food allergiesthat could cause precisely those mental changes in aperson.

One study concluded that 83% of peoplereferred by clinics and social workers for psychiatric

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M ost people consider that psychiatry’s mainfunction is to treat patients with severe, evenlife-threatening mental conditions. The

most pronounced is that condition first called dementiapraecox by German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin in thelate 1800s, and labeled “schizophrenia” by Swiss psy-chiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1908.

However, Robert Whitaker, author of Mad inAmerica, says the patients that Kraepelin diagnosedwith dementia praecox were actually suffering from avirus, encephalitis lethargica [brain inflammation caus-ing lethargy] which was unknown to doctors at thetime: “These patients walked oddly and suffered fromfacial tics, muscle spasms, and sudden bouts of sleepi-ness. Their pupils reacted sluggishly to light. Theyalso drooled, had difficulty swallowing, were chroni-cally constipated, and were unable to complete willedphysical acts.”1

Psychiatry never revisited Kraepelin’s material tosee that schizophrenia was simply an undiagnosedand untreated physical problem. “Schizophrenia wasa concept too vital to the profession’s claim of medical

CCHHAAPPTTEERR OONNEEHARMING THE

VULNERABLE

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tions, he is emphatic: “[N]ot one has beenproven. Quite the contrary. In every instancewhere such an imbalance was thought to havebeen found, it was later proven false.”12

Dr. Ty C. Colbert, Ph.D., author of BlamingOur Genes, says, “We know that the chemicalimbalance model for mental illness has neverbeen scientifically proven. We also know thatall reasonable evidence points instead to the dis-abling model of psychiatric drug action.Furthermore, we also know that the research ondrug effectiveness/efficacy are unreliablebecause drug tests only measure efficacy basedon symptom reduction, not cure.”

In his book, The Complete Guide to PsychiatricDrugs, published in 2000, Edward Drummond,M.D., Associate Medical Director at SeacoastMental Health Center in Portsmouth, NewHampshire, stated, “First, no biological etiology[cause] has been proven for any psychiatric dis-order…in spite of decades of research…So don’taccept the myth that we can make an ‘accuratediagnosis’…Neither should you believe thatyour problems are due solely to a ‘chemicalimbalance.’”

Dr. Szasz points out: “If schizophrenia, forexample, turns out to have a biochemical causeand cure, schizophrenia would no longer be one ofthe diseases for which a person would be involun-tarily committed. In fact, it would then be treatedby neurologists, and psychiatrists would thenhave no more to do with it than they do withGlioblastoma [malignant tumor], Parkinsonism,and other diseases of the brain.”

“Schizophrenia is defined so vaguely that, in actuality, it is aterm often applied toalmost any kind ofbehavior of which thespeaker disapproves.”

— Dr. Thomas Szasz, profes-sor of psychiatry emeritus,

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legitimacy. … The physical symptoms of the diseasewere quietly dropped .… What remained, as the fore-most distinguishing features, were the mental symp-toms: hallucinations, delusions, and bizarrethoughts,” says Whitaker.

Psychiatrists remain committed to calling “schiz-ophrenia” a mental disease despite, after a century ofresearch, the complete absence of objective proof thatit exists as a physical brain abnormality.

The neuroleptics (nerve-seizing drugs), alsoknown as antipsychotics, prescribed for so-calledschizophrenia were first developed by the French tonumb the nervous system during surgery.Psychiatrists learned very early on that neurolepticscause Parkinsonism and symptoms of encephalitislethargica, the very problem Kraepelin had misidenti-fied and called dementia praecox.2

The drugs damage the extrapyramidal system(the extensive complex network of nerve fibers thatmoderates motor control), resulting in muscle rigidity,spasms and various involuntary movements.3

The drug-induced side effect tardive dyskinesia(tardive, meaning “late” and dyskinesia meaning,“abnormal movement of muscles”) is a permanentimpairment of the power of voluntary movement ofthe lips, tongue, jaw, fingers, toes and other body partsand has appeared in 5% of patients within one year ofneuroleptic treatment.

Researchers and psychiatrists also knew the riskof “neuroleptic malignant syndrome,” a potentiallyfatal toxic reaction where patients break into feversand become confused, agitated and extremely rigid.An estimated 100,000 Americans have died from it.

DRUG DAMAGE: The major tranquilizers (antipsychotics) damage theextrapyramidal system (the extensive complex network of nerve fibersthat moderates motor control), resulting in muscle rigidity, spasms andvarious involuntary movements. The muscles of the face and bodycontort, drawing the face and body into bizarre contortions.

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caused by a “brain-biochemical imbalance.”Quietly, but firmly, she asked what evidencethey had that there was something wrong withhis brain. They said his mood and behavior indicated a serious problem. She asked howthey knew this was caused by brain chemistry.Her grandson was quickly transferred to a unitthat offered “talking therapies” instead ofdrugs. “Imagine the same situation in oncolo-gy: you are told that you look like you have can-cer, offered no tests, and told you will have twooperations, followed by radiotherapy and acourse of drugs that makes your hair fall out.The idea is preposterous. … Next time you aretold that a psychiatric condition is due to abrain-biochemical imbalance, ask if you can seethe test results,” said Newnes.

Depression: The DSM says that five out ofnine criteria must be met to diagnosedepression, including criteria such as deepsadness, apathy, fatigue, agitation, sleepdisturbances and appetite change. Evenpsychiatrists are concerned about such attemptsto “make an illness out of what looks to be life’snormal ups and downs.”

Harvard Medical School’s JosephGlenmullen says, “[T]he symptoms [of depres-sion] are subjective emotional states, making thediagnosis extremely vague.”

Glenmullen advises that the superficialchecklist rating scales used to screen people fordepression are “designed to fit hand-in-glovewith the effects of drugs, emphasizing thephysical symptoms of depression that mostrespond to antidepressant medication. …While assigning a number to a patient’sdepression may look scientific, when oneexamines the questions asked and the scalesused, they are utterly subjective measuresbased on what the patient reports or a rater’simpressions.”11

While there has been no shortage of bio-chemical explanations for psychiatric condi-

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In a study over eight years, the World HealthOrganization found that patients in three economical-ly disadvantaged countries — “India, Nigeria, andColombia — were doing dramatically better thanpatients in the United States and four other developedcountries.” Indeed, after five years, “64% of thepatients in the poor countries were asymptomatic andfunctioning well,” in contrast, only 18% of the patientsin the prosperous countries were.4 Neuroleptics wereclearly implicated in the significantly inferior Westernresult.5

Increasing public awareness that neuroleptics“frequently caused irreversible brain damage threat-ened to derail this whole gravy train,” Whitaker says.In response, new “atypical” [not usual; having lesseffect on the EPS system] drugs for schizophrenia wereintroduced in the 1990s, promising fewer side effects.

However, the atypicals actually have even moresevere effects: Blindness, fatal blood clots, heartarrhythmia (irregularity), heat stroke, swollen and leak-ing breasts, impotence and sexual dysfunction, blooddisorders, painful skin rashes, seizures, birth defectsand extreme inner-anxiety, restlessness and violence.

In 2003, The New York Times reported that theatypicals may cause diabetes, “in some cases leadingto death.” Dr. Joseph Deveaugh-Geiss, a consultingprofessor of psychiatry at Duke University, said thatthe diabetes link “is looking a lot like what we saw 25years ago with [tardive dyskinesia].”

Today, psychiatry clings tenaciously to antipsy-chotics as the treatment for “schizophrenia,” despitetheir proven risks and despite studies that show thatwhen patients stop taking the atypicals, they improve.

DRUG-INDUCED VIOLENCEPsychiatrists blame violent crime on a patient’s

“Psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (left)put the final medical seal onirrational behavior by naming itand categorizing it. … His clas-sificatory system … has beenthe ticket of admission for irra-tional behavior into medicine.” — Psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey

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Patients are betrayed when told their emo-tional problems are genetically or biologicallybased. Elliot Valenstein, Ph.D., says that “whilepatients may be relieved to be told that they havea ‘physical disease,’ they may adopt a passiverole in their own recovery, becoming completelydependent on a physical treatment to remedytheir condition.”9

There are numerous other conditions thatpsychiatrists have defined as diseases andthrough which they make millions of dollars ininsurance reimbursement, government funds

and profits from drugsales.

“Bipolar Disorder”:Psychiatry makes “un-proven claims that depres-sion, bipolar illness, anxi-ety, alcoholism and a hostof other disorders are infact primarily biologic andprobably genetic in origin… This kind of faith in sci-ence and progress is stag-gering, not to mentionnaïve and perhaps delu-sional,” says psychiatristDavid Kaiser.

Bipolar Disorder is supposedly character-ized by alternating episodes of depression andmania—thus, “two poles” or “bipolar.” InJanuary 2002, the Medicine Journal reported: “Theetiology [cause] and pathophysiology [function-al changes] of bipolar disorder (BPD) have notbeen determined, and no objective biologicalmarkers exist that correspond definitively withthe disease state.” Nor have any genes “beendefinitively identified” for BPD.10

Craig Newnes, psychological therapiesdirector of a Community and Mental HealthService in Shropshire, England, related the storyof three psychiatrists who told a feisty grand-mother that her grandson had bipolar disorder

“First, no biological etiology [cause] hasbeen proven for any

psychiatric disorder. ...So don’t accept the

myth that we can makean ‘accurate diagno-sis’... Neither should

you believe that yourproblems are due

solely to a ‘chemicalimbalance.’”

— Edward Drummond, M.D.,author of The Complete Guide

to Psychiatric Drugs, 2000

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failure to continue his or her medication, while know-ing that extreme violence is a documented side effectof both taking psychiatric drugs and withdrawalfrom them.

Antipsychotic drugs temporarily dim psychosisbut, over the long run, make patients more biological-ly prone to it. A second effect is a side effect calledakathisia [a, without + kathisia, sitting; an inability tokeep still]. This side effect has been linked toassaultive, violent behavior.

A 1990 study determined that 50% of all fights ina psychiatric ward could be tied to akathisia. Patientsdescribed “violent urges to assault anyone near.”6

In 1995, nine Australian psychiatrists reported thatpatients had slashed themselves or become preoccupiedwith violence while taking Selective Serotonin ReuptakeInhibitor antidepressants (SSRIs): “I didn’t want to die,I just felt like tearing my flesh to pieces,” one patient toldpsychiatrists.7

Treating ‘Schizophrenia’: A Comparison Between CountriesSeveral World Health Organization studies have shown that the “schizophrenia” improvement is much greater in poorer countries which employ much less psychotropic drugs in treatment, as opposed to affluent nations which rely majorly on drugs.

61%

18% 16%

Drugs usedin 16 percentof treatments

Rate ofimprovementin treatment

In poor countries

“Schizophrenic”improvement rates are HIGHER in poorer countrieswhere LESS DRUGS are used in treatment

Rate ofimprovementin treatment

Drugs usedin 61 percentof treatments

In U.S. and three affluent countries

64%

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WITHDRAWAL EFFECTSIn 1996, the National Preferred Medicines Center

Inc. in New Zealand, issued a report on “Acute drugwithdrawal,” saying that withdrawal from psychoac-tive drugs can cause 1) rebound effects that exacerbateprevious symptoms of a “disease,” and 2) new symp-toms unrelated to the condition that had not been pre-viously experienced by the patient.8

Dr. John Zajecka reported in the Journal of ClinicalPsychiatry that the agitation and irritability experi-enced by patients withdrawing from one SSRI cancause “aggressiveness and suicidal impulsivity.” InLancet, the British medical journal, Dr. Miki Blochreported that patients became suicidal and homicidalafter stopping an antidepressant, with one man hav-ing thoughts of harming “his own children.”

On May 25, 2001, Judge Barry O’Keefe of theNew South Wales Supreme Court, Australia, blamedan antidepressant for turning a peaceful, law-abidingman, David Hawkins, into a violent killer (of hiswife). Had Mr. Hawkins not taken the anti-depres-sant, the judge said, “it is overwhelmingly probablethat Mrs. Hawkins would not have been killed…”

Psychiatrists do know the connection between psy-chotropic drugs and violence; they do know the dangersof individuals taking and withdrawing from them.

CCHHAAPPTTEERR TTWWOODIAGNOSTIC DECEIT AND BETRAYAL

A s a substitute for mental healing, theAmerican Psychiatric Association (APA)developed the Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders-IV (DSM), a text thatlists 374 supposed mental disorders. Psychiatristsnot only admit that they have no idea of whatcauses these supposed “diseases,” they have noscientifically validated proof whatsoever thatthey even exist as discrete physical illnesses.

Regarding “schizophrenia,” psychiatristsopenly state in the DSM-II, “Even if it had tried,the [APA] Committee could not establish agree-ment about what this disorder is; it could onlyagree on what to call it.”

Thomas Szasz, professor of psychiatry emer-itus, states: “Schizophrenia is defined so vaguelythat, in actuality, it is a term often applied toalmost any kind of behavior of which the speak-er disapproves.”

David Hawkins

Kip Kinkle Andrea Yates

TREATMENT LINKED TO VIOLENCE: Medicalexperts argue that exces-sive dosages of certainpsychiatric drugs induceviolence. The killers shownhere, all with no previousrecord of violence, actedwhile taking such drugs.

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