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INTRODUCTION
Harming the Disturbed
With the rapid growth of government �Community Mental Health� programs for
severely mentally disturbed individuals now costing billions of dollars, how
is mental health faring in our communities today?
The U.S. New Freedom Commission on Mental Health issued a report in 2003 that
claimed, �Effective, state-of-the-art treatments vital for quality care
and recovery are now available for most serious mental illnesses and serious
emotional disorders.� [Emphasis added]
For those who know little about psychiatry and Community Mental Health, this
appears to be great news. However, exactly what are these vital �treatments�?
They principally involve an automatic, one-for-one prescription of drugs called
neuroleptics (from Greek, meaning �nerve seizing�, reflective of how the drugs
act like a chemical lobotomy).
A 2004 report estimated the cost of neuroleptics for the treatment of so-called
schizophrenic patients across the United States at over $10 million a day. Treatment
is usually life-long.
Then again, what should we pay for quality, state-of-the-art care, for recovery,
for the opportunity to bring these people back to productive lives?
According to several non-psychiatric and independent research experiments,
the answer to that question is �Not much at all.� Quality care resulting in
recovery and reintegration can be very inexpensive, as well as rapid, permanent,
and most significantly, drug free.
In an eight-year study, the World Health Organization found that severely mentally
disturbed patients in three economically disadvantaged countries whose treatment
plans do not include a heavy reliance on drugs�India, Nigeria and Colombia�found
that patients did dramatically better than their counterparts in the United
States and four other developed countries. A follow-up study reached a similar
conclusion.
In the United States in the 1970s, the late Dr. Loren Mosher�s Soteria House
experiment was based on the idea that �schizophrenia� can be overcome without
drugs. Soteria clients who didn�t receive neuroleptics actually did the best,
compared to hospital and drug-treated control subjects. Swiss, Swedish and Finnish
researchers have replicated and validated the experiment.
In Italy, between 1973 and 1996, Dr. Georgio Antonucci dismantled some of the
most oppressive psychiatric wards by treating severely disturbed patients with
compassion, respect and without drugs. Within months, the most violent wards
became the calmest.
Robert Whitaker revealed in his book Mad In America that the treatment
outcomes for people with �schizophrenia� have actually worsened over the past
25 years. Today, they are no better than they were in the early 20th century,
yet the United States has by far the highest consumption of neuroleptics of
any country.
What does all this mean?
As any self-respecting physical scientist will tell you, a theory is good only
so long as it works. He knows that when he encounters facts that don�t fit the
theory, he must continue to investigate and modify or discard the theory based
on the actual evidence discovered.
For almost 50 years, psychiatry has promoted its theory that the only �treatment�
for severe mental �illness� is neuroleptic drugs. However, this idea rests on
a fault line. The truth is that not only is the drugging of severely mentally
disturbed patients unnecessary�and expensive, thus profitable�it causes brainand
life-damaging side effects.
This publication exposes that fault line, some of its constructs, the fraud,
lies and other deceptions. Knowing this information makes it very easy to see
why psychiatrists would attack any alternative and better solution to the problems
of severe mental disturbance.
For the truth is, we are not just dealing with a lack of scientific skill
or method, or even with a quasiscience. Seemingly benign statements, such as
�There is clear scientific evidence that newer classes of medications can better
treat the symptoms of schizophrenia and depression with far fewer side effects,�
are not backed up by evidence and constitute outright medical fraud.
Psychiatry�s approach to the treatment of the severely mentally disturbed�the
�state of the art,� �scientific� and operational backbone of community mental
health and other psychiatric programs�is predicated on bad science and bad medicine
but is very good business for psychiatry.
The simple truth is that there are workable alternatives to psychiatry�s mind-,
brain- and body-damaging treatments. With psychiatry now calling for mandatory
mental illness screening for adults and children everywhere, we urge all who
have an interest in preserving the mental health, the physical health and the
freedom of their families, communities and nations, to read this publication.
Something must be done to establish real help for those who need it.
Sincerely,
Jan Eastgate, President
Citizens Commission on Human Rights International
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