IMPORTANT FACTS

1. Psychiatry has the worst record of insurance fraud of all medical disciplines.

2. Ten percent of mental health practitioners admit to sexually abusing their patients.

3. One study found that one out of 20 clients who had been sexually abused by their therapist was a minor, the average age being seven for girls and 12 for boys.

4. One survey of more than 530 psychiatrists showed 25% had chosen the field of psychiatry because of their own psychiatric problems.

5. Psychiatrists have the highest suicide and drug abuse rate among physicians.

American psychiatrist Michael DeLain was jailed for two years in 2002 for sexually exploiting a 16yearold patient; since their inception, psychiatrists have systematically and continually violated the Hippocratic Oath.

CHAPTER FIVE Jeopardizing Medical Ethics

Beyond the many valid medical reasons for non-psychiatric physicians to resist the mental health vision of psychiatrists, there is also the matter of preserving their professional integrity and reputation.

While medicine has nurtured an enviable record of achievements and general popular acceptance, the public still links psychiatry to snake pits, straitjackets, and �One Flew Over the Cuckoo�s Nest.� Psychiatry has done little to enhance that perception with its development of such brutal treatments as ECT, psychosurgery, the chemical strait jacket caused by antipsychotic drugs, and its long record of treatment failures.

In the area of fraud, psychiatry is considerably over-represented. The largest health care fraud suit in U.S. history involved mental health, yet it is the smallest sector within the healthcare field. According to a veteran California healthcare fraud investigator, one of the simplest ways to detect fraud is to review the drug prescription records of psychiatrists.

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