Psychiatric Stigma - Legitimizing Abuse, Degradation and Death

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May 19, 2006

 

Psychiatric Stigma - Legitimizing Abuse, Degradation and Death

 

From Old Bedlam to Modern TeenScreen, Psychiatry Continues to Harm in

the Name o

 

by Jeanyne Wanner

 

http://www.opednews.com

 

Psychiatrists claim that people who experience certain feelings or

behaviors are sick, that they are " mentally ill " with an incurable

disease of the brain. These feelings and behaviors are organized into

lists, promoted as " symptoms " in order to align with a medical model

of disease. A person only has to have more than half of the " symptoms "

on a particular list to get a permanent diagnosis of disease. Being

" diagnosed " , another medical term co-opted by psychiatry, with one of

these " mental illnesses " is reported to carry a sort of stigma. No one

wants to be told that his brain is abnormal, that it will always be

so, and that he should become a life-long mental " patient " to treat

his " illness " .

 

The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines the word " stigma " as " a mark or

sign of disgrace or discredit. " Psychiatry uses this stigma, in order

to coerce or shame people into becoming life-long customers. This

multi-billion-dollar PR campaign to convince the public that these

illnesses are real is part of psychiatry's long-term, several-pronged

assault on mankind, calculated to forward their ever-advancing thrust

of destructive ideas into our daily lives.

 

According to the National Institute of Mental Illness' website, " An

estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older … suffer from a

diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. …this figure translates

to 57.7 million people. "

 

We know that currently in this country there are over 8 million

children on prescription psychiatric medications and the psychiatric

community is working hard to convince us that many more are in need of

their services, even babies.

 

Psychiatry, and their willing cohorts in the pharmaceutical business,

created the stigma. Then they run a public campaign of " We must remove

the stigma from mental illness " in order to find more who will accept

the label and accept the profitable treatment.

 

The psychiatric community can be seen influencing and working in the

government to increase the number of mental patients as early as 1977.

President Carter's Mental Health Commission, urged Americans to bring

their mental and emotional problems " out of the closet " and end the

" stigma. " Moving forward, an article in the Seattle Times in July of

2003 cited " Stigma " surrounding mental illness as a major barrier to

treatment.

 

Taken at face value this would certainly seem like a reasonable

appeal. What sane, caring individual could possibly want to compound

the burdens of the " mentally ill " by stigmatizing them? My guess is

very few. But is de-stigmatizing mental illness for humanitarian

reasons really psychiatry's intent? Or is it something much more

sinister and selfish?

 

It is a given that Public Relations is a very powerful and persuasive

tool. It can be used for good or bad purposes. The strength of PR

relies in large part on some part of its message being true. When one

holds up a truth that is self-evident one generally gets agreement.

 

The Psychiatric PR Machine has learned that they can associate some

lies, half-truths and misrepresentations with a little bit of the

truth and the public will generally accept the deceptions as true.

" Mental illness should be de-stigmatized " is true. " People should be

able to get help for their difficulties and have workable solutions

available to them, " is also true. " Psychiatry offers workable

solutions for the mentally ill masses, " is a lie. It is a lie

positioned with truth and it therefore seems, in the eyes of many, to

be true.

 

Perhaps there should be no stigma connected to mental illness. There

should however, be stigma connected to the solutions that psychiatry

proffers in the name of help which are destructive of individuals and

society: mind-altering drugs, stigmatizing labels, shock treatment and

abuse of human rights for profit.

 

Some 200 legal actions have been filed against Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and

GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturers of Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil,

respectively, to recover for suicides or homicides – some completed,

some only attempted—by patients in the first few days or weeks after

they were prescribed one of these drugs. – ClassActionAmerican.com

 

Why is it that one never hears from a psychiatrist about such workable

solutions as nutrition, tutoring, legitimate medical examinations, and

change of environment? Why do nearly all their solutions come in a

bottle with an FDA black box warning label? Moreover, dozens of

genuine, verifiable medical illnesses cause some of the exact symptoms

listed by psychiatry as " mental " . Once a psychiatric label is applied,

without requirement of any objective, medical tests, no one performs

the medical testing to find these physical illnesses.

 

The powerful, mind-altering drugs will alter the feelings and

behaviors. This is certain. However, even psychiatrists admit that

they do not know why the drugs work as they do and no long-term

testing is ever done, especially with the drugs used on young

Children. " Ritalin (prescribed to millions of kids) and amphetamine

(speed) have almost identical adverse effects on the brain, mind and

behavior, including the production of drug-induced behavioral

disorders, psychosis, mania, drug abuse, and addiction, " says Billy J.

Sahley, PhD, author of Is Ritalin Necessary?

 

Could it be that labeling an individual with a " disorder " from the DSM

(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is the only

way that psychiatrists can make a living? The belief of the existence

of these " disorders " is the basis for receiving money from insurance

companies, research grants, charitable foundations, etc.

 

If a psychiatrist sends a child who is acting up in school to see a

nutritionist or for tutoring, how would he make any money? If he

labels the same child with " ADHD " , he is creating a patient for life.

 

Backing up that viewpoint are recent articles in USA Today, the New

York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post and countless

other major newspapers which revealed the hidden financial connection

between big Pharmaceutical Companies and the authors of the Diagnostic

and Statistical manual. The DSM manual is the self-proclaimed bible of

psychiatry and it is the very foundation that psychiatrists use to

label people with over 370+ various mental " disorders " . Not only were

the majority of psychiatric panel members that created the DSM

receiving funding from drug companies in one way or another but for

some specific disorders, the entire panel of " experts " had direct

connections to pharmaceutical monies.

 

" ADHD is a controversial diagnosis with little or no scientific or

medical basis. A parent, teacher, or doctor can feel in good company

when utterly dismissing the diagnosis and refusing to apply it to

children " – Bill J. Sahley, PhD author of " Is Ritalin Necessary? "

 

Why are there so many people labeled mentally ill?

 

The more you look, the more obvious it should become that no amount of

political correctness or de-stigmatizing of mental illness will make

wrong solutions right!

Fictitious labels and murderous drugging for profit are not

humanitarian activities no matter how you look at it.

 

In an interview with Jay Baadsgaard, Washington State Director of the

International Coalition for Drug Awareness, he related to me how his

teenage son Corey had walked into his high school English class with a

rifle. He was found afterward to be in diminished capacity due to an

abrupt discontinuation of Paxil and a significant dose of Effexor. He

had no memory of what had transpired. Fortunately, he did not hurt anyone.

Ten families from across the United States have joined forces to bring

wrongful death and personal injury suits against the drug giant Wyeth

alleging that their respective family members committed impulsive acts

of violence - mostly suicides-or attempted them-shortly after taking

Wyeth's best-selling drug, Effexor. - Justice Seekers.com

 

When I asked Mr. Baadsgaard how this was originally presented to him

he said that it was presented it to him as a " normal biological thing. "

 

Yes. Let's de-stigmatize " mental illness " and make sure everyone knows

that mental illness is a normal thing, that way we can all receive

psychiatric " help. "

 

And no one would like to " help " your children more than Teenscreen.

Now cropping up in schools across the nation, Teenscreen, the

psychiatric/ pharmaceutical marketing contrivance, carefully packaged

as an innocent and well-meaning way to " save " our hapless children

from suicide, is busy trying to garner new patients out of our schools

with the rallying cry of remove the " stigma " and save your children.

 

But what solutions do they offer? After your child is " screened " and

evaluated and most likely found to be possessed of one or more " mental

illnesses " out of the DSM what then? " Treatment " is just a

prescription away and your child could be headed down the path of

other children like Kip Kinkle, Chris Pittman, Sam Manzie, Patrick

Purdy and countless others who have taken their own lives or the lives

of others while on psychiatric medication purported to `help " them.

 

It's not hard to understand why the pharmaceutical companies have

pumped so much money into " Teenscreen " and another suicide screening

program called " Signs of Suicide "

 

" Antidepressants increased the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior

(suicidality) in short-term studies in children and adolescents with

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders.

Anyone considering the use of Effexor XR or any other antidepressant

in a child or adolescent must balance this risk... " - Wyeth

Laboratories Website - warning

 

De-stigmatize mental health? Perhaps; but not so that Psychiatry can

commit its nefarious acts of " caring " on our children or our society

at large!

 

" Ritalin and other brain stimulants create severe biochemical

imbalances. Stimulants do not normalize the brain; they render it

abnormal. Stimulants produce pathological malfunctions in the child's

brain. " - Dr. Peter Breggin in his book Talking back to Ritalin.

 

Flanking the efforts of Teenscreen is the PR assault from the

psychiatric/pharmaceutical front group, NAMI, the National Alliance on

Mental Illness. Purportedly an independent organization of brain

injury and mental illness advocates, they are working hard to convince

us that unless we to their views and their solutions to

" mental illness we are all just insensitive and callous individuals

bent on marginalizing the mentally ill. This is the red herring that

sunk the tuna boat!

 

In its " Stigma Buster " electronic newsletter alerts, NAMI urges its

members to " Contact sponsors personally " . Explain the meaning of

stigma and the fact that the U.S. Surgeon General and President Bush

have made its elimination a public health priority. (December 2004

alert) ……contact local newspaper editors and television news

directors. Educate them about stigma and your concerns. ….work to

recruit them into sponsors of NAMIWalks or other events….. " PR, PR, PR.

 

If we trace the line from NAMI to Teenscreen we will see that NAMIs

former Executive Director, Laurie Flynn is now the Executive director

of Teen Screen and pharmaceutical money has followed her to her new job.

 

According to internal documents obtained by Mother Jones, 18 drug

firms gave NAMI a total of $11.72 million between 1996 and mid-1999.

These include Janssen ($2.08 million), Novartis ($1.87 million),

Pfizer ($1.3 million), Abbott Laboratories ($1.24 million),

Wyeth-Ayerst Pharmaceuticals ($658,000), and Bristol-Myers Squibb

($613,505).

 

" In 1999 alone, Lilly will have delivered $1.1 million in quarterly

installments, with the lion's share going to help fund NAMI's

" Campaign to End Discrimination " against the mentally ill. " – Mother

Jones Magazine

 

" NAMI's Flynn says her group is " not a captive of any outside

industry. " But she acknowledges there is " at times " [sic] a " synergy "

in goals between NAMI and the drug companies " – Mother Jones Magazine

– November/December 1999

 

There is a line here that has been blurred. It has been a deliberate

and calculated blurring and its authors have taken no quarter. What

the psychiatric/pharmaceutical PR machine says and what it does are

diametrically opposed. Have compassion, de-stigmatize mental illness,

help your fellow man, are not the same as " drugs are the answer "

though that is what they would have you believe.

 

Compassion is not simpering tolerance of destructive solutions, so as

not to offend, nor is it condemnation of the whole human race to

satisfy the authoritative proclamations of psychiatry or the twisted

agendas of big Pharma.

 

" There are no tests available for assessing the chemical status of a

living person's brain. " No " biochemical, anatomical, or functional

signs have been found that reliably distinguish the brains of mental

patients. The theories are held on to not only because there is

nothing else to take their place, but also because they are useful in

promoting drug treatment. " -- Elliot Valenstein, Ph.D., author of

Blaming the Brain

 

By pushing their ceaseless PR line, psychiatry stigmatizes mankind

himself, with abuse degradation and death. And in arrogant assignment

of all of mans frailties and idiosyncrasies to the category of

" disorders, " psychiatry impugns his character and his resolve and

takes from him his God-given right to meet life's challenges on his

own terms.

 

" The time when psychiatrists considered that they could cure the

mentally ill is gone. In the future the mentally ill will have to

learn to live with their illness/ " – Dr. Norman Sartorius, former

president of the World Psychiatric Association, 1994

 

Despite what they would have you believe, Man is not the sum of all

his difficulties or his sorrows. His triumphs and trials are not the

result of so many chemical reactions in his brain and he should not be

viewed nor held sway by the lowest common denominators of his humanity

– his own self-doubts, and demons.

 

Yes, men and women, even children, do sometimes need help. Certainly

there are enough people who suffer from unwanted feelings and

behaviors, whatever the cause, to prove this point. But the answers

lie elsewhere than in the pages of the DSM or the bottles of

anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and stimulants now touted as the

" cure " for being human.

 

 

 

Jeanyne Wanner is a freelance writer and activist living in Florida

jeanynewanner

 

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