Maryanne Godboldo, a mother in Michigan, noticed that pills prescribed by her daughter’s doctor were making her condition worse, not better. So Mrs. Godboldo stopped giving them to her. That’s when the trouble began. When Child Protective Services (CPS) bureaucrats became aware that the girl was not receiving her prescribed medication, they decided the child should be taken away from her mother’s custody on grounds of medical neglect. When Ms. Godboldo refused to surrender her daughter to the state, CPS enlisted the help of a police SWAT team! On March 24 of this year a 12 hour standoff ensued and young Ariana was taken into custody. The drug involved was Risperdal, a neuroleptic antipsychotic medication with numerous known side effects. Ms. Godboldo had decided on a more holistic approach for her daughter. She is still engaged in a costly legal battle with the state over Ariana’s treatment and custody.

This is one example of how government’s increasing proclivity to medicate children with questionable psychiatric drugs violates the rights of parents. Just recently, the Government Accountability Office released a report on the astonishingly high rate of prescriptions for psychotropic drugs for children in the foster care system. It is absolutely astounding that nearly 40% of kids in foster care are on psychotropic drugs, some of them taking up to 5 different pills at a time. Some of these children are under one year of age – too young to safely take over the counter cold medication!

To fight this dangerous trend I reintroduced the Parental Consent Act of 2011, HR 2769, which prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health or psychiatric screening program. The previous administration pushed hard for this type of federal intrusion into the medical decisions of families through its wildly misnamed “New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.” Everyone interested in parental rights and true health freedom must fight to make sure the commission’s findings and dubious psychiatric science are never used as justification to force mental health screening on American kids at school without their parents’ consent.

There has been a persistent lobbying effort, funded by pharmaceutical companies, to increase the number of these prescriptions to even more children. A universal screening program is the stated goal of these lobbyists. I would not be at all surprised to see the recent attention to the issue of schoolyard bullying used as a tool towards these ends.

Imagine the potential ramifications of a universal, mandatory psychiatric health screening program in a public school, considering how some bureaucrats are wont to behave! The diagnostic criteria for many mental illnesses remain vague and subjective. Therefore it is all too easy for a bureaucrat in a white coat to label a child with some sort of psychiatric syndrome simply because they were having a bad day, or behaving as a typical rambunctious child. That label could follow them around the rest of their school career and come with a number of prescriptions attached, which the state, as in the Godboldo case, may try to force the parents to administer, whether they want to or not.

http://irishtimes.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/viewer.aspx

Dr. Michael Corry is no longer around to impede Big Pharma’s plans in Ireland.

This allowed a psychiatric stooge to finally came out and articulate the long held aim of Big Pharma…  involuntary drugging of everyone via the water supply.  This Hitleresque concept has been in development for decades.

As psychiatry is a tool of Big Pharma, so Big Pharma is a tool for others.  It is not just about wholly unethical profits; it is far worse than that… and it is not just Ireland.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2059191/GPs-gave-15-000-children-young-chemical-cosh.html

From the UKs Daily Mail.  If you live in the UK then support this newspaper.  It is doing a great job.

By Kate Loveys

Last updated at 2:06 AM on 9th November 2011

The amount of young children prescribed medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder has doubled in the last decade, figures show

Soaring numbers of children as young as five are being chemically coshed with antipsychotic drugs, an investigation by Channel 4 News has found.

A staggering 15,000 children under the age of 18 were prescribed the medication last year by their GPs – double the number a decade ago.

The drugs, such as Risperdal and Seroquel, are meant for serious mental conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and psychosis.

But experts believe they are increasingly used as a chemical cosh to control children’s behaviour, for example to calm youngsters with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or autism.

Children can be left on the drugs for years and are not properly monitored, despite side effects such as dramatic weight gain, diabetes, heart disorders and a Parkinson’s disease-like tremor that continues even after the medication is stopped.

Worryingly, nobody knows what the long-term side effects are and pharmaceutical companies have blocked all requests for data on trials involving children.

Experts are concerned about the effect the drugs have on developing brains.

Guidance provided by professional bodies, such as the Royal College of Psychiatrists, says a child psychiatrist must be involved in the prescription of drugs.

But mental health experts believe this is increasingly not happening. Instead, the drugs are needlessly given out by GPs.

Professor Tim Kendall, director of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, said the figures were ‘extremely concerning’.

Chemical cosh: Antipshychotic drug Ritalin is prescribed to children suffering from ADHD

‘As far as I am aware, there is no evidence that there has been a doubling in the rate of psychosis, so if there is a doubling in the rate of children being given antipsychotics, that is a worry,’ he added.

‘My worry is that these drugs are being used for other purposes.’

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show 14,999 children, up to the age of 18, were prescribed antipsychotics in 2010, compared with 7,649 in 2001.

Of these, 253 were aged six or under, 3,205 were seven to 12 and 11,541 were 13 to 18.

The figures are for prescriptions issued by GPs only. No data exists for the number of prescriptions issued in hospitals.

Professor Peter Tyrer of Imperial College London, an antipsychotics expert, said the use of this medication was a ‘slow fuse to disaster’.

The drugs affected almost every part of the body, he added.

The figures on antipsychotics follow the recent revelation that 661,500 prescriptions for Ritalin, or similar drugs for ADHD, were issued to children last year.

This amounts to more than 12,000 prescriptions a week and an increase of 70 per cent in the past five years.

In what may be a precedent-setting decision, a Tel Aviv court has ruled that the Abarbanel psychiatric facility may not use electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) treatment without the patient’s written consent.

The ruling by the court said that laws relating to the rights of individuals outweighed the laws regarding the care of mentally ill individuals.

Appointment of a legal guardian to make medical decisions for a patient under such circumstances is a complex problem.

An article published in 2010 in the Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences, written in English by Dr. Yuval Melamed, Deputy Director of Lev Hasharon Mental Health Center entitled “Guardianship Appointment: Current Status in Israel” discussed such issues in considerable detail.

Melamed noted that in 1999 the Health Ministry had distributed a directive to the relevant medical and social service authorities detailing the process. According to the directive, the department of social services in each hospital is the responsible and coordinating body, and the department head is responsible for preparation of the medical material.

It was recommended that a family relative or other person be appointed to care for the patient when the petitioner is a close a relative or an interested party.

An expert medical opinion is required by the court, the document notes, under the following conditions:

1.when the patient’s insight and capacity to give informed consent is questionable,
2.one of the following applies:
a. mental illness or mental impairment
b. dementia
c. mental deficiency
d. other mental or physical conditions
e. The patient cannot provide consent for essential medical treatment.

Medical specialists included among those designated by law as appropriate to provide the required expert opinion are psychiatrists, geriatricians, psychogeriatricians and neurologists.

The judge in the current case ruled that because no immediate public concern or danger would result from avoiding the use of ECT, and due to the fact the patient had no family member to represent her, the patient’s decision must be considered as valid.

Nevertheless, the patient’s victory was temporary: the court added in its ruling that it would continue to contemplate the issue. No decision has yet been made on whether a permanent ban will be granted.

September 12, 2011

Opinion
“Psychiatry has a way of becoming a political football in public discourse.”

“Psychiatry has a way of becoming a political football in public discourse.”

Imagine a tribunal where the public could challenge clinical decisions by neurosurgeons or cardiologists. It would be ridiculous. But mental health is different. Unlike other medical specialties, it resembles law or politics: fields where subtle variations in the interpretation of a word can alter the entire trajectory of a patient’s treatment.

That’s why the right to appeal clinical decisions by mental health professionals through a tribunal, announced recently by the NSW government, met with public approval. Mental health possesses a built-in capacity for abuse that is greater than in other areas of medicine. A patient’s psychiatric diagnosis has enormous cultural power in many other fields, from the marketing of antidepressant medications, to general practice, disability claims and legal proceedings.

The contestable nature of mental health is also why there is a constant battle to keep it free from politics. Some of the 20th century’s most despotic regimes used mental health to oppress opponents, coining disorders such as ”delusions of capitalism” in the Soviet Union or ”politically paranoid” in China. But psychiatry has a way of becoming a political football in public discourse regardless of how authoritarian or democratic the society.
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Today it is increasingly a tool of progressive politics, used to highlight the human pain apparently caused by harsh policies. In the case of asylum seekers, for example, any emotional distress is automatically viewed through the lens of mental health. Resilient individuals who have escaped harsh circumstances and coped with far-reaching travel are suddenly classified as fragile, undone by bureaucratic delay and limited incarceration. There is no doubt mental illness exists among asylum seekers, but its prevalence is vastly overstated.

In one of the more farcical applications of psychiatry to political debates, a report this month linked inaction on climate change to the possibility of worsening mental health. Released by the Climate Institute, it suggested that increasing natural disasters might be linked to climate change, which might lead to increased costs in mental healthcare. The evidence for every link was slight at best, yet the novelty of the report ensured widespread attention.

It was launched by Professor Ian Hickie, who has been rightly recognised for giving mental health a greater profile, but who has also played politics to do so.

Hickie has done more than any other clinician to promote tick-a-box diagnosis, particularly among general practitioners, who now regularly prescribe antidepressants through questionnaires alone. With former Australian of the Year Professor Patrick McGorry, Hickie has made overblown claims about the prevalence of mental health.

It is disingenuous to suggest, as McGorry has done, that there is no conflict of interest because their organisations are non-profit. Their bodies shared in $2.2 billion of funding in the federal budget. Their exorbitant claims – such as one in four people will suffer mental illness – are indicative of a blurring of the lines between illness and normal, human responses to adversity.

Another good example of the uneasy relationship between politics and mental health – and how one can colour the other – is the former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, a tireless campaigner in raising awareness for depression who openly admits he uses the term not in its medical context, but as a synonym for emotional distress.

The fiercest critics of this modern therapeutic culture in Western societies have argued that the decline of the political left is at the heart of the trend – in particular, the collapse of any ambition for social change.

Having given up on the notion that human beings could collectively change the world, the argument goes, the left has instead focused on people adapting to their circumstances.

While conservatives have always had a modest narrative about the human subject, emphasising fallibility, tradition and an inferiority to God, social democrats now present a picture of people as even more powerless – weak, feeble citizens continually at risk.

It is admirable that governments recognise the contentious nature of mental health, and that people who suffer from or treat the horrific effects of serious mental illness can help lift its profile. But the growing manipulation of this very malleable field in political debate is a much less edifying trend.

Dr Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatrist.

From: http://m.theage.com.au/victoria/mental-health-care-inquiry-20110905-1juiy.html

Mental health care inquiry

Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie September 06, 2011

PREMIER Ted Baillieu last night ordered a wide-ranging inquiry into dozens of patient deaths inside Victoria’s mental health system.

The inquiry follows a report in The Saturday Age exposing the high rates of unexpected and unnatural deaths in the state’s mental health wards, and raising serious questions about standards of care and allegations of cover-ups.

Today, The Age publishes new revelations about the use of electric shock therapy in Victoria, with documents showing how hundreds of mentally ill people are forced to undergo the procedure without their consent.

Mr Baillieu’s office last night announced that the state’s Chief Psychiatrist, Ruth Vine, would investigate the way the state’s health services handled all unexpected, unnatural or violent deaths involving mental health inpatients between January 2008 and December 2010.

The investigation follows The Saturday Age’s revelation that 36 Victorians had died in mental health wards during that period.

Dr Vine will examine each hospital internal inquiry into the deaths and whether all recommendations for improvements by health services or the Coroner were acted on or ignored.

”The Chief Psychiatrist will report back the findings of these investigations to the Minister for Mental Health by the end of 2011,” a statement from the Premier’s office said.

The Age was yesterday inundated with responses and information from Victorians regarding their concerns about the state of the public mental health system.

The inquiry comes as The Age has learnt that hundreds of mentally ill Victorians forced to undergo electric shock therapy without their consent are being given far more sessions of the controversial treatment than those who choose it voluntarily.

In 2009-10, 1111 Victorians received electroconvulsive therapy, a procedure that induces seizures by delivering an electric current to the brain, in the public mental health system.

Of these, 377 – or about one third – were deemed involuntary patients who did not consent to the treatment commonly known as ECT.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show involuntary mental health patients received more than half of the 12,968 ECT sessions administered in the public psychiatric system last year.

Victoria is the only jurisdiction in Australia that allows treating psychiatrists to administer ECT without consent or external review.

ECT remains one of the most divisive and controversial treatments in psychiatric care. Proponents argue that it is an effective way to fight depression and a safe alternative to drugs that have dangerous side effects. Critics claim ECT causes memory loss, headaches and confusion.

Victoria’s Mental Health Minister, Mary Wooldridge, last night told The Age that new mental health laws would be introduced ”to put in place better safeguards and clinical checks to ensure appropriate use” of electro-convulsive therapy.

Victoria’s Mental Health Legal Centre said new laws were needed to better protect mental

health patients and to ensure nobody was forced to undergo procedures such as ECT against their will.

“The Mental Health Legal Centre is of the view that ECT should only be performed with the full, free and informed consent of the person,” said the centre’s lawyer, Catherine Leslie.

”Involuntary ECT is a serious infringement on a person’s human rights.”

The use of ECT in Victoria’s public and private psychiatric services has increased sharply in recent years.

In public mental health services, its use has increased by 12 per cent since 2003-04, according to Department of Health figures.

Private ECT sessions in Victoria have increased by 71 per cent during the same period, Medicare figures released to The Age show. Medicare allows psychiatrists to claim about $67.00 for each ECT treatment. About 640 people received ECT as private patients in 2009-10.

Dr Vine recently attributed the rise in private ECT treatments to an increase in psychiatric beds in the private sector and more patients choosing to use the procedure to combat depression. Dr Vine said ECT was a safe and effective form of treatment.

”The biggest issue (with ECT) I have to say is the difficulty we have in shaking community perception about this being in some way negative when for many people it is a very effective treatment,” she told The Age.

”As a treating doctor, to see someone with a really severe melancholic depression who is absolutely convinced that they’re riddled with guilt and should be dead, to see that just melt away with a reasonably short course of ECT, it is one of the miracle treatments.”

But a recent international review of ECT cases by psychologists found the treatment may cause permanent brain damage and long-term memory loss.

The study’s lead author, John Read, of the University of Auckland, examined placebo-controlled studies and concluded shock therapy had minimal effects for people with depression and schizophrenia.

The review, published in the journal Epidemiologia e Psichiatra Sociale last year, found almost all ECT patients suffered some amnesia. ”For a proportion of those people some of that memory loss is recouped over time,” Associate Professor Read said.

”However, we are now seeing that for a significant proportion of people that brain dysfunction is permanent. ECT can, for a minority of people, produce some very short-term benefits; it can lift people’s mood quite quickly.”

Professor Read said Victoria’s rate of involuntary psychiatric patients was about double that of New Zealand’s. He supported calls for Victoria to introduce laws to give involuntary patients a greater say in their treatment.

”Mental health is the only area of medicine where you can be forced to receive a treatment against your will. It borders on discrimination, I’m talking about medication as well,” Professor Read said.