PRESS RELEASE:

May 4, 2004
Contact: Marla Filidei
humanrights@cchr.org
1-800-869-2247

Psychiatrists push false statistic about "depression" that stigmatizes and hooks kids on drugs of deadly drugs

LOS ANGELES: On May 4, thousands of psychiatrists and their advocates will mislead parents across the nation that their child is "depressed" and needs psychiatric drugs—drugs that British medicine regulators and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) say could cause a child to commit suicide. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) accuses psychiatrists and their "front groups" of conducting a massive misinformation campaign that is aimed at pushing psychiatry's favorite cash cow; the drugging of America's children. A more than $13 billion a year child labeling and drugging industry is at stake, the group states.

Ms. Jan Eastgate, international president of CCHR says, "False statistics about the number of children said to suffer from depression are touted each year, leading potentially to increased dangerous antidepressant use. After billions of dollars spent on research, psychiatrists still cannot determine a single cause or cure for the condition. Calling childhood problems a 'mental disorder,' requiring a mind-altering drug is misleading to say the least. Promoting this as 'mental health awareness' is a fraud."

FACT VS FICTION: Facts parents are not usually told on May 4 include:

• Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist and author of Prozac Backlash, says, "…the symptoms [of depression] are subjective emotional states, making the diagnosis extremely vague." Patients respond to questions such as "I get tired for no reason," "I have trouble sleeping at night," "I notice that I am losing weight," "I feel down-hearted and blue." "Each item has a numerical score...While assigning a number to a patient's depression may look scientific, when one examines the questions asked and the scales used, they are utterly subjective measures… Any attempt to help patients understand themselves and to effect real change is lost in the rush to diagnose and medicate them."

• The warning signs for "depression" that psychiatric front organizations assert include symptoms that could be caused by poor or incorrect diet, toxic poisoning, poor teaching methods or failure to teach the child how to study; and even drugs already prescribed to the child.

• Telling a parent that depression is the result of a chemical imbalance is a lie. "One cannot measure serotonin in the brain of any patient….," says Dr. Glenmullen. The initial SSRI was initially tested on smashed up rat brains, put into test tubes, and injected with a drug: "This is where the hypothesis of a serotonin imbalance comes from: extrapolating to human beings from test tube studies of blenderized rat brains. Obviously, this is faulty logic, pseudoscience again."

• The FDA's warning is the first time it has acknowledged that the suicidal risk could be caused by Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor antidepressants (SSRIs) rather than blaming the person's "mental disorder."

• Seven out of 12 school shooters were taking antidepressants or stimulants known to cause violent or suicidal reactions.

• The FDA's advisory also stated, "Anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia (severe restlessness), hypomanania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants…both psychiatric and non-psychiatric."

• Dr. Glenmullen adds that antidepressants could explain the rash of school shootings and mass-suicides over the last decade. People who take antidepressants could "become very distraught….They feel like jumping out of their skin. The irritability and impulsivity can make people suicidal or homicidal."

• Dr. David Healy, director of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine says: "What is very, very clear is that people do become hostile on the drugs."

• Psychiatrists and organizations that support the mass screening of children for "mental disorders" have opposed parents having right to be free of coercion when making a decision about a child's treatment. Last May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Child Medication Safety Act last May by a landslide vote of 425 - 1. The bill, which prevents school personnel from coercing parents into placing their children on psychiatric drugs, was introduced into the Senate in July. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) and pharmaceutically funded psychiatric "front" groups have opposed the bill, while supporting the mass screening of schoolchildren for so-called mental disorders.

• The APA's The Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which lists the symptoms of psychiatric "disorders," was voted by an international psychiatric conference as among the top 10 worst psychiatric texts of the millennium. Journalist John Leo in an article on the DSM, said, "The DSM is converting nearly all life's stresses and bad habits into mental disorders...Psychiatrists are free to declare as many people disordered as they wish. But the effort and the concepts behind this are seeping deep into the culture, reinforcing the victim industry and teaching us to look for psychiatric answers to every social and personal problem."

"Parents need the other side of the story, which is why CCHR's website, www.fightforkids.com, should be viewed to see what other options are available to them," said Eastgate.

CCHR was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and has since been successfully investigating psychiatric abuses and bringing them to civil, criminal and legislative account.