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Psychiatric Stigma - Legitimizing Abuse, Degradation and Death

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"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 subscribe 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

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Jeanyne Wanner is a freelance writer and activist living in Florida jeanynewanner@netscape.net
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