Apple
shut up and take your drugs said king dubya
Mon Aug 23, 2004 15:36
146.82.210.72

SHUT UP AND TAKE YOUR DRUGS

By Mary Starrett
August 22, 2004
NewsWithViews.com

President George W. Bush's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health is
pushing for nationwide screening based on a similar program created while he
was governor of Texas.

One of the main goals of the president's commission is to ensure "early
mental health of young children, improve and expand school mental health
programs, screen for mental disorders in primary health care, across the
life span and connect to treatment and supports."

The Bush administration, long tied in an unholy, generational alliance with
the pharmaceutical companies, hopes to pattern this massive effort to get
more Americans on drugs after the Texas Medical Algorithm Project (TMAP) in
effect since 1995. This summer the British Medical Journal, daring to do
what no U.S. publication would do, showed the connection between the
pharmaceutical industry and the dangers associated with the TMAP program.
Investigators and medical professionals were fired for calling attention to
the abuses (including patient deaths) associated with TMAP. Under TMAP it
was not unusual for some people to be placed on more than five psychiatric
drugs at once.[1]

What will happen under this national push to gain more market share for the
drug companies? As with TMAP, people refusing drugs for what are diagnosed
as a wide array of "disorders" can expect not only to be forced to take
powerful and extremely dangerous neuroleptics, but also to receive shock
treatment.

Sound like something out of "Cuckoos Nest"? Electro Convulsive Therapy or
ECT is alive and well and sparking fear in the hearts of Americans each and
every day. While you might think this Frankenstein-like "treatment" is a
relic of the dark, dank asylums of the past, think again. Forced ECT happens
here. It is an all too- often- used modality for "severely" depressed
people. And get this- virtually every state has loopholes allowing shock
therapy and drugs to be administered over the objections of the "patient".
(A note here; psychiatric professionals have long railed against the term
"person" or "consumer" when referring to those they deem to need their
"medical" attention.) Bush policy advisor on the New Freedom Commission, and
his appointee on the Center for Mental Health Services National Advisory
Council, psychiatrist Sally Satel has stated "coercive treatment" is
essential. Satel, never one to oppose giving shrinks the power to do extreme
mental makeovers on people, shows just how chilling the climate in this
administration is getting by adding there's an "overemphasis" on patient
"rights" that "people need to be protected from themselves" and that often
"coercion" is essential.[2]

Yikes.

Bush's advisor Satel adds this horrifying hint at her "Me Doctor- You
Subject" mentality when she adds: "My capacity as a physician has often been
frustrated by laws that prevent me from doing my job". This is the type of
influence that makes the president's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health
one of his worst civil and human rights abuses to date. And that's saying
something. (I wonder whether Satel (or Bush for that matter) ever read that
reference in the Bill of Rights to " the right of the people to be secure in
their persons...."?)

This plan by the Bush administration to test all Americans for "mental
illness"(just imagine all the ways that could be defined!) hasn't gone
unnoticed by those whose lives have been made "chemical hell"[3] through
forced psychiatric drugging. MindFreedom International, an umbrella group
for over 100 advocacy groups says the New Freedom Commission has got to be
stopped. They think this is nothing but a plan "cooked up" by the
pharmaceutical companies. Group director David Oakes says "we demand
President Bush start (the screening) with himself. We will provide the
mental health professional to do the screening". As a matter of fact they
have secured the professional services of just such a professional. Patch
Adams. The real one. The Virginia medical doctor who's life story was made
into a popular movie starring Robin Williams said " I'll see him for free".

The president's plan to track down people(especially kids and teens) looking
for "emotional" and "mental" problems only gets more terrifying when you add
new drug-delivery technologies to the mix.

University of Pensylvania professor and psychiatrist Steven Seigel has
developed an implant for time releasing neuroleptic, antipsychotic
medications like Haldol. The device, the size of a quarter, if approved and
marketed could replace the locked wards of the mental institutions with what
has been called a "chemical straitjacket". Imagine, added to the president's
mental health screening plan, an inch-wide implant that can deliver- for
periods up to a year- powerful mind-numbing drugs that are reported to cause
structural brain damage[4] ( Seigel was asked to implant himself with the
device and drug Haldol for a year. He reportedly just smiled and turned
away).Inherently coercive, these drugs and their time release delivery
systems eclipse even the most far-fetched mind control conspiracy theories
out there.
The implant is now being pitched to the FDA as a method of delivering the
drug Haldol. A few of Haldol's side effects include confusion,
disorientation, blurred vision, worsening glaucoma, facial tics, jitters and
drug-induced Parkinsonism.[5] It is a drug that has been described by
former(forced) users as " torture".

Implant inventor Seigel says his device is intended to "empower patients to
relieve them of the burden of having to remember to take their drugs". Why
keep this good old American ingenuity all to ourselves? The good Doc Seigel
has his sights set on selling the implant to "developing countries
worldwide." Another special American gift to the underprivileged of the
world, I suppose. And just think of the places it would go! Prisons! Daycare
Centers! Nursing Homes!

Yes, indeed, the current administration is hell-bent on funding the
ever-expanding use of mind-controlling, mind-numbing drugs. Your money will
now go to fund hundreds of millions of dollars MORE for mental health
schemes than last year's budget allowed for. [6] The American Psychiatric
Association (which, by the way just LOVES what Bush is doing with your
money!) boasts of the increase in funding which, of course , translates into
more money for them and their pharmaceutical buddies, in their July issue of
Advocacy News. The publication also mentions that the Bush administration is
"appreciative" of their efforts to quash mass media's coverage of the
negative aspects and abuses inherent in the New Freedom Commission.

I'll leave you with the words of psychiatrist-inventor Steven Seigel: "There
is still a segment of the population that has a profound mistrust of
psychiatry. We need people to understand that we are not trying to do things
to them but do things for them".

Footnotes:
1, British Medical Journal, Summer/ 2004
2, Sally Satel's First National Advisory Council Meeting/ Chamberlin,
September, 2002/mindfreedom.org
3, mindfreedom.org
4, ibid
5, worstpills.org
6, APA Advocacy News, July/ 2004
© 2004 Mary Starrett - All Rights Reserved

Mary Starrett was on television for 21 years as a news anchor, morning talk
show host and medical reporter. For the last 5 years she hosted a radio
program. Mary is a frequent guest on radio talk shows.

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This plan by the Bush administration to test all Americans for "mental
illness"(just imagine all the ways that could be defined!) hasn't gone
unnoticed by those whose lives have been made "chemical hell" through forced
psychiatric drugging.