Psychiatric Abuse


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Death of 4-Year-Old Highlights US National Child Drugging Epidemic
Negligent Psychiatric Practices Called Into Question

At only 2 years old, Rebecca Riley's psychiatrist diagnosed her as bipolar and ADHD and prescribed the toddler a powerful cocktail of psychiatric drugs. Two years later, Rebecca died from the effects of these drugs—two antipsychotics and a blood pressure drug for "hyperactivity." Her tragic death, and the ensuing court case, is stirring national outrage over the increasingly common psychiatric practice of prescribing antipsychotics and other toxic drugs to young children.

Although the use of antipsychotics by children nationwide increased by 74% between 2000-2005, parents should be aware that antipsychotics (marketed under such names as Risperdal, Seroquel and Depakote) are extremely dangerous for all ages. This class of drugs has been linked to early-onset diabetes and blood sugar abnormalities. Eli Lilly, maker of the antipsychotic Zyprexa, has agreed to pay approximately $1.2 billion to settle more than 25,000 individual claims against them for diabetic side effects. Based on the known dangers of these drugs, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health watchdog group, charges that psychiatrists are negligent to prescribe these toxic drugs to children.

Dr. Robert Whitaker, author of Mad In America, stated in a FOX National News segment on Rebecca’s death, “You’re really robbing that child’s right to be when they’re on these [drugs]…There’s no medical rationale for using these powerful drugs, it doesn’t exist here.”

An increasing number of international drug regulatory agency warnings and studies now acknowledge the serious side effects of psychiatric drugs, including suicidal and homicidal behavior, psychosis, seizures, stroke, heart attack and sudden death. Despite these warnings, the drugs are prescribed to 20 million children, without any objective, scientific tests done beforehand—such as blood tests, brain scans or X-rays—that would show there is anything physically wrong with a child that needs to be “medicated.” Read CCHR's Report on the Escalating International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs to learn more about the dangers of psychiatric drugs prescribed to millions of children and adolescents.

   
 

Artists abused and destroyed by Psychiatry

Vivien Leigh: Vivien Leigh was placed in Netheren psychiatric hospital in England. There she was packed in ice as part of her “treatment” and fed raw eggs from time to time. She said of her experience, “I thought I was in an insane asylum. I thought I had to scream so that someone would help get me out.” She was subjected to repeated electroshocks. It was the first of many terrors, and one that would affect her permanently.

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Marilyn Monroe: Monroe saw New York Freudian psychiatrist Dr. Marianne Kris. Kris saw Monroe five times a week and ultimately provided her with powerful barbiturates that she abused until her death. Kris later tricked the actress into signing herself into a psychiatric ward, telling her it was for a physical workup and rest. Monroe was locked in a padded cell for two days, where she pounded the door until her fists were raw and bleeding.

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Judy Garland: Under a psychiatrist’s orders, she began the first of many stays in psychiatric hospitals. Then in 1949, not yet 27 years old, she was subjected to the violence and degradation of electroshock. And as psychiatric treatment continued to fail her totally, she was given hypnosis to “calm her nerves and help her lose weight.”

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Kurt Cobain: Increasingly crowded by the mental and physical legacy of prescribed, mind-altering drugs and ultimately street drugs, Cobain’s drug problem became critical. In desperation, wife Courtney Love and several friends enrolled Cobain in a psychiatric drug recovery center. Thirty-six hours after admission, he bolted from the program and in a small room above his garage in a quiet Seattle neighborhood, ended his life with a single shotgun blast to his head. Heroin and the addictive and potentially harmful psychiatric drug Valium were reportedly found in his bloodstream.

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