Anti Psychiatry Protests on May First

A Press Release, as seen on the US Newswire

WHAT: Protestors Charge APA Psychiatrists with Creating Deadly Child Drugging Epidemic

-- With antidepressants Under Federal Investigation for Causing Child Suicides, Hundreds to protest the American Psychiatric Association Convention in New York City

WHEN: Saturday, May 1

WHERE: Jacob Javitz Center NYC

CONTACT: Marla Filidei at 213-798-3706

On Saturday May 1, hundreds of parents, children and human rights activists will don black T-shirts with the message, PSYCHIATRY IS KILLING YOUR CHILDREN to protest the opening of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) annual congress being held at the Jacob Javitz Center in New York City. Leading the protest will be New York mother Patty Weathers, who said parents are fed up with psychiatrists telling them that their child's behavior is a "disorder" requiring dangerous psychiatric drugs. Mrs. Weathers' own story made the front page of the New York Post in 2003, after school officials reported her to Child Protective Services, which charged her with medical neglect after removing her son from an antidepressant that she claims turned him into a "Jekyll and Hyde."

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) only recently issued warnings about antidepressant drugs' potential to increase risks of suicide, after numerous parents testified before the FDA panel on Feb 2nd that the drugs had caused their children to kill themselves. The FDA is now under federal investigation since accusations came to light that it had suppressed evidence by one of its own medical experts, who found a "statistically significant" risk of serious suicidal events among children taking the drugs.

Sales of the drugs are more than $13 billion a year, which critics say is the key factor in psychiatry and the FDA suppressing information about the dangerous side effects of the drugs. More telling is that psychiatrists mislead parents about "mental disorders" being a "brain-based disease," or "chemical imbalance" without any scientific evidence to prove this.

Subsequently:

-- Between 1995 and 1999, the use of antidepressants for 7 to 12 year olds increased 151 percent and 580 percent for children under six, with children as young as 5 committing suicide.

-- Six million children and adolescents are prescribed cocaine- like stimulants and 2 million are taking Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants.

WHERE AND WHEN:

The rally meets at Gutenberg Playground on West 49th St. between 9th and 10th, at 10 a.m. Demonstrators will march down 11th Avenue to the Jacob Javits Plaza, where the protest will continue in front of the APA convention. There will also be a DOCUMENTARY EXHIBIT, "PSYCHIATRY KILLS" in the Jacob Javits Plaza. APA members will be invited to tour the 120-foot long pictorial display, which documents a 300-year history of psychiatric abuse and failure, from electroshock and psychosurgery to the use of mind-altering psychotropic drugs.