The “Institutional Corruption” of Psychiatry: A Conversation with Authors of Psychiatry Under the Influence

We present at this link an interview with the authors of Psychiatry Under the Influence

Here's a snippet

Bruce Levine: Psychiatry Under the Influence attempts to understand psychiatry’s denial and refusal to accept blame for its failures. So, for example, Ronald Pies, editor-in-chief of Psychiatric Times, refuses to blame psychiatry for the dissemination of the disproven chemical imbalance theory of mental illness (which fueled the dramatic rise of antidepressant use). Pies claims that the chemical imbalance theory “was always a kind of urban legend—never seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists,” and he blames Americans’ widespread belief in it on drug companies. You attribute much of psychiatry’s denial and evasion of responsibility to “cognitive dissonance theory”—can you speak about this?

Robert Whitaker: Again, this is part of the “institutional corruption” lens we were using to study the institution of psychiatry and its behavior. The assumption is that individuals within the institution can’t see that their behavior has been corrupted by “economies of influence.” And so, when those outside the institution begin pointing out the corruption in it, those within it may construct a narrative that protects their self-image. In this case, psychiatrists need to protect their image as honest researchers and as physicians who put the interests of their patients first. Cognitive dissonance theory reveals that there are a myriad of ways that people protect themselves in this manner.

We can see that cognitive dissonance quite clearly in Ronald Pies’ claim that the “chemical imbalance” theory was always a kind of urban legend. The fact that psychiatrists, for a long period of time, regularly told patients that the drugs fix chemical imbalances in the brain represented a fundamental betrayal of those patients. So once the chemical imbalance story fell apart publicly, what does Pies do? Does he admit, even in his own mind, that psychiatrists told this false story to patients for decades? No, he says well-informed psychiatrists never said it, and places the blame on the pharmaceutical companies for telling that false story. Pies makes this argument even though it is easy to document that the leaders of the APA often told this chemical imbalance story to the public, and that, even today, many prominent psychiatrists serve on advisory boards of patient advocacy groups that continue to tell it to the public.

Lisa Cosgrove: One of my favorite quotes is by Carol Tavris: “Mistakes were made, but not by me.” None of us are immune to cognitive dissonance. It is part of the human condition to have implicit biases and remain blissfully ignorant of them.

Worth the read

My son died in a mental health facility. If we keep protecting dangerous hospitals, he won’t be the last.

From the Washington Post. Full article at the link

On Nov. 23, I received the call no parent wants to get – my only son was dead. My beautiful, 24-year-old boy was gone. It is a nightmare I have yet to wake up from; one I will never wake up from.

I could barely hear the words from the other end of the line; my cries were drowning them out. I was driving when I received the call, and had to pull over to call my son’s father. Then I had to drive home to deliver the news to my daughter, Paris. How I made it home without getting in a wreck is a mystery to me.

Two-and-a-half months prior, my ex-husband, Kristoff St. John, and I had placed our son, Julian, at Telecare’s La Casa Mental Health Rehabilitation Center in Long Beach, Calif. on a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold. Julian had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was 17 and had become suicidal while off his medication and on a powerful substance – meth. The staff upgraded him to a 14-day hold, and then lengthened it again for an indefinite period, to give him adequate time to get off of meth.

Like many parents of children with mental health issues, our goal was to find help for our son who suffers from a horrific illness for which there is no cure. We knew that, with proper medication and therapy, Julian had a chance of living a comfortable life. So we sought help from Los Angeles County’s Department of Mental Health, which referred us to Telecare’s facility. The county says it pays Telecare $17 million per year to contract 190 beds at La Casa. We had hoped that the facility would help him withdraw from meth and get back on his meds, and that within the year, Julian would come home – alive.

But we made a fatal mistake placing our son in the care of La Casa, one of many mental health facilities in this country that contracts with state and local governments. Like many before him, Julian didn’t make it out alive.

Of course, the problem is that these people are trusted to do things the are not capable of doing.

Active Shooters and Psychotropic Drugs

Taken from the much larger article which is a book review of "Active Shooters and Psychotropic Drugs SSRI’s" by Chris Grollnek and Chris Magee. Without quoting the full review, all we really need to is to cite this list of deaths and "the coincidence" of all these shooting associated with psychiatric drugs.

• Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public.
• Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.
• Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.
• Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.
• Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.
• Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days.
• Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.
• Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.
• A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his school.
• Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded..
• A young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another.
• Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others.
• TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates.
• Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat.
• James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers.
• Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania
• Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon, California
• Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.
• Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman.
• Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic’s file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.
• Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.
• Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants.
• Alex Kim, age 13, hung himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled.
• Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself.
• Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family’s Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July 2002.
• Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung herself from a hook in her closet. Kara’s parents said “…. the damn doctor wouldn’t take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil…”)
• Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002, (Gareth’s father could not accept his son’s death and killed himself.)
• Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her family’s detached garage.
• Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet.
• Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill.
• Woody __, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness symptoms.
• A boy from Houston, age 10, shot and killed his father after his Prozac dosage was increased.
• Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and “other drugs for the conditions.”
• Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine.
• Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system.
• Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.
• Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.
• Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his New York high school.

Owners of local mental health clinics face fraud charges

As Reported in the Philadelphia Business Journal

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania filed a civil health care fraud lawsuit Monday, under the False Claims Act, against an Allentown husband and wife and their network of mental health centers funded largely by Medicaid and Medicare.

The lawsuit names Melchor Martinez and Melissa Chlebowski, both of Allentown, as defendants and their businesses: Northeast Community Mental Health Centers in Philadelphia; Lehigh Valley Community Mental Health Centers in Allentown, Easton and Bethlehem; and North Carolina Community Mental Health Centers in Raleigh, N.C.

The complaint notes Martinez was convicted of Medicaid fraud in 2000 and, as a result, was excluded from participating in all federally funded health care programs including Medicaid and Medicare. The exclusion prohibited Martinez from owning, managing or receiving payments from any federally funded health care provider.

The lawsuit alleges that in spite of the exclusion, Martinez, assisted by his wife Chlebowski, continued to own and operate the Northeast and Lehigh Valley clinics, and that, in 2009, while his exclusion was ongoing, he started up the North Carolina clinic in Raleigh.

The complaint also says the clinics billed Medicaid for psychiatrist visits “of very brief duration, sometimes as little as two to three minutes, while fraudulently representing that patients were being seen for a 15 minute visit.”

The Northeast and Lehigh Valley clinics allegedly billed Medicaid and Medicare for the services of “therapists” who were not qualified to provide mental health services, and fraudulently billed Medicare for therapy services allegedly provided without the required supervision.

The complaint did not specify the damages being sought by the government.

The matter was investigated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, with assistance from the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General and the North Carolina Department of Justice.

Another ethics scandal for the University of Minnesota Dept. of Psychiatry

From a Report on Fox 9 News Video available at the link

The University of Minnesota has another ethics scandal on its hands. And once again it involves the Department of Psychiatry. This latest case of research misconduct involves falsifying records.

Dr. Ken Winters is a Psychologist who has worked at the U of M for 26 years. He was about to begin a new study for the National Institute on Drug Abuse on ways to stop teenagers from taking drugs, but before proceeding, a University review board wanted Winters to get something in writing from the federal government.

It would have been a legal document that would protect researchers from having to disclose confidential information about study participants should those participants ever get into trouble with the law. Winters told the Fox 9 Investigators he got tired of waiting for the paperwork to arrive so he falsified his own version and turned it in to the University so the study could begin.

He declined an on camera interview but agreed to have his voice recorded.

"Poor judgement on my part," Winters said. "It was a terrible thing I did, so I have no real explanation. I've got no defense. My own stupidity, poor judgement."

Winters also said within hours of turning in the phony documents, he fessed up after being approached by concerned staff members. His misconduct is yet another slam for the school's Department of Psychiatry.

Earlier this spring, a legislative audit, prompted by a Fox 9 Investigation, found serious ethical concerns and conflicts of interest relating to the death of a research participant in a Psych Department drug trial.

"It is a serious ethical breach. It is another indication that there are issues and problems in the drug trials at the University Department of Psychiatry that need attention," Legislative Auditor Jim Nobles said.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse told the Fox 9 Investigators "it takes allegations of research misconduct seriously." But wouldn't comment on what, if anything, it’s doing about this case.

Winters said he hasn't been disciplined by the University for falsifying the document. Instead, he was given the option to retire at the end of the month.

Former Psychiatrist Sentenced for Child Sex Crimes

A Report from WNEP

Michael Kessler was sentenced to state prison Friday for trying to lure a 13-year-old boy to meet him for sex back in 2013.

“Michael, why did you tell the court you're sorry? Are you sorry you got caught? Or are you sorry you did it?" Newswatch 16 asked Kessler. He had no response.

Former psychiatrist Michael Kessler of Cresco is headed to a state prison after his sentencing in Monroe County Court. Kessler admits trying to lure a 13-year-old by to meet him and engage in sexual activity, sending him child porn and more. The boy’s mother says she’s glad Kessler will be behind bars.

"It caused a lot of anxiety not knowing and knowing that he knew where I lived and was my friend and he targeted my son,” said the boy’s mother Janet VanHorn.

That mother says she monitors her children’s phones and Facebook accounts. Two years ago she caught Kessler posing online as a 14-year old boy and turned the case over to Monroe County Detectives.

"She paid attention. She caught it early. She was on top of things and she took the right steps,” said Detective Brian Webbe of the Monroe County Detective Office.

Kessler worked at Pocono Psychiatric Associates near Marshalls Creek before his license was revoked in 2012. Prosecutors say Kessler was arrested four other times for sexual incidents in Massachusetts and New Jersey without facing jail time.

"It makes you angry because all these years he thought he was above the law. It made me want to fight even harder to make sure he faced punishment,” said VanHorn.

Now Kessler faces a year and a half to five years behind bars. And this mother of two has a message for other parents after a long tough two years waiting for justice.

“Parents need to be aware that they need to keep up on your social media you need to check your kids' phones and their Facebook. You need to be on top of it all because if you're not, Lord knows what could have happened,” said VanHorn.

State of Conneticut Reaches False Claims Act Settlement with Providers at Children's Behavioral Health Clinic

From this Conneticut Attorney General Press Release.

A social worker and a doctor will pay a total of $120,000 to Connecticut's Medical Assistance Program (CMAP) through settlement agreements that resolve civil allegations involving the filing of false and fraudulent claims for payments at a Branford-based outpatient behavioral health clinic for children, Attorney General George Jepsen said today.

The state alleged that David M. Meyers, a licensed clinical social worker and former president of Cornerstones P.C., located in Branford, hired Dr. W. Blake Taggart to be the medical director of Cornerstones through an independent contractor agreement. Cornerstones' provider agreement with the state Department of Social Services (DSS) for participation in CMAP – which is the state's Medicaid program – required that the clinic comply with all applicable regulations. The state Department of Children and Families (DCF), which licenses and regulates outpatient psychiatric clinics for children, required Cornerstones to have a medical director. As part of Meyers' effort to maintain his clinic's enrollment in the CMAP beginning in January 2010, the DSS required an updated letter representing that Cornerstones continued to have a medical director overseeing care.

The state alleged that Dr. Taggart resigned as the clinic's medical director in September 2009, but two months later Meyers falsely stated in the letter to DSS that Dr. Taggart remained as the clinic's medical director. The state alleged that Dr. Taggart facilitated this misrepresentation by signing the false, back dated letter to DSS.

[...]

Psychiatric Drugs Are False Prophets With Big Profits - Psychiatry has been hijacked

From a column in Psychiatry Today by Robert Berezin M.D. While I do not think that psychotherapy is very workable, his criticism of psychiatry is spot on.

Once again, I just finished another consultation with someone from out of state who was desperate to find a therapist who he could talk to. He didn’t want to be pigeon holed into some DSM-5 reductionistic diagnosis. He didn’t want psychiatric drugs. He was desperate to find a psychiatrist who would understand him, who he could relate to, and could treat him with real psychotherapy. There should never have been a reason for me to consult with anyone from out of state. Unfortunately, the cynical and fraudulent takeover of psychiatry is all but complete. How many real psychiatrists are left?

How did this happen? Over the course of my career, I kept my head down and devoted myself to my craft, psychotherapy. I was certainly aware of the collusion between the APA and the drug companies. But as recently as ten years ago, I honestly did not know that things had really deteriorated this far.

Apparently, Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman and other like-minded psychiatrists, decided that psychoanalysis had too much power, and they wanted to transform the APA once again to the tenets of somatic psychiatry. The underling theory of somatic psychiatry is that the source of human struggle is considered to be the brain itself, rather than the person.

Treatments that follow from this simplistic, mechanistic, and reductionist notion have been to act directly on the brain, always with violating and destructive outcomes.

Somatic psychiatry originated with seizure therapy, or its first modern incarnation, insulin shock therapy (IST). It actually had its roots in the sixteenth century and was used psychiatrically around the time of the American Revolution. It was refined in 1927 into insulin shock therapy, when insulin was used to induce seizures as a treatment for drug addiction, psychopathy, and schizophrenia, with claims of a 50 percent remission rate. Papers were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, starting in 1937. IST was widely used through the 1940s and 1950s. Its founding etiological principle was the (false) idea that seizures were the opposite of schizophrenia. Induce a seizure, and you balance out psychosis. In the 1930s, a more refined scientific explanation was developed for the (phantom) curative power of seizures. Its science proclaimed that psychiatric problems came from the autonomic nervous system. IST was said to work by blocking the nerve cells of the parasympathetic nervous system, thereby intensifying their tonus and strengthening their anabolic force. This restored the nerve cell, and the patient recovered. The corollary theory was that patients were jolted out of their psychiatric condition.

Next, we have lobotomies, originally called leucotomies. Lobotomies came onto the scene in the 1930s, having been invented and promoted by Antonio Egas Moniz. When I was a psychiatric resident, lobotomies were still fresh in psychiatric memory. The practice had only ceased in the early 1960s, after over twenty thousand people received this “treatment.” Let’s see … what was the science? The source of psychiatric problems was located in the brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex. The treatment of choice, then, was to ream out the prefrontal cortex with an ice pick. Respected MDs had a miracle cure and were the vanguard of the field. Science proved that lobotomies cured not only schizophrenia but anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, obsessive/compulsive disorder, and the unwanted behavioral problems associated with mental retardation (this is code for sexual behaviors). It was respected and celebrated in the psychiatric literature and validated in journals with documented studies and peer-reviewed scientific evidence. Lest you think this is an exaggeration, Moniz won a Nobel Prize in 1949 for his great and wonderful discovery.

Eventually, the validating follow-ups were shown to be fabricated and deluded, with self-promoting lies and half truths. Only after a great deal of harm were they debunked. And the ice picks were thrown into the trash heap of psychiatric history. We need to add that after lobotomies gradually attenuated, no one stopped and said, “What in the world did we just do?” How could sticking an ice pick in someone’s brain ever have been even a remote consideration? What was going on that such a grotesque medieval mutilation was actually adopted as a good thing to do? And how could it have been publicly and professionally embraced? However, as always seems to happen, amnesia quickly set in, and we forgot the brutal inhumanity that was so recently celebrated. And the considerable body of discredited scientific validation was never scrutinized for its contribution to and for having promoted such harm. Instead, science moved on to support the next somatic treatment in exactly the same way.

Next, we have electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), which came along soon after IST, in 1938. ECT was still a part of the curriculum in my own psychiatric residency in 1971. Entire psychiatric hospitals, built exclusively for ECT, were still operating, with no empty beds. Scientific studies and respected journals provided documented validation for placing electrodes on patients’ heads and applying huge jolts of electricity to generate seizures. Apparently, the jolt theory had gained traction. So we shocked the brain, instead of reaming it out. How humane. In addition to everything else, ECT also was touted as a cure for depression. It was allegedly proved that ECT was a safe, effective cure, with few, if any, drawbacks. The resultant memory loss not only was initially downplayed but was trumpeted as being therapeutic. (By the way, drugs are being developed today to chemically erase memories with the idea that this is therapeutic for trauma—same thing.) Later, under public pressure, ECT was refined to cut down on memory loss. The history of electroconvulsive therapy followed the same trajectory as lobotomies. Eventually, ECT showed itself to be the ineffective and violating practice that it is. But don’t get overconfident. Incredibly, in recent years, ECT has made a comeback and is being promoted once again, when its progeny treatments, antidepressants, don’t work.

Finally, we come the current incarnation of somatic psychiatry - neurobiological psychiatry, and its so-called treatment—drugs. Psychiatric drugs are next in the lineage of “treatments” whose focus is to act upon the physical brain. History is repeating itself.

Our contemporary science has now apparently proven that human problems come from genetic or developmental neurobiological disorders of the physical, anatomical, biochemical brain. The somatic treatments for these neurobiological, genetic, synaptic hormonal neurotransmitter diseases are brain drugs—psychoactive drugs.

In one generation, the APA, in collusion with the drug companies have destroyed psychiatry. The American Public has been sold a bill of goods.

People actually believe that human struggle is a brain disease. It is now taken as fact that there is a chemical imbalance in the brain and psychoactive drugs is just what the doctor ordered. We can now cure biological depression with antidepressants; biological anxiety with benzodiazepines; the fictitious ADHD with, of all things, amphetamines; insomnia with benzodiazepines, and other bizarre psychoactive drugs; Likewise the belief is that schizophrenia and manic-depression should be treated with drugs [...]

Houston Hospital Leaders Sentenced to 45 Years in Prison for Alarming Psychiatric Fraud Scheme

Details of the fraud allegations against Riverside General Hospital executives

The bulk of the Medicare and Medicaid fraud allegations against Gibson, et al. center around Riverside’s psychiatric facilities, which are classified by the government as a “partial hospitalization program” (PHP) A PHP is technically an outpatient treatment facility, but is geared toward the round-the-clock care required for patients enduring a severe mental illness. Under government guidelines, mental health patients receiving care at a PHP must be routinely seen by a psychiatrist, guided through a care plan, and carefully monitored throughout the course of treatment.

According to the allegations, Riverside collected more than $158 million in funds from Medicare and Medicaid on behalf of PHP patients who rarely, if ever, saw a psychiatrist for their illnesses. Moreover, Riverside regularly billed the government for psychiatric services that were never rendered, mostly because the patients were in the advanced stages of dementia and unable to participate in the treatment.

Patient care aside, Riverside is also accused of offering kickbacks and financial incentives to executives group homes, as well as recruiters tasked with increasing referrals of mental health patients to Riverside’s facilities.

In addition to the three main participants listed above, six other individuals recently pled guilty to conspiring with Gibson to bring in the maximum number of Medicare and Medicaid clientele.

According to a statement by the U.S. Attorney General’s Office, “The former President of Houston’s Riverside hospital, his son, and their co-conspirators saw mentally ill, elderly, and disabled Medicare beneficiaries as commodities to be turned into profit centers – not as vulnerable individuals in need of health care….Rather than providing needed medical care to a historically underserved community, the defendants ran a longstanding hospital into the ground through their greed and fraud. According to the evidence presented at trial, the defendants had patients sit around the facility watching movies while they received no treatment. Meanwhile, the defendants billed Medicare more than $158 million for care that was never provided. This brazen fraud cannot and will not be tolerated.”

See Also

Department of Justice Press Release, “Former President of Riverside General Hospital Sentenced to 45 Years in Prison in $158 Million Medicare Fraud.” June 9, 2015.

The Devious Matrix Called Psychiatry

A new Blog entry by Jon Rappaport entitled The Devious Matrix Called Psychiatry

A very long article well worth the read. Here's the intro

“Psychiatry does more than define mental disorders. It purports to describe actual states of mind, and it coalesces and freezes those descriptions in such a way that people believe these states of mind exist. They don’t. They’re fictions. Fantasies. This is an enormous landscape of consciousness-programming. It’s actually reduction. Like many systems before it, psychiatry tries to reduce the possibilities of wide-ranging free consciousness. Throughout history, people have always been afraid of mind freedom. ‘What will people with free minds do?’ ‘What will society become if people’s minds are free?’ I can tell you: society would change radically, right down to its foundations.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)

Over the past 30 years, my work has always returned to freedom of the individual.

Not only Constitutional freedom and Bill-of-Rights freedom, but liberation of the power of individual thought and imagination and invention. Because those qualities are unpredictable, open-ended, and limitless. This is where long-term revolution begins.

So naturally, I’ve investigated the premier “science” that claims to have the best understanding of the mind: psychiatry.

I was neither surprised nor shocked to discover that psychiatry is a fraud, a pseudoscience.

Yet, this “science” is accorded special treatment and licensure and favored status by governments around the world. Why? Because untold numbers of patients can be diagnosed and drugged with highly toxic substances, and even held against their will in closed wards. Dissidents can be contained. Whole populations can be convinced they are either “mentally healthy” or “mentally ill,” as if those two fictional categories described some highly significant status.

If psychiatry were merely recognized as an experimental hypothesis, and so-called professionals diagnosed one another and applied labels to one another and drugged one another, in order to assess the outcome, as any scientist would, before subjecting the public to his idiosyncratic notions…well, fine. I could understand that.

But of course, this is not where we find ourselves. Psychiatrists are considered lofty authorities. They are called as expert witnesses in criminal trials. Then can, in many cases, arbitrarily force their will on patients. They are called upon by media to render their analyses. They occupy sanctified chairs at universities.

So…with that introduction, let me present information which has not been broadly communicated to the public.

During A Raid on A Psych Hospital, The FBI has a hard time getting Pizza Delivery

Although everyone thinks of this as a joke, it has been verified by Snopes as a real event

FBI agents conducted a "search and seizure" at the Southwood Psychiatric Hospital in San Diego, which was under investigation for medical insurance fraud. After hours of poring over many rooms of financial records, some sixty FBI agents worked up quite an appetite. The case agent in charge of the investigation called a local pizza parlor with delivery service to order a quick dinner for his colleagues.

The following telephone conversation took place:

Agent: Hello. I would like to order nineteen large pizzas and sixty-seven cans of soda.
Pizza man: And where would you like them delivered?
Agent: To the Southwood Psychiatric Hospital.
Pizza man: To the psychiatric hospital?
Agent: That's right. I'm an FBI agent.
Pizza man: You're an FBI agent?
Agent: That's correct. Just about everybody here is.
Pizza man: And you're at the psychiatric hospital?
Agent: That's correct. And make sure you don't go through the front doors. We have them locked. You'll have to go around to the back to the service entrance to deliver the pizzas.
Pizza man: And you say you're all FBI agents?
Agent: That's right. How soon can you have them here?
Pizza man: And you're over at Southwood?
Agent: That's right. How soon can you have them here?
Pizza man: And everyone at Southwood is an FBI agent?
Agent: That's right. We've been here all day and we're starving.
Pizza man: How are you going to pay for this?
Agent: I have my check book right here.
Pizza man: And you are all FBI agents?
Agent: That's right, everyone here is an FBI agent. Can you remember to bring the pizzas and sodas to the service entrance in the rear? We have the front doors locked.
Pizza man: I don't think so.

Click.

As Snopes explains:

Origins: The above-quoted tale about FBI agents trying to arrange for pizza delivery to a psychiatric hospital is one of those pieces that serves to remind us that no matter how bizarre, far-fetched, or incredible a story may seem at first glance, it should never be entirely discounted without at least some effort being made to verify it.

This anecdote began circulating on the Internet in 1995, often attributed to a "Center for Strategic and International Studies report on GLOBAL ORGANIZED CRIME" or "a talk by R. James Woolsey, Director of Central Intelligence, given at a conference on global organized crime." We initially reproduced it on our site with no judgment as to its truth or falsity, expecting that it would eventually be revealed as a work of creative fiction by some Internet prankster. To be thorough, we sent a routine inquiry to the FBI's San Diego office about the story and then promptly forgot about it, assuming that the FBI had much better things to do than spend their time debunking silly tales spread via e-mail.

We were quite surprised, therefore, when several weeks later we received a response from FBI Special Agent Wayne A. Barnes, who confirmed for us that the incident described was real and supplied us with additional background detail about it.

In 1993, the FBI was assisting the Department of Health and Human Services in investigating health care fraud. A medical organization that operated psychiatric hospitals in nine different cities had come under suspicion, and law enforcement agencies had scheduled coordinated raids on all nine of those facilities to take place on the same day (so that none of the hospitals could alert the others). The unexpectedly high volume of records seized in a morning raid on the Southwood Psychiatric Hospital in Chula Vista, California, meant that the investigation there turned into an all-day affair. When the agent in charge of the operation realized his men were running on empty after long hours with no food, he attempted to order pizza from a local delivery outfit, placing the call now immortalized in this piece. Contrary to what is stated in most versions of this piece, though, the FBI was not taping all of the hospital's calls that day; the conversation reproduced above was reconstructed from the memories of agents present at the event.

And yes, the FBI men did get their pizzas, but the food was not delivered to the hospital — several agents had to drive over to the restaurant and pick up their pies.

ABC15 Investigation: AZ mental hospital fails to investigate, protect patients from sex abuse

ABC15 TV has been investigating the Arizona State Hospital, and here is the tip of a very big iceberg. There is much more in the original and related reports. What we share below is merely a highlight.

The Arizona State Hospital has failed to protect vulnerable patients from sex abuse and dangerous sexual activity; and in several cases, officials have failed to investigate serious allegations, according to a two-year ABC15 investigation.

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The ABC15 Investigators reviewed thousands of pages of hospital, police and court records to compile a list of sex crime allegations at the Arizona State Hospital. By cross-referencing the records, ABC15 was also able to identify repeat offenders and victims.

From 2012 through 2014, we found: 

• There were 63 allegations of sex crimes, including rape, sex abuse and molestation.
• ASH investigated 24 of those allegations.
• ABC15 could only confirm 10 allegations resulted in reports with Arizona Adult Protective Services (APS) or law enforcement.

State law states that APS or a peace officer be notified immediately if there’s a “reasonable basis to believe that abuse or neglect of the adult has occurred.”

But several hospital sources have told ABC15 incidents go unreported, and they fear retaliation if they do report incidents outside of ASH.

“Staff has been basically threatened that if they do contact APS that repercussions will happen,” said one hospital source. “It goes unreported because staff is in fear of their jobs.”

Unreported allegations and crimes by healthcare officials can be a serious matter.

Arizona State Hospital has a long history of problems, it is a target rich environment for investigators Here are some of the Videos related to this report

Bangor psychiatrist ordered to stop treating women

As reported by the Bangor Daily News

A Bangor psychiatrist must stop treating women after allegedly developing an unprofessional relationship with a female patient, according to a state medical licensing board.

Dr. Fred Risser may treat only men and must submit to independent monitoring of his practice to ensure he meets prescribing and recordkeeping standards, his May 12 consent agreement with the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine states.

While a 30-year-old female was his patient in 2009 and 2010, Risser drove the woman to the pharmacy in his personal vehicle, advocated for her while she was in jail, deposited money into her jail bank account, stored her personal property at his home and allowed her access to his home while he was away, according to the agreement. Risser treated the patient at his private practice in Bangor and at Community Health and Counseling Services in Ellsworth.

In June 2013, Risser met with the licensing board and agreed to take classes in boundaries and professionalism, medical ethics, recordkeeping and the use of medications to treat psychiatric disorders. He also agreed to transfer the patient to another psychiatrist, the agreement states.

In April 2014, Community Health and Counseling warned Risser about prescribing tranquilizers to patients on opioid replacement medications, a combination that raises the risk of overdose and death.

Then in May 2014, a 51-year-old patient he treated in Ellsworth told the board Risser slapped her on the buttocks while escorting her up the stairs to an appointment.

Community Health and Counseling fired Risser in May 2014 for unprofessional conduct, according to the agreement. In signing the consent agreement, Risser neither admitted nor denied the allegations but acknowledged the board had enough evidence to determine the alleged incidents occurred if the issue were to proceed to a formal hearing. He must reimburse the board $4,344 for the cost of the investigation.

In other words, he did it.

The Psychiatric & Mental Health Rape Reporter says that up to 25% of psychiatrists & psychologists use their patients for sex.

"How dare you?"

An important column by activist Nancy Rubenstein del Giudice on the Mad in America Website

Here is a large snippet from the article

I am grateful to Phil Hickey and Robert Whitaker for challenging Jeffrey Lieberman in the manner they did, because, at this point my response to him is more of an emotional one and it can best be summed up this way; "How dare you?"

Dr. Lieberman, how dare you suggest that you should not have to endure critical examination? In case you missed the college experience, anthropology is all about looking at cultures and their institutions, and since your profession has sought to redefine what it means to be human, anthropologists have an absolute duty to examine that endeavor.

I am not sure what country you think you live in, but this is the one that celebrates freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and the New York Times is not here to protect your profession or any other.

How dare you ignore the thousands of people who have been harmed by psychiatric drugs and diagnostic lies over the last several decades. If you and your colleagues were the least bit concerned about people and society you would by now have mounted a full-scale investigation into hospital and physician records to find all the people who were told they had a "chemical imbalance" and needed to take psychiatric drugs for the rest of their lives, like a diabetic takes insulin. Dr. Pies' well known assertion that this is only propagated by "uninformed" psychiatrists is belied by the fact that these "uninformed" psychiatrists run hospital psych wards all over the country.

You would find all the people who had an adverse reaction to an SSRI and were told this had "unmasked an underlying illness," and were then put on polypharmacy cocktails leading to disability. That would be the responsible thing to do. But car manufacturers make changes for public safety, and they are not "well-educated professionals" who have sworn to "Do no harm."

How dare you call Robert Whitaker a menace to society? The real menace to society is a profession that has knowingly lied for decades to vulnerable people for profit, and refuses to take responsibility for the harm done.

For the past five years that I have worked for The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, I have known over a thousand individuals who have literally lost everything because they are disabled after withdrawal from SSRIs, benzodiazapines, "mood stabilizers," and neuroleptics prescribed for sleep. They are a burden to their families, unable to qualify for disability because the medical profession refuses to learn and continues to deny the reality of their iatrogenic suffering.

How dare you ignore these young people whose twenties have been ripped away from them? As they suffer for years, unable even to leave the house, they watch their peers build families and careers and enjoy their youth. Any responsible group of people, instead of digging their heels in and denying this is happening would be diving in first to learn, and then to help. Because people matter. Because doctors are suppose to care about patients. Instead, we have a public health epidemic of iatrogenesis.

Queensland Health psychiatrist accused of having bogus qualifications

A Report from ABC News (Australian Broadcast Co)

A hearing has begun into a former Queensland Health psychiatrist who worked as a doctor with allegedly bogus medical qualifications.

Vincent Victor Berg was employed as a psychiatrist at the Townsville General Hospital's mental health unit between July 1999 and January 2002. Concerns about the authenticity of the Russian-born migrant's medical qualifications only came to light during the Tony Morris led Health Inquiry in 2005. Berg is facing 22 charges including 10 counts of uttering, six counts of fraud, five counts of attempted fraud and one count of forgery.

During the first day of the committal hearing in the Southport Magistrates Court, arresting officer Detective Sergeant Steven Bignell said Berg sent allegedly fake psychiatric qualifications from the Voronezh University in Russia to the Australian Medical Council.

The sergeant told the court he travelled to Russia to speak with staff at the university and was told they did not offer a psychiatric course in 1977 when Berg claimed to have studied there. The detective tendered a letter from the Russian university that stated Berg's qualifications were a "crude forgery". Berg's Queensland Health photographic identification card was also tendered to the court showing he was employed in the Townsville Hospital as a medical registrar.

The Russian migrant was charged by police in 2009 and it has taken six years for the matter to progress to the committal hearing stage. The long delay has been due in part to Berg previously representing himself and seeking a number of adjournments. Legal Aid stepped in late last week and the defendant is now being represented by criminal lawyer, Michael Gatenby.

The hearing continues.

Psychiatrist Dr. William Lewek given max sentence for burying body in his own back yard

Taken from a Report From the Democrat and Chronicle. there is more informtion and a video at this link.

Monroe County Court Judge Christopher S. Ciaccio cited Arendt on Friday as he sentenced a Rochester psychiatrist to up to four years in prison for burying a body in a Park Avenue neighborhood backyard.

While William Lewek has numerous substance abuse and physical and mental health issues, Ciaccio said, none of those are adequate explanation for why he kept Matthew Straton's body hidden for nearly three months, even as police and increasingly frantic family and friends looked for him.

Instead, Lewek "simply put his needs and fears above others'," Ciaccio said as he gave Lewek the maximum sentence on the felony charge of tampering with physical evidence.

That physical evidence was the body of 32-year-old Straton, who died in October 2013 at Lewek's Rowley Street house and who Lewek then dragged outside and buried. The county Medical Examiner's Office was never able to ascertain what killed Straton, though during sentencing Friday there were numerous references to it very likely being of a drug overdose.

"Matt had been thrown out like a bag of garbage," Straton's mother, Kym, told the court prior to sentencing, as she described the family's frantic efforts to try to find him for more than two months. "I have nightmares of what Matt looked like when he finally was discovered."

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We also have this video from the initial arrest

Dr Peter Gøtzsche exposes big pharma as organized crime (Youtube Video)

Enyinnaya Ezema, Canadian (formerly UK) Psychiatrist, charged with assault, loses license

According to CBC News

Dr. Enyinnaya Ezema has been charged with assault stemming from an incident on Dec. 16, said Const. Ken MacDonald of the New Glasgow Regional Police. The police responded to a call at an outpatient facility on East River Road in New Glasgow. The incident did not take place at the Aberdeen Hospital, MacDonald said.

As of April 21, Ezema is no longer licensed to practise medicine in the province. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia said Ezema cannot practise because he had a licence that was conditional on the support of a sponsor. Dr. Gus Grant, the registrar and CEO of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia, said earlier this week that Ezema’s sponsor withdrew the sponsorship. The college does not know why the sponsor withdrew, said Grant.

Legislation says the sponsor is “usually a senior physician, typically, the head of a department or chief of staff,” said Grant.

“It’s a decision entirely for the sponsor to make,” he continued. “In fact, this is a question that’s been assessed in our courts and it’s well established that a decision with respect to sponsorship resides with the individual sponsor.” Before the assault charge was revealed, CBC News contacted the Nova Scotia Health Authority in Pictou for information about why Ezema was no longer practising. They declined an interview. “The Nova Scotia Health Authority is not commenting on this suspension nor can we discuss the reasons for it,” said Eileen MacIsaac.

Ezema is due in Pictou provincial court on May 19.

The psychiatrist came to Pictou County from the United Kingdom and started his psychiatry practice in December 2012, according to a release from the local health authority at the time.

Florida Psychiatrist Mark Agresti sued over treatment of West Palm Beach woman who killed daughter and herself

Here is the Local TV WPBF News Reports



with this related report

Bradley Brooks was so concerned about his 10-year-old-daughter Alexandra, on Sept. 12, 2013, he asked the police to check the home she shared with her mother Pamela Brooks. Police went to the home located at 139 Gregory Place and found Alexandra and Pamela inside, both stabbed to death. Pamela Brooks was found with 130 self-inflicted stab wounds. Her daughter was found with 30 stab wounds. Police ruled the case a murder-suicide.

The girl's father is now suing a psychiatrist and a substance abuse counselor who were treating Pamela Brooks.

According to the lawsuit, Pamela Brooks had a lifetime of alcohol abuse. Beginning in 1999 her alcohol abuse began causing problems in her life. The lawsuit also states, Bradley Brooks filed an emergency request for custody of their daughter back in May of 2013, just weeks after her mother was arrested for DUI. The lawsuit states, Pamela Brooks was ordered to a comprehensive psychological evaluation and was seen several times by the doctor. Her next scheduled appointment was for Sept. 13, 2013. She and her daughter were found dead inside their home Sept. 12, 2013.

According to the lawsuit filed last week, Brooks doctor is accused of "Failing to clearly communicate that Pamela Brooks was at risk of inflicting harm to herself or to others," and "Failing to refer Pamela Brooks to a physician trained in the management of patients suffering from severe depression," the suit states.

Both the doctor and counselor are accused of negligence.

And as reported in the Palm Beach Post

A psychiatrist and a substance abuse counselor who were treating a West Palm Beach woman who killed herself and her 10-year-old daughter in September 2013 have been sued in connection with the deaths that stunned the community. In the lawsuit filed last week in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, family members of Pamela and Alexandra Brooks blame Dr. Mark Agresti and counselor David Dashev for the murder-suicide.

The two “knew or should have known that Pamela Brooks was at risk of inflicting harm to herself, or to others,” according to the lawsuit filed by attorney Glenn Crickenberger, who works for the Stuart law firm of famed lawyer Willie Gary. “However, (they) failed to refer Pamela Brooks to a physician trained in the management of patients suffering from severe depression.”

Brooks, 48, was found dead in the living room of her Gregory Place home with 130 self-inflicted stab wounds. The body of her daughter was found in the kitchen with 30 stab wounds, the suit says. The deaths so shocked the community that the city’s then police chief took the unusual step of calling a press conference to announce they had been ruled a murder-suicide. The grisly scene was discovered by Brooks’ ex-husband, Bradley, who broke into the home because he was concerned about his daughter, a King’s Academy student.

Dashev, former chief operations officer of the Mental Health Pavilion at what is now West Palm Hospital, declined comment on the suit. Agresti couldn’t be reached.

Pamela Brooks had been ordered to seek treatment from Agresti and Dashev by Circuit Judge Thomas Barkdull in May 2013 after Bradley Brooks filed an emergency request for custody of the couple’s daughter. The request came weeks after Pamela Brooks was arrested for driving under the influence.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Bradley Brooks and his ex-wife’s parents, Martin and Evelyn Hewson, details Pamela Brooks long struggle with alcohol abuse. It also indicates she initially responded to treatment by Agresti and Dashev. Treated daily with Antabuse, a drug designed to reduce cravings for alcohol, medical records in June and July 2013 showed she was “compliant and that her spirits were good,” the lawsuit says.

In August, the tenor of the notes changed. They indicate she had resumed drinking. Questions were raised about whether she needed residential care. “There was a discussion with Ms. Brooks regarding depression and the presence of suicidal ideation,” the suit says.

From Aug. 16 to Sept. 6, 2013, she was seen about 10 times by Agresti and Dashev. “During several of these visits Pamela described her overall condition as being characterized by anxiety and tension,” the suit states. “She described herself as feeling overwhelmed, angry and upset stemming from her DUI and all the changes in her life that the DUI has caused.” A day before her next appointment, she killed herself and her daughter.

The suit accuses Agresti and Dashev of negligence. It seeks an unspecified amount in damages.