EXTRA!

August 23, 2003

SECOND OPINION

A FAST FOR FREEDOM IN MENTAL HEALTH

A hunger strike challenges international domination by biopsychiatry and the forced drugging of patients

CHOICE VS FORCED DRUGGING

Third In A Series (second HERE)

By RFD Editor, Nicholas Regush

Day Seven. David Oaks, who is on a hunger strike with five others in Pasadena, California, took a long walk today. On the phone, the head of MindFreedom, the group sponsoring the hunger strike, sounds stronger today than yesterday. That’s partly because a scientific panel assembled by MindFreedom scored big points yesterday when it evaluated a foolish response from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to the issue of whether "emotional and mental problems are primarily a biologically-based brain disease." MindFreedom wants the APA, the National Alliance For the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and the Office of the Surgeon General of the United States to defend their biopsychiatric approach to mental illness by pointing to clear-cut evidence - and not speculation, wild ideas and a mishmash of indirect suppositions - about how brain function can be altered and/or damaged resulting in specific mental diseases.

This is not a lot to ask, considering that today’s dominant psychiatric agenda is to put people it designates as "mentally ill" on powerful drugs — and by force if necessary. MindFreedom is not condemning patients who wish to proceed with drug treatment. And it is not arguing that all drug treatments fail patients. What it wants is very simple: choice and not coercion.

The problem is that psychiatry has long been in bed with the drug merchants and major medical institutions behave like greedy pigs at a trough. This should not come as a shock to anyone who knows how to follow the money in medicine. I’ve been doing that for more than 25 years as a health reporter. And my experience over the years, which includes spending a decade doing investigative and special health reports at ABC News, tells me that the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office, is generally only useful for propping up bad science and serving the medical Establishment — and not patients. If that office were to disappear overnight, most Americans wouldn’t give a damn and most wouldn’t even care to know about it.

So if MindFreedom wants the APA, NAMI and the Surgeon General’s Office to understand the concept of choice, they have a tough road ahead. For example, when NAMI was asked by MindFreedom to provide scientific evidence for the biopsychiatric agenda, the response was certainly different from that of the APA (which, if you recall, tried to ridicule the hunger strike by referring the strikers to introductory text material). NAMI didn’t come across as arrogant in the way that the APA did, but its response was an attempt to co-opt the hunger strikers. And NAMI used a favorite tactic of the bully and the Establishment Prince when its Executive Director, Rick Birkel, emphasized how so many "hundreds of thousands of people with serious mental illnesses are fighting for their lives across America." Birkel referred to the fact that many of these people live in deplorable conditions and that his group is "entirely dedicated to their correction." Then Birkel goes on to suggest that MindFreedom work with NAMI to "achieve better conditions for people with mental illnesses and better access to treatments and supports."

I’m sure Birkel means what he says. But what he means is not in line with how MindFreedom perceives the landscape — one of drug treatment dominance and increasing coercion. NAMI should stop being mute on one of the key issues in mental health — the issue of freedom to choose treatment. And NAMI, as a huge mental health organization, should be represented at the hunger strike. I find it deeply touching that Birkel offered in his reply to MindFreedom to fast with them. Of course, on his terms.

In the next part of this series, I plan to explore major arguments used by the APA, NAMI and the Office of the Surgeon General in their support of forced drugging. What these entities have done is grossly distorted the need for forced drugging and they need to be held accountable for the resulting tragedies and the incredible prejudices they have unleashed into a culture that remains all too uneasy with the idea of "mental illness."

TO BE CONTINUED