EXTRA!

August 24, 2003

SECOND OPINION

A FAST FOR FREEDOM IN MENTAL HEALTH

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

FORCED DRUGGING: WHERE IS THE SCIENCE THAT SUPPORTS THIS POLICY?

Fourth In A Series (third HERE)

By RFD Editor, Nicholas Regush

Day Eight. The six hunger strikers in Pasadena, California, are on a liquid diet, refusing solid food for "an indefinite period of time," according to David Oaks, head of MindFreedom, the sponsoring organization. The hunger strikers want the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the National Alliance For The Mentally Ill (NAMI) and the U.S. Surgeon General to provide solid scientific evidence that "emotional and mental problems are primarily a biologically-based brain disease." So far, all they have received in way of replies is an embarrassing letter from the APA, essentially telling them to look up some introductory textbook material and NAMI’s soft-core tug-of-heart effort to co-opt them into joining its biologically-oriented psychiatric agenda.

But so far, MindFreedom has not managed to penetrate the thought field of the Office of the Surgeon General. Actually, the Surgeon General is probably doing himself a favor by hiding because MindFreedom’s 14-member scientific panel has already socked it to the APA by demonstrating that the psychiatric organization’s recommended reading list actually suggests that biological theory in psychiatry is iffy.

The hunger strike, in effect, is challenging the power of the drug industry to impose its agenda on patients, with help from organizations such as the APA. Oaks and his hunger striking colleagues are demanding what members of Congress should be demanding: produce the science that proves biological psychiatry is tenable. They say that their lives, minds, and communities are far more complex than causation theory rooted in brain biuology.

I would like to see some notable in Congress launch an investigation into just how much public money gets diverted to projects at the NIH and other government organizations that reflect strong support of the biological theory of mental illness. It’s time that the U.S. Congress showed some guts in demanding some accountability. If the science backing biological psychiatry cannot be well defended (and it cannot under careful scrutiny), then it’s time to reassess the money flow. Time to drag in some of those medical specialists that the government employs before a Congressional committee and to demand to know what ties they have to both the drug industry and to those who are joined at the hip to that industry. If anyone seriously launched an investigation in Congress to determine how much money flows down the drain each year in mental health because of bad science and how much conflict of interest is at play, I’m betting that the results would reveal one of the biggest rip-offs ever in American medicine. Of course, so far, no one in Congress has shown any will in taking on this challenge. But perhaps that deplorable situation might change.

There is, of course, a related issue, and that is forced drugging. Where is the science that supports the need to use coercion so often when it comes to the treatment of patients, as opposed to, say, offering a wide range of community-based services? In all my research on violence for a book published several years ago, I had not seen one credible study — meaning that the small amount of research done in this area is not worth a damn - showing that society has more to fear from patients labeled "mentally ill" than other people in the community. For example, there has never been any appropriate follow-up of patients that has determined whether the absence of treatment leads to violence. The very foundation of forced treatment is ideology and fear-mongering and not science.

TO BE CONTINUED