EXTRA!

August 29, 2003

SECOND OPINION

A FAST FOR FREEDOM IN MENTAL HEALTH

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

MEDIA MINDLESSNESS

Eighth In A Series (Seventh HERE)

By RFD Editor, Nicholas Regush

Day Thirteen. The MindFreedom hunger strikers are getting the cold shoulder from U.S. print and broadcast organizations. Only a few reports have been filed. One national print piece has been promised. One television TV news anchor has indicated mild interest. But there are certainly no TV vans and reporters camped out at hunger strike headquarters in Pasadena, California.

Apparently, the issue of whether psychiatry is really capable of delivering viable treatments for most patients based on the theory that chemical imbalances in the brain can be corrected with drugs is not on the radar of too many health reporters and their editors and producers. MindFreedom thinks this is a huge issue and that the well-being of hundreds of thousands of patients is at stake. Particularly when there is forced drugging on the increase across the U.S. and neglect of other community-based treatments not requiring drugs. What they are fighting for is choice. Well, they are correct in their concerns but that’s not quite the type of agenda that is most likely to mobilize much media attention.

We live in a television culture that is glued to high sensation. I imagine the hunger strikers would get far more attention if they should show signs of physical damage. That’s when someone on the "rim" in the TV newsroom would more likely think about this event in Pasadena with some interest, probably for the first time. It’s the drama that attracts the most attention, not so much the content.

I worked in television news for ten years (At ABC News) and I know how the process works. It can be very difficult to convince a senior producer at the networks to do a piece on a hunger strike when there is not much gut-wrenching physical drama unfolding. Why? Because the networks are copy-cats. They tend to wait for the excitement to build. They follow. They often do not lead. One question I would often hear at ABC was "Is anyone else doing this?" And no, this did not mean, "We need an exclusive story." What it usually meant was, "If no one else is doing it, why should we do it?" This is the way it often works.

The one hope that the hunger strikers have is that someone at the networks or in cable news will take a moment to figure out that there is indeed a lot of drama surrounding this hunger strike. But you have to use your brain to put some of the pieces together. For one thing, there is the powerful issue of freedom. After September 11, 2001, there has been growing concern about the decline of privacy and individual rights in the U.S. Forced drugging of psychiatric patients adds to the climate of fear. And then you have the American Psychiatric Association (APA), which supports forced drugging on the basis of a biological theory that is full of holes. Essentially, the APA promotes a deception that is used to plump up pharmaceutical drug traffic, which in turn helps plump up the APA and other organizations, including the National Alliance For The Mentally Ill (NAMI). NAMI offers its services to help the mentally ill, but is also engaged in helping to rip away a psychiatric patient’s freedom to choose whether or not to take drugs.

Meanwhile, the hunger strikers, who are primarily focusing their attention on getting the APA, NAMI and the U.S. Surgeon General to respond to their demand for evidence supporting the biological psychiatry model, are also keenly aware that their fast for freedom is also representative of a much wider and deep concern running its course across the U.S. about the authoritarian culture that is further unfolding.