Sixteen Governmental Inquiries Into Psychiatry’s Drugs In Past Twelve Months

In only the past twelve months, 16 government warnings by five different countries including Switzerland, England, Canada, the US and Europe have been issued on the previously undisclosed dangers of psychiatric drugs citing side effects of drug dependence, addiction, mania, hostility, aggression, psychosis, suicide and violence.

In 1990, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) asked American and Canadian psychiatrists, Health Canada and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to issue warnings about the latest psychiatric drug causing violence and suicide: the antidepressant Prozac.

CCHR filed complaints and provided evidence to both government agencies. Heath Canada did nothing but in response, on September 20, 1991, the FDA ordered an advisory committee to hold a hearing to investigate the safety and effectiveness of antidepressant drugs. A panel of nine psychiatrists, many with financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, heard chilling testimony from medical experts as well as the victims of these drugs —– and did nothing.

It wasn’t until 13 years later, on October 15, 2004, that the FDA finally ordered pharmaceutical companies to add a “black box” warning to antidepressants, saying the drugs could cause suicidal thoughts and actions in children and teenagers. It took nine months for the FDA to issue another advisory warning doctors to watch for suicidal behavior in adults taking antidepressants.

The FDA advisories vindicated CCHR’s allegations and patient and family testimony in 1991.However millions of men, women and children have been needlessly subjected to dangerous drugs for more than a decade. Now, with controversy growing over the previously undisclosed dangers of psychiatric drugs, international warnings are being issued at escalating rates.

On September 29, Health Canada asked all the makers of drugs used for ADHD to submit data from all clinical trials and post-marketing reports by the end of 2005. The data will be examined following its submission in the new year. The drugs that will be reviewed are Concerta, Adderall XR, Dexadrine, Ritalin and Attenade; drugs which are given to children for ADHD.

Now in just the past twelve months, 16 warnings have been issued on the previously undisclosed dangers of psychiatric drugs. This comes on the heels of public awareness campaigns by watchdog organizations, independent medical doctors, patients and their families repeatedly requesting independent evaluations of clinical drug trials and accountability for the harm and loss of lives. While drug regulatory agencies such as the FDA and Health Canada may be accountable for failing to act sooner, it should be noted that psychiatrists have been their advisors, and have a vested interest in maintaining a multi-billion dollar psychiatric drug industry.

Brian Beaumont, spokesperson for the Vancouver Chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights said, “The UN, the FDA, Health Canada and the European Commission should be encouraged to seek out and eradicate the source of the problem—psychiatrists who have misled governments, medical agencies and the public into believing their trumped up disorders such as ADHD actually exist. It is baffling how the psychiatric industry has bamboozled the population into believing that they are the authorities in the field of mental health when they are not. Their only solutions to difficulties in life are dangerous drugs and electric shock”.

There are no blood tests, X-rays, brain scans or any scientific/medical means by which psychiatry’s diagnoses can be verified.Subsequently millions of men women and children have been wrongly diagnosed as mentally ill, and prescribed dangerous and potentially lethal psychiatric drugs.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights. For more information and a complete list of recent government inquiries go to http://www.cchr.org