Don’t trust your head to the meds

On behalf of the Citizens Commission of Human Rights of Sacramento, I want to praise actor Tom Cruise for bringing the abuses of psychiatry to the public spotlight. He has courageously confronted a psycho-pharmaceutical industry that has grown to astonishing proportions. More than 8 million American children and more than 17 million children internationally are prescribed powerful stimulants, antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs.

I believe the most important factor that Americans have to examine that Cruise has brought forth is that psychiatry is a pseudoscience. There is no scientific evidence that supports psychiatry’s basic principles about so-called diseases of the mind.

Psychiatry itself admits to this fact, says Steven Sharfstein, president of the American Psychiatric Association: “We do not have a clean-cut lab test to detect ‘chemical imbalance’ in the brain.” Another authority, Dr. Edward Drummond, states in his book The Complete Guide to Psychiatric Drugs: Straight Talk for Best Results, “First no biological etiology [cause] has been proven for any psychiatric disorder. … So don’t accept the myth that we can make an accurate diagnosis.” He continues, “Neither should you believe that your problems are due solely to a ‘chemical imbalance.’”

So, psychiatry has labeled millions with mental disorders that are far less than proven diseases. Under the guise of being the experts in the field of the mind, they have resorted to very subjective testing, which they have marketed widely to our teachers and schools. This has resulted in the escalating use of dangerous drugs to address the day-to-day problems individuals encounter in life.

How dangerous are these drugs? On October 15, 2004, the Food and Drug Administration issued its most serious warning on all depressants, cautioning of the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in children and adolescents. This was followed on July 1 of the same year by a public health advisory about the potential increased risk of suicide in adults using these drugs.

It is my hope that the public understands at least one thing from Cruise: that people must educate themselves on the true history and outcomes of psychiatry before they subject themselves or their families to its practices. Those interested in this issue may go to www.cchr.org to obtain our information and links to other groups related to the subject, or call (916) 447-4599.