A Psychiatric Drug
Adverse Reaction Report Hot Line could lead to thousands more suits against
psychiatrists forcing these drugs onto patients, the Citizens Commission on
Human Rights (CCHR) announced. The group
launched a reporting system on it’s website, http://www.cchr.org/drugreporting,
to make it easier for patients to report drug risks. This was in response to Food and Drug
Administration revelations about antidepressants. Three alerts were issued this month warning
that homicidal thoughts are a side effect of the antidepressant, Effexor; that
antidepressants can cause a rare lung disease in newborns of mothers who take
antidepressants during pregnancy and that migraine medication taken
concurrently with antidepressants could result in a life-threatening condition
called serotonin syndrome.
The warnings follow
an Alaska Supreme Court ruling on June 30 against enforced psychiatric drugging
in the state’s institutions. Bruce
Wiseman, president of CCHR in the U.S., said that the hotline doesn’t
replace the FDA’s Medwatch drug reporting system but augments it and provides a
service for people who may be reticent about reporting direct to a government
agency. “We are particularly interested
in patients being forced onto these drugs,” he said.
With a more than 1,700 percent increase in international drug regulatory
agency warnings against psychiatric drugs since 2002, the New Jersey Law
Journal this month reported nearly 500 suits against antipsychotic drugs
causing diabetes and a settlement of 8,000 more suits costing the manufacturer
of the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa $690 million.
Further suits are expected over antidepressants causing suicide in
children and adolescents and adults.
The Alaska Supreme
Court recognized the dangers of psychiatric drugs, stating, “Given the nature
and potentially devastating impact of psychotropic medications…we now similarly
hold that the right to refuse to take psychotropic drugs is fundamental.” Faith Myers challenged the constitutionality
of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API) to force her to take psychotropic
drugs when she was committed to the facility on February 3, 2003.
The court further stated: “Psychotropic drugs ‘affect the mind,
behavior, intellectual functions, perception, moods, and emotion’ and are known to cause a
number of potentially devastating side effects…Courts have observed that ‘the
likelihood [that psychotropic drugs will cause] at least some temporary side
effects appears to be undisputed.’”
CCHR’s Psychiatric Drug Adverse Reaction Report Hot Line also asks
people to report what “mental disorder” the drug was prescribed for and whether
any physical test was conducted to confirm the diagnosis. The FDA has been criticized for approving psychiatric drugs
for diagnoses that lack scientific veracity.
The FDA has recently come under fire from US Senator Charles Grassley,
who has asked the inspector general to investigate the agency for the relationship that he claims has developed between
the FDA and drug manufacturers, where the two work together to manipulate
scientific studies and hide any negative findings from the public.
An April
University of Massachusetts
and Tuft University study disclosed financial
ties between psychiatric drug manufacturers and psychiatrists deciding which
“mental disorders” should be included in the American Psychiatric Association’s
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Every psychiatrist sitting on panels deciding
upon “mood disorders” and “psychotic disorders” had drug company ties. Sales of antidepressants and antipsychotics
for these disorders account for more than $22 billion a year
internationally.
People wanting to report
an adverse psychiatric drug reaction can log onto http://www.cchr.org/drugreporting.
CCHR, which was
established by the Church
of Scientology in 1969 to
investigate psychiatric abuse has had informed consent laws as one of its most
pivotal campaigns, obtaining its first law in 1976. For more information
go to www.cchr.org
