Congressman Ron Paul has re-introduced H.R. 2769, known as The Parental Consent Act of 2011 – A bill which prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program.
At just 6 years of age, still grieving over the death of the only mother he had ever known, his foster mother, Giovan Bazan would receive the first of many psychiatric ‘diagnoses’ and drugs that would plague him for the next twelve years of his life. Moved from foster home to foster home, orphanages and other modes of state care, Giovan was stigmatized with a plethora of psychiatric diagnoses and drugs until the age of 18, when he could finally make his own medical decisions and quit. Now a child advocate working part time at the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) in Georgia, Giovan is on a mission: To get a full-time job with DFCS and help enact laws to combat the wholesale labeling and drugging of foster children. In the video below, Giovan tells his story and why he decided to fight back against the abuse of kids in foster care.
“There is no reason other than a Prozac reaction,” said Dr. Peter Breggin, a New York state-based psychiatrist and author of the book, Talking Back to Prozac. “(The killing) is a mystery without that.”
Nine days after starting therapy with the drug, the teen attempted suicide via an overdose of his grandfather’s pills. His parents reported the incident to doctors, who increased the Prozac dosage for the teen.
In writing this post, I may be crashing the American Psychological Association’s annual blog party. Naturally, I’m in favor of joining others to increase awareness and reduce stigma around psychiatric problems. But despite the spirit of solidarity, I’m perhaps an outsider, because I no longer believe ‘mental illness’ serves as a helpful concept.
…instead of decisively helpful treatments, the mental health system strung me along with decades of therapy and thousands of little pills, none of which improved my mood or outlook very much. It seems to me that if psychiatric diagnoses were truly valuable, they would guide clinicians to life-changing therapeutic choices. But how often do people diagnosed with ‘major mental illness’ leave the Psychiatry Department with an effective cure?
ANAMA CITY — The man who held the Bay District School Board hostage before killing himself last year had an antidepressant, acetaminophen and foot fungus medication in his system, his autopsy revealed.
The report on Clay Duke was released Wednesday by the Bay County medical examiner’s office.
Duke, 56, killed himself Dec. 14 after firing several shots at school board members during a public meeting. Duke was brought down by three bullets from Mike Jones, the district’s chief of safety.
A toxicology report revealed that at the time of Duke’s death, he had atropine, a drug commonly used in emergency rooms to resuscitate dying patients; acetaminophen; Terbinafine, used to fight fungal infections in fingers and toes; and Citalopram, an antidepressant found in Celexa, in his system.
Forest Laboratories Inc., which makes Celexa, notes on its website the company urges patients to “call a health care provider right away if you or your family member has any of the following symptoms, especially if they are new, worse, or worry you: thoughts about suicide or dying, attempts to commit suicide, new or worse depression, new or worse anxiety, feeling very agitated or restless, panic attacks, trouble sleeping (insomnia), new or worse irritability, acting aggressive, being angry, or violent, acting on dangerous impulses, an extreme increase in activity and talking (mania), other unusual changes in behavior or mood.”