Problems with Parity for
Mental Health Treatment
1. Check out
the website at: http://www.debate-central.org/topics/2002/neg1/index.html
2.
Psychiatry differs from other medical specialties
Psychiatry is based upon subjective reporting and
observation of inner experiences or behavior and lacks objectively verifiable
tests such as blood tests, imaging studies, and biopsies. While patients do experience real
spiritual/emotional/mental/moral problems and exhibit maladaptive behaviors,
manifestations that are considered a Òmental illnessÓ cannot be defined as a
disease in the absence of objective, reproducible somatic abnormalities.
A mental-health parity mandate will turn the current
diagnostic standards for psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSMIV), into a standard for payment as well. The DSM-IV remains consensus driven,
unsupported by clear empirical data. Neither taxpayer-supported nor private
insurers should be forced to cover conditions diagnosable only by consensus of
by self-interested psychiatrists and their partners in the pharmaceutical
industry. If insurance subscribers or clients believe mental health coverage or
service to be of value, and are thus willing to pay for it, this will be
offered in the free market on a contractual basis. All insurance subscribers
should not be forced to pay for services that they do not consider to be of
value.
The concept of Òbiopsychiatry,Ó or more popularly Òchemical
imbalanceÓ is at present merely a theory. Based on this theory, billions of
dollars are spent by both public and private entities specifically for
psychoactive drugs. Careful post-marketing surveillance of the benefits and
harms of such drugs is greatly needed and seriously lacking. Some reports
suggest that drugs often cause more problems than they ameliorate, and may
induce objective ailments, such as diabetes, which then must be treated. As
drugs are either first or second line treatment protocol for most so-called
Òmental illnesses,Ó a mental health treatment mandate can be anticipated to
result in increased drug usage, with its attendant problems, and hence an
increase in expenditures for both psychiatric and medical treatment.
3. True
parity for mental health issues must
include the following "therapies" for emotional distresses: psychotherapy, peer support groups, counseling,
acupuncture, yoga, Reiki, nutrition, exercise, meditation, etc.? It is doubtful that any parity would
cover these because they are mental health issues and not medical issues.
4. E. Fuller Torrey against mental health parity
Should there be a federal law (or
state laws) requiring health insurance companies to pay for "therapy"
for mere problems in living? In his interview on CBS television's 60 Minutes on April 21, 2002, psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey,
M.D., said no.
He argued that so-called therapy
for mere problems in living is not health care. He said "problems of
living" are matters such as "why is your third wife divorcing you, or
why were you passed over for office chief, or why won't your teenage daughter
talk to you." He said "I'm not saying that these are not problems.
They are problems. But I'm saying that I don't think that medical resources or
medical insurance should be used to cover why your teenage daughter won't talk
to you." State or federal laws requiring parity for mental health
treatment would require medical insurance to pay for counseling or
"psychotherapy" or other therapy such as (supposedly) antidepressant
drugs for such problems.
5. No Parity for Involuntary
"Treatment"
To: Wisconsin Legislature
We, the undersigned, are opposed
to parity in mental "health" treatment as proposed in Senate Bills 71
and 72.
Such parity will be used primarily
to pay for forced "treatment" for those who are involuntarily
committed under Wisconsin Chapter 51. Such forced "treatment" is
violent, cruel and dangerous.
The money from such forced
"treatment" will then be used by the already bloated, swollen county
mental "health" systems. None of this money from parity will go to
the clients.
Such treatment is not based on
science, but on lobbying and public relations work of highly paid drug company
spokespersons.
Citizens in Wisconsin have been
injured and killed while undergoing forced "treatment" for mental
"illness". These injuries and deaths have occurred with both
inpatient and outpatient "treatment".
There is no public accountability
in the public mental "health" systems in Wisconsin authorized by
Chapter 51. They are shrouded in secrecy. Secrecy has no place in a
democratically-run, public system.
Chapter 51 states that the state
must offer a "full range" of services for mental "illness".
A full range would require that clients have the opportuntity to choose from
among several different types of treatment, with different philosophies.
Wisconsin counties only offer one "treatment"----drugs. That's not a
"range.
Many clients started out trying to
get help voluntarily, but were frightened away by the system's bullying,
threats, incompetence and intimidation.
There is no adequate grievance
system that citizens or their families can use to protect them from such harm.
Chapter 51 delineates a grievance procedure, but this procedure is useless, for
several reasons.
The harm is claimed to be
"part of the treatment".
One client was forced to pay rent
while homeless. The landlord in question was a relative of a program staff
person. The family was told that this was, "part of the treatment".
To read more about another family
that tried filing a grievance, go to this Website:
Another client died of neuroleptic
malignant syndrome in his hot, underventilated apartment. Staff people from his
mental "health" program visited him there before he died, because
they felt he smelled bad. They wanted to "help" him wash his clothes.
But, these allegedly "trained" staff workers never noticed that it
was too hot for the safety of someone taking neuroleptic drugs.
It is very clear that Wisconsin's
county-run mental "health" systems are simply means of exploiting the
"cash potential" of impoverished, homeless people. Especially the
ones on SSI.
As one of many illustrations of
this, a Dane County committee recently set a goal of having "fifty percent
or more of all mentally 'ill' people working half-time or more making minimum
wage or more" by a certain date.
The Wisconsin Coalition for
Advocacy (WCA) does not respond adequately or appropriately to clients or their
families with grievances. Often, families are told that the person
("patient") has to call personally---even when they're incarcerated
and have no way to make a telephone call. Sometimes, clients' lives may be in
danger.
The WCA has no incentive to
investigate complaints responsibly, or at all, as it receives a fixed block
grant.
The mental "health"
system in Wisconsin means good jobs for professionals and bureaucrats, and
extra business for slumlords and irresponsible employers.
The mental "health"
system administered by Wisconsin counties, as it is now, is similar to the
parish system in Chales Dickens' _Oliver Twist_, where a lot of people are
making money from the misery of impoverished children, but the children don't
benefit from any of it.
In Wisconsin, it's homeless and
impoverished people who become labeled with a diagnosis of "mental
illness".
Senate Bill 72 provides for
"diagnostic testing" to "exclude the existence of conditions
other than" . . . mental "illness".
This type of language has no place
in our statutes.
Any "diagnostic testing"
should be conducted to verify the existence of a condition, not to
"exclude the existence of conditions other than" that condition.
The use of this language shows
clearly that "mental illness" is not a biological, physiological or
"neurobiological" condition.
People experiencing extreme
emotional, spiritual, financial and mental distress become diagnosed with
"mental illness". The county mental "health" systems in
Wisconsin use these people as a cash crop.
The Chapter 51, county-run system
of mental "health" should be radically defunded as soon as possible.
It should not be further enriched by parity payments for its dangerous,
sadistic, ineffective forced mental "health treatment".
We therefore ask the Wisconsin
legislature to vote against SB 71 and SB 72, and all other proposals for parity
in payment for mental health "treatment".
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
http://www.petitiononline.com/Noparity/petition.html
_________________________________________________________________
by Douglas A. Smith, M.D.
A
mental health parity law forcing health insurance companies to pay for mental
health care would be wrong for several reasons.
First, the concept of mental illness itself is flawed and misleading. As
psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey wrote in his book The Death of Psychiatry in 1974: "The very term ['mental disease'] is
nonsensical, a semantic mistake. The two words cannot go together except
metaphorically; you can no more have a mental 'disease' than you can have a
purple idea or a wise space."1 [Note from FFPS: This
was back in 1974. E.F.Torrey is now the most vehement pro-force biomedical psychiatrist
in the country.]
Mental illnesses do not exist in the same sense that physical illnesses do.
Physical illnesses have known physical causes. Mental illnesses do not.
In
his book Toxic Psychiatry,
published in 1991, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., said "there is no
evidence that any of the common psychological or psychiatric disorders have a
genetic or biological component."2
In
their book Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking
Psychiatric Drugs in 1999, Drs.
Peter Breggin, M.D., and David Cohen, Ph.D., said: "...there's no
substantial evidence that any psychiatric diagnoses have a physical
basis."3
In
his book Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health, published in 1998, Elliot S. Valenstein, Ph.D.,
Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of
Michigan, said: "Contrary to what is often claimed, no biochemical,
anatomical, or functional signs have been found that reliably distinguish the
brains of mental patients."4
In
his book The Complete Guide to Psychiatric Drugs, published in 2000, Edward Drummond, M.D., Associate
Medical Director at the Seacoast Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, N.H.,
said: "First, no biological etiology has been proven for any psychiatric
disorder (except Alzheimer's disease, which has a genetic component) in spite
of decades of research. ... So don't accept the myth that we can make an
'accurate diagnosis.'"5 Alzheimer's is not generally considered
a mental illness.
No
psychiatric problem falls within a reasonable definition of the word disease. In her book about fibromyalgia, Miryam Williamson
said "A disease is a condition that has a known cause and can be
identified by one or another set of laboratory tests."6
By
this definition, no mental illness can be called a "disease."
As Harvard-trained psychiatrist Loren R. Mosher, M.D., said in 1998,
"there are no external validating criteria for psychiatric diagnoses.
There is neither a blood test nor specific anatomic lesions for any major
psychiatric disorder."7
In
his book Prozac Backlash,
published in 2000, Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., clinical instructor in psychiatry
at Harvard Medical School, said "In medicine, strict criteria exist for
calling a condition a disease. In addition to a predictable cluster of
symptoms, the cause of the symptoms or some understanding of their physiology
must be established. ... Psychiatry is unique among medical specialties in
that... We do not yet have proof either of the cause or the physiology for any
psychiatric diagnosis. ... In recent decades, we have had no shortage of
alleged biochemical imbalances for psychiatric conditions. Diligent though
these attempts have been, not one has been proven.
Quite the contrary. In every instance where such an imbalance was thought to
have been found, it was later proven false. ... No claim of a gene for a
psychiatric condition has stood the test of time, in spite of popular
misinformation."8
Or as
Edward Drummond, M.D., said in his book The Complete Guide to Psychiatric
Drugs, published in 2000:
"Psychiatric disorders are vastly different from physical disorders,
however, because our understanding of how the normal brain works is incomplete.
... The treatment you receive depends on the orientation of your psychiatrist,
not on a solid foundation of knowledge about the etiology and pathogenesis of
the disorder itself."9
A
similar observation was made by Columbia University psychiatry professor
Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D., in his book The New Psychiatry in 1985, an observation that remains true today:
"It is generally unrecognized that psychiatrists are the only medical specialists who treat disorders that, by
definition, have no definitively known causes or cures. ... A diagnosis should
indicate the cause of a mental disorder, but as discussed later, since the
etiologies of most mental disorders are unknown, current diagnostic systems
can't reflect them."10
In
1999 neurologist Fred A. Baughman, M.D., said: "The country's been led to
believe that all painful emotions are a mental illness and the leadership of
the APA [American Psychiatric Association] knows very well that they are
representing it as a disease when there is no scientific data to confirm any
mental illness."11
Forty-one years ago in his classic book, The Myth of Mental Illness, psychiatry professor Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., said
"It is customary to define psychiatry as a medical specialty concerned
with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illnesses. This is a
worthless and misleading definition. Mental illness is a myth. Psychiatrists
are not concerned with mental illnesses and their treatments. In actual
practice they deal with personal, social, and ethical problems in living."12
Should there be a federal law (or state laws) requiring health insurance
companies to pay for "therapy" for mere problems in living? In his
interview on CBS television's 60 Minutes on April 21,
2002, psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., said no.
He argued that so-called therapy for mere
problems in living is not health care. He said "problems of living"
are matters such as "why is your third wife divorcing you, or why were you
passed over for office chief, or why won't your teenage daughter talk to
you." He said "I'm not saying that these are not problems. They are
problems. But I'm saying that I don't think that medical resources or medical
insurance should be used to cover why your teenage daughter won't talk to
you." State or federal laws requiring parity for mental health treatment
would require medical insurance to pay for counseling or
"psychotherapy" or other therapy such as (supposedly) antidepressant
drugs for such problems.
In
his June 19, 2002 article in The Hill advocating enactment of a federal mental health parity law, Senator
Paul Wellstone said, "it is not the business of Congress to establish the
specific definition of mental illness... Instead, we must rely on the
scientific and medical standard on mental illness - the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual (DSM) [published and revised every few years by the American Psychiatric
Association] - to define what should be covered" by health insurance.
In
1998, psychiatrist Loren Mosher, M.D., said the "DSM IV [fourth edition]
is the fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by medicine in
general. Insiders know it is more a political than scientific document."13
In
1996 psychiatrist David Kaiser, M.D., called the DSM "perhaps one of the
greatest sophistries psychiatry has pulled off in its illustrious history of
sophistries ... For those who do serious work with patients, this manual is
useless."14
A
problem with requiring health insurance coverage for all diagnoses in the DSM
was pointed out by Sydney Walker III, M.D., who is both a neurologist and a
psychiatrist, in his book A Dose of Sanity, in 1996: The "DSM's ever-increasing list of conditions makes it
easy for therapists to spot pathology where none exists."15
In
another book, The Hyperactivity Hoax, in 1998, Dr. Walker said: "The other major flaw of the DSM,
related to the first, is that it labels virtually everything as some type of disorder. Thus a child who sees a
DSM-oriented doctor is almost assured of a psychiatric label and a
prescription, even if the child is perfectly fine. ... individual DSM labels
include so many vague criteria that almost anyone can qualify. ... This
willy-nilly labeling of virtually everyone as mentally ill is a serious danger
to healthy children, because virtually all children have enough symptoms to get
a DSM label and a drug."16
Anyone who thinks every so-called mental illness in the American Psychiatric
Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) should be covered by health insurance should
take a look at the book. In it you will find such matters as inability to
express oneself well in writing (disorder of written expression, diagnosis
number 315.2) or lack of sexual desire (hypoactive sexual desire disorder) are
- amazingly enough - considered to be mental disorders.
If
"therapy" for everything listed as a disorder in the DSM must, by
law, be paid for by health insurance, there is almost no limit to what types of
problems must be covered by health insurance, including those that are well within
the range of normal human thinking and behavior or which are the normal
emotional consequences of disappointments or frustrations of life - not true
health problems.
The
simple truth about psychiatry said twenty years ago by Harvard Law School professor
Alan M. Dershowitz remains true today. He said psychiatry "is not a
scientific discipline."17
Current mental health treatment is not merely unscientific. It is harmful,
partly because of its erroneous biological orientation and resulting reliance
on psychiatric drugs and electric shock treatment, both of which are still
being administered to unwilling as well as voluntary patients.
In
the words of psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., in 2000:
Nothing has
harmed the quality of individual life in modern society more than the
misbegotten belief that human suffering is driven by biological and genetic
causes and can be rectified by taking drugs or undergoing electroshock therapy.
... If I wanted to ruin someone's life, I would convince the person that
biological psychiatry is right - that relationships mean nothing, that choice
is impossible, and that the mechanics of a broken brain reign over our emotions
and conduct. If I wanted to impair an individual's capacity to create
empathetic, loving relationships, I would prescribe psychiatric drugs, all of
which blunt our highest psychological and spiritual functions.18
He
also said "All psychiatric drugs produce severe biochemical imbalances and
related abnormalities by interfering with the normal brain function."19
In
a book published in 2001 he said: "If a drug has an effect on the brain,
it is harming the brain. Science has not found or synthesized any psychoactive
substances that improve normal brain function. Instead, all of them impair
brain function."20
Many commonly prescribed psychiatric drugs cause permanent brain damage. These
include neuroleptics, often called major tranquilizers or antipsychotics, and
antidepressants, both the tricyclic and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
or SSRI types.
In
his book Prozac Backlash in 2000,
psychiatrist Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., says these drugs "are toxic to the
brain" and because of their "neurotoxicity" may be
"damaging or destroying critical parts of the brain."
He says "The
unfortunate irony is that drugs heavily promoted as correcting unproven
biochemical imbalances may, in fact, be causing imbalances and brain
damage"21
He
says "In recent years, the danger of long-term side effects has emerged in
association with Prozac-type drugs, making it imperative to minimize one's
exposure to them. Neurological disorders including disfiguring facial and whole
body tics, indicating potential brain damage, are an increasing concern with
patients on the drugs. ... With related drugs targeting serotonin, there is
evidence that they may effect a 'chemical lobotomy' by destroying the nerve
endings that they target in the brain."22
A
U.S. Court of Appeals judge reviewed the evidence and then reached this
conclusion: "Unlike the temporary and predictable effects of bodily
restraints, the permanent side effects of antipsychotic drugs induce conditions
that cannot be corrected simply by cessation of the regimen. The permanency of
these effects is analogous to that resulting from such radical surgical
procedures as a pre-frontal lobotomy."23
In
his book Molecules of the Mind: The Brave New Science of Molecular
Psychology, University of Maryland
journalism professor Jon Franklin observed: "This era coincided with an
increasing awareness that the neuroleptics not only did not cure schizophrenia
- they actually caused damage to the brain.
Suddenly,
the psychiatrists who used them, already like their patients on the fringes of
society, were suspected of Nazism and worse."24
In
his book Psychiatric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain, psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., alleges that by
using drugs that cause brain damage, "Psychiatry has unleashed an epidemic
of neurological disease on the world" one which "reaches 1 million to
2 million persons a year."25
Neuroleptic drugs also cause thousands of deaths each year from neuroleptic
malignant syndrome. Neurological injury and death inflicted by these drugs has
not stopped the FDA from approving them nor psychiatrists from prescribing
them, however.
Psychiatrists have even supported the recent enactment of "outpatient
commitment" laws in the U.S., the main purpose of which is to force people to take these harmful psychiatric drugs while
living outside psychiatric institutions.
Psychiatrists also play a central role in persuading U.S. courts to authorize
forced administration of these harmful psychiatric drugs to hospitalized
patients.
The
proposals for mandatory coverage of mental health treatment would force health
insurers to pay for prescription of these harmful psychiatric drugs and for
electric shock treatment, now often called electroconvulsive therapy or ECT.
ECT
is now used mostly for depression. According to Maurice Victor, M.D., Professor
of Medicine and Neurology, Dartmouth Medical School, and Allan H. Ropper, M.D.,
Professor and Chairman of Neurology, Tufts University School of Medicine, in
their textbook Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology, published in 2001: "The mechanism by which ECT
produces it effects is not known."26
But
in truth, the way ECT produces its effects is known: It damages the patient's
brain sufficiently to prevent him from remembering or appreciating whatever was
upsetting him. It has been scientifically shown that ECT causes both temporary
and permanent brain damage.
Of
course, these findings are vehemently denied by psychiatrists who administer
ECT.
Brain damage from ECT includes cerebral hemorrhages (abnormal bleeding), edema
(excessive accumulation of fluid), cortical atrophy (shrinkage of the cerebral
cortex, or outer layers of the brain), dilated perivascular spaces in the
brain, fibrosis (thickening and scarring), gliosis (growth of abnormal tissue),
and rarefied and partially destroyed brain tissue.
The
scientific evidence proving this is summarized in a book, Electroshock: Its
Brain Disabling Effects, by
psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D.27 This brain damage causes loss of
memory and intelligence, some of which is temporary and some of which is
permanent.
The
late Sidney Sament, M.D., a neurologist, described ECT this way:
"Electroconvulsive therapy in effect may be defined as a controlled type
of brain damage produced by electrical means. No doubt some psychiatric
symptoms are eliminated ... but this is at the expense of brain damage."28
We
should not have laws mandating health insurance coverage for this cruel and
harmful therapy.
That these "therapies" are offered to gullible, ignorant, and
trusting patients is bad enough, but mental health parity legislation would go
a step further and force insurers to pay for involuntary mental health
treatment.
In
the past, involuntary mental health treatment has often been imposed
unnecessarily and without justification, and this problem continues today. This
is a violation of human rights, and it will probably become more widespread if
insurance coverage for involuntary mental health treatment is mandated by law.
A
U.S. Congressional investigation in 1992 found "that thousands of
adolescents, children, and adults have been hospitalized for psychiatric
treatment they didn't need; that hospitals hire bounty hunters to kidnap
patients with mental health insurance; that patients are kept against their
will until their insurance benefits run out; that psychiatrists are being
pressured by the hospitals to increase profit; that hospitals 'infiltrate'
schools by paying kickbacks to school counselors who deliver students; that
bonuses are paid to hospital employees, including psychiatrists, for keeping
the hospital beds filled; and that military dependents are being targeted for
their generous mental health benefits."29
According to an article in the August 3, 1992 Investor's Business Daily: "Last Thursday...eight major insurance
companies sued NME [National Medical Enterprises] for alleged fraud involving
hundreds of millions of dollars in psychiatric hospital claims.
Their complaint, filed in federal court in Washington, accused the company of a
'massive' scheme to admit and treat thousands of patients regardless of their
need for care. ...some institutions were paying 'bounty fees' for patient
referrals or misdiagnosing patients to get maximum reimbursement."30
Time magazine later reported NME
settled the case for a record $300 million.31
An
article in the September 15, 1992 New York Newsday about a similar suit filed in Dallas, Texas said:
"Two of the country's largest insurance companies filed suit yesterday
against a national chain of private psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals,
charging it with illegally admitting patients who did not need treatment and
then not releasing them until their insurance benefits ran out."32
According to Edward Drummond, M.D., in his book The Complete Guide to
Psychiatric Drugs, published in
2000: "Some psychiatric hospitals made a practice of admitting adolescents
in distress, using the diagnosis of bipolar disorder inappropriately in order
to increase their billing to insurance companies. This practice was so
widespread that the federal government finally intervened, charging the
hospitals with fraud and assessing fines of millions of dollars."33
In
other words, what is called mental health care is an attempt to deal with matters
that are not true health problems with harmful treatments that are often
imposed by force against innocent people.
Under the Tenth Amendment, Congress has no constitutional authority to enact
legislation requiring health insurers throughout the nation to provide equal
coverage for mental health care. Even it did, however, it would be illogical,
unwise, and wrong for Congress to do so.
Congress should not promote psychiatry's unscientific, harmful, and unethical
treatment with a mental health parity law.
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REFERENCES
1. E. Fuller Torrey, The
Death of Psychiatry (Penguin Books,
1974), p. 36
2. Peter R. Breggin, M.D., Toxic
Psychiatry (St. Martin's Press,
1991), p. 291
3. Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
& David Cohen, Ph.D., Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop
Taking Psychiatric Drugs (Perseus
Books - Reading, Massachusetts - 1999), page 93
4. Elliot S. Valenstein,
Ph.D., Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health (The Free Press, New York, 1998), p. 125
5. Edward Drummond, M.D., The
Complete Guide to Psychiatric Drugs
(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 2000), page 15-16.
6. Miryam Williamson, Fibromyalgia:
A Comprehensive Approach, in an
excerpt from the book appearing at http://pinksunrise.com/mta/williamson2.htm,
accessed 6/6/02
7. From a letter dated
December 4, 1998 by Loren R. Mosher, M.D., a psychiatrist, resigning from the
American Psychiatric Association, available on the internet at
http://www.oikos.org/mosher.htm.
8. Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., Prozac
Backlash (Simon & Schuster, New
York, 2000), pages 192-193, page 196
9. Edward Drummond, M.D., The
Complete Guide to Psychiatric Drugs,
(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 2000), pages 8-9
10. Jerrold S. Maxmen, M.D.,
The New Psychiatry (Mentor, 1985)
pages 19 & 36 - italics in original
11. Fred A. Baughman, M.D.,
quoted in Insight magazine, June
28, 1999, p. 13
12. Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., The
Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct (Dell Publishing Co., New York, 1961), p. 296.
13. From a letter dated
December 4, 1998 by Loren R. Mosher, M.D., a psychiatrist, resigning from the
American Psychiatric Association, available on the internet at
http://www.oikos.org/mosher.htm.
14. David Kaiser, M.D.,
"Commentary: Against Biologic Psychiatry," Psychiatric Times, December 1996, available on the Internet at
http://www.mhsource.com/pt/p961242.html, accessed July 7, 2002.
15. Sydney Walker III, M.D.,
A Dose of Sanity (John Wiley
& Sons, New York, 1996), p. 128
16. Sydney Walker III, M.D.,
The Hyperactivity Hoax (Springer
1998), pages 23-24 - italics in original
17. Alan Dershowitz quoted
in "Clash of Testimony in Hinckley Trial Has Psychiatrists Worried Over
Image", The New York Times,
May 24, 1982, p. 11
18. Peter R. Breggin, M.D.,
in the foreword to Reality Therapy in Action by William Glasser, M.D. (Harper Collins, 2000), p.
xi
19. Peter R. Breggin, M.D., Reclaiming
Our Children (Perseus Books,
Cambridge, Mass., 2000), page 140
20. Peter R. Breggin, M.D., The
Antidepressant Fact Book - What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Prozac,
Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Luvox
(Perseus Publishing - Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000) p. 168
21. Joseph Glenmullen, M.D.,
Prozac Backlash (Simon &
Schuster, New York, 2000) pages 49 & 94
22. Joseph Glenmullen, M.D.,
Prozac Backlash (Simon &
Schuster, New York, 2000), p. 8
23. Rennie v. Klein, 720
F.2d 266, 276 (3d Cir., 1983, quoted in Douglas S. Stransky, University of
Miami Law Review, "Civil
Commitment and the Right to Refuse Treatment..." Vol. 50:413, 434, note
135
24. Jon Franklin, Molecules
of the Mind: The Brave New Science of Molecular Psychology (Dell Pub. Co., 1987) p. 103
25. Peter Breggin, M.D., Psychiatric
Drugs: Hazards to the Brain
(Springer Pub. Co., New York, 1983), pages 109 & 108
26. Maurice Victor, M.D.,
and Allan H. Ropper, M.D., Adams and Victor's Principles of Neurology -
Seventh Edition (McGraw-Hill Medical
Publishing Division, New York, 2001), page 1620
27. Peter R. Breggin, M.D., Electroshock:
It's Brain Disabling Effects
(Springer 1979)
28. Sidney Sament, M.D., Clinical
Psychiatry News, March 1983, p. 4
29. quoted in: Lynn Payer, Disease-Mongers:
How Doctors, Drug Companies, and Insurers Are Making You Feel Sick (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992, pp. 234-235
30. Christine Shenot,
"Bleeder at National Medical Insurers Cry Of 'Fraud' Reopened A Big
Wound", Investor's Business Daily, Monday, August 3, 1992, p. 1, quoted in "Unjustified Psychiatric
Commitment in the U.S.A." by Lawrence Stevens, J.D., www.antipsychiatry.org/unjustif.htm,
accessed 7/1/02
31. Time magazine, April 25, 1994, p. 24
32. Michael Unger,
"Hospitals Called Cheats - Insurers say health-care chain pulled off
nationwide scam", New York Newsday, Thursday, September 15, 1992, Business section, page 33, quoted in
"Unjustified Psychiatric Commitment in the U.S.A." by Lawrence
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