Mental Health Treatment: Who's Crazy?

Mental Health Treatment: Who’s Crazy?

Social Work 608: Public Policy & Advocacy Melbourne Henry, PhD University Alaska Anchorage October 27, 2010

James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq. Law Project for Psychiatric Rights [email protected] http://PsychRights.org/ 1

1 Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®)

 Public Interest Law Firm  Mission: Mount Strategic Litigation CiAitFdPhitiCampaign Against Forced Psychiatric Drugging and Electroshock.  National in Scope  Adopted Drugging of Children & Youth as Priority Few Years Ago http://akmhcweb.org/Docs/AMHB/2 003BudgetSummitReport.pdf 2 5

While Some People find Mental Health Treatments Neuroleptics Helpful . . .

 Facts  Psychiatric Drugs Causing Massive Amount of Harm  Responses  Life Spans Now 25 Years Shorter  Advocacy Efforts  Cut the Recovery Rate At Least in Half  5% v. 40% recovery Rate in recent study  6-fold Increase in Mental Illness Disability Rate  Current System Does Not Allow Non Drug Choices  Hugely and Unnecessarily Expensive  Huge Unnecessary Human Toll 3 6

FACTS

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1 8 11 August 23, 2010 August 23, 2010

Anticonvulsants Misbranded as Mood Stabilizers

 Can Cause:  Hostility, Aggression, Depression & Confusion  Liver Failure  Fatal pancreatitis  Severe & lethal skin disorders  May Cause  Mild cognitive impairment with chronic use

Source: Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Breggin, Springer, 2008 9 12

Antidepressants Stimulants

 No convincing evidence  Aggression  Increase Suicidality & Violence of short or long term  Insomnia improvement in  Addictive cognitive ability or  Depression, suicide academic performance  Headaches  Lose “effectiveness” over time  Brain Damage  Stomach aches  Cause Mania  Bipolar Diagnoses  Cardiovascular Harm,  Obsessive Compulsive including cardiac arrest Behaviors  Stunts Growth  Quadruples Cocaine  Mania, psychosis, Abuse Rate hallucinations  Many more  Agitation Source: Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Breggin, Springer, 2008 Source: Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Breggin, Springer, 2008 10 13

2 Benzodiazepines Children & Youth

 Effective for only a few weeks  Drug Companies Targeted Children & Youth Market  Highly Addictive  Poor Children & Youth (Medicaid)  Some Peopppyle Simply Can Not Get Off Them  Disempowere d paren ts  Foster Children & Youth  Can cause mania  God Help Them  Can cause violence

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Psychiatric Drugging of Medicaid, SSDI & SSI Children

 Medicaid Requires People to Be Poor  1 in 23 on stimulants (3.5 million)  No long term benefit; short term benefit mainly  SSDI Requires People to Be Certified for adults Permanently Disabled & Permanently  1 in 40 on antidepressants  Prozac Boys Study: 23% developed manic like Poor symptoms; 19% more drug induced hostility  Bipolar Rate soars  SSI Requires People to be Disabled & • From close to none in 1995 to 800,000 by 2003 Poor (as relevant here) • Then come the neuroleptics & anticonvulsants misbranded as mood stabilizers.  Many Now on Neuroleptics, even six month olds.  Child MH Disability Rate Soars from Essentially Zero in 1987 to 600,000 by 2007.

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2003 Budget Summit Report Employment Findings Why? ...... Is society taking such a  Only 1% of Community Mental Health Center clients are receiving employment services from harmful, counterproductive the Community Mental Health Center.  Less than 1% of people go from SSDI to approach? Employment  Less than 10% of people on SSI are gainfully employed.

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3 Big Pharma Corruption of Discussion Process

 Fraudulent Clinical Trials  Ghostwritten Articles  Continued Medical Education Sponsorship  Buying “Key Opinion Leaders”  Drug Detailers/Goodies to Doctors

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Fear and Absolution Medical Model Promotion (Adults)

 National Institute of Mental Health:  “Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and  Fear (Violence Myth) disabling brain disorder”  People Diagnosed with Serious Mental  “Bipolar disorder, also known as manic- Illness no More Prone to Violence depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in a person’s  Absolution mood, energy, and ability to function.”  By Accepting “Medical Model,” No one is  “Research indicates that depressive Responsible illnesses are disorders of the brain.”

Source: NIMH website accessed March 23, 2008 21 24

The Medical Model, The Other Factors Hunger Strike and the APA

 Social Control  2003 Hunger Strike Challenged American Psychiatric Ass’n to provide  It is Not the Thinking, but Objectionable Behavior reliable scientific evidence of Medical Model and APA essentially admitted it  FDA Abdication/Capture by Industry could not.  Magic Pill/Drug Culture  Query: Does a headache demonstrate  Psychiatry’s Drive for Legitimacy an aspirin deficiency?  Big Pharma Corruption of Research  Largest “experiment” demonstrated not genetic.

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4 Solutions Are Many The Soteria Project (Adults) Study  Hearing Voices First-episode schizophrenia patients treated conventionally in a hospital setting with drugs versus treatment in the Soteria House, which was staffed by non-professionals and involved Network no immediate use of antipsychotic medications. Results are from 1971-1983 cohorts, with 97 Approach patients treated conventionally and 82 patients treated in Soteria House . Results  Strange or  At end of six weeks, psychopathology reduced comparably in both groups. Unusual Beliefs  At end of two years: (“delusions”) Soteria patients had better psychopathology scores Soteria patients had fewer hospital readmissisions  Psychosocial Soteria patients had higher occupational levels Soteria patients were more often living independently or with peers Approaches Antipsychotic Use in Soteria Patients  Soteria 76% did not use antipsychotic drugs during first six weeks 42% did not use any antipsychotic during two-year study  Open Dialogue Only 19 % regularly maintained on drugs during follow-up period  Peer Directed 26 J Nerv Ment Dis 1999; 187:142-149 J Nerv Ment Dis 2003; 191: 219-229

Hearing Voices Network:

Question is not “what is wrong with you?,” but “what happened to you?” Help People Deal with Voices Similar Approach for “Delusions”

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Solutions Are Many (Children & Youth)

 CriticalThinkRx.Org Module 8: Evidence-Based Psychosocial Interventions for Childhood Problems  Help Parents  Help Children & Youth Deal with Their Emotional Problems

28 31 August 24, 2010

5 Most Psych Drugs Given Response Children & Youth Through Medicaid is Fraud Department of Health & Social Services  Prescriptions are Medicaid Fraud if not for a “medically accepted indication,”  Mainly Ostrich-Like, but  Funding meaning, one that is either approved by  Consulting with Marty Irwin  Peer Support Consortium some on children & youth the FDA or “supported by citations” in one  Soteria-Alaska drugging  CHOICES, Inc. of three drug compendia, including  Other Peer Programs DRUGDEX  Locking Children Up & Drugging them in Alaska,  Anyone Can Sue On Behalf of rather than Outside (“Bring Government to Recover for the Fraud and the Kids Home”) share in the recovery, if any. 32 35

CHOICES, Inc. & Soteria- Alaska

CHOICES, Inc. Soteria-Alaska

 “Consumer” Run  Opened in June of  Non-coercive, Non-drug 2009 (& d rug) Cho ices In • 7 Year Effort to Open Community  Goal: Replicate  Available for people in Original Soteria-House the system a long time  So Far: Drug RESPONSES  Started Providing Withdrawal Program, Services in July, 2007 not First Episode  Non-coercive

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Program Evaluation Criteria 2003 Budget Summit Report Query: Department of Health & Social Services Is the Budget Purchasing

 Amount of Services  Housing Protection? provided (Money Spent)  Quality of Beneficiaries’  Relationships Control?  The more disabled people Lives & more money spent on  Jobs/Meaning them, the more successful the program(s) in Life Stabilization?  Recovery Dependency?

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6 2003 Budget Summit Report Recommendations

 Funding Should Be More Explicitly Tied to Desired Results  Medicaid/SSDI/SSI Should Be Re -Tooled as Possible to Achieve Desired Results  The Planning Committee Should Review Whether the Current Level of Reliance on Psychiatric Medications is leading to Desired Results. ADVOCACY EFFORTS  The Budget Building Process Should be Re- evaluated.

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$ Billion Drug Company Settlements PsychRights Strategic Haven’t Stopped Psychiatric Drugging Litigation (Adults) of Children & Youth

 $1.4 Billion Lilly—Zyprexa (2009)  Force System to Honor People’s  $2.3 Billion Pfizer, including Geodon (2009) Rights  $520 Million AstraZeneca—Seroquel (2010)   $258 Million Janssen—Risperdal (2010) Change Path of Least Resistance  $313 Million Forest Labs—Celexa & Lexapro (2010)  Help Create Environment  Cost of doing business. Supportive of Other Choices  Caps Liability  Doctors Still Prescribing It  Medicaid Still Paying 39 42

Goals Allowing Steps 2 & 3 of Fraudulent Scheme to Continue  Substantially Increase Recovery Rate after diagnosis of Serious Mental Illness  Substantially Reduce If Not Eliminate Force  System Support of People’s Non- Medication Choices

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7 PsychRights in Alaska Medicaid Fraud Supreme Court Initiative  Myers (2006)  Best Interests  No Less Intrusive Alternative Available  Designed to Stop Harmful Practice by  Wetherhorn (2007) Causing Doctors (& other defendant  Unable to Survive Safely in Freedom cl)tRliIitiFiilRilasses) to Realize Inviting Financial Ruin  Wayne B (2008) if Continue  Necessity of Transcript from Masters  Bigley (2009)  Cases Percolating in Various States  Available means feasible  Illinois Case Unsealed Recently  Procedural Due Process Rights  PsychRights v. Alaska (2010)  Model Complaint  No Standing 44 47

Strategic Litigation Model Medicaid Fraud (Children& Youth) Complaint

 Drafted for Former Foster Youth to be PsychRights v. Alaska relator United States ex rel  But anyone with “non-public” PsychRights v. Matsutani, et information can be relator al.  Defendants:  Contemplating Next Step(s)  Prescribers & employers  Maybe Federal Civil Rights  Pharmacies Case(s) 45 48

PsychRights v. Alaska U.S. ex rel PsychRights v. Matsutani et al  Sought injunction Against State to prohibit State administering or authorizing psych drugs to children & youth unless: 1. Evidence-based psychosocial interventions  32 Defendants have been exhausted,  Additional Defendant Classes: 2. Rationally anticipated benefits of psychotropic drug treatment outweigh the risks,  State Employees 3. The person or entity authorizing administration • Authorize False Medicaid Claims of the drug(s) is fully informed, and • Run Programs Submitting or Causing False 4. Close monitoring of, and appropriate means of Claims to be Submitted responding to, treatment emergent effects are in place.  Medical Education Provider  Thrown out of Court for Lack of Standing  Dismissed Because Government  Reviewing Options Including Federal Case Allowing Fraud to Continue-- On Appeal 46 49

8 Concluding Query

 Is the country going to come to its senses or follow folly’s path?  Easter Island Inhabitants Cut Down All their Trees to Erect Statues for their Gods, dooming their society  Dominican Republic, unlike Haiti, managed its timber resources for future.