PROTESTING ABUSE IN CHILD PSYCHIATRY
The European Society for Child Psychiatry got more than it bargained for at its 18th annual congress in Vienna, Austria.
The beautiful location of the 18th International Congress of the European Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria, was only a façade for the ugly truth of abuse in the field of child psychiatry. CCHR was determined to make this known. In honor of the day, more than 300 CCHR activists from Austria, Hungary, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Denmark and Greece marched.
They carried a large banner proclaiming, “ADHD: Billion-dollar business for psychiatry—no psych drugs for our children.” Protesters carried placards citing points of abuse in psychiatry with youth. This includes the fact that today at least 20 million children are taking psychiatric drugs worldwide, drugs that can include “side effects” of homicidal or suicidal ideation. Placards also made it clear that “Childhood is NOT a mental disorder.”
The marchers were followed by a black hearse with a white child-sized coffin inside and flowers for the young victims of psychiatry. One such victim was an 18-year-old boy who died after 22 hours of psychiatric treatment, which included a 9-hour restraint and being stuffed with psychotropics.
The protest stopped at the doorstep of the Hofburg Palace, where facts and statistics of psychiatric abuse of children and adolescents were made known to attendees and passersby alike.
