SHEDDING LIGHT ON PSYCHIATRY’S HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AND “TREATMENT” FAILURES
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International museum educates the public on the abuses of an industry whose only goal is profit and whose “treatments” too often end in death.
Since opening in 2005, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum has educated hundreds of thousands about the history of psychiatry’s human rights abuses and their horrendous methods of “treatment” that end either in death or the complete debilitation of patients. The museum has become an important and reputable venue to educate and warn about psychiatry’s countless abuses, with people commonly returning year after year and bringing others so that they can learn the truth.
Recent visitors included a former US senator, who immediately decided to connect her employment preparation center with the museum. Shortly after, a group of 17 nursing students from that program toured. One of the students said, “In view of the number of psychiatrists that we consider leading innovators, this information is shocking.”
Another remarked, “I learned everything from eugenics and the use of torture to psychotropic drugs to basically eliminate life, and that the labeling of mental illnesses is not based on evidence but opinion.”
Three classes of students studying to be medical assistants and their instructors from a California career college toured. One student said, “I loved the tour. It was a good eye-opener and made me realize everything wrong these people are doing.”
Another student remarked, “So many different types of ‘therapies’ are used without results.”
Yet another said, “I learned never to put my son on any type of medication. Never!” And the instructors were as shocked as the students. One of them wrote, “Psychiatry is EVIL! It is not humane and is unfair.”
Several nursing students were appalled to learn about the link between psychiatry and school shootings. “I have had various changes after this tour, specifically starting with school shootings and the way the media makes these kids look like monsters, but we don’t actually see their history of psychiatric medications and their effects.”
The museum tour radically changes the viewpoint of nursing students. “My outlook on mental health drugs has definitely changed. Seeing the outcome of what these drugs are doing to our families, friends and country definitely makes me want to reconsider these drugs for our community and patients.”
“This is my first visit. It is really life-changing,” said another. “I learned that the diagnosis of mental health is a guessing game rather than a scientific diagnosis.”
Yet another one said, “An eye-opener about the truth happening in the pharmaceutical world. It is more about profits; they are not really concerned about the well-being of patients or humanity.”
“I learned how psychiatrists abuse patients in the most horrendous ways. I saw how psychiatrists diagnose patients without tests, how those meds have affected and harmed society,” said another nursing student.
In addition to shedding light on psychiatric abuse, the museum saves lives. One man returned to the museum to tell the staff that he visited it over 16 years ago and it changed his life. After the tour, he immediately returned to his therapist and informed her that he no longer wanted to be on the prescribed psychotropic drugs. He was aware from CCHR’s materials that withdrawal from any psychiatric drug required medical supervision and that he should never do this on his own. His psychiatrist disagreed at first, but he warned her, “Either wean me off or I will stop cold turkey.” She weaned him off.
When he toured the museum again this year, he told his guide, “I never took them again and I am just fine! If I were still taking them, I would probably be unable to function in normal society.” He would have been “depressed and suicidal.” He took CCHR’s drug information booklets so he could help others.
One woman toured the museum several years earlier when her children were in school and had been labeled “mentally disordered,” requiring drugs. A friend told her about the museum and brought her to CCHR for the tour. She returned this year with her husband and wrote, “Both my sons were given Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta. These meds did not help at all. My eldest had awful side effects and was aggressive, violent, withdrawn and suicidal. I decided to take my boys off the meds, but I was told I could be held responsible for neglect if I didn’t give them the prescribed medication. After the information I learned, I feel so relieved that I followed my intuition and got knowledge instead of being bullied or shamed into medicating my children. My sons are fully functional, happy and healthy adults today.”
Many of the visitors have experienced psychiatry firsthand and commented how the tour helped them. One person wrote, “I have been to many museums, but this one is amazing. I learned a lot. It informed me and I felt supported. As I am a person who has been diagnosed with ADHD, I have had a very hard experience since I was about eight years old and felt awful side effects of Concerta. This affected a lot of my health and this museum showed me the lies that have been told. It is good to know that I am not alone.”
One young man from a recording school said, “I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed pills and I still feel the side effects to this day. I now know to not ever trust psychiatrists, as they still do shock therapy. I despise the amount of drugs given to 80-year-olds.”
A man who toured the museum several years ago brought his girlfriend who was a victim of the mental health system as a child. After the tour, she wrote, “I learned about what I went through as a kid. When I was 13 years old, I was put in a mental institution, straightjacketed and put on drugs. This museum has helped others including me understand what I was going through.”
The museum provides information that is increasingly relevant to current events in society. Physical restraint is used as a common practice in psychiatry and is taught to law enforcement and the mental health community. It results in deaths every year. In May 2020, a 16-year-old African American boy, Cornelius Frederick, died because of being restrained in a for-profit psychiatric hospital in Michigan.
CCHR Int has called for a nationwide ban on restraint use and eugenics-based mental health profiling and treatment—a fraudulent, dehumanizing and harmful psychological theory that certain races of color were not equal to whites, and therefore “deserved” fewer rights. They also formed the Task Force Against Racism and Modern-Day Eugenics and launched a website to educate people on the history of psychiatry’s racism—a key feature of the Industry of Death Museum.
Rev. Fred Shaw, Director of Public Affairs at CCHR International, hosts meetings and museum tours of civil rights groups, including local branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to educate them on psychiatry’s betrayal of the Black community. One of those toured stated, “The museum was a life-changing experience.”
A community activist, radio show host and member of CCHR’s Task Force Against Racism and Modern-Day Eugenics was toured and now does weekly interviews with Rev. Shaw about the dangers of psychiatry.
The Industry of Death Museum is reaching thousands of visitors and spreading the truth about the harmful effects of psychiatry in our society. It is reaching people far and wide. A former security guard of Melbourne General Hospital, who saw abuses taking place in the psych ward, visited the museum. After the tour, he said, “I cannot believe a place like this exists, and I am so pleased that it does. In my lifetime, I have witnessed family members ‘treated’ to no level of success, and I would agree there was nothing wrong with them to warrant ‘treatment’ in the first place. The CCHR museum adds weight to my thoughts.”
Those touring the museum are invited to sign CCHR’s online petition to ban electroshock, join CCHR and take literature to enlighten and warn others. Take action at www.cchr.org/take-action/get-involved.html.
