CCHR PROTESTS AT NEUROSCIENCE CONGRESS
The Neuroscience Education Institute (NEI) held its 2015 Annual Psycho-pharmacology Congress at the Hilton hotel in Orlando, Florida, where more than 1,200 psychiatrists and mental health workers assembled to learn “the science and efficiency of psychotropic drugs,” an endeavor sponsored by pharmaceuticals.
But ensuring their congress was anything but peaceful, the CCHR Florida team arrived to protest the over-drugging of Americans and the deadly side effects of those same psychotropic drugs. ADHD medications, for one, have earned themselves more than 40 warnings in eight countries for their injurious side effects, including aggression, depression and increased suicidal tendencies.
NEI psychiatrist Stephen M. Stahl is paid big bucks to prescribe psychiatric drugs. He received $1.2 million as the top prescriber of just one antidepressant, Brintellix.
“People need to ask for proof that these drugs work. They won’t find any,” says Diane Stein, President of CCHR Florida.
Accordingly, CCHR staff and volunteers took to the streets with signs proclaiming “Childhood is not a mental disorder” and “Psychiatry: junk science and dangerous drugs.”
Passing drivers honked in support, a sheriff pulled over to express solidarity, and one passerby spontaneously provided water to the protesters, who marched for more than three hours. Yet another rolled down his window to shout: “God bless you for what you are doing!”
WE really WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU
WHEN THEIR DRUGS DON’T WORK PSYCHIATRISTS DESTROY LIVES WITH ELECTROSHOCK
Ken grew up with an alcoholic father who physically abused him. He was prescribed psychotropic drugs for depression at the age of 14. When the drugs made matters worse, he was prescribed another, which only compounded his problems.
When he was 21, Ken was told by a psychiatrist that he needed shock “therapy.” He says he was given so many drugs that, in a stupor, he agreed.
Over the course of the next year, Ken received 30 shock treatments. He insisted they be stopped because they were destroying his memory.
Ken was disoriented. His father had to teach him how to tie his shoes. When he walked around the block by himself he would get lost. His doctor estimated he had suffered a 50 point loss in IQ.
Now 27, Ken has this to say about electroshock: “I have no memory of my childhood or high school. It wipes out your past and future… I can’t go to college. Forgot how to write and read. Someone told me I was murdered and I appreciated that they spoke the truth. It’s been a complete nightmare. I want to speak out to prevent people from doing this.”
Ken is one of 100,000 American adults and children electroshocked every year. Each has stories devastatingly similar to his. Survivors tell of severe pain, unhappiness, confusion, memory erasure and complete loss of independence in life.
And it isn’t just happening in the U.S. More than one million people, including the elderly, children and pregnant women, are electroshocked around the world each year.
Spread the word about this destructive practice. In person, on social media, to government officials: speak out. You can make a difference.
WE NEED YOUR HELP
As a nonprofit mental health watchdog, CCHR relies on memberships and donations to carry out its mission to eradicate psychiatric violations of human rights and clean up the field of mental health. To become part of the world’s largest movement for mental health reform, join the group that has helped enact more than 180 laws protecting citizens from abusive mental health practices.
