Statement by David Oaks
Director, MindFreedom International
“I have personally experienced forced neuroleptics and the experience can feel overwhelmingly horrible, a profound intrusion of our basic human rights, like a wrecking ball to the mind.”
I have heard zealots lobby for a massive increase in involuntary psychiatric drugging by claiming that the newer neuroleptics are far more effective and that the side effect nightmare that plagued older neuroleptics had been solved.
But this new federal study shows that many of our members who have been desperately trying to say “no” to forced neuroleptics have had a better grip on reality than the medical community.
The drug industry hype about miracle wonder pills turns out, once more, to be fraud. The drug industry has seriously mis-informed the public, the medical community, government decision-makers, families and patients. This fraud has caused serious suffering among a very marginalized group. The bizarrely high costs of these drugs threaten to bankrupt many state and local health care systems.
The New England Journal of Medicine official editorial warns that patients face “difficult choices” about drugs that can potentially cause “fatal metabolic problems” and therefore the answer is “informed patient preference.” But when the rubber hits the road, patients and their families are routinely lied to about efficacy and hazards of these drugs, and far too many patients are forced and coerced to take neuroleptics, including with court orders on an outpatient basis in their own homes.
And of course, families in crisis are seldom offered humane and safe alternatives to psychiatric drugs.
I have personally experienced forced neuroleptics and the experience can feel overwhelmingly horrible, a profound intrusion of our basic human rights, like a wrecking ball to the mind. That qualitative experience doesn’t tend to get out in these studies.
The controversy here is beyond being pro or con drugs. Some of our members willingly choose to take prescribed psychiatric drugs. The issue is really about freedom. And the drug corporation domination threatens basic human rights in our society.
The big picture is what we at MindFreedom call the take-over of the mental health system by the drug industry, which impacts research, conferences, medical associations and choice of treatments.
While it’s good to see a study focus on efficacy and side-effect problems such as weight gain and diabetes, the biggest story that the public hasn’t heard yet is that taking long-term high-dosage neuroleptic is associated with actual structural damage to the higher level parts of the brain. These brain changes can make it very difficult to quit neuroleptics by creating dependence.
It would also be good to see far more studies about non-drug alternatives that have been shown to be effective, safer and more sustainable, especially ten, twenty or thirty years down the road. A core recommendation of President Bush’s New Freedom Commission was more study of the long-term effects of psychiatric drugs but we haven’t seen that happen yet.
A drug-based approach to psychiatric problems is also poised to globalize as never before. There ought to be open, honest and public debate about these questions to prevent that from happening. It’s time for democracy to get informed and hands-on with the mental health system.
After thirty years of watching the psychiatric drug industry I’ve come to see it as a traveling medical show. Whenever their current approach is finally debunked they already have a load of new drugs waiting in the pipeline. We expect to see a number of new neuroleptics produced in the next few years and the public’s skepticism ought to be on high alert.
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This news update is a free public service of MindFreedom International.
Since 1987 MindFreedom has won victories for human rights in the mental health system. MindFreedom unites 100 sponsor and affiliate groups and thousands of members.
MindFreedom is one of the few totally independent groups in the mental health field with no funding from governments, drug companies, the mental health system or religions.
The MindFreedom mission calls for a nonviolent revolution in the mental health system.