CCHR Victoria

Blog of the Victorian Chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). Location: Victoria, Australia

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Link to CCHR International's website and video explaining who we are and why we do what we do.

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One seven-year-old boy became so depressed while taking Ritalin in 2008 that he tried to commit suicide while an eight-year-old hallucinated that spiders were crawling up his skin after taking ADHD drugs, the report said.

ADHD drugs 'made 30 children suicidal' - Yahoo!7 News

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In January of this year, David Collins killed himself with a shotgun just three months after he began taking Chantix (varenicline) a smoking cessation drug made by Pfizer.

Suicide and Aggressive Behavior Found as a Result Of Taking Anti-Smoking Drugs-Prompts Black Box Warning

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Concerns have been raised after a GP at Commonwealth-funded mental health centre Headspace prescribed Prozac to a 16-year-old boy without the teen's mother's knowledge.

Prozac case sparks teen drug warning - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

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The antidepressant Celexa, commonly prescribed to alleviate some symptoms of autism in children, has no medical benefit in such patients, while exposing them to a significant risk of side effects.

Antidepressant Commonly Prescribed for Autism Found Utterly Useless

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Eli Lilly & Co. paid doctors in South Carolina for participating in a speakers’ program in exchange for prescribing the antipsychotic Zyprexa, and used golf bets to get more patients on the drug, according to notes by sales representatives. During a golf game, one doctor agreed to start new patients on Zyprexa for each time a sales representative parred, or put the ball in a hole within a predetermined number of strokes, according to the notes.

Lilly Paid Doctors to Prescribe Zyprexa, Notes Show (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

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A PSYCHOLOGIST who had an ''intense emotional relationship'' with a patient has admitted she violated every ethical code of conduct for her profession.

Psychologist admits affair wrong

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Parents are shopping around to find doctors who will give them a medical diagnosis that saves them facing up to their parenting responsibilities. And then they're keen to dope them up thanks to drugs such as Ritalin. In Victoria alone almost 70,000 kids go to school under the influence of such powerful medication each year - a rise of 75 per cent in just a few years.

Brats don't need drugs | Herald Sun

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Pfizer has agreed to pay $1 billion to resolve allegations under the civil False Claims Act that the company illegally promoted four drugs -- Bextra; Geodon, an anti-psychotic drug; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, an anti-epileptic drug -- and caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs for uses that were not medically accepted indications and therefore not covered by those programs. The civil settlement also resolves allegations that Pfizer paid kickbacks to health care providers to induce them to prescribe these, as well as other, drugs. The federal share of the civil settlement is $668,514,830 and the state Medicaid share of the civil settlement is $331,485,170. This is the largest civil fraud settlement in history against a pharmaceutical company.

Pfizer pleads guilty to felony crime in fraudulent marketing of Bextra, pays billions in fines by Mike Adams the Health Ranger

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As human beings we have a strong natural impulse to protect our kids from harm.  As a society we create norms, laws and institutions to protect, educate and nurture our young.  Consciously and instinctively we safeguard our children.

Teen Screen is a bitter and cynical betrayal of this noble human impulse.

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In the summer of 2003, a small group of psychiatric survivors convened in Pasadena, California, to hold a hunger strike with the aim of forcing the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to admit that they had no conclusive evidence to support their claim that mental illness is based in biological dysfunction. Though the APA was, at first, quite indignant, it did eventually issue a statement, three weeks into the strike, conceding that “brain science has not advanced to the point where scientists or clinicians can point to readily discernible pathologic lesions or genetic abnormalities that in and of themselves serve as reliable or predictive bio-markers of a given mental disorder or mental disorders as a group.”

Eugenia Tsao: The Drug Baron's Campaign

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Dr. Peter Breggin, one of the more outspoken medical authors addressing the issue of mental health treatments, especially psychotropic medications, describes antidepressants, tranquilizers and even some antipsychotics as essentially “brain-blunters,” meaning that they “dull” the emotions so that the patient doesn’t feel them as intensely as before, depending on the dosage. Otherwise, psychiatric drugs do little, if anything — except produce ghastly side-effects.

- The Low-Down on Depression and Mental Illness

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A West Bloomfield psychiatrist was sentenced to 10 months in prison today for conspiring to commit naturalization fraud, admitting he falsified diagnoses to help people gain U.S. citizenship without passing the English proficiency portions of naturalization exams.

Psychiatrist gets 10 months, gave fake citizenship waivers to 492 | Detroit Free Press | Freep.com

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David B. Stein, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology and Criminal Justice Virginia State University

One of the subjects that I have taught for over twenty-five years is psychopharmacology. It might be helpful to challenge one of the great myths about mental disorders, namely that they are caused by chemical imbalances. This myth is founded on some of the tricks that are pulled in so-called scientific research in psychology and psychiatry...

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...With 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at educational facilities about to be screened for mental illnesses under the New Freedom Initiative (funded by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004), using the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as a guide, most media services have dropped the ball.

The Low-Down on Depression and Mental Illness

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"Victoria leads Australia, and indeed the world, in terms of the number of people involuntarily treated on community treatment orders..."

This document provides a very real appropriate account of mental health in Victoria.

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An incredible database for all to be fully informed