“In short, the whole business of creating psychiatric categories of ‘disease,’ formalising them with consensus, and subsequently ascribing diagnostic codes to them, which in turn lead to their use for insurance billing, is nothing but an extended racket furnishing psychiatry a pseudo-scientific aura.”

—Dr. Thomas Dorman, Member of the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom and Canada

White Papers

Our White Papers, often presented to legislators and policymakers, are more comprehensive reports on the issues CCHR campaigns to rectify.

Mental Health Parity

While some patient advocacy groups, heavily funded by drug interests, and the mental health lobby purport that mental illness is like a physical disease such as diabetes, cancer, or epilepsy, scientific evidence simply doesn’t substantiate this. There is no parity in the diagnosis and testing of mental health problems compared to real physical conditions. Psychiatrists admit they cannot distinguish between a mental disorder and no mental disorder. This White Paper explores the dangers and government waste inherent to mental
health parity and how it also places patients at risk.

Skyrocketing Mental Health Costs—A Matter of Fraud

"Everyone is neurotic. I have no trouble giving out diagnoses. In my office I only see abnormal people. Out of my office, I see only normal people. It’s up to me. It’s just a joke. This is what I mean by this fraud, this arrogant fraud...To make some kind of pretension that this is a scientific statement is…damaging to the culture…"— Ron Leifer, New York psychiatrist. This report further exposes the fraud behind mental health parity.

PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS

CCHR Exposing the Dangers of Antidepressants and Other Psychotropic Drugs—Despite FDA/Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical Cover-Ups

In the interests of consumer protection, this report is a history of the cover-up of antidepressant risks and CCHR’s vigilant exposure of this deceit. It is a comprehensive time line of the CCHR investigation. Parents, whistleblowers and legislators are among those who warned about these drugs despite vested interest groups to shield consumers from the truth.

When Prescribing Psychotropic Drugs Becomes Criminal Negligence: Cases and Convictions

On January 22, 2008, Australian actor, Heath Ledger, died from an accidental overdose of six types of prescribed painkillers and sedatives. Ellen Borakove, spokesperson for the New York Medical Examiner’s office, said the cause of death was “acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam [Valium], temazepam [Restoril], alprazolam [Xanax].”

Psychiatric Drugs and Anger Management Curricula: A Perspective on School Violence

In determining any policy regarding school violence or in assessing potential common characteristics of teens responsible for school shootings and violence, the role of prescribed psychotropic (mind-altering) drugs and psychological programs must be considered.
This White Paper explains why.

Flaws in the NIMH-Funded Study “Evaluation of Outcomes with Citalopram [Celexa] for Depression Using Measurement-Based Care…Implications for Clinical Practice”

Media have touted this study as “new” evidence showing that SSRI antidepressants can be effective in the treatment of depression. However, the findings of this study show a remarkably low percentage of participants actually experienced any remission or lessening of symptoms. This is yet another of psychiatry’s false reports.

The Drugging of “Postpartum Depression”

Many people think that psychiatric disorders, such as depression or postpartum [after birth] depression, are the same as medical diseases or illnesses. However, this is very misleading, especially to a mother who has experienced the trauma of just giving birth. To have her think the emotional roller coaster she may be experiencing is the result of a “chemical imbalance in the brain,” requiring mind-altering medication, is false and harmful.

International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs

In 1990, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) asked American psychiatrists and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue warnings about the latest psychiatric drug causing violence and suicide: the antidepressant Prozac. CCHR filed complaints and provided evidence. In response, on September 20, 1991, the FDA ordered an advisory committee to hold a hearing to investigate the safety and effectiveness of antidepressant drugs.

A panel of nine psychiatrists, many with financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, heard chilling testimony from medical experts as well as the victims of these drugs—and did nothing.

PSYCHIATRIC-PHARMACEUTICAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual Link to Drug Manufacturers

A Financial Vested Interest Harming in the Name of Mental Health Care

Psychiatry, the Pharmaceutical Industry and the FDA—A Destructive Alliance Endangering the Lives of Children

The alliance between members of the American Psychiatric Association, pharmaceutical companies and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is placing millions of children’s lives at risk. The FDA relies upon psychiatric theories about “mental disorders” and the public health of American citizens is at risk.

False and Misleading Advertising by Psychiatric Groups

This public interest report reveals the largely untold story of the psychiatric-pharmaceutical lobby and its “advocacy” groups that market biased opinion about mental illness and the need for dangerous psychiatric medication to treat it. Much of their published material passes theory off as fact, thereby misleading parents and consumers.

ALTERNATIVES

Mental Health Care: What is the Alternative to Psychotropic Drugs?

Informed consent requires patients to be notified of all available alternatives, yet psychiatrists have denied patients this right, forced “treatment” on them that only exacerbates their condition or masks undiagnosed and untreated physical conditions. Alternative methods of helping those suffering from mental disturbance are buried by the marketing hype that “mental illness” is the result of a neurobiological dysfunction or chemical imbalance. There is no scientific merit to these claims but they support drug sales of more than $27 billion a year in the United States and $80 billion worldwide. This report is based on medical doctors’ studies and reports.

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