Just an environmentally friendly idea

I had a crazy idea the other day. Maybe it could work - of course it would require someone to lobby the big petrol companies and governments and so forth and while I know by blog is good ;-) I don't know if it is that good yet.

In order to reduce the traffic in the cities we could increase the public transport use. That is a known fact and many big cities are promoting that. However taking a bus, the metro, a subway or train in most countries costs a fortune. And the prices are going up every year. It is like they are trying to get rid of customer!

Now what if the big oil companies did a super PR stunt. They would sell the gas for all buses in the cities at cost. i.e. no profit for them. Even maybe donate some of it (it isn't like they are low on cash - what with all the Iraq resources being opened to them in the last few years). They get a label on the buses saying they have sponsored that and it's great PR for them.

Then we get all the taxes on these buses and metros cancelled, just slash it down to nil. Basically nobody makes profit on the money - but everybody makes profit on the environment sustaining itself a little longer.

The oil companies get good PR on it. The Politicians get good PR on it. The people get less cars and less polution.

We all get to live a few years more on our lovely home.

Well it was a thought, if you have a comment POST it.


PS: It's great to be back.

What's happening to these kids? the contrasts of our generations

I got this on an email. I it pretty fun. And at the same time quite revealing on the social and moral decline that we are living through (and hopefully doing something to change).

I posted a similar fun series of comparisons of the last 30 years called All in the Name of Progress.

And if you don't read anything - at least check out the quote from Jay Leno on the bottom.

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's
and 70's!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. (That we know of)

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because, WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computer! S, no Internet or chat rooms.

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Not only would our parents spank us, but other adult members of the community would feel free to either spank us or threaten to spank us – AND WE RESPECTED THAT AND THEM!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them...CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.

While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.

The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:
"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"

Tom Cruise, Religion, Germany and the Freedom of Press - or irresponsible reporting in the name of the buck

I was somewhat surprised about all the media stories being run last week about "Germany" not allowing Tom Cruise to make his new film.

At first I sort of wondered if they had really stepped out of line that far. I mean it would be almost as stupid as starting to yell at the person you are doing a documentary on. Then I realised that the article just could not point to any specific source - it was all general statements like "German Government" and other such ambiguous people.

Then when someone starts really doing their investigation it turns out it is one not so tolerant politician that voiced her opinion (It would be like asking Le Pen what his opinion is of the foreigners in France and publishing it as the official statement). The media hid that fact and then had stories to sell for another week.

My point is Freedom of Speech includes a certain responsibility. The Free Press can be helpfull if they are responsible.

But nobody even looks at it that way anymore. "That's just the way it is" doesn't make our lives easier to live. As bloggers we have the power to report the truth no matter what the media says. Let's not waste it!

A fellow blogger, Grahame did a really great post on this whole hullabaloo, called Unfair Treatment of Germany in the Press. Actually an honest piece of "journalism". More people should do this.

Travolta, On psychotropic drugs

I read this article, it is nice how Travolta is just cool about stuff. He's just smooth. Even though loosers like John Sweeney try to upset him at his movie premiere (actually I never figured out what Sweeney was trying to do there, probably trying his old poke in the eye tactic) well Travolta is just cool.

The connection between school shooters and psychiatric drugs is pretty amazing. As a note I read in a paper the other day that in the last 20 years the number of people with migraines has increased, the number of depressed has increased and yet the number of drugs sold also increased. Doesn't it prove that the drugs aren't the solution?

When the germ theory came out 100 years ago people started washing their hands and diseases decreased, that was a correct solution. Is it really so hard to see?

Travolta Echoes Cruise on Psychiatry

Jun 19 09:18 PM US/Eastern

NEW YORK (AP) - John Travolta says his thinking is in line with fellow Scientologist Tom Cruise, who has publicly defended the religion's stance against psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry. Cruise, during a famously heated debate on NBC's "Today" show in 2005, criticized Brooke Shields for taking anti-depression drugs and berated host Matt Lauer for suggesting that psychiatric treatment might help some patients. "I don't disagree with anything Tom says," Travolta says in the July issue of W magazine, on newsstands Friday. "How would I have presented it? Maybe differently than how he did, but it doesn't matter. I still think that if you analyze most of the school shootings, it is not gun control. It is (psychotropic) drugs at the bottom of it." "I don't want to create controversy; I just have an opinion on things, and there is nothing wrong with stating your opinion if you are asked," he continues. "Everyone wants that right, and because you are famous doesn't mean you have less of a right." Travolta, who also talks of his habit of going to 6 or 7 in the morning and waking in the early afternoon, says being famous has little impact on how he lives his life. "I will tell you the things that would be the same, fame or no fame," he says. "Being up all night would be the same. Liking empty restaurants, liking empty movie theaters¡ªunless I am starring in it." Travolta, 53, portrays Ms. Edna Turnblad in "Hairspray," the adaptation of the stage musical that was spun from the 1988 John Waters film of the same name. The new film opens July 20. The role, in which he dons a fat suit and feminine garb, has added fuel to ongoing speculation about his sexuality. "I have never been compelled to share with you my bathroom habits or share with you my bedroom habits," says the married father of two. "Everyone has a right to privacy, so I have never felt¡ªeven though I am famous¡ªthat I had to share that with anybody." Do the rumors bother him? Does he think they've affected his career? "No and no," he says. "What affects your career is the quality of the product. I don't think anyone can hurt me." "Hairspray," a New Line release, also stars Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer and Queen Latifah.

Sandy Smith - amazing last words...

Sandy Smith is the editor of BBC's Panorama show. I won't go over the whole story with the BBC Panorama show. I've posted enough about that. But in my last post on the subject entitled BBC Versus Scientology Why? I referred to a statement by Sandy Smith. I thought I would quote the whole thing, it's quite an amazing statement when you think it over.

Just give it a minute of thought... You're making a documentary about something but you knowingly are giving it a unilateral view. It just doesn't make sense - well read my other post and it suddenly does.

from the morning news interview with Sandy Smith
Journalist: And is it a balanced film? I mean it isn't more heat than light is it? Because there is so much passion involved...

Sandy Smith: There is a fair amount of heat as you've seen. It doesn't claim to be the definitive film about Scientology we'll have to do that another time.

Psychologist Encouraging students to Sex and Drug experiments

I read this article and I figured I need to republish this. Why? Because the moral decay that this society is experiencing didn't just happen, it is caused by people like Joel Becker.



And unfortunately when you start digging and doing some research you find a Psychiatrist or a Psychologist at the bottom of most of the moral decay we have been going through in the last 100 years. I know these are harsh words and I am not giving you too many facts, you can find them for yourself, you can go and see CCHR.org.

I Never Thought This Could Happen
by James Robison

Teenagers at Boulder High were told to have sex with anyone and use drugs. "I am going to encourage you to have sex and encourage you to use drugs appropriately."

That was the message preached by clinical psychologist Joel Becker at a recent mandatory high school assembly in Boulder, Colorado. Children as young as 14 sat captive in the audience while other school administrators listened in silent consent. (It is revealing to note that Becker is a part of the Lesbian and Gay Psychotherapy Association of Southern California.)

"Now, what is healthy sexual behavior? Well, I don't care if it's with men and men, women and women, men and women -- whatever combination you would like to put together," Becker said in an event labeled, "STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs."

I am shocked and outraged that our culture has become so depraved that school officials require children to attend an assembly where supposed “experts” advocate rampant sexual relationships, including homosexuality and group sex. Abstinence was dismissed as unwise and indicative of “religious hang-ups."

But it gets even worse.

"We all experiment,” Becker was recorded as saying. “It's very natural for young people to experiment with same-sex relationships. When you are 13, 12... one of the most appropriate sexual behaviors would be masturbation. Even today, there are psychiatrists who will do sessions under the influence of ecstasy. If I had some maybe I'd do it with someone, but you know."

The nationwide outcry has been lukewarm at best. Compared to Don Imus’ racially offensive comment, there has been little media coverage or public upheaval. Apparently, rude comments are taboo, but pedophilic psychology is no big deal.

Words are not strong enough to express my disgust with this blatant manipulation of children to convince them that immoral acts should not only be considered normal, but perfectly acceptable. This predatory tactic lays the foundation for irresponsibility and abuse. Colorado’s public school officials mentally molested these children by sanctioning dangerous and destructive behavior.
One parent that objected to the indoctrination was Priscilla White, whose daughter is a sophomore at Boulder High.

"The panel discussion was a completely irresponsible and dangerous invitation to Boulder High students to have sex and take drugs," White told the Boulder Valley school board. She read the transcript of the assembly, but was asked to stop because the language was “inappropriate.”

"But it was at Boulder High School," Priscilla White told the board members. "If they can listen to it, I think you can listen to it."

Board members agreed that they should “investigate.” Investigate? Are you kidding me? I’ll tell you what should happen. Those who approved this assembly should be fired immediately. The Conference on World Affairs, which puts together these types of assemblies, should be banned from all public schools. (Jim Palmer, who heads the CWA, defended the presentation by saying, “When you're talking to high school students about these issues, I think there is a responsibility on the part of adults to be informed and to be candid.")

It is tough enough for parents to raise children without public schools holding them hostage to lessons promoting the very things that most families find unwholesome and damaging. Young people face enough temptation in their lives learning to control appetites and desires. They struggle with right and wrong as they face situations that will impact them forever. Will the Boulder school district take responsibility when a student contracts AIDS after a night of “normal experimentation”? Will the Conference on World Affairs comfort the family of a student who dies of an overdose?

The sickness of this mentality absolutely staggers my mind. I cannot imagine the entire community not being up in arms and literally protesting in mass. An old proverb says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” Joel Becker is that man and Boulder High has paved the path for its students.
Sources: The Denver Channel, WorldNet Daily, The Denver Post.

Publishing
Information
Author: James Robison
Word Count: 630

About the author:
James Robison is the founder and president of LIFE Outreach International, an
international humanitarian aid ministry; host of the television program, Life
Today; and author of The Absolutes: Freedom's Only Hope.

Media Contact:
Randy Robison, editor@jamesrobison.netPO Box 701Euless, TX 76039817-267-4211

© JamesRobison.net. Photo available upon request. Reprint rights granted with attribution for complete, unedited article. Revisions allowed only with approval.

The BBC Panorama vs. Scientology - WHY?

John Sweeney - a week of branding has given his photo
and name (and the BBC's) a whole new view in the eyes of the public.

Why would the BBC Panorama show do a documentary on Scientology, knowingly making it mainly or entirely negative when they know Scientology will never let that go down without notice?

Answer: Panorama needs more viewers.

How to get more viewers, get in the media. How to solve getting in the media - get some big controversy going and start being in the news.

How to get controversy - religion is always a great place. Taking on Islam is a little too dangerous, the Danish newspaper did that last year and some of their staff are still hiding. So they take Scientology.

Scientology is doing pretty good in UK with two new centers opened in October 2006 and lots of expansion. They are sure to get a pretty big reaction to that. How to do it? Put the roughest journalist you have on the case and be 90% smear. Result, the Scientologists will do something and media will follow.

You saw the part in between.

The viewers on the show increased. Sandy Smith delivered to his bosses.

The flaw, BBC Panorama didn't know how bad their roughest journalist would mess up and didn't know how far the Scientologists would take it AND forgot to enter in the fact that YouTube and the Internet exists and they no longer have a monopoly on the news.

Result, yes they got more viewers that night but they've also spent a week with a branding iron stuck to them. BBC, Panorama, John Sweeney, Sandy Smith and the rest of the team have become synonymous with: exploding tomatoes, Banorama, yelling, loosing it, lame journalism and plus some.

The idiocy is as Sandy Smith said in his interview on the BBC the only positive on the show that he had included was going to be a few interviews with some celebrities. So he admits that it was going to be a big smear. Things like that are better left unsaid, at least not on TV. It makes me wonder what the qualifications are for working at the BBC - or maybe those are the people Sweeney talked about in his description of the BBC? but then two of them on the same team?

Enough said
(note these are just a bunch of opinions from seeing these stories :0)

Visit the exhibition where John Sweeney lost it!

Here's a press release that was sent around by CCHR. This is the exhibition where John Sweeney the reporter from the BBC lost it.

"Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" Museum Draws Controversy in International Media

Take a video tour of the museum

(Click on the picture to watch the video)

Denouncing the fact that internationally more than 100,000 patients die each year in psychiatric institutions, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) has opened an interactive and visually spectacular museum in Hollywood called Psychiatry: An Industry of Death.

The museum features 14 documentaries with statements from scores of health professionals, academics, legal and human rights experts, and victims of psychiatric brutalities ranging from electroshock and involuntary commitment to political torture, psychosurgery and the devastating effects of psychotropic drugs. Accompanying each documentary are dozens of displays chronicling mental health barbarity spanning hundreds of years right up to present day. Included are sections on the destructive psychiatric influence on our youth, with 6 million children in the U.S. alone taking prescribed cocaine-like stimulants, and psychiatry’s infiltration of Hollywood and the creative industries, resulting in a staggering loss of talent in many artistic fields, including Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. The state-of-the-art museum documents that psychiatry is an industry driven entirely by profit, and provides practical guidance for lawmakers, doctors, human rights advocates and private citizens to take action in their own sphere to bring psychiatry under the law, and to help protect themselves and others from the abuses rampant in the mental health field.

A sampling of current statistics and facts shown in the new museum include:

• Psychiatrists are using electroshock, drugs and other barbaric means to torture political dissidents.

• 20 million children worldwide are taking psychiatric drugs, which can cause suicide, hostility, violence, mania and drug dependence.

• More than 100,000 patients die each year in psychiatric institutions.

• Annually, psychiatrists kill up to 10,000 people with their use of electroshock—460 volts of electricity sent searing through the brain. Three-quarters of all electroshock victims are women.

• Psychiatrists and psychologists have raped 250,000 women. Studies show that 10 to 25 percent of psychiatrists sexually assault their patients; of every 20 of these victims one is likely to be a minor.

Visitors to the museum, which have included celebrities, doctors, educators and legislators, have described it as, “inspirational,” and that the museum should be viewed by “everyone who breathes.”

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.

You can also watch the Introduction to our new Documentary, Psychiatry: An Industry of Death.

For more information, contact the Citizens Commission on Human Rights at 800-869-2247 or email humanrights@cchr.org

BBC Reporter gets a taste of his own medicine and doesn’t like it

BBC Reporter John Sweeney, one of the main journalists behind the BBC Panorama show Scientology and Me should be quite experienced with journalism and the routines of the job.

We all know the techniques of journalists to elicit an unexpected emotional response from the subject. Nobody likes being in the camera spotlight like that with a fast paced and prying journalist in your face trying to make you err at every step.

They stalk the subject and film it at every possible moment, hopefully trying to capture something that nobody else has so they can have some sensational materiel for their show.

This is John Sweeney’s profession – he’s a journalist for a living on one of the worlds largest TV channels.

Now what does a journalist like John Sweeney say when the tables turn and he is the one being documented? When a journalist starts to investigate him, his actions and his life?

We’ve all seen the video on youtube.com, but before you look at it again, let’s rapidly look over the journalistic philosophy of John Sweeney per the BBC’s Panorama site. He says "First, find a crocodile. Two, poke it in the eye with a stick. Three, stand back and report what happens next. If it's a sodden log you'll be quite safe. If it's a crocodile you've got a story."

And let’s see the video now

Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxqR5NPhtLI

Have we got a story here? Per John himself I think we do.

We will all agree that one of the most fundamental journalistic skills is the mastery of language. Let’s see how John excused himself after this outburst; we would all expect a quick twist of words that would make it all seem rational and intelligent.

Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVAeL8AyYeI&NR=1

For someone whose job it is to investigate and write stories one would expect a little more creativity than “I wanted to show you that my voice was louder than yours”. (I’ll have to try that next time I start yelling at someone I am investigating).

Now in response to this he claims he was feeling brainwashed because he was “being stalked” for several days. Actually the stalking in question here is a Scientology Documentary team that did a documentary on John Sweeney’s making of the Panorama show. But how can this be an excuse? Here is a Documentary journalist complaining of being stalked by a documentary team? Does he not realize what he is saying?

In other words, is documentary journalism brainwashing people?

I don't know about that last statement but I do know that John Sweeney is getting a taste of his own medecine and it's not tasing good.

A fellow blogger wrote an article and has some great videos on this. (the one who put the youtube video on)

Don Grey

RFID chips, BBC reporters and Human Rights ...

I was looking through some earlier Engadget blogs on RFID lately and remembered one of them about a company that had invented an RFID tattoo to track cows - and then someone mentions that this could also be used for the armed services. The tattoo is readable up to 4 feet away. Only for cattle now but the company wants to get this to military personel second.

It's sort of scary how we're moving into a control society where every move is being tracked. And how many people watch it happen and think that it's inevitable. I know as I've wondered sometimes myself what could be done about it.

Something can always be done about it. That's my motto - I'm a Scientologist and I believe in that. As I'm in the subject of human rights I thought I would write a little blurb.

I was looking at the news recently and it's amazing how human rights like Freedom of Press get perverted into "Freedom to lie and twist the truth". I've lived Scientology for some 12-15 years now and I look at the stuff the media reports, it's just weird - I mean it's just not what is happening, I wonder what planet these reporters like John Sweeney from the BBC are on.

I've always kept a good opinion of the BBC for it's pretty accurate reporting, but either the Management has changed and someone from The Sun became an editor or John Sweeney has been acting like a rogue journalist.

The film Mad City was a great eye opener on how easy it is to twist the truth. It's sad that BBC entered that game.

Why Do They Kill?

I got this article sent to me and thought I should publish it here. I thought it could shed some light on the recent Virginia Tech Massacre and what goes on in the mind of a killer like that.

INHUMAN BEINGS
The Chemicalized Personality

A mother murders her five children. High school students massacre their classmates. An Iraq vet stabs his wife 71 times. How can this happen?

A common thread in these occurrences is the fact that the killers have been taking psychiatric medications. But that is too simple.

So we hear about “post-partum depression” and “combat stress.” In the case of the teens, it's “the breakdown of the family" or it’s the music, the movies, the video games.

The real answer is the dehumanizing effect of drugs.

A human being has more than one aspect. There is a definite electro-chemical component. The body physically functions via electro-chemical processes.

Then there is that aspect which perceives and reasons and creates. This is not electro-chemical. When people communicate with each other, it is not chemical molecules that are exchanging ideas. This is the spiritual aspect; the conscious, aware individual.

There is also a mental component—a mind—which is an interactive link between the reasoning factor and the physical. A healthy mind (motivated by the spirit) is analytical. A less healthy mind is less analytical and more and more reactive. It operates on a stimulus/response basis, motivated by random factors. A troubled, unhealthy mind doesn't reason. It doesn't perceive well. It reacts to stimuli. [for a more complete description of the mind check this link]

For a long time now, the mental health establishment has been telling us that we are chemical in nature. They would have us believe that they can solve our problems with mood-altering drugs—a little dash of this and a little dash of that. That approach may work at the purely physical level, as in taking antibiotics to handle infection, but it is not the physical component that gives us our rationality, our humanity. It is not the molecules in the brain that are thinking and perceiving, loving and caring, creating great music and poetry. No, the physical component is comprised of cells and electrical impulses, which are as reasoning and creative as an avocado or the electric current that powers your toaster.

When a person is troubled, he is already sliding in the direction of the reactive, unthinking, physical impulse side of his nature. To then give him chemical, mood-altering drugs, pushes him further in that direction. While the sedative effect may appear to calm him down, he is becoming, more and more chemicalized.

So is it any wonder that these killers seem less than human? They ARE less than human. Though they can appear bright and calculating at times, real judgment is gone. They are completely reactive; alienated. Their minds bubble and boil like the mass of chemicals they have become. The analytical capacity is gone. The spirit is gone. Their humanity is gone. They respond randomly and literally to stimuli (enter music, movies and video games). Then, in the extreme, they lash out with violence at the imagined demons and enemies in their own unreal world. They have been mentally short-circuited by the drugs that are supposed to be helping them. It is the ultimate betrayal. [click here for more info on Psychiatry]

And when their bizarre, chemically induced, nightmare world collides with the world of OUR reality—which consists of living people, loving families, children, teachers, learning, accomplishment—a slaughter ensues and we are left to wonder "WHY?" "WHAT HAPPENED?"

The answer: psychiatry happened. And why would anyone perpetrate such a crime as to drug children and adults, driving them insane, all in the name of help? It's too horribly simple. It’s a multi-billion dollar business.The good news is that when society wakes up to these facts, we will cease to allow these evils to occur. It's time.

Tom Solari
tom@tomsolari.com

Tom Solari is a professional writer and video producer, living and working in Los Angeles. He is concerned about a culture that promotes chemical dependency as a solution to problems, when logic and the evidence shows that this approach deepens the problem by numbing the brain, muddling the mind and undermining the human spirit.

Cho was just one in 1500

Someone put a comment on one of the posts I made about the number of School shooters that are on Psychiatric drugs and linked to this site. I checked out the site and while I knew these antidepressants are bad news, I wasn't aware that anyone had documented it to such a degree. Here are more than 1500 stories of antidepressant related violence. And we're not talking shouting when talk violence, no here are murderers and more. It's amazing that with all this - nobody does anything to take them off the market.

There are real solutions to problems of life and none of them involve drugs or electro-shocks or lobotomies. Click here for a good bunch of real solutions. And click here for more facts on the harm Psychiatry does daily.

Check out these stories for yourself.

SSRI Stories

This website is a collection of 1500+ news stories with the full media article available, mainly criminal in nature, that have appeared in the media or that were part of FDA testimony in either 1991, 2004 or 2006, in which antidepressants are mentioned. These stories have been collected over a period of years by two directors of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness (ICFDA). They experienced firsthand the drugs' power to harm and want to save others from the fate that befell them. Their focus has been on Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), of which Prozac was the first, launched in December 1987. Other SSRIs are Zoloft, Paxil (Seroxat), Celexa, Sarafem (Prozac in a pink pill), Lexapro, and Luvox. These drugs are widely employed as first line treatment for depression. Other antidepressants included in this list are Remeron, Anafranil and the SNRIs Effexor, Serzone and Cymbalta as well as the dopamine reuptake inhibitor antidepressant Wellbutrin (also marketed as Zyban).

The story behind Cho

I just read this article, it's great. It's not just the Psychiatric drugs that cause these problem - it is the psychiatric system. If someone has been "in treatment" and then turns around to murder 32 people then something is really wrong.

by Dr. Peter Breggin - Read the original article here.

Focusing on Virginia Tech mass murderer Cho as a disturbed mental patient has led media analysts to ponder how he could have been more readily identified by the mental health system. But Cho is not someone who slipped beneath the psychiatric radar. Instead, he was frequently detected as a large object on the screen.

On separate occasions, he was involuntarily hospitalized, sent for psychological evaluation, and referred to the university counseling center. Consistent with getting him more psychiatric "help," experts have also opined on how he might have benefited from medication. These are all the wrong lessons.

The mental health system was fully alert to Cho's existence and to serious manifestations of dangerous behavior. A faculty member of the English department was so frightened by Cho's behavior that she insisted on having him pulled him out of class. The police and the counseling center were notified and ultimately Cho was given individual tutoring, instead of quick removal from the campus. Also, a number of students called the campus police, probably at least twice in regard to his stalking behavior. Furthermore, he had previously been involuntarily hospitalized in Virginia as a danger to himself and others.

The answer to vengeful, violent people is not more mental health screening or more potent mental health interventions. Reliance on the whole range of this system from counseling to involuntary treatment failed. There is not a shred of scientific evidence that locking people up against their will or otherwise "treating" them reduces violence. As we'll see, quite the opposite is true.

So what was needed? Police intervention. Almost certainly, the police were hampered in taking appropriate actions by being encouraged to view Cho as a potential psychiatric patient rather than as a perpetrator. It's not politically correct to bring criminal charges against someone who is "mentally ill" and it's not politically correct to prosecute him or to remove him from the campus. Yet that's what was needed to protect the students. Two known episodes of stalking, setting a fire, and his threatening behavior in class should have been more than enough for the university administration to bring charges against him and to send him off campus.

Police need to be encouraged and empowered to treat potentially dangerous people more as criminals than as patients. In particular, men stalking women should be handled as definitively as any perpetrator of hate crimes. Regardless of whether the victims want to press charges, the police should. Cho shouldn't have been allowed to get away with it a second time.

How would a police action have affected Cho? Would it have humiliated him and made him more violent? There's no way to have certainty about this, but anyone with experience dealing with threatening people knows that a good dose of "reality," a confrontation with the law, is much more of a wake up call and a deterrent than therapeutic coddling. Furthermore, involuntary psychiatric treatment is one of the more humiliating experiences in American society, and tends to make people more angry, not less.

Mental health interventions do not protect society because the person is almost always quickly discharged because his insurance coverage has run out or because mental health professionals, who as a group have no particular capacity to make such determinations, will decide that the patient is no longer a danger to himself or others. Indeed, in December 2005, when the university obtained a temporary detention order against Cho, a magistrate referred him for a mental health evaluation that found "his insight and judgment are normal." Need I say more about the hazards of relying on mental health screening and evaluation to identify dangerous perpetrators--even after they have already been threatening people?

Psychiatry's last resort for presumably violent people is involuntary hospitalization. Not only does it almost always lead to rapid release, it does not help the involuntary patient. Coerced treatment is not perceived or experienced as "helpful" by the recipient but as unjust bullying. If coercion accomplishes anything, it teaches the "patient" to stay far away from all providers of mental health services.

And what about drugs for the treatment of violence? The FDA has not approved any medications for the control of violence because there are no such medications. Yes, it is possible to temporarily immobilize mind and body alike with a shot of an "antipsychotic" drug like Haldol; but that only works as long as the person is virtually paralyzed and confined--and forced drugging invariably breeds more resentment.

Instead of offering the promise of reducing violence, all psychiatric drugs carry the potential risk of driving the individual into violent madness. For example, both the newer antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa, and the antipsychotic drugs such as Risperdal and Zyprexa, cause a disorder caused akathisia--a terrible inner sensation of agitation accompanied by a compulsion to move about. Akathisia is known to drive people to suicide and to aggression. Indeed, these tragic outcomes of drug-induced akathisia are so well documented that they are described in the most establishment psychiatric book of all, the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

For the past fifteen years or more, I've been writing about the capacity of psychiatric drugs to cause mayhem, murder and suicide. In early 2005 the FDA finally issued a warning that antidepressants cause both suicidality and violence. For example, the FDA's new mandated warning label for antidepressants states that these drugs produce "anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania."

Note the reference to "irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity" in the label or package insert for antidepressants. That's a formula for violence. Note the mention of akathisia, another source of both violence and suicide. And finally, note the reference to mania, yet another drug-induced syndrome associated with violence and suicide.

As a psychiatrist and medical expert, I have personally evaluated dozens of cases of individuals driven to violence by psychiatric drugs of every type, but most commonly the newer antidepressants. One of the cases I evaluated, the Columbine shooter Eric Harris, looks the most like Cho. Both were very emotionally disturbed in an extremely violent fashion for a prolonged period of time. For the entire year that Eric Harris was evolving his manic-like violence, he was taking Luvox, a drug known to cause mania at a high rate in young people

In my book Reclaiming Our Children, I analyzed the clinical and scientific reasons for believing that Eric Harris's violence was caused by prescribed Luvox and I've also testified to the same under oath in deposition in a case related to Columbine. In my book the Antidepressant Fact Book, I also warned that stopping antidepressants can be as dangerous as starting them, since they can cause very disturbing and painful withdrawal reactions.

We have not been informed whether or not Cho was taking psychiatric drugs at the time he unleashed his violence; but even if he wasn't, he might have been tipped over into violent madness weeks or months earlier by a drug like Prozac, Paxil, or Zoloft. He could also have been undergoing severe drug withdrawal. Investigators should set a high priority on obtaining and publishing Cho's psychiatric drug history.

To focus on Cho as a "mental patient" or "schizophrenic" distracts from the real need to enforce security on college campuses, or in any setting, by reacting definitively to lesser acts of violence before they escalate. It also maligns people with serious mental problems, the vast majority who are, above else, inoffensive and overly docile.

The violence unleashed on the Virginia Tech campus should not lead to calls for more mental health screening, more mental health interventions, or more drugs. Instead, the violent rampage should confirm that psychiatric interventions don't prevent violence and instead they can cause it. Early on, Cho should have been confronted by the police and by university administrators with the reality that his behavior was unacceptable and he should have been suspended. In other words, he should have been treated as a criminal who was stalking women, and as an obviously threatening individual, not as a potential mental patient. These measures might have confronted him with sufficient reality to nip his violence in the bud and more certainly would have removed him from the circumstances that the he found intolerably stimulating, while also removing him from so many targets of opportunity.

My scientific papers describing medication-induced violence and some of my cases can be found on www.breggin.com.

How many School shootings are Psychotropic drug users?

I promised I would look into this and I am still doing it. There is more information to be gotten and I will get it and post it here.

What I have found so far is that 8 out of the last 11 School Shootings are by kids on Psychotropic drug, i.e. antidrepressants.

But the only reason there are 3 which "aren't" is because we can't access their files.

More to come on this.

What's the one thing these killers have in common? Psychiatric drugs.

Could Virginia Tech Massacre have been prevented?

Watchdog Says Psychiatrists and Mental Health Industry Have Known Since 1991 That Their Drugs Can Cause Violence and Suicide

In 1991 CCHR brought Evidence before the FDA
Click here to watch 7 minute video of 1991 FDA hearing

Cho Seung-Hui May Be 9th School Shooter Under Influence of Psychiatric Drugs -- Documented to Cause Homicidal Ideation, Suicide, Psychosis, Mania and Hostility

In the wake of yesterday's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech by gunman Cho Seung-Hui, state legislators, civic and human rights activists are asking why Congress has failed to investigate the link between psychiatric drugs and school violence, given the high rate of psychiatric drug use by the shooters. According to breaking news from investigators at Virginia Tech, Cho may have taken depression drugs—documented by the Food and Drug Administration to cause suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, hostility and “homicidal ideation.?If Cho Seung-Hui’s psychiatric drug use is confirmed, it would bring the total to 61 killed and 77 wounded by psychiatric drug-induced school shootings.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health watchdog that initially discovered the psychiatric drug connection in the Columbine shootings, and first brought the violence and suicidal inducing side effects of antidepressants before the FDA in 1991 (see video) warns that the psycho-pharmaceutical industry will once again try to obscure the violence-inducing nature of psychiatric drugs in order to protect the billions in profit from drug sales. CCHR says that Congress must demand a full investigation into the link between senseless acts of violence and psychiatric drug use in the wake of recent FDA warnings on the documented drug risks.

In September 2005, following confirmation that Red Lake Indian Reservation school shooter, Jeff Weise, was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac, the National Foundation of Women Legislators, together with American Indian tribal leaders, called for a Congressional investigation (link) into the correlation between psychiatric drug use and school massacres. To date there has been no response to this request despite documentation that at least eight recent school shooters were under the influence of psychiatric drugs at the time of the shootings. In other instances, the shooter’s medical records were never made public and their psychiatric drug use remains in question.

• September 28, 2006: Bailey, Colorado: Duane Morrison, 53, entered Platte Canyon High School and shot and killed one girl, and sexually assaulted 6 others. Antidepressants were found in his vehicle.

• March 21, 2005: Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minnesota: 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac when he shot and killed nine people and wounding five before committing suicide.

• April 10, 2001: Wahluke, Washington: 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his high school, and held 23 classmates and a teacher hostage while on a high dose of the antidepressant Effexor.

• March 22, 2001: El Cajon, California: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman was on two antidepressants, Effexor and Celexa, when he opened fire at his California high school wounding five.

• March 7, 2000: Williamsport, Pennsylvania: 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush was on the antidepressant Prozac when she blasted away at fellow students in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, wounding one.

• May 20, 1999: Conyers, Georgia: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with a mix of antidepressants when he opened fire on and wounded 6 of his classmates.

• April 20, 1999: Columbine, Colorado: 18-year-old Eric Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox when he and his partner Dylan Klebold killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 23 others before taking their own lives in the bloodiest school massacre to date. The coroner confirmed that the antidepressant was in his system through toxicology reports while Dylan Klebold’s autopsy was never made public.

• April 16, 1999: Notus, Idaho: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school narrowly missing students; he was taking a mix of antidepressants.

• May 21, 1998: Springfield, Oregon: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his own parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been on Prozac.

Read this report by CCHR to find out more about the dangerous connection between violence and psychiatric drugs.

Teenscreen - if you're not sure ... just label them suicidal

This came in on an email I got about Teenscreen. I hear some others have already adopted the teen screen model in some countries and made it mandatory. It is just like George Orwell's 1984 (yes I know I mentioned that before) - but really. I just don't get it like teenagers are committing suicide and throwing themselves out of the window all over the place? Not really - actually why don't we ask the psychiatric profession to supply the rest of society with helmets to protect themselves from the suicidal teenagers?

Jokes aside (actually if we did that people would see how stupid this program really is) it's like finding one problem and then adjusting the whole population to fit the minute possibility that all others are in the same category.

And in any case anything that checks for problems as a systematic check will eventually drive people nutty. There's got to be some evidence or an indication before the checks move in. The Vacin dillema is just one of the same.

Star Tribune

TEENSCREEN

Risks are too great

Your March 26 editorial made a spurious claim that since "schools screen for eye trouble. Why not for brain disorders?" Screening students to assess whether they are "at risk" for suicide or other mental health disorders is a highly subjective, unscientific and extremely difficult task.

David Shaffer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention reported that for every 16 students correctly identified by TeenScreen as "at risk," 84 were falsely labeled. Since the most common "treatment" for mental health disorders is drug therapy, TeenScreen leads to unnecessary drugging and the proven risks of serious side effects from these powerful psychotropic drugs.

TeenScreen has no place in the public school system. The risks to the mental and physical health of our students are too great.

BONNIE GASPER, EDEN PRAIRIE

Swisscom for Human Rights

I just heard that Swisscom the Swiss Mobile Phone company are showing the Human Rights Public Service announcements from YouthforHumanRights in their shops.

That's pretty cool - using all those Gadgets for something good!

A more positive note on some issues!

Human Rights in UK?

I picked this up from Engadget, I've posted on it before and it bears more mention.

I'm

If you're a regular reader of Engadget then you don't have to live in the UK to know that they loves 'em some surveillance technology. Last year, their Information Commissioner warned that the UK was running the risk of "sleep-walking into a surveillance society." Today, Jack Straw announced that the Commons' Home Affairs committee would be launching an inquiry into the growing use of surveillance. From the kingdom which gave us George Orwell and CCTV cameras with mics, speakers, and the intelligence to detect violent behavior and see through clothes, we're wondering if the move is already a tad too late. Of course, here in the US we shoot each other for game consoles so pick your poison.

What TeenScreen would prefer you didn't do

I got this in an email from a friend. They got this quote from an email that TeenScreen sent about the people ANTI TeenScreen. Well if they would prefer you don't see it, then I prefer you do.

Below is what TeenScreen does NOT want you to do as they elaborate here: http://dailykenoshan.com/images/news/ts/responding.pdf

Write Letters. To the local school board. To area school principals. To the local paper. To anyone who will listen.

Attend Local Meetings. Express your opinions at local community forums, such as school board meetings or town hall meetings.

Make Web Sites and Blogs. TeenScreen says: "information proliferated by these groups remains on their own Web sites and Web logs, or blogs. It is when members of your community find these sites that the information these groups disseminate becomes problematic."

So you know what to do now...

What part of 1984 did they not understand?

I read this article here on on the US Army wanting to install cameras around the world.

I think Engadget posted on something like this before about the UK having installed PA system to their CCTVs in the city.

Look I really think the people behind this misunderstood the point behind the book 1984. It wasn't an instruction manual for how to run a good government. It was a satire and a view on how bad it can become in the future!

No honestly, I doubt they misunderstood anything. But lest nobody read 1984 it's a great prediction of how sour the "total control government" can go.

Eh - the right to privacy anyone? The Universal Declaration on Human Rights? It was meant help people not to put in a file cabinet in a basement at the bottom of a flight of broken stairs, locked in a disused lavatory with a sign "Beware of the Leopard". [from Douglas Adam's Hitchickers Guide to the Galaxy]

The real Horrors of how Electric Shock (ECT) "Works"

I recently got a little description of this "treatment" and how it is meant to work and cure someone. Or maybe the word cure has been removed from the Psychiatric vocabulary. It's pretty disgusting, if you've got an upset stomach I would suggest you skip this post and go to the next one.

Here's a brief description of the process - don't try this at home (nor in a hospital).

1. The patient is injected with an anesthetic to block out pain and a muscle relaxant to shut down muscular activity and prevent spinal fractures.

2. Electrodes are placed on the temples bilaterally (from one side of the brain to the other) or unilaterally (front to back on one side of the brain).

3. A rubber gag is placed in the mouth to keep teeth from breaking or patients from biting their tongues.

4. Between 180 and 480 volts of electricity are sent searing through the brain.

5. To meet the brain’s demand for oxygen, blood flow to the brain can increase as much as 400%. Blood pressure can increase 200%. Under normal conditions, the brain uses a blood-brain barrier to keep itself healthy against harmful toxins and foreign substances. With electroshock, harmful substances “leak” from blood vessels into the brain tissue, causing swelling. Nerve cells die. Cellular activity is altered. The physiology of the brain is altered.

6. The results are memory loss, confusion, loss of space and time orientation and even death.

7. Most patients are given a total of six to 12 shocks, one a day, three times a week.
Ask the foremost psychiatrists and they have no explanation to justify why or how their “treatment” works. It is literally as scientific as sticking one’s head in a light socket. Do it often enough and you will become disoriented, confused, lose your memory or even die. Same result as ECT.

Someone called Neal Fox did an interesting post on this subject on his blog http://news-from-meat-street.blogspot.com/ - I don't have the exact post title but you'll find it.

And now for something completely different

In a moment of total Pythonian Logic I sat down to blog today about some current event in the news. Something absolutely amazingly important. It was the type of information that would probably have changed the course of earth.

But I got sidetracked today when I saw the blog of John Wood. After seeing this article I decided would scrap all the important things on my agenda and write about a totally unimportant issue.
A fellow blogger has started an encyclopedia of Monty Python things. While I normally blog about Human Rights and the abuses of Psychiatry, the real deal with Global Warming and other issues - but now is the moment for something completely different.

Go to John's blog and then click over to the Wikipeadia!

This will be the end of any serious consideration for the wikipedia.

I am sorry I lost that absolutely important information I had to blog about today - I guess you will never find out about it then.

;-)

Global Warming - no skin off my nose

Someone sent me this little story, when reading this post related Global Warming on a familiar blog (ourearthlyrights.blogspot.com which I linked to earlier) I check out regularly I thought I would publish it and you can make your own decisions. This is a subject that many are writing about these days. I also found it on this site (johnalexwood.blogspot.com - and you should check out his article on Spamalot).

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. What food might this contain?" The mouse wondered - he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr.Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"
The pig sympathized, but said, I am so very sorry, Mr.Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."

The mouse turned to the cow and said "There is a mousetrap in the house!There is a mousetrap in the house!" The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main
ingredient. But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.

To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember -- when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage and help one another get along.

So... Global Warming no skin off my nose?

Human Rights - also in the west?

I read this blog called "The dark side of The Sun" on the recent media articles on one celebrity. I sometimes wonder how some of these tabloid papers view things like human rights.

I was thinking it over the other day. And figured out how they get away with this sort of stuff.

Journalist Bob thinks up some story that will be sensational. Bob has two email accounts. He sends himself an email from his Yahoo account under the name of Pete. FictionPete claims to be a great friend of a celebrity and says "I have inside information for you such and such" Journalist Bob now has "evidence" on the story and publishes is saving his home-made email in the files as the document.

One takes Bob or the Newspaper to court and they pull up the "evidence" which is an email from FictionPete.

That's my 5-cents - but I bet that's the way it goes.

All in the name of a bit of money these giddy little people happily ruin lives. Cute isn't it.

Is Psychiatry for Sale?

I just saw this very neat article on Psychiatry. It's 9000 words so a bit to read but very informative and gives a neat view how Big Pharma is pulling the strings in the medical profession.

Nice piece of research (better than me I must admit).

It sort of puts the text to my earlier post with the cartoon, "could we up the dosage" in fact this is exactly what Psychiatry has become. A Big Pharma pusher - if you don't know what I am talking about you need to see the DVD I posted about earlier Psychiatry: An Industry of Death.

Could we up the dosage, doctor? I still have feelings

Saw this cartoon - it's subtle enough to be quite funny!

Patient says to his psychiatrist: Could we up the dosage? I still have feelings.
By Alex Gregory

ID: 123559, Published in The New Yorker January 22, 2007

How to win any argument

OK I’ll be frank. I dislike psychiatry and just about anything they do. I have seen the vegetables they make and nothing much they can say or do will make up for the millions of lives they ruin.

So how to they get away with their crimes.

Not too complex.

1. If you oppose a psychiatrist or their profession they challenge you with their diplomas and tell you you haven’t studied.

2. Anyone who tries to have a success (and often does much good) get’s labelled as a fake and they get their propaganda machine (well financed by Big Pharma) to chop them up into little bits.

Grim? Yes I know but unfortunately true.

PS: And when you show them that they don’t have any results = they say can’t possibly get results as they lack the funds. Nice one eh?

Film Premiere puts Spotlight on Sex Trafficking in USA

Found this article, following my earlier posts on Human Rights I thought it is an intersting point.

Human rights activists from Southern California will gather on Wednesday, January 17th to address the growing problem of human trafficking in Los Angeles and throughout the United States.

A new docudrama that exposes trafficking in the US will be premiered followed by a panel discussion.

The film, Cargo: Innocence Lost, by award-winning film director Michael Cory Davis, unveils the dark underworld of sex trafficking. Cargo provides an insight into this human tragedy through interviews with top officials on the subject, victims' advocates and some of the victims themselves.

The film is interwoven with raw, intense narrative based on numerous true stories.

The event, which will be held at the Garden Pavilion of the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre International in Los Angeles, is co-organized by a number of Southern California groups, united in the fight against human trafficking — now a $9.5 billion a year criminal industry internationally. Human trafficking experts and law enforcement representatives dealing with this issue will lead the panel discussion and answer questions.

Mary Shuttleworth, President of LA-based International Foundation for Human Rights and Tolerance stated, "Human trafficking is only possible because people are uninformed about modern-day slavery and about their basic human rights. This is why we are promoting a series of public service announcements depicting all 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In less than 30 minutes, any person can gain a working knowledge of their fundamental rights."

Released in June of last year, these emotion-packed PSAs have now aired to more than 130 million people in 60 countries. The fourth in the series, "No Slavery," is a heart-rending message that promotes that we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that slavery is still alive today.

Official estimates of the number of people trafficked into the United States each year range from 14,500 to 50,000. Eighty percent of the cases in California occur in Los Angeles, San Diego or San Francisco, according to a 2005 report from the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley.

According to a United Nations 2005 news report, after drug dealing, human trafficking and arms dealing are the largest criminal industries in the world; however human trafficking is the fastest-growing of the three. Around the world an estimated 27 million people are slaves and every year 600,000 to 800,000 victims are trafficked across international borders, half of them children.

The event is being organized jointly by the International Foundation for Human Rights & Tolerance, the Los Angeles City Commission on the Status of Women Human Trafficking, the San Diego Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, Youth for Human Rights International, the Human Rights Department of the Church of Scientology International, Artists for Human Rights, the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force, the Rescue and Restore Southern Region Coalition and the Salvation Army.

"a lack of respect towards professionals working in psychiatry"

I found this quote on the site of PsykiatriFonden - who is farily active these days on the PR front in Denmark. They even convinced the Crown Princess Mary to become a "protector" for their association.

The most recent campaign they are running is "anyone who promotes that they can help stress is a fake." - now hold on, that means that they can do something about it? No they even say it themselves.

Quote from PsykiatriFonden, a Politically-Neutral Advocacy Organisation for Mental Illness

The perception of psychiatry and the role of the psychiatrist Despite improvements in the scientific understanding of mental health disorders and advances in their treatment, there is still a lack of respect towards professionals working in psychiatry. Our image in the general public, as well as in our own ranks, is not as good as it should be. The general public is sceptical and the media often carries stories about patients who are overdrugged, patients who receive insufficient psychotherapy and lack of treatment coordination in severely ill patients. Consequently, young doctors are choosing other specialities. Most damaging of all are acts of violence committed by psychiatric patients (most often following noncompliance) that receive adverse publicity and thus, in the minds of the public, confirm the inability of psychiatrists to cope with mental health problems.

Come on. What story are they trying to spin, they know they have no cures they even state it openly. They don't need to work on publicity, they need to work on results.