PsychRights®
Law Project for
Psychiatric Rights
CONTACT:
The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (“PsychRights”)
announced today it has joined the growing list of supporters in solidarity with
the hunger strikers in their
Fast for Freedom in Mental Health. On August 16th, five psychiatric survivors
and a dissident social worker from throughout the
Don Roberts, president
of PsychRights, said "We hope this brave action
by these courageous individuals will finally wake people up to the lack of
validity to the horrific 'treatments' people diagnosed with mental illness are
subjected to." Mr. Roberts went on
to say that "the untruths about mental illness and its 'treatments' are
uncritically accepted by the courts to force people to take these dangerous,
generally unhelpful and life shortening drugs."
Vice President-Operations
and Chief Operating Officer Jim Gottstein said the Psych Rights' board has
passed a formal corporate resolution supporting the hunger strikers and their
goals (attached or
http://psychrights.org/CorpSec/HungerStrikeResolutions.pdf). Mr. Gottstein went on to say it was natural
for PsychRights to support the hunger strikers
because it fits in perfectly with PsychRights' mission
to fight unwarranted court ordered medication and other forced treatments. Mr. Gottstein continued that a review of the
research demonstrates the mental health industry's claims that mental illness
is the result of a defective brain is completely unproven and the result of
pharmaceutical companies' publishing false or misleading studies to support
their huge financial self-interest in creating a market for their dangerous
drugs.
The Law Project for
Psychiatric Rights is a tax-exempt charity whose mission is to bring fairness
and reasonableness into the administration of legal aspects of the mental
health system. It has become clear that
the public mental health system is creating a huge class of chronic mental
patients through forcing them to take ineffective, yet extremely harmful and
addictive drugs. The courts are being
misled by dishonest research and testimony and forcing tens of thousands of
people a year to take drugs that are not only physically harmful, but
permanently damage the brain and make people more susceptible, not less
susceptible to psychiatric symptoms. In
support of its mission, PsychRights publishes the
relevant research on its website (http://psychrights.org/) as well as other relevant materials.
"It is entirely
reasonable for the hunger strikers to demand scientific proof to support the
forced treatments to which the mental health system has subjected people. Doesn't it speak volumes that no credible evidence
in support of these theories has been produced?" queried Mr. Roberts
in conclusion.
# # #