Support Coalition - David Oaks <dendron at efn.org> wrote:
>1. Forcing neuroleptic drugs is common, both inside institutions
>and on an outpatient basis, in the USA and internationally.
1a. This is because the mainstream media propagates the Big Lie that
there is something ``evil'' about using antipsychotic meds for mental
illness treatment. As a result, many uniformed non- mental patients
have a negative attitude toward antipsychotic meds. Is it any wonder
many untreated sufferers exposed to the same influences don't desire
meds while dazed, confused, and paranoid?
>2. Long-term administration of these drugs (Prolixin, Haldol, etc.)
>can cause deleterious brain changes which can be seen from
>post-mortem and animal studies, by neuroscientists.
2a. Untreated schizophrenia sufferers can live in a nightmare world
where all thoughts, emotions, and sensory input is heightened and
magnified to such an overwhelming intensity their experience is like a
living Hell. That is the alternative to not receiving medical care
from the point of view of a mental illness sufferer.
>3. Neuroscientists have generally been silent about bringing
>this news to the public, and explaining "there may be a problem."
>Certainly, no informed consent tells patient or family about these
>brain changes, except tardive dyskinesia.
3a. Which neuroscientists are you referring to? At what facilities?
And if they have _generally_ been silent, obvious not _all_ of them
have been silent. Perhaps Thomas Szasz and Peter Breggin are at the
forefront of those who have been unable to keep quiet.
>4. During "Brain Awareness Week," as I explained on NPR's
>"Talk of the Nation," our organization held a protest of the
>above silence.
4a. You received national public radio coverage? This is an example
of not speaking out?
>5. To publicize this, we held a tongue-in-cheek (but effective)
>"BRAIN BOYCOTT," encouraging people to contact McLean's
>"brain bank" (1-800-BRAIN-BANK). Researcher Jill Taylor there
>has seen dendritic spreading attributed to a rebound against
>neuroleptic drugging, but refuses to call this brain "change"
>a potential problem. (There are *many* forms of brain change
>following long term use of neuroleptics, as one can well
>imagine!) You can call Jill yourself and ask her.
5a. And I assume you have posted Dr. Taylor's phone number to the Net
with her permission, correct?
>6. People reading the above five points might deny them,
>but now can never say, "But I was never told, I didn't know."
6a. People reading your similar spams all over Usenet never received
an answer to the most important question I posed to you: in what way
are these changes worse than living through a decades- long hell of
untreated mental illness symptoms?
>Silence is complicity.
--
Legislate the in$urance indu$try out of the business of preventing
medical care. Bean-counters have a DNR order with *your* name on it.