PsychRights Sues State of Alaska to Stop Its Massive, Harmful Psychiatric Drugging of Alaskan Children
PsychRights Sues State of Alaska to Stop Its Massive, Harmful Psychiatric Drugging of Alaskan Children
Today the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) announced that due to the State of Alaska’s unwillingness, or inability, to enter into substantive talks, it has filed its lawsuit against the State of Alaska and officials responsible for the excessive, ineffective, and extremely harmful psychiatric drugging of Alaskan children and youth. The lawsuit seeks an injunction stopping the practice of Alaska authorizing or paying for psychotropic drugs to be given children without safeguards being in place to make sure proper decision making occurs.
Jim Gottstein, the president of PsychRights and the attorney bringing the lawsuit, said, “The corrupt influence of the pharmaceutical industry in illegally promoting much of this psychiatric drugging of children has been well established, yet the State of Alaska continues to inflict great harm on the children it has taken away from their families by giving them these drugs.” It is ludicrous that the State sued a drug company for fraud in hiding the harm caused by one of these drugs and still gives that same drug and other toxic drugs like it, to children.
Dr. Karen Effrem, pediatrician and board member of the Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP) and the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP), said, “These dangerous and ineffective drugs are tragically overused to merely control behavior of children who are distraught about being taken away from their families. Missing one’s family or reacting to trauma are wrongly labeled as biological brain disorders that need treatment with powerful medications. Drugs will not put their families back together or help them overcome their trauma and grief. These brain and body damaging pharmaceuticals compound the abuse and trauma. To paraphrase a popular motivational saying, what these kids truly need are ‘hugs, not drugs; hope not dope,’ (even legal dope)”
Governor Palin is one of the defendants because, as governor, she is ultimately responsible for the protection of the children of Alaska, but Mr. Gottstein noted, “I doubt anyone on Governor Palin’s staff has even let her know about the problem of the State harming Alaskan children through excessive psychiatric drugging despite my trying to bring it to her attention ever since she came into office.” “I know Governor Palin has been focused on the very pressing issue of freeing Alaska, and the nation for that matter, from Big Oil’s stranglehold on the trillions of cubic feet of North Slope natural gas the nation needs from reaching the people that need it,” Mr. Gottstein continued, “but Alaska’s children also deserve her attention. We know that Governor Palin is very compassionate about the needs of children with problems and it is hard to imagine she would turn her back on them if she knew about it.”
If, as Governor Palin told the nation on Friday, Alaska has enough money to build the Bridge to Nowhere if it wants to (which it does), it certainly has the money to provide the vital services for these vulnerable children sought by PsychRights in the lawsuit. These best practices have been proven far more effective and are far less harmful than drugging kids and were assembled by the Critical ThinkRx Program, under the auspices of and funded by a grant from the Attorneys General Consumer and Prescriber Grant Program of which the Alaska Attorney General is member.
Mr. Gottstein concluded by saying, “It is outrageous that the Commissioner of the Department of Health and Services wanted to talk with PsychRights about what might be done to avoid the lawsuit, but wasn’t allowed to do so by the Attorney General’s Office.”
For those who would like more information, in addition to the Complaint, there is a set of Questions and Answers about the lawsuit and Mr. Gottstein is scheduled to speak October 10th on “Critical ThinkRx and PsychRights’ Lawsuit Against the State of Alaska’s Psychiatric Drugging of Children” at the ICSPP conference being held October 10-12, in Tampa Florida.
The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is a public interest law firm devoted to the defense of people facing the horrors of unwarranted forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock. PsychRights is further dedicated to exposing the truth about psychiatric interventions and the courts being misled into ordering people subjected to these brain and body damaging drugs against their will. Extensive information about these dangers, and about the tragic damage caused by electroshock, is available on the PsychRights web site: http://psychrights.org/.