Author Archives: Citizens Commission on Human Rights

CCHR: Psychiatric Treatment Fails to Protect Communities, Often Fuels Tragedy

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Sept. 22, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — When violent tragedies like mass shootings strike, media have quoted family members or friends who assert perpetrators were “schizophrenic” or “off medication.” The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) says this inadvertently implies that psychiatric intervention could have prevented the acts, but psychiatrists themselves admit they cannot predict violent behavior. And psychiatric treatment — even involuntary hospitalization and drugging — often coincides with, or worsens, violent outcomes.

Image caption: Psychiatrists claim violent tragedies occur because perpetrators miss a mental health evaluation or stop taking drugs. The reality: psychiatric intervention often precedes harm, and psychiatrists cannot predict violent behavior.

CCHR analyzed 132 acts of senseless violence between the 1980s and 2022. Of these, 43 perpetrators had been psychiatrically hospitalized — often involuntarily—and at least 106 were prescribed psychotropic drugs prior to or at the time of their crimes. The true number would be higher, CCHR says, since toxicology results and treatment histories are often withheld. One perpetrator, treated long-term before shooting and wounding 10 and injuring 19 others, admitted: “They made me worse. They made me more dangerous than anybody could f— imagine.”

Recent case in point: Charlotte, North Carolina (August 2025). A 34-year-old man fatally stabbed a 23-year-old girl on a light rail train. Authorities described it as a “missed opportunity” for evaluation and medication. But the alleged perpetrator had already been involuntarily hospitalized, prescribed drugs, and cycled through prison, where psychiatric treatment is routine.[1]

Linking violence to “schizophrenia” reinforces a stereotype disproven by research.

A National Institutes of Health-funded CATIE trial found that 19 of 20 people diagnosed with schizophrenia exhibited no violent behavior during two years of follow-up.[2]
People given the label are 14 times more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.[3]

CCHR stresses that the real risk comes not from an unproven illness, for which there are no medical tests to confirm, but from the powerful drugs or other therapies imposed to treat it. When headlines state a perpetrator “stopped taking medication,” the implication is blame. But antipsychotics—literally “nerve-seizing” chemicals—can cause agitation, aggression, excitability, paranoia, diabetes, heart failure, and even brain shrinkage. Stopping is often a rational act of self-preservation.

Clozapine, widely forced on inmates, can cause lethal blood disorders, seizures, irritability, confusion, weight gain, hallucinations, sexual dysfunction, heart arrhythmias, and irreversible movement disorders.[4] A review of six major antipsychotics found treatment failure or relapse rates up to 93%, with widespread harm to multiple body systems.[5]

Withdrawal itself poses dangers, causing agitation, psychosis, or suicidality that never existed before and are mistaken for relapse.[6] Psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff emphasizes that people who want to stop “should not be deemed irrational if they wish to try for a better quality of life free of the burdens of these drugs.”[7]

The Tarasoff ruling (California, 1976) gave psychiatry a “duty to warn” of dangerous behavior. Yet a psychiatrist admitted, “Violence by an individual is almost impossible to predict,” and the ruling demanded abilities “well beyond the professional powers of any therapist.”[8]

Even the American Psychiatric Association admits its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) cannot establish mental disorder in relation to competency or criminal responsibility.[9] Yet, there are more than 200 “violence risk assessments” based on such unreliable tools. These can justify involuntary detention—raising serious concerns under the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which calls for an end to forced detainment and treatment.

Case Reports of Treatment Failure:

Buffalo, NY (2022): An 18-year-old killed 10 and injured 3 after psychiatric hospitalization.[10]
Houston, TX (2024): A perpetrator, 36, shot and injured two—including a child—after at least four involuntary commitments.[11]
Duxbury, MA (2023): A mother strangled her 3 children after discharge from a psychiatric hospital and being prescribed 13 psychiatric drugs for eight months prior.[12] Her lawyer said the drugs caused homicidal and suicidal ideation.[13]

“Cases like these exemplify that the problem isn’t early release or missed medication,” said Jan Eastgate, president of CCHR International. “The real issue is psychiatric incarceration and treatment itself often fails and worsens conditions. There should be a full review of this and the poor and dangerous outcomes.”

U.S. taxpayers have poured billions into violence-prevention schemes rooted in psychiatry.

Safe Schools Act (1994): promised violence-free schools by 2000.
Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative (1999–2009): spent $2.1 billion.
Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (2022): added over $2 billion for mental health in schools and nearly $190 million in DOJ safety grants.
2024 White House report detailed $1 billion to hire 14,000 school-based mental health staff, and $240 million for school-based programs.

Yet school shootings increased nearly 60% since the Safer Act’s passage—rising from 52 in 2019 to 83 in 2024.[14]

CCHR urges policymakers to confront that psychiatry’s model of detainment and drugging has failed to protect society. “Involuntary commitment and psychiatric drugging are not safeguards—they are risks,” Eastgate stated. “Psychiatrists admit they cannot predict violence, yet billions more are spent on programs built on a false promise that they can. It is time for accountability.”

About CCHR: It was founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz. CCHR is a nonprofit mental health watchdog exposing human rights abuses in psychiatry.

To learn more, visit: https://www.cchrint.org/2025/09/19/why-psychiatric-detainment-and-drugging-cannot-deliver-public-safety/

Sources:

[1] https://sfg.media/en/a/police-released-full-footage-of-iryna-zarutska-killing-in-the-us/; https://sfg.media/en/a/who-is-decarlos-brown-jr-and-why-was-he-free-after-14-arrests/; https://abcnews.go.com/US/mother-sister-charlotte-stabbing-suspect-describe-history-mental/story?id=125451590

[2] https://www.medpagetoday.com/resource-centers/mental-health-focus/predicting-violence-schizophrenia/2645

[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3160236/

[4] https://www.drugs.com/sfx/clozapine-side-effects.html

[5] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27864791/

[6] https://www.ijfmr.com/papers/2024/4/25984.pdf

[7] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7338640/

[8] https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/tarasoff-v-regents-university-california-30278; “Once A Killer; A Gunman Convicted of Shooting Nine People and Killing Four of Them is Trying To Be Released from a Mental Hospital,” CBS 48 Hours, July 12, 1999

[9] DSM Fourth Edition-TR (APA, 2000), p. xxxiii; Nancy Haydt, “The DSM-5 and Criminal Defense: When Does a Diagnosis Make a Difference?” Utah Law Review, Vol. 2015, Article 13

[10] https://apnews.com/article/buffalo-supermarket-shooting-government-and-politics-race-ethnicity-978bddfec22344fe73e30ca34f491784

[11] https://abcnews.go.com/US/suspected-lakewood-church-shooter-criminal-history-mental-health/story?id=107179259

[12] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11728009/Lindsay-Clancy-psychiatrist-says-flat-board-wondering-whats-going-on.html

[13] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11710075/Midwife-mother-strangled-three-children-death-overmedicated-prescription-drugs.html

[14] https://www.cnn.com/us/school-shootings-fast-facts-dg

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NEWS SOURCE: Citizens Commission on Human Rights

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CCHR Addresses UN to End Coercive Psychiatry and Protect Children from Abuse

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Aug. 18, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) addressed the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on August 11, urging the global abolition of electroshock treatment (ECT), forced drugging, psychosurgery, and other coercive psychiatric practices—especially when used on children. CCHR told the Committee that these practices constitute sanctioned abuse, often amounting to torture, and continue with impunity due to weak or unenforced penalties against perpetrators.

Image caption: The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) addressed the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on August 11, urging the global abolition of electroshock treatment (ECT), forced drugging, psychosurgery, and other coercive psychiatric practices – especially when used on children.

Founded in 1969, CCHR has spent over five decades documenting and exposing psychiatric abuse and advocating for rights-based alternatives to coercion. The group commended the CRPD Committee for its leadership in advancing a human rights-based approach to mental health, aligned with World Health Organization (WHO) and UN guidance.

CCHR’s Executive Director, Fran Andrews, detailed the organization’s landmark legislative victories: the first U.S. ban on ECT for children under 12 in California (1976), Texas’ ban for those under 16 (1993), and Western Australia’s 2014 prohibition for children under 14—backed by criminal penalties. The Australian Capital Territory banned ECT under the age of 12 in 2015.

Despite these precedents, ECT remains in use worldwide, including on very young children. In the U.S., children as young as five can still receive electroshock, with both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry promoting its use in minors.

International data underscores the scope of the problem. A 2022 review found significant ECT use on 10–18-year-olds in the Czech Republic, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden.[1]

In New Zealand, a government inquiry confirmed that children were subjected to electroshock without anesthetic at the now closed Lake Alice psychiatric hospital—treatment survivors described as torture and confirmed last year by the country’s Prime Minister.

Prominent Australian psychiatrist Dr. Niall McLaren has stated unequivocally: “No psychiatrist needs to use ECT.”[2]

CCHR President Jan Eastgate testified about the alarming rise in psychotropic drugging of children worldwide. A Lancet Psychiatry report confirmed global increases in prescribing, with the U.S. leading in prevalence rates for youth. Depending on the cohort, antipsychotic prescribing for children has surged by 50% to 200% over the past two decades.[3]

Many parents remain unaware of the risks—weight gain, metabolic changes, diabetes, tremor, sedation, and even sudden death. The antipsychotic risperidone, widely prescribed to children as young as four, has been linked to severe side effects, including gynecomastia (female breast growth in boys), sometimes requiring mastectomies.

In Spain, CCHR President Salvador Fernández warned of the ongoing prescription of ADHD stimulants such as methylphenidate, despite documented risks of suicidal behavior, psychosis, and cardiovascular complications.

Eastgate also addressed deaths of children as young as 7 in U.S. for-profit psychiatric hospitals from restraint, some ruled homicides. Yet prosecutions are rare, and facilities continue to operate, profiting from insurance coverage.

A New York Times investigation in September 2025 revealed that one of the largest private psychiatric hospital chains in the U.S. has detained individuals against their will to maximize insurance billing, prompting judicial intervention in some cases.

In Spain, Fernández testified that children are still subjected to involuntary hospitalization and prolonged mechanical and chemical restraints.

CCHR’s written submission to the CRPD cited studies showing psychiatric hospitalization can raise suicide risk 44-fold, while forced psychiatric drugging increases the risk sixfold.[4] A July 2025 study found that those involuntarily hospitalized were nearly twice as likely to die by suicide or overdose within three months of discharge.[5]

A 2022 European study confirmed widespread use of mechanical and chemical restraints, with inconsistent regulations across countries.[6] In the U.S., a Harvard Law School report found that state hospitals continue to use forced ECT and other practices that may constitute torture under international law.[7]

CRPD’s press release on its 33rd session acknowledged CCHR’s evidence and concerns.[8]

Ms. Eastgate told the Committee: “Electroshock, psychosurgery, forced drugging, seclusion, and restraint are not care—they are sanctioned abuse and must end. Upholding a person’s autonomy, dignity, and liberty is non-negotiable. Rights-based alternatives must replace outdated, violent psychiatric practices.”

CCHR urged the CRPD to call for:

A global ban on electroshock.
Prohibition of forced drugging and the use of mechanical and chemical restraints.
Strong criminal penalties for perpetrators of psychiatric abuse, with full enforcement.
International adoption of WHO/UN human-rights-based mental health guidelines.
Transparent reporting of psychiatric abuse cases, with public access to enforcement outcomes.

“Decades of evidence show that coercion in mental health does not heal—it harms,” Ms. Eastgate said. “Our work with legislators, courts, and survivors proves that laws can protect, but only if they are enforced. The CRPD’s leadership is critical to ensuring countries replace coercion with compassionate, rights-respecting solutions.”

About CCHR: It is a non-profit mental health industry watchdog, co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz. With chapters across six continents, CCHR has been instrumental in obtaining more than 190 laws worldwide to protect individuals from abusive psychiatric practices.

To learn more, visit: https://www.cchrint.org/2025/08/15/cchr-addresses-un-in-support-of-global-ban-on-coercive-psychiatry/

Sources:

[1] “Electroconvulsive therapy in children and adolescents: results from a population‑based study utilising the Swedish National Quality Register,” Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry, 13 Dec. 2022, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10682289/

[2] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/04/11/uk-legislators-call-for-ban-electroshock-treatment/, citing Niall McLaren, “No Psychiatrist Needs to Use ECT,” 27 June 2017, https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/06/no-psychiatrist-needs-use-ect/

[3] “Editorial: Psychotropic overprescribing to youth: scope of the problem, causes, and possible solutions,” Frontier Psychiatry, 6 May 2024, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11107288/

[4] “Disturbing findings about the risk of suicide and psychiatric hospitals,” Soc. Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiology (2014), 49: 1353-1355, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00127-014-0912-2

[5] “A Danger to Self and Others: Health and Criminal Consequences of Involuntary Hospitalization,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York, staff reports, July 2025, https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr1158.pdf?sc_lang=en

[6] “Current trends in restrictive interventions in psychiatry: a European perspective,” Cambridge University Press, 22 June 2022, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-advances/article/current-trends-in-restrictive-interventions-in-psychiatry-a-european-perspective/287C3187376FA5C987106BE108603819

[7] “WHEN DOES MENTAL HEALTH COERCION CONSTITUTE TORTURE? …” Fordham International Law Journal, Vol 45:5, 2022, https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ilj/vol45/iss5/2/, pp. 785-786

[8] “Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Opens Thirty-Third Session,” Meeting Summaries, 11 Aug. 2025, https://www.ungeneva.org/en/news-media/meeting-summary/2025/08/committee-rights-persons-disabilities-opens-thirty-third-session

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NEWS SOURCE: Citizens Commission on Human Rights

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CCHR Cautions Veterans: Psychedelics Reflect a Dark History of Exploitation, Harm and Failed Science

LOS ANGELES, Calif., July 14, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is warning Congress and the public that new legislation to legalize psychedelic drugs for U.S. veterans is a dangerous repeat of history—when defenders of the nation were used as test subjects in unethical psychiatric experiments.

Image caption: Psychiatry and the U.S. military’s shameful history of drug experiments on troops is well-documented, yet often ignored.

A newly introduced federal law would expand funding to fast-track psychedelic treatments for veterans. Legislators say it’s needed because one veteran suicide is too many.[1] CCHR agrees but says masking deep wounds with mind-altering drugs is a betrayal of those who served, and a review of the drugs shows many can induce suicide that veterans may not be informed of.

“This is not real help — the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry will exploit our veterans as guinea pigs to prop up a $10 billion psychedelics business,” the watchdog states.

Psychiatry’s shameful history of drug experiments on troops is well-documented—yet often ignored. A December 2024 National Security Archive release revealed 1,200 once-secret records exposing the CIA’s mind-control programs in the 1950s and 1960s, which used unwitting subjects to test hallucinogens like LSD.[2] The Federal Practitioner noted the project was “rife with violations of research ethics and human rights.”[3]

Between 1955–1975, over 7,000 soldiers were exposed to more than 250 chemicals — including nerve agents like BZ and LSD[4]—in chemical warfare tests like Operation Delirium at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland. Researchers even developed BZ, a hallucinogen 100 times more powerful than LSD, to incapacitate enemy minds, but used U.S. soldiers to test it.[5]

The Conversation reported in April 2024: “The full range of mechanisms, safety risks, and long-term effects of psychedelics are not known. Conflicts of interest… can contribute to an overly optimistic opinion by researchers, the public, and policymakers. This may pose safety risks to the public if legislative changes that increase access are made prematurely, as witnessed with tobacco and opioid industries in the past.”[6]

History shows what happens when psychiatric “wonder drugs” are marketed. The first SSRI antidepressant was sold in the 1980s and 90s on the claim that it corrected a “chemical imbalance.” Pharmaceutical companies touted antidepressants as wonder drugs that could make the world a happier place. However, studies now confirm SSRIs can make patients agitated, violent or suicidal.[7]

In 2022, Prof. Joanne Moncrieff and colleagues from the University of London’s landmark study found “no evidence of a connection between reduced serotonin and depression,” exposing the myth.

EVIDENCE OF HARM, NOT CURE

Real-world studies show psychedelics can do more harm than good:

A 2023 study in PLOS One found that one-third of users experienced severe anxiety, fear, social disconnection, depersonalization, and derealization. Transient visual distortions experienced after taking a psychedelic substance were reported by 40–60% of users. While largely referring to illicit uses of the drugs, the authors stated that the “variety of profoundly challenging experiences that can occur following the use of psychedelics” can also occur following use in guided settings.[8]

Another 2023 study discussed how ~40% of participants in an earlier study on psilocybin experienced moderate to severe anxiety, panic, or distress.[9]

In another 2023 study, 7 out of 15 participants described challenging derealization experiences subsequent to taking psychedelic drugs as: “having daily out-of-body-experiences,” “reality felt thin or unstable,” “[being] completely disconnected from the universe,” and “…like, there was something wrong with my normal world.”[10]

Studies provide decades of evidence indicating that a “bad trip” can cause intense fear and panic, which sometimes lasts for weeks or months after taking the psychedelic drug. Serious anxiety issues can develop even years later.[11]

The Korean Journal of Physiology & Pharmacology found ketamine linked to flashbacks, amnesia, delirium, and violence.[12]

Vice’s “Killer High” series revealed multiple cases in just three years where LSD use was linked to sudden, brutal killings. The article “Killer High: Exploring the Phenomenon of LSD-Fueled Murder” highlighted how even seemingly ordinary, stable people turned homicidal while under the influence.[13]

“Veterans need real help addressing trauma, injuries, and reintegrating into civilian life,” says Jan Eastgate, president of CCHR International. “They don’t need mind-bending chemicals that risk harming them further—all while lining the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry pockets.”

CCHR, established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry, Dr. Thomas Szasz, provides a Fact Sheet on Psychotropic Drugs Create Suicide, Failing Service Members & Veterans.

To learn more, visit: https://www.cchrint.org/2025/07/11/psychedelics-for-vets-exploitation-failed-science/

Sources:

[1] https://correa.house.gov/news/press-releases/correa-bergman-push-to-amend-military-veterans-funding-bill-prepare-va-for-administration-of-psychedelic-therapies;

[2] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/dnsa-intelligence/2024-12-23/cia-behavior-control-experiments-focus-new-scholarly

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9896363/

[4] https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/u-s-soldiers-used-as-human-guinea-pigs-in-top-secret-chemical-testing-program; https://www.cnn.com/2012/03/01/health/human-test-subjects/index.html

[5] https://www.ranker.com/list/edgewood-arsenal-human-experiments/melissa-sartore; https://ahrp.org/dr-harris-isbells-experiments/; https://pages.uoregon.edu/munno/OregonCourses/REL253F12/REL253Notes/BZStory.htm

[6] https://theconversation.com/how-corporate-involvement-in-psychedelic-research-could-threaten-public-safety-226689

[7] https://web.archive.org/web/20210211031717/https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18324545-300-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-wonder-drugs/

[8] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0293349

[9] https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41145-x

[10] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-41145-x

[11] “LSD Toxicity Treatment & Management: Approach Considerations, Prehospital and Emergency Department Care, Inpatient Care,” Background, Pathophysiology, Etiology, 3 May 2017; “Treatment with psychedelics is psychotherapy: beyond reductionism,” The Lancet Psychiatry, published online December 12, 2023, citing Calder, A.E. and Hasler, G., “Towards an understanding of psychedelic-induced neuroplasticity,” Neuropsychopharmacology 2023, 48: 104-12

[12] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6315094/

[13] https://www.vice.com/en/article/acid-lsd-fuelled-murder-homicide/; https://www.vice.com/en/article/prescribed-ketamine-turned-these-men-violent-allege-lawsuits/

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Image caption: Psychiatry and the U.S. military’s shameful history of drug experiments on troops is well-documented, yet often ignored.

NEWS SOURCE: Citizens Commission on Human Rights

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CCHR Warns Troubled Teen Camps Must Be Banned as Deaths Spur Closures

Despite closures since 2019, CCHR says the troubled teen industry still endangers kids' lives, and tougher bans and oversight of both facilities and the youth transport system are needed to ensure no child dies for profit

LOS ANGELES, Calif., July 7, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Despite dozens of closures of abusive “troubled teen” programs in behavioral and psychiatric centers, including wilderness camps in recent years, a leading mental health industry watchdog warns that children’s lives remain at risk unless stronger laws ban the worst offenders and the secretive youth transport practices that feed them. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a nonprofit mental health industry watchdog, says that while public outrage and media exposure have forced some notorious facilities to close, the underlying problems that enable these abusive programs still persist—and more children will die if lawmakers do not act. Two teen suicides occurred last month in a North Carolina behavioral facility, forcing its closure.[1]

Image caption: CCHR says while public outrage and media exposure have forced some notorious facilities to close, the underlying problems that enable these abusive programs still persist – and more children will die if lawmakers do not act.

“These so-called ‘therapy’ camps have a disturbing history of traumatizing vulnerable young people while charging desperate families tens of thousands of dollars,” said Jan Eastgate, international president of CCHR. “When a child dies in these programs, that should be the last death. We need permanent bans—not just temporary closures.”

Wilderness therapy camps, residential treatment centers, and other “troubled teen” programs often market themselves as life-saving alternatives for youth struggling with behavioral or emotional challenges. But critics say that behind the glossy brochures is an industry built on secrecy, harsh discipline, and abusive staff.

“Many of the methods used in these camps would violate the Geneva Convention if applied to prisoners of war,” wrote journalist Maia Szalavitz in Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids.[2] Her book, along with years of survivor accounts and investigations, has shown how children are subjected to extreme isolation, physical restraints, humiliation, and medical neglect.

Other recent closures have been prompted by tragic deaths, including a 12-year-old boy who died within 24 hours of admission to a wilderness program in North Carolina after being restrained.

Numerous youth facilities and wilderness camps across the U.S. have faced criminal charges, lawsuits, and license revocations following deaths, suicides, or widespread abuse. Many charged fees ranging from $30,000 to more than $100,000 per child per year.[3]

State audits have exposed repeated failures. A 2022 Salt Lake Tribune investigation in Utah—long known as a hub for these programs—found thousands of inspection reports detailing rampant abuse, sedation, and neglect even after an oversight law was passed in 2021.[4]

Utah Senator Mike McKell, who spearheaded the law admitted the state had been “learning the hard way,” that this was inadequate, citing at least seven preventable deaths since 2021. He led the amendment to the law this year, creating a children’s ombudsman and new whistleblower protections.[5]

In Maryland, legislators led by Delegate Vaughn Stewart passed the Preventing Abduction in Youth Transport Act this year to curb some of the worst practices, including the forcible removal of children from their homes at night by “secure youth transport” companies. The law prohibits dangerous restraint use by these companies. This often-unregulated youth transport industry has been described by journalists as “authorized kidnapping,” with children handcuffed or restrained as they are shuttled to remote facilities far from home. Survivors, including prominent advocates, Paris Hilton, attorneys and CCHR, say this practice can leave children deeply traumatized before they even reach a program.[6]

CCHR points to a deeper issue fueling the troubled teen industry’s survival: the widespread psychiatrizing of normal childhood and adolescent behavior.

“Too many of these kids are labeled with vague or unscientific mental health diagnoses simply for acting like teenagers,” said Eastgate. “This creates a pipeline to often harmful treatments—and big profits.”

Psychiatrist Allen Frances, who chaired the task force that revised the fourth edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM), famously admitted that the expansion of psychiatric labels has been excessive. ADHD diagnoses alone have tripled over the past two decades.

“Human nature just doesn’t change that quickly,” Frances said. “Our kids haven’t suddenly become sicker; it’s just that diagnoses are applied to them more loosely.”

This diagnostic inflation has proven lucrative. In the U.S., the troubled teen segment alone is estimated to be worth $50 billion.[7] Between 2017 and 2021, total medical spending for pediatric mental health conditions jumped by over 45%, with these conditions now making up nearly half of all pediatric medical spending—around $31 billion in direct child costs and $59 billion in related household expenses.[8]

CCHR says that while some private equity firms are quietly exiting the troubled teen market amid mounting lawsuits and bad press, the industry continues to operate largely in the shadows—propped up by misleading advertising, false diagnoses, and an unregulated transport network.

“Every state must investigate these programs thoroughly, shut down any that endanger children’s lives, and permanently ban the worst practices,” said Eastgate.

The watchdog says that true reform must hold facilities accountable for abuse and deaths, end the use of psychiatric labels to funnel youth into profit-driven programs, and shut down the loopholes that allow dangerous operators to rebrand and reopen under new names.

“The recent closures show that change is possible when families, survivors, the media, and lawmakers work together,” said Eastgate. “But as long as one child can still be abused or die in these behavioral-psychiatric camps, this fight isn’t over. No child’s life should ever be gambled away for profit.”

CCHR is a nonprofit mental health watchdog established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Professor of Psychiatry, Dr. Thomas Szasz. It has helped enact more than 190 reforms worldwide to protect individuals from abusive or coercive psychiatric practices.

To learn more, visit: https://www.cchrint.org/2025/07/03/deaths-spur-closures-but-troubled-teen-camps-must-be-banned/

Sources:

[1] https://avlwatchdog.org/asheville-academy-trails-carolina-owner-faced-financial-upheaval-before-deaths/

[2] https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/inside-americas-disturbing-wilderness-therapy-32203146

[3] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2043610619900514

[4] https://www.kuer.org/politics-government/2021-03-03/new-regulations-for-the-states-troubled-teen-industry-win-final-legislative-approval

[5] https://ksltv.com/politics-elections/lawmakers-push-for-tougher-oversight-after-several-deaths-in-utah-teen-treatment-centers-2/743747/

[6] https://www.cchrint.org/2025/02/14/maryland-bill-targets-psychiatric-transport-abuses/; https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/hb0497?ys=2025RS;

[7] https://www.dw.com/en/troubled-teen-industry-in-the-usa-the-prison-school-scandal/a-69963580

[8] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2815870

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CCHR wants electroshocking children prohibited under child abuse laws

LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 30, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Child and adolescent psychiatrists have issued a policy statement urging broader access to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for children and adolescents despite growing international condemnation of the practice on minors. Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Human Rights Office have called for an outright ban on ECT for children, explicitly stating: “ECT is not recommended for children, and this should be prohibited through legislation.”[1] The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, condemned the statement as “medically reckless, legally dangerous, and morally indefensible.” CCHR is demanding federal and state lawmakers move urgently to outlaw the electroshocking of children, classifying it as a form of child abuse.

Image caption: Through US Freedom of Information Act requests, CCHR uncovered that children as young as five have been electroshocked. The full scope remains hidden due to the lack of national transparency requirements on ECT usage.

ECT, also known as shock treatment, sends up to 460 volts of electricity through the brain to induce a grand mal seizure. This disruption of the brain’s electrical activity alters its structure and function, an especially serious risk to the developing brains of children. Yet child psychiatrists not only call for expanded use of ECT on minors but also oppose “any efforts—legal, legislative, and otherwise—to block access to ECT.”

Through US Freedom of Information Act requests, CCHR uncovered that children as young as five have been electroshocked. The full scope remains hidden due to the lack of national transparency requirements on ECT usage.

Internationally, some countries have already banned ECT entirely (e.g., Slovenia and Luxembourg). In the U.S., California prohibits it under age 12, and Texas under 16. In Western Australia, ECT on minors under 14 is illegal, with criminal penalties—including jail time—for administering it to children. CCHR was instrumental in helping secure that law, along with state bans in the US.

Disturbingly, a child and adolescent psychiatry group has also called for more research involving ECT on youth, potentially exposing children under age 13 to an unproven and highly invasive procedure. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restricts its use to individuals aged 13 and older for limited diagnoses.

The psychiatry group’s statement fails to disclose that brain damage is a known risk of ECT. Yet, the American Psychiatric Association concedes that “ECT can result in persistent or permanent memory loss.” The joint WHO/UN report adds: “People being offered ECT should also be made aware of all its risks and potential short- and long-term harmful effects, such as memory loss and brain damage.”[2]

In June 2024, the California Supreme Court ruled that an ECT device manufacturer must warn doctors of the risks of brain damage and permanent memory loss.[3] In 2018, a US District Court judge found there was sufficient evidence for a jury to conclude that an ECT device could cause brain injury.[4]

Neuropathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu—known for discovering chronic traumatic encephalopathy (brain diseases or damage) in football players—publicly condemned ECT, stating: “The amounts of electrical energy introduced to the human brain by ECT machines can be nothing but harmful and dangerous…. The patient who receives ECT therapy will manifest permanent and cumulative brain injury, which can be progressive over time and result in chronic encephalopathies and brain degeneration.”[5]

Despite pediatric psychiatry’s claim that ECT is “safe and effective,” the FDA has never required manufacturers to prove ECT’s safety or efficacy through clinical trials.[6] Internationally renowned researcher Prof. John Read reports that only 11 placebo-controlled trials of ECT have ever been conducted—all prior to 1985, and all deeply flawed. “None found any benefit beyond the end of treatment,” he stated. Further, children’s developing brains are “particularly susceptible to the memory loss caused by ECT.”[7]

Legal precedent exists for holding professionals and psychiatric facilities accountable for misleading parents about the safety and nature of treatment. In June 2024, an Arizona jury awarded $2.5 million in punitive damages to the family of a teen girl who suffered coercion and abuse at a troubled teen treatment facility. They successfully argued that they were misled by marketing materials portraying the program as therapeutic and safe, when it was abusive.[8]

CCHR says that this same legal framework must apply to misleading promotion of ECT’s benefits to desperate parents. Failing to disclose the full risks of ECT should be subject to the same scrutiny and liability as cases in the troubled teen treatment industry.

CCHR asserts that electroshocking should not only be banned nationwide, but if administered to children, should be held accountable under child abuse laws.

Jan Eastgate, president of CCHR International, stated, “The electroshocking of children is without moral or scientific justification and should be indefensible under the law. As international bodies condemn it, and legal rulings establish precedent for holding programs accountable for misleading parents, the U.S. must act. We urge lawmakers at all levels to ban ECT, especially on minors, and define it as a form of child abuse.”

CCHR, which was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry, Dr. Thomas Szasz, recommends parents watch its documentary, Therapy or Torture: The Truth About Electroshock, with expert opinions about how ECT damages minds.

To learn more, visit: https://www.cchrint.org/2025/06/27/despite-calls-for-ban-us-child-psychiatry-pushes-electroshock/

Sources:

[1] World Health Organization, OHCHR, “Guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation,” pp. 58 & 59

[2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-through-the-looking-glass/202311/is-it-time-to-ban-electroconvulsive-therapy-for

[3] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/blog/2024/june/wisner-baum-prevails-in-landmark-win-for-patient/

[4] “ECT Litigation Update: Are Patients Being Warned of Brain Damage Risk?” MAD, 13 June 2019

[5] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/

[6] https://www.wisnerbaum.com/defective-medical-device-injuries/ect/; https://www.cnet.com/health/fda-approved-vs-fda-cleared-whats-the-difference/

[7] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychiatry-through-the-looking-glass/202311/is-it-time-to-ban-electroconvulsive-therapy-for

[8] https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/column-troubled-teen-industry-scrutiny-builds-litigation-follows-2024-07-12/; https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-education/2024/07/19/spring-ridge-academy-students-arizona-describe-harsh-treatment-after-lawsuit/74461275007/

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CCHR Demands Nursing Home Chemical Restraint Ban and Full Accountability

LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 23, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Federal health authorities are sounding the alarm over the chronic use of antipsychotic and psychotropic drugs in America’s nursing homes. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has prioritized enforcement actions to reduce psychotropic prescribing—especially among seniors with dementia. With over 15,000 facilities nationwide housing more than 1.2 million elderly residents, mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) warns the unchecked drugging of seniors constitutes systemic elder abuse.[1]

Image caption: “Psychotropic drugs are being used to sedate, restrain, and silence, and, as such, are a tool of oppression. CCHR asserts that this practice meets the legal definition of elder abuse and must be treated as a criminal offense.” – Jan Eastgate, President CCHR International.

CCHR is urging lawmakers to adopt the recommendations of a United Nations human rights expert, Claudia Mahler, who called for prohibiting chemical restraints—drugs used to control behavior—in aged-care settings. Mahler’s report criticized the drugging of seniors in care facilities, asserting that older persons are “more likely to be deprived of liberty in care facilities than in prisons.” She further warned that antipsychotic use in dementia can double the risk of death.[2]

Although the National Partnership to Improve Dementia Care in Nursing Homes reported a reduction in antipsychotic use among long-stay residents—from 30.1% in 2011 to 14.5% by the end of 2021—those figures obscure concerning patterns of diagnosis manipulation. For instance, some nursing homes labeled seniors with schizophrenia, a diagnosis virtually unheard of in the elderly, to continue prescribing antipsychotics despite federal restrictions.[3]

Federal Warnings Ignored, Harm Continues

Warnings about the dangers of these drugs have spanned decades. In 2007, FDA safety official Dr. David Graham estimated at least 15,000 nursing home residents die each year due to antipsychotic use.[4] Dr. Peter Gøtzsche, a Danish physician and internationally recognized expert on pharmaceutical safety, places the toll from psychiatric drugs—including neuroleptics, benzodiazepines, and antidepressants—at approximately 209,000 deaths annually among Americans 65 and older. Sleep medications may contribute to an additional 320,000 to 507,000 deaths per year. Even short-term use has serious consequences. Studies show that for every 100 dementia patients prescribed newer antipsychotics over just ten weeks, one will die. Combining a benzodiazepine with a neuroleptic can increase mortality risk by as much as 65%.[5]

Despite federal regulations dating back to 1987 that prohibit psychotropic use for staff convenience or discipline, enforcement has been lax. In 2005, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a black-box warning linking antipsychotics to death in dementia patients prompting some prescribers to sidestep restrictions by re-diagnosing patients.[6] Between 2015 and 2019, schizophrenia diagnoses among nursing home residents rose 194%—an implausible increase, attributed to efforts to preserve prescribing authority.[7]

In 2021, a New York Times investigation revealed that 21% of residents were still being given antipsychotics, often based on unsupported or false diagnoses. In 2023, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services launched new measures to identify facilities inflating diagnostic codes to justify drug use—but the problem persists.[8]

Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising has also fueled drug overuse among seniors. A 2021 study found that television ads heavily influenced seniors’ prescription decisions, especially in areas with high Medicare enrollment. Between 2006 and 2017, $528 million was spent promoting one antipsychotic.[9] In June 2025, the End Prescription Drug Ads Now Act was introduced to ban DTCA.

Psychotropic drug use in long-term care facilities is a human rights crisis. Studies show that roughly 16% of nursing home residents experience abuse, yet only 1 in 24 cases is reported. Disturbingly, up to 40% of staff admit to having psychologically abused residents.[10]

Reforms Urgently Needed

The ongoing harm inflicted on elderly residents is not an isolated lapse but a failure of oversight, ethics, and accountability, tantamount to elder abuse. CCHR urges U.S. legislators and regulators to implement such reforms as:

Prohibit the use of antipsychotics and other psychotropics for behavioral control in seniors.

Enforce civil, financial, and criminal penalties for physicians and facility administrators who violate this prohibition.

Prohibit doctors from accepting gifts, payments, or perks from pharmaceutical companies while treating patients.

End DTC advertising

End pharmaceutical industry funding of the FDA to restore independent oversight.

Abolish the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as the central authority for mental health diagnoses, due to its authors’ longstanding ties to drug manufacturers.

“What’s happening in nursing homes today is not care—it’s chemical control and a national disgrace,” said Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International. “Our seniors are not being treated—they’re being sedated for convenience, often at the cost of their lives.”

About CCHR: CCHR, established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz, urges Congress and state legislatures to outlaw chemical restraints in aged care and demand accountability from prescribers and nursing homes. “The nation’s elderly deserve compassion and safety, not sedation, and dignity not death by prescription,” Eastgate said.

To learn more, visit: https://www.cchrint.org/2025/06/20/profiting-from-elder-harm-end-psychiatric-drugging-nursing-homes/

Sources:

[1] Poliakoff & Associates, P.A., “Nursing Home Oversight and Antipsychotic Drug Use,” 12 June 2025, https://gpoliakoff.com/nursing-home-oversight-and-antipsychotic-drug-use/

[2] “‘Chemical Restraints’ Deprive Older People of Liberty,” Human Rights Watch, 19 Sept. 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/19/chemical-restraints-deprive-older-people-liberty

[3] “Brown Study Challenges Common Perceptions of Antipsychotic Use in Nursing Homes,” Brown University School of Public Health, 5 Sept. 2024, https://sph.brown.edu/news/2024-09-05/nursing-homes-antipsychotics

[4] Testimony by Dr. David Graham, House Hearing, 110th Congress – The Adequacy of FDA to Assure the Safety of the Nation’s Drug Supply General, 13 Feb. 2007, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg35502/pdf/CHRG-110hhrg35502.pdf, p. 66

[5] Peter C. Gøtzsche, “Prescription Drugs Are the Leading Cause of Death,” Brownstone Institute, 16 Apr. 2024, https://brownstone.org/articles/prescription-drugs-are-the-leading-cause-of-death/

[6] “Phony Diagnoses Hide High Rates of Drugging at Nursing Homes,” The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/11/health/nursing-homes-schizophrenia-antipsychotics.html

[7] “Long-Term Trends of Psychotropic Drug Use in Nursing Homes,” Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General, 11 Nov. 2022, https://oig.hhs.gov/reports/all/2022/long-term-trends-of-psychotropic-drug-use-in-nursing-homes/

[8] “Phony Diagnoses Hide High Rates of Drugging at Nursing Homes,” The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/11/health/nursing-homes-schizophrenia-antipsychotics.html

[9] “Physicians Treating Alzheimer’s Disease Patients Should Be Aware that Televised Direct-to-Consumer Advertising Links More Strongly to Drug Utilization in Older Patients,” Jour. Alzheimers Dis. June 2021, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8293633/

[10] “Elder Abuse Statistics,” 19 May 2025, https://www.retirementliving.com/nursing-care-facilities/elder-abuse-statistics

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CCHR Urges U.S. Reform as Global Court Momentum Builds Against Forced Psychiatry

LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 16, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — In what is being widely reported as a landmark human rights decision, Italy’s Constitutional Court in May 2025 struck down part of the country’s decades-old psychiatric law—Article 35 of Law 833/1978—declaring some of its provisions for involuntary detainment unconstitutional. The ruling affirms that individuals subjected to compulsory psychiatric hospitalization must have the right to challenge such detention in court with legal representation.[1] The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), based in Los Angeles, hailed the decision as an essential step towards achieving human rights in the mental health field. CCHR said its chapters worldwide are intensifying efforts to urge courts and lawmakers to follow suit and ultimately abolish forced psychiatric hospitalization and treatment. The group called on the United States to replicate—and expand—such protections.

Image caption: The growing international rulings, government acknowledgements, and awards highlight a turning tide—and now is the time for the United States to implement legal reforms that respect the rights, liberty, and dignity of all individuals in mental health settings. – CCHR International.

In the U.S., the practice of forced psychiatric detainment has sharply escalated. According to David Cohen, professor of social welfare at UCLA’s Luskin School, involuntary psychiatric detentions have increased at a rate three times higher than population growth in recent years.[2]

A 2023 report, Involuntary Civil Commitment: Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Protections, posted on Congress.gov, underscores that such commitments “implicate constitutional concerns and constraints under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution,” particularly regarding the liberty interests of confined individuals. Yet, it notes the U.S. Supreme Court has never conclusively ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees all such protections.[3]

While the Italian court ruling is significant, CCHR notes that it stops short of banning Trattamento Sanitario Obbligatorio (TSO), the Italian legal framework for compulsory psychiatric hospitalization.[4] The U.S. similarly authorizes involuntary psychiatric treatment through legislative orders. In both countries, forced interventions remain legal despite mounting ethical criticism.

Coercion in mental health settings has increasingly drawn global condemnation. Critics argue that forced psychiatric treatment fundamentally violates human dignity and autonomy. A 2023 study in BMC Psychiatry concluded that coercion is incompatible with human rights and “should be avoided as far as possible.”[5] That same year, The Lancet warned that coercive psychiatric practices override patients’ fundamental rights, and that approaches to reduce coercion are possible, and the cost of implementing them is minimal compared to the damage caused by forced interventions.[6]

Italy’s decision follows another recent victory involving CCHR efforts in Europe. In Hungary, CCHR collaborated with legal experts to secure a Constitutional Court ruling that found Parliament had failed to provide legal avenues for individuals unlawfully detained in psychiatric facilities to seek compensation. Following sustained advocacy by CCHR Hungary, others, the Court and the President of the Republic, a new regulation was enacted on December 20, 2024, guaranteeing—for the first time—the legal right to compensation for victims of unlawful psychiatric detention.[7]

CCHR’s international work continues to gain recognition. On June 2, 2025, New Zealand CCHR volunteer Victor Boyd was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit by King Charles III. The honor recognized his 50-year campaign with CCHR to expose coercive psychiatric practices, particularly those used against children at the now-closed Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital’s Child and Adolescent Unit. Boyd’s relentless advocacy through CCHR helped prompt a formal government acknowledgement of the abuse and torture carried out by a psychiatrist heading the unit. The award is endorsed by the New Zealand Prime Minister and the Parliamentary Cabinet.[8]

Momentum is also growing at the global policy level. The World Health Organization (WHO) released its Guidance on Mental Health Policy and Strategic Action Plan in April 2025, recommending the prohibition of involuntary psychiatric practices—including forced hospitalization and treatment—and affirming individuals’ right to refuse such treatment. The WHO and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have repeatedly called for mental health systems to move away from coercion and adopt rights-respecting, support-based alternative approaches.

These international reforms are grounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which Italy ratified in 2009. The CRPD explicitly rejects coercive interventions in mental health care. Its General Comment No. 1 affirms that all individuals—regardless of disability status—retain full legal capacity and must be supported, not substituted, in making decisions about their lives and health.[9]

About CCHR: Since its founding in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry, Dr. Thomas Szasz, CCHR has worked alongside survivors, whistleblowers, and international legal experts to expose systemic psychiatric abuse and advocate for transparent, non-coercive mental health care. The growing international rulings, government acknowledgements, and awards highlight a turning tide—and CCHR says now is the time for the United States to implement legal reforms that respect the rights, liberty, and dignity of all individuals in mental health settings.

To learn more, visit: https://www.cchrint.org/2025/06/13/italys-court-ruling-builds-against-forced-psychiatry/

Sources:

[1] “CCHR Encourages Italy to Complete Full Mental Health Reform After Court Ruling on Forced Treatment,” European Times, 5 June 2025, https://europeantimes.news/2025/06/cchr-italy-full-mental-health-reform-court-ruling-forced-treatment/

[2] https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/656273520/new-who-mental-health-guideline-condemns-coercive-psychiatric-practices; “Study finds involuntary psychiatric detentions on the rise,” UCLA Newsroom, 3 Nov. 2020, https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/involuntary-psychiatric-detentions-on-the-rise

[3] Hannah-Alise Rogers, “Involuntary Civil Commitment: Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Protections,” Health Care; Law, Constitution & Civil Liberties, 24 May 2023, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47571

[4] “CCHR Encourages Italy to Complete Full Mental Health Reform After Court Ruling on Forced Treatment,” European Times, 5 June 2025, https://europeantimes.news/2025/06/cchr-italy-full-mental-health-reform-court-ruling-forced-treatment/

[5] Eva Brekke, et al., “Patients’ experiences with coercive mental health treatment in Flexible Assertive Community Treatment: a qualitative study,” BMC Psychiatry, 18 Oct. 2023, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37853402/

[6] Beate Wild, et al., “Reduction of coercion in psychiatric hospitals: how can this be achieved?” The Lancet, Dec. 2023, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7762(23)00214-4/fulltext

[7] https://www.cchrint.org/2025/05/17/apa-faces-outrage-child-deaths-mental-health-failure/

[8] “King’s Birthday Honours: Advocate dedicates award to survivors of abuse in care,” RNZ, 2 June 2025, https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/562817/king-s-birthday-honours-advocate-dedicates-award-to-survivors-of-abuse-in-care; “Abuses in psychiatric care: The shameful story of the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent unit in Aotearoa New Zealand,” Aust N Z J Psychiatry, 2023 Sep;57(9):1193-1197, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10466991/; https://www.cchrint.org/2021/07/01/cchrs-work-acknowledged-nz-inquiry-lake-alice-psychiatric-child-torture/

[9] “CCHR Encourages Italy to Complete Full Mental Health Reform After Court Ruling on Forced Treatment,” European Times, 5 June 2025, https://europeantimes.news/2025/06/cchr-italy-full-mental-health-reform-court-ruling-forced-treatment/

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CCHR Demands Urgent Reform to Stop Child Abuse in Youth Behavioral Facilities

LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 9, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Amid a surge of reported abuse and deaths in psychiatric and behavioral residential programs for youth, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is urging immediate and sweeping federal intervention. CCHR warns that continued inaction by state and federal agencies endangers lives and enables a mental health system where vulnerable children and adolescents are subjected to trauma, neglect, and avoidable harm.

Image caption: “Children should not be warehoused, abused, or silenced. What is happening now is a humanitarian crisis hiding in plain sight.” – Jan Eastgate, President, CCHR International.

In December 2024, Congress passed the bipartisan Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, calling for a study by the National Academies of Sciences into the state of youth in institutional programs. However, the legislation granted a three-year window to complete the investigation—a delay CCHR deems unconscionable now, given ongoing reports of harm.

“Children are dying. Others are being restrained, secluded, forcibly drugged, or sexually abused,” said Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International. “How many more cases of tragedy must occur before regulators respond with urgency? A three-year timeline is a death sentence for some of these children.”

A 2024 peer-reviewed study in Psychiatric Services confirmed that the use of seclusion and mechanical restraints remains widespread in U.S. psychiatric hospitals, despite the documented trauma and risk of death. The study called on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and The Joint Commission to implement reforms to end the practice.

A previous New York Times investigation estimated at least 86 deaths in youth behavioral programs from 2000 to 2015, noting that children in these institutions are often subjected to conditions that would be unlawful for prisoners—including isolation, and physical and chemical restraint.[1]

In just the past few weeks, a string of new incidents has surfaced from across the U.S. involving youth facilities, including:

Two girls, aged 12 and 13, died by suicide in May in a North Carolina behavioral treatment facility, forcing its closure.[2]
Reports of hundreds of prolonged restraint incidents in a single California psychiatric facility within months.[3]
A teenage boy was repeatedly sexually abused by staff at a New Mexico behavioral facility.[4]
Seclusion and restraint of children as young as five; Vermont state authorities confirmed over 500 cases.[5]
New legislation was passed in Maryland restricting the use of physical restraints during youth transport to psych facilities.[6]

Although multiple federal investigations have led to substantial fines and civil settlements, CCHR asserts these penalties have failed to deter misconduct, patient harm, and deaths. “Financial penalties are clearly not enough. Many of these settlements are treated as the cost of doing business,” Eastgate noted. CCHR also emphasizes that current tools used by government agencies—such as consent agreements or Corporate Integrity Agreements (CIAs)—do not work. These measures allow institutions with a history of serious violations to remain operational after promising internal improvements. “Voluntary promises are violated again and again, and children suffer the consequences,” Eastgate said. “These agreements create a dangerous illusion of accountability.”

The organization is calling on Congress and the Administration to take such actions as:

Accelerate the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act investigation.
Withhold CMS and Medicaid funding from facilities with substantiated abuse records.
Freeze new licenses or bed expansions for companies under investigation.
Establish criminal penalties for executives and staff found complicit in systemic abuse.
Prohibit the use of further Corporate Integrity or improvement agreements for known violators.

In June 2024, a U.S. Senate Finance Committee report into several for-profit youth behavioral hospital chains described the harms children experienced resulted, in part, from financial models that prioritize revenue over safety. The Committee urged “bold intervention” to prevent further tragedies.

Prominent legal professionals agree. KBA attorney Kayla Ferrel Onder stated: “More effective oversight systems need to be in place to protect patients. This includes stricter penalties for facilities found guilty of abuse or fraud. Jail time for executives and significantly larger financial penalties may be necessary to curb misconduct prevalent in the behavioral healthcare industry.”[7]

Attorney Tommy James cites horrendous physical abuse and emotional trauma in behavioral residential facilities, stating, “those responsible must be held accountable.”[8] Another attorney, Kayla Ferrel Onder said the abuse is so extensive that it reflected a “systemic failure,” which needs to stop.[9]

CCHR maintains an extensive record of documented youth abuse in psychiatric facilities, including seclusion, restraint, sexual assault, and forced drugging. “Children should not be warehoused, abused, or silenced,” said Eastgate. “What is happening now is a humanitarian crisis hiding in plain sight.”

Quoting lawmakers who have supported the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act, Rep. Ro Khanna stated: “The industry has gone unchecked for too long.”[10] Senator Tommy Tuberville added: “We need more sunlight… to stop the waste, fraud, and abuse in the system.”

“This is not a policy debate—it is a moral imperative,” Eastgate concluded. “We are calling on legislators, prosecutors, and health agencies to act now. No more broken promises. No more promises of avoidable deaths. No more children forgotten in the system.”

About CCHR: The government-acclaimed watchdog and award-winning advocacy group was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Professor of Psychiatry, Dr. Thomas Szasz.

To learn more, visit: https://www.cchrint.org/2025/06/06/children-abused-dying-in-psychiatric-hospitals-while-u-s-agencies-stall/

Sources:

[1] Alexander Stockton, “Can you punish a child’s mental health problems away?” The New York Times, 11 Oct. 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/10/11/opinion/teen-mental-health-care.html

[2] Jeffery Collins, “Residential treatment school closes in North Carolina after deaths of 2 girls,” AP News, 3 June 2025, https://apnews.com/article/therapy-school-closes-north-carolina-asheville-academy-9854c3ca7cda11cc06f05d9fccef4112

[3] “California watchdog finds for-profit psychiatric hospital abused patients,” San Francisco Chronicle, 19 May 2025

[4] “Suit alleges teen repeatedly abused by worker at former youth residential treatment center,” Santa Fe New Mexican, 29 May 2025, https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/suit-alleges-teen-repeatedly-abused-by-worker-at-former-youth-residential-treatment-center/article_be37888c-4bbe-41db-bd35-c76f3c8eb6c1.html

[5] “Youth in Vermont custody have been physically restrained hundreds of times in recent years,” VT Digger, 22 May 2025, https://vtdigger.org/2025/05/22/youth-in-vermont-custody-have-been-physically-restrained-hundreds-of-times-in-recent-years/

[6] https://legiscan.com/MD/text/SB400/id/3232730

[7] https://kbaattorneys.com/acadia-abuse-behavioral-health-facilities/

[8] Erica Thomas, “Tuskegee youth facility dubbed ‘House of Horrors’ in latest lawsuit,” 1819 News, 27 Aug. 2024, https://1819news.com/news/item/tuskegee-youth-facility-dubbed-house-of-horrors-in-latest-lawsuit

[9] “Letter: The alarming pattern of abuse at Acadia Healthcare facilities,” Springfield Daily Citizen, 29 May 2025, https://sgfcitizen.org/voices-opinion/letters/letter-the-alarming-pattern-of-abuse-at-acadia-healthcare-facilities/

[10] https://www.cchrint.org/2024/12/27/paris-hilton-congress-praised-for-teen-behavioral-treatment-abuse-prevention-and-oversight/ citing https://khanna.house.gov/media/press-releases/khanna-merkley-cornyn-tuberville-and-carter-joined-paris-hilton-celebrating

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Image caption: “Children should not be warehoused, abused, or silenced. What is happening now is a humanitarian crisis hiding in plain sight.” – Jan Eastgate, President, CCHR International.

NEWS SOURCE: Citizens Commission on Human Rights

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CCHR Warns: Millions of Children Exposed to Risky Psychiatric Drugs

LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 2, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — A federal assessment of children’s health has identified the widespread prescribing of psychotropic drugs to U.S. youth as a “public crisis” driven by industry profit motives, flawed science, and systemic conflicts of interest. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found that stimulants, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and anti-anxiety drugs were leading the surge.[1] According to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, this is fueling a psychotropic drug market that reaps $22.6 billion annually.

Image caption: “Profit-driven psychiatry is putting children at risk with no science to justify diagnoses or drugs.” – Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International.

CCHR advised parents to become better informed about the risks of psychotropic drugs, including benzodiazepines or anti-anxiety drugs prescribed to children. CCHR offers a 16-page educational booklet, Psychiatric Drugs & Your Child’s Future, and the documentary Dead Wrong, which features bereaved parents who lost children to psychiatric drug effects, especially antidepressants—black box-warned for suicide in 2004, more than 15 years after Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.

HHS reported that prescriptions for stimulants rose 250% between 2006 and 2016. By 2022, 11% of all children—and nearly 25% of boys—had a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), despite no medical test to confirm the behavioral symptoms. Long-term trials of ADHD drugs show no academic, behavioral, or social benefit beyond 14 months—and a loss of height averaging one inch. Teen use of antidepressants increased 1,400% between 1987 and 2014, and over 2 million prescriptions were written for adolescents in 2022 alone.[2]

Antipsychotic drug use among children grew 800% between 1995 and 2009, with 66% prescribed off-label—including for ADHD and “aggression.” Antipsychotics in adolescent boys may cause up to 5x more gynecomastia (male breast growth); 4x more extrapyramidal effects (movement disorders); and 6–8x more weight gain than placebo. Meanwhile, serious side effects—including seizures, cardiac issues, male breast growth, and prolonged withdrawal syndromes—are widely documented.[3]

CCHR, which has tracked what it calls mass-prescribed drug child abuse since its founding in 1969, said the situation is even more dire than the HHS report reveals. Using data from IQVia’s Total Patient Tracker Database for 2020, CCHR found:

1 million 0–17-year-olds were prescribed ADHD stimulants,
15 million were on antidepressants,
15 million were taking anti-anxiety drugs, including highly addictive benzodiazepines, and
829,372 were prescribed antipsychotics known to cause neurological damage.[4]

Combined, over 6.1 million children and teens were drugged—representing more than 8.2% of the U.S. youth population.[5]

Psychotropic polypharmacy is especially prevalent among youth covered by Medicaid. A 2024 study found a rise in multiple drug use in this group, increasing the risk of adverse medical outcomes. Researchers reviewed 126,972 Medicaid recipients who had received at least one psychotropic drug and had continuous coverage for 90+ days. The prevalence of polypharmacy rose from 4.2% in 2015 to 4.6% in 2020, with higher rates among those in foster care (10.8% to 11.3%), the Children’s Health Program (2.2% to 2.8%), and low-income households (2.1% to 2.8%).[6]

The problem is exacerbated by drug misuse. In 2018, almost 16% of U.S. college students said they misused prescription stimulants.[7] A 2023 survey of college students who reported using prescription stimulants revealed that about 21.7% had taken a higher-than-prescribed dose in the past three months.[8] Many students mistakenly believe one ADHD stimulant to be no more harmful than coffee, assuming it is safe because it’s prescribed by doctors.[9]

Youth drug overdoses on prescription drugs is also a serious risk. In 2019, 4,777 U.S. youth died from drug overdoses; 727 involved benzodiazepines and 902 involved psychostimulants. In 2020, 2,928 nonfatal benzodiazepine overdoses were reported among youth aged 15 to 24. Among these, 29% had a prescription in the previous month and 42% within six months. Intentional overdoses were more likely among those with recent prescriptions. Fifty-six percent of benzodiazepine overdoses were intentional compared with 40% of stimulant overdoses.[10]

The FDA issued a black box warning in 2020 for benzodiazepines, citing “risks of abuse, misuse, and addiction, which can lead to overdose or death.”[11]

A 2022 study in Pediatrics found that a quarter of insured teens who overdosed on anxiety or ADHD drugs had received a recent prescription.[12]

HHS linked the rise in drug use to broadened diagnostic criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), expanded in 2013 by panels with financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. This contributed to a 40-fold increase in childhood diagnoses such as ADHD and bipolar disorder. Yet, no psychiatric-defined disorder meets the scientific definition of a disease. Former U.S. National Institute of Mental Health Director Thomas Insel stated: “Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure.”[13]

CCHR, established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry, Dr. Thomas Szasz, has achieved significant reforms in this area, including a 2004 federal law prohibiting schools from forcing students onto psychotropic drugs as a requisite for their education. Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, said: “Profit-driven psychiatry is putting children at risk with no science to justify diagnoses or drugs.” CCHR stresses that the nation’s child mental health system requires a complete overhaul—eliminating treatments that expose children to suicide, addiction, physical harm, and institutional profiteering.

To learn more, visit: https://www.cchrint.org/2025/05/30/federal-report-confirms-psychotropic-drugging-children-national-crisis/

Sources:

[1] “Making Our Children Healthy Again,” Make America Healthy Again Commission (MAHA), 22 May 2025, p. 54

[2] MAHA Report, pp. 16-17

[3] MAHA Report, pp. 54-56

[4] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/children-on-psychiatric-drugs/

[5] https://www.childstats.gov/AMERICASCHILDREN/tables/pop1.asp

[6] “Psychotropic Polypharmacy Trends Rise Among Child, Adolescent Medicaid Beneficiaries,” Psychiatric Times, 21 May 2024

[7] https://news.osu.edu/misuse-of-stimulants-remains-a-top-concern-on-college-campuses/

[8] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1125729/us-college-student-prescription-stimulant-overuse/

[9] “Are You Surprised By the 4 Most Abused Study Drugs?” Detox.com, 28 Feb. 2018

[10] https://www.clinicaladvisor.com/news/teens-overdosing-prescribed-anxiety-adhd-medications/; https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9097826/

[11] https://www.cchrint.org/2023/08/30/mental-health-watchdog-highlights-global-benzodiazepine-risks/; “FDA requiring Boxed Warning updated to improve safe use of benzodiazepine drug class. Includes potential for abuse, addiction, and other serious risks,” FDA, 23 Sept. 2020

[12] https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2021-055226

[13] “The NIMH Withdraws Support for DSM-5,” Psychology Today, 4 May 2003

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Image caption: “Profit-driven psychiatry is putting children at risk with no science to justify diagnoses or drugs.” – Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International.

NEWS SOURCE: Citizens Commission on Human Rights

To view the original story, visit: https://www.send2press.com/wire/cchr-warns-millions-of-children-exposed-to-risky-psychiatric-drugs/

Citizens Commission on Human Rights Exhibit in Osaka Helps Protect Vulnerable Children

OSAKA, Japan /ScoopCloud/ -- A dramatic increase in the prescription of dangerous psychotropic drugs to Japanese children prompted Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) Japan and a group of concerned holistic professionals to organize a daylong call to action at the Osaka International Convention Center. More than 1,000 attended the sessions and toured the "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit" to learn the cold, hard facts about psychiatry, its history, plans, practitioners, and the threat the industry poses to the country's children and future.

CCHR Japan Executive Director Yuzuru Ogura, who has directed the activities of this human rights watchdog since 2007, described how he and his team learned of the dangers of psychiatric drugs. Drugs often prescribed to youngsters increase violence and suicidality in children and young adults. CCHR documented abuse cases and provided this urgent information to Japan's Ministry of Health, which issued 66 black box warnings on psychiatric drugs-the strictest and most serious level warning that can be placed on a pharmaceutical product. Despite these warnings in Japan and many other countries, annual global sales of drugs prescribed for so-called learning disabilities bring in tens of billions of U.S. dollars.

Ogura explained why a tour of the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit was incorporated into the seminar. "This exhibit demonstrates the need to protect society from psychiatric harm," he said.

The exhibit includes graphic images and footage of inhumane psychiatric procedures, including shock treatment and irreversible psychosurgery. They learned about the effects of mind-numbing drugs such as those used to silence dissidents in the gulags of the former Soviet Union. They learned of the role of psychiatrists in the deaths of world-famous artists.

"Now I understand why so many children are diagnosed with developmental disorders," said one woman, who realized, to her shock, that forcing kids to take mind-altering drugs is abuse. "I learned things I really needed to know."

A teacher, disturbed by the quantity of mind-altering drugs administered to pupils in her school, was relieved to find she was not alone-that there are many men and women committed to saving this generation of young people who are being robbed of their childhood and future.

"It is important to know the truth," said another who was among many conference participants who volunteered to help spread the campaign.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights is a mental health watchdog founded in 1969 by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology, inspired by author, humanitarian and Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard and his commitment to abolishing any and all physically damaging practices in the field of mental health.

LEARN MORE:

https://cchrjapan.org/

https://www.cchrint.org

https://www.scientologynews.org/press-releases/

VIDEO:

https://www.scientology.tv/series/cchr-documentaries/psychiatry-an-industry-of-death.html

A dramatic increase in the prescription of dangerous psychotropic drugs to Japanese children prompted Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) Japan and a group of concerned holistic professionals to organize a daylong call to action at the Osaka International Convention Center. More than 1,000 attended the sessions and toured the "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit" to learn the cold, hard facts about psychiatry, its history, plans, practitioners, and the threat the industry poses to the country's children and future.

Related link: https://www.cchr.org/

Citizens Commission on Human Rights Demands the Royal College of Psychiatrists End the Use of ECT and All Coercive Psychiatric Practices

EDINBURGH, Scotland /ScoopCloud/ -- The UN and World Health Organization issued mental health guidance in October 2023, but the Royal College of Psychiatry (RCPsych) has still failed to direct members to comply. They have not directed members to cease using ECT (electroconvulsive treatment) and have not demanded an end to involuntary commitment. Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) staged a march through Edinburgh and a protest at the RCPsych annual International Congress, demanding the organization immediately act to protect the human rights and health of the people of the UK.

The UN guidance states: "Coercive practices in mental health care violate the right to be protected from torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment." It calls for informed consent before any use of ECT, stating individuals who are "offered ECT should also be made aware of all its risks and potential short- and long-term harmful effects, such as memory loss and brain damage." And it states ECT on children "should be prohibited through legislation." The UK must act now to protect the human rights of those caught in the mental health system, says CCHR.

According to the UK National Health Service 2022-23 report, there were 51,312 cases of involuntary commitment in the UK that year alone. What's more, the National Health Service paid for 1,989 acute courses of ECT to 1,835 individual patients in 2021. (An acute course of ECT is 6 to 12 treatments.) In 2019, more than a third of the ECTs administered were carried out without patient consent, 18 percent of which were even carried out without the second opinion required by the National Health Service.

To raise awareness of the need for immediate action to end these and other harmful practices, CCHR brought its Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Traveling Exhibit to Edinburgh to coincide with the Royal College of Psychiatrists 2024 International Congress. That visitors to the exhibit at the Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue at 16 St Mary's St. in Edinburgh were shocked to learn the facts and the history of ECT and other inhumane psychiatric practices is clear from feedback of those who toured:

* An Austrian psychologist said she was sure that ECT was no longer used in her country and was horrified to learn that it is.

* A veterinary nurse said that if an animal is aggressive, it would be tested thoroughly to see what medical and physical problems might be causing it. It would not simply be given a drug. "Why don't they do that with people?" she asked. She herself has been on Prozac for 15 years and has tried several times unsuccessfully to withdraw from it.

* A Spanish psychologist who has seen ECT being used in hospitals asked CCHR to bring the exhibit to Spain to help bring reform to his country.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights is a mental health watchdog founded in 1969 by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology, inspired by author, humanitarian and Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard and his commitment to abolishing any and all physically damaging practices in the field of mental health.

LEARN MORE:

https://www.cchr.org

https://www.cchrint.org

https://www.cchr.org.uk/

https://www.scientologynews.org/press-releases/

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https://www.cchr.org.uk/cchr-audio-dvd/

The UN and World Health Organization issued mental health guidance in October 2023, but the Royal College of Psychiatry (RCPsych) has still failed to direct members to comply. They have not directed members to cease using ECT (electroconvulsive treatment) and have not demanded an end to involuntary commitment. Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) staged a march through Edinburgh and a protest at the RCPsych annual International Congress, demanding the organization immediately act to protect the human rights and health of the people of the UK.

Related link: https://www.cchr.org/

Human Rights Group Marches in Protest to Demand RANZCP End Dangerous Coercive Psychiatric Practices as Advised by the World Health Organization and the UN

CANBERRA, Australia /ScoopCloud/ -- Scores of protesters marched on the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) Annual Congress in Canberra to demand it end its support of electroshock treatment, psychiatric restraints, forced drugging, and involuntary detainment. The protest was organized by Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology. CCHR demands a complete ban on coercive and dangerous psychiatric practices, citing their harmful effects on the vulnerable.

Canberrans were invited to attend CCHR's "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit," open daily in Canberra from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. through 24 May. The free exhibit exposes the history of psychiatry from its dark beginnings in the Bedlam Psychiatric Hospital in England through to the present, highlighting the grievous harm it causes patients.

At the exhibit's opening, Lloyd Wyles, an Indigenous Australian and retired senior radio producer and broadcaster from Northern Queensland, spoke of psychiatry's role in the white Australia policy and South Africa's apartheid. The exhibit documents how psychiatry fostered racism by inventing and promoting the pseudoscience of "eugenics," resulting in the forced sterilization of Indigenous people and people of color.

Those who do not act to rid society of psychiatry, he said, are just as guilty as the practicing psychiatrist. If we do not take action, we could lose our entire civilization.

Stuart Richardson, a Christian minister from Restitution, Mind, Body and Soul Ministries, also spoke at the Exhibit's opening. He became aware of the dangers of psychiatry when he was detained involuntarily when he was younger. He spoke of letting people know there are alternatives to harmful psychiatric drugs and stressed the importance of finding the real cause of the problem including medical check-ups, diet, sleep and exercise.

RANZCP's support of coercive practices, including the use of ECT, is out of step with the guidelines published by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in October 2023. RANZCP continues to label electroshock as "therapeutic."

Both the WHO and the UN direct practitioners and their professional organizations to inform patients that electroshock is an "irreversible intervention" causing "memory loss and brain damage." They also call for the prohibition of involuntary electroshock and its use on children, stating "International human rights standards clarify that ECT without consent violates the right to physical and mental integrity and may constitute torture and ill-treatment."

LEARN MORE:

https://cchr.org.au/

https://www.cchrint.org

https://www.cchr.org

https://www.scientologynews.org/press-releases

VIDEO:

https://www.scientology.tv/series/cchr-documentaries/

https://www.scientology.tv/series/cchr-documentaries/psychiatry-an-industry-of-death.html

Scores of protesters marched on the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) Annual Congress in Canberra to demand it end its support of electroshock treatment, psychiatric restraints, forced drugging, and involuntary detainment. The protest was organized by Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology. CCHR demands a complete ban on coercive and dangerous psychiatric practices, citing their harmful effects on the vulnerable.

Related link: https://www.cchr.org/

Mental Health Awareness Month: Exhibit Raises Awareness of the Danger of Electroshock and Other Harmful Psychiatric Practices

NEW YORK, N.Y. /ScoopCloud/ -- Those seeking help, beware, warns Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog. For Mental Health Awareness Month, the group marched through the streets of New York to raise awareness about coercive mental health practices including forced institutionalization and the use of electroshock (ECT) - even on children. Strategically timed to coincide with the American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual convention in the city, CCHR also brought its Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit to New York. Due to its popularity, the exhibit has been extended through May 12 at 37 Union Square West in Manhattan.

CCHR denounces ECT as an outdated and brain-damaging procedure. The group demanded the APA take immediate action to implement the joint Guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation issued in October 2023 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit contains vital information documenting psychiatric practices that put health, safety - even life - at risk. In addition to evidence compiled on psychiatry's continued use of involuntary commitment and shock treatment, exhibit panels also document the danger of highly addictive drugs prescribed to children whose side effects include violence and suicide.

The Exhibit is open 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. through May 12. Admission is free.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a mental health watchdog founded in 1969 by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology, inspired by visionary and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard who believed that human rights must be made a fact, not an idealistic dream.

For more information, visit the website of CCHR or watch CCHR documentaries on the Scientology Network.

LEARN MORE:

https://www.scientologynews.org/press-releases/

https://www.cchr.org

https://www.cchrint.org

VIDEO:

https://www.scientology.tv/series/cchr-documentaries/psychiatry-an-industry-of-death.html

Those seeking help, beware, warns Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog. For Mental Health Awareness Month, the group marched through the streets of New York to raise awareness about coercive mental health practices including forced institutionalization and the use of electroshock (ECT) - even on children. Strategically timed to coincide with the American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual convention in the city, CCHR also brought its Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit to New York.

Related link: https://www.cchr.org/

Protect Yourself and Your Family: Visit ‘Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit’ in New York. Learn the Facts and Fight Back

NEW YORK, N.Y. /ScoopCloud/ -- "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit," open now through May 9 at 37 Union Square West in Manhattan, is not for the faint of heart. But it provides vital information to avoid or survive coercive psychiatric practices that infringe against human rights. The exhibit, produced by Citizens Commission on Human Rights, shows how these practices put health, safety - even life - at risk.

Learn the truth about psychiatry, including its continued use of involuntary commitment and shock treatment.

Discover the danger of highly addictive drugs that are prescribed to children despite their side effects that include violence and suicide.

The Exhibit reveals the statistical relationship between soaring suicide rates among veterans and school shootings and the prescription of psychiatric drugs.

Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit takes visitors through the history of psychiatry, from its dark beginnings at the Bethlehem Royal Hospital, known as Bedlam, which has inspired numerous horror books and films. It continues with psychiatry's endorsement of "eugenics," the pseudoscience that promoted "improving" the human race through selective breeding and sterilization. It includes stark footage and testimony showing that psychiatrists were the architects of Hitler's "final solution."

The Exhibit is open 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. through May 9. Admission is free.

CCHR is a mental health watchdog founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, inspired by visionary and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard who believed that human rights must be made a fact, not an idealistic dream.

For more information, visit the website of CCHR or watch CCHR documentaries on the Scientology Network.

LEARN MORE:

https://www.scientologynews.org/press-releases/

https://www.cchr.org

https://www.cchrint.org

VIDEO:

https://www.scientology.tv/series/cchr-documentaries/psychiatry-an-industry-of-death.html

"Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit," open now through May 9 at 37 Union Square West in Manhattan, is not for the faint of heart. But it provides vital information to avoid or survive coercive psychiatric practices that infringe against human rights. The exhibit, produced by Citizens Commission on Human Rights, shows how these practices put health, safety - even life - at risk.

Related link: https://www.cchr.org/

Human Rights Group Demands the American Psychiatric Association Ban ECT and End All Harmful and Coercive Practices

NEW YORK, N.Y. /ScoopCloud/ -- Midtown Manhattan reverberated with angry voices chanting "Stop the Torture-Ban ECT" as a phalanx of protesters from Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) made their way from Times Square to the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) at Jacob Javits Convention Center. Their demands: The American Psychiatric Association must end coercive practices.

CCHR called on the American Psychiatric Association to issue a formal position statement condemning the use of coercive psychiatric practices. The group demanded the APA take immediate action to implement the joint Guidance on Mental Health, Human Rights, and Legislation issued in October 2023 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

The guidance states: "Coercive practices in mental health care violate the right to be protected from torture or cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment." The WHO pointed out that "ECT without consent violates the right to physical and mental integrity and may constitute torture and ill-treatment." It also clarifies that informed consent requires that those "offered ECT should also be made aware of all its risks and potential short- and long-term harmful effects, such as memory loss and brain damage." And it states ECT on children "should be prohibited through legislation."

It further takes aim against involuntary commitment. And it points out that "people who are most marginalized - for example, those from a low socioeconomic or educational background, or those who belong to a minority - are often denied the few protections mental health legislation may provide for."

Rather than take the lead in confronting these issues, and despite repeated demands from CCHR that they do so, the APA has failed to take action.

"While other associations have taken steps to denounce coercion, the APA's silence persists," said CCHR International President Jan Eastgate. "Urgent action is needed to uphold fundamental human rights in the mental health system and to prohibit practices tantamount to torture."

Learn more about psychiatry's crimes and violations of human rights at the world-renowned Citizens Commission on Human Rights Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Expo.

The visually spectacular exhibit opened Sunday, May 5, at 37 Union Square West, one block west of Park Avenue at 17th Street, and will continue through May 10. It features displays with graphic archival and current footage, interviews with medical experts, and moving accounts from victims of psychiatric abuse.

CCHR is a mental health watchdog founded in 1969 by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology, inspired by visionary and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard who believed that human rights must be made a fact, not an idealistic dream.

For more information, visit the website of CCHR or watch CCHR documentaries on the Scientology Network.

LEARN MORE:

https://www.scientologynews.org/press-releases/

https://www.cchr.org

https://www.cchrint.org

VIDEO:

https://www.scientology.tv/series/cchr-documentaries/psychiatry-an-industry-of-death.html

Midtown Manhattan reverberated with angry voices chanting "Stop the Torture-Ban ECT" as a phalanx of protesters from Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) made their way from Times Square to the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) at Jacob Javits Convention Center. Their demands: The American Psychiatric Association must end coercive practices.

Related link: https://www.cchr.org/

Citizens Commission on Human Rights Demands the European Psychiatric Association Bring an End to Coercive Psychiatry

BUDAPEST, Hungary /ScoopCloud/ -- In the aftermath of the UN and World Health Organization guidance directing that psychiatry cease its coercive practices in the field of mental health, the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) Congress in Budapest in April 2024 attempted damage control. They adopted the motto "Mental Health: Open and Inclusive" but took no action to eradicate the inhumane and damaging practices that pervade the industry. Their arrival sparked protest: a march and the launch of an exhibition to expose psychiatric violations, organized by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, the mental health watchdog founded in 1969 by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology.

The march through the city center, accompanied by a police escort, ended at the Congress venue, the Budapest Congress and Exhibition Center. This was followed by the opening of the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit, which vividly presents psychiatry's crimes. As the exhibit is compiled from documents, footage, and evidence collected over the course of more than 50 years of advocacy and investigation, organizers advised those arriving that it was not for the faint of heart.

Those who toured learned about how psychiatrists developed inhumane so-called treatments such as brain surgery and shock treatment. They saw the role psychiatry played in destroying the lives and careers of many world-famous artists. They discovered how psychiatrists were the architects of Hitler's final solution. "This material does not only concern people treated in psychiatric hospitals," said János Dobos, president of the Citizens Committee on Human Rights Hungary, in opening the exhibit. "It shows the extent to which psychiatry and its influence pervade nearly every area of life today and the profound and often harmful consequences this has for society. It is in the interest and duty of all of us to act against this."

The exhibit, first shown to the general public with great success in the United States, has since traveled to major cities throughout Europe. Since it presents a wide range of psychiatric abuses and the impact of psychiatry on society with unprecedented thoroughness, in many cases through the raw reality of documentary recordings, those under the age of 16 were required to be accompanied by an adult.

CCHR is inspired by visionary and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard who believed that human rights must be made a fact, not an idealistic dream.

The work of CCHR Hungary and János Dobos and their fight against corruption in the psychiatric industry in his country is featured in an episode of Voices for Humanity on the Scientology Network.

LEARN MORE:

https://www.scientologynews.org/press-releases/

https://www.cchr.org

https://www.cchrint.org

VIDEO:

https://www.scientology.tv/series/cchr-documentaries/psychiatry-an-industry-of-death.html

https://www.scientology.tv/series/voices-for-humanity/janos-dobos-klara-hidvegi.html

In the aftermath of the UN and World Health Organization guidance directing that psychiatry cease its coercive practices in the field of mental health, the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) Congress in Budapest in April 2024 attempted damage control. Their arrival sparked protest: a march and the launch of an exhibition to expose psychiatric violations, organized by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, the mental health watchdog founded in 1969 by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology.

Related link: https://www.cchr.org/

Citizens Commission on Human Rights Exhibit in South African Township Exposes Racism and Abuse in the Psychiatric Industry

DIEPSLOOT, South Africa /ScoopCloud/ -- Citizens Commission on Human Rights South Africa brought the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit to Diepsloot, a densely populated township in Gauteng, South Africa. The exhibit, held April 19 to 26, educated officials, business owners, members of African royalty and residents on human rights abuse, racism and harmful practices that pervade psychiatry, including its role in promoting racism.

Like many South African townships, Diepsloot suffers from poverty and substandard living conditions. The townships were the product of apartheid, the political system implemented in 1948 and continued until ended by the election of 1994. Townships were part of the government's solution to enforcing racial segregation. But few visiting the exhibit were aware of psychiatry's role in apartheid. Many were shocked to learn that psychiatry was behind the pseudoscience known as "eugenics" that promoted "improving" the human race through selective breeding and sterilization.

German psychiatrist Eugen Fischer (1874-1967) experimented on native people in concentration camps on Shark Island in a German colony that is now part of Namibia. His macabre "research" included decapitating victims and sending their skulls to Germany so psychiatrists could study so-called "inferior races."

Fischer recommended outlawing interracial marriage, which was adopted in 1912 throughout African German colonies. It was these same false psychiatric theories that gave the government of South Africa the "legitimacy" it needed to implement apartheid.

The exhibit also raised awareness of the dangers of drugging children with substances whose side effects are known to increase violence and suicidality.

CCHR aims to educate parents, caregivers, and mental health professionals throughout South Africa. Concerned visitors included ward councilors, police officials, pastors, and community leaders. Many pledged their support of CCHR's efforts with 98 signing up to volunteer for the local CCHR chapter. Victims shared their own experiences of abuse in the mental health field and expressed relief that CCHR is taking action to help.

CCHR South Africa is a nonprofit organization dedicated to investigating and exposing human rights violations in the mental health field. Its work is inspired by visionary and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard who believed that human rights must be made a fact, not an idealistic dream.

For more information visit the website of Citizens Commission on Human Rights or watch a series of documentaries on the Scientology Network:

Psychiatry: An Industry of Death

Therapy or Torture: The Truth About Electroshock

The Marketing of Madness

Or contact the nearest Scientology Church or Mission to find or begin a new chapter of CCHR.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights was cofounded in 1969 by professor of psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology. With headquarters in Los Angeles, California, CCHR International guides a global human rights advocacy network of some 180 chapters across more than 30 nations. CCHR Commissioners include physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, lawyers, legislators, government officials, educators and civil rights representatives.

LEARN MORE:

https://www.scientologynews.org/press-releases/

https://www.cchr.org

https://www.cchrint.org

VIDEO:

https://www.scientology.tv/series/cchr-documentaries/psychiatry-an-industry-of-death.html

Citizens Commission on Human Rights South Africa brought the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit to Diepsloot, a densely populated township in Gauteng, South Africa. The exhibit, held April 19 to 26, educated officials, business owners, members of African royalty and residents on human rights abuse, racism and harmful practices that pervade psychiatry, including its role in promoting racism.

Related link: https://www.cchr.org/

Los Angeles Deserves to Know the Hidden Source of So Many of the City’s Problems: Find Out at the Citizens Commission on Human Rights ‘Psychiatry an Industry of Death Exhibit’

LOS ANGELES, Calif. /ScoopCloud/ -- It's no accident that while prescriptions for psychiatric medications have soared, the Los Angeles suicide rate has risen 40 percent since the year 2000 while the county's mental health budget, at nearly $3 billion and rising, is the largest in the United States. Ever wonder why? The answer is not easy to confront. But Angelenos owe it to themselves and their families to visit the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) 'Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit,' which begins its global tour this week in Los Angeles with a grand opening on Friday, March 22 at 1:30 p.m.

Speakers will include:

* Rev. Oliver E. Buie, pastor of Bel-Vue Presbyterian Church, NAACP Religious Affairs Chair of the Inglewood South-Bay Chapter and Executive Board Member of the L.A. Department of Mental Health.

* Rev. Fred Shaw, Public Affairs Director of Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, President of the NAACP Inglewood-South Bay Chapter and Cofounder of the Task Force against Racism and Modern Day Eugenics.

Discover the one thing school shooters have in common that no one talks about. Learn the dark history of psychiatry's promotion of racism. Look behind the ads for the truth behind surging teen suicides in Los Angeles.

The "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" Global Tour is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily from March 22 to 27 at Grand Central Market lower level, 317 S. Broadway in Los Angeles. Admission is free. The exhibit is not for the faint-hearted. But it provides the answers Los Angeles needs. Confirm your attendance here.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights is a nonprofit charitable mental health watchdog established by the Church of Scientology in 1969, dedicated to eradicating psychiatric abuses and ensuring patient protections.

For more information, visit the CCHR website or documentaries produced by CCHR that air on the Scientology Network. Satisfying the curiosity of people about the Scientology religion and Founder L. Ron Hubbard, the Scientology Network airs on DIRECTV Channel 320, DIRECTV STREAM, AT&T U-verse and streams at Scientology.tv, on mobile apps and via the Roku, Amazon Fire and Apple TV platforms.

LEARN MORE:

https://www.cchr.org

https://www.cchrint.org

MULTIMEDIA:

https://www.scientology.tv/series/voices-for-humanity/fred-shaw.html

VIDEO:

https://www.scientology.tv/series/voices-for-humanity/fred-shaw.html

https://www.scientology.tv/series/cchr-documentaries/

https://www.scientology.tv/series/cchr-documentaries/psychiatry-an-industry-of-death.html

It's no accident that while prescriptions for psychiatric medications have soared, the Los Angeles suicide rate has risen 40 percent since the year 2000 while the county's mental health budget, at nearly $3 billion and rising, is the largest in the United States. Ever wonder why? The answer is not easy to confront. But Angelenos owe it to themselves and their families to visit the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) 'Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit,' which begins its global tour this week in Los Angeles with a grand opening on Friday, March 22 at 1:30 p.m.

Related link: https://www.cchr.org/