Author: Sheila Matthews

2024/05/18

The psychiatric drug industry and big tobacco share striking similarities in their tactics, particularly when it comes to downplaying the risks associated with their products and targeting vulnerable populations like youth. The psychiatric community has gotten away with pretending it is based in science and medicine to sell its snake oil, while the tobacco industry wasn’t so lucky.

A key difference lies in the government’s stance – while tobacco companies face increasing regulations and warnings, the psychiatric drug industry enjoys substantial government support and promotion despite the existence of black box warnings on many of their medications.  Both industries have a history of misleading marketing practices and minimizing potential harms.

Big tobacco companies notoriously concealed evidence linking smoking to lung cancer and other diseases for decades. Similarly, psychiatric drug manufacturers have been accused of selectively publishing favorable trial data and underreporting adverse effects.

2024/05/14

The United Hospital Fund, a research and analysis organization, has released a report titled “The Ripple Effects of the Adolescent Behavioral Health Crisis”  which apparently reflects survey data on substance use, mental health issues, and treatment (or lack thereof) among adolescents in the U.S., New York State and New York City. Based on this report, it appears that nobody is getting better.

This forty-page report spews so many numbers it’s hard to comprehend just how bad the mental health problem is for any given age group. But the report has bigger problems. For example, the smartest guys in the room who put together this report made a fatal error, and the report should be used as confetti.  One only need review the survey used to collect the data to see that the highfalutin analysts apparently have failed to ask those surveyed whether or not they had been on prescription psychiatric drugs, when, what kind and for how long. Why? Where are the “fact checkers?”

2024/05/09

According to data recently received from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a psychiatric watchdog organization, there are nearly 2,000 0-to 5 years olds taking psychiatric anti-anxiety drugs in the State of Connecticut. Despite this stunning data, during the most recent Connecticut Behavioral Health Partnership Oversight Council (BHPOC) meeting that oversees the massive mental health system in the State of Connecticut, co-chair, Terri DiPietro, claimed that oversight of the number of children in Medicaid taking prescribed psychiatric mind-altering drugs is not part of the Council’s mission. 

In fact, it appears that none of the concerns regarding psychiatric behavioral health drug use is part of the council’s oversight even though the State of Connecticut passed Public Act 0124 approved June 28, 2001, which was intended to ensure this important drug information was part of the oversight. 

2024/04/16

Tennessee had proposed the first law aimed at addressing three basic reforms which, for more than two decades, have been largely overlooked in the aftermath of mass shootings across the United States. The proposed legislation had broad support, with sponsors in both the House and Senate, as well as backing from multiple organizations representing a vast majority of Tennesseans. Much needed reforms.

These reforms would have addressed three fundamental issues:  The psychiatric medication history – the specific psychiatric drug or cocktail of drugs the shooter had been prescribed, and the shooter’s mental health history, including the name of the treating psychiatrist, and the relationship between the behavioral health vendor or contractor and the state and federal government. Good legislative actions that went nowhere. Why?

AbleChild Rumble Appearance on “The Flame” & The Request for The Hatch Amendment

AbleChild was delighted to join the team on The Flame podcast.  During our guest appearance, we were asked to write an article relating to the Hatch Amendment to educate parents how to use it.  So, here we go.

First, parents must understand that Federal law has us all in an “opt out” position.  What does this mean?  Your child is automatically in a position of “opt in” or enrolled into all the nasty programs of the archaic public education system.

Therefore, in order for your child not to participate in any of these programs that do not agree with your family moral compass, the answer is to “opt out.”   This works for an activity, a class, or an event.

So how do you do it?  The Hatch Campaign PDF, the letter.

For years now, even decades, the left has been trying to grab guns from law abiding Americans. Usually, the cries to disarm begin just after a mass shooting, especially school shootings. The Second Amendment is a mighty force, though, and law makers understand removing those rights from the Constitution are simply pipe dreams. So, rather than use the full frontal to remove guns from American homes, the left is doing and end-around, bringing in none other than the most fraudulent of medical voodoo, psychiatry. 

Police in Maine are being accused of ‘abdication of responsibility’ for not seizing Army Reservist, Robert Card’s weapons prior to Card’s killing rampage last October. The findings are the result of a report issued by Maine Governor, Janet Mills’, controversial panel and the evidence made public does not support this conclusion.

When one closely watches the body cam footage taken by police while interacting with Card prior to the Reservist’s mental health “treatment,” at the military barracks in New York, something seems wrong.

For instance, the State of Maine denies that Card was forced to undergo psychiatric “treatment,” but the police body cam footage, and Card, himself, tells a different story.

Behavioral Health Industry Influence in Investigations Produces Conflicts of Interest in Mass Shootings

In a new twist associated with school shootings, parents now are on trial when their child commits the unthinkable.  Does this make sense?  No. But the public is getting to watch the second part of the Crumbley trial – James Crumbley, the father, in Michigan, whose son, Ethan, killed four at Oxford High School in November of 2021. The prosecution is making the shooting about the parents’ failure to get Ethan mental health treatment and providing Ethan with a gun. But there is much more going on.

It sounds like the family had plenty of access to mental health. Remember the mother, Jennifer Crumbley, has already been found guilty of manslaughter (failing to secure a gun and ammunition at home and failing to get help to support Ethan Crumbley’s mental health).

The fact is that James and Jennifer Crumbley met with the school counselors just hours before the shooting occurred. Apparently, everyone agreed (including the school counselors) that Ethan was fine to stay at school that day. And, at trial, the prosecution witness psychiatrist Dr. Lisa Anacker said the son, did not meet the statutory definition of being mentally ill.