Exercise is as Effective as Antidepressants or Psychotherapy in Reducing Depression, Study Finds

Researchers conclude exercise is effective in treating depression and should be offered as an evidence-based treatment option.

The largest synthesis of data to date from research studies on the effect of exercise on depression found that exercise is as effective as antidepressant drugs or psychotherapy, the current first-line treatments for depression, and should be offered as an evidence-based treatment option. The study provides evidence for exercise as an alternative treatment for depressed individuals who do not want drugs or psychotherapy.

This is notable as the presented results suggest exercise [qualifies] as an efficacious treatment option for depressive symptoms among individuals with depression.

Andreas Heissel, PhD, University of Potsdam, Germany

Researchers from seven countries set out to address the problem of the mixed results from previous meta-analyses of studies on the effect of exercise on depression. Convincing evidence was needed to enable clinicians to prescribe exercise as an evidence-based treatment option. Using updated methodology to overcome the shortcomings of previous meta-analyses, researchers analyzed the results of 41 randomized controlled trials comprising 2,264 depressed adults and compared exercise with non-exercising control groups.

Their review, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, showed exercise has a large effect in reducing depression symptoms. For every two depressed people treated with exercise, at least one would be expected to have a substantial reduction in depression symptoms, the researchers found.

This significant benefit was found regardless of the type or intensity of the exercise or whether done in a group or not. Aerobic exercise was more effective than resistance training, but both delivered large benefits. Moderate intensity was more beneficial than light or vigorous intensity, but all reduced depression symptoms. Supervised and group exercise were found to deliver more positive effects than unsupervised and non-group.

“The findings from this review represent the most up-to-date and comprehensive meta-analysis of the available evidence and further supports the use of exercise focusing specifically on supervised and group exercise with moderate intensity and aerobic exercise regimes,” according to the study’s lead author, Andreas Heissel, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department for Sports and Health Sciences at the University of Potsdam, Germany.

The large positive effect on depression symptoms from exercise compares favorably with the results from two meta-analyses referenced in the study, one showing just a moderate effect from psychotherapy and the other showing only a small effect from antidepressants, according to Heissel.

Exercise also avoids the side effects and withdrawal symptoms associated with antidepressants and the significant expense of psychotherapy.

“This is notable as the presented results suggest exercise [qualifies] as an efficacious treatment option for depressive symptoms among individuals with depression,” wrote Heissel.

The prescribing of antidepressants was questioned in another recent study, published in Molecular Psychiatry in 2022, that found no scientific evidence to support the theory that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance of the brain, a common rationale for prescribing antidepressants. [1]

“The serotonin theory of depression has been one of the most influential and extensively researched biological theories of the origins of depression,” wrote lead researcher Joanna Moncrieff, a psychiatrist and professor at University College London. “Our study shows that this view is not supported by scientific evidence. It also calls into question the basis for the use of antidepressants.”

WARNING: Anyone wishing to discontinue or change the dose of a psychiatric drug is cautioned to do so only under the supervision of a physician because of potentially dangerous withdrawal symptoms.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) continues to raise public awareness of the risks of serious side effects and withdrawal symptoms from antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs, so that consumers and their physicians can make fully informed decisions about starting or stopping the drugs. CCHR supports safe and science-based non-drug approaches to mental health.

CCHR recommends a complete physical examination with lab tests, nutritional and allergy screenings, and a review of all current medications to identify any physical causes of depression or other unwanted mental and emotional symptoms, which might otherwise be misdiagnosed as a psychiatric disorder and incorrectly treated.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was co-founded in 1969 by members of the Church of Scientology and the late psychiatrist and humanitarian Thomas Szasz, M.D., recognized by many academics as modern psychiatry’s most authoritative critic, to eradicate abuses and restore human rights and dignity to the field of mental health. CCHR has been instrumental in obtaining 228 laws against psychiatric abuses and violations of human rights worldwide.

The CCHR National Affairs Office in Washington, DC, has advocated for mental health rights and protections at the state and federal level. The CCHR traveling exhibit, which has toured 441 major cities worldwide and educated over 800,000 people on the history to the present day of abusive and racist psychiatric practices, has been displayed at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, DC, and at other locations.

New Study Shows High Number Of Suicides After Electroshock

In another psychiatric treatment failure, a new study shows electroshock fails to prevent suicide, with over 800 deaths within a year in those receiving it. As with patients prescribed antidepressants, those receiving electroshock have been misled that electroshock corrects imbalanced brain chemicals.

Please read the complete article here.

Denver Psychiatrist Charged with Wrongly Prescribing Drugs

Denver area psychiatrist Howard Weiss has been indicted on 120 federal charges that include allegations he prescribed higher doses of psychiatric drugs without trying lower doses or alternative treatments first.  At least one of his patients died of an overdose, according to the indictment, although he is not charged in that death.

He is also charged with prescribing addictive drugs to already-addicted patients and prescribing high doses of benzodiazepines to patients taking opioids, a combination of drugs that could prove fatal.

According to the Denver Post, the indictment alleges that Weiss prescribed pills — including amphetamines such as Adderall and benzodiazepines such as Xanax and Valium — to patients at dosages that were too high and without exploring other avenues of treatment.

The indictment alleges that, in one three-month period, one patient was prescribed 9,000 Adderall pills, 480 pills of the muscle relaxant Soma and 480 Xanax tablets.

Weiss has a criminal history.   According to the disciplinary document  on the Dept of Regulatory Affairs (DORA) website, in 1995 Weiss was suspended from practice in the State of Virginia after conviction on federal charges involving filing false and fraudulent billing claims of in-patient psychiatric services. He served his sentence of probation and paid a fine and restitution, and his license was later reinstated in Virginia.

Weiss was granted a license to practice in Colorado in 2003. In 2019 he once again faced disciplinary action after the Colorado Medical Board reviewed information that Weiss “simultaneously prescribed multiple controlled substances in high doses to multiple patients” and “permitted patients to make determinations regarding their prescription medications despite clear evidence of abuse or misuse.”  He was found by the Board to “pose an immediate risk to the public health, safety or welfare” of the citizens of Colorado.  In an emergency action, his license was once again suspended.

If you are concerned about the psychiatric drugs prescribed to you or a loved one, discuss it with your doctor. You can also research psychiatric drug side effects here.

WARNING: Anyone wishing to discontinue or change the dose of a psychiatric drug is cautioned to do so only under the supervision of a competent medical doctor because of potentially dangerous, even life-threatening mental and physical withdrawal symptoms. If you or anyone you know has experienced harmful side effects from psychiatric drugs, we want to talk to you.  You can contact us by clicking here or by calling 303-789-5225.  All information will be kept in the strictest confidence.

Summertime… and Psychiatric Drugs Can Put You At Risk

Here in the West, we got a taste of summer heat in June and there is surely more to come. Be aware that if you are taking psychotropic medications, you are at special risk to heat effects and should know the steps you need to take to stay safe. Individuals with chronic medical conditions (i.e., heart and pulmonary disease, diabetes, alcoholism, etc.) are especially vulnerable.

No matter what the temperature is outside, psychotropic medications affect the body’s ability to regulate its own temperature. But during a heat wave, individuals taking antipsychotic medications are especially at risk of developing excessive body temperature, or hyperthermia, which can be fatal. You should know the signs of Heat Exhaustion and Heat Stroke and what to do if the heat starts getting to you.

First of all, there are simple precautions you can take:

  • Try to stay cool:
    • Stay in air-conditioned areas if possible.  If you do not have air conditioning at home, go to a shopping mall or public library.
    • Keep windows shut and draperies, shades, or blinds drawn during the heat of the day.
    • Open windows in the evening or night hours when the air outside is cooler.
    • Move to cooler rooms during the heat of the day.
  • Avoid overexertion and outdoor activity, particularly during warmer periods of the day.
  • Apply sunscreen and lotion as needed.
  • Drink plenty of fluids (avoid coffee, tea, and alcohol).
  • Dress in loose fitting, light colored clothing.  Wear a hat, sunglasses, and other protective clothing.
  • Take a cool shower or bath.
  • Lose weight if you are overweight.
  • Eat regular meals to ensure that you have adequate salt and fluids.

Understand the risk of the drugs you take. Psychotropic drugs have specific warnings from the manufacturer to avoid excessive heat and dehydration. If you have questions, check with your doctor or pharmacist about your medications.

WARNING: Anyone wishing to discontinue or change the dose of a psychiatric drug is cautioned to do so only under the supervision of a competent medical doctor because of potentially dangerous, even life-threatening mental and physical withdrawal symptoms.

If you or anyone you know has experienced harmful side effects from psychiatric drugs, we want to talk to you.  You can contact us by clicking here or by calling 303-789-5225.  All information will be kept in the strictest confidence.

Stay safe this summer!

Psychological Treatment Failed To Prevent Columbine – And Now The Boulder Mass Shooting?

Did psychological treatment in the form of anger management fail to prevent another mass shooting? 

Ahmad Alissa, charged in the shooting deaths of 10 people in a Boulder grocery store on March 22, received psychological anger management as part of his sentence of probation, after pleading guilty to a charge of misdemeanor third-degree assault in 2018.  As a high school senior in 2017, Alissa had attacked a classmate by punching him in the head without warning and continuing to punch him when he fell to the ground. 

Alissa is now being held in Boulder County jail on 10 counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted first-degree murder.  Police found him at the scene of the slaughter with a tactical vest, a semiautomatic handgun and an assault rifle, according to the arrest affidavit.

Columbine shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold also received psychological treatment.  After being arrested for breaking into a van and stealing electronic equipment in 1998, both spent 11 months in diversion programs, which included psychological counseling.  Harris’s program also included an anger management class.

Just two months after Harris and Klebold completed their diversion programs, they launched their attack at Columbine High School in April 1999, killing 13 people and wounding 26 others.

Documents later released by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office included a diary kept by Harris, filled with hateful and angry entries written over the two years leading up to the Columbine attack.

In an entry dated November 22, 1998 – just days after completing his anger management class and while his counseling was ongoing, Harris wrote about purchasing weapons and ammunition for the assault he would launch with Klebold the following April, concluding: “It’s all over now, this capped it off, the point of no return.” 

Harris had also been taking antidepressants for at least a year before the Columbine massacre, drugs which have been linked to agitation, aggression, abnormal behavior, mania, psychosis, suicide and violence.  Psychiatrist Peter Breggin and biopsychologist Ann Tracy are among those who make the case that Harris’s anger was fueled by the antidepressants.

Denver And Pueblo Psychiatrists Disciplined By Medical Board For Unprofessional Conduct

Two Colorado psychiatrists had their licenses put on five years’ probation by the Colorado Medical Board for unprofessional conduct under the state Medical Practice Act.

The disciplinary action taken against psychiatrist Thomas William Starkey, Jr., of Denver, is the result of his violation of an earlier agreement with the Board.  After pleading guilty to driving under the influence, Starkey signed a July 2019 agreement with the Board to stop performing any act requiring a medical license, while the Board investigated and determined what further actions, if any, were warranted. 

The Board then found that between July and October 2019, Starkey authorized his office staff to continue distributing pre-written prescriptions for medications to patients, in violation of his agreement with the Board.

In its Final Agency Order, dated January 27, the Board states that Starkey has a physical or mental condition that renders him “unable to perform a medical service with reasonable skill and with safety to patients in the absence of treatment monitoring” and that he “habitually or excessively used or abused alcohol, a habit-forming drug, or a controlled substance.” 

In addition to five years’ probation, the Board ordered Starkey’s abstinence from addictive substances, treatment as determined by the Colorado Physician Health Program, and compliance monitoring.

Starkey was previously disciplined with five years’ license probation in October 2010, after the Medical Board found that he crossed the boundaries of professional conduct with a female patient the same day he terminated treatment of her.  He completed that probation in 2015.

Psychiatrist Andi Kristine Woodbury, of Pueblo, was disciplined by the Medical Board, effective January 8, with a Letter of Admonition and five years’ license probation and treatment monitoring for violating a section of the Medical Practice Act concerned with failing to notify the Board of certain physical or mental conditions, or failing to practice within the limitations of those conditions with safety to patients, or failing to comply with limitations agreed to under any confidential agreement. 

Woodbury’s specific act or omission that prompted the Board’s disciplinary action was not further detailed, but it follows the March 2020 voluntary surrender of her clinical privileges during an investigation of her professional competence and conduct at the medical facility at which she worked and a July 2020 evaluation by the Colorado Physician Health Program, which concluded she could practice safely if she received treatment and monitoring.

Counselor at Boulder Mental Health Facility Arrested for Sexual Assault, Police Looking For Other Victims

A former counselor at the Warner House facility of Mental Health Partners, a community mental health clinic in Boulder, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a patient, and police are looking for other victims.

Jose Yepes, 48, was employed as a “milieu counselor” and interacted with patients dealing with substance abuse. 

Boulder police began investigating a series of incidents involving the suspect after a female victim reported that Yepes repeatedly initiated sexual contact over a one-month period in November.

The Boulder Daily Camera reported details of an affidavit, in which the woman said Yepes locked her in a dark room for what he called “energy healing” sessions, asked her to spank him and step on his back while he was naked on the floor, and showed her nude photos of himself.

Yepes has been charged with stalking, unlawful sexual contact and indecent exposure.

License information on the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies website indicate the suspect was registered as an unlicensed psychotherapist, effective 2009 to 2011, but has not been licensed or registered with the state since then.

Boulder Police believe there could be additional victims and are asking anyone with information related to the case to contact them.  Police caution that suspects are presumed innocent until convicted. If you or anyone you know has been the victim of sexual contact by any employee of a mental health facility, we want to talk to you.  You can contact us by clicking here or by calling 303-789-5225.  All information will be kept in the strictest confidence.

Police Responding To Report Of Psychiatric Facility Runaways Are Asked By Staff To Control “Rioting”

Police officers arriving at a Colorado Springs psychiatric facility Saturday night in response to a report of juvenile runaways were asked by staff to help them gain control of the facility from “rioting” patients who were “overtaking” them.

Officers were initially dispatched to Cedar Springs Hospital after receiving a report that juveniles had run away from the facility, according to the Colorado Springs Police blotter.  

When officers arrived, they were advised that multiple patients were “rioting, overriding the facility, destroying property, and overtaking the staff.”  

Several staff members suffered injuries that police described as “minor.”

Five juvenile “instigators” were arrested on charges that include 2nd degree assault, 3rd degree assault and harassment.

Information on what sparked the incident is not available. 

What drugs the juveniles may have been prescribed is also not known.  Commonly prescribed psychiatric drugs carry well-known risks of side effects that include hostility, psychosis, aggression and violence.

If you or someone you know has had experience with this or any other psychiatric facility, we want to talk with you.   You can contact us by clicking here  or by calling 303-789-5225.  All information will be kept in the strictest confidence.

Psychiatric Industry Aims To Profit From Racism, Targets African Americans

While many Americans see the recent racial tension in this country as an opportunity to address the issue of racial injustice, the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry sees it as an opportunity to expand their reach – very profitably – into the African American community. 

Psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health groups, many funded by pharmaceutical companies, had already been arbitrarily asserting that African Americans are 20% more likely to experience serious mental health problems, and less likely to identify their own mental health problems, than the general population.

Now psychiatric practitioners are trying to create a higher level of urgency.  The American Psychological Association has announced that “we are living in a racism pandemic.” 

Psychiatrists and psychologists are labeling the very real pain experienced from racism as a psychiatric disorder – post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – for which a standard treatment is antidepressants.  These are drugs that carry the risk of serious and debilitating physical and mental side effects, including emotional blunting, worsening depression, sexual problems, birth defects, anxiety, hallucinations, agitation, violence, and suicidal thoughts and actions.  Patrick D. Hahn, Affiliate Professor of Biology, Loyola University Maryland warns, “The link between antidepressants and violence, including suicide and homicide, is well established.”

American psychological and psychiatric associations have already developed guidelines on how to “treat” racism – guidelines that ensure that Black Americans are informed about psychiatric drugs as treatment. 

Psychiatrists and psychologists have a long history of re-defining people’s normal responses to bad situations as “mental disorders” requiring their “treatment.”  But history shows that Blacks have been especially targeted for “treatment,” and so have good reason to beware of practitioners in the psychiatric industry.

Professors Herb Kutchins and Stuart Kirk, co-authors of Making Us Crazy: The Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders, state:  “Defenders of slavery, proponents of racial segregation…have consistently attempted to justify oppression by inventing new mental illnesses and by reporting higher rates of abnormality among African Americans or other minorities.”

They further warn: “Innovations in diagnostic and treatment techniques are often proposed by those who claim to be committed to helping African Americans and other minority groups, but these innovations often perpetuate and increase racist thinking and lead to solutions that intensify persecution.“

For generations, psychiatrists and psychologists have been prime instigators of “scientific racism,” using pseudo-science to invent “racial diseases,” promote theories to “justify” segregation and racial population control, and subject Blacks to depraved “treatments” and barbaric psychiatric experiments.  Here are some key facts from that sordid history.

  • Though Dr. Benjamin Rush, the “Father of American Psychiatry, claimed he was anti-slavery in the late 1700s, in fact he purchased a child slave, whom he later freed only after being paid what he considered adequate compensation.  More importantly, he created a medical model of racism whose legacy is still felt today.  He claimed Blacks suffered from a disease called “negritude,” supposedly a form of leprosy.  Like lepers, he said, Blacks needed to be segregated to prevent them from “infecting” others.
  • Though Dr. Benjamin Rush, the “Father of American Psychiatry, claimed he was anti-slavery in the late 1700s, in fact he purchased a child slave, whom he later freed only after being paid what he considered adequate compensation.  More importantly, he created a medical model of racism whose legacy is still felt today.  He claimed Blacks suffered from a disease called “negritude,” supposedly a form of leprosy.  Like lepers, he said, Blacks needed to be segregated to prevent them from “infecting” others.

Psychiatrists and Psychologists Create Eugenics to “Justify” Racism

  • In 1883, English psychologist Francis Galton created the term “eugenics” (from the Greek word eugenes, meaning “good stock”) to encourage “better” human breeding and discourage those with “less desirable” traits from having children.  Eugenics is based on the belief that some humans are inferior to others.  Galton considered Africans inferior, writing: “These savages court [ask for] slavery.” 

The ideas of eugenics and “racial purification” would spread globally and would be used later “justify” many human rights abuses and atrocities, including the Nazi’s extermination of “inferior races” in the Holocaust, South Africa’s apartheid, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger’s push to exterminate the Black population through sterilization, and the Ku Klux Klan’s activities to eliminate non-whites – all to “protect” the white race, and all with their roots in eugenics.  

Psychiatrists and psychologists in the American mental health movement adopted and promoted the pseudo-science of eugenics in the U.S., spreading the racist idea of Black inferiority. 

A review of the history of the field of psychology revealed that in every decade from 1900-1970, there was a prominent American psychologist who was a proponent of the theory of the genetic inferiority of Blacks.  Many of these racist psychologists became presidents of the American Psychological Association.

  • The resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S. in the early 1900s occurred at a time when psychiatry’s eugenics-based racism was being broadly promoted in America, fueling the KKK’s mission of white supremacy.  In 1923, Hiram Wesley Evans, Grand Wizard of the KKK, referenced eugenics leaders in his speech given on “Klan Day.”

Psychiatry’s Embrace of Eugenics Leads to Racist Views of Blacks’ Intelligence 

  • In the 1920s, American eugenicists claimed that the IQ of Blacks was determined by the amount of “white blood” in them.  Interracial marriages were said to lower the IQ of whites.
  • In the 1950s, U.S. psychiatrist J.C. Carothers published a study with the World Health Organization, stating “that in many ways the African resembles a European 8- or 9-year old child in his reaction to the environment.”  He compared the African to a “leucotomized European.”  (“Leucotomy” is another word for “lobotomy,” psychiatry’s barbaric surgical procedure of cutting nerve connections in the front part of the brain to try to alter behavior.)
  • Psychiatry and psychology have a history of using biased intelligence testing to legitimize racism, appearing to “prove” that African Americans have lower IQs.  In the 1950s, Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman, an “expert” on IQ testing, used biased IQ testing extensively, then asserted that non-whites could never be educated and that Blacks should never be allowed to have children.
  • As recently as 1994, psychologist Richard Herrnstein co-authored the book, The Bell Curve, in whichhe claimed that Blacks performed worse on intelligence tests than Whites and are“genetically disabled.”In an argument similar to those made by earlier  proponents of eugenics and “racial purity,” Herrnsteinadvocated selective breeding to limit the black population.

Psychiatry Targets Blacks for Experimentation and Barbaric “Treatments” in the U.S.

  • Psychiatric “treatment” of minorities in the U.S. has included some of the most barbaric experiments ever carried out in the name of “scientific” research.

In the 1940s, U.S. psychiatrist Walter Freeman believed that Blacks, especially Black women, were among the best candidates for a lobotomy because families were more likely to give their relatives who survived the lobotomy devoted post-operative care.  (A lobotomy is psychiatry’s barbaric surgical procedure of cutting nerve connections in the front part of the brain to try to alter behavior.)  In 1951, Freeman lobotomized Black patients in an experiment at the Veterans Administration hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama, describing the procedure as “a surgically induced childhood.”

  • In the 1950s in New Orleans, black prisoners were used for psychosurgery experiments that implanted electrodes into their brains by psychiatrist Robert Heath from Tulane University and psychiatrist Harry Bailey from Australia.  Bailey later boasted about the reason they had chosen Black test subjects, saying it was “cheaper to use [Blacks*] than cats because they were everywhere and cheap experimental animals.” [*Bailey’s racial slur is omitted here]
  • Psychiatrist Robert Heath also conducted secret drug experiments, funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), using LSD and a drug called bulbocapnine, which in certain doses produces severe stupor.  He experimented on Black prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary to see if the drug would cause “loss of speech, loss of sensitivity to pain, loss of memory, [and] loss of will power…”
  • African Americans were targeted for brutal drug experiments at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the country’s top mental-health research facility.  In the mid-1950s, drug-addicted Blacks were used in an experiment with LSD that kept many hallucinating for 77 consecutive days.  In the 1960s, NIMH again used Black men as test subjects for an experimental hallucinogen, the chemical warfare drug BZ, which was many times more powerful than LSD.

Psychiatrists Invent Racist Diagnosis and Treatment for Blacks in Civil Rights Era

  • In the 1960s, psychiatrists invented the term “protest psychosis” to stereotype Blacks participating in the Civil Rights movement as aggressive.  Claims were made that joining in protests was a symptom of “schizophrenia.”  Ads for powerful antipsychotic drugs in psychiatric journals at the time used images of angry Black men or African tribal symbols to influence the prescribing of antipsychotic drugs to Blacks.  Today, African Americans are still disproportionately prescribed antipsychotic drugs.
  • In the 1970s, following riots in Watts, a predominantly black section of Los Angeles, the National Institute of Mental Health supported a “Violence Initiative” by psychiatrist Louis Jolyon West, the head of UCLA’spsychiatrydepartmentand Neuropsychiatric Institute, which was a proposal to treat young black urban male offenders with psychosurgery (cutting into the brain to disable parts of it)and chemical castration (using drugs to reduce the drive or ability for sexual activity).  Protests led by CCHR and others caused government funding for this project to be cut.
  • A second “Violence Initiative” supported by the National Institute of Mental Health gave psychiatric drugs to Blacks, including children as young as five, supposedly to research whether African-Americans had a violence gene that could be controlled by psychiatric drugs.
  • Racism towards African Americans continued for decades at the National Institute of Mental Health.  In 1992, psychiatrist Frederick Goodwin, executive director of the NIMH, compared Black youth living in inner cities to “hyper-aggressive” and “hyper-sexual” monkeys in a jungle. 

Today, a hidden eugenics agenda is still evident in the institutional racism of the psychiatric industry.  African Americans are disproportionately diagnosed with mental illness and disproportionately admitted to psychiatric and behavioral facilities.

They are disproportionately diagnosed as having a psychotic disorder, especially schizophrenia, and they are disproportionately prescribed antipsychotic drugs.  Black men, in particular, are more likely to be prescribed excessive doses of these psychiatric drugs. 

“Whipping the devil out of them” has been replaced with psychosurgery, electroshock, and psychiatric drugs.

CCHR International’s Task Force Against Racism & Modern Day Eugenics

In response to the psychiatric industry’s plan to sell psychiatric drugs and mental health treatment as the answer to racism, Citizens Commission on Human Rights International and Rev. Fred Shaw, Jr. launched the Task Force Against Psychiatric Racism and Modern Day Eugenics.  Its mission is to investigate and combat institutional racism and inform and empower the African American community with the facts about racism and eugenics masked as mental health care.

Rev. Shaw is an ordained minister with over 25 years of experience as a human rights advocate.  He served as a Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff and is currently the Executive Director of the Inglewood-South Bay chapter of the NAACP.  He has obtained three NAACP national resolutions against the forced drugging and electroshocking of children and teens, and he is a past recipient of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation award for his NAACP leadership and dedication in protecting children against psychiatric labeling and drugging.  He is also a CCHR spokesperson.

As a human rights organization and mental health industry watchdog, CCHR has exposed and campaigned against racism and racial abuse in the mental health system since our inception in 1969.  CCHR has worked with the NAACP since 2003 in exposing the stigmatizing labeling and drugging of African American children and, with Rev. Shaw, in obtaining the three national NAACP resolutions.

The entrenched legacy of eugenics in the mental health industry has permeated all sectors of society, paving the way for racial discrimination and abuse.  CCHR is dedicated to bringing to light the truth about how psychiatry and psychology are the instigators and peddlers of racism, not the help for it.

For more information, contact CCHR Colorado at (303) 789-5225.