Jan Eastgate, President CCHR International, arrived in Australia this week from CCHR’s international headquarters in Los Angeles following calls by psychiatrist Patrick McGorry for the federal government to hand over $200 million to fund programs that could lead to hundreds of thousands more children and youths being drugged. She said Australian psychiatrists are pushing a biological drug model in her home country that drug regulatory agencies have warned could place children at risk of suicide, heart irregularities, hallucinations, psychosis and death. Read more from CCHR Int on Psychiatrist Patrick McGorry and what he promotes.

Eastgate, an Australian, spent 10 years helping investigate the lethal psychiatric drug practice known as deep sleep treatment, which resulted in the NSW government banning the practice after 48 deaths. She says Australia hasn’t learned from the $15 million inquiry into this psychiatric practice 20 years ago. Today, psychiatrists, backed by the pharmaceutical industry, advise governments that clearly want to see better healthcare for Australians without breaking the bank. However, Eastgate said governments are being misled as Big Pharma and psychiatrists with vested interests puts profit before patient care. Eastgate’s investigations in the U.S. and globally during the past 16 years have found that government goodwill can be unwittingly compromised by psychiatric-pharmaceutical interests. She is investigating this further and expects a series of exposes to be featured on CCHR’s National site during the next few weeks. A report will also be provided the government on CCHR’s findings.

CCHR’s accomplishments in worldwide mental health reform are well documented, and the organization has helped to enact more than 150 laws protecting individuals from abusive or coercive psychiatric practices.  In the United States, CCHR was instrumental in the passage of the Prohibition of Mandatory Medication Act, which prohibits school personnel from forcing children onto psychotropic drugs as a requisite for their education. The Act was a positive response to the harmful influence the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry had had on education and Eastgate says there is every indication the same influence is happening in Australia.