Congressman Continues to Push for Increased Mental Health while ignoring America’s Prescription Drug Epidemic
By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
July 29, 2015
Following the theater shooting in Lafayette, Louisiana, last week by John Russell Houser, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) released a statement in which he expressed his sympathy for the families of the victims and also his anger that “our mental health system has failed and more families have been destroyed because Washington hasn’t had the courage to fix it.” The problem, though, is that Rep. Murphy’s “fix” is at odds with the facts.
Houser is among a growing list of shooters who not only received lengthy mental health services, but was also prescribed mind-altering psychiatric drugs as “treatment.” Rep. Murphy, while eager to use acts of senseless violence to push for increasing mental health services, fails to even consider Houser’s psychiatric drug “treatment” as a potential cause of the crime. According to his estranged wife, Kellie Maddox Houser, was being “prescribed medication to take daily.”
Despite 22 international drug regulatory warnings on psychiatric drugs citing effects of mania, hostility, violence and even homicidal ideation, there has yet to be a federal investigation on the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence. Click image for more info.
Ignoring Houser’s psychiatric drug “treatment,” Rep. Murphy believes that passage of his legislation, the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, will prevent these senseless acts of violence from occurring and, as a psychologist by profession, Rep. Murphy further believes that the much-needed courage lies in lawmakers’ approval of increased mental health services and “treatments.”
The fact is that the fraud of psychiatric diagnosing must be at the top of the list of any conversation considering increased mental health services. It is the diagnosis that has created the current prescription drug epidemic in America, with one in four being prescribed a psychiatric drug (source, IMS Health). As a psychologist, even Rep. Murphy must be aware that there is no science to support psychiatric disorders as medical abnormalities requiring drugs to “treat” them, and that there are no medical tests (X-ray, CAT, MRI, blood tests) to test for these alleged mental disorders.
Murphy must also be aware that even Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), has openly stated that the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—the manual used for diagnosing alleged mental disorders—is deeply flawed, stating, “the weakness is its lack of validity,” and “it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each.” It may also be of some interest to lawmakers that NIMH provides no data on its website that supports even one psychiatric diagnosis having a biological cause.
Yes, it will take courage for lawmakers to address the completely subjective nature of psychiatric diagnosing, and that same courage will be needed when considering the ever-increasing number of Americans being “treated” with known dangerous and even deadly psychiatric drugs.
Currently 79 million Americans are taking at least one psychiatric drug, including 41 million taking antidepressants, and 10,000 toddlers being treated with ADHD drugs.
Currently 79 million Americans are taking at least one psychiatric drug, including 41 million taking antidepressants which include 7.5 million children ages 6-17 and 10,000 toddlers being treated with ADHD drugs.
Psychiatric drugging is becoming so problematic that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that prescription drug abuse is the fastest-growing drug problem in the U.S., and these data are based on a diagnosis that is not based in science.
Lawmakers must consider that, due to overwhelming data, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was forced to place on antidepressant packaging its most serious “Black box” warning for causing suicidality in those 24 years old and under. Also associated with antidepressant use are the adverse side effects, including hostility, anxiety, violent behavior, mania and hallucinations to name a few.
As is the case of providing serious drug warnings in the U.S., internationally there are 22 drug regulatory warnings on psychiatric drugs citing adverse effects such as mania, violence, hostility, abnormal behavior and even homicidal ideation.
It is of particular interest that Rep. Murphy seems focused on increased mental health services to “fix” the problem when, in fact, recent mass shootings involve men with long histories of receiving mental health services.
For example, Aurora, Co., shooter, James Holmes received mental health services from several college psychiatrists and also had been prescribed the anti-anxiety drug clonazepam and the antidepressant, sertraline, the generic version of the antidepressant Zoloft. Washington Navy Yard shooter, Aaron Alexis, also comes to mind as having received mental health services and had been prescribed the antidepressant, Trazodone. And, it also appears that Fort Hood Shooter, Ivan Lopez had received mental health services as he had been prescribed Ambien, antidepressants and other medications to treat anxiety and depression.
Now, Louisiana shooter, John Russell Houser, is added to this list of shooters having received mental health services. To date, though, no specific data has been made public about what psychiatric drugs Houser had been prescribed over a period of years. Ultimately, in each of these cases, Rep. Murphy cannot claim that mental health services had been withheld or unavailable, as the perpetrators not only received mental health services, but received those services for extended periods.
Rep. Murphy is right, however, that there is great need for an in-depth investigation into the services being delivered by the mental health community. The evidence reveals that there is something very wrong with the mental health services being provided and, yes, it will take courage to finally address the fraud of psychiatric diagnosing.
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Kelly Patricia O’Meara is an award-winning former investigative reporter for the Washington Times’ Insight Magazine, penning dozens of articles exposing the fraud of psychiatric diagnosis and the dangers of the psychiatric drugs—including her ground-breaking 1999 cover story, “Guns & Doses,” exposing the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed book, Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills that Kill. Prior to working as an investigative journalist, O’Meara spent sixteen years on Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer to four Members of Congress. She holds a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Maryland.