Involuntary Committment... Notice Any Similarities

[bandit1978]

Deborah-

before we had "heroic surgical interventions" during labor and delivery, how many women died giving birth??  

I have heard of doctors pushing ahead with c-sections, because the risk of complications from some vaginal births often outweighs the risk of complicatins from c-section.  and even if the woman wants to take those risks, the doctor is (and should be) concerned about getting sued.  many times the risks of vaginal birth don't become evident until way into the labor process.  For example, an extended labor can put the baby into distress.  If you are not a medical professional (midwife or whathaveyou), then you probably aren't aware of all the risks.  And if you do not personally know a number of people who work in the medical profession, then you may not have heard so much about frivilous lawsuits, and you may not understand the physicians' need to practice "defensive medicine" (which may lead to more c-sections).

[Paul]

before we had "heroic surgical interventions" during labor and delivery, how many women died giving birth??

It will only upset Deborah ...

[Antigen]

Not so many as you might think, Paul.

Back to the topic at hand, though:

Townsend Letter
for Doctors and Patients? Archives Part 1 (Issue #162)

The Hidden Side of Psychiatry
by Gary Null, PhD

Mental illness is at an all-time high, with 40 million Americans affected, according to reports emanating from organized psychiatry. But just how accurate is this account? As you will see, people seeking help from the mental health industry are often misdiagnosed, wrongfully treated, and abused. Others are deceptively lured to psychiatric facilities, or even kidnapped. No matter how they arrive, though, once they are there, inmates lose all freedoms and are forced to undergo dangerous but sanctioned procedures, such as electroconvulsive therapy and treatment with powerful drugs, that can leave them emotionally, mentally, and physically marked for life.

Full text: http://www.tldp.com/issue/162/162psych.htm

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.
--Albert Einstein, My First Impression of the U.S.A., 1921

_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Drug war POW
Seed `71 - `80
Straight, Sarasota
   10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity Anonymous
return undef() if /coercion/i;

[Paul]

Ginger,

I was trying to find the peak of involuntarily
committed psychiatric patients in the US,
compared to today. I guess my research skills
are not to good, yet.

I think one could safely assume if the large
state run psychiatric hospitals where dramitically
closed 40 or so years ago, those patients released.
That that would have been the peak.

At first glance I thought when you where posting
from the Townsend Letter, it would be good. But,
Gary Null, made a hysterical claim in your quote
that just cannot be so.

Where are all these kidnapped patients held?
Where? Local hospital beds are tightly regulated,
and I don't think a patient can get lost at
your local hospital ...

Who is paying for these people to be locked up in hospitals that don't exist anymore?

These claims that intelligent people such as yourself and Deborah are so willing to embrace
just don't pass the common sense test. Sorry.

Eveyone loves a good conspiracy, but come on ...

---

Regarding the per capita death rate of mothers
at birth during at intervals such as centuries
or decades would be great, but I don't know where
to look.

---

I have stuff to do, and I must move on.

---

If there is only going to accusations, and no
solutions then I can't justify the banter.

[Antigen]

Just read the article. Private insurance and Medicaid/Medicare usually pay for it.

From just a couple of paragraphs in "The federal government and the insurance industry are finally waking up to the problem and starting to fight back. In 1993, seven of the largest insurance companies sued one of the largest psychiatric hospital chains, National Medical Enterprises, for $750 million. In addition, every attorney general now has an assistant attorney general to oversee health care fraud prosecutions. As a result, some progress has been made. Wiseman states:

"Psychiatrists make up 8% of doctors, but 18% of those health care practitioners that have been kicked out of the Medicare system for fraud. Last year, $411 million was paid to the government in fines and penalties for health care fraud and 90% of that was paid by psychiatrists or psychiatric institutions.7 "

Paul, you accuse Deb and Me and anyone else who disagrees w/ you of slack research and irrational claims, but you don't even bother to read the content that we're talking about?

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
--Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor

[Paul]

OK, I just stopped in a library, to
check my email before a meeting.

I will take your hit that I didn't
read Gary Null's article because
I thought it would be irrelevant,
based on the "kidnapping of psychiatric"
patients.

There is fraud, no doubt, especially
in psychiatric care because of the
confidentiality issues. I remember
the case in 1993 clearly. NME figured
out a way to bill and try to evade
detection because of confidentiality.

No doubt, where there is an opportunity,
there will be fraud.

OK, meeting time, I will go over this
thread tonight and see if I am right,
or admittedly wrong on any points.

[Paul]

Ginger,

OK, I just read a little bit,
now I have to run. I think
he has the NME story right on.

His article makes it sound like
psychiatry is the sole source
of medical fraud?

Is this true, no other fraud?

No fraud in the anti-psychiatry
movement either?

---

Ideally we would have honesty everywhere
and no hidden agenda's and transparent
record keeping. We don't have that ...
anywhere.

So, yes, I will read Gary's article. I
will note if he is overly biased, and
see if his statements match up with my
own personal experiences.

BTW - What are Deborah and your suggestions
for psychiatry and the teen help industry?

Close down all psychiatry, and only refer
teens to the schools that you are referring
them to now, and shut down all others?

If that is your recommendation, or some
variation, then play out the scenario and
write it up. What will the new US be like?

[Paul]

Why is it so difficult to post this link?

[Deborah]

Re-actionary, based on what? I don?t think you know me. Just for the record, ?complaining? can be very pro-actionary, because in so doing, there is exposure of the issue. I realize you don't see any problem or need for complaint. Oh well. I?m sure you?d be raising the roof if your choice to take drugs was in jeopardy. We?re all passionate about our beliefs, you too, Paul.  

My daughter is adult and makes her own choices, many, many times different than I would choose. I?m sure it was real similar to the reason you couldn?t influence your roommate to take drugs.
She ended up with a C-section because the dr was tired of waiting. Maybe he had a dinner date, who knows. Could have something to do with the fact that a C-section elevate a simple birth to a risky surgery procedure, and the price goes up exponentially. But, I'm sure that had nothing to do with it.  :roll:  She regretted letting him rush her.

?Jeeperz, you say natural unassisted childbirth, then use a mid-wife! ?
Did you misunderstand, or are you desperate, pulling at straws there?
Who?s reactionary here?

My solutions to what, Paul?

I would be shocked if the number of frivolous lawsuits was anywhere near what they?d have us to believe. Who?s tracking them? Where?s the list of those injured and what their injuries were? Who determines if they are frivolous or not?  If you?re asking me to take someone?s (the industry's) word for it, no thanks. There are too many factors that have not been addressed, not enough disclosed.

[Deborah]

Paul, did you read this 'pro-psych' woman's account of involuntary committment/forced psychiatry and what it took to get out?
http://psychrights.org/Stories/CrazyUntilProvenSane.pdf
One little excerpt that I think is damned relavant:
She told me that I?d probably be released sooner if I just took the medications that were ordered
for me. I gave her the following reasons for choosing not to do so:
§ I was not convinced that I actually had the condition I was diagnosed with, and I didn?t want
to take unnecessary medication.
§ The medications have side effects that I wasn?t interested in experiencing needlessly.
§ If I took the medications, I suspected that hospital staff would be inclined to attribute all
normal behaviors to their effects. That I ?responded? to the medications would then become
de facto evidence that I actually had the condition for which they were prescribed.

There are more where that came from.

How can you be a proponent of this industry and know so little. Or are you just pretending to be ignorant?

[Deborah]

Here's a good one...
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... t=50#65963

Texas foster children were being drugged to the gills, multiple drugs, the whole gamut.

Excerpt:
Herschel Smith of the Harris County Leadership Council said blacks are "still being stereotyped" by state Child Protective Services. "For a psychiatrist to put forth a genetic theory like this is horribly irresponsible."

Dr. Burkett, a psychiatrist who has been the Tarrant County agency's top medical officer since 2000, said he did nothing wrong and has no plans to quit.

Dr. Burkett said he was "not alluding to race" or belittling foster children in remarks he made Oct. 4 to a House panel studying whether mental health drugs are prescribed too often for the state's 17,000 foster children.

"I should stretch and give you a little more medical perspective on mental illness," he said as he testified on behalf of the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians. "A lot of these kids come from BAD GENE POOLS. They don't have stable parents making good decisions or else many of them, most of them, would not be in foster care."

On Tuesday, Dr. Burkett said: "There are pretty strong genetic factors in mental illness. The comment ... was really a comment about the fact that these children are in the foster care system because they don't have normal parents making good decisions. ..."

"That's really the connection I'm making with genetics."

He said, "They may not have been the best choice of words. ... I regret that I offended anyone."

Dr. Burkett served on Child Protective Services' Advisory Committee on Psychotropic Medications, which in August urged the state to allow doctors to prescribe for mentally disturbed foster children all of the medications generally available to the Medicaid population.

Burkett's bigoted testimony can be heard at:
http://www.house.state.tx.us/fx/av/comm ... 004a51.ram

Starts at hour 6:22

[Deborah]

Megan,
The stats don?t support your comment that drs push for C-section due to risks. You?d be hard pressed to find a woman, at least I have been, who didn?t have a C-section these days.  Most vaginal births are to women who don?t have insurance to cover C-section. The C ladies typically have a low threshold for pain and/or want to schedule their birth around their work schedule and/or pick the birth date.

The medical industry has redefined ?risk? and ?extended labor?.

I had 9+ pound babies, as did my daughter, and I?m a small woman. I labored for 12 ? 14 hours. I can?t say that it was fun, but I wouldn?t do it any other way.

Doctors don?t want to ?coach? a laboring mom, or listen to their discomfort. They have developed a nice, relatively pleasant procedure that serves ?them? (the dr) well.
Petosin (sp?), Spinal, Doc checks in every coupla hours, woops, it?s been 6 hours. Not progressing fast enough. Extended labor. Baby could be distressed. Time to call it an emergency. Break out the scalpel.

I just don?t think drs would be faced with so many lawsuits if they didn?t intervene as often. The overwhelming majority of women can birth a baby with no complications.

And the trendy ?birthing room? my daughter had was a joke. I guess some women are fooled, at least they can tell their friends they had one, and imagine that they had a 'natural' birth. It was a birthing room by name alone.

When my first grandson was born the doctor told my daughter, after a few hours of labor, that she needed to take petosin. I asked her if that was what she wanted, we had discussed this. He ignored me, leaned over her bed, looked her in the eye and asked, ?you want to get this baby out don?t you?? Torn, my daughter cried and agreed. I remained silent. It wasn?t the time to bust the guy?s balls. She needed to trust him, and he had sufficiently scared her. In his case, he?d been there all day and wanted this baby born on his watch. Had nothing to do with complications or risks. Purely ego and selfishness.

If that wasn?t bad enough, she requested Advil for a headache caused by the spinal. They gave her Demerol !!!  And this was right before she needed to push. She could hardly keep her eyes open, much less push. Was angry and cried through the final moments of labor. She and the baby were groggy for hours. It was nothing short of a miracle that she didn?t end up with a C-section with that one.

[Deborah]

What are Deborah and your suggestions
for psychiatry and the teen help industry?

Paul,
This is not something I could answer briefly. I'll try to get back to it as time allows, and inspiration flows.

[bandit1978]

Deborah-  it's the doctors *job* to "intervene"!!  If you don't want that, then birth your babies at home!!

If doctors allow for extended labor, as I said before, the chance increases that the baby will go into distress, thus needing an emergency c-section, and increasing the chances for a less-than-optimal outcome.  If an ineffective labor continues, the baby's heart rate can drop, easily, and they can become low on oxygen, easily.  This is very risky.   Again, doctors do this to protect the baby as much as they do it to cover their own butts.  

And if you had such a specific birthing plan (no pitocin, or whatever), WHY did you not discuss this first with the care provider??

[bandit1978]

What do you know about "complications and risks"?  I do believe you should be an educated consumer, but you are really not qualified to judge the extent of any "complications and risks" that may have occured during the birth.  You should allow the professionals to determine that (not saying you should have no input).  

This is one of the reasons for all the frivilous lawsuits!  Ignorant consumers, looking to blame someone because their bodies did not resond in the same manner a computer program would.  

Next time, discuss the plan with the doctor or midwife, find a care provider who is willing to take on the risk of an extended labor (good luck), or else stay home!