Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Special Exhibition

United Nations calls psychiatry out on their violation of human rights

A special showing of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) multimedia exhibition Psychiatry: An Industry of Death was held at Toronto’s St. Lawrence Centre September 8-9. The reception launching the exhibit featured a report released June 23, 2017, by Dr. Dainius Puras, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health.

In his report, Dr. Puras, who heads the Centre for Child Psychiatry Social Pediatrics at Vilnius University in Lithuania, states: “We need little short of a revolution in mental health care to end decades of neglect, abuse and violence.” He openly criticizes psychiatry for its egregious human rights violations, such as lobotomy and nonconsensual measures, points out psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is without a solid scientific basis, and that psychotropic drugs produce harmful side effects. “We have been sold a myth that the best solutions for addressing mental health challenges are medications and other biomedical interventions,” He says.

Psychiatry: An Industry of Death, with video interviews of more than 160 international experts and victims of psychiatry, documents every one of Dr. Puras’ assertions and presents the long history of psychiatric abuse and fraud.

Guest speaker at the CCHR reception, Imam Abdul Hai Patel, a former Ontario Human Rights Commissioner and chaplain with the Canadian Mental Health Association, emphasized the importance of the Puras report, adding that the right to mental health “is also dependent upon equality and non-discrimination in the enjoyment of all other human rights that can themselves be considered an underlying determinant.”

Pat Felske, Public Affairs Director of the Church of Scientology of Toronto, noted that Canada has the third highest level of consumption of antidepressants among 23 nations surveyed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Antidepressants and antipsychotics are being prescribed for children as young as 4 years of age.

Mrs. Felske encouraged exhibit attendees to sign a petition that calls for an investigation into the psychotropic drugging of Canadian children and adults. “Parents are not told that they have the right to refuse treatment,” she said. “The UN report makes it clear that informed consent is a must, and that there is no justification for forced treatment or human rights violations.”

Psychiatry: An Industry of Death was viewed by more than 400 people in its two-day engagement in Toronto.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) was co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz. The nonprofit mental health watchdog is responsible for helping to enact more than 180 laws protecting individuals from abusive or coercive practices. CCHR has long fought to restore basic inalienable human rights to the field of mental health, including, but not limited to, full informed consent regarding the medical legitimacy of psychiatric diagnosis, the risks of psychiatric treatments, the right to all available medical alternatives, and the right to refuse any treatment considered harmful.