Providing parents with the facts about psychiatric drugging of children and urging them to learn their rights.

Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) Sacramento kicked off Mental Health Month early with outreach activities at Rancho Cordova’s 30th Annual Kids Day in the Park. They warned hundreds of parents about the dangers of psychiatric drugging of children and provided them with resources to help protect their families. CCHR, a nonprofit, nonpolitical, nonreligious mental health watchdog group, spread the message, “Protect your children–know your rights.”

“The treatment for mental health problems is all too often dangerous drugs, even for children,” said Jim Van Hill, local CCHR executive director. More than 8.4 million children from infants to 17-year-olds have been prescribed psychiatric drugs, according to the IMS Health Vector One National database. Yet over 400 international drug regulatory warnings have been issued on psychiatric drugs, citing effects of mania, hostility, violence and even homicidal ideation.

“Parents want to do what is best for their child and assume that there is a sound scientific basis for prescribing these drugs,” says Van Hill, who claimed the drugs are life-threatening and are prescribed for mental disorders for which no scientific or medical proof exists.

Even the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Thomas Insel, showed no confidence in the legitimacy of psychiatric diagnosing, writing that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) “is at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each” and that “the weakness [of the DSM] is its lack of validity.”

To illustrate this point, Van Hill points to ADHD. More and more children are being diagnosed with it but Dr. Richard Saul, a behavioral neurologist in practice for 50 years and the author of ADHD Does Not Exist, says the increasing number of diagnoses is due to the expanded definitions of ADHD in the DSM. Dr. Saul wrote, “Under these subjective criteria, the entire U.S. population could potentially qualify.”

Despite this lack of scientific diagnosis, children are being given ADHD drugs which can cause agitation, aggressive or hostile behavior, mania, seizures, weight gain, hallucinations, heart problems and even sudden death.

“Research has shown that in a large percentage of cases, mental health symptoms are actually caused by physical illnesses or deficiencies which most likely won’t be addressed because of the incorrect diagnosis.”

The danger of psychiatric drugs is not limited to ADHD drugs. For example, the side effects of antidepressants include depression, psychosis, mania, hallucinations, agitation, aggression, and suicidal thoughts. Anti-psychotics can cause heart problems, death, weight gain, convulsions, suicidal thoughts and diabetes.

Van Hill added yet another warning: “Research has shown that in a large percentage of cases, mental health symptoms are actually caused by physical illnesses or deficiencies which most likely won’t be addressed because of the incorrect diagnosis.”

Many parents reach out to CCHR because they fear their child will not be allowed in school if they do not take the prescribed drugs. CCHR cautions parents to know their rights and arm themselves with the documented facts. Federal law (Title 20 of United States Code: Chapter 33, Subchapter II, Assistance for Education of All Children With Disabilities § 1412, State Eligibility) prohibits school personnel from requiring parents to drug their child as a requisite for attending school.

For information or assistance, contact CCHR Sacramento at (916) 447-4599 or visit the CCHR Sactramento website

Citizens Commission on Human Rights was cofounded by professor of psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szaz, and the Church of Scientology in 1969 to expose psychiatric violations of human rights and clean up the field of mental healing. Alerted to the brutality of psychiatric treatment by author and humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard who wrote extensively about the abuses of psychiatric patients, CCHR today stands as a powerful voice of reason. For more information, visit the CCHR website.