NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PsychRights
March 31, 2009
Today, responding to the State of Alaska's admission in PsychRights v. Alaska that it was incapable of protecting the children and youth in its care from improper and harmful psychiatric drugging, the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights®) told the court it must step in.
PsychRights v. Alaska was filed last Fall to halt the State of Alaska's practice of administering and paying for psychiatric drugs being given children and youth without safeguards being in place to make sure proper decision making occurs. In trying to get PsychRights v. Alaska "thrown out of court" the State admitted it was incapable of protecting the children and youth in its care as follows:
A reading of the Complaint makes obvious that the true subject of plaintiff's grievances is not the Department, but prescribers of psychotropic pharmaceuticals, the pharmaceutical companies which produce and market them, and the overall culture of pediatric psychiatry. The implication that the Department possesses meaningful authority and control over these matters-or is in any realistic position to administer the relief requested even if the court were to order it-is a fiction.
"The point is the State has the responsibility to properly care for the children and youth in its care regardless of the 'culture of pediatric psychiatry,'" according Mr. Gottstein. Today's court filing tells the court, "It is shameful the State is abdicating its responsibility when it should be working to correct the problem."
In the absence of the State being willing to address the problem without court intervention, the lawsuit seeks to solve it by obtaining a court order prohibiting the psychiatric drugging of children and youth by the State unless and until
(i) evidence-based psychosocial interventions have been exhausted,
(ii) rationally anticipated benefits of psychotropic drug treatment outweigh the risks,
(iii) the person or entity authorizing administration of the drug(s) is fully informed of the risks and potential benefits, and
(iv) close monitoring of, and appropriate means of responding to, treatment emergent effects are in place.
Practically every day brings revelations that pediatric psychopharmacology is the result of illegal drug company actions to improperly influence psychiatrists to prescribe extremely harmful drugs to children and youth, in spite of there being no real evidence of their efficacy. "Rather than meeting its mandate to properly care for and protect these children and youth from harm, the actions of the State are reprehensible," Mr. Gottstein declared, adding "The State is also trying to hide its complicity by stopping the discovery process."
The defendants in the lawsuit are the State of Alaska, its Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), and responsible officials, Sarah Palin, Governor, William Hogan, Commissioner of DHSS, Tammy Sandoval, Director of the Office of Children's Services (OCS), Steve McComb, Director of the Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), Melissa Stone, Director of the Division of Behavioral Health (DBH), Ron Adler, CEO of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API), and William Streur Deputy Commissioner and Director of Medicaid. All of the substantive filings in the lawsuit are available on the Internet at http://psychrights.org/States/Alaska/PsychRightsvAlaska.htm.
The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights is a public interest law firm devoted to the defense of people facing the horrors of unwarranted forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock. PsychRights is further dedicated to exposing the truth about psychiatric interventions and the courts being misled into ordering people subjected to these brain and body damaging drugs against their will. Extensive information about these dangers, and about the tragic damage caused by electroshock, is available on the PsychRights web site: http://psychrights.org/.
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