The United States Government attempts to kill the messengers of alternative mental health care while promoting their own controlling agenda: drug-based treatment for mental health only--smells like Pharma political campaign $$$ influence at its finest.
[**UPDATE**9-27-10 Hall's workshop restored:NEC apologizes ]
More censorship at the alternatives conference, this time it isn't Robert Whitaker, now it's Will Hall.
Coming Off Medications Workshop Censored at 'Alternatives 2010' Mental Health Conference--Madness Radio blog
"Hi everyone,
I'm writing to let you know that Alternatives 2010 has withdrawn its previous approval for my workshop on coming off psychiatric medications. Two days ago I received word that the National Empowerment Center decided to rewrite the workshop description to exclude any reference to "coming off medications," which is a central part of the workshop content.
Because I cannot go along with this decision I will not be attending the conference. Below is a press release explaining the situation; please share this with others if you are interested."
MENTAL HEALTH CONFERENCE CENSORSHIP
Coming Off Medications Workshop Censored at 'Alternatives 2010' Mental Health Conference
Alternatives, the mental health consumer/survivor conference with more than 1,000 participants annually, has withdrawn its previous approval for a workshop on coming off psychiatric medications.
The workshop, based in a pro-treatment choice, harm-reduction philosophy, was to share information about continuing, reducing, or coming off medications. After approving the workshop in June, the National Empowerment Center, which organizes the conference to be held in Anaheim California, made a last-minute decision to change the title and description to remove any reference to coming off medications.
Will Hall, an internationally-recognized schizophrenia survivor and radio host who was set to lead the workshop, decided that he could not go along with the decision and will not be attending the conference. "Coming off medications is a topic vital to wellness and recovery, and should not be censored," he said.
The controversial move by the National Empowerment Center comes in the wake of a recent similar decision to bar Robert Whitaker, a Pulitzer finalist investigative journalist whose work spotlights medication dangers and growing evidence that non-drug alternatives work better for some patients. Whitaker was restored as a conference keynote speaker only after mental health advocates mobilized quickly on the internet to challenge the decision.
The annual Alternatives conference is organized by consumer/survivor groups and federally funded. With workshops ranging from wellness, youth, housing, employment, advocacy and diversity issues, Alternatives is the country's most prominent gathering for mental health consumers, who attend from all US states and as far away as Guam. Medication issues, however, have consistently been excluded from the program.
Hall, who works as a therapist, says he educates individuals, families, and health care providers to make more informed choices, and is not anti-medication and does not give medical advice. "People are caught between pro-drug marketing by pharmaceutical companies and the anti-drug message of some activists. We need honest and unbiased information about psychiatric medications, including assessing drug risks and discussing how to come off drugs safely when they aren't right for you. Many people find medications helpful, but there are huge dangers involved, and sometimes it's better to reduce medication or slowly go off."
After several hospitalizations and a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder schizophrenia, Hall has been medication-free for more than 17 years. He says a combination of holistic health, support groups, and spiritual practice nurtured his recovery from mental illness, but believes that "each person's path to recovery is different. My work fills a great need for information, and it's a shame this topic is censored at a national conference that claims to be dedicated to wellness and calls itself 'Alternatives.'"
Hall is the author of the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Medications, published by mental health peer groups The Icarus Project and Freedom Center. The guide, available freely on the internet, has been distributed to more than 15,000 people and is available in Spanish and German translations."
--
Background on the upcoming conference
Is Our Government Censoring Robert Whitaker? - Are they so afraid that once the public knows the whole truth about their pharmaceutical corporate corruption being exposed that they will have a very angry and betrayed American public to answer too?-July 2010
This letter writing campaign was started when author of Anatomy of an Epidemic Robert Whitaker was removed as a speaker at the conference, and as a result of the campaign Whitaker was reinstated to speak.
Here's what MindFreedom suggested then, and I am suggesting it now only change the name to Will Hall, and write about changing his message--how the government wants to control the drug paradigm of drug-based treatment for mental health and keep it based and entrenched deeply in pharmaceuticals that are not proving efficacious in the treatment of mental illness, and the drugs shorten lifespan (antipsychotics especially) by 20 years or worse.
-------
MindFreedom alert July 2010
WHAT ABOUT WILL HALL'S MESSAGE?
ASK: WHAT ABOUT BOB? *** ACTIONS *** ACTIONS *** ACTIONS ***
Please keep all communication civil and strong:
(1) ASK PRESIDENT OBAMA: WHAT ABOUT BOB?
Please use the White House web site to encourage President Barack
Obama to ask SAMHSA to encourage empowered community organizing and
choice by and for mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors,
here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Sample message -- your own words are best: (from July 2010) simply replace Whitaker's name with Will Hall, and write about the censorship of his workshop.
"Dear President Obama: You are a community organizer. Did you know
that mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors have also done
community organizing for decades? Please ask your agency SAMHSA to
support their choice of journalist Robert Whitaker to be keynote
speaker at the annual Alternatives 2010 conference. The Alternatives
conference is about alternatives, so... WHAT ABOUT BOB? Bob's book
Anatomy of an Epidemic is an important warning about problems with the
psychiatric pharmaceutical industry."
If possible, please copy your message by e-mail to SAMHSA director Pam
Hyde at Pam.Hyde@SAMHSA.hhs.gov
and to MFI for public use at news@mindfreedom.org
---
Censorship, or forced antipsychotic injections in psych wards, what is the difference?
Freedom and choices that is the difference
Will Hall, schizophrenia survivor and Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic could be a dynamic duo at this conference--an alternatives conference! If the government won't allow people with alternative ideas and resources to share at this conference, then it is quite apparent, the USA promotes the use of psychiatric drugs ONLY for mental health care.
Who is PAM HYDE? (Keynote speaker at the Conference)
She is OBAMA APPOINTED
Pamela S. Hyde, J.D.Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services AdministrationUnited States Department of Health and Human Services
Pamela Hyde was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in November 2009 as Administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a public health agency within the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency's mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America's communities.
Who is Will Hall?
Newsweek Magazine-May 2009 (pdf in full image)
From Newsweek
"'We don't want to be normal,'Will Hall tells me.The 43-year-old has been
diagnosed as schizophrenic,and doctors have prescribed antipsychotic medication for him. But Hall would rather value his mentally extreme states than try to suppress them, so he
doesn t take his meds. Instead, he practices yoga and avoids coffee and sugar.
"For his part, Hall remains articulate,impassioned and unmedicated. He lives independently, in an apartnent with a roommate in Oregon, where he is getting a master's in psychology at a psychoanalytic institute."
link to the TV news coverage interviewing Will Hall vid below
Will Hall on his diagnosis of Schizophrenia: "Very complicated gift"
--
Let YOUR voice be heard! write to Pam Hyde and President Obama today, and do it not just for yourself but for those who have lost their voices and are currently locked in psych wards or under a strong arm of care with forced treatment and out patient court orders to receive injections of antipsychotics--this is happening right now in America and it will only get worse.
Freedom of choice of care, why can't America offer that? Who is in charge of psychiatric care protocol? the pharmaceutical industry? the President?
That's communism!
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