The Emergency Room video cam took it all in but no human response was forthcoming. Forty-nine year old Esmin Green had been involuntarily committed at the ER and then was left sitting on a bench for 24 hours before she toppled to the floor. She continued to be ignored by staff who saw her lying prostrate on the floor and was dead by the time a nurse checked her one hour later. The medical examiner reported that she died from thromboemboli—blood clots that traveled from her leg to her lung.

No one knows how many of America’s high school age youngsters are taking prescribed psychiatric drugs, but an estimate of 10%-15% would not be far off, and for some ages groups and circumstances it will be far too low. If we dip into special populations such as those in special education or foster care, the figure for those taking psychiatric drugs approaches 100%.

In this highly politicized season, is there something we can all agree upon? I think so. From the political left or right, we should be able to come together around the idea that it’s bad to use psychiatric drugs to control children. There are better ways to intervene in the lives of children than by giving them psychiatric diagnoses and drugs.

Suing a drug company is your only way as an individual citizen of protecting yourself against drug company malfeasance. It’s the only way for you or your survivors to get justice or compensation if you have been injured or killed by drug company negligence. It should be a basic right under the law, and right now it is; but the FDA and the drug companies are on the verge of taking it away from you.

Go to GSK.com and click on “Latest Press Releases” and then click on “Dan Troy appointed Senior Vice President and General Counsel for GlaxoSmithKline.” It’s dated July 22, 2008. Above the press release you’ll see an ad with four people dancing ecstatically with their legs and arms flailing in all directions — presumably because GSK makes joyful drugs. Really, it’s a picture of GSK executives in a rite of greed celebrating the inclusion of attorney Dan Troy into their inner circle. The press release explains the reason for such a celebration at the pharmaceutical giant: “Dan was formerly Chief Counsel for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he served as a primary liaison to the White House … ”

It’s now well known that the newer antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa cause suicidal thoughts and behavior, and can worsen depression. Psychiatric drugs sustained another blow when the FDA recently declared that yet another group of these chemical agents causes the very problems that the drugs are supposed to treat. This time the culprits are antiepileptic drugs–medications used to control seizures. Because they cause sedation, these drugs are commonly used in psychiatry as “mood stabilizers.” As a result of an orchestrated psychiatric campaign to diagnose children with “bipolar disorder,” increasing numbers of children are being given these drugs.

For those who have been following my work or who wish an introduction to my lifetime reform efforts and scientific investigations in the field of psychiatry, the newly published second edition of Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex (Springer Publishing Company, 2008) has recently been published. It is a thorough and up-to-date presentation of my overall critique of modern psychiatry, including the latest medications and treatments.

Focusing on Virginia Tech mass murderer Cho as a disturbed mental patient has led media analysts to ponder how he could have been more readily identified by the mental health system. But Cho is not someone who slipped beneath the psychiatric radar. Instead, he was frequently detected as a large object on the screen. On separate occasions, he was involuntarily hospitalized, sent for psychological evaluation, and referred to the university counseling center. Consistent with getting him more psychiatric “help,” experts have also opined on how he might have benefited from medication. These are all the wrong lessons.