Berlin:
May 2, 2005. In memory of the medical mass murder in Germany under National Socialism, a bouquet of flowers was laid on the T4 memorial placque and a minute of silence was held.
This commemoration was followed by a protest march to the "Bundesrat" (the second chamber of the German Federation) to protest the planned outpatient commitment laws in the state of Bremen. The protest continued every day until May 11, when important members of the parliament in Bremen promised to change the draft law, so any outpatient commitment will remain illegal.Click here for the "Freedom from Fear" tour in 1999 to visit areas where exterminations took place in hospitals located in different parts of Germany.
Click here for the international "Foucault Tribunal" which took place on May 2nd 1998 in Berlin. As a reference to this event the R&R Day is on the 2nd of May.
Translation of the inscription on the wreath: "For our murdered sisters and brothers."
From "The Psychiatric Survivors and Lunatic Offensive."
Washington D.C.
MindFreedom Protest at Info Center of PhRMA
Al Galves, PhD, a MindFreedom board member, addresses the MindFreedom protest on 2 May 2005 directly in front of the headquarters for PhRMA in Washington, D.C. Al, a child psychologist, warned the public that drug industry plans to screen every child in the USA for mental health problems would result in many more kids on psychiatric drugs. Advocates Protest the Drug Industry's "Domination of the Mental Health System"
PhRMA -- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America -- is a trade and lobbying association representing the drug industry.
Many of the member organizations of PhRMA are companies that cover up, hide data and misrepresent facts about the harm inflicted by the psychotropic drugs they produce and sell.
PhRMA members spend millions of dollars convincing the public that they follow the rules of scientific integrity and base their activities on good, sound research,
In fact, many of these companies fudge research results, bury negative studies and inflate and exaggerate positive results.
A recent example is that drug companies failed to report studies which clearly associated psychotropic drugs and increased incidence of violence and suicide.
The drug companies have also fraudulently perpetrated a myth about how their drugs correct "chemical imbalances" in the brain. The fact is nobody has ever established the chemical makeup of a healthy brain.
Drug companies such as Pfizer, Inc claim in advertisements that their drugs "may" correct chemical imbalances. Because of PhRMA members' unfair influence, the federal government has refused to crack down on this illegal fraud.
These cover-ups make it impossible for American psychiatric clients and their families to make informed decisions about their healthcare. This fraud results in millions of people ingesting substances which have little benefit but to inflict serious harm on their minds and bodies.
It is now clear that the data that has been collected by the pharmaceutical companies themselves demonstrate that psychotropic drugs increase the risk of suicide and violence, damage brains, create addiction and are only marginally more effective than placebos. Yet they continue to be produced and marketed as if this were not true.
It is time to blow the whistle on this criminal behavior.
The pharmaceutical companies also perpetrate a fraud by giving millions of dollars to front organizations like the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill which present themselves to the public as unbiased, independent organizations even as they distribute propaganda in favor of coerced and forced psychotropic drugs.
The pharmaceutical industry has also financed the development of proposals for the universal screening of all Americans, especially youth, for psychiatric disorders. The screening programs - such as the Texas Medical Algorithm Program (TMAP) - are biased toward prescribing the most powerful psychiatric drugs first. TMAP is a tool for doctors which purports to be an even-handed, objective guideline for treatment but which actually encourages them to use drugs as the nearly-exclusive treatment for mental and emotional problems. TMAP and other screening programs are increasing the number of Americans on psychotropic drugs.
One of the tragic results of this cover-up, stealth strategy and fraud is that other, more humane and effective treatments for mental illnesses are discounted, ignored and underfunded.
Join psychiatric survivors, allies, advocates and family members to speak out in front of PhRMA's headquarters, 1100 Fifteenth St. NW, Washington, D.C. at noon on Monday, 2 May 2005.
This peaceful protest was sponsored by MindFreedom International
Statement of Commemoration
issued on behalf of the
International Commemoration Committee on Eugenic Mass Murder (ICC-EMM)In Memoriam,
In 1939 at a psychiatric institution in Germany a group of patients were told to undress and take a shower. After the "shower" door was locked, one psychiatrist turned a valve, releasing poisonous gas through pipes into the "shower" room.Then the psychiatrists looked on through a glass aperture as the patients slowly asphyxiated to death in the fumes.
By 1941, before the mass murders in the concentration camps had begun, hundreds of thousands of defenceless people, men, women, children, the elderly, and infants, who had been defined by doctors as "life unworthy of living," had been gassed, drugged, shot, or deliberately starved to death. The murders continued even after 1945.
It is often incorrectly assumed that the murders were ordered by Hitler. In fact, doctors proceeded independent of government approval. In 1941 after Hitler ordered a stop to the murders, doctors committed what has since been dubbed "wild euthanasia."
These eugenic mass murders had been endorsed by the medical establishment decades before the nazis came to power. They were sanctioned by proponents of eugenics in other countries, including doctors in the United States and England.
History has failed to do justice to the hundreds of thousands of victims. Therefore, we, the International Commemoration Committee on Eugenic Mass Murder, set aside the date May 2 in memoriam, and demand that no person, with or without disability, ever fall victim to medical murder again.
Contact: Richard Ingram, e-mail: raingram at shaw.ca
