$280 Billion Invested, Mental Health Worsening – CCHR Demands Audit and Accountability – CCHR International

Expert states that mental health and psychiatry are in crisis. CCHR warns that the risks of psychiatric treatment, the rising number of drug-related deaths and poor treatment outcomes in psychiatric hospitals require careful analysis.

By CCHR International
Mental health industry watchdog
November 22, 2024

The International Citizens’ Commission on Human Rights, the leading mental health industry watchdog, is calling for a federal audit of the $280 billion spent annually on mental health services, citing decades of poor results and a lack of significant improvements.(1) Moreover, as CCHR has revealed since the 1990s, millions of dollars were wasted on behavioral and psychiatric research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which included studies of whip lizards, insects, electric fish, and $3.1 million spent on “learning the voice” of birds. Despite this massive investment, TIME magazine reported that mental health in the US continues to worsen. CCHR warns that billions are wasted on treatment-related harm, overlooked risks of polypharmacy and the rising number of deaths related to psychotropic drugs.

CCHR CEO Jan Eastgate said: “One thing we can’t be grateful for this year is an improved mental health system. We must recognize the financial costs and harm to patients’ health caused by extremely poor treatment outcomes, lack of medicines and rising deaths. The industry is plagued by iatrogenesis – the phenomenon of a “healer” causing harm.

According to TIME magazine, “The United States has reached the peak of therapy. Consulting has become fodder for hit books, podcasts and films. Professional athletes, celebrities and politicians regularly reveal their mental problems publicly… But something doesn’t add up. Even as more people seek treatment, mental health in the U.S. is deteriorating in many ways. Since 2000, suicide rates have increased by approximately 30%.(2)

Polypharmacy, or the practice of prescribing multiple psychotropic medications at the same time, is alarmingly common. This approach often leads to harmful drug interactions. The most commonly prescribed and dangerous drugs are benzodiazepines, commonly referred to as “benzos.” From mid-February to mid-March 2020, prescriptions increased by 34%. In a few short weeks, patients can develop a physical dependence on them, ending up worse off than before the drugs, struggling with addiction, and withdrawing. Benzos can also cause serious side effects, including respiratory depression, which can cause death. Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke, the book’s lead author New England Journal of Medicine in his essay, he calls the overprescription and abuse of benzos a “hidden epidemic.”(3)

Over a 21-year period (1999–2019), there were 51,446 psychotropic drug-related deaths (where psychotropic drugs were one of the causes of death), and the annual drug-related death rate increased more than 3.4-fold from 0.40 to 1, 37 per 100,000. During the same period, there were also 649,697 overdoses of psychotropic drugs. The drug-related mortality crisis extends beyond overdoses, with a “striking increase” in the use of drugs such as psychostimulants receiving less attention, according to a study published in the journal. Alcohol addiction.(4)

According to Medical Xpress, in psychiatry, iatrogenesis has traditionally been associated with complications of psychotropic drug treatment. “Current classification systems in psychiatry do not account for the iatrogenic components of psychopathology associated with behavioral toxicity (adverse effects of therapeutic drug levels).” “The paradoxical effects of these drugs, manifestations of tolerance (loss of clinical effect, resistance), withdrawal symptoms and post-discontinuation disorders are becoming more common due to the widespread use of psychotropic drugs in the general population.”(5) In other words, psychiatry often ignores the harmful side effects of psychiatric drugs, such as mental health decline and withdrawal symptoms, which are becoming more common as these drugs become more widely used.

There are at least 180 psychiatric drugs on the market, not including all generic versions.(6) Some of the iatrogenic effects include irreversible movement disorders causing uncontrolled muscle contractions such as tardive dyskinesia (TD), akathisia, and dystonia. TD occurs in 20–50% of patients taking antipsychotics and is also associated with antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and stimulants.(7)

Some psychotropic drugs are almost six times more likely to cause someone taking them to commit suicide than those who don’t take them, while being in a psychiatric hospital can increase this risk of self-harm by 44 times.(8)

The science and practice of clinical psychology reported that there was significant evidence of increased risk of suicide and other negative outcomes during and immediately after hospitalization. Therefore, psychiatric hospitalization is iatrogenic. Despite limited research demonstrating the drug’s effectiveness in reducing suicide risk, inpatient hospitalization remains the primary “treatment” (often legally required) for people at high risk of suicide.(9)

Mental health trends are going in the wrong direction, often because of these drugs. “It doesn’t apply to cancer (survival), it doesn’t apply to heart disease (survival), it doesn’t apply to diabetes (diagnosis) or almost any other field of medicine,” says Dr. Thomas Insel, a psychiatrist who headed NIMH from 2002 to 2015.(10)

In the early 2000s, the NIMH conducted a large, multi-stage study to compare different antidepressants and determine whether some worked better than others. Instead, Insel says, “What we got was proof that none of them actually are very good. “It’s really striking how poorly all the antidepressants worked across the population.”(11)

NIMH allocated $42.6 million for the five-year Clinical Antipsychotic Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) study, which essentially showed that new antipsychotics being aggressively marketed do not have fewer side effects than older ones, as predicted.(12)

Dr. Stanton Peele, in a blog titled “How American Psychiatry Misled the World and Ruined Mental Health Around the World”, states that “the world of mental health and psychiatry is in a difficult situation” and quotes “Insel’s own faith specialist’s memoir” , admitting that “the United States, the leading country in the world in terms of spending on medical research, also has dismal results in the treatment of mentally ill people. Indeed, over the past three decades, even as the government has invested billions of dollars in better understanding the brain, in some respects these results have deteriorated.”(13)

Founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and a famous psychiatrist from New York University, prof. Thomas Szasz, CCHR calls for transparent auditing of funding for psychiatric services and outcomes and mental health research within the NIMH. The audit aims to identify failed treatments and programs that have contributed to the deterioration of the nation’s mental health system.

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Reference:

(1) citing “Reducing the Economic Burden of Unmet Mental Health Needs,” White House, May 31, 2022,

(2) Jamie Ducharme, “America has reached peak therapy. Why is our mental health deteriorating?” TIMEAugust 28, 2024,

(3) “Polypharmacy killed my son. “He’s not alone” TIMEMay 19, 2023,

(4) Mike Vuolo, “Trends in Psychotropic Drug-Related Mortality: Psychotropic Drugs as a Causal but Nonsignificant Cause of Death,” Alcohol addictionJune 24, 2021,

(5) “Iatrogenic disorders in psychiatry are common and neglected” Medical XpressJuly 15, 2019, https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-07-iatrogenic-disorders-psychiatry-common-neglected.htmlquoting: Giovanni A. Fava, et al., “Iatrogenic factors in psychopathology”, Psychotherapy and psychosomatics (2019). DOI: 10.1159/000500151

(6)

(7) https://www.cchrint.org/2021/10/11/consumers-beware-of-antipsychotics-long-term-debilitating-effects/Dr. Elyse M. Cornett, “Drug-Induced Tardive Dyskinesia: A Review and Update,” Ochsner’s JournalSummer 2017,

(8) quoting Matthew M. Large, Christopher J. Ryan, “Disturbing Findings on Suicide Risk and Psychiatric Hospitals,” Society of Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiology (2014), 49: 1353-1355,

(9) Erin F. Ward-Ciesielski, Shireen L Rizvi, “Potential Iatrogenic Effects of Psychiatric Hospitalization for Suicidal Behavior: A Critical Review and Research Recommendations,” The science and practice of clinical psychology 28 section 6, March 2020, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339741738_The_potential_iatrogenic_effects_of_psychiatric_
hospitalization_for_suicidal_behavior_A_critical_review_and_recommendations_for_research

(10) Jamie Ducharme, “America has reached peak therapy. Why is our mental health deteriorating?” TIMEAugust 28, 2024,

(11) Jamie Ducharme, “America has reached peak therapy. Why is our mental health deteriorating?” TIMEAugust 28, 2024,

(12) https://www.cchrint.org/2022/03/17/jeffrey-liebermans-topple-from-grace-over-racist-tweet-during-black-history-month-spurs-closer-scrutiny/quoting: Dr. Jodi Gonzalez Arnold et al., “Comparison of Outcomes for African Americans, Latinos, and Non-Hispanic Whites in the CATIE Study,” Psychiatric servicesJune 1, 2013,

(13) Dr. Stanton Peele, “How American Psychiatry Misled the World and Ruined Mental Health Around the World,” Stanton Peele’s addiction websiteJune 20, 2022,