{"id":111967,"date":"2018-05-28T12:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=111967"},"modified":"2018-05-25T13:33:47","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T12:33:47","slug":"beware-the-so-called-mental-health-de-stigmatization-campaigns-such-as-make-it-ok-and-nami-for-they-are-front-groups-for-big-pharma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/05\/beware-the-so-called-mental-health-de-stigmatization-campaigns-such-as-make-it-ok-and-nami-for-they-are-front-groups-for-big-pharma\/","title":{"rendered":"Beware the So-Called Mental Health \u201cDe-Stigmatization\u201d Campaigns such as Make It OK and NAMI, for They Are Front Groups for Big Pharma"},"content":{"rendered":"

22 May 2018 – <\/em>Here is a little known but extremely relevant fact: The first campaign to \u201cStop the Stigma of Mental Illness\u201d was launched many years ago by the psycho-pharmaceutical industry (Big Pharma) that makes tens of billions of dollars annually by selling unaffordable, often highly addictive, brain-altering drugs that are then promoted by psychiatrists and family physicians as being necessary for the rest of the drug-taking patient\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

Why doesn\u2019t that surprise anybody? The norm for all capitalist enterprises is to make money by hook or by crook.<\/p>\n

With a seemingly altruistic agenda of understanding and compassionately dealing with unfortunate people that are somehow different than the rest of us, the fact is that the campaign is all about marketing a product rather than ending the \u201cstigma\u201d of so-called \u201cmental illnesses\u201d.<\/p>\n

The campaigns have been going on for decades under different guises and each one (see a partial list of some of them at the end of this column) has been started and funded by greedy, sociopathic multinational pharmaceutical corporations that primarily want to maximize their profits by getting more and more patients labeled as having mental illnesses (of unknown cause), which will ensure that many of them will be placed on potentially-dangerous, dependency-inducing psych drugs.<\/p>\n

The primary propaganda targets of drug company advertising are prescribing doctors and nurse practitioners. The secondary targets however are the obedient, drug-swallowing folks who are sitting in front of the boob tube, most of whom naturally feel sad or nervous from time to time and who are somehow willing to swallow whatever drug is prescribed to them.<\/p>\n

It is a simple three step process that begins with a prospective patient passively watching an attractive female actor on TV, to then wanting to get a diagnosis for whatever disorder the actor was supposed to have, and then finding a health caregiver to prescribe whatever drug the actor on TV was \u201ccured\u201d by taking.<\/p>\n

The same TV drugs and TV \u201cdisorders\u201d are also subtly and cunningly promoted in non-paid TV programming that avoids discussing any of the negative aspects of the Big Pharma drugs (or vaccines) from which the media outlets had accepted large amounts of advertising money that always keeps unwelcome truths from coming out, thus complying with the old rule that says that \u201cwhoever pays the piper calls the tune\u201d (meaning that TV and radio broadcasters never report anything that might offend the program\u2019s paymasters and advertisers and that interview hosts try not to invite courageous truth-tellers or whistle-blowers on to their shows).<\/p>\n

Among the first Big Pharma front groups that promoted \u201dmental illness de-stigmatization campaigns\u201d were the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)<\/strong><\/a> and Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (CHADD)<\/strong><\/a>. <\/strong>Some of the deep-pocketed founding sponsors of NAMI<\/strong>, CHADD<\/strong> and some of the other so-called PAOs included Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Glaxo, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, SmithKline Beecham, and Wyeth-Ayerst Labs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

So next time you see an advertisement or a commentary article in your local newspaper or television station from an obvious PAO or some psychiatrist group that is promoting another \u201cstop the stigmatization of the \u2018mentally ill\u2019\u201d campaign, understand that the group is very likely a front group for a multinational psycho-pharmaceutical company that actually only wants to sell more product.<\/p>\n

Such blatant PAO promotions are no different than the \u201cJust Get Your Damn Flu Shots\u201d campaigns every fall and winter that are sponsored by some fake PAO. They also are just paid-for advertisements from some of the Big Vaccine corporations and their partners in the CDC that have vested interests in unloading their supply of seasonal vaccines to an unsuspecting public.<\/p>\n

The target audiences for seasonal influenza shots will not be informed how high are the Numbers Needed to Vaccinate (NNV), which is the number of people that have to be vaccinated in order for just one vaccinee to benefit.<\/p>\n

And the target audiences will also not be informed how low are the Absolute Vaccine Effectiveness (AVE) ratios for any given vaccine. (The AVE compares the number of vaccinated patients that didn\u2019t get the viral infection with the number of patients that also didn\u2019t get the infection but didn\u2019t get vaccinated.)<\/p>\n

And the target audiences also won\u2019t be informed that the 3 flu viruses that have to be prematurely chosen for the coming year\u2019s influenza season are highly likely to be just another one of the many vaccine mis-matches that have occurred over the years – and therefore ineffective in preventing the flu.<\/p>\n

Below are some of the facts about how Big Pharma corporations have created and paid for the \u201cde-stigmatization campaign PAOs for the so-called \u2018mentally ill\u2019\u201d. A U.S. Senate investigation revealed that in just two years (2006-2008) Big Pharma companies funded NAMI to the tune of $23 million, representing three-quarters of its donations. And one of the major Big Pharma corporations actually \u201clent\u201d one of its high-ranking officials to NAMI during its formative years in order the \u201charmonize\u201d its strategies with the company.<\/p>\n

<<<Creating The Perfect Marketing\/Lobbying Machine: Big Pharma\u2019s Funding of \u201cPatient Advocacy Organizations\u201d>>><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mental health-type PAOs are groups operating under the guise of advocacy for the so-called \u201cmentally ill\u201d. In reality they are just Big Pharma front groups whose major functions are to influence public opinion by offering \u201cexpert opinions\u201d on mental health issues, to keep mental health and so-called mental illnesses at the forefront of media coverage, to \u201csupport\u201d patients who are already mired in the mental health system and to lobby legislators to pass legislation at both the state and federal levels. Big Pharma\u2019s deceptive PAO campaigns affect large segments of the population, from normally inattentive and active kids to normally sullen and over-indulged teen-agers, to America\u2019s stressed-out and traumatized military, to tired pregnant women and stressed-out nursing mothers and their babies, to the sad and neglected elderly in nursing homes, etc, etc, etc.<\/p>\n

The job of the PAOs is to convince target audiences that normal variations in mood, emotions and behaviors are actually abnormal mental health conditions that need psychiatric evaluation and prescription drugs forever.<\/p>\n

<<<Is the new NAMI-Spawned \u201cMake it OK\u201d Campaign Just Another Big Pharma Front Group? >>><\/strong><\/p>\n

Most potential psychiatric patients (all of us) are unfamiliar with the pro-drug mental health PAOs that include NAMI, CHADD, NAMI\u2019s recent spin-off \u201cMake It OK\u201d, and the myriad of bipolar, anxiety, depression or ADHD \u201csupport groups\u201d that are all over the internet, but these groups need to be exposed for the deceptive front groups that they actually are.<\/p>\n

Presenting themselves as innocuous PAOs is disingenuous, but the concept is quite seductive to the propaganda targets and altruistic helping volunteers, many of whom have a sincere desire to help a loved one or a family member who might have emotional or mood problems or are already struggling with the toxic or addictive effects of their cocktails of psych drugs.<\/p>\n

PAOs are also very successful influencers of legislators, the media and the American public and have been very successful in getting laws passed that benefit the sociopathic drug industries that fund them, under the guise of helping the patients they claim to represent and from whom they reap enormous profits.<\/p>\n

One would expect that any organization claiming to be advocates for the rights of patients would have as primary goals the full disclosure of all drug risks, the right to refuse treatment, and the right to know that psychiatric labels are not medical conditions that can be confirmed by any known lab or radiological test. But they are not advocates for the rights of patients at all.<\/p>\n

One would expect that such altruistic-sounding PAOs would also provide patients with factual information about alternatives to Big Pharma\u2019s unaffordable, poorly-tested, non-curative and sometimes lethal drugs (alternatives such as the many effective and potentially curative non-drug treatments that are affordable, non-addictive, non-harmful. But they don\u2019t provide that information.<\/p>\n

One would expect that an honest patients\u2019 rights group would never endorse something as absurd and obviously dangerous as giving electroshock to pregnant women, nor would they condone schools requiring children to take a psychiatric drug as a condition of attending school. But they do.<\/p>\n

One would think that an honest PAO would never be opposed to the FDA issuing warnings that antidepressants are known to cause some patients to become manic, more depressed, sleep deprived or have new thoughts of committing suicide and homicide. But they have opposed such warnings.<\/p>\n

One would think that an ethical PAO would never object to the FDA issuing warnings that so-called \u201cADHD\u201d drugs are essentially amphetamine-based drugs and therefore highly addictive and \u00a0even deadly. But they have objected to such warnings.<\/p>\n

The following information is excerpted from one of the most effective Big Psychiatry and Big Pharma whistleblowing organizations in the world, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (www.cchrint.org). CCHR\u2019s website is full of unimpeachable information exposing the members of the multinational psychiatry and pharmaceutical industry for their many illicit activities. Check out some of their powerful videos at https:\/\/www.cchrint.org\/issues\/psycho-pharmaceutical-front-groups\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<<<The Unholy Alliance between PAOs And Big Pharma>>><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the late 1970s and 1980s, prominent American Psychiatric Association (APA) <\/strong>psychiatrists, directors and researchers with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) <\/strong>were in need of more government funding, so they devised a plan to create a \u201cgrowth of consumer and advocacy organizations\u201d with the intention of getting these groups to help lobby Congress for increased funding for psychiatric research.<\/a> Several groups emerged first on the scene during that period, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI\u2019s first name), CHADD, Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), National Depression & Manic Depressive Association (NDMDA), now called Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), <\/strong>and National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD). <\/strong><\/p>\n

In an incestuous relationship, many of these groups were formed by the directors<\/em> or researchers<\/em> from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH),<\/strong> the very organization that needed mental health advocacy groups to make demands on Congress for increased funding. All of them had board or advisory board members with financial ties to Big Pharma. The majority of them were heavily funded by Big Pharma. So this turned out to be a brilliant marketing\/lobbying strategy: set up patient\u2019s rights groups to lobby for the funding needed for Big Psychiatry and Big Pharma while claiming to be \u201cadvocates\u201d for the mentally ill.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this explains why these groups – claiming to be patients\u2019 \u201crights\u201d groups – would so vehemently oppose such important mental health reforms as:<\/p>\n