Released on = June 17, 2006, 6:01 pm

Press Release Author = Citizens Commsission on Human Rights

Industry = Pharmaceuticals

Press Release Summary =
Citizens Commission on Human Rights says psychiatrists found as main drug peddling
source despite lethal side effects and little known data.

Press Release Body = A second study in less than two months has lifted the curtain
on the highly lucrative psychiatric practice of the massive prescribing of potent
antipsychotic drugs known to cause a plethora of life-threatening side effects.

An alarming new study from Columbia University found that prescriptions for
antipsychotic prescriptions leaped more than fivefold from 1993 to 2002. Although
little to no data exists on long-term effects of these deadly drugs, the total
amount of prescriptions jumped from 201,000 in 1995 to 1,224,000 in 2002.

A recent analysis taking FDA data collection from 2000-2004 exposed antipsychotics
for causing deaths in up to an estimated 450 children and 1,328 reports of adverse
side effects, some life-threatening. These include but are not limited to tremors,
involuntary severe muscle contractions, writhing, painful muscle spasms, irregular
blood pressure and cardiac problems. Yet antipsychotics are dolled out like candy to
even preschoolers.

Just last year, the FDA asked manufacturers of the newer antipsychotic drugs to
issue warnings on the increased risk of death the drugs posed to the elderly. There
have been several other warnings on the drugs as reported in the Report on the
Escalating International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs.

Brian Beaumont, president of the Vancouver chapter of the Citizens Commission on
Human Rights said, "Despite the documented studies, warnings, child deaths and the
countless lives ruined due to irreversible side effects, psychiatrists were found by
Columbia University and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (the world\'s leading
psychiatric watchdog organization) as the main peddlers of these mind-numbing
drugs".

Dr. Julie Magno Zito, an associate professor of pharmacy and medicine at the
University of Maryland added, \"If you\'re going to put children on three or four
different drugs, now you\'ve got a potpourri of target symptoms and side
effects...How do you even know who the kid is anymore?\"

Dr. John March, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Duke University
states, \"We are using these medications and don\'t know how they work, or at what
cost...It amounts to a huge experiment with the lives of American kids, and what it
tells us is that we\'ve got to do something other than what we\'re doing now\" to asses
the drugs\' overall impact.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was established by the Church of Scientology
in 1969 to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.


Web Site = http://www.cchr.org

Contact Details = Citizens Commission on Human Rights
401 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
V5R 5V9
Contact: Brian Beaumont at 604-689-4417