Courage was the quality that marked the human rights activists honored at an awards banquet marking the 38th anniversary of Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills this weekend.
President CCHR International, Jan Eastgate, at the awards banquet marking the 38th anniversary of Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills this weekend.
Actors Kirstie Alley, Kelly Preston, Priscilla Presley, Marisol Nichols (24) and Anne Archer (Patriot Games, Fatal Attraction) awarded mental health industry whistleblowers who have risked their professional careers to expose dangerous psychiatric practices and warn the public about the dangers and fraudulent marketing of psychiatric drugs.
Three outspoken authors were awarded, whose comprehensive research and books have helped thousands: Dr. Timothy Scott, professor of psychology and author of America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived; Dr. Fred Baughman, author of The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes 'Patients' of Normal Children; and journalist Kelly O'Meara, author of Psyched out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Drugs That Kill.
The next awardee, Gwen Olsen, a former pharmaceutical industry representative, told an expert panel in Washington D.C. last January how she influenced doctors with gifts and presented skillfully manipulated data to get them to prescribe drugs that harmed patients. Her moment of truth came when her 20-year-old niece committed suicide following a withdrawal reaction from the antidepressant Paxil. Ms. Olsen, who has authored the book Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher, is a passionate and outspoken critic, protecting the lives of children and young adults by exposing pharma and psychiatric collusion to defraud the public.
Testifying at the same hearing was the next award winner, Allen Jones, a former investigator for the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General. Although he was charged through his position in this office with the responsibility to "find fraud, waste, and abuse in the Commonwealth's programs, operations, and contracts," Mr. Jones was pressured and ultimately fired when he refused to stop an investigation that uncovered evidence of drug companies giving financial inducements to state officials to promote certain psychotropic drugs. Vindicated in the end, Mr. Jones has made it his life's work to inform the public of the dangers of these drugs and the corruption of a system, in league with the psychiatric industry that creates the diseases pharmaceutical companies can then "treat."
Dr. Colin Ross, the next awardee, exposed the role of psychiatry in secret CIA mind control experiments. His investigation amassed 15,000 pages of documents through the Freedom of Information Act and resulted in his acclaimed book, The CIA Doctors: Human Rights Violations by American Psychiatrists which has sold more than 6,000 copies. He has delivered more than 340 workshops, and appeared as an expert in two documentaries - "Mind Control" on the History Channel, and "Conspiracy Files: CIA Mind Control," on the Discover Channel.
The recipient of the Thomas S. Szasz Award was Dr. John Friedberg. The award is named after human rights advocate and CCHR co-founder, Thomas S. Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus at the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, New York; Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, Washington, D.C. and psychiatry's most ardent and outspoken critic.
Dr. Friedberg earned this award through more than 30 years of work to expose the brutal and deadly psychiatric "procedure" called Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT). Dr. Friedberg's expert testimony, articles, books, and interviews, proves that ECT causes irreparable brain damage and death, and has resulted in landmark legislation to curb and prevent its use.
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was established by the Church of Scientology in 1969 to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.
