For too long, victims of psychiatric abuse in Florida have suffered in silence. But on June 26th, 2017, the Florida Supreme Court held that the state’s caps on personal injury for noneconomic damages in medical negligence (such as permanent disability, disfigurement, blindness, loss of a limb, paralysis, trauma, or physical pain and suffering) violate the equal Protection Clause of the Florida Constitution. [1]This is good news for psychiatric victims and grieving family members. While substantial financial compensation for psychiatric medical negligence can’t bring back a person’s health or the life of a child who committed suicide due to a psychiatric drug side effect, it might seriously deter any future damage this profession can inflict.
ECT Damage May Cost the Psychiatric Industry Big Time
For example electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), formerly known as electro-shock therapy and still just as barbaric, involves the application of 400 volts of electrical current to the human brain (depending on which machine is used). The intention is to produce a grand mal seizure. This “therapy” normally involves 8 to 15 shocks given every other day. But some psychiatrists recommend up to 40 or more shock treatments.
Conservatively, 100,000 or more people receive ECT yearly. Two-thirds of them are women, more than half of all ECT victims are over 65. But children as young as 3 years old have been given ECT. Not surprisingly, ECT is not given in state hospitals, but is concentrated in private, for-profit hospitals.
Brain damage and memory loss have been evident for fifty years, and from several different sources including animal studies, human autopsies, brain-imaging techniques or neuropsychological testing and survivor reports. [2]
It is not speculation that ECT can drastically alter behavior and mood. Psychiatrists, not known for clear observation of the facts in front of them, have decided that the alteration of a person’s personality is an “improvement of psychiatric symptoms.” Never mind that these “psychiatric symptoms” usually recur after as little as a month. To the psychiatrist, this is evidence that the patient needs “maintenance” ECT, equivalent to a grand mal seizure every few weeks indefinitely. It is apparently over the psychiatrist’s head that at best ECT did nothing for the person’s mental distress. [3]
Clearly, ECT victims are fertile territory for psychiatric law suits. Psychiatry would be wise to abandon the practice before bankrupting their practitioners.
Justice for Victims of TD
Tardive Dyskinesia is an often incurable physical condition brought about by antipsychotic drug use. This horrific condition is described in detail on the webmd site:
“Tardive dyskinesia causes stiff, jerky movements that you can’t control. Often, these are in your face — namely your lips, jaw, or tongue.
“If you have it, you might:
- Stick out your tongue without trying
- Blink your eyes fast
- Chew
- Smack or pucker your lips
- Puff out your cheeks
- Frown
- Grunt
“It can also affect your arms, legs, fingers, and toes. That can cause you to:
- Wiggle your fingers
- Tap your feet
- Flap your arms
- Thrust out your pelvis
- Sway from side to side
These movements can be fast or slow. You may find it hard to work and stay active.” [4]
Compensation for this disability is now possible. At least those who inflicted this condition on them can be held financially responsible. Will those with TD live to see the practice of giving antipsychotic drugs with no thought of side effects abandoned? Perhaps, if the financial cost to psychiatry become overwhelming.
How to Eliminate the “Suicidal Side Effect” of Psychiatric Drugs
The National Institute of Mental Health lists these possible side effects of antidepressant drugs:
- Thoughts about suicide or dying
- Attempts to commit suicide
- New or worsening depression
- New or worsening anxiety
- Feeling very agitated or restless
- Panic attacks
- Trouble sleeping (insomnia)
- New or worsening irritability
- Acting aggressively, being angry, or violent
- Acting on dangerous impulses
- An extreme increase in activity and talking (mania)
- Other unusual changes in behavior or mood [5]
There is a way to eliminate the suicidal and violent side effects of psychiatric drugs: banish these drugs entirely. If enough grieving family members sue the psychiatric profession for promoting this toxic treatment future generations can be saved from its ravages.
Tragically, psychiatry as a profession continues to violate the Hippocratic Oath by not upholding certain medical ethics.[6] Thus the only way apparent to reign in the psychiatric profession in is to affect them in the place it really hurts: their collective pocketbook.
Due to the foresight of the Florida Supreme Court, psychiatric abuse victims in this state now have a chance to achieve justice for their suffering.
[1] https://www.natlawreview.com/article/florida-supreme-court-strikes-down-cap-medical-malpractice-damages
[2] https://www.ect.org/effects/headinjury.html
[3] ibid
[4] http://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/guide/tardive-dyskinesia#1
[5] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/mental-health-medications/index.shtml
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath
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