CLEARWATER, Fla., Feb. 15, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Florida chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a non-profit mental health watchdog established by the Church of Scientology to expose and eradicate human rights violations in the field of mental health, is holding an open house this month at their center in downtown Clearwater to bring attention to alarming suicide statistics and the apparent connection between antidepressants and the reliance on suicide risk assessments.
CCHR Florida reported that every 12 minutes in the U.S., someone’s life ends from suicide1 — an average of 44,965 people yearly — making it the 10th leading cause of death for Americans2. In 2015 alone, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide deaths were more than double those due to homicides, which means for every murder reported in the news, there were at least 2 other deaths that occurred due to suicide3.
In response to these alarming statistics, the Florida chapter of CCHR is hosting an open house at their center in Clearwater for the purpose of educating the general public on the connection between the use of antidepressants, the reliance on suicide risk assessments and death by suicide.
“Too often people rely on unproven suicide risk assessments as a catchall when dealing with a person experiencing a crisis and unfortunately the assessments just don’t work according to some experts,” stated Diane Stein, President of CCHR Florida.
According to an article published under Mental Health in Scientific American in March of 2017, new research of the past 40 years of suicide risk assessments research suggests that not only do these assessments not help but may cause harm by increasing the risk of suicide4,5.
This same article reports that:
- 95% of high-risk patients did not die by suicide
- 50% of the suicides came from the lower risk categories
- there has been no improvement in the accuracy of suicide risk assessments over the past 40 years
- no statistical way of identifying individuals with a high risk of suicide exists
- the four strongest suicide risk assessment factors (previous self-harm, physical health problems, male gender and suicidal intention) were so prevalent that they were of no use in determining if someone is at risk for suicide
- the widespread use of suicide risk assessment diverts clinicians from real engagement with patients thereby potentially increasing the risks of suicide
CCHR Florida’s analysis includes that combined with ineffective suicide risk assessment, patients labeled with depression or suicidal ideation often receive prescriptions for dangerous psychotropic drugs with side effects of the exact symptoms they are marketed to treat. For example, Celexa, a common antidepressant, has more suicidal warnings attributed to it than any other side effect and is linked to a staggering 559 cases of documented suicide6.
“With 1 in 6 Americans currently taking psychotropic drugs7 — while suicides continue to rise — Americans need look no further than their medicine cabinets for major chemical contributors to the increased suicide statistics our country faces,” said Stein.
For more information on the open house, the truth about psychiatric drugs or alternative solutions including educational materials, please call CCHR Florida at 727-442-8820, visit CCHR at 109 N. Fort Harrison Avenue or visit www.cchrflorida.org.
About CCHR: Initially established by the Church of Scientology and renowned psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz in 1969, CCHR’s mission is to eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health and enact patient and consumer protections.
It was L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, who brought the terror of psychiatric imprisonment to the notice of the world. In March 1969, he said, “Thousands and thousands are seized without process of law, every week, over the ‘free world’ tortured, castrated, killed. All in the name of ‘mental health.’” For more information visit, www.cchrflorida.org
- https://save.org/about-suicide/suicide-facts/
- https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/
- https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/suicide-risk-assessment-doesnt-work/
- http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0156322
- https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/antidepressantsideeffects/celexasideeffects/
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/1-in-6-americans-takes-a-psychiatric-drug/
Media Contact:
Diane Stein
President, CCHR Florida
727-442-8820
diane@cchrflorida.org
www.cchrflorida.org