The night before 15-year-old Edith Campos was sent to Desert Hills psychiatric hospital in Tucson, Arizona, she made colorful computer drawings for her family. If her mother missed her, all she needed to do was look at the picture and think of her daughter and that she would soon be home. Two weeks later, Edith came home in a coffin. During the time she was hospitalized, her parents were not allowed to speak to her. On February 4, 1998, Edith apparently died of asphyxiation, her chest compressed when she was held to the ground for at least 10 minutes after reportedly raising her fist during a confrontation with staff members.

On August 18, 1997, 16-year-old Roshelle Clayborne died during restraint at a psychiatric facility in San Antonio, Texas. Roshelle was slammed face down on the floor, her arms yanked across her chest, her wrists gripped from behind by a mental health aide. “I can’t breathe,” she gasped. Her last words were ignored. A syringe delivered 50 milligrams of Thorazine into her body and with eight staffers watching, Roshelle became suddenly still. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth as she lost control of her bodily functions. Her limp body was rolled into a blanket and dumped in an 8-by 10-foot room. There she lay in her own waste and vomit for five minutes before anyone noticed she hadn’t moved. By the time a registered nurse arrived and began CPR, it was too late. Roshelle never revived.

When Jennifer Martin’s 70-year-old mother experienced headaches and nausea and stopped eating and talking, a psychiatrist claimed she was in shock from recent deaths in her family and gave her ECT. Less than 24 hours later she was dead. An autopsy revealed that the problem was not depression, but a brain stem complication. “Shock treatment killed her,” Ms. Martin said.

A grieving husband says a psychiatrist recommended electroshock because it would release a chemical in the brain that would make his wife, Dorothy, feel better. Aware of her earlier heart attacks, he administered 38 electroshocks. The last one killed her.

With billions in government appropriations allocated for mental health treatment, just how safe and effective are psychiatric institutions? The following cases illustrate the dangers of a system that lacks scientific understanding of causes of mental health problems, with subsequent lack of workable remedies and the terrible consequences of this.

On April 12, 1991, 14-year-old Jeramy Harrel was with his grandmother when a patrol car pulled up beside them, and two hulking uniformed men who appeared to be police officers announced that they were taking Jeramy to Colonial Hills Psychiatric Hospital. They said that psychiatrist Dr. Mark Bowlan and a child welfare agent—who had never spoken with Jeramy or his parents—had filled in an application for the boy’s detention, claiming he was a “substance abuser” and that his grandparents had physically abused him. The psychiatrist also stated that Jeramy was “truant from school, failing grades, violent [and] aggressive,” and was “likely to cause serious harm to self.” It took the efforts of Texas State Senator Frank Tejeda to finally obtain Jeramy’s release from the hospital after he had discovered the boy’s admission was based on the unsubstantiated and untrue comments made by Jeramy’s 12-year-old brother, Jason. The family’s health insurance was billed $11,000 for this fraudulent “admission” and “treatment.”

In 2001, a psychiatric nurse found a 53-year-old man unresponsive 12 hours after he had been medicated for “hostile, cursing behavior.” The man died within hours. An autopsy revealed that he suffered from multiple sclerosis (MS). Hospital staff thought “MS” on his admission form meant “mental status.”

Carl McCloskey says his son, John, 19, was sodomized with a broom-like handle so savagely in a psychiatric hospital that his bowel was torn and his liver was punctured. The teenager became violently ill, lapsed into a coma, and died 14 months later.

Seventeen-year-old Kelly Stafford agreed to enter a psychiatric facility expecting a brief respite from troubled family relationships. But once the door was closed, she was kept for 309 days, many of them behind blackened windows in cruel darkness. Her arms and legs were strapped for months at a time. Others in the facility were forced to sit motionless and silent for 12-hour stretches. “I had to eat Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner in restraints,” Ms. Stafford said. “There’s not a day that goes by that you don’t think about it.”

In 2003, Dr. Masami Houki, head of Houki psychiatric clinic in Japan, was charged with manslaughter after he plugged the mouth of a 31-year-old female patient with tissue, put adhesive tape over her mouth, injected her with a tranquilizer, tied her hands and feet, and forced her to lay on the back seat of a car while being transferred to the clinic. She was dead on arrival.

In Athens, Greece, the Ntaou Pendeli psychiatric institution kept children in a ward with mentally handicapped adults. Some of the children were naked; all were housed in cold, barren rooms and often left to lie in their own feces and urine. A teenager had been locked up for 10 years after he misbehaved when his father left his mother for another woman. He witnessed horrors such as the rape of other children by psychiatric nurses.

In his book A Dose of Sanity, the late neurologist and psychiatrist Sydney Walker III wrote of the dangers of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, citing cases such as these:

John, a successful and happy family man, began experiencing fatigue and sadness. Two psychiatrists saddled him with a variety of DSM labels and treated him with 26 different drugs without ever conducting a single neurological examination. When a qualified medical doctor finally conducted a thorough diagnostic evaluation, he discovered that John had a brain tumor. Once removed, his “emotional” problems and tiredness rapidly vanished.

Lilian, a 46-year-old normally athletic woman, felt sad and weary. A psychiatrist prescribed an antidepressant. “After all, Lilian had enough symptoms to be lumped into the DSM category of ‘depression’—and that was all he needed to know.” However, in the final analysis, “the simplicity was that her husband’s chronic snoring had been waking her up every five to ten minutes during the night—she was suffering from a severe case of sleep deprivation.”

Another example is Austin, who was hailed as “the poster child for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.” He had been kicked out of 11 preschools in three years for doing everything from shouting obscenities and hitting other children to poking a teacher in the eye with a pencil. He was prescribed stimulants. But after a blockage was removed from his colon, he suddenly stopped terrorizing his teachers and classmates. Austin, who is now nine, was able to sit quietly and was a joy to be around. He gave up the medication. His mother said she never would have thought to connect Austin’s behavior with the chronic constipation he had suffered since infancy. “The bad behaviors disappear as soon as the impaction is removed,” said Dr. Paul Hyman, chief of pediatric gastroenterology at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City.

Dr. Walker concluded, “It’s important to remember...that a number of DSM-oriented psychiatrists have, to a large degree, abandoned the science of differential diagnosis, and thus consider most psychiatric illnesses ‘incurable.’ This leaves them with only two weapons: psychotherapy and drugs. It’s not surprising that they’re among the first to leap on each new drug bandwagon; like long-ago doctors who recommended bleeding for every ailment, they have little else to offer....”

The drugs prescribed for so-called learning disorders are completely different from routine medications that medical doctors prescribe for colds or fevers. Psychiatric drugs are addictive and mind-altering substances.

The stimulants prescribed for ADHD are listed as controlled substances under Schedule II of the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Why? They constitute a substantial risk to public health, have little to moderate therapeutic usefulness and can be potentially addictive.

The main stimulant used for “ADHD” is an amphetamine-like drug, which purportedly acts as a tranquilizer in children. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration it is more potent than cocaine.

Case Reports

Child Deaths

While psychiatrists proclaim psychoactive drugs safe and effective for children, many parents know from tragic personal experience that this is false.

SHAINA DUNKLE — 1991-2001
Vicki Dunkle’s daughter Shaina’s life had been filled with dance classes, Girl Scouts, piano lessons and softball games. But in 1999, when Shaina was in second grade, teachers said she was “too active” and “talked out of turn.” Without diagnostic tests or physical exams, a psychiatrist concluded she suffered from ADHD and prescribed a psychiatric drug. On February 26, 2001, Shaina suffered a seizure in the doctor’s office. Her mother rushed to hold her in her arms, where, minutes later, she died. “Shaina looked into my eyes as her life ended and I could do nothing to save her. It’s been two years and I relive those last few minutes every day. Believe me, it is a nightmare no parent should ever have to live with,” Mrs. Dunkle said. An autopsy revealed that Shaina had died from toxic levels of the prescribed psychiatric drug.

SAMUEL GROSSMAN — 1973-1986
In 1986, Samuel Grossman, 13, died after being prescribed a stimulant for “over-activity.” The autopsy revealed an enlarged heart caused by the psychiatric drug. According to the boy’s mother, “Giving this drug to a child is like playing Russian roulette. No one knows which child will get the brain damage and/or those who will die. I played the game and I lost.”

MATTHEW SMITH — 1986-2000
At age 7, Matthew Smith was diagnosed with ADHD. His parents were told he needed to take a stimulant to help him focus and that non-compliance could bring criminal charges for neglecting their son’s educational and emotional needs. “My wife and I were scared of the possibility of losing our children if we didn’t comply,” says Matthew’s father, Lawrence. The parents acceded to the pressure after being told that there was nothing wrong with the “medication.” But on March 21, 2000, while skateboarding, Matthew suffered a heart attack and died. The coroner determined that Matthew’s heart showed clear signs of the small blood vessel damage that is caused by stimulant drugs like amphetamines and concluded that Matthew died from long-term use of the prescribed ADHD stimulant. “I cannot go back and change things for us at this point. However, I hope to God my story and information will reach the hearts and minds of many families, so they can make an educated decision,” Mr. Smith said.

STEPHANIE HALL — 1984-1996
Stephanie Hall was a shy first grader in Ohio who loved books and school. After her teacher reported that Stephanie had a hard time “staying on task,” a doctor diagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder and prescribed a stimulant. Over the next five years, Stephanie complained of stomachaches and nausea and displayed mood swings and bizarre behavior. On January 5, 1996, at age 11, Stephanie died in her sleep from cardiac arrhythmia. Mrs. Hall remembers the last words exchanged with her daughter: “I said, ‘It’s 9 o’clock Steph, get to bed,’ and she replied ‘OK Mom, I love you.’” The next morning when her father went to wake her for school, she didn’t respond. “We called paramedics and the police...Stephanie was so cold. I kept saying to them, ‘She is supposed to bury me, not me bury her’....”