NEWS RELEASE - 21 August 2003

Contact: Mickey Weinberg 626-795-5525 or 541-345-9106 or oaks@mindfreedom.org

Hunger Strikers Demand

Human Rights in Mental Health:

American Psychiatric Association Replies

PASADENA, CALIF: On Sat., 16 August 2003 six ?psychiatric survivors? from throughout the United States arrived in Pasadena, Calif. and began a hunger strike to press for human rights and choice in psychiatry.

Their demand: That the mental health industry produce even one study proving the common industry claim that "mental illness is biologically-based." The hunger strikers charge that the pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry are medicalizing an ever-widening spectrum of human emotion and behavior for financial gain, and are willing to deceive the public while they too frequently humiliate and harm their clients.

"The government gives virtually total support to a quick-fix, pill-pushing model of mental health at the expense of alternative, less invasive ways of helping people in emotional distress," asserts David Oaks, hunger striker and Executive Director of MindFreedom Support Coalition International.

The hunger strikers are subsisting on a liquid only diet until the American Psychiatric Association (APA), The Surgeon General, and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) adequately respond to seven challenges sent to them. The American Psychiatric Association has sent the Fast for Freedom a response.

A team of 14 mental health academics and practitioners are reviewing the APA response. One, Loren Mosher, MD, former head of schizophrenia studies at the National Institute of Mental Health said, "What we are dealing with here is fashion, politics, and money? I want no part of a psychiatry of oppression and social control."

"The targets of our fast have muddied the waters of mental health for too long," said Mickey Weinberg, hunger striker and MindFreedom board member. "It?s time they come clean. They claim science is on their side. We?re just saying, ?prove it.?"

MindFreedom Support Coalition International is a Non-Governmental Organization with Consultative Roster Status in the United Nations, and a non-profit that unites 100 sponsor groups to win human rights & alternatives in mental health.

Web site for latest news: www.MindFreedom.org