NEWS FLASH!
MFI launches a change.org petition to CBS…”Jeffrey Fager, 60 Minutes Executive Producer: Let Psychiatric Survivors Speak for Themselves!” Please sign this URGENT petition and share WIDELY!

MindFreedom has launched an online petition to call attention to an unfair edition of “60 Minutes” aired on September 29th.

The petition begins…

“We call upon the CBS TV show, “60 Minutes” to interview psychiatric survivors who are surviving the harmful effects of psychiatric drugs and forced electroshock and who are using non-medical model approaches for healing.

The CBS TV news show, “60 Minutes” segment “Untreated Mental Illness an Imminent Danger” (aired on September 29th) shamefully portrayed a one-sided view of people with psychiatric histories as violent, inhuman, unworthy of compassion and incapable of making their own decisions. They offered one point of view from E.Fuller Torrey, whose solution is more forced treatment and a life sentence of psychiatric institutionalization and incarceration.”

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To sign the petition:
https://www.change.org/petitions/jeffrey-fager-60-minutes-executive-producer-let-psychiatric-survivors-speak-for-themselves

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If you have yet to see the segment we refer to in the petition and wish to see it yourself:

“Untreated mental illness an imminent danger?” (aired on 60 Minutes on September 29, 2013)
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50156091n

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Read some of reasons people have given for signing the petition…

Marylou Sullivan AMHERST, MA

I was so appalled when I saw Fuller Torrey on 60 minutes, being regarded as an “expert” – his damaging and unproven statements unchallenged. LAZY reporting.

 

Hélène in SUTTON, CANADA

It is the basics: Let people talk for themselves, especially when the oppressor is asked by the media to reinforce infringement of or fundamental rights as basic as the right to liberty, dignity, security of the person, the person being citizens in our democracies, Remember!. This has to end and the doctors especially psychiatrists are no experts of somebody’s life…This is becoming so gross that the medias cannot ignore whithout being complicit.

 

Leah in BETHESDA, MD

It’s time for 60 Minutes to show some responsible reporting and stop contributing to stigma and discrimination against people with psychiatric disabilities.

 

Lisa in TORRINGTON, CT

People have a right to speak up for themselves and make their own health care decisions. Biased reporting can be corrected by allowing the other side a chance to speak.

 

Jennifer in ALPENA, MI

This is blatant discrimination, pure and simple.

 

Gerald in LAS CRUCES, NM

Give the public the other side of the story – that is your job!

 

Cynthia in SALINAS, CA

Statistically speaking, people with a DSM category attached to their medical records are no more likely to become violent than the general population. You choose fear over facts. Shame on you!

 

Rusty in Mancos, CO

…Only well rounded reporting gives the American public a ‘true picture’ of why so many people do not seek help. I hope to see another program focused on mental health system survivors whose rights were stripped from them…. with forced treatments that did not work. Do another program about this topic. We’d all love to see it done correctly.

 

Cynthia in CAPE CORAL, FL

I am a Survivor. I have spend 18 years telling my story. It is very important that people know the truth that was withheld from me. ECT treatments and SSRI’s destroyed my life.

 

Susan in DES MOINES, IA

Like Andrea Boggan I was prescribed psych drugs in 1992 not because I was experiencing “symptoms” but because I was experiencing the fallout from escaping a violent marriage. Prior to this time I had never had any “psychiatric symptoms”. Once on the drugs I was given more drugs because I was told that the “stress” of the divorce uncovered an “underlying illness.” The reality was the drugs I was given were causing “side effects” and I was given more drugs for those side effects until I was taking multiple psych drugs every day that basically lobotomized me.