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The Huffington Post

Dr. Peter Breggin

Lessons from the Death of "Mental Patient" Esmin Green
Posted July 14, 2008 | 09:49 PM (EST)

The Emergency Room video cam took it all in but no human response was
forthcoming. Forty-nine year old Esmin Green had been involuntarily
committed at the ER and then was left sitting on a bench for 24 hours
before she toppled to the floor. She continued to be ignored by staff
who saw her lying prostrate on the floor and was dead by the time a
nurse checked her one hour later. The medical examiner reported that
she died from thromboemboli--blood clots that traveled from her leg to
her lung.

What can we learn from this dreadful event?

Esmin Green was involuntarily committed and was waiting for admission
to a psychiatric unit. She was, in the eyes of the world and the ER
staff, a "mental patient." This is a status that no one should ever
have. It's a stigma that leads health professionals to lose interest
in or to outright abuse the person.

She was almost certainly being administered antipsychotic or
neuroleptic drugs, such as Haldol, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel or
Geodon. The antipsychotic drugs vastly increase the death rate from
almost all causes in people taking them. How would a class of
psychiatric drugs cause an increase in the overall death rate?

First, there is the indifference that we have already noted--an
indifference that overtakes professionals after they have made up
their mind that someone is a mental patient, especially one so
disturbed that the professionals believe she requires involuntary
hospitalization and antipsychotic drugs. After that, it doesn't matter
what the person does--she can collapse onto the floor--and it is
likely to be blamed on the individual's "mental illness" and therefore
be ignored.

Second, there is the indifference that the drugs induce in the
individuals afflicted with them. Indeed, the main effect of the
antipsychotic drugs has nothing whatsoever to do with ameliorating
psychosis. The drugs, one and all, disrupt frontal lobe function
causing a chemical lobotomy. The lobotomy-effect induces an apathy or
indifference towards oneself that is so profound that individuals can
be desperately ill without complaining about it. This failure to
"complain" or even to ask for any help is the hallmark of these drugs
that makes them useful in psychiatry. The drugged patients become
docile and less troublesome. In Medication Madness (2008), I call this
effect "medication spellbinding."

Third, there are physical effects that contribute to a variety of
disorders including clots that turn into lethal emboli. The
antipsychotic drugs enforce a physical immobility very similar to
Parkinsonism. Immobility leads to clot formation. The drugs also cause
dehydration, another factor in potential clot formation. This is
complicated by the fact that the dehydrated person is too medication
spellbound to know that they need to drink water. These drugs also
suppress cardiovascular and respiration function, cause hypotension
(low blood pressure) and weaken heart muscle, additional risk factors
for cardiovascular collapse. And these are only some of the ways in
which antipsychotic drugs become lethal. Among many other potentially
lethal drug effects, patients can die from a syndrome called
unexplained sudden death as well as from acute drug-induced diabetes
or pancreatitis and neuroleptic malignant syndrome (similar to a
severe viral encephalitis of the brain).

When human beings are so emotionally disturbed that they cannot take
care of themselves, what do they need? Let's start with what they do
not need. They do not need what modern biological psychiatry has to
offer--involuntary incarceration and intoxication with potentially
lethal mind-blunting drugs. Long ago when working as a college
volunteer in state mental hospitals (1954-1958), I learned that
desperately frightened, helpless human beings above all else need the
caring presence of other human beings. Even as college volunteers we
were able to help chronically hospitalized patients (the hospital had
given up on them) by providing them a weekly supportive visit. In the
great majority of instances, we were able to help these patients leave
the hospital! As a psychiatrist, this principle has been confirmed
again and again in my practice and in research: disturbed, distressed
human beings need other human beings, both volunteers and
professionals, to provide them supportive relationships and guidance,
along with attention to their basic needs such as food and housing.

Modern psychiatry makes up biochemical theories to justify drugging
patients with toxic drugs. Society needs to take the power away from
the perpetrators of psychiatric abuse and instead spend the time,
energy and money needed to provide meaningful human services to
disturbed and helpless individuals.

In the meanwhile, we need to acknowledge that involuntary treatment is
not "treatment" but imprisonment. Because it lacks the elaborate civil
liberties protections afforded to imprisoned criminals, patients who
are locked up are subjected to arbitrary power and abuse. Nor is
society protected by locking up these helpless souls, few of whom ever
perpetrate violence. No psychiatric drug has ever been shown to
prevent violence or suicide. Instead, as I illustrate with dozens of
dramatic cases in Medication Madness, psychiatric drugs promote
suicide and violence.

Profoundly disturbed and emotionally disabled people need human
services, not imprisonment, neglect, or toxic drugs. Esmin Green's
death is not so much an exception as it is the rule. The rule is that
people labeled "mentally ill" and treated with psychiatric medications
often endure far more harm than good. Many lives are ruined and many
others lost as a result of involuntary "treatment" and psychiatric
drugs.

Dr. Breggin's completely redesigned website is www.breggin.com. His
latest book is Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers
of Mood-Altering Drugs (2008). The book is on sale at Amazon.com.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/lessons-from-the-death-of_b_112744.html