Antidepressant use in Australia has soared by almost 40 per cent over the past six years, with more than 16 million prescriptions issued.
Jan Eastgate, President CCHR International, arrived in Australia this week from CCHR’s international headquarters in Los Angeles following calls by psychiatrist Patrick McGorry for the federal government to hand over $200 million more to fund programs that could lead to hundreds of thousands more children and youths being drugged. She said Australian psychiatrists are pushing a biological drug model in her home country that drug regulatory agencies have warned could place children at risk of suicide, heart irregularities, hallucinations, psychosis and death.
The Australian Government has been forced to stop the release of the ADHD draft guidelines and may have to rewrite them following the embarrassing scandal. A cloud had been cast over the draft’s validity after one of the psychiatrists, Dr. Joseph Biederman, whose research into anti-psychotic drugs helped form the guidelines, was accused of failing to reveal $1.6 million in payments from drug companies.