JAPAN FIGHTS RISING USE OF PSYCHOTROPICS
In 2016, the Japanese Act on Support for Persons with Developmental Disabilities was revised to put an emphasis on early intervention. While the changes purported to focus on educational and individualized programs, it is now clear that what it actually resulted in was an alarming rise in the number of children under psychiatric treatment and on psychotropic drugs.
Therefore, CCHR Japan set out on a mission to raise awareness that it is a human rights violation against a child to give them a psychiatric label and drugs with no proven scientific basis.
It started with the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death exhibit at Tokyo’s Bunkyo Civic Center. A speaker at the grand opening was Dr. Kenichi Kozu, president of the Society of Preventive and Alternative Medicine, who successfully treats mental problems with a drug-free approach. Media ran in national Asahi Shimbun and Mainichi newspapers exposing criminal psychiatric treatment.
The exhibit then moved to Osaka, at the Osaka Dawn Center. To reach government officials, invitation fliers were distributed in front of the prefectural government building. One government staff who subsequently toured the exhibit stated, “To tell the truth, I am a victim of psychiatric drugs, therefore, I understand what you are saying.”
Further south, the exhibit arrived in Kobe, in adjoining Hyōgo Prefecture, for the 114th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology with the theme “Commonality and Uniqueness of Psychiatry in Medicine and Medical Care.” The visit included a protest march against Japanese psychiatry’s practice of prescribing mind-altering drugs instead of providing real solutions to patients, especially children, as shown by the 84 percent increase from 2002 to 2010 in prescriptions to 6- to 12-year-olds.
The exhibit tour concluded at the Yurakucho Station Underground Plaza in Tokyo, with grand opening speakers including a Lions Club Drug Prevention lecturer, the president of the Citizens Movement for Suicide Prevention and an assembly member from the Toshima Ward.
To get to the root of the problem, laws must be in place to protect the rights of citizens and to protect against mental health abuse. Therefore, CCHR Japan commenced a series of 15 lectures specifically targeted to educate Members of Parliament on the statistics and facts of psychiatry.
“Your human rights protection program is very important and needed for individuals and for society.”
In one of those lectures, a 19-year-old boy shared his experience of being under psychiatric “care” since the age of 13, and how his condition only became worse with heavy medication. One of his doctors was Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, famous for prescribing 2-year-old Rebecca Riley four psychotropic drugs which ultimately led to her death at the age of 4. While Rebecca’s parents are in prison, Kifuji continues to practice.
At a lecture with 13 national Members of Parliament and their 20 secretaries in the audience, a bereaved mother spoke of her daughter who had committed suicide after a sexual relationship with her psychiatrist. Working with CCHR Japan, she was able to get him prosecuted and he is now in jail. Her story brought one MP to tears and another shared a similar story of a friend who was sexually abused by their psychiatrist.
As one MP said, “The wrong information on developmental disorders has caused terrible troubles. Your human rights protection program is very important and needed for individuals and for society.”
PUT AN END TO THE ABUSE
As a nonprofit mental health watchdog, CCHR relies on memberships and donations to carry out its mission to eradicate psychiatric violations of human rights and clean up the field of mental health. To become part of the world’s largest movement for mental health change, join the group that has helped enact more than 180 laws protecting citizens from abusive psychiatric practices.
