Psychiatry: Church of Status Quo Targets African Americans Fri, 4 Feb 2000 01:49:49 -0500 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - Dendron dendron@efn.org African Americans: A Main Target Many African Americans have expressed concern about federal community drugging projects in the name of violence reduction. Proponents of IOC claim it is needed to drug us into "law and order." A national IOC plan is a de facto part of an enormous, frightening federal plan that has been called the "Violence Initiative." With the rise in urban violence, those in charge tend to blame genes and biochemistry, without looking at the awful deteriorating social and moral fabric. African American activists are organizing against such "Bell Curve"-type approaches to problems like urban violence. Unfortunately, activists' fear and anger are well founded in fact. A new article about race and quality of care when prescribing neuroleptic drugs appeared in an American Psychiatric Association publication, Psychiatric Services March 1996. The authors' research showed that African Americans were far more likely to receive heavier neuroleptic administration -- both oral and injection -- than whites in the emergency situations studied. >From the results: "Clinicians in the four emergency services, most of whom were Caucasian, prescribed more psychiatric medications to African Americans than to other patients and devoted significantly less time to their evaluations. African Americans received more oral doses and more injections of anti-psychotic medications, and the mean 24-hour dosage of anti-psychotics [1,321 milligrams = chlorpromazine equivalent] was significantly higher than for other patients (825 milligrams)." That's a 60% higher dose! African Americans, who made up one quarter of those studied, were also 67 percent more likely than others to receive a neuroleptic drug in the first place. [The study authors were S. Segal, J. Bola & M. Watson. For a copy of the study, write to the first two authors c/o Mental Health & Social Welfare Research Group; Univ. of Calif.; 120 Haviland Hall; Berkeley, CA 94720.] This racism is not an isolated finding. A study by Dr. William Glazer in another American Psychiatric Association publication, Hospital & Community Psychiatry (1/94), showed that African Americans in one typical clinic were twice as likely to receive the more powerful "depot" neuroleptic drugs injections, such as Haldol and Prolixin. This may be one reason why African Americans are 1.83 times more likely than whites to get a neuroleptic-induced brain damage called tardive dyskinesia (T.D. can mean permanent twitching of the face, limbs and body for life). Other groups are also at the center of IOC's bulls-eye. Ten percent of the one million people who "may" experience IOC under NAMI's Big Brother proposal are homeless, according to NAMI plan proponents. These 100,000 people without homes, in extreme distress, deserve a range of options, not just a round-up to inject them with neuroleptic drugs, which are also used by veterinarian medicine in animal tranquilizer darts. Another huge loophole in the NAMI forced outpatient drugging plan is that you could be committed and drugged simply if you lack "adequate food, clothing, or shelter," unless you can prove in court -- somehow -- that this inadequacy was caused by poverty. And we all know how sensitive and fair the USA courts are on poverty issues. There are proven empowering alternative models to help people without homes, such as the peer-run transitional residential facilities for singles and families run by the primarily African American Berkeley Drop-In Center (a Support Coalition sponsor). We psychiatric survivors "vote with our feet," and when good programs which satisfy the customer are available, it's shown that even our most upset members tend to seek out help. IOC is terrorism that scares even more people, justifiably, from reaching out for support. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-02.04.00-01:49:40-31570