Persistent (Scientologist ) sleuthing uncovers state flaw

[DoYouEverWonder]

February 6, 2005

CLEARWATER - In a second bedroom converted to an office, amid file cabinets filled with cases of psychiatric abuse, Ken Kramer banged away on his Hewlett-Packard, sending e-mail after e-mail to Tallahassee, late into the night, night after night.

His focus was the psychiatric profession. And after months of dogged persistence, his work finally paid dividends last month. The state Department of Health admitted Kramer had uncovered an embarrassing flaw in its disciplinary system that may have spared hundreds of medical professionals from criminal prosecution.

Last week, state Health Secretary John O. Agwunobi announced more than 15,000 disciplinary cases investigated by the department since 1992 are being sent to prosecutors throughout the state to determine whether any criminal acts should be pursued.

<snip>

Kramer, 49, of Clearwater, is a Scientologist and shares Scientology's ardent opposition to psychiatry. He runs a public records research firm and volunteers with the Clearwater branch of Citizens Commission on Human Rights, which was founded by the Church of Scientology in 1969 to expose abuses in psychiatry.

Like an investigative reporter, Kramer's approach was methodical, and his purpose clear. He first assembled a list of all mental health professionals in Florida who had been disciplined administratively by the Department of Health. Then he requested those disciplinary files, one at a time to avoid copying charges.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/02/06/State/Persistent_sleuthing_.shtml

[Heyo]

1. scientologists..

... what do these kooks have against phsychiatry?

:dunce:

Heyo

[tlcandie]

2. Love em or hate em... but they may well be the ones

who come to save our arses with this new mental health/psychiatric screending crap. :+

Florida seems to be on the mark at trying to implement this screening and they are really voicing their opinion against it!

[flyarm]

19. don't count on that !

i live in clearwater..scientology=bush!
they have taken over and are destroying our area..look up the young kids who have been brainwashed and are kept against their will and have died here because these nut cases wouldnt get them medical care!!
dont give them any credit for anything good other than hiding behind tax shelters and buying up water property all over the country..these people are not good and not nice!google scientology kids who have died in clearwater!! because of lack of medical care!!!

these scientologists are tied to the hip of the * admin!!
i did poll watching downtown clearwater during early vote at soe office..i hate to tell you the intimidation i took from these people!

and i live here !! they also intimidated the lawyers kerry had here!!

and maybe if they used phsys..there wouldn't be so many screwed up kids they have brainwashed and controled their minds!!

i live on clearwater beach and must drive through downtown clearwater..their headquarters...and i will tell you every day around 5pm they walk a bunch of these kids to some other place..dont know where they are going but there are many of them..they cross the street..and i have waved at them and yelled hello..and i have never seen the likes of this..and i have raised kids and always had a house full of kids..but these kids have blank eyes..there is never a smile on these kids faces...never a gleem in their eye..they are like zombies...it breaks my heart seeing these kids,,,they are all like between 16-20 in age...and they are just shells...no even slight look ..they are like they have had their brains and personalities robbed!! they almost look like they are drugged!!

i can not stand what these people are doing to these young people..and our government looks the other way!

[tlcandie]

27. I live in Florida, too, but not near the scientology peeps/headquarters...

You may very well be right, but they are hitting this psych stuff hard and it needs to be stopped!

:shrug:

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

3. I think it's part of their control game.

If any of their "members" actually spent five minutes listening to a real psychologist, they might find out just how badly they're getting brainwashed.

[zalinda]

7. Because the try to fit you into a neat little

category, and keep you there. I had a friend who spent years in and out of hospitals after her husband got killed. With each doctor she tried her "medical records" went with her. She was so hopped up on pills, she had a hard time just functioning. She finally ended it herself, in a garage, with the car running. Doctors have become pill pushers, because it's the easy way to control the patient. Truth is, it's not always whats best for the patient.

zalinda

[YellowRubberDuckie]

9. That's why you go to a Psychologist, and not a Psychiatrist.

Psychologists care about what's wrong with you and want to help you fix it, they don't push pills. My Psychology professors always said this. They think PSychiatrists give them a bad name and tell people never to go to them if they want answers and real help, instead of just medication.
Duckie

[DBoon]

14. "a psychiatrist is a medical doctor who is afraid of the sight of blood"

Old bad joke with an element of truth - psychiatrists are "pill pushers" not therapists.

Truthfully, there are mental conditions that do require medicinal treatment - bipolar disorder being one. I'd go to a psychiatrist only after seeing a psychologist to make sure some less dramatic treatment wasn't sufficient

[YellowRubberDuckie]

17. If you need medicine, Psychologists will refer you to a Psychiatrist....

One that they know and trust. ALWAYS start with the Psychologist and let them help you go from there.
Duckie

[Stuckinthebush]

26. There are a number of excellent psychiatrists to go to first

However, many individuals do not need the services of a psychiatrist. If that is the case, then the psychiatrist will refer you to a psychologist. You can start wherever you wish, you will end up where you need to be most of the time.

[Stuckinthebush]

25. My wife - a psychiatrist - disagrees with you

She says that, indeed, there are "pill pushers" out there, but the majority of psychiatrists are deeply invested in working with the most severely mentally ill in our society.

They go to medical school for a number of years, and then a four year residency to learn both pharmacology and therapy. While psychologists and counselors have their place in the mental health profession, they don't have the education that is required to prescribe very needed medications.

As for being afraid of the sight of blood, it would be very difficult for any psychiatrist to make it as far as they have by being afraid of blood. Every one of them has been through the same rotations that their other med school classmates went through. They chose psychiatry because they care deeply about the mental health of patients. It sure ain't for the money.

[sleipnir]

8. It's one of the main tenants of their religion.

L. Ron Hubbard hated phsychiatrics, especially the doctors who practiced that science. The religion teaches that you can heal yourself without the need of a trained doctor, rather you just need to pay the church a lot of money to learn the secrets of your own healing.

Hence in the strange film, Battlefield Earth, the evil aliens are called Physchlos.

In the end, you're going to be dumping out money either way.

[tsuki]

11. In the state of Florida, a psychiatrist sees patients for about 15 min

to prescribe drugs, dangerous drugs. My brother was a casualty of "psychiatric" care.

[Supersedeas]

22. with immunity

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. How many psychiatrists, if anonymously interviewed/analyzed

by another psychiatrist, would fall into one of thier own treatment programs/protocols/drug regimens??? Many methinks, many more than would want. If there was any question about the dangers that the American Psychiatric Association poses to the unwary visitor... there need not be.


http://www.garynull.com/Documents/PathologizingAfricanAmericanPt1.htm
Psychiatrists diagnose African American men in public and private mental hospitals as having schizophrenia at a rate of up to 1,500 percent higher than white men. African Americans are given significantly higher doses of psychiatric drugs, major tranquilizers, and neuroleptics than are whites. More than twice as many African Americans as whites are classified as mentally retarded. Psychiatry -- heavily financed by the National Institutes of Mental Health along with this Community Mental Health Centers Program, which began in 1963 -- has been, in the minds of many, destructive in the oppression of the African Americans.


http://www.garynull.com/Documents/PathologizingAfricanAmericanPt2.htm
Studies show that up to 55 percent of outpatients visiting a community health mental center are given psychotropic or mind-altering drugs. Sixty-two percent receive a major tranquilizer. Forty-five percent receive a minor tranquilizer. Twenty-three percent of one study received three or more drugs, and as the study concluded "there was a strong tendency towards prolonged use of minor tranquilizers despite the lack of evidence of benefits from maintenance therapy and risks of drug dependency and abuse." Drug tests show these drugs create "maximum behavioral disruption," and were characterized as "chemical lobotomies," and can "produce an acute psychotic reaction in an individual not previously psychotic."

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

6. "How many psychiatrists..."

In this area, there was a woman psychiatrist who worked closely with the mental health consumers associated with one of the major non-profit service providers in the nation. Most of these consumers were either in out-patient programs or in group homes. The care she gave was largely compassionate and she worked long hours on behalf of her consumers. That said, her appearence started becoming quite disheveled and she started asking rather bizarre questions in sessions("do you masturbate?" Yeek.).

One day, she was gone. From everywhere. Everywhere she practiced. Every venue and program. No explanation. Just...gone.

That situation still exists.

[norml]

5. Even a broken clock is right twice a day,however Scientology is evil cult.

http://www.xenu.net/

[YellowRubberDuckie]

10. They don't call it the rich man's religion for nothing.

There have also been several mysterious deaths linked to them, but everytime someone starts to investigate, they find themselves destitute. They are a tough cult who will ruin you financially and professionally if you go after them.
Duckie

[jim3775]

12. Its amazing, they own the whole damn town...

...of Clearwater Florida. Rich scientologists are urged to own land there.

Occupied Clearwater
http://www.xenu-city.net/


now back to lurking...

[DBoon]

15. I'm jsut waiting for them to apply for "faith based funding"

for some of their programs. I don't think they would take "no" for an answer very easily.

Might cause some interesting political fireworks.

[patcox2]

23. They already have, to provide counseling in prisons, I think.

Don't worry, they are right on top of it.

[Straight Shooter]

16. Maybe they like the name, "clear water"

Or maybe it's some form of geomancy and the mystical alignment of Clearwater will enhance their powers :shrug:

I don't know much about Scientology. I tried to read Hubbard's book and thought it was waaaaaay too convoluted.

[madrchsod]

13. this needs to be done across this country

in every discipline in the medical field but it will not happen. not enough money,time,and people.
oh by the way---- e-meters------- are the wave of the future

[Supersedeas]

18. that's the real point of the story

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

20. Scientology = Snake Oil Pseudopsychology Nutball Bullshit

One of the reasons for Scientology's vociferous and organized actions against psychiatry is rooted in the distrust for psychiatric practice by their long-dead, mediocre science-fiction writing, exaulted cult leader. Hubbard was most likely manic-depressive with a raging narcissistic personality disorder. He reflexively eschewed psychiatry because it was one of the forces that would reveal that he was mentally ill and not divine. This type of attack by megalomaniacal cult leaders against psychiatry has been seen over the decades (e.g., David Koresh, Jim Jones, Sun Yung Moon, etc.).

What I find laughable is the fact that these cult members spend so much time attacking psychiatry when their "religion" uses some stupid snake-oil "Erg Meter" to read the space-related soul particles or something to this effect. There ARE NO PEER-REVIEWED SCIENTIFIC STUDIES of any of their so called mental help techniques. There IS NO OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE of their "religion" working for those with severe mental disorders requiring psychiatric medication (e.g., schizophrenia, manic-depression, psychotic depression, etc.).

Psychiatrist, like ALL doctors, should be held accountable for their actions...but make no mistake about it. The Scientologists are not interested in open reporting of medical mistakes. Their purpose is to KILL ANY AND ALL TRADITIONAL PSYCHIATRIC CARE TECHNIQUES...so their pet snake-oil bullshit can take it's place. An additional bonus is to decimate any profession that would rightly call their actions, DELUSIONAL.

JB (Ph.D. cognitive neuroscience & clinical psychology)

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

21. Very interesting...did Scientology "magic" make the thread disappear?

Or, was it the threat of legal action that made the thread link apparently disappear from the main page?

JB

[B3Nut]

24. I wouldn't put anything past 'em...

Back when I lived in Battle Creek I expressed dismay at their purchase of an historic hotel building in BC in the local paper. I was soon contacted by one of their heavies, and had a couple interesting meetings over coffee and later over dinner. I still recommend www.xenu.net for anyone desiring info on them. Sad to see the level of brainwashing, it indeed reduces people to basically shells. I felt sorry for the gentleman I met with, there's a nice decent guy in there someplace. I still hope and pray somehow he finds his way out.

Todd in Beerbratistan