Last month, the School Board sent a warning to parents about the “harmful effects” of drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Much of the flier’s information was taken from the Internet, including from a Web site run by a group founded by the Church of Scientology. This week, six national organizations and eight local groups sent a letter requesting that the School Board retract the flier and send a new one stating that ADHD is a disease that requires ...

SOUTH BEND — For almost a year, a tall man with a long blond beard has stood nearly every day with a protest sign in front of Madison Center on Niles Avenue. His rusty pickup truck sits parked nearby with a wooden sign posted on the trailer accusing mental health officials of a litany of crimes. The protester is 52-year-old Richard Ketelhut, who says his beef relates to poor treatment for his son, but also that he has become an advocate ...

The optometrist wants to hear about my most painful memories. This is an auditing session, an important component of a religion called Scientology. The optometrist is the auditor. His name is Steve Sasala. He is skinny. And tall. His face is long and narrow. I can make out the shape of his skull. We sit across from each other, on opposite sides of a tiny desk inside a claustrophobic room at the back of some historic building in Parma Heights. The ...

EDMONTON -With a name like "Psychiatry: Industry of Death," visitors to the travelling exhibition in Edmonton likely understand they are not about to get a particularly measured perspective of the mental health profession. What they might not be prepared for is a fright show of the alleged "criminal practices" and "brutalities" of psychiatry, the cause, apparently, of history's vilest atrocities. By National PostAugust 9, 2007 EDMONTON -With a name like "Psychiatry: Industry of Death," visitors to the travelling exhibition in Edmonton ...

Scientology is trying to transform its image from that of a shadowy cult When Scientology officially opened its spectacular new British church in the Square Mile, the movement was given an unusually warm embrace by the Establishment. Ian Luder, an Alderman of the Corporation of London and a magistrate, lauded the organisation’s anti-drugs efforts. “The work which you do in this area is greatly to be welcomed,” he said, “and I wish you growing success.” It was a satisfying moment for ...

MORE than 1,000 furious campaigners disgusted at plans for a secure mental health unit on their doorstep today staged an angry demonstration. The protesters turned out in force to voice their concerns against a planned 80-bed unit on the site of the former Yardley Green Hospital in Bordesley Green. Men, women and children waved placards and banners saying "no sex offenders here", "no murderers", "no rapists", "no paedophiles" and "keep our community safe". Hordes of motorists sounded their horns and shouted ...

This was a bit like a special interest group coming out in Old Yelleresque, foaming-at-the-mouth opposition to the Bald Eagle, Betty Ford and the Gerber Baby. But there he was, a chap by the name of Ken Kramer, growing more apoplectic than Alec Baldwin getting ready for visitation day at the prospect the Florida Legislature might create something called the Statewide Office for Suicide Prevention, charged with - well, you know, preventing suicide. Kramer attempted to organize a letter-writing campaign, encouraging ...

The Church of Scientology has dispatched "ministers" to provide "grief counseling" for shell-shocked youth at Virginia Tech - but critics suspect the sect hopes to convert the vulnerable students. "It's shameless, how they milk human tragedy to promote their organization," charges Rick Ross, whose CultNews.net has long tracked the group, which counts Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley among its members. "These young people [at VT] are experiencing trauma. What they need are qualified mental health professionals." HollywoodInterrupted.com's Mark Ebner ...

In their extremely misguided, Nazi-like effort to rid the world of psychiatrists (and, in fact, all mental health practitioners), the Criminal Cult of Cruise is now using the Virginia Tech shooting tragedy as a platform for their latest, ill-advised recruitment drive. Scientology has not attempted so publicly, so grotesquely to capitalize on a national tragedy since they descended like vultures at Ground Zero post-9/11. While hindering legitimate, heroic rescue efforts with their spurious "therapies" at the site, Scientology claimed [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September11,2001attackopportunists they ...

KINGMAN - A watchdog organization concerned with the rising number of school shooting incidents is pointing a finger at anti-depressant drugs for having dangerous side effects responsible for the violence. An e-mail received Jan. 8 from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights details nine cases at schools and some homes across the country dating back to 1998 in which psychiatric drugs are linked to shooting incidents responsible for 40 deaths and 89 wounded individuals. It begins by stating, "According to a ...

Who is behind invitation to party for 'Youth for Human Rights'? The invitation is signed by Don Shaul, 13 year old, with title of Israeli director of 'International Youth for Human Rights'. But behind heartwarming initiative stands Scientology movement “Hello everyone! I am Don Shaul, 13 years old from Haifa, and I am in charge of the Israeli campaign for ‘Youth for Human Rights’” a charming e-mail announces, one of many that have recently flooded the e-mail boxes of journalists. “People ...

Last May, the Church of Scientology's Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) distributed 50,000 copies of a new booklet entitled Psychiatry–Education's Ruin, complete with a cover photo of drugged-looking school kids at desks. The CCHR logo on the cover resembles a federal government seal, with a hand holding up scales of justice. Beneath the logo are the words: "Published as a public service by the Citizens Commission on Human RightsTM." On its World Wide Web site (http:/www.cchr.org/morals/wit-cchr.htm), CCHR describes itself as ...

(CBS) There was never a question who committed the murder of Elli Perkins on March 13, 2003. As correspondent Peter Van Sant reports, within hours, police had a confession. His jeans drenched in blood, 28-year-old Jeremy Perkins had just stabbed his mother 77 times. Weeks later, in a recorded interview, Jeremy told a psychiatrist what was going through his mind. "My mom, I thought she was out to get me," he said. "Like sometimes she’d be totally normal and then she’d ...

Perhaps it's less of a stretch for Scientologists to believe that aliens arrived here in a spaceship, exploded, and stuck bits of their souls on us, than it is for other religions to believe there was a talking, burning bush or a savior who walked on water. All religions believe they are the, er, gospel truth. Most religions, however, have withstood the test of some time and were not created by a science fiction writer. Scientology, which now claims to have ...

Church-run charities abound by the dozens in Roxbury, but they are not usually operated by the oft-controversial Church of Scientology, which last month kick-started classes at its Washington Street literacy center with a grand opening that offered free food and sidewalk chalk for children. The church members who staff the literacy center, in a storefront marked with bright-yellow "Boston Scientology Ministry" signs, say they wanted to do something about the increase in violence in Boston, which they attribute in part to ...

Reporter Elodie Harper goes undercover to reveal the tactics used by Scientology followers in the immediate aftermath of traumatic events.

At first glance, it seemed like a classic David-and-Goliath punch-up: Danielle Lavigueur, a separated mother of two living in Longueuil, on Montreal's South Shore, claims the high school her 12-year-old son Gabriel attends is pressuring her to medicate him with Ritalin for hyperactivity. She refuses to yield to the alleged demand, and eventually someone calls in the Children's Aid Society. Feeling besieged, Lavigueur confides in a friend, who introduces her to Raphaël Huppé, head of research for the Montreal-based National Parents ...

A group affiliated with the Church of Scientology has forged close ties with several influential members of the Arizona Legislature as part of a nationwide battle against the mental-health industry. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights has courted key lawmakers with trips to glitzy Scientologist events in Hollywood. And, observers say, it has been the force behind more than two dozen bills in Arizona in recent years, including measures to restrict prescriptions of Ritalin and mood-altering drugs. One of the measures ...

Tom Cruise has a new bone to pick with psychiatrists. He's boasting that he has helped think nearly half-a-million kids off of meds. Tonight, we reveal what Scientologists don't like about psychiatry. You're going to hear from a church member. Also tonight, are we on the brink of a mini ice age? Some experts say things could be getting much colder in some parts of the world. We will tell you what makes them so concerned. From America and around the ...

Lynley Hood finds deep flaws in the Lake Alice settlement. News that the police have found no evidence of criminal offending by psychiatrist Dr Selwyn Leeks, former head of the child and adolescent unit at Lake Alice Hospital, has been greeted with dismay by the psychiatric patient advocacy group, Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). "We're not giving up now. We are still working with victims and are still going to be filing criminal complaints," the group's New Zealand executive director, ...

A former Lake Alice patient is disgusted police have decided not to charge a psychiatrist accused of abusing young people there in the 1970s. Police say they have found no evidence of criminal offending after investigating more than 20 complaints from former patients of Selwyn Leeks, who headed the child and adolescent unit of the now-closed hospital near Wanganui. A man who was a patient at Lake Alice in the mid-1970s told The Dominion Post the police decision not to press ...