STATEMENT ON PAUL HEROUX CONVERSATION WITH BCH As many of you know, Sunday night I took the unprecedented step of speaking with Massachusetts representative Paul Heroux over the phone for 2.5 hours to advocate on behalf of Justina Pelletier and her family. We had a very wide range conversation that included not only Justinas situation but other relevant topics like my conviction that psychiatry is not a scientific discipline and the conflict of interests, both intellectual and financial, that pervade American psychiatry. I felt that the conversation was very constructive and my understanding is, based on his Twitter comments, that Representative Paul Heroux feels the same. He has spoken with BCH representatives and he has provided with four points that explain BCHs position https://facebook/permalink.php?story_fbid=776806098997037&id=283923214951997&stream_ref=10 . Needless to say, these 4 points do not pass the smell test and can be easily debunked, 1) The HIPAA excuse didnt prevent people at BCH or DCF from leaking information to the Boston Globe, including confidential information about ethics investigations at BCH, before the Pelletiers had the support of the national media. Their current excuse on the HIPAA laws now that there is no gag order in place only gives support to the notion that they are hiding something truly nefarious. 2) The court has behaved with DCF requests, who based them in recommendations by BCH, as the FISA Court behaves with NSA requests: as a mere rubber stamper. Yesterdays reversal is the best evidence of this point. 3) As promoter of psychiatric abuse -aka coercive psychiatry- Pete Early explains here peteearley/2013/09/02/our-focus-on-danger-for-involuntary-commitments-is-out-of-step-with-the-world/ , the bar to commit somebody involuntarily in the United States is pretty high and requires showing danger to self or others under the standard clear and convincing evidence based on US Supreme Court precedent that dates back to the 1970s. These determinations are in addition done by so called mental health or probate courts. There is no evidence whatsoever that any such court made a determination for Justina, so one has to assume that the admission was deemed voluntary by the judge overseeing the case and recommended by Justinas guardian at the time, DCF which again based its recommendations on BCHs doctors opinions. 4) BCH needs to fire somebody and submit itself to an independent review of its practices. It should also shutdown Bader 5 while this independent review is undergoing as requested by attorney Barry S. Pollack tribwtic.files.wordpress/2014/01/pollack-pdf.pdf I am very happy that Paul Heroux is making himself available to speak to Justinas parents and I commend him for his open mind on this issue. UPDATE: Representative Paul Heroux informs that he has spoken today for 30 minutes with Justinas parents and that he will meet them in private on Thursday during their visit to the Massachusetts legislature. I doubly commend Representative Paul Heroux for being so proactive in this matter.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 12:41:37 +0000
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