Citizens Commission on Human Rights Newsroom - Profile and News Archive

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Dec. 2, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Tens of thousands of American children who begin with a prescription for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) drugs ultimately end up on multiple powerful psychiatric drugs, sometimes even before they are old enough to attend elementary school. Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), conducted its own review of state-by-state Medicaid data through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and the findings were even more alarming.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Nov. 24, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The international mental health watchdog, Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), is releasing Prescription for Violence: Psychiatry’s Deadly Side Effects, a two-hour documentary that details extensive evidence correlating the escalation of mass shootings, suicides, and violent crime with the pervasive use of psychiatric drugs.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Nov. 18, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) announces the release of its uncompromising new documentary, “Prescription for Violence: Psychiatry’s Deadly Side Effects.” The two-hour exposé reveals alarming evidence connecting the rising tide of mass shootings, suicides and violent crimes with the widespread use of psychiatric drugs.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Nov. 17, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — A groundbreaking Karolinska Institutet study, published in The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, found that individuals subjected to involuntary psychiatric hospitalization faced a markedly elevated risk of suicide after discharge.[1] The mental-health industry watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) says the findings add to extensive evidence that coercive detainment and treatment-now being promoted for homelessness in the U.S.-is unworkable, unsafe, and can endanger lives.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Nov. 10, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — A powerful appeal to end coercive psychiatric practices-such as forced electroshock and drugging-was made at the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) World Mental Health Congress in Barcelos, Portugal. The address urged global alignment with the United Nations and World Health Organization mandates. Supporting the call was the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental-health industry watchdog that has long campaigned for a ban on coercive treatment.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Nov. 3, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Each May and October, millions are urged to “raise awareness” for mental health through national and international campaigns, including World Mental Health Day in October. Yet, according to the mental health industry watchdog, Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), many of the advocacy campaigns driving these observances are dominated by pharmaceutical interests and a biomedical model reliant on psychotropic drugs, electroshock, and even psychosurgery.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Oct. 27, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a 50-year mental-health industry watchdog, is urging legislators to ensure that policy decisions are grounded in evidence-not in misinformation from vested interests. The appeal follows testimony before the Wyoming Joint Labor, Health & Social Services Committee, which recently considered but postponed sponsorship of the proposed Wyoming Death Data Collection and Toxicology Transparency Act.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Oct. 21, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, today warned that the surge in antidepressant prescriptions for adolescent girls represents a public health crisis fueled by financial conflicts of interest between psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry. Between 2020 and 2022, Pediatrics reported a 130% increase in antidepressant prescribing for girls aged 12 to 17, while prescriptions for boys declined 7%.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Oct. 13, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) has warned that billions of taxpayer dollars poured into Veterans Affairs (VA) psychiatric programs are driving tragedy instead of delivering help. Rather than restoring dignity to those who served, veterans are being drugged, disabled, and too often lost to suicide or violence.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Oct. 6, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — With $280 billion invested annually in psychiatric hospitals and treatment-and billions more paid out to treat the damage they cause-the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) warns that continuing to fund the system without accountability is like pouring water into a sieve or patching a sinking ship with paper.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Sept. 29, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The abuse of prescription psychotropic drugs has become a global public health issue and, according to the mental health industry watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), it is a major factor in the failure of America’s war on drugs. More than 79 million Americans are prescribed psychotropics – many of which can cause dependence, respiratory depression, seizures, and fatal outcomes, especially when combined with other substances.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Sept. 22, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — When violent tragedies like mass shootings strike, media have quoted family members or friends who assert perpetrators were “schizophrenic” or “off medication.” The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) says this inadvertently implies that psychiatric intervention could have prevented the acts, but psychiatrists themselves admit they cannot predict violent behavior.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Sept. 15, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Psychiatry’s system of involuntary commitment is recycling discredited eugenics-era policies-using vague labels and coercive “treatments” that violate human rights, while expanding its powers to institutionalize people under the guise of restoring public order. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) warns that the United States is sliding back into a dark chapter of history: eugenics cloaked as psychiatric “care.”

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Sept. 10, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Families and communities deserve answers about the potential role psychiatric drugs may play in senseless acts of violence-an issue suppressed for decades by vested interests. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is urging that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) study on psychotropic drugs and violence be given the full weight it deserves, warning that dismissing it would betray the public’s right to safety and truth.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Sept. 2, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The mental health industry watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is recommending that parents shield their children from invasive mental health screening in schools. To assist families, CCHR provides a downloadable Parent’s Exemption Form Prior to Mental Health and Psychological Screening or Counseling.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Aug. 25, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — A groundbreaking study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics has revealed that nearly 60% of people subjected to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), commonly called electroshock, reported they were not adequately informed about its serious risks. The mental health industry watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), which has documented psychiatric abuses for more than five decades, said the findings confirm what its own investigations have long shown: gross violations of informed consent rights.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Aug. 18, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) addressed the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) on August 11, urging the global abolition of electroshock treatment (ECT), forced drugging, psychosurgery, and other coercive psychiatric practices-especially when used on children. CCHR told the Committee that these practices constitute sanctioned abuse, often amounting to torture, and continue with impunity due to weak or unenforced penalties against perpetrators.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Aug. 11, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is calling for a clinical and financial audit of the U.S. mental health system, warning that plans to involuntarily commit individuals experiencing homelessness could worsen mortality rates while escalating healthcare costs. The group emphasizes that psychotropic drugs commonly used in psychiatric facilities carry serious-often fatal-risks, especially when administered without thorough medical screening.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., Aug. 4, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) warns that proposals to expand involuntary psychiatric commitment of the homeless will not solve homelessness but will worsen it-by increasing trauma, violating civil liberties, and fueling massive public spending on a failed system.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., July 28, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz, is reaffirming its legacy of restoring human rights in the mental health field-one that spans more than five decades of exposing psychiatric coercion and abuse, helping drive legal and policy change.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., July 21, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The mental health industry watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is calling for sweeping reforms to inform families and patients about hidden, potentially life-threatening side effects linked to widely prescribed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) drugs. The demand follows alarming new regulatory agency warnings from Australia and Germany about atomoxetine, a “non-stimulant” ADHD medication, which is now linked to homicidal thoughts in both children and adults.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., July 14, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is warning Congress and the public that new legislation to legalize psychedelic drugs for U.S. veterans is a dangerous repeat of history-when defenders of the nation were used as test subjects in unethical psychiatric experiments.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., July 7, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Despite dozens of closures of abusive “troubled teen” programs in behavioral and psychiatric centers, including wilderness camps in recent years, a leading mental health industry watchdog warns that children’s lives remain at risk unless stronger laws ban the worst offenders and the secretive youth transport practices that feed them. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) says that while public outrage and media exposure have forced some notorious facilities to close, the underlying problems that enable these abusive programs still persist.

LONDON, U.K., July 1, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) placed its Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Exhibit in the heart of London in Cavendish Square, timed to coincide with the Lampard Inquiry-the first public investigation into deaths in the UK’s mental health system. The exhibit exposed a hidden side of psychiatry that too often goes unacknowledged.

ZITHOBENI, South Africa, July 1, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Hundreds of South Africans visited the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death exhibit at the Zithobeni Community Hall, where they were introduced to the destructive legacy of psychiatry and its ongoing impact on Black communities. Hosted by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), the exhibit, with the theme Taking Mental Wellness and Human Rights to Communities, resonated deeply with residents, traditional leaders and professionals.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 30, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Child and adolescent psychiatrists have issued a policy statement urging broader access to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for children and adolescents despite growing international condemnation of the practice on minors. Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Human Rights Office have called for an outright ban on ECT for children. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, condemned the statement as “medically reckless, legally dangerous, and morally indefensible.”

LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 23, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Federal health authorities are sounding the alarm over the chronic use of antipsychotic and psychotropic drugs in America’s nursing homes. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) has prioritized enforcement actions to reduce psychotropic prescribing-especially among seniors with dementia. With over 15,000 facilities nationwide housing more than 1.2 million elderly residents, mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) warns the unchecked drugging of seniors constitutes systemic elder abuse.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 16, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — In what is being widely reported as a landmark human rights decision, Italy’s Constitutional Court in May 2025 struck down part of the country’s decades-old psychiatric law-Article 35 of Law 833/1978-declaring some of its provisions for involuntary detainment unconstitutional. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), based in Los Angeles, hailed the decision as an essential step towards achieving human rights in the mental health field.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 9, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Amid a surge of reported abuse and deaths in psychiatric and behavioral residential programs for youth, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is urging immediate and sweeping federal intervention. CCHR warns that continued inaction by state and federal agencies endangers lives and enables a mental health system where vulnerable children and adolescents are subjected to trauma, neglect, and avoidable harm.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 2, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — A federal assessment of children’s health has identified the widespread prescribing of psychotropic drugs to U.S. youth as a “public crisis” driven by industry profit motives, flawed science, and systemic conflicts of interest. According to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, this is fueling a psychotropic drug market that reaps $22.6 billion annually.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 27, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a mental health industry watchdog, is calling for an overhaul of psychiatric hospitalization and community treatment laws. With 54% of U.S. psychiatric patients held involuntarily, CCHR warns the system has normalized coercion. Most U.S. states authorize Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) laws that compel individuals in the community to receive psychiatric treatment – typically drug-based – under threat of court orders or rehospitalization.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 20, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — As the American Psychiatric Association (APA) holds its annual meeting in Los Angeles, a diverse coalition of human rights advocates, civil rights leaders, clergy, medical professionals, and attorneys gathered outside the convention center, calling for an urgent end to coercive psychiatric practices. Led by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), the demonstration highlighted restraint-related deaths of children, the use of involuntary treatment, and the lack of accountability in a mental health system that received $329 billion in federal funding in 2022.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 12, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — A landmark law recently passed in Tennessee raises awareness about psychotropic drugs linked to potential violent behavior, marking a paradigm shift in advancing public safety and accountability for these prescriptions. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, a mental health industry watchdog, praised the regulations as timely, given that May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., May 5, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — With May being Mental Health Month, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is spotlighting a disturbing new study published in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, titled “I Can’t Breathe” – A Study of Civil Litigated Cases on Prone Restraint Deaths. The review analyzed 229 fatal police restraint cases from 2010 to 2019. Of those where race was reported, 38% of the victims were African American.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., April 28, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued a powerful new directive urging nations to eliminate coercive psychiatric practices, including forced hospitalization, drugging, and seclusion. The Guidance on Mental Health Policy and Strategic Action Plans outlines a rights-based approach that marks a sharp departure from institutionalization and involuntary treatment. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a global mental health watchdog, has welcomed the guidance while warning that U.S. psychiatry remains dangerously out of step.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., April 21, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — A recent exposé in The New York Times Magazine will send shockwaves through the psychiatric community, affirming what the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) has warned for decades: there is no medical proof that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a biological disorder.[1] Yet, over 3.4 million American children are labeled with ADHD and prescribed powerful, mind-altering stimulants.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., April 15, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR), a leading mental health industry watchdog, has released a damning report detailing how psychiatry is blaming patients-rather than failed treatments-to justify a surge in brain stimulation interventions. “When psychiatric drugs and therapy don’t work, psychiatry rarely blames the treatment-it blames the patient, saying they are ‘treatment-resistant,'” said Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International.

LOS ANGELES, Calif., April 7, 2025 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is sounding the alarm on the unchecked expansion of psychiatric diagnoses-most notably through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). What began in 1952 with just 106 diagnoses exploded to over 300 by 2013, despite a lack of objective biological testing to support these labels. The United States is spending more than ever on mental health – yet outcomes continue to worsen.

ANAHEIM and LOS ANGELES, Calif., Dec. 12, 2024 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) toured more than a thousand visitors through the Psychiatry an Industry of Death Exhibit in Anaheim, California, as part of its nationwide tour. The exhibit reveals the history and extent of human rights abuse in the field of psychiatry, which continues unabated today.

SEATTLE, Wash., and LOS ANGELES, Calif., Dec. 4, 2024 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Dozens of protesters from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health watchdog founded in 1969 by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and the Church of Scientology, marched through Seattle, demanding an end to the widespread drugging of children in Washington state. They cited the dangers posed by psychotropic drugs, many of which carry black-box warnings due to the increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in children, adolescents, and young adults.