In November 2003, psychiatrists at the University of Minnesota used the threat of involuntary commitment to force a mentally ill young man named Dan Markingson into a very profitable, industry-funded study of antipsychotic drugs. Dan was enrolled in the study over the objections of his mother, Mary Weiss. For months Mary tried desperately to get him out of the study, warning the psychiatrists that Dan’s condition was deteriorating and that he was in danger of killing himself. The psychiatrists refused to listen to her. On May 8, 2004, Dan committed suicide, and Mary lost her only child.
After nine years of unsuccessful attempts to get research oversight bodies to look into the circumstances surrounding Dan’s death, Mary and her friend Mike Howard have started a petition to the governor of Minnesota, asking for an external investigation. After only a few days, over seventy academic specialists in health law, bioethics and medical humanities have signed on, including a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, a co-founder of the Cochrane Collaboration, the former Health and Disability Commissioner of New Zealand, the historian who uncovered the US government-led Guatemala syphilis experiments, and the editors of two leading bioethics journals. Even more gratifying has been the overwhelming support of former psychiatric patients, research subjects, and mental health activists. Many Minnesotans are on the list, but signatures have also come from New Zealand, Australia, Canada and all over Europe. Many former patients have left powerful comments on the petition.
Regular readers of Mad in America will be very familiar with the case of Dan Markingson. But if you want to know more, I urge you to read my 2010 article in Mother Jones magazine, “Making a Killing.” For an update on recent developments and a biting criticism of the University of Minnesota’s General Counsel, have a look at this post by Stanford’s Matt Lamkin on the Stanford Law and Biosciences blog. And for a deep look, consider Dr. Judy Stone’s five-part series on the case for the Scientific American blog.
Most of all, though, sign the petition here or at the link below. Leave a comment on the petition, and pass it along to others. The movement is gathering momentum, and Mary could use your help.
They need to be put in prison. Straight and simple.
Report comment
I agree and have been saying this for the past two years.
Report comment
In the year 2000, my elderly mother was admitted to hospital in Ontario. She was secretly given 4 overdoses of the hypnotic chloral hydrate. She entered the hospital with NO SUICIDAL IDEATION. Doctors shovelled her onto the Dufferin County Mental Health pipeline by inducing psychosis with chloral hydrate and having her involuntarily committed to an Ontario mental hospital. The county psychiatrist threatened her with having the Ontario Provincial Police come to her house and embarrass her in front of her neighbours. She was given Zyprexa in that mental hospital while she was incarcerated in Lock-Up with drug addicts where the light was left on 24 hours a day. Her private health insurance was charged $365. I got her out and got her off all the drugs. For that, her family doctor kicked both my parent out of her practice. There was no other doctor for my sick father. I have been stonewalled by the medical college and doctors while trying to fight for justice for this grotesque error for 13 years and I am still fighting. My Mom is 91 now, on no drugs and even though she is blind, she is doing well in a retirement home. Psychiatry is the biggest fraud mankind has ever known.
Report comment