Soviet psychiatric drug for dissidents given to US patients

It’s called Haldol. The generic name is haloperidol.

It’s classified as an “anti-psychotic.”

You’ll read that Haldol is being phased out in the US, but “PM: The Essential Resource for Pharma Marketers” reports that Haldol accounts for 5% of anti-psychotic prescriptions handed out between 2010 and 201l.

That’s 2.7 million prescriptions for Haldol. In one year, in the US.

The major and frequent adverse effects of the drug? Akathisia (the irresistible and painful impulse to keep moving, the inability to sit still), dystonia (severe muscle contractions that twist the body grotesquely), and Parkinsonism.

In short, torture.

All three of these effects can indicate motor brain damage.

Here is a quote from a news-medical.net article, “Haloperidol—What Is Haloperidol?”:

“There are multiple reports from Soviet dissidents, including medical staff, on the use of haloperidol in the Soviet Union for punitive purposes or simply to break the prisoners’ will. Notable dissidents that were administered haloperidol as part of their court ordered treatment were Sergei Kovalev and Leonid Plyushch.”

From the same article, there is this blockbuster statement:

“Haloperidol has been used for its sedating effects during the deportations of aliens by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). During 2002-2008, federal immigration personnel used haloperidol to sedate 356 deportees. By 2008, follow[ing] court challenges over the practice, haloperidol was given to only 3 detainees. Following lawsuits, U.S. officials changed the procedure so that it is done only by the recommendation of medical personnel and under court order.”

In his landmark book, Toxic Psychiatry, Dr. Peter Breggin quotes Leonid Plyushch, a scientist and political dissenter in the USSR, who escaped to the US: “[In a Soviet prison, after dosing with a small amount of Haldol] I was horrified to see how I deteriorated intellectually, morally and emotionally from day to day. My interest in political problems quickly disappeared, then my interest in scientific problems, and then my interest in my wife and children.”

In the 1960s and 70s, Haldol was given to “angry black men” in America, after laying on the justification that they were suffering from schizophrenia.

Here is a quote from the 2012 edition of Virtual Mentor, the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics. It concerns a pharmaceutical ad that ran in the May 1974 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry:

“…in the ad, an angry African American man shakes his fist menacingly…the text above the image…’Assaultive and belligerent?’ ‘Cooperation often begins with Haldol.’”

Yes it does. Cooperation begins with thetorture delivered by Haldol.

Warning! Do not try to withdraw from Haldol or any psychiatric drug without proper guidance. The effects of the withdrawal can be more dangerous than the drug’s effects. See, for example, the work of Dr. Peter Breggin and his advice on withdrawal, at http://www.breggin.com