by Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD
1303 Hidden Mountain Drive
El Cajon, CA 92019
619-440-8236

In the December 27, 2000, issue of "The Tulsa World," a photograph and an obituary was published of a 33-year-old young man name Chris Hall. It read: "HALL - Christopher H. "Chris", local resident of Tulsa, died peacefully in his sleep…at the age of 33 years. He was born August 4,1967 in Tulsa to Rosemary Warner Hall and William M. Hall, Sr. …Chris's family was the love of his life. His nieces and nephews gave him great joy. …. Chris had a wonderful zest for life and was a tease and joker. He loved to make people laugh. He could often be seen walking his dog, Jordan, who was asleep at Chris's feet when he died. The sunshine was his personal friend."

And finally: "…Chris courageously fought a personal battle of severe brain disorder"

‘Severe brain disorder’! Saying 'severe brain disorder,' psychiatry would have you believe it to be a 'brain disease,' a ‘brain abnormality’, making them a psychiatric ‘patient’, justifying 'treatment' with two, five, nine or 10 psychiatric drugs.

‘Chris died peacefully in his sleep.’ Thirty-three year-olds do not just 'die peacefully', in their sleep. Nor did he die from his psychiatric disorder/‘disease,’ no matter how ‘severe.’ Not a single one of psychiatry’s three hundred-odd ‘severe brain disorders’/‘diseases’, described in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is a bona fide disease having a confirming, demonstrable/diagnosable physical abnormality, as is required throughout the rest of medicine, in diagnosing diabetes, cancer, MS, Alzheimer’s disease, rheumatic fever, rheumatoid arthritis, etc., etc. But psychiatrists don’t do physical examinations and don’t order diagnostic tests. Ask for the lab report said to show the ‘chemical imbalance.’ There is none.

However, taken long enough, psychiatric medications cause brain abnormalities and abnormalities of just about every body system, especially cardiac abnormalities, heart rhythm abnormalities--arrhythmia’s--and sudden death. Chris’ death was likely a drug related cardiac death. Every sudden death of a child, adolescent, or young adult on a psychiatric drug or drugs should be viewed as medication-caused until proven otherwise. And this includes those dying suddenly in restraints or while being restrained. There should be an expert autopsy and a review of the drug history that must include a life-time history of drug use—and not just street drugs. Hardly a month goes by without news of such a death in a psychiatric facility. And not all of them occur in psychiatric hospitals.

I have been consulted in three such deaths. Matthew Smith, 14, of Clawson, Michigan keeled over from his skate board and died. He had been on Ritalin, for the invented disease—ADHD—since first grade. His coronary vessels and muscular heart wall showed unmistakable abnormalities due to Ritalin. Stephanie Hall, of Canton, OH, died in her sleep, 5 days short of her 12th birthday, not from ADHD, but from Ritalin, the dose of which had been increased that day. Randy Steele, nine, died while being restrained in a psychiatric facility near San Antonio, TX. He was on eight psychiatric drugs. Dexedrine, dextro-amphetamine, a cardiotoxic drug was among the first, given to him for ADHD. His heart was ‘enlarged.’

This epidemic of deaths of psychiatric patients must be tracked just as if were due to some exotic new virus. Why doesn’t the Center for Disease Control do that? Why doesn’t the Surgeon General do that? None are due to psychiatric ‘diseases’ an illusion we cannot afford to buy into any longer. Rather, wherever a young person, previously in good physical health dies, and especially when they die suddenly, the overwhelming likelihood is that they have been killed by their psychiatric drugs—a risk, the nation had better wake up to.

On September 29, 2000 in testimony before the Committee on Education and the Workforce, hearing entitled "Behavioral Drugs in Schools: Questions and Concerns," I stated, that no psychiatric ‘disorder’ was an actual disease having a confirmatory, diagnostic, physical, abnormality and that for any physician to say they were was fraudulent. The spokesman for the American Psychiatric Association, David Fassler, MD, did not rebut because he had no scientific evidence with which to rebut. No psychiatrist does. Despite psychopharmaceutical industry propaganda that would have all Americans believe they diagnose brain ‘diseases’ due to ‘chemical imbalances’ of the brain for which ‘chemical balancers’, pills are the only logical treatment, none of them are, not even one, not even Chris Hall’s.