TWO DAYS, TWO DEATHS OF PSYCHIATRIC PATIENTS
   
     Comments by Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD on:
   
     CORONER INVESTIGATES RESTRAINT DEATH
     By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
     January 31, 2001
   
     HAMILTON, ONTARIO--On the afternoon of January 15, [fb: 2001] Wayne
     Winters, 39, struggled while laying on his stomach on the kitchen floor of his home

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: a group home?] .

     Three staff members were holding him in this position -- one on each of his
     shoulders and one on his legs -- when his body went limp and he stopped
     breathing.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: If on psychiatric drugs that are cardiac poisons, the struggle need not be long or hard, aften the case, I find, with these restraint deaths.]

     The staff members turned him over, started CPR, and called for an
     ambulance.
   
     He was declared dead a short time later.
   
     Now, Regional Coroner Dr. David Eden is waiting for toxicology tests to
     help him determine exactly why Winters died

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: Nor, do there still have to be detectable levels of any of the cardiotoxic drugs in the system. The critical question is: How many such drugs, what doses, and for how long. There may have been no drugs given for days weeks or even months. The drugs may have long ago done their damage to the heart and it may be permanent and irreversible. Such was the case with Matthew Smith, 14, of Clawson, Michigan who fell off his skateboard and died. The Ritalin he had been on for 8 years had done it's damage, very apparent to the Medical Examiner, under the microscope, near-impossible to detect on physical exam. Matthew might have died in a childish wrestling match or, were he unlucky enough, while being restrained in psychiatric detention. As we know the majority with a psychiatric 'disease' label (none of them bona fide diseases) are on one or several drugs almost all of the time. Nary a prescribing opportunity is lost] .

     Autopsy results did not pin-point the exact cause of his death.
   
     The position the staff members had Winters in, often called a "prone
     restraint",
     has been linked to many similar deaths which have come to the public's
     attention over the past few years. The position places the person's own
     weight, and often that of the people doing the restraint, on the
     chest and diaphragm, thereby slowing the person's breathing and heart rate.
     Some suffer heart attacks. Some die from asphyxiation -- lack of air.
     Sometimes certain medications increase the risk of death

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: The majority of psychiatric drugs carry the risk of cardiac side effects, and, taken long enough, for damage to virtually every organ system, most of all the brain. The are given precisely because they alter/damage the brain, both short- and long-term.] .

     Winter's family claims the staff of Harley Home performed the restraint
     improperly, that they were only supposed to use two staff members, rather
     than three. An official of the Brantford and District Association of
     Community Living, which operates Harley Home, told the Toronto Star that no
     policies were broken, but refused to comment further until after the
     investigation is completed.
   
     Winter, who had autism

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: 'autism' is a blanket term, like 'cerebral palsy' denoting definite, diffuse brain damage/injury, usually present from birth with mild moderate or severe mental subnormality/retardation]

     , moved out of South-Western Regional Centre, an
     institution housing people with developmental disabilities in Blenheim,
     Ontario less than a year ago. He had spent almost 30 years on a "high-risk"
     ward at the facility.

[Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD: Just yesterday (1 31 01) I wrote of the death from a 'severe psychiatric disorder' of Chris Hall, just 33, of Tulsa, OK (See DEATH OF YET ANOTHER YOUNG PSYCHIATRIC PATIENT). Strange,there is no such thing as a bona fide, verifiable psychiatric disease, which is what psychiatrists mean when they say 'disorder'. Virtually all of of these psychiatric patients dying before their time, whether with or without restraints in the mix are on or have been on drugs that are heart poisons. Such drugs therefore are a likely causal factor--and the most important of all--in all such deaths. Their hearts need careful pathological study and even electron microscopic study, where possible. Ritalin, for example causes characteristic, Ritalin-specific changes seen only on electron microscopy (Fisher, Fisher and Henderson. For full references, see my web site,'Death by ADHD' ). Such changes are produced in 100% of experimental rodents, within weeks, feeding them doses of Ritalin comparable to those fed millions of the schoolchildren of the US and Canada, as nowhere else in the world. What government agencies are tracking the epidemic deaths due, not to psychiatric diseases--there are no such things--but to the poisons they prescribe in the name of help.]

     In October 1998, the Hartford Courant (Connecticut) ran an excellent
     investigative series entitled "Deadly Restraint". That series is still
     available on line at this web address:
     http://courant.ctnow.com/projects/restraint
   
     The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) continued where the
     Courant left off, compiling reports of restraints and seclusion abuse
     in the United States from October 1998 through March 2000:
     http://www.nami.org/update/hartford.html
     ---
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