Opposition
Opponents of the plan see little in the way of potential benefits from the plan, except increased profits for pharmaceutical companies, and have concerns about the potential for unnecessarily causing neurological damage and contributing to increased substance abuse and drug dependence. Critics are also concerned by what they see as the pharmaceutical industry's use of front organizations and the compromise of scientific integrity under color of authority, look askance at the irony of the commission's 'freedom' descriptor, contending the commission is yet another example of the excesses of drug industry marketing, and that the effects of its recommendations will simply foster drug use rather than the prevention of mental illness and use of alternative treatment modalities.
A coalition of over 100 advocacy organizations, united under the banner of Mindfreedom.org in representing the psychiatric survivors movement, has been galvanized by their strong opposition to the New Freedom Commission. Using celebrity to advance their opposition, the MindFreedom coalition has again enlisted the support of longtime member and Gesundheit Institute founder Patch Adams, a medical doctor made famous by the movie that bears his name. Since 1992, Adams has supported MindFreedom campaigns, and in August, 2004, he kicked off the campaign against the New Freedom Commission by volunteering to screen President Bush himself. "He needs a lot of help. I'll see him for free," said Adams.
Read more about this topic: New Freedom Commission On Mental Health
Famous quotes containing the word opposition:
“Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“I fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success. One adores public opinion, the other, private opinion; one, fame, the other, desert; one, feats, the other, humility; one, lucre, the other, love; one, monopoly, and the other, hospitality of mind.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is useless to check the vain dunce who has caught the mania of scribbling, whether prose or poetry, canzonets or criticisms,—let such a one go on till the disease exhausts itself. Opposition like water, thrown on burning oil, but increases the evil, because a person of weak judgment will seldom listen to reason, but become obstinate under reproof.”
—Sarah Josepha Buell Hale 1788–1879, U.S. novelist, poet and women’s magazine editor. American Ladies Magazine, pp. 36-40 (December 1828)