We, the undersigned, acknowledge the worth of the Fast for Freedom in Mental Health which occuring on the dates August 15 through September 6, 2003. We affirm our respect and gratitude for the strikers and their commitment and strength over twenty-two days of the fast. We acknowledge that they have pertinent and thus far un-addressed challenges as to the beliefs and practices of biopsychiatry, thus far, not addressed, and questioned by the strikers. Namely, That psychotropic drugs, as claimed by biopsychiatry, carry no risk of provoking violence, addiction or physical harm and that they effect positive change. That psychiatric disorders, as claimed by biopsychiatry, have a biological rather than circumstantial and environmental origin. We assert that the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) or the Surgeon General have not answered the strikers\' request that they provide proof of these beliefs and pratices. We believe that the one-page response by APA failed to answer the demands of the strikers, as noted by the scientific board, and that the critique of the board uncovered doubts to the claims of biopsychiatry even in the very texts reccomended by the APA as educational. We join with the strikers to call for the above-named bodies to grant the revised demands of the hunger strikers issued by them on August 29, 2003... That by November 1 of this year that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) shall: 1. Remark upon the scientific board\'s evaluation of the APA\'s one-page response in answer to the strikers\' seven challenges. The scientific board has rebuked the proofs given in the one-page response. 2. Hold a public meeting either face to face or by teleconference between representatives of the APA and representatives of the SCI. We further express our hopes that consumers and survivors of the psychiatric system may soon have an equal degree of access to dialogue with the APA and the office of the Surgeon General already enjoyed by the pharmaceutical companies who manufacture such products as Paxil, Ritalin and Prozac and who have vested interest in maintaining the dogmas of biopsychiatry. We declare that the recognition of this strikers\' request by the above-named parties will lead to increased accountability to the public and to positive change. We state that we regard the axioms of biopsychiatry as dogma rather than fact. And finally, we urge the above bodies to fufill the words of the Hippocratic oath, \"First shall you do no harm.\"

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