Free Republic

The following is the testimony of Rita Kaplan, mother of the deceased Jesse Kaplan who took his own life in 2000 after he was forcibly neutered and sterilized by the state of California after being classified as a social undesirable with severe Asperger's syndrome. His mother spoke with Me several months ago by an Email correspondence about Jesse and what happened to him. The Kaplans live in San Jose. Rita still lives there. Jesse is survived by An older brother who lives in Las Vegas and Younger sister who lives in Visalia. My Name is Rita Kaplan. I want to share with...

The lawsuits surrounding Risperdal allege inappropriate marketing as well as failure to warn issues. While Johnson & Johnson alleges Risperdal helps countless people throughout the world who suffer from debilitating mental illnesses, it also has caused embarrassing side effects further contributing to the problems it claims to address. In September of 2012, Johnson & Johnson settled one such lawsuit with a 21 year old who had taken Risperdal and grown breasts which had to be surgically removed. The settlement was allegedly agreed to by Johnson & Johnson in order to avoid having the Judge in the trial order Chief Executive...

Well folks Britney Spears, the queen of comebacks has done it again. After the previous years' meltdown which lead to her being hospitalized twice at UCLA as well as her being placed under emergency guardianship, Britney Spears is back again like a boomerang. Already there is talks of a movie deal and perhaps another sleazy album. But the road back up has been long and hard and although she is now seeking treatment for "Bipolar" disorder, psychiatrists in charge of her care may be doing more to undermine her mental health than promote it. Britney Spears was incarcerated in UCLA's...

Widely prescribed anti-psychotic drugs do not help most Alzheimer's patients with delusions and aggression and are not worth the risk of sudden death and other side effects, the first major study on sufferers outside nursing homes concludes. The finding could increase the burden on families struggling to care for relatives with the mind-robbing disease at home. "These medications are not the answer," said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which paid for the study. He said better medications are at least several years away. Three-fourths of the 4.5 million Americans with Alzheimer's disease develop aggression,...

If the press had its way, the national dialogue would be over a constitutional ban on the controversial Atkins Diet, rather than on the sanctity of marriage. You know the culture war has reached a fevered pitch when you can decipher someone's politics by the diet they choose. It now seems there are few certainties in life, except death, taxes, and that vegans will cast their vote for Ralph Nader. Therefore, the politicizing of the Atkins Diet has come as no surprise. The diet has no shortage of enemies either. Its "reported" emphasis on meat drives vegetarians insane. "Big Sugar",...

With VERY few exceptions (thanks to the people that were human and to people that wrote me privately) you people are a bunch of fundamentalist zealots. You aren't conservatives...you're fascists. You make me embarrassed to be a Republican.

Buried deep within H.J.RES.2, a Joint Resolution making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2003, are all sorts of interesting spending projects, few of which are authorized to the federal government by the Constitution. For instance, they appropriated $418,773,000 for carrying out section 301 and title IV of the Public Health Service Act with respect to alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Another $3,129,717,000 is appropriated for program management of the Mentally Ill Individuals Act and they targeted $12,000,000 to carry out data collection activities supporting the annual National Household Survey. Over and above that will come the new Bush bills to...