NAMI -National Alliance Against the Mentally Ill

In 2009, a Congressional investigation by US Senator Charles Grassley

revealed that about 3/4 of the funding of the National Alliance on Mental Illness [nearly $23 million], in the years 2006-2008, came from pharmaceutical companies and per the New York Times, NAMI "is hugely influential in many state capitols."

NAMI has put their major foundation and corporate sponsorships online here http://www.nami.org/About-NAMI... since the Grassley investigation so you would think that they would have changed their ways; but no!

The 2009 - 2016 Major Corporate and Foundation list by quarter year that is in the above link is a Who's Who in pharmaceutical companies and psychiatric institution chains. It also includes mental health insurance companies and biotech manufacturers of electronic brain devices - YUCK! There's also anonymous donations and several from foundations, which of course, is a good way to hide who is influencing the money flow.

Some of NAMI's major corporate donors in 2016 included Johnson & Johnson [Risaperdal, Concerta, Invega], Eli Lilly [Prozac, Zyprexa, Strattera], Pfizer [Geodon, Zoloft], GlaxoSmithKline [Paxil], Shire [Adderall], Neuronetics [Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation], PhRMA,Universal Health Services [click to see all the harm and fraud created by the nation's largest psychiatric hospital chain], Hospital Corporation of America, ACADIA Health [operates a network of 573 mental health facilities] and many more.

When pharmaceutical companies, psychiatric hospital chains and their employees and lobbyists advocate for new laws and regulations, legislators understand that they are lobbying for a vested financial interest. But, when these vested interests pay-off a large "advocacy" organization to lobby for them, the legislators can be more easily duped into thinking that pro-industry legislation is really meant to help the treatment and rights of those with severe psychological symptoms. The parents and relatives of those with mental health issues also become duped lobbyists who call, write and visit legislators based on what NAMI [through their sponsors] indoctrinates into them with slick talks and marketing brochures.

So what are the programs that NAMI pushes and are they really to benefit their sponsors?

Some of the advocacy programs I have seen them advocate for have been their anti-stigma campaign, involuntary out-patient commitment, in-patient mental institutions, involuntary commitment and forced-drugging, peer support, stopping expensive drugs from being removed from state prior authorization lists, that psychological symptoms are medical disease, promoting various drugs to parents and patients and parity mental health. On the surface this doesn't look bad, but let me go through these one at a time to let you follow the money to see who these campaigns really benefit:

1. The Anti-Stigma Campaign is to tell people that they shouldn't feel stigmatized by seeing a psychiatrist and accepting a mental disorder [that is stigmatizing in itself as it labels you]. If you really look at this, it is a means to get more people into the mental health system and taking drugs - Ka-Ching for pharma and psychiatry;

2. Involuntary out-patient commitment means that when an involuntary patient refuses a psychiatric drug [that is likely causing a lot of physical and mental harm to the person], he will be re-institutionalized and force-drugged. More patients, more money;

3. In-patient mental institutions. What person doesn't want to be locked up involuntarily in one of those?

4. Involuntary commitment and forced-drugging. Another item that no person wants for himself or herself, but there's huge money in this and electric shock also gets forced through court order;

5. Peer Support has great programs such as the Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) that helps people to recover and stay out of institutions but NAMI has taken over with many "Peer Support" programs that mainly tell people to stay on their drugs $$ and to listen to their psychiatrists;

6. Keeping expensive drugs on state prior authorization lists obviously benefits pharma;

7. Even the National Institute of Mental Health has pretty much admitted that they don't know what causes mental illness and that it it is not from a chemical imbalance of the brain - false science that has pushed psychotropic drug sales for decades as you can see here: https://patch.com/new-jersey/m... ;

8. Parity Mental Health is equal insurance for psychiatry as with medical which means much more psychiatric and psychotropic drug insurance. Since psychiatry claims that you will have your mental disorders for life, and because all mental disorders are subjective and solely based on opinion of behavior [no lab testing as with real medical disease] as based in their American Psychiatric Association DSM5guide book, it is Ka-Ching, Ka-Ching, Ka-Ching - jackpot at the old casino.

In addition to what I may think, NAMI has also been a defendant in lawsuits for wrongfully marketing the Lilly's antipsychotic Zyprexa ["A lawsuit filed in New York in August 2004 accuses Lilly of violating racketeering laws, in part, by bankrolling NAMI to promote their antipsychotic drug Zyprexa"] and Pfizer's antipsychotic Geodon.

So when you follow the money, does the National Alliance on Mental Illness look more like an organization dedicated to helping those with psychological issues or is it just another non-profit front organization doing its bidding for those who fund it?