I consider this U-turn as nothing but welcome. I have written to the President, Vice-President and CEO of the Royal College of Psychiatrists to say so.
What hell/terror it has been – for over these three decades – for anybody struggling with harmful experiences of prescribed psychiatric drugs to be believed let alone to find help. Many have died in the full realisation that they will never be believed as anything other than “ill”. This is the very stigma that psychiatry argues that it “fights”.
I have been one of the leading advocates for full transparency of competing financial interests. My career has suffered as a result. It is my view that “fully informed consent” for prescribed medications is impossible without full transparency of competing financial interests. Yet the Royal College steadfastly refuse to support legislation that would ensure such full transparency.
This “U-turn” by the Royal College of Psychiatrists has taken 30 years.
The control of the narrative of science remains firmly in the hands of those in power.