Trending...
- Spokane City Council Members Introduce "Immigration Enforcement Free Zones"
- New Threat Management Workshop Brings Hands-On BTAM Training to Spokane Valley
- Welfare Check Leads To Domestic Violence Arrest; Guns and Drugs Recovered At North Spokane Apartment
CCHR calls for a congressional audit of NIMH after decades of costly, brutal animal experiments, unpublished trials, and failed biomedical research, as U.S. suicide rates, disability, and psychiatric drug harm continue to rise.
LOS ANGELES - Washingtoner -- By CCHR International
Research waste at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is reportedly costing U.S. taxpayers over $100 million annually, according to analyses of completed NIH-funded trials. A review of grants completed between 2017 and 2019 found 137 clinical trials involving 41,501 children that never made their results public, despite being funded with $362 million.[1] With an annual budget of $48 billion, the NIH is the largest public funder of health, including mental health research, in the world. Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) International, a mental health industry watchdog, says transparency failures, poor patient benefits, and mounting evidence of waste are a serious concern.
CCHR says the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) merits close scrutiny. Critics note that NIMH-funded research has repeatedly shocked, brain-damaged, restrained, and dissected animals. Yet new drugs that reportedly tested "safe and effective" in animals fail in human clinical trials about 95% of the time.[2]
Across at least a dozen major U.S. universities and federal laboratories, the NIMH spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on invasive and often lethal animal experiments in a speculative attempt to explain human behavior. These studies have involved deliberately inducing severe psychological distress in animals; surgically implanting electrodes into the brains of monkeys, mice, bats, fish, ants, and insects; depriving animals of food or water to force compliance; simulating predator attacks through virtual reality; and ultimately killing and dissecting animals to examine their brains.[3]
Mounting Congressional concern is reflected in Senator Rand Paul's Festivus Report 2025, which exposed millions in federal spending on frivolous and cruel animal studies, including over $1 million spent on teaching teenage ferrets to binge drink alcohol and $14,643,280 to make monkeys play a "Price Is Right"-inspired video game, and more.[4]
With many individual projects costing $1–5 million each, including $25 million spent on studying fruit fly behavior, and despite decades of this funding and allegations of cruelty, there is no evidence these animal experiments have translated into meaningful improvements in mental-health outcomes for Americans. On the contrary, rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, disability, and psychiatric drug use have continued to rise, while serious adverse effects, including violence, self-harm, and chronic disability, are now widely documented. "The result is a research paradigm that inflicts extensive harm on animals, consumes enormous public resources, and has failed to deliver measurable benefits to human mental health," said Jan Eastgate, president of CCHR International.
More on Washingtoner
Former NIMH director, psychiatrist Thomas Insel, who led the institute from 2002 to 2015, acknowledged this failure after more than $20 billion in spending. He admitted: "I don't think we moved the needle in reducing suicide, reducing hospitalizations, improving recovery for the tens of millions of people who have mental illness."
Clinical psychologist Roger McFillin, Ph.D., says NIMH research has focused on the biomedical model in a futile quest to reduce human suffering to faulty genes and brain circuits, yet "suicide rates have soared" and "youth mental health collapsed." The biological paradigm, he says, "hasn't just failed, it has actively harmed by teaching people their suffering is a brain defect," pathologizing normal responses to life adversity.[5]
Meanwhile, the treatments derived from psychiatric research carry severe risks. New research shows that people who take anxiolytics, hypnotics and sedatives, and antidepressants are more likely to develop amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive neurological disease, causing muscular damage. At the moment, there's no cure for the progressive debilitation that ALS causes.[6]
Neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) and serotonin syndrome (SS) are acute, drug-induced medical emergencies affecting the central nervous system. NMS carries an estimated mortality rate of 5.6% to 10% and is characterized by severe muscle rigidity, hyperthermia, and altered mental status, including delirium, agitation, mutism, somnolence, and coma. Serotonin syndrome is a pharmacologically induced condition caused by excessive serotonin activity in the brain and can be life-threatening. Symptoms include anxiety, agitation, confusion, delirium, hallucinations, muscle rigidity, seizures, and coma.[7]
Dr. Josef Witt-Doering, a former Food and Drug Administration medical officer, warns that SSRI and SNRI antidepressants can leave individuals "essentially lobotomized," causing cognitive impairment alongside profound and sometimes persistent sexual dysfunction.[8]
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), used on at least 100,000 Americans each year, has been associated with significant adverse effects, including memory loss, difficulty concentrating, emotional blunting, relationship impairment, and loss of vocabulary, according to a recently published international survey of ECT recipients. Respondents also reported brain and cognitive damage.[9]
Recently, the White House cancelled nearly $28 million in federal animal-testing grants as agencies begin shifting toward non-animal research alternatives.[10]
More on Washingtoner
CCHR, established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Professor of Psychiatry, Thomas Szasz, notes this step is overdue but insufficient. It urges Congress and federal oversight bodies to conduct a full financial and performance audit of NIMH mental-health research spending.
Eastgate states: "Taxpayers deserve accountability. After decades of failed science, escalating harm, and worsening mental-health outcomes, Congress must require those funded to provide measurable, real-world results."
Sources:
[1] Till Bruckner, "NIH waste far over $100 million in medical research funding every year – new study," Transparimed, 21 Feb. 2023, www.transparimed.org/single-post/nih-research-waste
[2] Amanda Hays, "10 Terrible NIMH-Funded Animal Experiments—and How You Can Help End Them," PETA, 8 Jan. 2024, www.peta.org/news/10-terrible-nimh-funded-animal-experiments/
[3] Amanda Hays, "10 Terrible NIMH-Funded Animal Experiments—and How You Can Help End Them," PETA, 8 Jan. 2024, www.peta.org/news/10-terrible-nimh-funded-animal-experiments/
[4] Senator Rand Paul, "Festivus Report, 2025," Dec. 2025, www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/reps/dr-paul-releases-2025-festivus-report-on-government-waste/; www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/FESTIVUS-2025-FINAL.pdf
[5] Dr. Roger McFillin, "The Billion Dollar Brain Myth, How NIMH's biological reductionism stole hope, meaning, and billions from mental health care," Radically Genuine, 21 Nov. 2024, drmcfillin.substack.com/p/the-billion-dollar-brain-myth
[6] David Nield, "Common Psychiatric Medications May Increase Risk of ALS," Science Alert, 10 June 2025, www.sciencealert.com/common-psychiatric-medications-may-increase-risk-of-als
[7] Hannah Actor-Engel, PhD, "Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome vs Serotonin Syndrome," Neurology Advisor, 4 June 2025, www.neurologyadvisor.com/ddi/neuroleptic-malignant-syndrome-vs-serotonin-syndrome/
[8] "Mounting Evidence of Persistent Sexual Dysfunction from Antidepressants Demands FDA Action," CCHR International, 9 Jan. 2026, www.cchrint.org/2026/01/09/mounting-evidence-of-persistent-sexual-dysfunction-from-antidepressants-demands-fda-action/; Dr. Joseph Mercola, "Why Antidepressants Aren't Fixing Depression — and How the System Keeps That Truth Buried," Mercola.com, 4 Jan. 2026, articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2026/01/04/ssri-side-effects-long-term.aspx
[9] John Read, et al., "The adverse effects of electroconvulsive therapy beyond memory loss: an international survey of recipients and relatives," International Journal of Mental Health, 19 Nov. 2025, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00207411.2025.2576946#d1e193
[10] Madeleine May, et. al., "White House slashes medical research on monkeys and other animal testing, sparking fierce new debate," CBS, 25 Sept. 2025, www.cbsnews.com/news/animal-medical-research-patients/
Research waste at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is reportedly costing U.S. taxpayers over $100 million annually, according to analyses of completed NIH-funded trials. A review of grants completed between 2017 and 2019 found 137 clinical trials involving 41,501 children that never made their results public, despite being funded with $362 million.[1] With an annual budget of $48 billion, the NIH is the largest public funder of health, including mental health research, in the world. Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) International, a mental health industry watchdog, says transparency failures, poor patient benefits, and mounting evidence of waste are a serious concern.
CCHR says the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) merits close scrutiny. Critics note that NIMH-funded research has repeatedly shocked, brain-damaged, restrained, and dissected animals. Yet new drugs that reportedly tested "safe and effective" in animals fail in human clinical trials about 95% of the time.[2]
Across at least a dozen major U.S. universities and federal laboratories, the NIMH spent tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on invasive and often lethal animal experiments in a speculative attempt to explain human behavior. These studies have involved deliberately inducing severe psychological distress in animals; surgically implanting electrodes into the brains of monkeys, mice, bats, fish, ants, and insects; depriving animals of food or water to force compliance; simulating predator attacks through virtual reality; and ultimately killing and dissecting animals to examine their brains.[3]
Mounting Congressional concern is reflected in Senator Rand Paul's Festivus Report 2025, which exposed millions in federal spending on frivolous and cruel animal studies, including over $1 million spent on teaching teenage ferrets to binge drink alcohol and $14,643,280 to make monkeys play a "Price Is Right"-inspired video game, and more.[4]
With many individual projects costing $1–5 million each, including $25 million spent on studying fruit fly behavior, and despite decades of this funding and allegations of cruelty, there is no evidence these animal experiments have translated into meaningful improvements in mental-health outcomes for Americans. On the contrary, rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, disability, and psychiatric drug use have continued to rise, while serious adverse effects, including violence, self-harm, and chronic disability, are now widely documented. "The result is a research paradigm that inflicts extensive harm on animals, consumes enormous public resources, and has failed to deliver measurable benefits to human mental health," said Jan Eastgate, president of CCHR International.
More on Washingtoner
- Impact Space Inc launches I AM AI Ready:Free AI Literacy Platform Bridging the Global Digital Divide
- Mend Colorado Launches Revamped Sports Performance Training Page
- Investigation Into North Spokane Shooting That Left Two Dead Continues
- Parkway Prosthodontics Achieves Breakthrough Full-Arch Reconstruction Case
- Postmortem Pathology Expands to Phoenix: Bringing Families Answers During Their Most Difficult Moments
Former NIMH director, psychiatrist Thomas Insel, who led the institute from 2002 to 2015, acknowledged this failure after more than $20 billion in spending. He admitted: "I don't think we moved the needle in reducing suicide, reducing hospitalizations, improving recovery for the tens of millions of people who have mental illness."
Clinical psychologist Roger McFillin, Ph.D., says NIMH research has focused on the biomedical model in a futile quest to reduce human suffering to faulty genes and brain circuits, yet "suicide rates have soared" and "youth mental health collapsed." The biological paradigm, he says, "hasn't just failed, it has actively harmed by teaching people their suffering is a brain defect," pathologizing normal responses to life adversity.[5]
Meanwhile, the treatments derived from psychiatric research carry severe risks. New research shows that people who take anxiolytics, hypnotics and sedatives, and antidepressants are more likely to develop amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive neurological disease, causing muscular damage. At the moment, there's no cure for the progressive debilitation that ALS causes.[6]
Neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) and serotonin syndrome (SS) are acute, drug-induced medical emergencies affecting the central nervous system. NMS carries an estimated mortality rate of 5.6% to 10% and is characterized by severe muscle rigidity, hyperthermia, and altered mental status, including delirium, agitation, mutism, somnolence, and coma. Serotonin syndrome is a pharmacologically induced condition caused by excessive serotonin activity in the brain and can be life-threatening. Symptoms include anxiety, agitation, confusion, delirium, hallucinations, muscle rigidity, seizures, and coma.[7]
Dr. Josef Witt-Doering, a former Food and Drug Administration medical officer, warns that SSRI and SNRI antidepressants can leave individuals "essentially lobotomized," causing cognitive impairment alongside profound and sometimes persistent sexual dysfunction.[8]
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), used on at least 100,000 Americans each year, has been associated with significant adverse effects, including memory loss, difficulty concentrating, emotional blunting, relationship impairment, and loss of vocabulary, according to a recently published international survey of ECT recipients. Respondents also reported brain and cognitive damage.[9]
Recently, the White House cancelled nearly $28 million in federal animal-testing grants as agencies begin shifting toward non-animal research alternatives.[10]
More on Washingtoner
- Blasting Off with Space Sector Companies: Artemis II Manned Moon Mission is Set to Launch: Could $ASTI be on the Same Rocket Ride as $ASTS & $LUNR?
- Costa Oil Named Primary Sponsor of Carson Ware for the United Rentals 300 at Daytona International Speedway
- HBMHCW Expande Infraestructura de Cumplimiento para Argentina mientras América Latina Supera $1.5 Billones en Volumen Cripto
- Norisia Launches AI Formulated Luxury Multivitamin to Transform Daily Wellness in the UK
- City of Tacoma Invites Community Input on Proposals to Modernize Housing, Zoning, and Land Use Codes for 2026
CCHR, established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Professor of Psychiatry, Thomas Szasz, notes this step is overdue but insufficient. It urges Congress and federal oversight bodies to conduct a full financial and performance audit of NIMH mental-health research spending.
Eastgate states: "Taxpayers deserve accountability. After decades of failed science, escalating harm, and worsening mental-health outcomes, Congress must require those funded to provide measurable, real-world results."
Sources:
[1] Till Bruckner, "NIH waste far over $100 million in medical research funding every year – new study," Transparimed, 21 Feb. 2023, www.transparimed.org/single-post/nih-research-waste
[2] Amanda Hays, "10 Terrible NIMH-Funded Animal Experiments—and How You Can Help End Them," PETA, 8 Jan. 2024, www.peta.org/news/10-terrible-nimh-funded-animal-experiments/
[3] Amanda Hays, "10 Terrible NIMH-Funded Animal Experiments—and How You Can Help End Them," PETA, 8 Jan. 2024, www.peta.org/news/10-terrible-nimh-funded-animal-experiments/
[4] Senator Rand Paul, "Festivus Report, 2025," Dec. 2025, www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/reps/dr-paul-releases-2025-festivus-report-on-government-waste/; www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/FESTIVUS-2025-FINAL.pdf
[5] Dr. Roger McFillin, "The Billion Dollar Brain Myth, How NIMH's biological reductionism stole hope, meaning, and billions from mental health care," Radically Genuine, 21 Nov. 2024, drmcfillin.substack.com/p/the-billion-dollar-brain-myth
[6] David Nield, "Common Psychiatric Medications May Increase Risk of ALS," Science Alert, 10 June 2025, www.sciencealert.com/common-psychiatric-medications-may-increase-risk-of-als
[7] Hannah Actor-Engel, PhD, "Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome vs Serotonin Syndrome," Neurology Advisor, 4 June 2025, www.neurologyadvisor.com/ddi/neuroleptic-malignant-syndrome-vs-serotonin-syndrome/
[8] "Mounting Evidence of Persistent Sexual Dysfunction from Antidepressants Demands FDA Action," CCHR International, 9 Jan. 2026, www.cchrint.org/2026/01/09/mounting-evidence-of-persistent-sexual-dysfunction-from-antidepressants-demands-fda-action/; Dr. Joseph Mercola, "Why Antidepressants Aren't Fixing Depression — and How the System Keeps That Truth Buried," Mercola.com, 4 Jan. 2026, articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2026/01/04/ssri-side-effects-long-term.aspx
[9] John Read, et al., "The adverse effects of electroconvulsive therapy beyond memory loss: an international survey of recipients and relatives," International Journal of Mental Health, 19 Nov. 2025, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00207411.2025.2576946#d1e193
[10] Madeleine May, et. al., "White House slashes medical research on monkeys and other animal testing, sparking fierce new debate," CBS, 25 Sept. 2025, www.cbsnews.com/news/animal-medical-research-patients/
Source: Citizens Commission on Human Rights International
0 Comments
Latest on Washingtoner
- City Council Confirms Appointment of Patti Jackson as Tacoma's Police Chief
- Nashville International Chopin Piano Competition Launches First Amateur Edition
- Council Votes on Pathways to Eviction Prevention for Spokane
- Market Value Enhancement From 2 Important New US Patents Issued for Strengthening Hair Enzyme Booster Technology to Caring Brands (NAS DAQ: CABR)
- Dr. Billy Laun Will Be Attending An Advanced Airway Management Course by AIME
- HELM Audio™ Partners with PQCrypto to Future-Proof Children's Hearing and Safety Data Using Post-Quantum Cryptography
- Wala Blegay to Announce Run for Congress in Maryland's 5th District on Feb. 4
- Luxury Lake-View Home Launches in Kissimmee's Bellalago community, Offering Privacy, Space, and Florida Resort-Style Living
- Sleep Basil Launches Revamped Diamond Mattress Collection Page, Highlighting Performance, Craftsmanship, and Personalized Comfort
- Sleep Basil Curates a Clearer Brooklyn Bedding Experience for Performance-Minded Denver Sleepers
- Spokane City Council Members Introduce "Immigration Enforcement Free Zones"
- Spokane: Mayor Brown Calls on Congress to Extend Temporary Protected Status for Haitian Community Members
- Nevada Man Launches Nationwide Animal Abuse Registry
- New Threat Management Workshop Brings Hands-On BTAM Training to Spokane Valley
- Star-powered Kappa Takeover Weekend Returns to the DMV June 18- 21, 2026, Hosted By Comedian Joe Clair W/ Dj Quick Silva (the Party Kingpin)
- Tacoma: Homicide Investigation – 1200 Block of South I Street
- Welfare Check Leads To Domestic Violence Arrest; Guns and Drugs Recovered At North Spokane Apartment
- Scoop Social Co. Wins The Knot and WeddingWire Awards as Brand Expands Nationwide
- Denise Murphy Lenci Promoted to Century Fasteners Corp. – General Manager, Northeast Sales
- TiNY Puts Real Pets on the Payroll for New PetArmor Campaign