South Dakota Voices Response: Thank you so much for sharing this information. It is helpful for our discussion. Especially the part about the financial component (and how it appears to really be about revenues).
Email comment: "I’m lying awake tonight, unable to sleep, because of a heartbreaking family situation involving both mental health and alcohol addiction. When I opened my email and saw your message, I felt compelled to respond though not publicly, out of fear of judgment. What you shared didn’t directly relate to our situation in terms of pill-pushing, but the part about mental health really struck a chord with me.
Here in Sioux Falls, we have The Link, a resource that’s supposed to support people struggling with mental health and addiction. Unfortunately, based on our experience, I’m not sure it made a difference at all. The only thing we were told with his short time there was that we “have a long road ahead” because our family member is “very manipulative.” I was shocked to hear that. Isn’t that something someone working in a mental health and addiction facility should already understand? Manipulation is often a symptom of deeper illness." will continue as comments to avoid it getting too long."
email continued "Our loved one is battling late stage alcoholism, which has led to cirrhosis, cancer, and serious mental health symptoms delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations caused by a toxic buildup of ammonia in his brain. In March 2025, we had an IVC approved by the court and believed it would finally lead to real help. But once again, we were let down. We’ve reached out to law enforcement, the State’s Attorney’s office, filed multiple IVCs, done everything we could think of but we’re usually met with silence or indifference.
What’s especially disheartening is the inconsistent way the media responds to these issues. One local news station showed deep compassion when an employee’s daughter died from fentanyl. They honored her story with care and sensitivity, and rightfully so. But when they posted a story about our family member, I reached out with a simple request to add context to explain in short details the mental health struggles behind his situation. Not a single call or email was returned. It felt like his life didn’t matter, simply because he wasn’t connected to the right people.
So many public figures and institutions talk about supporting mental health and addiction recovery. But when someone is poor or doesn’t fit the mold, they’re ignored, dismissed, or even shamed. That’s what our family has experienced over and over."
If you don't think you're sick, sit down and watch television for a couple of hours.
You'll be on the phone to your doctor, asking why you haven't been prescribed the miracle drug you just learned about for the illness you didn't know you had.
Lyn Yexley makes some great points, and I have something to add to underline all that was shared. After my son has been on ADHD drugs, I'm wondering how much of this is brought on by improper diet and processed foods. Some background is needed: my former is a nurse and believes there is a pill for everything, I believe food is our medicine. The diet my kids had was mostly takeout, as evidenced by the overflowing trash bins in the driveway. The first time they had Thanksgiving with me, I had invited a friend and her 2 kids - they mentioned they never had everyone sitting at the same table. Enough of that. My kids arrived for their annual month-long stay, and I had discovered before their arrival that my son was taking a prescription for ADHD. I asked my daughter what she was witnessing about her brother - figety, attention always drifting, not sleeping regularly (many times up all night on the PC only to sleep all day in classes). Took his prescription from him upon arrival, we went on a disciplined diet and regimen. 3 meals a day, NO processed foods, no soda, no power drinks, nothing but fresh from the farmers market and nearby farms, fresh milk, and water. We went for a brisk walk every evening and spent the mornings outside for about an hour. TV was limited to 1-2 hours, PC for 1 hour, everyone to bed by 11, no electronics (their phones were kept in my BR). We went to a bookstore to buy whatever books they wanted (I dealt with quality reading later). After just 3 days, my daughter shared she already noticed a difference. After week 1, he was convinced and wanted to learn to cook. His skin tone changed, his eyes cleared, his focus was sharp, and his thinking was even sharper. And no nervous habits. When they went home, he made the mistake of telling his mother what transpired, and she blew a gasket. He eventually hid his prescriptions and tossed his daily dosage down the toilet. He went on to learn how to cook for a career - none of it involving processed foods.
We are programmed by our education system and our medical system, and all taht was flipped on its head by Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller in the 1910s. JDR needed to recoup his lost Standard Oil empire and discovered he could use petrochemicals in pharmaceuticals. Carnegie hired Abraham Flexner to do a study on how to convert the medical industry. JDR and Carnegie used Flexner's report to change both the education and medical professions within a decade. Medical colleges either complied or would not receive their liberal funding. The number of medical schools dwindled. The number of medical schools declined from 190+ in 1912 to 76 in 1930, with the number of physicians per 100,000 capita decreasing from 157 in 1900 to 125 in 1930. The number of medical students decreased in parallel, from 28,142 in 1904 to 13,798 in 1920. Plain and simple - they made medical school expensive to attend, and the hospitals not following their 'recommendations' saw their financial backing dry up.
Fast forward to the last 15 years, more than 100 natural remedy doctors have suddenly died, all under very suspicious circumstances. Many are reporting threats. Independent doctors are being persecuted by the State Medical Boards for the flimsiest of excuses, the most public of cases being Dr Mary Tally Boden in TX.
The Flexner report - as well as Obamacare - is responsible for everything in the medical industry being expensive for patients (little known fact - Obamacare ceased for the people, hospitals maintain Obamacare in its administration). We are where we are because we have permitted it for more than a century, and Big Pharma is not taking No for an answer. It is our due diligence to make sure that is their problem, not ours.
Yes, exactly. One book that has revealed some of that deceit and criminality is Dissolving Illusions by Dr Suzanne Humphries and Roman Bystriank. I'm convinced in some people's minds that it's a religion, a belief system, and it's very difficult to convince them otherwise no matter how many documented facts are given.
Agreed this is a massive issue. It’s a multiple prong issue between breakdown in families with possible absent fathers, higher societal stresses, with doctors being begged to fix issues and pharma filling the void that shouldbe filled by families and social connections. Ironically I think our relative prosperity compared to lesser countries or even 75 years ago is a major cause with how us humans are wired requiring some struggle in our lives. If we don’t have real threats we will make them up. This interview was an eye opener for me. https://youtu.be/6PdWKkyooCk?si=CtLJ1B9NeliHYVKk
The food supply problems appear to be real. It is fascinating (and troubling) to read what is sprayed on our crops, fed to our animals, etc. - endocrine disruptors, poisons....
You make valid points; however, I don’t believe your perspective is complete. The 80s ushered in a different socioeconomic environment in which working people and middle class folks began to lose ground. Maintaining the status quo required two paychecks, and people worked longer before retirement. This meant children were often not raised by family through necessity, not choice. Mothers went back to work just a few weeks after giving birth. Parents were more stressed and that translated to more stressed out kids. Other developed nations supported families by providing free childcare and parental leave. Progressive taxation and regulation of businesses provided living wages for workers. Instead of instituting policies and programs that supported the general public, the United States increasingly supported policies that transferred wealth from the working and middle classes to the very wealthy- beginning with Reagan and continuing to now with only brief reprieves. The growing numbers of people in poverty and the threat of poverty for many who before 1980 would have felt financially secure are most surely part of the increasing problem of mental health issues.
Thank you for bringing up corporate welfare. It is a real issue. We have it going on in South Dakota now -- TIFS, economic development handouts to special companies, wage depression (for all of us) from foreign workers (indentured servants) that are brought in a restrictive visas (we have to pay all the extra social costs for their families). People are being crushed. Massive drop in standard of living.
There's pill stacking, pill pushing, appointment pushing, excessive medical testing pushing, all in the name of big pharma. And don't forget the dentists' procedure pushing, x-ray pushing.
People need their own advocate because they are not getting it from medical providers.
Yes, very challenging. Yesterday I heard a story about a medical professional discussing vascular surgery (legs) for skin discoloration for an otherwise healthy and very active 90 year old. Why would anyone think that is a good idea?
I think it's sad that we lump so many child learning problems in the mental health category. Most of us fight our entire lives for the right to be who we are even if that is different. Could it be that we observe on city streets the disoriented result of elimination of so many individual family farms with populations moved to urban centers that lack community and family based attention for those not quite "fitting in". A good deal of mental illness in the state was contained and often hidden on family farms where those who couldn't quite make the jump to urban living remained and worked and understood the land as their primary connection to the universe. The old Lutheran minister who gave the homily at my Mom's 90th birthday celebration focused his talk on the need for more rural mental health resources. And he observed that a single farm family member with serious mental condition could make family life intolerable for others. When pills and talk therapy do not deal with a serious mental illness, there is good justification for a state run residential mental facility. Mental health is just another facet of general health.
Absolutlely! Because we used primitive spray equipment, I would be covered with the same herbicide sprayed on noxious plants. I have dealt with 40 years of skin cancers and chronic breathing problems, which I believe are caused by this exposure. My father died from cancer of the sweat glands, one of only 6 known cases of this type, and many of his age contemporaries farming in the early days of chemical use also died of unusual cancers. When is Monsanto going to begin a fund to assist children of those early farm chemical uses in treatment and compensation for their cancers?
You answered this question. Let me quote you: "Beginning in the 1970s, medicine began to change rapidly. We gradually (and then more rapidly) developed a wide array of tests that could be used to check everything from vitamin levels to cancer markers. In addition, researchers attempted to correlate those readings with illnesses. Once an illness was defined, pills were created to address the symptoms."
People, of course, have been self-medicating for their mental problems for many millennia. What changed is that society applied science to mental health issues. I would bump the beginning of this trend back a few decades, but when the baby boom generation hit the the graduate schools and medical schools and government pumped more money into basic and applied sciences, you finally had a lot of brain power in chemical, biological and medical labs in academic and medical settings with adequate financial backing to do great science. Some of these people went to work for biomedical/pharmaceutical companies, who had profit motive reasons to develop meds. Hey, we live in a capitalist society.
It is fascinating to ponder whether what we have been told by the "credential class" is accurate or whether they have been swayed by the dollars. Could the President of Stanford University just be a symptom of a much bigger disease? Based on input from PhD's from high profile universities, it appears that we are most often in the second category. I frequently think back to the engineering equations that break down in certain situations. The reality is it's the wrong equation (the expert was wrong).
There are relatively few cases of fraudulent scientific studies. There are cases where there is disagreement about whether conclusions purported in a study can be drawn from the data collected. Mostly these revolve around disagreements about the use of methods, statistics, etc. When that happens studies are usually replicated, or additional data can come in and hypotheses can be tested using Bayesian statistics.
Interesting assertion. Are you a scientist or engineer? Perhaps you could provide a link documenting this belief. We have shared a number of links showing there are significant issues. Have you read "How to Lie with Statistics"? After working on submissions to the FDA, the required statistical analysis for drug and device authorization is extremely questionable. Honestly, having an FDA authorization doesn't tell the consumer much (other than the applicant had the funds to pay for the authorization).
Science is the business of falsification, so when previous studies or theories are found to be wanting, and there is a better or more full explanation, that means that science is working in the way it is supposed to work. That's does not mean that previous research was fraudulent.
There are, of course, going to be differences of opinion on whether data were collected correctly, statistics were used properly, and conclusions were correctly drawn. Such differences of opinion are part of the scientific process and it doesn't mean studies are fraudulent. It could mean the studies are faulty If there is a good peer-review process, these problems are usually explored before publishing, and changes make the research better.
There are a few researchers who may use fake data points to skew results to fit a hypothesis. They may use fraudulent graphs or models that do not match data. They plagiarize, or publish the same results multiple times to pump up their publication numbers. These are fraudulent.
There has been a growing number of studies outed as fraudulent, and it is a concern.
We could probably win the mental health pill pushing war against humanity if we followed doctors like Dr Ken Berry, Dr Georgia Ede (her book is fantastic) and others that promote eating meat, specifically red meat and the good fats that come with it. It has all the nutrients we need for our bodies and brains. Years ago I read Dr Peter Breggins book on Toxic Psychiatry, they've done on a lot of brainwashing on us - it's time to rethink Everything!
Thanks you for those suggestions. Yes, there is more and more information to suggest the medical community has been on the wrong track for at least 1/2 a Century.
South Dakota Voices Response: Thank you so much for sharing this information. It is helpful for our discussion. Especially the part about the financial component (and how it appears to really be about revenues).
Email comment: "I’m lying awake tonight, unable to sleep, because of a heartbreaking family situation involving both mental health and alcohol addiction. When I opened my email and saw your message, I felt compelled to respond though not publicly, out of fear of judgment. What you shared didn’t directly relate to our situation in terms of pill-pushing, but the part about mental health really struck a chord with me.
Here in Sioux Falls, we have The Link, a resource that’s supposed to support people struggling with mental health and addiction. Unfortunately, based on our experience, I’m not sure it made a difference at all. The only thing we were told with his short time there was that we “have a long road ahead” because our family member is “very manipulative.” I was shocked to hear that. Isn’t that something someone working in a mental health and addiction facility should already understand? Manipulation is often a symptom of deeper illness." will continue as comments to avoid it getting too long."
email continued "Our loved one is battling late stage alcoholism, which has led to cirrhosis, cancer, and serious mental health symptoms delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations caused by a toxic buildup of ammonia in his brain. In March 2025, we had an IVC approved by the court and believed it would finally lead to real help. But once again, we were let down. We’ve reached out to law enforcement, the State’s Attorney’s office, filed multiple IVCs, done everything we could think of but we’re usually met with silence or indifference.
What’s especially disheartening is the inconsistent way the media responds to these issues. One local news station showed deep compassion when an employee’s daughter died from fentanyl. They honored her story with care and sensitivity, and rightfully so. But when they posted a story about our family member, I reached out with a simple request to add context to explain in short details the mental health struggles behind his situation. Not a single call or email was returned. It felt like his life didn’t matter, simply because he wasn’t connected to the right people.
So many public figures and institutions talk about supporting mental health and addiction recovery. But when someone is poor or doesn’t fit the mold, they’re ignored, dismissed, or even shamed. That’s what our family has experienced over and over."
If you don't think you're sick, sit down and watch television for a couple of hours.
You'll be on the phone to your doctor, asking why you haven't been prescribed the miracle drug you just learned about for the illness you didn't know you had.
Lyn Yexley makes some great points, and I have something to add to underline all that was shared. After my son has been on ADHD drugs, I'm wondering how much of this is brought on by improper diet and processed foods. Some background is needed: my former is a nurse and believes there is a pill for everything, I believe food is our medicine. The diet my kids had was mostly takeout, as evidenced by the overflowing trash bins in the driveway. The first time they had Thanksgiving with me, I had invited a friend and her 2 kids - they mentioned they never had everyone sitting at the same table. Enough of that. My kids arrived for their annual month-long stay, and I had discovered before their arrival that my son was taking a prescription for ADHD. I asked my daughter what she was witnessing about her brother - figety, attention always drifting, not sleeping regularly (many times up all night on the PC only to sleep all day in classes). Took his prescription from him upon arrival, we went on a disciplined diet and regimen. 3 meals a day, NO processed foods, no soda, no power drinks, nothing but fresh from the farmers market and nearby farms, fresh milk, and water. We went for a brisk walk every evening and spent the mornings outside for about an hour. TV was limited to 1-2 hours, PC for 1 hour, everyone to bed by 11, no electronics (their phones were kept in my BR). We went to a bookstore to buy whatever books they wanted (I dealt with quality reading later). After just 3 days, my daughter shared she already noticed a difference. After week 1, he was convinced and wanted to learn to cook. His skin tone changed, his eyes cleared, his focus was sharp, and his thinking was even sharper. And no nervous habits. When they went home, he made the mistake of telling his mother what transpired, and she blew a gasket. He eventually hid his prescriptions and tossed his daily dosage down the toilet. He went on to learn how to cook for a career - none of it involving processed foods.
We are programmed by our education system and our medical system, and all taht was flipped on its head by Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller in the 1910s. JDR needed to recoup his lost Standard Oil empire and discovered he could use petrochemicals in pharmaceuticals. Carnegie hired Abraham Flexner to do a study on how to convert the medical industry. JDR and Carnegie used Flexner's report to change both the education and medical professions within a decade. Medical colleges either complied or would not receive their liberal funding. The number of medical schools dwindled. The number of medical schools declined from 190+ in 1912 to 76 in 1930, with the number of physicians per 100,000 capita decreasing from 157 in 1900 to 125 in 1930. The number of medical students decreased in parallel, from 28,142 in 1904 to 13,798 in 1920. Plain and simple - they made medical school expensive to attend, and the hospitals not following their 'recommendations' saw their financial backing dry up.
Fast forward to the last 15 years, more than 100 natural remedy doctors have suddenly died, all under very suspicious circumstances. Many are reporting threats. Independent doctors are being persecuted by the State Medical Boards for the flimsiest of excuses, the most public of cases being Dr Mary Tally Boden in TX.
The Flexner report - as well as Obamacare - is responsible for everything in the medical industry being expensive for patients (little known fact - Obamacare ceased for the people, hospitals maintain Obamacare in its administration). We are where we are because we have permitted it for more than a century, and Big Pharma is not taking No for an answer. It is our due diligence to make sure that is their problem, not ours.
and vaccines
The vaccine data that is slowly trickling out is compelling. Likely one of the biggest crimes of the last 100 years.
Yes, exactly. One book that has revealed some of that deceit and criminality is Dissolving Illusions by Dr Suzanne Humphries and Roman Bystriank. I'm convinced in some people's minds that it's a religion, a belief system, and it's very difficult to convince them otherwise no matter how many documented facts are given.
Agreed this is a massive issue. It’s a multiple prong issue between breakdown in families with possible absent fathers, higher societal stresses, with doctors being begged to fix issues and pharma filling the void that shouldbe filled by families and social connections. Ironically I think our relative prosperity compared to lesser countries or even 75 years ago is a major cause with how us humans are wired requiring some struggle in our lives. If we don’t have real threats we will make them up. This interview was an eye opener for me. https://youtu.be/6PdWKkyooCk?si=CtLJ1B9NeliHYVKk
Yes, exactly, the whole chemical imbalance theory is a scam. Eat a ribeye! 😊
Investigate carnivore. Eliminate processed foods. Many foods have poisens in them that are not listed on the ingredients.
The food supply problems appear to be real. It is fascinating (and troubling) to read what is sprayed on our crops, fed to our animals, etc. - endocrine disruptors, poisons....
You make valid points; however, I don’t believe your perspective is complete. The 80s ushered in a different socioeconomic environment in which working people and middle class folks began to lose ground. Maintaining the status quo required two paychecks, and people worked longer before retirement. This meant children were often not raised by family through necessity, not choice. Mothers went back to work just a few weeks after giving birth. Parents were more stressed and that translated to more stressed out kids. Other developed nations supported families by providing free childcare and parental leave. Progressive taxation and regulation of businesses provided living wages for workers. Instead of instituting policies and programs that supported the general public, the United States increasingly supported policies that transferred wealth from the working and middle classes to the very wealthy- beginning with Reagan and continuing to now with only brief reprieves. The growing numbers of people in poverty and the threat of poverty for many who before 1980 would have felt financially secure are most surely part of the increasing problem of mental health issues.
Thank you for bringing up corporate welfare. It is a real issue. We have it going on in South Dakota now -- TIFS, economic development handouts to special companies, wage depression (for all of us) from foreign workers (indentured servants) that are brought in a restrictive visas (we have to pay all the extra social costs for their families). People are being crushed. Massive drop in standard of living.
Your words are spot on, Lyn. This is exactly what has happened to our country since the '80s. I couldn’t have explained it better.
There's pill stacking, pill pushing, appointment pushing, excessive medical testing pushing, all in the name of big pharma. And don't forget the dentists' procedure pushing, x-ray pushing.
People need their own advocate because they are not getting it from medical providers.
Yes, very challenging. Yesterday I heard a story about a medical professional discussing vascular surgery (legs) for skin discoloration for an otherwise healthy and very active 90 year old. Why would anyone think that is a good idea?
Anyone who has never struggled with a mental illness has no idea how helpful psychiatric medications can be! They can actually be lifesaving!
Thank you for sharing your perspective.
I think it's sad that we lump so many child learning problems in the mental health category. Most of us fight our entire lives for the right to be who we are even if that is different. Could it be that we observe on city streets the disoriented result of elimination of so many individual family farms with populations moved to urban centers that lack community and family based attention for those not quite "fitting in". A good deal of mental illness in the state was contained and often hidden on family farms where those who couldn't quite make the jump to urban living remained and worked and understood the land as their primary connection to the universe. The old Lutheran minister who gave the homily at my Mom's 90th birthday celebration focused his talk on the need for more rural mental health resources. And he observed that a single farm family member with serious mental condition could make family life intolerable for others. When pills and talk therapy do not deal with a serious mental illness, there is good justification for a state run residential mental facility. Mental health is just another facet of general health.
Thank you for the comment and discussng the rural component. Do you think farm chemicals might play a role in mental health?
Absolutlely! Because we used primitive spray equipment, I would be covered with the same herbicide sprayed on noxious plants. I have dealt with 40 years of skin cancers and chronic breathing problems, which I believe are caused by this exposure. My father died from cancer of the sweat glands, one of only 6 known cases of this type, and many of his age contemporaries farming in the early days of chemical use also died of unusual cancers. When is Monsanto going to begin a fund to assist children of those early farm chemical uses in treatment and compensation for their cancers?
I am so sorry. The question about Monsanto (now Bayer) is a good one.
You answered this question. Let me quote you: "Beginning in the 1970s, medicine began to change rapidly. We gradually (and then more rapidly) developed a wide array of tests that could be used to check everything from vitamin levels to cancer markers. In addition, researchers attempted to correlate those readings with illnesses. Once an illness was defined, pills were created to address the symptoms."
People, of course, have been self-medicating for their mental problems for many millennia. What changed is that society applied science to mental health issues. I would bump the beginning of this trend back a few decades, but when the baby boom generation hit the the graduate schools and medical schools and government pumped more money into basic and applied sciences, you finally had a lot of brain power in chemical, biological and medical labs in academic and medical settings with adequate financial backing to do great science. Some of these people went to work for biomedical/pharmaceutical companies, who had profit motive reasons to develop meds. Hey, we live in a capitalist society.
It is fascinating to ponder whether what we have been told by the "credential class" is accurate or whether they have been swayed by the dollars. Could the President of Stanford University just be a symptom of a much bigger disease? Based on input from PhD's from high profile universities, it appears that we are most often in the second category. I frequently think back to the engineering equations that break down in certain situations. The reality is it's the wrong equation (the expert was wrong).
There are relatively few cases of fraudulent scientific studies. There are cases where there is disagreement about whether conclusions purported in a study can be drawn from the data collected. Mostly these revolve around disagreements about the use of methods, statistics, etc. When that happens studies are usually replicated, or additional data can come in and hypotheses can be tested using Bayesian statistics.
Interesting assertion. Are you a scientist or engineer? Perhaps you could provide a link documenting this belief. We have shared a number of links showing there are significant issues. Have you read "How to Lie with Statistics"? After working on submissions to the FDA, the required statistical analysis for drug and device authorization is extremely questionable. Honestly, having an FDA authorization doesn't tell the consumer much (other than the applicant had the funds to pay for the authorization).
Science is the business of falsification, so when previous studies or theories are found to be wanting, and there is a better or more full explanation, that means that science is working in the way it is supposed to work. That's does not mean that previous research was fraudulent.
There are, of course, going to be differences of opinion on whether data were collected correctly, statistics were used properly, and conclusions were correctly drawn. Such differences of opinion are part of the scientific process and it doesn't mean studies are fraudulent. It could mean the studies are faulty If there is a good peer-review process, these problems are usually explored before publishing, and changes make the research better.
There are a few researchers who may use fake data points to skew results to fit a hypothesis. They may use fraudulent graphs or models that do not match data. They plagiarize, or publish the same results multiple times to pump up their publication numbers. These are fraudulent.
There has been a growing number of studies outed as fraudulent, and it is a concern.
We could probably win the mental health pill pushing war against humanity if we followed doctors like Dr Ken Berry, Dr Georgia Ede (her book is fantastic) and others that promote eating meat, specifically red meat and the good fats that come with it. It has all the nutrients we need for our bodies and brains. Years ago I read Dr Peter Breggins book on Toxic Psychiatry, they've done on a lot of brainwashing on us - it's time to rethink Everything!
Thanks you for those suggestions. Yes, there is more and more information to suggest the medical community has been on the wrong track for at least 1/2 a Century.
Or go to YouTube, Dr. Suneel Dhand, Dr. Berry, so many great doctors on YouTube and the cost is free to listen to them.