Friday, October 27, 2006

"48 Hours" looks at Scientology: Saturday night at 10 EDT

48 Hours
From the APA: "This is a special alert to watch CBS's "48 Hours" investigative news program this Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006, at 10 p.m. (ET). This edition of the show features an investigation into the Church of Scientology, and begins by recounting the tragic death of Scientologist Elli Perkins. Perkins was killed in 2003 by her son, who was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia but was mostly treated in accordance with Scientology protocols. The program asks the question Did A Mother's Faith Contribute To Her Murder? and then delves into broader issues, including Scientology's opposition to psychiatry."

[Edit]=====After the show=====
Dr Roy [it's a different Dr Roy]: "Tom Cruise and his 'religion' are more dangerous than I thought."

Dr RW: "Just got through watching the documentary..."

Leigh from Thoughtprints: "What's scary is that there are 10 million members worldwide. How can that many people allow themselves to be brainwashed by crap like that?! If any of you 10 million are reading this, I bet you're really pissed, huh. Whatever."

KFAN Rube Chat: 'The thing that really annoys me is that they use a cross as the symbol outside of their "churches". If you're such an enlightened religion, spoken to by aliens, wouldn't you have a more creative, or original symbol than the cross?

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is a back story to this show and its development that 48 Hours is not disclosing. 2 UK journalists worked on the story 48 Hours does not want you to know!

Story:

CBS/48 Hours program hides connections.

A CBS/48 Hours program which slams Hollywood favorite Tom Cruise has been exposed for having an undisclosed Conflict of Interest and secret agenda against the star and his Scientology religion. (See info below from CBS/48 Hours website synopsis)

The program makes a bizarre claim that the 44-year old actor’s beliefs are responsible for the tragic death of one of the church’s followers, a mother who was stabbed to death by her deranged son.

48 Hours has interviewed critics of Scientology claiming the church stopped the killer from getting psychiatric drugs which could have prevented the stabbing.

But CBS/48 Hours bosses have failed to declare that they are largely funded by the pharmaceutical industry which makes the drugs in question - and the producer’s families made a fortune from owning psychiatric hospitals, two very clear conflicts of interest undisclosed by CBS.

CBS, which produces 48 Hours, is owned by media magnate Sumner Redstone who recently fell out with Cruise over his movie career. Several CBS executives have been accused of hiding the conflicts of interest and of being unfairly biased against the Mission Impossible star and his religion.

CBS earned a staggering $592 million dollars in 2005 from advertising pharmaceuticals, a significant proportion of which are anti-depressants and psychotropic drugs. (Source TNS Media Intelligence)

In addition, an executive producer on the show has a family history steeped in psychiatry. Susan Zirinsky’s parents built, owned and operated Gracie Square Hospital, one of the largest privately owned psychiatric hospitals in the United States, which they later sold for over $25 million. Susan Zirinsky’s mother Cynthia Zirinsky still sits on the board of directors for Gracie Square and the Mental Health Association of New York which she personally founded. Susan Zirinsky’s husband Joseph Peyronnin also sits on the board and is an active advocate for the Mental Health Association of New York giving tens of thousands of dollars in support and receiving awards from the organization.

Now they run the Zirinsky Mood Disorders Center at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. Many have criticized the show and CBS for not being impartial.

The news channel is risking another ‘Rathergate’ scandal with its flagship 48 Hours program. In September 2004 CBS was disgraced when documents criticizing President George Bush’s military record were shown to be false. The discredited network was forced to apologize for the accusation and many employees were fired.

This week’s show revolves around the case of Jeremy Perkins, a psychotic who brutally stabbed his mother Eli to death in March 2003. The Perkins’ are Scientologists and critics say that they were against psychiatry and psychiatric treatment.

It is likely that the program will conclude that Eli's death could have been avoided if they were not Scientologists. The broadcast will also feature Tom Cruise's comments on the pharmaceutical and psychiatric industry from the NBC morning program broadcast last year. However Cruise made his outspoken comments a full two years after the Perkins murder.

A second producer on the show named Miguel Sancho is also related to an esteemed psychiatrist, Dr Lobis, who is based in Boston via his sister. Dr. Lobis was the psychiatrist in charge of releasing a young mental patient who killed his parents with a baseball bat the day after his release. Both refused to comment on the potential conflict of interest.

For CBS/48 Hours to say or convey that this tragedy was avoidable by putting the subject on psychotropic medications is simply not true and irresponsible, current studies of these medications clearly show patients taking psychotropic drugs can become extremely violent and suicidal, there is no way and no psychiatrist or test that can predict the behavior of a person having a psychotic episode. The US prisons are filled with people that have committed violent acts and homicides while on these psychotropic medications or under the care of a psychiatrist.

When the comparisons between the Rathergate story and their latest show were pointed out, again CBS refused to comment. A spokesman said: "Our programs don’t stand in favor of any particular side. “Our job is to try and present all sides. This is what we do. So we don’t editorialize. That’s not what we do. That’s not our job."

ENDS

Below is what CBS/48 hours has put out on their website as of Oct. 24, 2006 regarding the upcoming scientology show this Saturday. (CBS) Saturday, Oct. 28, 10 p.m. ET/PT
Producers: Susan Zirinsky and Miguel Sancho
Scientology - A Question of Faith
Did a mother's belief in Scientology contribute to her brutal murder? Peter Van Sant examines a March 2003 murder that doctors say might never have occurred if Jeremy Perkins, a 28-year-old paranoid schizophrenic, had received proper treatment to control
his psychotic delusions - delusions which made him believe his mother, Elli, was evil. The family desperately wanted to help their son, but they followed the principles of Scientology, a religion which strongly opposes psychiatric treatment. Elli Perkins was stabbed more than 70 times by her mentally ill son.
End

Anonymous said...

OMG, there is a Scientologist in the Comments! (somehow I knew you assjacks would claim an 'evil big pharma' link like the cultheads you are)

Anonymous said...

You think that's scary? Where I live in the UK, we want a new local medium secure mental hospital (a hospital with locks on the doors, mainly but not only for people who have committed minor offences or are close to release) so that people who need to be in such a unit can be in one that's close to relatives instead of travelling to a regional unit.

Scientologists have joined the nimbys in the fight against it, and if they win, people with mental illness who need to be somewhere secure will continue to be held far from their families. All in the name of objecting to modern psychiatry.

Anonymous said...

The second Anonymous poster made several important points about CBS' failure to point out potential conflicts of interest, conflicts which may help to place Saturday night's broadcast in the proper perspective.

The readers of this "esteemed" Shrink Rap blog need to hear the most important conflict of all. Just connect the dots:
-Elli Perkins was killed on March 13, 2003.
-The Executive Producer, Susan Zirinsky, is married to past VP of CBS News and past President of Fox TV News, Joe Peyronnin. She was born on March 3, 1952, in Queens.
-Peyronnin had taken the Lilly drug, erythromycin, for an infection he acquired after rebuking Mike Wallace in 1994 for secretly taping an interview.
-Lilly made gobs of money selling its poisonous product, Prozac, and now makes more gobs off of its zombifying Zyprexa.
-Mike Wallace has publicly declared that he has been treated by so-called "psychiatrists" and that he has even subjected himself to mind control by taking these chemicals.
-Peyote contains a potent hallucinogenic mind control chemical.
-Peyronnin sounds a lot like Peyote.
-Zirinsky sounds a lot like Lewinsky.
-L. Ron Hubbard took peyote on March 3, 1952, while wearing a blue dress but refused to permit Mike Wallace to videotape him, so CBS News covered up the death of Kitty Genovese in Queens on March 13, 1964, exactly 29 years prior to the death of Elli Perkins, and blamed it on Winston Mosely, an alleged intergalactic necrophiliac with deep connections to the CoS and a practicing Operating Thetan Level III.
-Mosely was been treated by a "psychiatrist".

So there you go.

ClinkShrink said...

Those intergalactic necrophiliacs will do it every time. Roy, I hope that was you.

FooFoo5 said...

I was walking from the car into the grocery store when I saw a table set up offering "Free Stress Tests" using the scam machine Scientologists utilize for this purpose. Three "testers were running the machines, and a "hawker" was working the sidewalk.

When I came out, a solitary woman sat before a tester absolutely sobbing. Being quite disgusted, I kept walking, only to be hit on by the "hawk":

"Could I offer you free stress test?"

"Would you happen to know the clinical symptoms of acute stress?"

"Pardon me?"

"I said, 'You're full of shit.'"

Formerly Fooled said...

Glad to see the APA has taken this seriously enough to alert it's members.

Scientology is a HATE group and it's targets are not just the professionals in the mental health field.

The mentally struggling, the disabled or chronically mentally ill and even those who have stabilized or recovered are given a 3rd class rate and shunned by this cult.

Scientology has no real solutions or treatment alternatives to what is currently offered by the mental health industry. It has NOTHING to offer to help those in need of help, yet the church has sold MILLIONS of copies of Hubbard's book, called 'Dianetics,The Modern Science of mental Health." Hardly anyone in Scientology uses the information in the book but one buys it to get a sense of how the old Book 1 counseling was done for when the members get to do the high priced courses for that more up-to-date training.

It's about time they were brought to their knees with their cult deeds!
Their shill group,Citizen's Commission on Human Rights - aka CCHR- needs to be exposed and shut down, just as Scientology shut down the Cult Awareness Network, which they now control.

I'm surprised $cientology has'nt tried to buy the APA, lol!

So thanks for posting this good news about the APA.

FormerlyFooled
http://free-from-scientology.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Some nasty things that CoS has done.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freakout

"Operation PC Freakout was the name given by the Church of Scientology to a covert plan undertaken by the Church in 1976, with the goal of harassing Paulette Cooper, author of a book critical of Scientology titled The Scandal of Scientology. The plan came to light when the FBI seized several documents related to Operation Freakout from church offices in Los Angeles in 1977 during the investigation of Operation Snow White. The documents indicated the purpose of Operation Freakout was to have Paulette Cooper "incarcerated in a mental institution or jail or at least to hit her so hard that she drops her attacks".[1] The strategy was to fabricate evidence that Cooper was guilty of issuing bomb threats against the Church, Henry Kissinger, Arab nations, and a laundromat. The seized documents were used to prosecute and convict Scientology officials in 1979.

The Church of Scientology continued to harass Paulette Cooper following Operation Freakout, filing numerous lawsuits against her throughout the 1970s and 1980s."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White

"Operation Snow White was the name given internally by the Church of Scientology to a program which included the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history.[1] Under this program, Scientology operatives committed infiltration, wiretapping, and theft of documents in government offices, most notably those of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Eleven highly-placed Church executives, including Mary Sue Hubbard (wife of founder L. Ron Hubbard and second in command of the organization), pleaded guilty or were convicted in federal court of obstructing justice, burglary of government offices, and theft of documents and government property. The case was United States vs. Mary Sue Hubbard et al., 493 F. Supp. 209 (D.D.C. 1979)"

Fat Doctor said...

Scientology is to organized religion as Little Debbies are to quality desserts. Not much substance, but with a little imagination it makes you feel good enough to forget how much it hurts you. I'll have to call home and ask Husband to set the DVR to record this. Thanks for the heads up.

Steve & Barb said...

Connecting this post to Blogs on a Plane, I found this interesting bit in this Neuroethics & Law Blog post:

"[Representative Mark] Foley aligned himself in the past with the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (co-founded by the Church of Scientology), which is 'dedicated to investigating and exposing psychiatric violations of human rights.' "

Anonymous said...

Foley did more than that. He condemned Germany for its stance about Scientology -and- Scientologists held a fund raiser for Foley.

Funny enough, Scientology yanked Foley from its site as the scandal hit... ;)

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/10/02/foley_and_scientolog.html

Of course, there are more Foley links to CoS

Steve & Barb said...

I hadn't fully appreciated how demonizing Scientology was about Psychiatry until I saw the show last night and heard that coman form CCHR. Perhaps JW is right... maybe we ARE responsible for misandry... "mental illness"... AIDS... terrorists... global warming... and Pee-Wee Herman.

Steve & Barb said...

Oh... and I prefer Ho-Hos to Little Debbies, FatDoctor.

The Neurocritic said...

Those S*c*i*e*n*t*o*l*o*g*y trolls are everywhere, and they're vicious and vengeful. Hope I don't get slammed, spammed, and slandered for commenting under my real pseudonym here (as opposed to my pseudo-pseudonym??).

I highly recommend Dave Touretzky's Page for its links to The Church of Scientology's Wacky Secrets.

And Mark Foley... an alcoholic gay Republican pedophile Scientologist! I didn't know that last bit.