This is very alarming. I read the rest of the New York Times article.

NAMI is a front group, call it what it is.

I have posted bedfore about NAMI and their sugar daddy: tragic. NAMI is NOT the same as the fake advocacy groups the pharmaceutical companies make up. NAMI is for real, and has a very long, real history. I first paid annual dues and was in touch with NAMI back in 1992 or so. I am still in otuch with local AMI people and groups. I know some of their efforts are invaluable. This growing conflict is a growing cancer that will kill their legitimacy, and drastically affect the good that they do. I believe activities at the local level are a lot more immune from these insidious effects. For now. NAMI should jump ship away from Pharma, and stick with their growing NAMIWalks fund-raising efforts and other money efforts. If I were on the board, I would make a total and clear cut from pharma, and decalre my allegiance to independent, stake-holder-oriented advocacy, education, and research for mental illness. end of story. Nothing sponsored by Pharma. Not one lunch or brochure. Outside of NAMI, there is NO nationwide, influential patient advocacy group. Thus, soon there will be none.

I have always suspected this. There is a board member on NAMi that,no matter what the issue or time of day, puts up a post to contact a local NAMI chapter and, above all, to stay on the meds.

Initially I thought there was some component of incredible OCD-related behaviors in the person. Then I noticed whenever anyone even mentioned tapering down the group would get almost feral in response.

My own doc who wouldn't give me the time of day when I ran out of insurance immediately gave me an appointment and filled my bag with seroquel samples. He had cold-turkeyed me off benzos and seroquel three months earlier because he thought I couldn't pay his 400 bucks an hour for a session.

I am now tapering and will hopefully be in a better place by January.The meeting I am going to have with that man is going to be epic.

But I've always known where docs and "support groups" loyalties are.

A similar thing happened with bextra and vioxx for the pain associated with endometriosis.

Exasperating.

things that make you go hmmm... the "support" documents were hard to find because they were in the "governance" section. Why would you put donors in the governance section?

NAMI's 2004-2006 Strategic Plan Progress report included, "Aggressive plans (but conservative projections) regarding diversification of funding sources (Goal 4, KRM 1)" on page 8.

NAMI's 2007-2010 Strategic Plan called for "evidence of financial diversification" on page 14 of 29.

Yet the results were .......

medsvstherapy, I have never considered NAMI to be a patient advocacy group. Primarily they're for the families of patients, families standing the most to gain from the defective brain model of mental illness.

"I have never considered NAMI to be a patient advocacy group."
Neither have I, Francesca. That's why it always p*ssed me off when they called themselves the National Alliance FOR the Mentally Ill. Huh? Not hardly. They were started by families of people with schizophrenia. No matter how well meaning they were, how dedicated they were to their loved one, the organization was for THEM, to help THEM cope. No problem with that. But crossing the boundary in making the assumption that they spoke FOR the mentally ill really bugged me. I've avoided them right from the get-go. We have nothing in common.

NAMI clearly needs reform - but there is no denying it does good work in many areas. I read comments here and there criticizing its serving the needs of family members - but what is wrong with that? Mental illness decimates families.

--pk---

Back when I was a little more clueless and believed myself to be chronically ill as I was told, I actually encouraged my parents to attend NAMI. I didn't know what I was suggesting.

My parents did start attending NAMI and I was suddenly being questioned about whether or not I was taking my "meds." NAMI encouraged my parents to get me connected with employment especially designed for the chronically mentally ill which thankfully I rejected.

So several years ago, when I made the decision to ditch the meds for good, I couldn't tell my parents because of NAMI's influence and concerns about being treated against my will (which NAMI supports). I told my parents after I had been off all meds for a year. As many here already know, I haven't taken anything since 2002.

Anyway, NAMI definitely doesn't represent patients and they scare family by telling them that if patients go off medication that it's certain disaster. They don't tell family that it may be the medications or the psychiatrist that's the problem. It's always the illness.

What if NAMI told family that many people actually improve once they've detoxed off the meds? What if that were part of the NAMI literature? As many years as it's been since my parents attended, I still see a little bit of the fear in them that NAMI helped foster. I really hate that they did that to my parents.

"but what is wrong with that?"

Because NAMI continually has misrepresented itself. They call them selves "The Nation Alliance for the Mental Ill"; and yet they are any thing but.

When you are completely corrupt, lie over and over again, use misinformation campaigns while doing the bidding of a greedy criminal industry both on the ground and with lobbying efforts.

( Just Google "NAMI" and you will see titled articles like this over and over again "NAMI promotes misinformation" even from PsychCentral type sites. )

The argument that they supposedly do a few good works at the grass roots level doesn't really hold spit at this juncture.

If you actually think this is just at a the national level; let us see this wagon's circle get even tighter as they are forced to report PhARMA money at the State Chapter Level also.

Hopefully your "stick your head in the sand" approach with NAMI won't fly with the "Grass Roots Members" and the General Public; So in time this horrible front for corporate greed will fall to the wayside as many other corrupt entities have in the past.

Who will take their place you might ask:

If good and right are to prevail in the end; organizations resembling MindFreedom, Alliance for Human Research Protection, and like true advocacy organizations will step up and fill this void.

There is little doubt NAMI, DBSA, and like organizations have created, and left behind huge piles of tainted burning ash that will have to be cleaned up and discarded over time.

Paul Komarek - conflict of interest/disclosure?

paid consultant for NAMI

http://www.humanintervention.net/About%20Human%20Intervention.htm#top

I mean no offense to anyone who has had a bad experience with NAMI, or who might oppose portions of its agenda.

Yes, I'm a NAMI consultant. And I've run for the NAMI national board twice - making no secret of the fact that I believe the organization needs reform - to become more inclusive, more responsive to the needs of people with mental illness.

And less beholden to big pharma. I believe that NAMI's national executive leadership has no clue how much NAMI's addiction to pharma money eats up the group's credibility.

--pk---