re:people with schizophrenia to manage their disease Schizophrenia is not a disease.
You can not catch it from me (I have a diagnosis of schizophrenia) like a real disease.
There is scientific no blood test or body scan to diagnose the disease.
There is no pathology to schizophrenia. Ask the Nazi doctors who killed hundreds of thousands in Action T4 if they found any proof of their schizophrenia diagnosis's.

How and when did I catch my Schizophrenia? A psychiatrist gave it to me when I was 19 years old.
The truth is that everyone is lying. Everyone with a working brain hears voices, voices of conscious, voices of good and evil ideas.

Do good things and you are good, do bad things and you are bad.

Very simple.

This is really nothing new (we see Pharma, other huge companies, and organizations do this type of thing all the time) . These kind of responses are typical attempts at damage control, which have been used with varying success and failure since we entered the great media age.

If you can muddy the waters enough, and take the conversation to grayer areas; the focus can then fall off the real issue at hand (which in this case is NAMI being a corrupt front and virtual marketing tool for the Pharmaceutical Industry).

You may have not noticed with this story, was how NAMI fired off a series of press releases unrelated to this direct subject matter immediately following the breaking of this story in the NYTimes and else where.

Now they have released a published rebuttal with more lies and deception being used to soften the hard blow to their diminishing credibility.

Of course with millions upon millions of Pharma dollars to throw out in a huge spin and damage control campaign; it remains to be seen if they can divert the attention from these obvious inappropriate and unethical behaviors.

In my personal opinion; NAMI is out in fairly rough seas floating along upon a ship that's taking on a lot of water. In their favor, Pharma has a lot of high priced Yachts not that far away which could buy them a few extra life boats.

Only time and public scrutiny will tell the outcome of this inconvenient truth unfortunately.

adding to my last comment:

This is another way to twist the public perception with fronts like NAMI. They create a new organization, which is really just a front for an old organization.

From BringChange2Mind.org web site:

"BringChange2Mind.org is a not-for-profit organization created by Glenn Close, the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF), Fountain House, and Garen and Shari Staglin of IMHRO (International Mental Health Research Organization).

This is the first effort of this magnitude in U.S. history. Ron Howard generously donated his time in directing our first PSA that features Glenn Close and her sister, Jessie Close. John Mayer generously donated his song, Say, which serves as an anthem for this movement."

AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals and many other of the usual Pharma giant suspects have direct financial ties to Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF); which in turn runs this shell of a different name.

(just Google "AstraZeneca CABF" and the connections are made clear; then look at the CABF advisory board members and pick out all the usual "drug those kids" suspects)

Now do you still think all this information coming to light about damaging drug effects and financial ties to pharma is going to stop or even curtail this massive out of control marketing machine from continuing their work?

The IRS and Congress need take away their non-profit/not-for-profit status, and start criminal investigations before it is to late for our children.

You quote from the current release: "NAMI maintains strict guidelines that govern all corporate relations and does not endorse or promote any specific medication, treatment, service or product."

And then quote from something three years old?: "That's a bald-faced lie. In December 2006, Fitzpatrick was quoted in a Janssen/J&J press release wherein he openly touted the company's new atypical antipsychotic Invega:

Can you do better cherry picking than that? I find NAMI the most well informed, balanced and agenda free of most sites on the web today. Looks like they've reformed from any past errors.

The press release of December 2006, Invega Approved By FDA as New Treatment for Schizophrenia.

I just laughed. "We're not in bed with big pharma for two thirds of our funding! We're in bed with them for only HALF our funding."

Oh, okay then.

julian baine; No surprise that your a NAMI and CABF supporter. You changed the spelling on your name this time around also; which may be a pretty good indicator that your just a plant here to cause a ruckus and little more.

Your touted Hero is "second to god" Biederman or a like clone, drugging kids with damaging atypical anti-psychotics is good medicine in your blind eyes.

Don't expect a lot of people here to be cutting you much slack with your NAMI religion stance.

Like anyone would be all that shocked here by your ignorant leanings and propaganda; though you might have a little more success with those lines at your next CABF/NAMI meeting (remember your checkbook)

I feel I need to elaborate-explain more on my writing of "The truth is that everyone is lying. Everyone with a working brain hears voices, voices of conscious, voices of good and evil ideas."

If you happen to remember your loved ones birthday (it pops into your mind), and get a gift, I call that a voice, regular folk might not call it so.
It is a "good" voice instead of an "evil" voice.

If you have a feeling of hunger suppressed or ignored, you likely have a shorter temper fuse than normal than on a full stomach. This suppressed feeling of hunger make ones "voice" of anger-frustration more at the surface.

Normal people don't call their desire for an ice cream, beer or a smoke an external "voice".

Normal people dropping their trash-pollution where ever they are don't know they are listening to a "voice" of being a selfish animal ( DROP IT HERE). Some other person or animal has to deal with their trash-pollution-poop waste product.

Investigating NAMI was a good place to start but Grassley needs to hone in on all the other drug money laundering front groups as well.

None of them should have non-profit status. Check out their annual reports and see how well paid the leaders of these "non-profits" are.

You can't shame these people. They are addicted to greed. The grant reports of Pfizer and Lilly show NAMI is still receiving massive amounts of money as usual.

The way these front groups are set up is a massive house of cards. The money received from Big Pharma gets funneled from one entity to another, and is traceable through one huge maze.

But it takes an enormous amount of time to get through the maze.

"...provide significant opportunities for more people with schizophrenia to manage their disease as they work with their treatment teams to live more fulfilling and productive lives.'"

What does it mean fulfilling life?
And productive life?

Productive is of course making money but at the moment many people don't have money and are trying hard to make ends meet.

Fulfilling?
Maybe waking up everyday and going to work you hate working with people you despise and having a boss that is a pain is what NAMI understand about "fulfilling" life.
Of course people who live this life spend the week waiting for the weekend and holidays.

I call that foolfilling life.

Great post, and interesting comments. I just want to, again, advance the view that NAMI historically has been a wonderful advocacy group of, by, and for people with mental illnesses. This is still clearly evident at the LOCAL level. To a great extent, NAMI is parents of a person debilitated with a mental illness, or people with a mental illness that have figured out how to manage life with such a chronic illness, and are willing to help and encourage others. when I first joined, the newsletters were cobbled together from whatever local people decied to include, and the newsletters were locally typewritten / xeroxed by a selfless, tireless volunteer. Support came from local professionals and organizations. Historically, Local NAMI chapters have really been home-grown, with some guidance and support from the national organization. The national organization is begin bought-off into this "brain disorder" concept, where the cure will come in the form of a pill. A pill that is under patent, and sold by a corporate donor. These other metnal illness advocacy groups that psring up overnight are usually totally a front for Big Pharma. historically, NAMI is not like that. They are just getting corrupted into that.