Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging (2008)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Brilliant and touching

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I'm really at odds with myself about this documentary. On the one hand it really points out how irresponsible the pharma lobbies uses it's power to exploit the people. On the other hand does it downplay the actual mental problems people have (e.g. there is no such thing as a bipolar disorder and depression- everyone has it sometimes...). Most disappointing is the sensational style of the documentation. You wouldn't have needed all these visual and audible effects to reach the audience. In the end I'm none the wiser. That's very unfortunate because this topic really needs to be illuminated so that treatments focus on nutrition, therapy (e.g. psycho- therapy) and systemic approaches (e.g. analyzing social patterns)

This is a hugely relevant documentary considering the vampiric nature of our modern health care industry in the USA that leaves 45,000 citizens dead annually, and 50 million plus without any care at all, not to mention the tens of millions more who are unlucky enough to be paying health insurance as not part of a large business plan (b/c they can be dropped for any reason). This film reminds me of SICKO by Michael Moore. OK, before I go further, yes, the voice of the video is like on Discovery Channel, you know, dramatic and exaggerating, and they do repeat information like a sneaky Goebbels technique, and do not present the other side - that maybe in some cases drugs can be effective and that in some cases they might help ease the pain in a divorce or trauma for a short time, which I believe is true. However, having been said, I totally agree with this film's guests that psychiatrists engage in unethical behavior on a routine basis in order to make money. Duh! Everyone knows that the medical industry has been swallowed hook line and sinker by pay- to-play industry. This documentary also touches on how the DSM IV (now IV+) pathologizes almost every possible thing a human being can experience, and how it is used as a drug-dealers best friend to get paid by insurance companies. This is TRUE, in my view, from watching the film. It's even more true now that BIG Pharma and Insurance hold a literal death grip on the nation's health insurance reform. I've read all the reviews here and can say that I'm still not convinced that they actually deal with the criticisms presented in this film, but just use bad names against it - "boring", "ditsy Scientology rant", "repetitious", "awful science and pure propaganda", and others. I'm a skeptic of Scientology, but now I know one reason why Tom Cruise loves it and has remained faithful to it. FYI, I'm NOT a Scientologist, but a professor of English and longtime practitioner of Nonviolent Communication. This film has a huge number of psychiatrists, consumer advocates, and people and children affected by psychiatric drugs. I've known for decades the relationship between psychiatry and legal drug pushing; since the crusades eliminating the midwives and public medical systems of women healers, this is a long, long history. For more info, see Coercion as Cure: A Critical History of Psychiatry by Thomas Szasz (a psychiatrist for over fifty years). There are many more books on this subject that are very well researched. He's on Amazon.com and Youtube, too. There's a great book too, by Ph.D. Jeffrey A. Schaler defending Szasz, in his book, Szasz Under Fire: The Psychiatric Abolitionist Faces His Critics - overwhelmingly positive five star reviews. I HIGHLY recommend ALL psychiatrists reading this to buy and read both books.Some mentioned University of Texas bioethicist Dr. Howard Brody as not being against the big pharma industry, but he's STILL talking about the "dark side of medicine" in this debate last Sept, 2010. Just Google his name. Also, clearly from a cursory review of the CCHR, this group believes psychiatry is bad and has no good side, which I believe is short-sighted. Sometimes drugs can help someone cope with extreme mental states, but there are other therapies which can replace the drugs to help them get off them as soon as possible. The fact that psychiatrists 99% of the time tend to overlook these and only deal with drugs as a remedy, is a total tragedy and an outrage!!! Shame on you as a profession! I won't even touch on the use of psychiatrists in torture in Iraq and Guantanamo, which the movie didn't touch on because it was made earlier. Thank you for bringing this to most people's attention and allowing this documentary to be viewed for free! Obviously, the field is open for other documentarians to portray this issue in a more objective way, and with less propagandistic methods, which in the end, is much more convincing to those with the power to do something. Blessings and well wishes to all!

My state representatives received this DVD in the mail. I viewed it with one of them. This "documentary," made by one of the Church of Scientology's front organizations, is a boring, repetitious, and bizarre mix of highly selective information, rapid-fire mini-sound bites from people in the street repeating short phrases or single words (e.g. "bipolar" "Zoloft"), "experts" opinions, and ominously-colored and flashing graphs and numbers (e.g. millions of dollars) with portentous-sounding voice-overs. The message is that psychiatry is a mercenary hoax threatening everyone and that psychiatric medications have no good effects and kill lots of people. Since the film provides no research supporting claims made in the film and the "experts'" credentials — and even, in many cases, their actual positions regarding psychiatry — seemed dubious, I looked for facts online. I was saved considerable time because someone else had already checked all the presenters that could be found and had written them asking if they were aware of the nature of the film they appeared in, providing them with the minutes where their comments appeared so that they could check to see what was included in the film. Some seem to have responded. I found an extensive article by University of Texas bioethicist Dr. Howard Brody who appears often in the film. In his article he expresses his positive opinion of psychiatry and psychotropic medication and presents a clear and careful analysis of the entire film. I can't include the URL but it isn't hard to find. I also found a statement by a state representative from another state about how he narrowly escaped publicly endorsing Scientology's anti-psychiatry position, explaining, "They misled me." (not by this film, however). There may be a good documentary somewhere about the very real problems with the pharmaceutical industry: the profiteering, the way they advertise, conflicts of interest by professionals, etc., — but this isn't it. This video merely promotes Dr. Thomas Szasz's incorrect ideas from his half-century old book in complete ignorance of facts and sound subsequent research.

This documentary is one of the most important documentaries to protect yourself, your family, and others about the extreme dangers of the pseudoscience fraud of psychiatry and psychology. If you want to learn about psychiatry and psychology and its extreme dangers, this documentary is extremely important and will give you all the facts you need. We live in a world today of psychiatrists having power to drug and abuse every person on the planet and make them a patient for life for profit. This documentary will tell you the facts and truths about psychiatry and psychology and how to avoid this dangerous pseudoscience fraud so you can protect yourself and your family and never become a victim of this dangerous cult. I applaud CCHR and Scientology for making this documentary and teaching the world about the truths and facts of the great fraud of psychiatry and psychology. This documentary along with "Psychiatry An Industry Of Death" saved my life from taking dangerous, toxic, mind altering drugs that are not cures. I am now off these toxic poisons after 18 years of use and feel much better. I never knew it was the psychiatric drugs causing all of my physical and psychological problems and illnesses. I was brainwashed and tricked by psychiatrists and the system that the sickly feelings i had was from my so called "underlying" so called "mental illness". Now that i'm off the drugs and thanks to this documentary i feel better and have distanced myself from psychiatrists and psychologists forever. I thank CCHR and Scientology for telling me the truth and facts about the great scam of psychiatry and psychology and they saved my life. Don't fall for what psychiatrists and psychologists tell you. All their diseases are invented and made up!.(Highly Recommended Documentary!) Thanks CCHR!!