In early December, we delivered a petition signed by over 3,500 of you to Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton, calling for an investigation of the death of Dan Markingson in a University of Minnesota psychiatric research study. That same week, the Faculty Senate at the university also overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for an investigation.
Yet four months later, we still have seen no results. The president of the university, Eric Kaler, has indicated publicly that any review he commissions will not include any investigation of Dan Markingson’s death. Governor Dayton has not even acknowledged our petition.
In the meantime, evidence is accumulating that Dan Markingson was not the only patient who died or was seriously injured in psychiatric research studies at the university. Two investigative news reports have appeared with evidence of misconduct involving other patients. A confidential memo has emerged indicating that the Institutional Review Board was aware of ethical problems with psychiatric research at the University in 2009, and that it was concerned enough to request an external investigation. And for over six months, the university has stonewalled our open records requests for reports of deaths and serious injuries in psychiatric research studies.
So we need your help. We are organizing a series of actions beginning with a call-in campaign to Governor Mark Dayton and University of Minnesota Board of Regents Chairman Richard Beeson. We are asking you to call the offices of Dayton and Beeson and leave a message asking for action. Here are phone numbers (and if you need it, a suggested script for your call.)
Please make your voice heard. And let us know that you called by leaving a comment below.
Thanks,
Carl Elliott
***
Richard Beeson
Office of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents
Phone: 612-625-6300
612-625-6300
Suggested script:
My name is ___ and I am calling to leave a message for Board of Regents Regent Chair Richard Beeson.
I am alarmed by the ongoing news about research abuses against mentally ill patients in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Psychiatry. I am especially disturbed by the misleading and deceptive statements issued by University of Minnesota officials, including the claims that these research abuses have already been investigated.
I am calling to ask the Board of Regents to take action to answer two questions.
1) How many research subjects have died or been seriously injured in psychiatric research studies at the university since the current Chair of Psychiatry, Dr. Charles Schulz, was appointed in 1999?
2) Why is President Eric Kaler refusing to investigate the suicide of Dan Markingson?
The Board of Regents has an obligation to make this information publicly available. Please contact me at the following number:
***
Gov. Mark Dayton
Phone 651-201-3437651-201-3437
Toll Free: 800-657-3717800-657-3717
Suggest script:
My name is ___ and I am calling to leave a message for Gov. Mark Dayton.
I am alarmed by the ongoing news about research abuses against mentally ill patients in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Psychiatry. I am especially disturbed by the refusal of President Eric Kaler to investigate the suicide of Dan Markingson, despite a Faculty Senate resolution calling for an investigation. I believe it is the responsibility of Governor Dayton to ensure the protection of vulnerable, mentally ill patients at a state university.
I am asking Governor Dayton to respond to the petition calling for an investigation of the death of Dan Markingson that was delivered to him four months ago. In addition, Governor Dayton should demand that the University of Minnesota make publicly available the number research subjects that have died or been seriously injured in psychiatric research studies since the current Chair of Psychiatry, Dr. Charles Schulz, was appointed in 1999.
Please contact me at the following number:
Investigate the Death of Dan Markingson 
I have made the calls and left the messages. Even as far away as New Zealand, we follow this case with concern.
Annemarie Jutel
Annemarie, Thank you very much for calling. We really appreciate it.
Carl
kia kaha e hoa!
Hi, I was a patient at Massachusetts General Hospital outpatient psychiatry clinic for years. I thought my psychiatrist (whom I won’t name here and have never named publicly, only by initial) was “great.” However, it was a compromise from day one even though I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Her “assembly line” style of care bugged me, for one thing. Gradually, it got more that way. In-and-out. More and more about the drugs and less about caring, never listening. These appointments were few and far between, lasting sometimes ten minutes. A phone call (I’d get out my watch, as this was getting to be a joke) 15 seconds. Everything became computerized. She’d write down my exact words. Any disagreement and she’d go back and find what I’d said. This frightened me, actually. I’d feel interrogated and I began to fear these appointments.
In 2008 I was raped. She ignored this. It didn’t register with her. She couldn’t give me a pill for rape, I guess, so she had nothing to say and brushed it aside, poo-pooed it like it was nothing. Her overemphasis on drugs was making less and less logical sense to me.
When I ran into difficulties with psychotherapists, she never advocated for me. I told her I’d been abused. By law, she should have reported this. Instead, she insisted that I take her drugs and shut up about the abuse. She said, “I’m giving you these drugs to stop you from writing.” Note: I have a master’s degree in creative writing that I earned in 2009.
I fired her in 2013. I had to. What was turning into forced drugging was getting too scary. I am still traumatized. I live in fear.
However, she wasn’t perfect, and her own records were slipshod and sloppy, merely because she was human. So she’d write down the wrong information often, and her records couldn’t be relied on because she wouldn’t record the drugs accurately. I only found this out later on. I wondered why, when asked, she seemed to know so little about what drugs I was on, and the papers I’d receive in the waiting room had the wrong drugs listed that I hadn’t been on for years.
I also recently put two and two together. I looked up her research studies a few weeks ago. Anyone can do this with a simple search using her name. She did studies together with a few other doctors who worked there. These were studies that “proved” certain psychoactive drugs were “safe” for pregnant and nursing women.
I now have reason to believe that patients who go to the outpatient clinic are all pooled as data. We aren’t really given “care” at that clinic at all. Sure, patients get drugs. That’s not care. My doctor had over 100 patients. She told me once that she loved her job. She gave out drugs, then wrote down how “happy” we were on them. Sure, I know I didn’t actually see some dude wearing a shirt that said, “Big Pharma” on it hand her a big check. But she loved her job, didn’t she?
My motto: “Never, ever shut up.”
Julie Greene
Manipulated research data; refusal to disclose medical records by the University of Minnesota’s Department of Psychiatry and President Eric Kaler’s refusal to investigate the suicide of Dan Markingson, an anticipated result of a drug clinical trial, must be exposed.
Failure to investigate ethical violations and financial conflicts of interests results in complicity in this injustice. Gaining a bogus informed consent form from a desperate person without capacity to consent is a reflection of a failed research design.
Hiding facts will eventually be seen as an admission of neglect or purposeful disregard for the health of research subjects. The facts will come out and those responsible will be exposed.
Bernard W. Freedman JD, MPH
Attorney and clinical bioethicist.
Mr. Freedman, I hope you are right. Thanks for weighing in.
I made my calls to both Gov. Dayton and Richard Beeson. Thank you for providing a way to get the public involved in bringing justice to this important case.
Great, thanks Mo. We really appreciate it.
Hi:
I just called Governor Dayton’s office. Fingers crossed.
Warm regards from tobacco road,
Misha
Great, thanks Misha.
Thanks, Misha, for representing the North Carolina contingent.
I made both calls – thanks for leading this effort!
Thanks, Emily. I think you may have made the very first call.
I made the calls to both the Bd. of Regents and the Governor. Actually got to talk to a real person at the governor’s office after the message taking device didn’t work the first time. Hope it has some effect but I wouldn’t be too hopeful. I informed them that I was both a UMN graduate and a practicing clinical psychologist for over 40 years – maybe they will worry about losing estate donations from their graduates (Ha!). The proof copy of my book “Presumed Crazy: A Fisherman Gets Entangled in the Mental Health Gulag,” about a MN resident, is on the way and will be published through CreateSpace/Amazon shortly.
Excellent. And thanks for mentioning that you got a live humanoid at Dayton’s office. I hope others are not shocked when they don’t get an answering machine.
Made both calls today. Thank you to everyone for your efforts!
Hey, thanks for doing this.
Board of Regents Meeting May 8-9 is closed to the public. We have to gather in solidarity outside McNamara Alumni Center. Act locally Think globally have been following The Cochrane Collaboration. Contact timnolan7@gmail.com follow Angel of Mercy (Big Pharma) http://newsboy407.blogspot.com/
I got a real person at the Board of Regents office who was friendly and took my message, I left my number and asked for a call back. Left a voicemail at the Governor’s office.
http://news.med.umn.edu/content/psychiatry-head-receive-major-award
Psychiatry head to receive major award
Published by Sarah Hansen on Mon, 04/15/2013 – 08:19
S. Charles Schulz, M.D., head of the Department of Psychiatry, will receive the esteemed Stanley Dean Award for Research in Schizophrenia in 2014. For more than 50 years, The American College of Psychiatrists (ACP) has issued this award to “a group or individual that has made a major contribution to the treatment of schizophrenic disorders.”
….
Done! Hard to believe how recalcitrant this gang is. Thank you all for not giving up on this important case!
The University of Minnesota has a large, expensive, new, football stadium. When it was made known that selling booze could net the school some money, the big shots pretended to hold a series of discussions about how drunk the kids might get, and then caved. TCF Bank Stadium now sells booze to college kids while they watch games.
What do you think might be going on between some drug company lawyers, and some research doctors, with the blessings of one of their favorite judges, or justices, relative to court ordered drug use by sick depressed people.
Might money be driving this wagon train of wicked professionals? A fancy lawyer told me that I would never get professionals to talk about each other. Oh really? Watch them talk now sir.
I called both. I reached a person at the Regents and told her that I am very concerned that the UMN President is treating our call for an independent investigation as if we are looking to order paper for the copiers. I asked that a true independent investigation be launched. I mentioned that I am a donor to UMN — that I donated $500 in honor of Sally Gregory Kohlstedt about a year ago — and that I will make no further donations until an independent investigation is conducted in a transparent and complete fashion.
I also left a message at the Governor’s number saying that I am extremely concerned about what is going on at UMN and asking them to call me back.
In both instances I gave my title and medical school affiliation.
The President’s lack of shame here is pretty breathtaking.
An interesting photo was taken in the Whitehouse with Alice Wicks Olson and President Gerald Ford. Olson was at the Whitehouse to receive a government check as a payoff for the death of her husband, Dr. Frank Olson.
It seems clear that Dr. Olson had been an unwitting participant in a drug test being conducted by some of his coworkers at the cia. The drug was not an anti depressant. In fact we still don’t know just exactly what this drug is used for. The drug is known as LSD. LSD is described with words such as, extreme, and altered perceptions of reality, paranoia, among others. Dr. Frank Olson was dead shortly after his LSD experience, so we must view his case, like the Markingson case as a failure, and proceed from there.
I have made several inquires with the administration at the University of Minnesota about various doctors who were involved in “testing” where consent was questionable. At this time, April 20, 2014, I have received nothing from anyone about the test problems, or the deaths of my father and infant brothers. My requests for simple information about doctors from foreign countries and their employment dates have been ignored.
Although the Markingson case is before us now, do not begin to imagine that this is a unique case. Many unexplained deaths have nobody to carry them forth. They are forgotten.
I believe the lawyers and their tricky word play will eventually reverse. The massive debt owed to the victims and families by hospitals, doctors, universities, drug companies and governments can never be compensated. The punitive damages alone would exceed the ability by any of the various entities to pay what the owe.
I have described the Markingson and other cases in terms of criminal law. I have considered the statutes that may be used in the event of a Grand Jury, but it does not end there.
The Markingson case and others are really bankruptcy cases, yet to be filed. Yes, the exposure here is so large, and the defendants are so numerous, if the truth came fully to light, which it won’t, the result would be the bankruptcy of the United States of America.
Money and power have taken over, where ethics and decency are gone, at least for the
time being. “Cheat on your taxes, don’t be a fool. What was that they said about the Golden Rule?”
An interesting photo was taken in the Whitehouse with Alice Wicks Olson and President Gerald Ford. Olson was at the Whitehouse to receive a government check as a payoff for the death of her husband, Dr. Frank Olson.
It seems clear that Dr. Olson had been an unwitting participant in a drug test being conducted by some of his coworkers at the cia. The drug was not an anti depressant. In fact we still don’t know just exactly what this drug is used for. The drug is known as LSD. LSD is described with words such as, extreme, and altered perceptions of reality, paranoia, among others. Dr. Frank Olson was dead shortly after his LSD experience, so we must view his case, like the Markingson case as a failure, and proceed from there.
I have made several inquires with the administration at the University of Minnesota about various doctors who were involved in “testing” where consent was questionable. At this time, April 20, 2014, I have received nothing from anyone about the test problems, or the deaths of my father and infant brothers. My requests for simple information about doctors from foreign countries and their employment dates have been ignored.
Although the Markingson case is before us now, do not begin to imagine that this is a unique case. Many unexplained deaths have nobody to carry them forth. They are forgotten.
I believe the lawyers and their tricky word play will eventually reverse. The massive debt owed to the victims and families by hospitals, doctors, universities, drug companies and governments can never be compensated. The punitive damages alone would exceed the ability by any of the various entities to pay what they owe.
I have described the Markingson and other cases in terms of criminal law. I have considered the statutes that may be used in the event of a Grand Jury, but it does not end there.
The Markingson case and others are really bankruptcy cases, yet to be filed. Yes, the exposure here is so large, and the defendants are so numerous, if the truth came fully to light, which it won’t, the result would be the bankruptcy of the United States of America.
Money and power have taken over, where ethics and decency are gone, at least for the
time being.
“Cheat on your taxes, don’t be a fool. What was that they said about the Golden Rule?”
That remeinds me of the “radiation” experiments conducted in Minneapolis back in the ’50s and ’60s. Someone put dispersing devices on top of buildings in the city (including grade schools) to test how radiation dispersed in urban areas. I’ll see if I can find my notes on those tests. I don’t know if UMN had anything to do with it but I wouldn’t be surprised.
There was activity around E Lake st and Chicago, W Lake and Lyndale, 26th and Hennepin, and Mount Sinai Hospital at 24th and Chicago.
Minneapolis had a “Manchurian” program in those days with off shoots of Project Monarch and MKUltra.
How do I know? I was there, up close and personal.
I would be very interested in speaking with one Dr. Rafael Carmena. Mr. Detrick, whose office was around Elliot and E Lake remains a mystery man who I want to meet, again.
Thankyou for the interest.
Tom
When Research Subjects Die: The Death of Dan Markingson
Presentation on Psychiatric Research Abuse by Dr. Carl Elliott, Center for Bioethics, and Panel Discussion by Victims of Research Misconduct at the University of Minnesota.Mark on your calender plan on attending. Friday April 25. >link event details<
https://www.facebook.com/events/237089983081298/