LOS ANGELES - TelAve -- By CCHR International

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) has warned that billions of taxpayer dollars poured into Veterans Affairs (VA) psychiatric programs are driving tragedy instead of delivering help. Rather than restoring dignity to those who served, veterans are being drugged, disabled, and too often lost to suicide or violence.

Recent tragedies involving veterans accused of mass shootings have reignited questions about the VA's mental health treatment. Yet, CCHR points out the core issue is not a lack of funding—it is the reliance on psychiatric drugs and brain interventions like electroshock treatment that experts have long warned are harmful.

The suicide of Mark Miller, a 42-year-old Marine veteran, illustrates the betrayal. Only days before his death in April 2025, he was prescribed an antipsychotic. He texted his father that his psychiatrist "did not even listen to my story—just like a robot that hands out poison."

Miller's death is one among more than 6,400 veteran suicides each year. An average of seven suicides per day were among veterans who received Veteran Administration Health (VHA) care in 2021 or 2022, and 10.6 were among other veterans.[1] Despite soaring budgets, in September 2019, VA reported that veterans accounted for 13.5% of all deaths by suicide among U.S. adults in 2017, despite constituting only 7.9% of the adult population.[2]

The VA's mental health budget grew from $3 billion in 2003 to $17 billion in 2025, with nearly $19 billion requested for 2026. Yet outcomes remain grim: suicide-prevention campaigns, record mental health staff hiring (61,490 in 2023), and new initiatives have not stopped the crisis.

In 2023, 2.3 million veterans were prescribed psychotropic drugs, many of which carry warnings of suicide, violence, and sudden death. Instead of healing, they often compound trauma and impair judgment.

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Recent mass shootings by veterans in Michigan and North Carolina have been framed as evidence of underfunding and of lack of treatment. But both men were allegedly substance abusers. One battled methamphetamine abuse—a drug also legally prescribed with known risks of aggression, paranoia, hallucinations, delusional thoughts, psychosis, and violence.

CCHR is urging toxicology testing in all mass violence cases and public release of treatment histories to assess how psychiatric interventions may have played a role.

Concerns are not new. Former military psychologist Dr. Bart Billings, author of Invisible Scars: How to Treat Combat Stress and PTSD Without Medication, condemned reliance on drugs and electroshock: "Mental health cannot be achieved when one is given mind-altering drugs that interfere with cognitive functioning. Any treatment that destroys healthy brain cells, such as electroshock, should be seen as criminal abuse."

Psychotropic drugs are not the only failed treatment. Between 2018 and 2023, the VA spent $170 million on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and other brain interventions for veterans. ECT carries risks of memory loss and brain damage. Administering such procedures to brain-injured veterans is reckless and, as Billings insists, "criminal abuse."

Shirley White lost her son Andrew, a 23-year-old Marine who returned from Iraq in 2007 with insomnia. Prescribed an antipsychotic and antidepressant, he deteriorated quickly and was found dead less than a year later, with a toxic mix of psychotropics in his system.

Airman Anthony Mena died suddenly in 2009 after being prescribed 35 drugs in 18 months. His mother, Pat, said, "Tony didn't die from PTSD; he died from the cocktail of drugs they gave him. None of the drugs helped my son."

High-profile shootings reveal a recurring pattern: psychiatric drug or other treatment often preceded violence.

• 2013: (Texas) – Iraq veteran prescribed antipsychotics and antidepressants. His father said the cocktail made him worse. The vet fatally shot two Navy SEALs, later depicted in the film American Sniper.
• 2014: (Fort Hood, Texas) – Army specialist on a sedative and antidepressants, killed 3, injured 16, then died by suicide.
• 2014: (Pennsylvania) – Iraq veteran under VA care, toxicology test showed an antidepressant and an antipsychotic. Killed 6 family members, then himself—just a week after a VA psychiatrist declared he had no suicidal or homicidal intent.
• 2016: (Baton Rouge, Louisiana) – Marine veteran prescribed sedative hypnotics killed 3 police officers, wounded 3, before being killed.[3]
• 2017: (Sutherland Springs, Texas) – Former Air Force member with a long psychiatric drug history and hospitalization killed 26 and wounded 20 in a church shooting.

Retired Air Force Colonel John A. Henke, a clinical psychologist, observed:

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"Instead of helping veterans recover from war, their pain has been masked with potent drugs. These drugs are feeding addictions and contributing to overdose deaths nearly double the national average among VA patients."[4]

Jan Eastgate, president of CCHR International, stresses that safer, effective alternatives exist—non-drug, non-coercive approaches that address trauma recovery without disabling veterans further. "Yet the VA continues pouring billions into the same failed psychiatric paradigm," Eastgate stated. "Veterans deserve more than mind-altering drug cocktails, electroshock, and false diagnoses. They deserve care that restores dignity, functionality, and hope."

To address these concerns, CCHR, which was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry, Thomas Szasz, produced its documentary Hidden Enemy: Inside Psychiatry's Covert Agenda, which exposes how psychiatric drugs fuel soaring suicide rates and sudden veteran deaths.

Sources:

[1] news.va.gov/137221/va-2024-suicide-prevention-annual-report/

[2] "VETERAN SUICIDE VA Needs Accurate Data and Comprehensive Analyses to Better Understand On Campus Suicides," Government Accountability Office, Sept. 2020

[3] "Baton Rouge shooting: 3 officers dead; shooter was Missouri man, sources say," CNN, 18 Jul 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/07/17/us/batonroutepoliceshooting/; "Gavin Long said he suffered from PTSD, source tells CNN," CNN, 20 Jul 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/07/20/health/gavinlongptsdbatonrouge/

[4] "The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Military Suicides and Sudden Deaths," Health Impact News, 18 May 2014, healthimpactnews.com/2014/the-role-of-psychiatric-drugs-in-military-suicides-and-sudden-deaths/