“There is no FDA for behavioural health.”

[WarriorN]

”if I want to introduce a therapy I can say standing on your head can cure addiction, come pay me $$$$ a day and there is nothing to stop me.”

I’m watching The Program, a documentary about Ivy Ridge one of many troubled teen boarding schools which were effectively torture and behavioural modification centres for children. It had a cult like approach, especially towards parents who were fooled into sending their children and finding the lifestyle of a few men who made sure the money trail was complicated enough not to be culpable.

This line really stood out to me how much America’s psychiatric industry appears to be able to fool people. Also fooled the Reagans and Princess Diana who visited one.

the correlations with the trans cult are clear, albeit from more liberal social justice roots.

And it seems that the blokes as the top of the money trail gave substantial donations to mainly republican candidates.

https://time.com/6837656/the-program-cons-cults-kidnapping-netflix-documentary-series/

if I want to introduce a therapy I can say standing on your head can cure addiction, come pay me $$$$ a day and there is nothing to stop me

The FDA can’t do anything as they regulate medicines and devices, and not charlatan behavioural therapies, that is true. However, other bodies monitor advertising for health, eg Federal Trade Commision will get you for misleading health claims in advertising. Also if you provide treatment that claims medical benefits without being qualified/registered most State Medical Boards will take action.

I suspect that the people running these institutions were slippery enough to not make the kind of claims, in writing at least, to avoid this kind of federal attention.