Thousands of nursing home patients across the US regularly receive strong antipsychotics,
without being properly diagnosed or even informed of the side-effects, to make life easier for overworked staff, a rights monitor has found.
The latest report by Human Rights Watch (HRW),
published Monday, sheds light on disturbing practices thriving in US nursing homes, where thousands of residents are routinely doped up. Every week, more than 179,000 people, mostly the elderly living with dementia, become victims of poor practice, according to the study, titled
"'They Want Docile': How Nursing Homes in the United States Overmedicate People with Dementia."
"The problem here is that medications are being used not to treat a medical condition, but to
control the behavior of residents who are considered difficult to control," acting director of the Health and Human Rights Division at HRW, Diederik Lohman, told RT. I
nstead of investigating the cause of the 'difficult' behavior, staff are often "very quick to start prescribing medications which have a strong sedative effect." They are "basically drugging people into a state when they are constantly sedated," Lohman said, calling it "an abuse of practice and it needs to stop."
Comment: 10 days later, the protests are still going strong. Farmers have created so many roadblocks on highways and national roads that it is difficult to leave some towns and cities, much less the region. Train lines in and out of cities are also blocked.
French farmers have been protesting about the terrible prices they get for their produce for years, but little has changed.
In the meantime, President Macron has hinted that he is willing to consider a complete overhaul of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, something French governments have until now always resisted touching.