“A psychiatrist will train for 12 years before he can comfortably be said to understand mental illness.”

More like comfortably misunderstand mental illness, and instead have fluency in the falsehoods required by the corporatised medical system.

Some of the most characteristic symptoms of chronic mercury vapour poisoning are psychiatric – depression, exciteability, memory loss, attention deficit, fatigue, especially mental fatigue, insomnia, nervousness, pathological shyness, anxiety, etc. Many documents prove this. And yet the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health.Foundation Trust has just declared that mercury poisoning is “highly unlikely to present in a psychiatric setting”.

Did you notice anything odd there?. As a minister said last year, “There certainly hasn’t been a three-fold increase in disability”. Really? Has there certainly been any actual evidence, scientific epidemiological evidence, of this lack of an increase? On the contrary there’s plenty reason to believe that there HAS been a huge increase, caused by the very non-gamma-2 dental amalgam mercury that supposedly has never harmed anyone (thanks to carefully avoiding noticing it anyway).

I think you raise a valid point and undoubtedly mental illness is one scenario where people tend to be let down by everyone, including unions.

I just wanted to add a positive to this though. A friend of mine was unfairly dismissed from his job because of him whistleblowing and because he has OCD. His union (GMB) not only got him his job back, but he now advises his employers on how best to accomodate employees with mental illness.

I’ve just recently got a job and have had to disclose my struggles with my mental health. I am terrified of my appointment with occupational health and what they will say, but at least with a union behind me, I should have some support even if it’s not the strongest. I would rather have some backing and advice than to be completely on my own. I would also encourage other disabled people to join unions for this reason, even when they aren’t perfect they are better than nothing. Perhaps disabled trade unionists need to organise within their unions, if unity is strength then we need to provide a united front within the labour movement, instead of assuming that it can’t offer us the support we need and going it alone.

An Injury to One is an Injury to All

Since I’m reading this at work, I feel I should plug my employer. There is another funding option apart than Legal Aid and Trade Unions – Legal Expenses Insurance. Most LEI policies will cover employment cases like those described, provided there is a 50% or better chance of winning (which is a big if, but not an unreasonable one).
There are certainly problems with LEI, and it’s definitely not a replacement for Legal Aid like the government sometimes suggests (the really vulnerable generally don’t have insurance…), but it is cheap and underappreciated. Many people will have it as part of their home insurance without realising it.

@2 – tell them to fuck off if you’re not happy with the questions, take a friend or a rep

Past experience with low paid women workers doesn’t inspire confidence with unions’ relations with lawyers:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/may/01/stefan-cross-female-pay-birmingham?INTCMP=SRCH

This is one of the great taboo areas that no-one will talk about. Scandalously my own union appears to believe its officers should drop any member who takes independent legal advice to get a second opinion from the union’s lawyer. Union barons don’t like their cosy relations with lawyers being questioned; far left activists – so quick to criticise leaders about anything else – aren’t interested in this because it’s not industrial action.

Mediocrity511 –

We should all be members of a union of sorts. They are us little peoples’ last bastion of protection against the corporate and public bodies we work for. A corporate and a public body were mentioned herein – both are run by people and are thus able to abuse, because management of any kind can be abusive.

I see a weakness in the union support structure so this is why I raised it in a place where positive discussion can take place.

The OP does not say whether the people it describes were diagnosed with the mental health issues cited. It would surprise me to find a union had not effectively represented someone with such a health statement. I think there is more to this than the article has stated.

@ Johnathan

So you think it’s ok for a union to pay for legal representation for someone who has decided they can afford to pay for their own lawyer?

And if you’re going to make allegations of improper relationships between unions and their lawyers you had better have some facts to back them up.

Cherub

The woman quoted was dropped for the cost. She has PTSD, and requested under the Disability Discrimination Act she be removed from the premises where the bullying occurred.

The other had Bipolar Disorder and was sacked in a redundancy round of one. They made allegations as to her behaviour which were patently false, and witnesses were ready to prove that these incidents did not take place. She had been there for 20 years – a senior employee. The union’s lawyers only offered a settlement and refused to fight it in court.

I understand that unions can’t afford certain cases. We as a movement aren’t as big as we were in the 1960’s. This is why I suggested the TUC set up some sort of insurance policy for costly employment cases.

Cherub,

So you think it’s ok for a union to pay for legal representation for someone who has decided they can afford to pay for their own lawyer?

I didn’t think unions were into means testing? Surely the point of union membership should be that they protect all members, in whatever circumstances (so that a teaching union might have to represent someone who probably did hit a child, and is very well paid, or whatever…). If the unions start to select who they represent, they are no longer representing the workers but merely the chosen few…

@9 Watchman

I can only tell you about Unison. They have a policy of withdrawing legal support in some cases where people have employed their own solicitors. There is usually some discretion as to whether they do. Bear in mind that your average high street solicitor is unlikely to have the experience of Thompsons in employment law. I vaguely recall the policy was requested by Thompsons, but I may be mistaken.

@8 Richard

Apologies, I missed the reference in the OP to diagnosis.

Your point about funding the kind of cases you describe is interesting. I know that in Unison there are branches sitting on huge pots of cash, guarded jealously by branch treasurers who seem unaware that it’s members’ money. It’s a big issue when regional and national funding is stretched. (I have heard estimates that as much as £50m may be horded away).

Cases should not be dropped for lack of funding if branches have so much money. It needs to be used! Because members are often unaware or uninvolved then branches are not held to account on these sorts of matters.

@10 Cherub,

It seems a bit odd that the union will allow the solicitors they instruct to run a closed shop – there seems to be no harm in allowing members to get alternative (less expert) legal advice, because the union has no obligation to do anything their appointed solicitors do not do.

@12 Watchman

I’m not sure why they do it. If money is tight it’s not unreasonable to say say that someone who has decided they have enough money to pay their own solicitor does not need union funded ones, perhaps? Full time union staff are pretty stretched too. Once third-party solicitors are involved there can be a lot of time wasting when a single call to Thompsons can help a case quickly.

@1

You’re selectively citing the symptoms of Mercury poisoning and insinuating that these symptoms occur separately and therefore explain increased prevalence of mental illness. Mercury poisoning when it happens is not so hard to spot; the symptoms you deliberately left off include bleeding gums, skin discolouration, swelling, peeling, hair falling out, kidney failure and it would be almost impossible for a pregnant woman poisoned by Mercury to carry a child to term without significant malformations yet no one has spotted an unusually high incidence of such things in mentally ill females.

Regarding ministers of the DWP, and it was probably Chris Grayling, Maria Miller or Iain Duncan-Smith who said a three-fold increase in disability was impossible; they’ve been corrected numerous times on this and failed to acknowledge. Disability benefits give people independence so they don’t have to be in care homes or institutions; as people have been pushed out of psychiatric wards, they’ve been encouraged to claim DLA so that the Care in The Community policy had its best chance of working. It’s the rise in DLA which is the basis of the claim about increased disability prevalence being unbelievable. Alongside pensioners who should be claiming Attendance Allowance being fed onto DLA, the Tories own policy caused DLA to rise and now they’re playing ignorant.

Hi, Mason Dixie, Thanks for your comments on my opening comment here. It seems we agree on a main point, namely that the rise in disability claims is not properly attributable to an increase in “workshy” scroungers or “lifestyle” claimants. And good to see that graph on your website.

But I think I can add a bit more to your expertise there.

Firstly, I saw that graph in the Harrington (and elsewhere) but there’s an important rather different one contained in the internal policy document
pathways-presentation.pdf which I found on the DWP website. This latter is confined to the LONG-term disability claims for SDA and IB, and so cuts out the constant level of “noise” of things like people temporarily breaking a leg or stressing out. It shows a much more marked increase. The same document also says “caseload now controlled” which is of course Bureauspeak for “millions of hopelessly disabled people quietly left to die of starvation”. Even ignoring that cutoff, there’s a threefold increase. It exactly coincides with the 10-fold increase of autism throughout the capitalist world. And also a threefold increase of depression in Finland (and sod knows how much else, I haven’t got a grant to research this full time!).

I have a lot more info on this but can’t put it all here now.

Your comments replying about mercury poisoning are totally mistaken. There is not one thing that is “mercury poisoning”. I was talking specifically about chronic, vapour, in adults (and separately causing autism in children).
I’ll continue in a following post here.

Continuing my reply to Mason Dixie…

Your comments replying about mercury poisoning are totally mistaken. There is not one thing that is “mercury poisoning”. I was talking specifically about chronic, vapour, in adults (and separately causing autism in children).

“You’re selectively citing the symptoms of Mercury poisoning”

But I specifically said “Some of the most characteristic symptoms of chronic mercury vapour poisoning are psychiatric….”. You have failed to show any evidence to the contrary, not surprising as everyone with any competence in the subject knows this to be very true. See for instance:
a) “References documenting symptoms to mercury exposure” published by the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, http://www.iaomt.org ; the first seven in their list are:
irritability, anxiety/nervousness, loss of memory, inability to concentrate, lethargy/drowsiness, insomnia, mental depression/ despondency/withdrawal; plus 12: decline of intellect, 13: loss of self-confidence, .
b) Mats Hanson “Effects of Amalgam Removal on Health; 25 studies comprising 5821 patients” lists the main removal findings as (in no particular order) “fatigue, anxiety/depression, muscle pains, headache, concentration problems, joint problems, metal taste, mouth symptoms, vertigo/dizziness, gastrointestinal problems, memory disturbances, problems with sight, irritability, sleep disturbances, heart problems, skin problems, allergies, problems with hearing, numbness, infection-prone.
c) That metareview by Hanson is more fully discussed in my xxx along with three later studies cited there.
d) Extensive further documentation of causation of these same symptoms can be seen in excerpts here appended from http://www.flcv.com/depress.html and http://www.flcv.com/amalg6.html.

“and insinuating that these symptoms occur separately”

I insinuated nothing of the kind. Most amalgam illness involves multiple symptoms, but is very variable in presentation. Some people just get cancer or heart disease and are then cured by amalgam removal. So much for placebo effect.

“Mercury poisoning when it happens is not so hard to spot;

Then you’d better tell Andrew Hall Cutler, and numerous other actual experts about your great talent for spotting it. In reality there is no clear diagnostic means and it’s very rarely correctly diagnosed. And not easily done even when willing to (which the NHS are determined not to at all costs anyway).

“the symptoms you deliberately left off include bleeding gums, skin discolouration, swelling, peeling, hair falling out, kidney failure”

See all the above re this needlessly offensive falsehood of yours.
Please also see the commenting guidelines. I advise you particularly not to presumptiously attribute “deliberate” unworthy motives and “insinuations” to others here.

Many thousands of people who have recovered from major psychiatric etc problems following amalgam removal have not had any of these symptoms in particular. Check out the numerous refs please such as Mats Hanson, Lichtenberg, and the heshamelessawy channel on youtube.

“and it would be almost impossible for a pregnant woman poisoned by Mercury to carry a child to term without significant malformations yet no one has spotted an unusually high incidence of such things in mentally ill females.”

But I never said anything about pregnant women being poisoned by mercury. The increase of autism has been caused by post-natal inhalation by the baby of merc vapour breathed out by the mother. Again this isn’t the space to go into the full details of the matter.

Adult women poisoned by amalgam illness are firstly generally too ill (and impoverished) to be wanting to become pregnant anyway. And they tend to find the merc makes them infertile. Numerous women have found they surprisingly became pregnant ONLY some months after amalgam removal and detox.
You don’t have a contact address on your profile-linked blog. Not everything can be communicated via comments.
http://www.autismcauses.info

Continuing my reply to Mason Dixie…

Your comments replying about mercury poisoning are totally mistaken. There is not one thing that is “mercury poisoning”. I was talking specifically about chronic, vapour, in adults (and separately causing autism in children).

“You’re selectively citing the symptoms of Mercury poisoning”

But I specifically said “Some of the most characteristic symptoms of chronic mercury vapour poisoning are psychiatric….”. You have failed to show any evidence to the contrary, not surprising as everyone with any competence in the subject knows this to be very true. See for instance:
a) “References documenting symptoms to mercury exposure” published by the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology, http://www.iaomt.org ; the first seven in their list are:
irritability, anxiety/nervousness, loss of memory, inability to concentrate, lethargy/drowsiness, insomnia, mental depression/ despondency/withdrawal; plus 12: decline of intellect, 13: loss of self-confidence, .
b) Mats Hanson “Effects of Amalgam Removal on Health; 25 studies comprising 5821 patients” lists the main removal findings as (in no particular order) “fatigue, anxiety/depression, muscle pains, headache, concentration problems, joint problems, metal taste, mouth symptoms, vertigo/dizziness, gastrointestinal problems, memory disturbances, problems with sight, irritability, sleep disturbances, heart problems, skin problems, allergies, problems with hearing, numbness, infection-prone.
c) That metareview by Hanson is more fully discussed in my xxx along with three later studies cited there.
d) Extensive further documentation of causation of these same symptoms can be seen in excerpts here appended from http://www.flcv.com/depress.html and http://www.flcv.com/amalg6.html.

“and insinuating that these symptoms occur separately”

I insinuated nothing of the kind. Most amalgam illness involves multiple symptoms, but is very variable in presentation. Some people just get cancer or heart disease and are then cured by amalgam removal. So much for placebo effect.

“Mercury poisoning when it happens is not so hard to spot;

Then you’d better tell Andrew Hall Cutler, and numerous other actual experts about your great talent for spotting it. In reality there is no clear diagnostic means and it’s very rarely correctly diagnosed. And not easily done even when willing to (which the NHS are determined not to at all costs anyway).

“the symptoms you deliberately left off include bleeding gums, skin discolouration, swelling, peeling, hair falling out, kidney failure”

See all the above re this needlessly offensive falsehood of yours.
Please also see the commenting guidelines. I advise you particularly not to presumptiously attribute “deliberate” unworthy motives and “insinuations” to others here.

Many thousands of people who have recovered from major psychiatric etc problems following amalgam removal have not had any of these symptoms in particular. Check out the numerous refs please such as Mats Hanson, Lichtenberg, and the heshamelessawy channel on youtube.

“and it would be almost impossible for a pregnant woman poisoned by Mercury to carry a child to term without significant malformations yet no one has spotted an unusually high incidence of such things in mentally ill females.”

But I never said anything about pregnant women being poisoned by mercury. The increase of autism has been caused by post-natal inhalation by the baby of merc vapour breathed out by the mother. Again this isn’t the space to go into the full details of the matter.

Adult women poisoned by amalgam illness are firstly generally too ill (and impoverished) to be wanting to become pregnant anyway. And they tend to find the merc makes them infertile. Numerous women have found they surprisingly became pregnant only some months after amalgam removal and detox.
You don’t have a contact address on your profile-linked blog. Not everything can be communicated via comments.

..continuing reply to mason dixie….

Your other point about people being dumped out of institutions into “care in the community” could indeed account for an increase of DLA claims. But that graph I cite (and yours too ) is not about DLA but about specific disability claims. But then again, perhaps that could increase due to the Thatcher’s community care policy. But what are the figures of how great such an increase would he? Surely nothing like the several millions in the pathways-presentation graph. Meanwhile the data fits perfectly with that introduction of a massive new source of merc vapour in the 1970s. Which explains why the NHS/DH and international capitalism/corporatism is so massively pervaded by denialism and lysenkoist pseudoscience about the whole subject of mercury poisoning.

“and it would be almost impossible for a pregnant woman poisoned by Mercury to carry a child to term without significant malformations”

On what evidence? Faith in your famed expertise in the subject?

“yet no one has spotted an unusually high incidence of such things in mentally ill females.”

Even if that could prove anything, again what evidence? Has anyone spotted a LACK of unusually high incidence? In my experience this “no-one” is often cited but never actually named and in reality is just a lazy media myth and is anyway well-established as failing to spot all manner of the most glaring of elephants standing in corners of rooms, especially those that are commercially/professionally embarrassing such as medic-caused disabilities. I note that your personal blog silently disappears thoughtful comments that aren’t mindlessly flattering. A pathetic misleader.

ermm… just me who thinks this debate re:mercury/autism is a little off-topic?

Mr S. Pill asks (apparently perfectly reasonably haha!):
“ermm… just me who thinks this debate re:mercury/autism is a little off-topic?”

Wouldn’t you say that the ACTUAL CAUSE of the increase in disability claims would be far from off-topic but absolutely on topic? And if (as the evidence strongly indicates) that cause of the actual increase has been the 40-times more toxic levels of mercury vapour from the non-gamma-2 dental amalgams introduced as standard from 1976 with absolutely no safety testing before or after, that wouldn’t be absolutely on topic?

And if the exactly concurrent tenfold increase of autism also happened to be clearly proven to be caused by exactly those same non-gamma-2 dental amalgams, then the mercury/autism connection would be VERY far from off-topic.

That is, of course, unless you prefer to confine your interests to the purely political aspects of matters and ignore the science which actually makes such things happen (or not as the case may be)! As in the discovery of nuclear chain reactions being off-topic from any discussion of ww2….

My experience would suggest this may be true of disability claims in general, not simply mental health related claims, and may be a problem stretching through the entire chain of union support for disability related claims, not simply manifesting at the final, legal, stage. My claim was entirely based on physical disability, yet I ran into distinct problems with on-site representation and as a result of that my claim was significantly weakened.

My on-site rep was always ready to sit beside me in meetings, even to speak on my behalf when the pressure from management became too much for me to do that on my own, but every time I suggested to him (on the advice of EHRC amongst others), that we needed to involve a regional or national officer with experience of disability/human rights law he had some excuse why it could not happen – up to and including cancelling a meeting that I had arranged. Very late in the day I discovered that there was an agreement in place between local reps and my then employers that the local reps would not involve outside officers. This might have been workable in many cases, but in a case where I was having to tell the local reps what my rights were it was clearly inadequate. As a result of this I didn’t get support from the regional reps until I was able to go direct to them after my redundancy (and the regional rep I dealt with was excellent), however by that time my case was so weakened that the union solicitor would only support me in seeking a settlement.

Disability employment law is highly specialised and many, if not most, on-site union reps will not have the knowledge and experience to deal with a case adequately. They need to have training in how to deal with such cases, including mandatory guidance that such cases are referred at the earliest possible moment (due to the strict time constraints on tribunal claims) for review by someone with adequate knowledge to advise on whether they can proceed locally, or whether they need professional support from the earliest stages.

What David G refers to came to light in the second case mentioned. I got involved because the branch officers were making a hash of it. As someone who knew her from time in another secure psych unit (I was visiting someone else and befriended her) I felt I could intercede in some way.

She was so far off her head we really needed a mental health specialist from London to get involved. I couldn’t handle her even though much of my world at one point WAS people like her.

London was involved at arm’s length but a lot more work needs to be done in dealing with mentally distressed people – at national level so there is a trouble shooter who can parachute in to specific incidents. I’d suggest people look at http://www.mhfaengland.org to consider Mental Health First Aid training. While this wouldn’t be of direct use visiting someone in a psychiatric intensive care unit (with highly trained nurses dealing with the treatment) it would give tools in communication with someone who is high, and perhaps make inroads into dealing with their case that even a hardened schizo could not do.

“I would also make a suggestion as to trades unions’ (TUs) defence. A psychiatrist will train for 12 years before he can comfortably be said to understand mental illness. A lawyer may train and learn for a similar period in law before they can call themselves expert in law. And yet lawyers are asked to dip into mental health, get a grip with the basic issues, and defend a case with nowhere near the expertise.”

A workplace TU rep or a FTO will have no training when it comes to mental health issues and will not have an oppurtunity to be trained considering their workloads. I think this is a problem and I cannot see how it will be overcome.