Anti-Psychiatry Scientologist Catherine Bell is Thyroid Cancer Survivors Association (ThyCa) Celebrity Spokesperson

The Thyroid Cancer Survivors Association (ThyCa) has produced a patient informational brochure featuring as their spokesperson Catherine Bell (actress/model and former star of "JAG"), who is a thyroid cancer survivor. Surprisingly, however, Bell is also a very public and outspoken Scientologist, part of a group that is actively fighting against key sectors of the medical community, namely the mental health and psychiatry community. In addition to her work with ThyCa, Bell is a spokesperson and activist for the Scientology-based Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) a group founded by the Church of Scientology in 1969 to promote their belief that "psychiatry is a pseudoscience," and to promote their idea that psychiatric drugs -- including drugs for attention deficit disorder (ADD) and depression, among others -- are especially dangerous. CCHR also states in its position papers that all currently identified mental health disorders should not be eligible for insurance coverage because "they have no scientific, physical validation."

Most recently, on Feb. 25, 2006, Bell spoke on behalf of the CCHR, along with other prominent Scientologists such as Kelly Preston (wife of John Travolta) and Jenna Elfman (Dharma & Greg) and others. The group claimed that "psychiatrists have created the multi-billion dollar child drugging industry, putting children’s lives at risk, by fraudulently promoting mental "disorders" such as ADHD as medical conditions requiring dangerous and life-threatening drugs, despite the fact that there are no brain scans, "chemical imbalance" tests, X-Rays or any medical/ scientific evidence to substantiate psychiatric disorders as an illness or disease." (Source)

Some of ThyCa's members struggle with debilitating depression as a result of the total loss of thyroid function after surgery and lifelong hypothyroidism. One has to wonder what those ThyCa members think, along with the physicians who serve as board members and advisors to ThyCA, and the drug companies that provide funding to the group, because if effective in her other public mission, Bell's efforts would result in the denial of public access to any prescription mental health treatments and put psychiatrists and their profession out of business.

We don't know what they think, however, because requests for comment from ThyCa were, not surprisingly, ignored by ThyCa leadership. This leaves me to assume that ThyCa is hoping that no one besides me notices that one of the nation's most prominent Scientologists is on the cover of their patient brochure. What's next: Tom Cruise as guest speaker for ThyCa 2006, talking about post-surgery depression? Stay tuned.

More Info

• Inside Scientology / Rolling Stone
• CCHR -- "Psychiatry is a Pseudoscience"
• Celebrity Scientologist Catherine Bell

Photo: Catherine Bell at Opening of CCHR's "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" Museum in December, 2005 (Image, courtesy of Getty/CHRC)