NAMI News

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) has contacted companies that sponsored the premiere of ABC’sWonderland, asking them to pull support for the program because the show "reinforces ignorance and stigma" toward mental illness through "a sensational and one-dimensional portrayal that reduces people with mental illness to caricatures or stereotypes—subjects of humor or derision."

As ABC Entertainment prepares tonight to premiere its new series, Wonderland, nine major mental health organizations have joined together as the Mental Health Coalition Against Stigma in Hollywood, calling on the White House to use its influence with the entertainment industry to help lead a challenge to the stigmatization of mental illness in movies and television shows.

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) warns that the new ABC series, Wonderland, which premiers on March 30th poses "a potentially dangerous threat" to the health and welfare of Americans with mental illnesses-and constitutes "reckless indifference" by the network at a time when the U.S. Surgeon General recently has released a report on mental health promoting effective treatments and a call for the prevention of suicides.

Beyond the comments expressed in my letter to Mr. Berg, I am greatly concerned about the reckless indifference that ABC will demonstrate by airing the series. The program poses a potentially dangerous threat to the health and welfare of Americans with mental illnesses.

Consumers and families who deal with life-threatening mental illnesses everyday will be stunned and hurt that the first network television program to deal solely with mental illness is relentlessly stereotypical and bleak. Wonderland offers no hope and no vision of the reality of recovery.

The case has stood all along for the failures of America's mental health system. Unfortunately, it now also stands for the inadequacy of our legal system in addressing issues that involve mental illness.

Mental illnesses are biological brain disorders, and must be treated equally with disabilities involving any other bodily organ or system. Health insurance plans must not discriminate in amount, duration, or scope between mental illnesses and other diagnoses.

People with mental illness are being injured or killed almost weekly through the improper use of restraints. Congress needs to put in place standards and a system to end such abuses, before any more adults or children die.

In preparation for the House Committee on Energy & Commerce's mark-up of the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) reauthorization bill, and because of recent reports of additional deaths

NAMI, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, is pleased to serve as a national partner of the fifth annual Brain Awareness Week, March 13-19, 2000. During Brain Awareness Week, a project of the Dana Alliance for Brain Research, the Alliance will release "Update 2000: Brain Research in the new Millennium," its annual report.