NAMI News

Two more states have moved to join the widening majority nationwide that have enacted laws to require parity for mental illnesses in health insurance plans.

After only two episodes, ABC Television has announced that Wonderland is being taken off the air and put into "hiatus." 

ABC Television has advised the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) that it will add an epilogue to tonight's episode of Wonderland, which includes a graphic suicide scene-but it will not include precautions against the risk of increased suicides in communities where the show airs.

A news release yesterday about the Mental Health Coalition Against Stigma in Hollywood inadvertently listed the American Association of Community Psychiatrists (AACP) as the Association of Adolescent & Child Psychiatrists.

The Mental Health Coalition Against Stigma in Hollywood today called on ABC to warn Wonderland viewers about a graphic suicide scene in Thursday (April 6th) night's episode.

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.