| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Ferre
Cannabis Sacrament Minister.
Joined: 14 Apr 2003
Posts: 7295
Location: Amsterdam
|
 Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 12:44 am Post subject: No Child Left Unmedicated |
 |
|
| Quote: |
No Child Left Unmedicated
If we are not careful the government will have total control of our
children---well, maybe they already do. For those that homeschool, you can breathe a
sigh of relief…for now. But be on guard as this will affect you in the future
when they realize how many children actually are being homeschooled. The
government has a ridiculous track-record when it comes to our health and
well-being. Healthcare a huge business and if you believe that they really “care”
about your health, then call me as I have a bayou that’s for sell. ;o) Send this
to everyone you know, especially those that have children in public school.
No Child Left Unmedicated
Phyllis Schlafly Report
Big Brother is on the march. A plan to subject all children to mental health
screening is underway, and the pharmaceutical corporations are gearing up for
bigger sales of antidepressant and psychostimulant drugs.
Like most liberal big-spending ideas, this one was slipped into the law under
cover of sweet words. It started with the New Freedom Commission on Mental
Health created by President George W. Bush's Executive Order 13263 of April 29,
2002. The Commission issued its report on July 22, 2003. President Bush has
instructed 25 federal agencies to develop a plan to implement the Commissions
recommendations.
In 2004, Congress appropriated $20 million to finance the recommendations of
this New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. Congress also passed the Garrett
Lee Smith Memorial Act that included $7 million for suicide screening, and
tens of millions more for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration and its Center for Mental Health Services. The No Child Left Behind
Act already includes $5 million for Mental Health Integration. These funds
appear to be part of a larger plan to get more and more people labeled and in the
psychiatric system or, as some say, to move children into the psychotherapeutic
state.
This Commission on Mental Health laid out a federal plan that could subject
all children to mental health screening in school and during routine physical
exams. The clear plan is to use the public schools to subject all children to
mental examinations, forcing millions of kids to undergo psychiatric screening
whether their parents consent or not. The Commission report states on page 58:
"Schools must be partners in the mental health care of our children. Schools
are in a key position to identify mental health problems early and to provide
a link to appropriate services. Every day more than 52 million students attend
over 114,000 schools in the U.S. When combined with the six million adults
working at those schools, almost one-fifth of the population passes through the
Nations schools on any given weekday."
The Commission wants "routine and comprehensive" testing and mental health
screening of every child in America, including preschoolers. The Commission
recommends "linkage" of these mental examinations with "state-of-the-art
treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions." That means
prescribing more expensive patented antidepressants and psychostimulant drugs such as
Ritalin. Children's mental health data will be entered into state and federal
computer databases and integrated with the child's other health and education
records.
The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health praised the Texas Algorithm
Project as a "model" medication treatment plan. It advocates the use of newer, more
expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs. But when Allen Jones, an
employee of the Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General, revealed that key
officials with influence over the medication plan in his state received money and
perks from the drug companies, he was fired for talking to the New York Times
.
Parental rights are unclear or non-existent under these mental screening
programs. Parental rights an depend on who pays for the screening programs, which
budgets are used, and who is implementing the programs. Federal consent
protections that exist in the Department of Education do not apply if the programs
come from Health and Human Services or from a private foundation or university.
Even if there are limited protections, the Nanny State and its allies in the
mental health community can find ways around them.
What are the rights of youth and parents to refuse or opt out of mental
screening? Will they face coercion and threats of removal from school, or child
neglect charges, if they refuse privacy-invading interrogations or unproved
medications? How will a child remove a stigmatizing label from his records? We
don't know the answers to these questions.
TeenScreen.
The government bureaucrats who are promoting universal mental health
screening for all children are praising a Columbia University based program called
TeenScreen as a national model. This program has already been tried out on 43,000
young people in 36 states. It screens 9th and 10th graders for risk of
suicide, anxiety disorders, depression, and drug and alcohol disorders.
Columbia University put millions into developing and piloting TeenScreen, but
wont say where the funding came from. Leslie McGuire, director of the
TeenScreen Program, stated: "Our goal is to get every child in America a mental
health check-up before leaving high school."
Here are some of the very nosy questions that TeenScreen has been asking
children:
"Have you often felt very nervous or uncomfortable when you have been with a
group of children or young people, say, like in the lunchroom at school or at
a party?
Have you often felt very nervous when you've had things to do in front of
people?
Has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you just weren't
interested in anything?
Has there been a time when you had less energy than you usually do?
Has there been a time when you felt you couldn't do anything well or that you
weren't as goodlooking or as smart as other people?" Its easy to see that
many teens would honestly answer Yes to those questions, but that certainly
doesn't prove they are crazy or even that they have mental health problems. Nosy
questionnaires are very intimidating to many students and their parents, and
such use has been a matter of legislation and litigation for several decades.
TeenScreen officials, however, claim that up to one third of the students who
undergo screening show some signs of mental health problems, and about half
of those are referred to receive mental health services. That means about 15%
of the students screened are labeled as having mental health problems, and
their treatment can and often does lead toward the use of powerful and sometimes
dangerous medications.
It is truly shocking that government employees or others can ask children
those ridiculous questions, use them as a basis for deciding whether a child has
mental problems, and then refer the kids to mental health providers who are
eager to prescribe drugs. It is vitally important that parents insist on prior
parental consent before their children are subjected to any mental health
screening or to nosy psychological questionnaires, surveys or tests by the
government, the schools, private foundations, or universities.
Illinois as model?
Illinois became the first state to jump on board the new federal plan to
subject all children to mental screening. In 2003, the Legislature passed the $10
million Illinois Children's Mental Health Act creating a Children's Mental
Health Partnership, which is expected to become a model for other states.
This Illinois plan calls for periodic social and emotional developmental
examinations to be administered to all children, and for all women to be
interrogated for depression during pregnancy and up to a year postpartum. Since the
treatment options pushed by the state and the psychiatric community seem to be
focused on pharmaceutical interventions, we should address the relevance of the
new studies that indicate that antidepressants taken by pregnant women can
affect their unborn babies.
When the Illinois plan was showcased in 2004 with five public hearings
stacked with bureaucrats and social service workers, a political tempest erupted,
with state legislators saying they had no idea this was what they had voted for.
The Illinois plan includes periodic developmental exams for children from
birth to 18 years of age, a statewide data-reporting system to track information
on each person, social-emotional development screens with all mandated school
exams (K, 4th, and 9th), and report cards on children's social-emotional
development.
The Illinois plan also includes requiring the Illinois State Board of
Education to incorporate social and emotional standards as part of the mandated
Illinois Learning Standards. This inevitably opens up screening children for
politically incorrect attitudes and non-conformity with liberal attitudes of
so-called tolerance.
Its hard to see how this plan can avoid leading to diagnosis for political
reasons. Schools in Ithaca, New York, are already grading first and second
graders on tolerance and giving grades on their report cards under "Lifelong
Learning Skills."
Subjective and unreliable.
It is bad enough that federal and state governments are involved in any way
in determining the mental health of their citizens, but to make matters worse
the criteria used by the psychiatric and psychological community to determine a
diagnosis of mental illness are subjective, culturally biased, and
unreliable. Even the so-called experts admit that mental health diagnoses are inherently
subjective.
The 1999 Surgeon Generals report on mental health admitted that there are
serious conflicts in medical literature about the definitions of mental health
and mental illness. The very definitions are rooted in value judgments that vary
across cultures.
The diagnosis of mental illness is far more difficult and in many cases
impossible, as compared to the diagnosis of medical disorders. The former is based
on behaviors as observed by others and subjective reporting, while the latter
is based on objectively verifiable physical signs.
Mental illness diagnoses are especially difficult for children because the
normal child is developing so rapidly and doesn't stay the same long enough to
make stable measurements. The diagnostic criteria are vague. Because of
inherent subjectivity and lack of objective verification, its all too easy for a
psychiatrist to label disagreement with political and/or social beliefs to be a
mental disorder.
We also have to be concerned about social workers who play a major role in
many families lives, especially as more and more family functions are taken over
by the school and state. Many social workers and other similarly trained
mental healthcare practitioners have been trained mostly in post-modern sociology
and leftist ideology. This can give them built-in biases against gun
ownership, homeschoolers, dicipline, spanking, parental rights, extended families, and
what they consider overemphasis on religion and morality.
More and more physicians are asking questions about family gun ownership as
part of routine health examinations. When mental health screening is integrated
with academic reports, it becomes very easy to go over the line into judging
deviations from political correctness as symptoms of some kind of mental
disorder.
Not only are the diagnostic criteria vague and subjective and some peoples
motivations questionable, but even one of the stated purposes of mental health
screening programs -- to prevent suicide -- has been shown to be useless and
perhaps even counterproductive.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force reported that it "found no evidence
that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality. There is
limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk
in the primary care setting, including tools to identify those at high risk."
The diagnostic criteria and screening instruments are problematic and some
researchers now say that the antidepressant drugs are no better than placebos in
alleviating depressive symptoms in children and teens. Nevertheless, in 2002,
the last year for which total figures are available, doctors wrote nearly 11
million prescriptions for anti-depressants to teenagers and children.
Antidepressants don't provide any long-term improvement in academic
achievement, athletic skills, social skills, or reduced anti-social behavior. At best,
they offer short-term assistance; at worst they hide the actual problems and
contribute to them.
Then there is Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and the psychostimulants used
for its treatment. The criteria used for diagnosing ADD are notoriously
subjective, and over-diagnosis is believed to be widespread.
Recent research at Harvard Medical Schools McLean Hospital and the University
of TexasSouthwestern has reported depressive symptoms in rats that are
exposed to Ritalin early in life. These findings raise concerns that Ritalin and
other stimulants used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder in young children may
permanently alter the brain and lead to depression in adulthood. One of the
findings of this work is that the effect of Ritalin doesn't go away as the child
grows up.
We face the additional problem that the long-term safety and effectiveness of
psychiatric medications on children have never been proven. The side effects
of some suggested medications in children can be severe. They include suicide,
violence, psychosis, cardiac toxicity, and growth suppression. That sounds
like a list of everything bad that can happen.
Nevertheless, we have seen a tremendous increase in the prescription of
psychiatric drugs to children. We've had a 300% increase in psychotropic drugs for
2- , 3-, and 4-year-olds. Several school shooters, including Eric Harris
(Columbine) and Kip Kinkel (Oregon) were on antidepressants or stimulants or both
at the time of their crimes.
FDA supervision?
In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration finally responded to public
pressure to warn against risks associated with antidepressants given to minors. In
October, the FDA ordered that all antidepressants must carry "black box"
warnings saying that antidepressants "increase the risk of suicidal thinking and
behavior" in children who take them. The FDA's action, which followed a
recommendation of its advisory panel, was the result of data showing that, on average,
2% to 3% of children taking antidepressants have increased thoughts about
suicide.
The FDA decision came some ten months after regulators in England declared
that most antidepressants are not suitable for children under 18.
The pharmaceutical companies exercise a powerful influence on the studies and
on the approval process of various drugs. The FDA finally announced in 2005
that persons who receive pay or perks from the pharmaceutical companies may not
serve on panels that approve the drugs.
Under universal screening programs, any thousands if not millions of children
could receive stigmatizing diagnoses that could handicap them for the rest of
their lives. "State-of-the-art treatments" will result in many thousands of
children being medicated by expensive, ineffective, and often even dangerous
drugs. It is unclear what effect the FDA decision will have on the Mental Health
Commissions stated desire to increase the availability of pharmaceutical
options to schoolchildren.
Parents rights.
The real issue is the fundamental right of parents to decide what medical
treatment is appropriate for their own children. Coerced mental health screening
programs have no place in a free society. Neither does coerced medication. The
government does not own you or your children, and it has no legitimate
authority to interfere in your family's intimate health matters.
Since we also know that psychiatric diagnoses are inherently subjective, and
the drugs usually prescribed to treat so-called mental illnesses can produce
serious side effects, we need to be even more concerned with these types of
government programs.
Unfortunately, we have too many examples of parents being coerced to give
psychotropic drugs to their children. This happened even before any universal
mental health screening programs have been implemented statewide. The parents can
be and have been threatened that they cannot send their child to school, or
even that child protective services will take their child away, if they do not
give the child the ordered psychotropic drug. Tragic examples include Matthew
Smith and Shaina Dunkle who died of medication toxicity after their parents
were coerced into placing their children on drugs by the schools.
Parents are calling for a federal law to prohibit coerced drugging with
psychoactive medicine of children in government schools, as well as to ban any
federally funded or supported universal or mandatory mental health screening
programs. Rep. John Kline (R-MN) will soon be introducing the Child Medication
Safety Act to cover all psychoactive drugs and protect all children in any
educational setting that receives federal funds. This bill would extend to all
children the protections passed last year in the IDEA reauthorization.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has introduced the Parental Consent Act of 2005 (H.R.
181) to forbid federal funds from being used to establish or implement any
universal or mandatory mental health screening programs. His bill also says that no
federal education funds may be paid to any local educational agency that uses
the refusal of a parent or legal guardian to provide express, written,
voluntary, informed consent to mental health screening as the basis of a charge of
child abuse or education neglect.
What's wrong with mental health screening?
First, the plan is unconstitutional because it overrides parents rights to
the care and control of their own children. After all, who owns the children,
parents or the government?
Second, mental diagnoses are subjective, and this is admitted by the experts.
There is no scientific agreement on the definition of mental health or of
mental illness.
Third, mental diagnoses are even less scientific for children. The younger
the child, the less accurate is any diagnosis because a normal child is
constantly changing.
Fourth, medications are already over-prescribed and children over-medicated
even though medications don't usually work on children, the medications have
not been tested on children or tested for long-term effects, and there are
numerous examples of medications causing suicide, death or crimes.
Fifth, suicide prevention is given as a major reason for mental screening,
but there is no evidence that mental screening or medications or school courses
prevent suicide.
Sixth, mental screening results in stigmatizing children with a label that
may be false, that is impossible to erase from his record, and that may handicap
him as an adult (such as preventing him from joining the Armed Services,
getting some types of jobs, or buying a gun).
Seventh, universal mental screening presents a real danger that the schools
or the child protection agency may coerce parents to submit their kids to
mental interrogation, screening, treatment or education under threat of
retaliation.
Eighth, there is a real danger that universal mental screening will be used
for politically motivated purposes, to identify and change the attitudes of
children whose religious or social views may not be politically correct.
Action Items:
Tell your Members of Congress to eliminate all federal funding for mental
health screening or for encouraging the states to engage in mental health
screening.
Tell your school board members that you don't want schools to engage in any
mental health screening.
Tell your state legislators to oppose all funding for mental health screening
in the schools, and to forbid all plans to integrate mental health
information with academic information.
Be alert to stop any mental health tests from being integrated with academic
standards.
Tell your state legislators that your state should have Protection of Pupil
Rights legislation to prevent schools from asking students nosy psychological
or psychiatric questions, or questions about their family, without prior,
informed, written parental consent.
Tell your Members of Congress to support Ron Paul's Parental Consent Act,
H.R. 181, and Rep. John Kline's Child Medication Safety Act (as soon as it is
introduced).
Take Care & Be Well,
Loretta Lanphier, ND, CN, HHP
CEO/President
Source:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16574
|
_________________
█ Please read the Board Rules and Posting, and you
█ Radio Free Amsterdam
People who know truth, speak truth.
Those who don't, quote scriptures. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
Public Forum
Members only forum
Members Group
| 
