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Second, it is Violently Opposed... Third, it is Accepted as being Self-Evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer (1778-1860)
By Charly Groenendijk
AntidepressantsFacts June 25, 2004
Bush, Columbia University & "TeenScreen®" Program The "Teen Screen Program" is a Mental Illness Screening Program put out by Columbia University, the same group that has been designated by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to review the studies on SSRI-antidepressants inducing self-harm & suicide in children... Conflict of Interests!
A recent WorldNet Daily article "BUSH TO SCREEN POPULATION FOR MENTAL ILLNESS" June, 21 2004 following an article in the British Medical Journal "BUSH PLANS TO SCREEN WHOLE US POPULATION FOR MENTAL ILLNESS" June, 19 2004, announces a President Bush initiative that recommends screening for every US citizen and promotes the use of antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs (neuroleptics).
The Bush administration initiative began with the launch of the
"New Freedom Commission on Mental Health"
in April 2002, resulting in the
TeenScreen® Program for screening of children for
mental illness,
developed by Columbia University physicians, the same group that has been designated by the Food & Drug Administration
(FDA) to review the studies on SSRI-antidepressants inducing self-harm & suicide in children.
[With the FDA supervisors shielding the pharmaceutical
industry and suppressing
significant information with regards to safety of SSRI-antidepressants, and
Daniel Troy aboard, a former pharmaceutical industry
advocate installed by Bush, not much objectivity
is to be expected from the FDA. See also: (1),
(2),
(3),
(4),
(5),
(6). The screening program asks a variety of questions about mental well-being. Examples include: "In the last year, has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you just weren't interested in anything?" and "Has there been a time when you couldn't think as clearly or as fast as usual?" The "New Freedom Commission on Mental Health" recommended that the screening be linked with "treatment and supports," including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions." Eli Lilly & Company, manufacturer of Prozac, Zyprexa & Olanzapine, the latter, one of the drugs recommended in the plan, has multiple ties to the Bush administration. Corrupt connections between the Bush family, Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals and the CIA were recently brought to public attention again. The Bush administration US Screen Program, deceptively titled the "New Freedom Initiative for People with Disabilities", hides it's secrets way down deep in Chapter 4, under the section "Promoting Full Access to Community Life." The full 2004 progress report can be found at the following URL: http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/newfreedom/toc-2004.html
An extract from chapter 4: So, according to this plan, which seems to be going ahead, EVERY man woman and child in the United States is to be screened, analyzed and monitored by the US government and legal enforceable personalized "care" regimes WILL BE applied to those exhibiting signs of "mental illness"... A response by Dr. Ann Blake Tracy (www.drugawareness.org) & Vera Hassner Sharav (www.ahrp.org) follows.
Response from Dr. Ann Blake Tracy:
JUNE, 23 2004
It is called the "Teen Screen Program" and is in 168 schools at this point.
It is a program put out by Columbia University. Yes, this is the same group
that has been designated by the FDA to review the studies on SSRI's. So with their
Teen Screen Program at risk if these drugs are pulled for children, I do not
expect an unbiased report out of Columbia University.
Two summers ago this coming August, Mark Taylor, the first boy shot at
Columbine, and I, along with Pepper Draper, our Arizona Director, testified in
Tempe, AZ against the implementation of the Teen Screen Program there. At that
point there were only 60 some odd schools involved. So it is growing rapidly.
Now the suggestion that all school employees be tested is new. It is a very
interesting proposal in light of the fact that in 1992 in my own school
district here in Utah, $1.2 Million was spent on Prozac prescriptions and $5 Million
in psychiatric care for district employees. Clearly this suggestion to include
school personel is only a beginning for those who smell the scent of even
larger profits coming in on these serotonergic antidepressants and atypical
antipsychotics.
For Dr. Graham Emslie to be for the program is hardly a shock either. He has
made lots of $$$$$ doing studies on children for the drug companies. He is one
of the two who never should have been involved, but is one of the leading
researchers in the Prozac study
we just heard preliminary reports on our national
news this past month. (Why would anyone be surprised that these two
researchers, imbedded in the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies, would make a
statement that the study is currently showing improvement in children on Prozac
when their own study showed a doubling of the suicide rate and a suicide attempt
rate that jumped by five times?)
Anyway in light of this article coming out I am next going to send you two
more very enlightening articles that will shed more light on what is happening
in the Pharma/Politics department.
Ann Blake Tracy, Ph.D.
Response from Vera Hassner Sharav:
JUNE, 25 2004
The first BMJ article focused on the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP)--
which was developed by University of Texas psychiatrists, paid for by Big Pharma,
and adopted during the Bush governorship.
The documents uncovered by Jones show that TMAP is the biggest pharmaceutical / state
mental health marketing rip off scheme masquerading as "evidence-based" treatment guidelines.
The current BMJ article focuses on documents that expose an even more ambitious "mental health"
initiative--a nationwide screening for "mental illness" campaign that is about to be unleashed
on the American public in July. This dubious, government sponsored initiative, will implement
the TMAP formula nationally. The first target population for this massive screening for mental
illness initiative is in America's schools: 52 million American school children and 6 million
school personnel are about to be ordered to undergo screening tests for hidden mental illnesses--
as if mental illness needs to be ferreted out and captured like a rabid animal.
This massive screening initiative was formulated by President Bush's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (2002).
It is the culmination of a series of dubious federally sponsored, "mental health" initiatives--begun during the Clinton Administration--
that focus especially on children.
These "mental health" initiatives have methodically inflated the number of American children (and adults) being labeled with a mental illness;
they have inflated the number of dependents with "mental illness" on social security disability (SSDI & SSI); and they have led to the depletion
of public and private health insurance budgets because of disproportionate skyrocketing expenditure for the most expensive psychotropic drugs--
even as scientific evidence is lacking to demonstrate the benefit of these drugs.
Robert Whitaker, author of the prize winning book, Mad in America, that laid bare the mistreatment of patients with schizophrenia
and the unprecedented profitable marketing of the atypical anti-psychotic drugs, has recently gathered the following data from
government sources about the extraordinary increase in use of these drugs and the cost to taxpayers. He chose 1987 as the benchmark
date because the following year Prozac-the first of the new generation of "wonder drugs"--was introduced.
Social Security Disability Payments (SSDI)
SSI -- PAYMENTS
TOTAL DISABILITY
$$ EXPENDITURE
Screening for mental illness serves no useful medical or societal purpose inasmuch as there are no reliable diagnostic tools for mental illness
and no proven safe and effective treatments. Clinical trial data from SSRI antidepressants and so-called atypical anti-psychotics failed to
demonstrate either these drugs' safety or a benefit greater than placebo. But, as Allen Jones' documents make clear, the TMAP practice guidelines
designate these very drugs as the treatment of choice--not on the basis of evidence, but on the basis of a consensus panel. A panel under the direct
influence of Big Pharma.
Indeed, as the BMJ reports, “Dr Peter J Weiden, who was a member of the [TMAP] project's expert consensus panel, charges that the guidelines are
based on "opinions, not data" and that bias due to funding sources undermines the credibility of the guidelines since "most of the guideline's
authors have received support from the pharmaceutical industry." ( BMJ 2004;328:1153 )
COERCIVE NATURE OF SCREENING FOR MENTAL ILLNESS:
Already, a surgically implanted psychotropic drug dispenser--to assure compliance with prescribed drug regimens--is under development in clinical trials
at the University of Pennsylvania.
We don't have policies to screen innocent people for crimes they have not committed on the theory that early intervention is a justifiable crime
prevention measure. We don't have screening policies to ferret out would-be terrorists. What possible justification does the government have to put
children through a dubious screening process for suspected mental illness?
This involuntary, pseudo-medical government sponsored selection policy is a chilling example of the illegitimate intrusion by government into personal
and confidential healthcare decisions.
The public needs to be ever vigilant against such overreaching government policies which have historically proven harmful.
Being labeled "mentally ill" and being forced to ingest psychotropic drugs whose harmful effects are only beginning to be
disclosed--is not in the best interest of children.
An examination of Germany's mental and racial "hygiene" policies and the implementation of those policies, before the Holocaust, is a sobering awakening.
German children were screened and tested for disabilities ("deformities"), then removed from their families, institutionalized, and eventually gassed by
Nazi doctors--many of whom were prominent psychiatrists.
See, Hitler's Unwanted Children: Children with Disabilities, Orphans, Juvenile Delinquents and Non-Conformist Young People In Nazi Germany (1998),
by AHRP board member, Dr. Sally Rogow.
Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER
Sweeping initiative links diagnoses to treatment with specific drugs
President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative
that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive
antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the
administration.
The New Freedom Initiative, according to a progress report, seeks to
integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the
community, rather than institutions," the British Medical Journal reported.
Critics say the plan protects the profits of drug companies at the expense of
the public.
The initiative began with Bush's launch in April 2002 of the New Freedom
Commission on Mental Health, which conducted a "comprehensive study of the United
States mental health service delivery system."
The panel found that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go
undiagnosed" and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers
of all ages," including preschool children.
The commission said, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools
and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviors and emotional
disorders."
Schools, the panel concluded, are in a "key position" to screen the 52
million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.
The commission recommended that the screening be linked with "treatment and
supports," including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications
for specific conditions."
The Texas Medication Algorithm Project, or TMAP, was held up by the panel as
a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based
practice that results in better consumer outcomes."
The TMAP -- started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from the
pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas and the mental health and corrections
systems of Texas -- also was praised by the American Psychiatric Association,
which called for increased funding to implement the overall plan.
But the Texas project sparked controversy when a Pennsylvania government
employee revealed state officials with influence over the plan had received money
and perks from drug companies who stand to gain from it.
Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General
says in his whistleblower report the "political/pharmaceutical alliance" that
developed the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive
antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, was behind the recommendations of the
New Freedom Commission, which were "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into
a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive,
patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force
private insurers to pick up more of the tab."
Jones points out, according to the British Medical Journal, companies that
helped start the Texas project are major contributors to Bush's election funds.
Also, some members of the New Freedom Commission have served on advisory
boards for these same companies, while others have direct ties to TMAP.
Eli Lilly, manufacturer of olanzapine, one of the drugs recommended in the
plan, has multiple ties to the Bush administration, BMJ says. The elder
President Bush was a member of Lilly's board of directors and President Bush appointed
Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, to the Homeland Security
Council.
Of Lilly's $1.6 million in political contributions in 2000, 82 percent went
to Bush and the Republican Party.
Another critic, Robert Whitaker, journalist and author of "Mad in America,"
told the British Medical Journal that while increased screening "may seem
defensible," it could also be seen as "fishing for customers."
Exorbitant spending on new drugs "robs from other forms of care such as job
training and shelter program," he said.
However, a developer of the Texas project, Dr. Graham Emslie, defends
screening.
"There are good data showing that if you identify kids at an earlier age who
are aggressive, you can intervene ... and change their trajectory."
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