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Article
& Essay: Bush
Wants To Be Your Shrink
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Now Bush wants to test every
American for mental illness--including you! And guess
who will create the tests?
By
Jordanne Graham
 Next month, President
Bush plans to unveil a broad new mental health plan
called the “New Freedom Initiative.” Never mind that it
couldn’t have less to do with freedom; if you’re a
thinking American, this initiative should scare the hell
out of you.
The New Freedom Initiative proposes
to screen every American, including you, for mental
illness. To this end, the president established a New
Freedom Commission on Mental Health, to study the
nation’s mental health delivery service and make a
report. It’s interesting to note that many on the staff
appointed to the Commission have served on the advisory
boards of some of the nation’s largest drug
companies.
The commission reported that “despite
their prevalence, mental disorders often go
undiagnosed,” so it recommended comprehensive mental
health screening for “consumers of all ages,” including
preschool children because “each year, young children
are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities
for severely disruptive behaviors and emotional
disorders.”
Children and school personnel will
be the first to be screened. The panel concluded that
schools are in “key positions” to screen the 52 million
students and six million adults who work at the schools.
By doing this, the commission expects to flush out
another six million persons not now receiving treatment.
But who will decide the screening criteria? Bush and his
people? The drug companies? What are their
qualifications?
One recommendation of the
commission was that the screening be linked with
“treatment and supports,” using “specific medications
for specific conditions.” It is no coincidence that the
treatments recommended for specific conditions are the
newest state-of-the-art treatments that will bring in
the most revenues for the drug companies. One of these
emerging treatments is a capsule implanted within the
body that delivers doses of medication without the
patient having to swallow pills or take injections. If a
government wanted to exert control of its citizens,
think of the implications of using this
device.
The Texas Medication Algorithm Project,
or TMAP, was named by the commission as a “model”
medication treatment plan that “illustrates an
evidence-based practice that results in better consumer
outcomes.” Medical algorithms are a decision-tree
approach to treatment. If symptoms A, B, and C are
evident, use treatment X. In 1995, TMAP began as an
alliance of individuals from the University of Texas,
the pharmaceutical industry, and the mental health and
corrections systems of Texas. This plan was trumpeted by
the American Psychiatric Association even as it asked
for increased funding to implement TMAP. When an
employee of the Inspector General’s office revealed that
state officials with influence over the plan had
received money and perks from drug companies who stood
to gain from it, the plan came under severe criticism.
Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania
Office of the Inspector General, wrote a whistleblower report in which he
stated that behind the recommendations of the New
Freedom Commission was the “political/pharmaceutical
alliance” that developed the Texas project, which
promotes the use of newer, more expensive antipsychotics
and antidepressants. He further claimed that this unholy
alliance was “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.”
In an
article in the British Medical Journal, Jones
shows that many companies who helped launch TMAP are
also major contributors to Bush’s re-election funds. For
example, Eli Lilly manufactures olanzapine. This is one
of the drugs recommended in the New Freedom plan. Lilly
has numerous ties to the Bush administration according
to the British Medical Journal. It says George
Herbert Walker Bush was once a member of Lilly’s board
of directors. Our current President Bush appointed
Lilly’s chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, as a
member of the Homeland Security Council. Eighty-two
percent of Lilly’s $1.6 million in political
contributions in 2000 went to Bush and the Republican
Party.
Now don’t get me wrong. The medical
algorithm approach used in Texas shows promise as a
treatment tool for mental health and other illnesses.
But make no mistake; this initiative is not really about
treatment tools. Masquerading in the lamb's fleece of
providing mental health treatment to needy folk is the
greedy wolf called Big Pharma. Helping out Big Pharma in
the form of the TMAP has nearly bankrupted Texas. So why
would our president want to do that to the rest of the
nation?
To understand this, one must look at the
big picture.
At the recent Inequality Matters Conference,
Bill Moyers illuminated listeners on the front of a new
class war being waged against us by the wealthy
leviathan corporations. “Their stated and open aim is to
change how America is governed, to strip from government
all its functions except those that reward their rich
and privileged benefactors…. Their leading strategist in
Washington, the same Grover Norquist, has famously said
he wants to shrink the government down to the size that
it could be drowned in a bathtub. More recently, in
commenting on the fiscal crisis in the states and its
affect on schools and poor people, Norquist said, ‘I
hope one of them’--one of the states--‘goes bankrupt.’
So much for compassionate conservatism…. The White House
pursues the same homicidal dream without saying so.
Instead of shrinking down the government, they're
filling the bathtub with so much debt that it floods the
house, water-logs the economy, and washes away services
for decades that have lifted millions of Americans out
of destitution and into the middle-class. And what
happens once the public’s property has been flooded?
Privatize it. Sell it at a discounted rate to the
corporations.”
On a website describing the Take
Back America conference in June of 2003, Moyers is
paraphrased: “[The Bush Administration] would privatize
public services in order to enrich the corporate
interests that fund campaigns and provide golden
parachutes to pliable politicians. If unchecked, the
result of these machinations will be the dismantling of
every last brick of the social contract…. I think this
is a deliberate, intentional destruction of the United
States of America.”
The destruction of America is
evident in many ways. Do not be fooled; the Bushites
intend to control all they can, and if that can include
your brain, they will do it. If Big Pharma benefits, all
the better. The New Freedom Initiative is an early step
toward both, and $20 million has already been set aside
to implement the initiative.
Work now to
maintain your grip on your first great freedom, the
power to control your own thoughts. Work now to maintain
your grip on your secondary freedom of being able to
control the approval for your own medical treatments.
Ask your congressmen and senators today to put an end to
the New Freedom Initiative.
Find your
congressional representatives and senators here!
Jordanne Graham
is a writer and researcher in the Midwest. She is doing
all she can to protect the country and the
environment.
Posted Sunday, August 8,
2004 |
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