[WisePeople] TeenScreen- Lawsuits Begin- A Must Read for Parents

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Misty L. Trepke

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A MUST READ for Every Parent - TeenScreen: The Lawsuits Begin

-- sent by Cathy Garger

 

Cathy Garger <savorsuccesslady wrote:

There are so many issues with which to be concerned today. But when

it comes to our kids? Nothing matters more.

 

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures:

 

Prescription drug use is rising faster in children than in any other

age group. Nearly one in two children took at least one or more

prescription drugs last year, and more than 5 percent of all children

were using some sort of psychotropic medication. Although

prescription drug use among children is rising, most drugs have not

been specifically tested and approved for the treatment of childhood

disorders. Nearly three-quarters of all drugs prescribed to children

are prescribed " off-label " because they have not been sufficiently

tested. Growing concern exists about off-label drug use by children

and the lack of available data relating to pediatric use. In

response, several steps have been taken recently to encourage more

pediatric drug research.

 

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/forum/shld/33e.htm

 

This not withstanding, the scheme of our administration is to work

with the pharmaceutical industry's plan to have each one of our

children in the public school system screened for mental illness and

treat those identified with controversial drugs.

 

Read this report about what has been happening already in some

states, and what some parents are doing about it.

 

Then, please forward on to every parent you know.

 

Thank you,

 

Cathy Garger

--------

 

Special Report

 

TeenScreen: The lawsuits begin

 

By Evelyn Pringle

Online Journal Contributing Writer

 

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June 14, 2005—The scheme concocted by the pharmaceutical industry and

pushed forward by the Bush administration to screen the entire

nation's public school population for mental illness and treat them

with controversial drugs was already setting off alarms among parents

all across the country. But in the state of Indiana, the alarm just

got louder.

 

Taxpayers better get out their checkbooks because school taxes are

about to go up as the lawsuits against school boards start mounting

over the TeenScreen depression survey being administered to children

in the public schools.

 

The first notice of intent to sue was filed this month in Indiana by

Michael and Teresa Rhoades who were outraged when they learned their

daughter had been given a psychological test at school without their

consent.

 

In December 2004, their daughter came home from school and said she

had been diagnosed with an obsessive compulsive and social anxiety

disorder after taking the TeenScreen survey.

 

Teresa Rhoades always viewed her daughter as a happy normal teenager.

" I was absolutely outraged that my daughter was told she had these

two conditions based off a computer test, " said Rhoades.

 

Attorney John Price, who is representing the Rhoadeses, confirmed

that he had sent a notice of tort claim to both the school and

Madison Center, which worked with the school system to administer the

test.

 

This action means that the Rhoadeses are declaring their intent to

file a lawsuit against both entities. Price said state law requires a

notice of claim to be sent to any governmental agencies, including

schools, before a lawsuit can be filed against them, according to the

June 9, South Bend Tribune.

 

In the notice, Teresa and Michael Rhoades claim the survey was

erroneous, improper, and done with reckless disregard for their

daughter's welfare and that they did not give the school permission

to give the test.

 

The parents allege that when their daughter took the test, she was

improperly diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and social

anxiety disorder. That diagnosis, they claim, caused both the teen

and her parents emotional distress, and the family intends to seek

the " maximum amount of damages. "

 

The Indiana child was diagnosed with two disorders, but there are

many more.

 

If a teen doesn't like doing math assignments, parents should not

worry. TeenScreen may determine that the child simply has a mental

illness known as developmental-arithmetic disorder.

 

There's also a diagnosis for those children who like to argue with

their parents, they may be afflicted with a mental illness known as

oppositional-defiant disorder.

 

And for anybody critical of the of the above two disorders, they may

be suffering the mental illness called noncompliance-with-treatment

disorder.

 

No kidding, these illnesses are included in the more than 350 " mental

disorders " listed in the American Psychiatric Association's

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the insurance

billing bible for mental disorders.

 

Tax Dollars Already Being Funneled to Pharma

 

In addition to lawsuits, tax dollars are already funding TeenScreen

and many of the drugs purchased by the new customers it recruits.

 

While promoting TeenScreen to Congress, its executive director,

Laurie Flynn, flat out lied when she told members of Congress that

TeenScreen was free and its website statement that " The program does

not receive financial support from the government and is not

affiliated with, or funded by, any pharmaceutical companies. "

 

Last Oct 21, Bush authorized $82 million for suicide prevention

programs like TeenScreen and a report in Psychiatric Times said the

administration had proposed an increase in the budget for the Center

for Mental Health Service from $862 million in 2004 to $912 million

in fiscal 2005. TeenScreen is sure to get a cut of those tax dollars.

 

Federal tax dollars are also being funneled through state governments

to fund TeenScreen. On Nov 17, 2004, officials at the University of

South Florida Department of Child & Family Studies said $98,641 was

awarded to expand the TeenScreen program in the Tampa Bay area.

 

In Ohio, under the governor's Executive Budget for 2006 and 2007, the

Department of Mental Health has specifically earmarked $70,000 for

TeenScreen for each of those years, reports investigator Sue Weibert.

 

In June 2002, the Update Newsletter, published by the Tennessee

Department of Mental Health, reported that 170 Nashville students had

completed a TeenScreen survey. The newsletter said the survey was

funded by grants from AdvoCare and Eli Lilly. Last I knew, Eli Lilly

was a pharmaceutical company.

 

The great news for pharma was that 96 of the 170 students who took

the survey ended up speaking to a therapist which no doubt resulted

in the recruitment of 96 new pill-popping teens.

 

Tax Dollars Spent on Drugs

 

Unbeknownst to many, taxpayers are already paying an enormous price

as a result of marketing schemes designed to get students hooked on

antipsychotic drugs. A list of drugs that must be prescribed for kids

is already set up, modeled after a list used in Texas since 1995,

called the TMAP. The list contains the most expensive drugs on the

market.

 

The New York Times in May 2003 reported that national sales of

antipsychotics reached $6.4 billion in 2002, making them the

fourth-highest-selling class of drugs, according to IMS Health, a

company that tracks drug sales. By 2004, sales had jumped by over $2

billion with antipsychotics sales totaling $8.8 billion—$2.4 billion

of which was paid for by state Medicaid funds, according to the

May/June 2005 issue of Mother Jones Magazine.

 

Here's how this part of the scheme works. The drug companies bribe

state officials and donate money in the form of " educational grants "

to the states to approve and implement these TMAP drug programs, and

then in return, state Medicaid programs fund the cost of the drugs

with tax dollars.

 

For instance, in Texas, Pfizer awarded $232,000 in grants to the

Texas Department of Mental Health to " educate " mental health

providers about TMAP, and in return, the Texas Medicaid program spent

$233 million tax dollars on Pfizer drugs like Zoloft.

 

Johnson & Johnson (Janssen Pharmaceutica) gave grants of $224,000 to

Texas and Medicaid spent $272 million on J & J's antipsychotic drug,

Risperdal.

 

Eli Lilly awarded $109,000 in grants to " educate " state mental health

providers and as a result, Texas Medicaid spent $328 million for

Lilly's antipsychotic drug Zyprexa.

 

The TMAP was approved in Texas in 1995, and by February 9, 2001, an

article in the Dallas Morning News, titled State Spending More on

Mental Illness Drugs, reported: " Texas now spends more money on

medication to treat mental illness for low-income residents than on

any other type of prescription drug. "

 

In addition to covering nearly 40 percent of the drugs for Medicaid

recipients, the state also spends about another $60 million a year on

" hundreds of thousands of prescription drugs for other state-funded

programs at the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental

Retardation and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, " the paper

reported.

 

By the time the 2002–2003 budget was established, Texas lawmakers had

to increase the amount of money allocated to the Department Of Health

and Human Services by $1 billion with a significant portion earmarked

for prescription drugs, according to Texas officials.

 

In 1999, Ohio adopted its version of TMAP and by 2002 Ohio's Medicaid

program was spending $145 million on schizophrenia medications alone.

 

California spent over $500 million in 2003 on the atypicals

Risperdal, Zyprexa and Seroqual.

 

In 2002, Missouri Medicaid spent $104 million on three TMAP drugs

alone. The three topped the list of all other medications covered by

Medicaid, including HIV, cancer, and heart drugs.

 

Chickens Come Home to Roost

 

Pennsylvania taxpayers are now saddled with PennMap, its own version

of the Texas list of expensive drugs for the treatment of mental

illnesses, as a result of a the pharmaceutical scheme used to

infiltrate public institutions and influence state officials and

treatment practices.

 

It has since been revealed by whistleblowers Allen Jones and Stefan

Kruszewiski that the Pennsylvania officials who approved the drugs

for PennMap were receiving improper or illegal financial rewards from

drug companies involved in promoting the program.

 

Dr Stefan Kruszewski was hired as a psychiatric consultant for the

Pennsylvania Department of Health and Human Services. He was in

charge of the state's mental health and substance misuse programs to

protect against fraud, waste, and abuse. He was fired after he

uncovered corrupt relations between Pennsylvania politicians and

pharmaceutical representatives and has since filed a whistleblower

suit against the state.

 

Allen Jones was an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the

Inspector General, and revealed that state officials with influence

over the PennMap program received financial benefits from drug

companies that had a stake in getting PennMap accepted. Jones was

fired after he made his discoveries known to the British Medical

Jourbal and The New York Times when his superiors ordered him to stop

his investigation. He also has filed a whistleblower suit.

 

Well, it looks like the chickens have finally come home to roost in

Pennsylvania.

 

One of the officials that Jones named was Steven Fiorello. On April

15, the Associated Press reported a government panel found that

Pennsylvania's top pharmacist repeatedly took money from Pfizer and

other outside sources, violating ethics laws.

 

The state Ethics Commission fined Fiorello more than $27,000 and

referred the case to the state attorney general's office for possible

criminal prosecution.

 

The commission cited repeated conflicts between Fiorello's unofficial

activities and his official duties, which included serving on a panel

that decides which drugs may be given to patients at the nine state

mental hospitals. The report also cited repeated failures to disclose

his income from drug companies, Pfizer and Janssen, and other outside

sources.

 

It seems Fiorello became a member of Pfizer's " advisory council''

around the same time he joined the PennMap panel. The council held

annual meetings, apparently " to solicit input from health-care

professionals to help Pfizer define its commercial strategies for its

products, " the commission said in the report.

 

The ethics committee also discovered a " Medical Director's Education

Account, " which was funded by unrestricted educational grants from

pharmaceutical companies and that Fiorello himself had solicited

funds for the account.

 

It was recently announced that these " educational " grants that have

benefited state officials, who were in positions to approve the TMAP

lists, are finally going to be investigated by a US Senate committee.

 

Last week, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Max Baucus (D-

Montana) issued a press release that said they have asked a number of

large drug makers to explain a marketing practice where the companies

give money to state governments and other organizations in the form

of grants. The drug companies call the awards educational grants, but

the senators are concerned that the dollars are more focused on

product promotion than education, the release said.

 

Grassley is chairman and Baucus is ranking member of the Senate

Committee on Finance, which has legislative and oversight

responsibility for the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

 

In addition, on June 9, the senators sent a letter to drug companies

that states in part, " The Committee seeks further information on this

topic so that it can assess how educational grants are used, in what

contexts and for what purposes, and who receives them. "

 

The letter was sent to Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson,

Merck & Co, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, Bristol-Myers Squibb,

Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Amgen, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly,

Sanofi Aventis, Eisai, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Schering-

Plough Corporation, Hoffman-LaRoche, Forest Pharmaceuticals, Abbott

Laboratories, Genentech, Biogen Idec, Genzyme Corporation, Chiron

Corporation, Serono, and TAP Pharmaceutical Products.

 

The senators said their inquiry is based on reports that some

companies have awarded these grants to health care providers as

inducements to those providers to prescribe medications the companies

produce. In other cases, such grants to state agencies may have

prompted those agencies to develop programs leading to over-

medication of patients at the expense of patient health or to

unnecessary expense for taxpayers.

 

" We need to know how this behind-the-scenes funneling of money is

influencing decision makers, " Grassley said, " The decisions result in

the government spending billions of dollars on drugs. The tactics

look aggressive, and the response on behalf of the public needs to be

just as vigorous. "

 

This inquiry is needed because Pennsylvania is merely the tip of the

iceberg. Many of the same tactics have been used in other states like

Florida, where Jim McDonough, director of the Florida Office of Drug

Control, is listed as an " advisor " to TeenScreen on its website.

TeenScreen gifted McDonough's office with $180,000 to get TeenScreen

set up.

 

However, Executive Director Laurie Flynn is now crying foul because

she doesn't feel the money has been put to good use since McDonough

failed to get the program in all the schools as promised, in large

part because he met his match in Ken Kramer, an investigator for the

Citizen's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a psychiatric watchdog

group. Kramer is opposed to the drugging of children.

 

In Ohio there's Mike Hogan, director of the Ohio Department of Mental

Health. He's hooked in with Parexel Medical Marketing, a front group

that takes pharma money to set " advisory panels " for pharma. The

panel memberships are made up exclusively of Mental Health, Medicaid

and other directors from the various states. Michael Hogan is listed

as an advisory board member.

 

The panel members are treated to trips, first class accommodations

and other perks in exchange for showing up and listening to a spiel

by Janssen sales personnel who direct the course of the meetings. The

same kinds of meetings that Fiorello attended.

 

Hopefully, it will be just a matter of time before the Senate

committee disbands this gang of pharma-backed government pill-pushers.

 

Trying to Save the Children

 

Dire warnings against mass mental health screening are coming from

every segment of society, including parents, physicians, academics,

journalists, and human rights groups, because the influence of the

pharmaceutical industry in this scheme is so patently obvious.

 

People are particularly worried about saving the children from

senseless and dangerous drugging. According to long-time anti-child

drugging advocate, Doyle Mills, " Psychiatry has a long history of

abject failure. Psychiatric treatments—drugs, electroconvulsive

therapy, lobotomies—have harmed millions and robbed them of any hope

of a normal life. "

 

Expert records researcher Ken Kramer, who has been fighting against

child drugging for years, has conducted a research project on child

suicides in Florida that determined that medicating kids with the

types of dangerous mind-altering drugs on these lists is causing

suicide. He helped defeat TeenScreen's attempt to gain access to

schools in two of Florida's largest counties. Ken has a TeenScreen

website at www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html.

 

Dr. Karen Effrem, a pediatrician and strong opponent of mandatory

screening recently warned, " Universal mental health screening and the

drugging of children . . . needs to be stopped so that many thousands

if not millions of children will be saved from receiving stigmatizing

diagnoses that would follow them for the rest of their lives.

America's school children should not be medicated by expensive,

ineffective, and dangerous medications based on vague and dubious

diagnoses. "

 

In a letter to the editor in the Washington Times on October 31,

2004, Effrem summed up the dangers of using tax dollars to fund mass

mental health screening of children: " Given the very real problems of

already existing coercion, subjective criteria, dangerous and

ineffective medication, and the failure of screening to prevent

suicide . . . Congress would be wise to withhold the $44 million

requested for state grants. "

 

The nation's first lawsuit notice has been filed and let it serve as

a warning to other schools across the country to think twice before

allowing the TeenScreen recruitment scheme to zero in on their

students.

 

Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an

investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption.

 

 

The views expressed herein are the writers' own and do not

necessarily reflect those of Online Journal.

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