Bush Wants To Be Your Shrink

[Guest guest]

http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload & name=News & file=article\

& sid=830

 

Bush Wants To Be Your Shrink

 

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!

http://www.firstgov.gov/Agencies/Federal/Legislative.shtml

 

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