Urgent Alert !! Support The Ron Paul Amendment To Cut Off Funds For Mental Health Screening.

[Guest guest]

> SSRI-Research

> Wed, 8 Sep 2004 08:09:53 -0400

 

> [sSRI-Research] URGENT ALERT!! SUPPORT THE

> RON PAUL AMENDMENT TO CUT OFF FUNDS FOR MENTAL

> HEALTH SCREENING Karen R. Effrem, MD

>

> ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP)

> Promoting openness and full

> disclosure http://www.ahrp.org

>

> FYI & Immediate Action

>

>

> URGENT ALERT!! SUPPORT THE RON PAUL AMENDMENT TO CUT

> OFF FUNDS FOR MENTAL

> HEALTH SCREENING Karen R. Effrem, MD

>

>

> EdAction Board of Directors

>

> Physician and Republican Congressman Ron Paul will

> offer an amendment

> prohibiting funding for universal mental health

> screening programs to the

> Labor/Health and Human Services/Education

> appropriations bill to be debated

> on the US House floor on Wednesday and Thursday,

> September 8th and 9th. It

> is urgent that you call your Member of Congress and

> the House leadership

>

> TODAY with your support of the Paul amendment:

> Find your Member of Congress at www.congress.org

> House Speaker Dennis

> Hastert: 202-225-2976 House Majority Leader Tom

> DeLay: 202-225-5951 House

> Majority Whip Roy Blunt: 202-225-6536

>

> EdAction strongly supports this type of amendment,

> as does a broad coalition

> of education, family, and medical/mental health

> groups. The long list

> includes Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for America,

> the Association of

> American Physicians and Surgeons, Gun Owners of

> America, the Alliance for

> Human Research Protection, the International Center

> for the Study of

> Psychiatry and Psychology, and Freedom 21 .

>

> Universal mental health screening and the drugging

> of children, as

> recommended by the New Freedom Commission, 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.

>

> Use the following talking points. (For more details

> on each of these points,

> see http://edaction.org/2004/082704.htm and

> http://www.edaction.org/2003/030827.htm)

> 1) Parental rights are unclear or non-existent under

> these screening

> programs. - What are the rights of youth and their

> parents to refuse or opt

> out of this screening? Will they face coercion and

> threats of removal from

> school or child abuse/neglect charges if they

> refuse? How reliable are the

> screening instruments? What if the diagnosis is

> wrong? How will a child or

> adolescent remove a stigmatizing label from their

> records that could follow

> them the rest of their lives? Will parents be

> honestly told about the

> potentially severe side effects of the medications

> used in treatment?

>

> 2) Parents are already being coerced to put their

> children on

> psychiatric medications and some children are dying

> because of it. -

> Universal screening and the accompanying treatments

> recommended by the New

> Freedom Commission will only increase that problem.

> Both Matthew Smith and

> Shaina Dunkle died of medication toxicity after

> their parents were coerced

> to place their children on drugs by the schools.

> Across the country,

> Patricia Weathers, the Carroll Family, the Johnston

> Family, and the Salazar

> Family were all charged or threatened with child

> abuse charges for refusing

> or taking their children off of psychiatric

> medications.

>

> 3) Merging screening with the academic standards

> required by No Child

> Left Behind, as is happening in Illinois, will lead

> to diagnosis for

> political reasons. - School mental health and

> violence prevention programs

> funded by NCLB and government counterterrorism

> operations are already using

> such criteria as " homophobia " and " defenders of the

> US Constitution against

> federal government and the UN " to label school

> children and US citizens as

> mentally unstable and violent.

>

> 4) Mental health screening does not prevent suicide.

> - The U.S.

> Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended

> against screening for

> suicide, saying, " USPSTF 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. " (See

> http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/05/21.html)

>

> 5) Mental health diagnoses are " subjective " and

> " social constructions "

> as admitted by the authors of the diagnostic manuals

> themselves.

>

> 6) Most psychiatric medications do not work in

> children - Medical

> textbooks, published and unpublished research, and

> government reports

> consistently state that the long term safety and

> effectiveness of

> antidepressants like Prozac and stimulants like

> Ritalin have yet to be

> proven.

>

> 7) The side effects of these medications in children

> are severe. - They

> include suicide, violence, psychosis, cardiac

> (heart) toxicity, growth

> suppression, and diabetes. Several school shooters,

> like Eric Harris

> (Columbine), Kip Kinkel (Oregon), and Jason Hoffman

> (San Diego) were on

> antidepressants or stimulants or both at the time of

> their crimes.

>

>

>

> Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav

> Tel: 212-595-8974

> e-mail: veracare

>