No Child Left Unmedicated

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Thu, 25 Nov 2004 08:11:40 EST

No Child Left Unmedicated

 

 

No Child Left Unmedicated

 

November 24, 2004 by Phyllis Schlafly

 

 

Big Brother is on the march. A plan to subject all children to

mental

health screening is underway, and the pharmaceuticals are gearing up

for bigger

sales of psychotropic drugs.

 

Like most liberal big-spending ideas, this one was slipped into

the law

under cover of soft semantics. Its genesis was the New Freedom

Commission on

Mental Health (NFCMH) created by President George W. Bush in 2002.

 

 

The NFCMH recommends " routine and comprehensive " testing and

mental

health screening for every child in America, including preschoolers.

President

Bush has instructed 25 federal agencies to develop a plan to implement

the

Commission's recommendations.

 

 

The NFCMH proposes utilizing electronic medical records for

mental

health interrogation of both children and adults for mental illnesses

in school

and during routine physical exams. The NFCMH also recommends

integrating

electronic health records and personal health information systems.

 

 

The NFCMH recommends " linkage " of these mental examinations with

" state-of-the-art treatments " using " specific medications for specific

conditions. "

That means prescribing more expensive patented antidepressants and

antipsychotic drugs.

 

 

Illinois became the first state to jump on board. By

near-unanimous

votes in 2003, the Legislature passed the $10 million Illinois

Children's Mental

Health Act creating a Children's Mental Health Partnership (ICMHP),

which is

expected to become a model for other states.

 

 

The ICMHP's plan, released on July 16, calls for periodic social

and

emotional developmental examinations to be administered to all

children, and for

all women to be interrogated for depression during pregnancy and up to

a year

postpartum. When the ICMHP showcased this plan with five public

hearings

stacked with bureaucrats and social service workers, a political

tempest erupted,

with state legislators saying they had no idea this was what they had

voted

for.

 

 

Illinois legislators were shocked to hear the details. The plan

includes periodic developmental exams for children ages 0-18 years, a

statewide

data-reporting system to track information on each person,

social-emotional

development screens with all mandated school exams (K, 4th, and 9th),

and report

cards on children's social-emotional development.

 

 

The plan is to add mental health assessment to the state's

physical

examination certificate, along with mandatory immunization records. All

children

in Illinois, unless religiously exempt, are required to have up-to-date

health

examinations and immunizations for school entry.

 

 

The ICMHP requires the Illinois State Board of Education to

develop and

implement a plan that incorporates social and emotional standards as

part of

the mandated Illinois Learning Standards, which are due on the

Governor's desk

by December 31, 2004. This inevitably opens up screening for

politically

incorrect attitudes and non-conformity with liberal attitudes of

tolerance.

 

 

Mental health diagnoses are inherently subjective and social

constructions, as even the diagnostic manuals admit. Many thousands if

not millions of

children would receive stigmatizing diagnoses that would follow them

for the

rest of their lives.

 

 

" State-of-the-art treatments " will result in many thousands of

children

being medicated by expensive, ineffective, and dangerous drugs. The

long-term

safety and effectiveness of psychiatric medications on children have

never

been proven.

 

 

The side effects of suggested medications in children are severe.

They

include suicide, violence, psychosis, cardiac toxicity, and growth

suppression. Several school shooters, such as Eric Harris (Columbine)

and Kip Kinkel

(Oregon) had been on antidepressants or stimulants when they committed

their

crimes.

 

 

The validity of much scientific research has lost its credibility

because the Food and Drug Administration has allowed the pharmaceutical

industry to

withhold data not favorable to their products and because persons in

the pay

of the pharmaceuticals are the ones recommending the medications.

 

 

The current controversy about links between suicide and

antidepressant

drugs that have not been adequately tested has contributed to the

uproar. The

FDA posted an analysis in August that some antidepressants pose a risk

of

suicide in children.

 

 

Parental rights are unclear or non-existent under these mental

screening programs. What are the rights of youth and parents to refuse

or opt out of

mental screening?

 

 

Will they face coercion and threats of removal from school, or

child

neglect charges, if they refuse privacy-invading interrogations or

unproved

medications? How will a child remove a stigmatizing label from his

records?

 

 

A Columbia University pilot project of screening students called

TeenScreen resulted in one-third being flagged as " positive " for mental

health

problems, and half of those being turned over for mental health

treatment. If this

is preview of what would happen when 52 million public school students

are

screened, it would mean hanging a libelous label on 17 million American

children

and putting 8 million children into the hands of the

psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry.

 

 

 

 

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Phyllis Schlafly's new book The Supremacists: The Tyranny of

Judges and

How to Stop It is now available!

 

Order online at 50% off retail price:

 

http://www.eagleforum.org/

 

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Read this column online.

 

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Eagle Forum

 

www.eagleforum.org

 

PO Box 618

 

Alton, IL 62002

 

Phone: 618-462-5415

 

Fax: 618-462-8909

 

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