Fwd: Paul amendment against mental health screening fails

[Guest guest]

This makes me sick!

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EdAction

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Chaska, MN 55318

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June 27, 2005

 

 

 

Paul amendment against mental health screening fails

Amendment to federal appropriations bill, HR 3010

 

 

 

" Pretty soon we'll have a syndrome for short, fat Irish guys with a Boston

accent, and I'll be mentally ill. " ( " Mental health is the new normal " , St. Paul

Pioneer Press, June 23, 2005)

 

Pharmaceutical industry profits won out against individual and parental

rights last Friday when the Paul amendment that would have prohibited federal

taxpayer funding for new universal mental health screening failed in a roll call

vote on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman and

physician Ron Paul introduced the amendment against government-sponsored and

pharmaceutical-industry-supported universal mental health screening programs.

The Labor/Health and Human Services/Education appropriations bill, HR 3010, was

then passed with $26 million for " state incentive transformation grants " to fund

implementation of the New Freedom Commission's recommendations for universal

mental health screening and psychiatric drug treatment. This is the same amount

requested by the President in his budget.

 

The Paul amendment simply stated:

 

" None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to create or

implement any new universal mental health screening program. "

Ninety-three Republicans were joined by four Democrats in supporting the

Paul amendment. In Minnesota, Gutkneckt, Kennedy, and Kline voted yes. Ramstad,

McCollum, Oberstar, Peterson, and Sabo voted with the pharmaceutical companies.

Thirty-two members abstained. Thirty-two members abstained. (See the voting

record at http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll317.xml.)

 

Please use this vote to educate your Member of Congress on this issue.

We urge you to please thank the Members who voted yes, especially if they are

your own Representatives. If your Member voted " No " to the Paul amendment,

please contact him or her immediately to express your displeasure. Provide them

with background information that is available on our website. Press your

Representative to understand the urgency of this issue. Ask him or her to

support HR 181, The Parental Consent Act which will be another opportunity to

address your concerns.

 

Urge your Member of Congress to join the 44 other Members in

co-sponsoring HR 181. Many prominent organizations have so far joined in

supporting this legislation or expressed concerns about child mental health

screening, labeling and drugging. None of them take money from drug companies or

other special interests. Included are:

 

Able Child

Alliance for Human Research Protection (www.ahrp.org)

American Association of Physicians and Surgeons

American Policy Center

Concerned Women for America

Eagle Forum

EdWatch / EdAction

Family Research Council

Free Congress Foundation

Gun Owners of America

Home School Legal Defense Association

International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP)

Libertarian Party

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

Psych Rights

Republican Liberty Caucus

The Liberty Committee

We Hold these Truths

 

As you might expect, well-funded lobbyists for those pushing universal

mental health screening pulled out all the stops and demaoguery . One

organization that has received millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical

industry, for example, sent out the following false information:

 

" Supporters of this amendment claim that early screening would undermine

parental rights, when in fact, parents will always have the right to control

whether their child is screened or given services. " [Children and Adults with

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder - CHADD]

See " Medicating Aliah " (access code MJZL6Y) for an example of how false that

statement is. Testimony from Cong. Paul (Texas) during the debate on the House

floor is as follows:

 

" This does not deny any funds for any testing of those individuals who may

show signs of mental illness. It only denies funding for any universal, read by

many as mandatory, which is a bit of overkill as far as I am concerned. There is

$26 million in this bill for these programs. Eight States have already been

involved, and three more have applied for grants.

" The main reason why I oppose this is I think there is a lot of

overtreatment of young people with psychotropic drugs. This has been going on

for a lot of years, and there are a lot of bad results, and once we talk about

universal testing of everybody, and there is no age limit, matter of fact, in

the recommendation by the New Freedom Commission, there is a tendency for

overdiagnosis and overuse of medication. There are as many complications from

overuse of medication as there is with prophylactic treatment.

'There is no evidence now on the books to show that the use of this

medication actually in children reduces suicide. Matter of fact, there are

studies that do suggest exactly the opposite. Children on psychotropic drugs may

well be even more likely to commit suicide. It does not mean that no child ever

qualifies for this, but to assume there is this epidemic out here that we have

to test everybody is rather frightening to me.

" Matter of fact, when the State gets control of children, they tend to

overuse medications like this. Take, for instance, in Texas, 60 percent of the

foster children are on medication. In Massachusetts, it is close to 65 percent.

In Florida, 55 percent of the children in foster home care are receiving these

kinds of medication.

" Once again, I want to make the point that this does not deny funding for

individual children who show signs that they may need or they have a problem and

need to be tested. It is just to make sure that this is not universal and not be

mandatory and that parental rights are guarded against and that the parent is

very much involved "

Rep. Regula (Ohio) inserted the same distortions that are being aggressively

circulated by the special interests:

 

" The sponsor mentions $26 million, and let me point out that the funds

provided in this bill that respond to recommendations put forward in the final

report of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, ``Achieving

the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America,'' go toward State

incentive grants for transformation to support the development of comprehensive

State mental health plans, and has absolutely no funding included for universal

mental health screening. So the $26 million has nothing to do with this

amendment as far as universal mental health screening. "

Rep. Obey (Wisconsin) continued the false statements:

 

" there are no plans for anyone in the Federal Government to conduct universal

screening, and there are no funds in this bill for any such purpose. "

Rep. Murphy (Pennsylvania) joined in with the lies of organized psychiatry and

the pharmaceutical industry:

 

" This amendment is another witch hunt against mental illness and its passage

will only serve to further stigmatize mental illness. "

Rep. Paul responded:

 

" Let me tell Members, people in this country have been well informed about

this, and they do not like this program. I also would like to quote from the New

Freedom Commission ...They never say `'mandatory,'' but they never say

``voluntary' 'What they say is `'universal.'' How can you have something

universal if you are not going to be testing everybody? Also from the Freedom

Commission, it should be for consumers of all ages, screen for mental disorders

in primary health care across the life span. These are the guidelines of the New

Freedom Commission, as well as saying the schools must be partners in the mental

health care of our children.

Rep. Regula continued the distortion, and he denied the moves by states such as

Illinois and Minnesota to do mental health screening of children based on the

New Freedom Commission by saying:

 

" There is no universal mental health screening in this bill. Secretary

Leavitt has made it clear there is nothing like this under consideration. It is

an amendment that is not needed because it addresses a problem that does not

exist. "

Rep. Paul:

 

" as a physician, having practiced medicine for well over 30 years, let me

tell Members, there is a crisis in this country. There is a crisis with illegal

drugs, but there is a crisis in this country with an overuse of all drugs,

especially in the area of psychiatry. Psychiatrists, if they are honest with

you, will tell you that diagnoses are very subjective. It is not like diagnosing

appendicitis. It is very, very subjective. If you push on this type of testing,

the more testing you have, let me guarantee it, the more drugs you will have.

Sure, there are mental diseases. I am not excluding any of this when a person

has true mental illness, but I am talking about the overuse of Ritalin and

Prozac and many of these drugs that are pushed on these kids.

" Let me tell Members, there have been some real problems with families who

will not let their kids go on drugs because the schools pressure them to. They

have been charged with child abuse, and threatened with taking their children

away because they will not be put on these drugs. That is the kind of abuse I am

calling to Members' attention, and that is why you need to vote for this

amendment. It does not change anything. It does not deny anybody testing and

treatment. All it does is say universal testing of everybody of all ages in this

country is not the direction that we want to go. Please vote for my amendment. "

" Medicating Aliah " (access code MJZL6Y) could have been cited here as

just one example of what children and parents face. The Paul amendment to HR

3010 would have protected both children and adults from invasive screening that

is based on vague, subjective, and politically motivated criteria that will

result in labeling with dubious diagnoses. These diagnoses will follow people

for the rest of their lives and will result in drugging with ineffective and

potentially lethal medications. This vote was about freedom of thought, as well

as civil and parental rights.

 

Chelsea Rhodes is another example of a child who was labeled with two

different psychiatric disorders based on a computerized mental health screening

called TeenScreen, given in her school without her parents knowledge or consent.

Her parents, with the aid of the Rutherford Institute, are suing the school

district and the mental health provider that did the screening.

 

We can see where this is going when Harvard and the National Institutes

of Mental Health make the scientifically unsupportable claim that more than 50%

of all Americans will be mentally ill during their lifetime. Even psychiatric

experts such as the former chairman of psychiatry at John Hopkins found that

idea very difficult to swallow. The debate is raging within the psychiatric

profession over the boundaries between mental health and mental illness.

" Pretty soon, " Dr. Paul McHugh said, " we'll have a syndrome for short, fat Irish

guys with a Boston accent, and I'll be mentally ill. "

 

The FDA has held hearings on the use of antidepressants and children.

The FDA issued its strongest black box warning after discovering that

information on the lack of effectiveness and dangerous side effects of these

medications was concealed from physicians and the public, sometimes for years.

Yet organized psychiatry is trying to get those warnings removed, because they

would rather conceal the dangers to children than give up the profits.

 

We need your involvement by informing Congress that you expect them to

protect the rights of parents and the health of our children from overbearing

government and mental health providers. Especially over the July break, contact

your Member of Congress. Support HR 181. Please continue to use our e-action

alert for HR 181 and pass it on to your networks of contacts. Additional

background information is also available there, as well as on the EdAction

website. Thank you.

 

 

Listen to the archived broadcast of a June 20th live radio interview with

Congressman Ron Paul, Dr. Karen Effrem, and Mr. Allen Jones

http://www.mindmattersradio.com/

 

 

 

These three authorities on universal mental health legislation discuss the

ethical and scientific problems raised by screening children for mental health.

They discuss the New Freedom Commission report of 2003, its influence on current

federal legislation, and the role of the pharmaceutical industry in plans to

screen the U.S. population for mental health.problems.

 

 

Order the Mental Health Screening Briefing Book

 

 

 

Your case for discussing these issues can be made stronger if you purchase the

Briefing Book now available from EdWatch that contains hard copies of nine

articles by Dr. Karen Effrem, Dr. Dennis Cuddy, Penny Pullen of Illinois, and

Karen Hayes of Illinois. A CD-rom contains all of those articles, plus a Power

Point presentation with evidence to bolster your case, and excerpts of a radio

debate between Dr. Effrem and a member of the New Freedom Commission.

 

To order the " Universal Health Screening " Briefing Book

 

from the EdWatch shopping cart.

with credit card by telephone (952-361-4931), or

by mail, send $20 with a request for the " Universal Health Screening " packet,

check made to EdWatch. Send to: EdWatch, 105 Peavey Road, Suite 116, Chaska, MN,

55318

 

 

 

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