Drug Marketing Scheme Hits Nation's School System

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[sSRI-Research] Pringle - Drug Marketing Scheme Hits Nation's

School System

 

 

 

 

Here is a new article gang member and friend, Evie Pringle, has

written about TeenScreen for a legal service organization. Evelyn

Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an investigative

journalist.

 

FYI

 

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/teenscreen.html

 

Drug Marketing Scheme Hits Nation's School System

 

January 26, 2006. By Evelyn Pringle

 

TeenScreen, the elaborate drug marketing scheme concocted by the

pharmaceutical industry and a front group operating out of Columbia

University, is being promoted by the Bush administration's

recommendation to screen the nation's school population for mental

illness.

 

The Bush appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health issued a

report in July 2003 urging the screening of students in all 50 states

and recommended TeenScreen as the model program for the job.

 

Although touted as a suicide prevention tool, TeenScreen backers also

claim it can diagnose a host of mental health disorders in students

with the completion of the 10-minute survey. On March 2, 2004, the

program's Executive Director, Laurie Flynn, testified at a

congressional hearing and said that in the screening process, " youth

complete a 10-minute self-administered questionnaire that screens for

social phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major

depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicidality. "

 

Warnings against the mass screening of children are coming from every

segment of society, including parents, medical professionals,

investigative journalists, and human rights groups, in large part,

because the influence of pharma in TeenScreen is so blatantly obvious.

 

For example, prior to joining TeenScreen, Flynn served as the

executive director of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI)

for 16 years. NAMI calls itself as " a grassroots organization of

individuals with brain disorders and their family members. "

 

But in reality, NAMI is pharma's number one front group, dedicated to

promoting the sale of as many " legal " drugs as possible. Which means

prior to her promotion to the position with TeenScreen, Flynn was the

number one " legal " pusher for 16 years.

 

While employed by NAMI, Pharma paid Flynn's salary. Internal NAMI

documents obtained by Mother Jones Magazine, for the period between

1996 and mid-1999, show that 18 drug companies gave NAMI a total of

$11.72 million. The firms include Janssen ($2.08 million), Novartis

($1.87 million), Pfizer ($1.3 million), Abbott Laboratories ($1.24

million), Wyeth-Ayerst ($658,000), and Bristol-Myers Squibb ($613,505).

 

The group's top donor during that period was Eli Lilly with total

contributions of $2.87 million.

 

Flynn even wrote an article titled, " Before Their Time: Preventing

Teen Suicide, " which said: " The TeenScreen Program developed 10 years

ago by Columbia University and offered in partnership with the

National Alliance for the Mentally Ill helps communities across the

nation identify teens with mental illness who might be at risk for

suicide. "

 

Now NAMI can hardly dispute the charge that it serves as a funnel for

drug money when its web site lists " Corporate Partners, Grants, and

Foundations, " as Abbott, AstraZoneca, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Eli

Lilly, Forest Lab, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Jannsen, McNeil, Pfizer, and Wyeth.

 

So if TeenScreen is " offered in partnership, " with the NAMI, its

logically safe to assume that drug money is involved in the

development of the program.

 

Pharma constantly funnels money through groups like NAMI, which in

turn become conduits for the promotion of industry marketing schemes.

According to psychiatrist, Dr Peter Breggin, founder of the

International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology,

" these groups hold national meetings that bring together drug

advocates to talk directly to consumers. They also put out newsletters

and other information that praise medications. Sometimes they actively

suppress viewpoints that are critical of drugs - for example, by

discouraging the media from airing opposing viewpoints. "

 

In some states, pharma money funded TeenScreen openly. On June, 2002

the Update Newsletter published by the Tennessee Department of Mental

Health and Developmental Disabilities, reported that 170 Nashville

students had completed a TeenScreen survey conducted by the NAMI and

Columbia University and according to newsletter, the survey was funded

by grants from AdvoCare and Eli Lilly.

 

The TeenScreen program is actually a brilliant idea from a marketing

standpoint. The promotional talking points include the mantra that the

program is free and TeenScreen receives no government funding. Those

assertions are false with a capital F.

 

Tax payers are funding this recruitment scheme from start to finish.

Tax dollars are being used to set up TeenScreen in schools all over

the country and tax dollars are being used to pay for the resulting

treatment and prescription drugs for children.

 

For instance, on November 17, 2004, officials at the University of

South Florida announced receiving $98,641 in funding from the

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to expand

the TeenScreen Program in the Tampa Bay area.

 

In Ohio, the implementation of TeenScreen sites in five counties was

funded through a grant of $15,000 from the Department of Mental Health

for each of five mental health boards who participated in the pilot

program.

 

According to a July 11, 2005, Peoria Illinois Journal Star, in

Brimfield Illinois, " organizing the system and employing a part-time

counselor specifically for the program is estimated to cost about $100

per student. " Overall, the " Brimfield High School program alone will

cost around $20,000 for the first semester, " the Journal wrote.

 

During Flynn's testimony to Congress, she said, " close to 750,000

teens are depressed at any one time, and an estimated 7-12 million

youth suffer from mental illness. "

 

So this means pharma has its eye on capturing 7-12 million new

customers from the nation's 52 million students.

 

Dr Jane Orient, Executive Director of the Association of American

Physicians and Surgeons, had a few comments to offer on the topic of

school screening. " Teams of experts are awaiting an infusion of cash, "

she said, " they'll be ensconced in your child's school before you even

know it. "

 

And an added " bonus, " Orient says, " is that your little darlings will

probably give them quite a bit of information about you also, and then

you can receive therapy you didn't know you needed. "

 

There are already too many people using the expensive and dangerous

drugs TeenScreen is pushing. On January 13, 2005 WebMD Medical News

reported a government study that showed more Americans than ever are

being treated for substance abuse, depression, and other mental health

disorders, and that the treatment they are getting is increasingly

limited to prescription drugs alone.

 

The study reviewed changing patterns in the treatment of mental

illnesses from the mid-1990s to 2001, and determined that the cost of

mental health drugs rose 20% each year.

 

According to Economist Samuel H Zuvekas, PhD, who conducted the

analysis, about 80% of the growth can be explained by the increase in

the use of SSRIs and other antidepressants, and high-priced

schizophrenia drugs called " atypical antipsychotics, " like Risperdal,

Zyprexa, and Geodon.

 

Tax payers are already unwittingly footing the bill for the mass

drugging of children. For instance, an investigation by the Columbus

Dispatch, found that nearly 40,000 Ohio children on Medicaid were

taking drugs for anxiety, depression, delusions, hyperactivity and

violent behavior as of July 2004, and that overall, Ohio spent over

$65 million on mental-health drugs for children in 2004.

 

The investigation also revealed that doctors in Ohio had prescribed

sedatives and mood-altering medications for nearly 700 babies and

toddlers who were on Medicaid in 2004.

 

Robert Whitaker, author of the best-selling book, Mad in America,

tracked the profits of the new so-called wonder drugs since 1987, and

reviewed government data that showed not only an huge increase in the

use of the drugs, but a tremendous rise in the cost to taxpayers.

 

According to Whitaker, in 1987, psychotropic drug expenditures were

approximately $1 billion, but by 2002 the price tag to tax payers had

risen to $23 billion.

 

The May 8, 2005 issue of Lab Business Week, reported on an analysis by

the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that

revealed that Medicaid is now the largest payer of mental health

services, exceeding private insurance, Medicare, or other state and

local spending. The report also noted that one out of every $5 spent

on mental health care now goes for psychotropic drugs.

 

The increase in the use of these psychiatric drugs with children has

already lead to tragic results. For example, the SSRI, Paxil, was said

to be a wonder drugs when it was prescribed to children while

relatively untested.

 

The drug has since been linked to deadly side effects. Lawsuits have

now identified Paxil as the culprit in cases of murder, suicide,

debilitating disease and school shootings. In June of 2003, the FDA

issued a warning that Paxil should not be prescribed to patients under

18 due to a large number of reports of suicides by children on the drug.

 

In his book, Robert Whitaker, reported that one in every 145 subjects

who entered the trials for the atypical antipsychotics Zyprexa,

Risperdal, Seroquel, and Serdolect had died. Despite these known

effects, children between 6 to 11 were recruited for a clinical trial

at the University of California Los Angeles soon after Zyprexa was

approved for adults.

 

The children were not schizophrenic, but were diagnosed with other

disorders. According to the published report on the study, all of the

children experienced adverse effects and none were helped. The study

was terminated less than 6 weeks after it began, Whitaker reported.

 

Yet to this day, doctors continue to prescribe atypicals to children

even though they have never been FDA approved for the treatment of any

illness with children. In fact, every one of the so-called " wonder

drugs, " is now required to carry a black box warning listing the

serious and often deadly adverse reactions experienced by both

children and adults.

 

TeenScreen swears that it always obtains parental consent before

screening students and that it does not provide students with a diagnosis.

 

However, an Indiana family disputes both of those claims. Michael and

Teresa Rhoades say the TeenScreen survey was administered to their

daughter without their consent.

 

In December 2004, their daughter came home from school and informed

her parents that she had been diagnosed with an obsessive compulsive

disorder and a social anxiety disorder, after she completed the

TeenScreen survey.

 

When things go according to plan, at this point, parents are supposed

to head to the nearest pharmacy. However, Michael and Teresa were

outraged, and things did not go according to the plan.

 

Instead, they filed the nation's first lawsuit charging that their

daughter had been tested, diagnosed, and labeled mentally ill in a

public school without their consent.

 

And no doubt many more lawsuits will be filed as TeenScreen continues

to spread out across the country inflicting life-long damage on

children by labeling them mentally ill for the sole purpose of getting

them hooked on expensive but lethal drugs.