Protection from mandatory mental health screening and drugging

[Guest guest]

Congressman Ron Paul has just introduced HR 2387, " The Parental Consent Act

of 2007 " We need as many co-sponsors of this bill as possible. It is urgent

that you send a letter asking your representative to sign onto HR 2387 (To

read the bill, see below) The Parental Consent Act needs support from both

sides

of the aisle. Please take two minutes to _send your representative a letter_

(http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=354497230 & url_num=1 & url=htt

p://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/Ablechild/campaign.jsp?camp

aign_KEY=11666) . Your actions will make a difference.

_http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/Ablechild/campaign.jsp?

campaign_KEY=11666_

(http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/Ablechild/campaign.jsp?ca\

mpaign_KEY=11666)

 

 

Respectfully,

Sheila Matthews

Patricia Weathers

Cofounders www.ablechild.org

 

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HR 2387 IH

 

110th CONGRESS

 

1st Session

 

H. R. 2387

 

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental

health screening program.

 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 

May 17, 2007

 

Mr. PAUL (for himself, Mr. MILLER of Florida, Mr. EVERETT, Mr. BURTON of

Indiana, Mrs. BLACKBURN, Mr. HUNTER, Mr. SIMPSON, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. NEUGEBAUER,

Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland, Mr. TANCREDO, and Mr. DOOLITTLE)

introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy

and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Education and Labor and Ways

and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in

each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction

of the committee concerned

 

A BILL

 

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental

health screening program.

 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United

States of America in Congress assembled,

 

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

 

This Act may be cited as the `Parental Consent Act of 2007'.

 

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

 

The Congress finds as follows:

 

(1) The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued

findings and recommendations against screening for suicide that corroborate

those of

the Canadian Preventive Services Task Force. `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.'.

 

(2) The 1999 Surgeon General's report on mental health admitted the serious

conflicts in the medical literature regarding the definitions of mental

health and mental illness when it said, `In other words, what it means to be

mentally healthy is subject to many different interpretations that are rooted

in

value judgments that may vary across cultures. The challenge of defining

mental health has stalled the development of programs to foster mental health

(Secker, 1998). . . .'.

 

(3) A 2005 report by the National Center for Infant and Early Childhood

Health Policy admitted, with respect to the psychiatric screening of children

from birth to age 5, the following: `We have mentioned a number of the problems

for the new field of IMH [infant Mental Health] throughout this paper, and

many of them complicate examining outcomes.'. Briefly, such problems include:

 

(A) Lack of baseline

 

(B) Lack of agreement about diagnosis.

 

© Criteria for referrals or acceptance into services are not always well

defined.

 

(D) Lack of longitudinal outcome studies.

 

(E) Appropriate assessment and treatment requires multiple informants

involved with the young child: parents, clinicians, child care staff, preschool

staff, medical personnel, and other service providers.

 

(F) Broad parameters for determining socioemotional outcomes are not clearly

defined, although much attention is now being given to school readiness.

 

(4) Authors of the bible of psychiatric diagnosis, the Diagnostic and

Statistical Manual, admit that the diagnostic criteria for mental illness are

vague, saying, `DSM-IV criteria remain a consensus without clear empirical data

supporting the number of items required for the diagnosis. . . . Furthermore,

th

e behavioral characteristics specified in DSM-IV, despite efforts to

standardize them, remain subjective. . . .' (American Psychiatric Association

Committee on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV 1994), pp.

1162-1163).

 

(5) Because of the subjectivity of psychiatric diagnosis, it is all too easy

for a psychiatrist to label a person's disagreement with the psychiatrist's

political beliefs a mental disorder.

 

(6) Efforts are underway to add a diagnosis of `extreme intolerance' to the

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Prisoners in the California State penal

system judged to have this extreme intolerance based on race or sexual

orientation are considered to be delusional and are being medicated with

anti-psychotic drugs. (Washington Post 12/10/05)

 

(7) At least one federally-funded school violence prevention program has

suggested that a child who shares his or her parent's traditional values may be

likely to instigate school violence.

 

(8) Despite many statements in the popular press and by groups promoting the

psychiatric labeling and medication of children, that ADD/ADHD is due to a

chemical imbalance in the brain, the 1998 National Institutes of Health

Consensus Conference said, `. . . further research is necessary to firmly

establish

ADHD as a brain disorder. This is not unique to ADHD, but applies as well to

most psychiatric disorders, including disabling diseases such as

schizophrenia. . . . Although an independent diagnostic test for ADHD does not

exist. .

.. . Finally, after years of clinical research and experience with ADHD, our

knowledge about the cause or causes of ADHD remains speculative.'.

 

(9) There has been a precipitous increase in the prescription rates of

psychiatric drugs in children:

 

(A) The use of antipsychotic medication in children has increased nearly

fivefold between 1995 and 2002 with more than 2.5 million children receiving

these medications, the youngest being 18 months old. (Vanderbilt University,

2006)

 

(B) More than 2.2 million children are receiving more than one psychotropic

drug at one time with no scientific evidence of safety or effectiveness.

(Medco Health Solutions, 2006)

 

© More money was spent on psychiatric drugs for children than on

antibiotics or asthma medication in 2003. (Medco Trends, 2004)

 

(10) A September 2004 Food and Drug Administration hearing found that more

than two-thirds of studies of antidepressants given to depressed children

showed that they were no more effective than placebo, or sugar pills, and that

only the positive trials were published by the pharmaceutical industry. The

lack of effectiveness of antidepressants has been known by the Food and Drug

Administration since at least 2000 when, according to the Food and Drug

Administration Background Comments on Pediatric Depression, Robert Temple of the

Food and Drug Administration Office of Drug Evaluation acknowledged the

`preponderance of negative studies of antidepressants in pediatric populations'.

The

Surgeon General's report said of stimulant medication like Ritalin, `However,

psychostimulants do not appear to achieve long-term changes in outcomes such

as peer relationships, social or academic skills, or school achievement.'.

 

(11) The Food and Drug Administration finally acknowledged by issuing its

most severe Black Box Warnings in September 2004, that the newer

antidepressants are related to suicidal thoughts and actions in children and

that this data

was hidden for years. A confirmatory review of that data published in 2006

by Columbia University's department of psychiatry, which is also the

originator of the TeenScreen instrument, found that `in children and

adolescents (aged

6-18 years), antidepressant drug treatment was significantly associated with

suicide attempts . . . and suicide deaths. . . . '. The Food and Drug

Administration had over 2000 reports of completed suicides from 1987 to 1995

for

the drug Prozac alone, which by the agency's own calculations represent but a

fraction of the suicides. Prozac is the only such drug approved by the Food

and Drug Administration for use in children.

 

(12) Other possible side effects of psychiatric medication used in children

include mania, violence, dependence, weight gain, and insomnia from the newer

antidepressants; cardiac toxicity including lethal arrhythmias from the

older antidepressants; growth suppression, psychosis, and violence from

stimulants; and diabetes from the newer anti-psychotic medications.

 

(13) Parents are already being coerced to put their children on psychiatric

medications and some children are dying because of it. Universal or mandatory

mental health screening and the accompanying treatments recommended by the

President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health will only increase that

problem. 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.

 

(14) The United States Supreme Court in Pierce versus Society of Sisters

(268 U.S. 510 (1925)) held that parents have a right to direct the education

and

upbringing of their children.

 

(15) Universal or mandatory mental health screening violates the right of

parents to direct and control the upbringing of their children.

 

(16) Federal funds should never be used to support programs that could lead

to the increased over-medication of children, the stigmatization of children

and adults as mentally disturbed based on their political or other beliefs,

or the violation of the liberty and privacy of Americans by subjecting them to

invasive `mental health screening' (the results of which are placed in

medical records which are available to government officials and special

interests

without the patient's consent).

 

SEC. 3. PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL FUNDING OF UNIVERSAL OR MANDATORY MENTAL

HEALTH SCREENING.

 

(a) Universal or Mandatory Mental Health Screening Program- No Federal funds

may be used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental

health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program.

 

(b) Refusal to Consent as Basis of a Charge of Child Abuse or Education

Neglect- No Federal education funds may be paid to any local educational agency

or other instrument of government that uses the refusal of a parent or legal

guardian to provide express, written, voluntary, informed consent to mental

health screening for his or her child as the basis of a charge of child abuse,

child neglect, medical neglect, or education neglect until the agency or

instrument demonstrates that it is no longer using such refusal as a basis of

such a charge.

 

© Definition- For purposes of this Act, the term `universal or mandatory

mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program'--

 

(1) means any mental health screening program in which a set of individuals

(other than members of the Armed Forces or individuals serving a sentence

resulting from conviction for a criminal offense) is automatically screened

without regard to whether there was a prior indication of a need for mental

health treatment; and

 

(2) includes--

 

(A) any program of State incentive grants for transformation to implement

recommendations in the July 2003 report of the President's New Freedom

Commission on Mental Health, the State Early Childhood Comprehensive System,

grants

for TeenScreen, and the Foundations for Learning Grants; and

 

(B) any student mental health screening program that allows mental health

screening of individuals under 18 years of age without the express, written,

voluntary, informed consent of the parent or legal guardian of the individual

involved.

 

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Copyright 2001- 2007 Ablechild (Parents for Label and Drug Free Education).

All rights reserved.

Ablechild is a nonprofit, tax-exempt, Section 501© (3) charitable

organization,

and donations are deductible under the provisions of the IRS Tax Code.

Ablechild and the Ablechild logo is a Trademark of Ablechild, Inc.

 

 

 

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