Fwd: Pharma & US Gov Promoting Chemical Assault Against America's Children

[Guest guest]

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION A Catalyst for Public Debate: Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, andAccountability http://www.ahrp.org  FYIThis has been a grim week for anyone who cares about the precautionaryprinciple guiding civilized medicine and the welfare of children.If anything, the Obama administration seems to be pushing the radicalpharmacological envelope even further than the Bush administration----at the very least, nothing has changed for the better in thegovernment-assisted determined push to control / engineer America'schildren.On Wednesday, an FDA advisory committee gave the FDA a green light to expandthe marketing license of three toxic antipsychotic drugs--Seroquel, Geodon,and Zyprexa--for use in children. Such approval gives manufacturers a shieldfrom liability--for illegally promoting the drugs for off-label use.  Andsuch approval ensures increased use of these drugs.  Manufacturers andmental health providers will profit while children's physical and mentalhealth will be sacrificed. These drugs pose severely disabling, potentiallylethal hazards--including diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovasculardisease.The body of evidence showing these drugs to be harmful is irrefutable: it isdocumented in FDA's postmarketing database, and in secret internal companydocuments uncovered during litigation.  Did the FDA provide the advisory panel members with the evidence ? And ifnot, why not?See, Evelyn Pringle's report, "FDA Throws Lifeline to Antipsychotic Pushers"http://www.counterpunch.org/pringle06122009.htmlAn article in TIME magazinehttp://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1903873_1903871_1903857,00.html gives credence to a not yet released report commissioned under the BushAdministration by a panel convened by the National Academies of Science.The report, "Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders AmongYoung People: Progress and Possibilities" (2009) re-iterates the earliernational mental health policy directive under President Bush: ThePresident's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (2002)--which promoteduniversal mental screening and the expanded use of patented psychoactivedrugs (those listed in industry-initiated, TMAP algorithm prescriptionguides).See the report brief to policymakers issued, March 2009:http://www.bocyf.org/prevention_policymakers_brief.pdfThe NAS report also recommends aggressive screening and pharmacologicintervention with toxic psychoactive drugs for children. The provocative,unsubstantiated premise is that mental illness can be detected throughgenetic screening--a la eugenics rationale--and that they can be prevented."Hundreds of studies that have appeared in just the past decade collectivelysuggest that the brain isn't so different from, say, the arm: it doesn'tsimply break on its own. In fact, many mental illnesses - even those likeschizophrenia that have demonstrable genetic origins - can be stopped or atleast contained before they start.""This isn't wishful thinking but hard science."  If the consequences ofpsychiatry's delusions weren't so serious, that statement is laughable. Asevery real medical scientist knows, psychiatry lacks even the rudimentaryobjective, scientifically verifiable tools of science, much less, "hardscience."The TIME reporter is impressed with NAS report weight in pagination: "a500-page report, nearly two years in the making, on how to prevent mental,emotional and behavioral disorders.""The [NAS] report concludes that pre-empting such disorders requires twokinds of interventions: first, because genes play so important a role in mental illness, we need toensure that close relatives (particularly children) of those with mentaldisorders have access to rigorous screening programs. Second, we must offertreatment to people who have already shown symptoms of illness (say, atendency to brood and see the world without optimism) but don't meet thediagnostic criteria for a full-scale mental illness (in this case,depression)....."According to TIME, the authors of the NAS report recognize but rationalizethe reality that mental screens will mislabel healthy individuals asmentally ill:"Early-detection programs will identify as candidates for mental illnesssome people  who are merely persnickety or shy or eccentric."Indeed, a responsible reason NOT to screen is the high false-positive rateof mental screens.  For example, the false-positive rate of TeenScreen, themental health dragnet of school children, is as high as 84%.TIME reports that that the invalid screening tools did not deter the NASauthors from recommending mental screening--even acknowledging that thosemislabeled may be  prescribed toxic antidepressants and/ or antipsychotics:"Some prevention programs even prescribe psychiatric medications, includingantipsychotics and antidepressants, to people who aren't technicallypsychotic or depressed....But those who contributed to the NationalAcademies report say preventing the suffering of people with mental illnessis worth the risk of some false positives, partly because of the enormouscost of treating mental illness after it's struck."The NAS report is available online in its unedited version--it has not yetbeen released. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12480Contact: Vera Hassner Sharavveracare212-595-8974COMMITTEE ON PREVENTION OF MENTAL DISORDERS AND SUBSTANCE  ABUSE AMONGCHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES: Research Advances and Promising InterventionsKenneth E. Warner (Chair), School of Public Health, University of MichiganThomas Boat (Vice Chair), Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical CenterWilliam R. Beardslee, Department of Psychiatry, Children's Hospital BostonCarl C. Bell, University of Illinois at Chicago, Community Mental HealthCouncilAnthony Biglan, Center on Early Adolescence, Oregon Research InstituteC. Hendricks Brown, College of Public Health, University of South FloridaE. Jane Costello, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, DukeUniversity Medical CenterTeresa D. Lafromboise, School of Education, Stanford UniversityRicardo F. Munoz, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, SanFranciscoPeter J. Pecora, Casey Family Programs and School of Social Work, Universityof WashingtonBradley S. Peterson, Pediatric Neuropsychiatry, Columbia UniversityLinda A. Randolph, Developing Families Center, Washington, DCIrwin Sandler, Prevention Research Center, Arizona State University  =====In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.