Action Alert: Forced Mental Screening of Children
The Liberty Committee
June 21, 2005
The American tradition of parents deciding what is best for their children is under attack.
The pharmaceutical industry wants universal mental screening for every
child in America, including preschool children. But universal
screening alone is not what the pharmaceutical industry wants.
The real payoff for the drug companies is the drugging of children that
will result — as we learned tragically with Ritalin — even when
parents refuse!
The drug companies want your children to be “screened.” The psychiatric establishment wants to do the “screening.” [The law enacting the screening program was passed by Congress last fall.]
And even Bush's commission (New Freedom Commission on Mental Health)
supports it all. These powerful groups want your children
“screened” — whether or not you, as parents, give permission.
Congressman
Ron Paul, an OB/GYN physician for over 30 years, is desperately trying
to keep the drug companies, politicians and federal bureaucrats from
becoming parents to your children. Dr.
Paul will introduce this week an amendment to the Labor, HHS, and
Education Appropriations Act for FY 2006 that will withhold funds from
being used to implement or support any federal, mental screening
program.
***Urge your U.S. representative to vote “yes” on the Paul amendment to stop universal mental screening of children.
If your U.S. representative does not vote “yes” on the Paul amendment,
he or she supports screening your children without your permission —
just as the drug companies want.
The U.S. House will vote on the Paul amendment Thursday or Friday. Send your e-mail message today and call your U.S. representative too. Also, please spread the word.
Click here to send an E-mail Message.
Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
In a
letter to his congressional colleagues, Dr. Paul states: “As you know,
psychotropic drugs are increasingly prescribed for children who show
nothing more than children’s typical rambunctious behavior. Many
children have suffered harmful effects from these drugs, [Editor's
note: …including damage to their DNA]. Yet some parents have
even been charged with child abuse for refusing to drug their
children. The federal
government should not promote national mental health screening programs
that will force the use of these psychotropic drugs such as Ritalin.”
If you
think this action alert is about something that “can't happen here,”
think again. In 1995, the state of Texas launched the Texas Medication
Algorithm Project. (WorldNetDaily.com, June 21, 2004)
The
state of Illinois has also approved a mental health screening
program. The Illinois legislature passed the Children’s Mental
Health Act of 2003 which will provide screening for “all children ages
0-18” and “ensure appropriate and culturally relevant assessment of
your children's social and emotional development with the use of
standardized tools.” In addition, all pregnant women in Illinois
are to be screened for depression.
Dr.
Karen R. Effrem, a pediatrician and leading opponent of universal
screening with EdAction states: “Universal mental health
screening and the drugging of children, as recommended by the New
Freedom Commission [Bush's commission], needs to be stopped so that
many thousands if not millions of children will be saved from receiving
stigmatizing diagnoses that would follow them for the rest of their
lives. America’s school children should not be medicated by
expensive, ineffective, and dangerous medications based on vague and
dubious diagnoses.”
Dr. Effrem warns:
1. Parental rights are unclear or non-existent under these screening programs.
2. Parents are already being coerced to put their children on psychiatric medications and some children are dying because of it.
3. Mental health screening does not prevent suicide.
4.
Mental health diagnoses are “subjective” and “social constructions” as
admitted by the authors of the diagnostic manuals themselves.
5. Most psychiatric medications do not work in children.
6. The side effects of these medications in children are severe.
7. The
untoward influence by the pharmaceutical industry, or at least the
impropriety, is abundantly clear in two important aspects of this issue.
8.
Merging screening with the academic standards required by No Child Left
Behind, as is happening in Illinois, will lead to diagnosis for
political reasons. School mental health and violence prevention
programs funded by NCLB and government counterterrorism operations are
already using such criteria as “homophobia” and “defenders of the US
Constitution against federal government and the UN” to label school
children and US citizens as mentally unstable and violent.
(EdAction.org)
Kent Snyder
The Liberty Committee
http://www.thelibertycommittee.org
Submitted by Larry Hanus of Waterloo
Blog For Iowa 
This is sort of old news alert. I was spreading not only this around but how it is being looked at extending it to all US citizens as requirement for either jobs or government help etc. Welcome to 1984, and SOMA. It can't be anything you can grow yourself like marajuana or poppies. It has to be something only PHARMA can profit from.
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Yes, it's true, we have been following this story since last August, and Rep. Paul did try to get a different amendment attached before Congress enacted the law last fall.
But THIS action alert is not old – it's about a vote that is taking place today or tomorrow on another Paul amendment to try to prevent funding for this evil program. There is still time to contact your U.S. rep.
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Sorry, wasn't trying to dismiss this news.
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