TeenScreenâ??s Pseudo-Scientific Basis

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[align=left]TeenScreenâ??s Pseudo-Scientific Basis[/align]

[align=left]Doyle Mills | January 7 2006[/align]

[align=left]David Shaffer of Columbia Universityâ??s psychiatry department led the development of the TeenScreen program, a controversial mental health screening tool. TeenScreen is controversial for a plethora of reasons, including matters of parental rights, the dangers of drugs used to treat symptoms of â??mental illnessâ?� and suspicious connections of TeenScreenâ??s personnel with the various drug manufacturers that stand to make billions from TeenScreenâ??s success.[/align]

The controversy on each of these issues could fill a book. Yet, the most interesting thing about TeenScreen is its origin, the science (or lack of science) with which it was developed.

TeenScreen certainly wants the public to believe that the program is scientifically based. Their 2004 Annual Review contained no less than NINE instances of the word â??scienceâ?� in its four pages of text. TeenScreen hired Rabin Strategic partners, a New York PR firm, to attempt to make the subject palatable to the public and the schools so they could be sold on the program. Is this overuse of the term â??scienceâ?� just slick marketing from the PR firm or is there some real science to be found somewhere? And what is this science? Finding the answer requires considerable research, as TeenScreenâ??s website and publications are bereft of any actual reference to what this science might be.

The Search for TeenScreenâ??s Science

David Shafferâ??s history yields the first clue, reprinted here from TeenScreenâ??s own website, â??He (Shaffer) has been co-chair of the DSM-IV Child and Adolescent Disorders Work Group.â?� The DSM-IV is the latest and current version of the standard handbook of "mental illnesses" as determined by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The DSM lists â??mental disordersâ?�, assigning each one a number and defining each as a list of symptoms. For example - 296.2, Major Depressive Disorder Single Episode, 300.02, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and the very unscientific 300.9, Unspecified Mental Disorder (nonpsychotic).

The write-up of Dr. Shafferâ??s history continues with this statement: â??Other research interests have included the development of computerized diagnostic instruments (the NIMH DISC) and psychiatric classification.â?� NIMH is the National Institute of Mental Health and DISC is the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children. The NIMH DISC is based on the diagnoses of mental disorders in the DSM, as documented by the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC), â??The DISC is a highly structured, diagnostic instrument that assesses thirty-four of the most common psychiatric diagnoses of children and adolescents. Based on diagnostic criteria from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, III-R (an earlier edition), and ICD-10 (the British equivalent of the DSM).

TeenScreen is based on the DISC and the DISC is based on the DSM. TeenScreenâ??s computer-based questionnaire is called the DPS (Diagnostic Predictive Scale). The DPS is derived directly from the DISC, as documented by NASBHC, â??The DISC (Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children) Diagnostic Predictive Scales (DPS) are brief questionnaires that indicate the likelihood of a psychiatric diagnosis in young people aged 8 to 18. All DPS questions come directly from the extensively tested and researched DISC. Analysis was done to find out which questions best predicted a full diagnosis.â?�

Questionable Suicide Studies

In the development of TeenScreen, Shaffer and crew performed a â??psychological autopsyâ?� study of 120 teen suicides in the metropolitan New York area. A psychological autopsy is defined by McGraw-Hillâ??s Online Learning Center as â??An analysis of a decedent's thoughts, feelings, and behavior, conducted through interviews with persons who knew him or her, to determine whether a death was an accident or suicide.â?? This action is commonly used by insurance companies to determine whether to pay a claim but rarely, if ever, used in any scientific work. There is no physical autopsy involved, merely interviews with friends, co-workers and relatives consulting their memory and opinion.

Reportedly, with this study, they found that approximately 90% of youth who die by suicide suffer from a diagnosable and treatable mental illness at the time of their deaths (Shaffer et al., 1996). They conclude that they could have correctly identified and treated the suicide victims. Yet, this conclusion was drawn without any direct observation of an actual suicidal teen, any attempt at diagnosis, and no attempt at treatment. This seems an exaggeration at best, or wishful thinking, akin to a fireman showing up 20 minutes late and saying â??I coulda saved those victimsâ?�.

This peculiar approach is very illogical until some basic information about the DSM and psychiatry in general is added. The DSM defines 374 mental â??disordersâ?�. Each is a list of symptoms and if a person is found to have more than half of the symptoms for a particular disorder he â??hasâ?� it. This is the criteria used by Shaffer and his fellow researchers to determine that the victims were â??diagnosableâ?�. It means they were able to find enough acquaintances to â??verifyâ?� their idea that the victim felt and acted according to certain items on a list.

Questioning the DSM

The so-called â??scientificâ?� basis for the TeenScreen Programâ??s evaluation of â??mental healthâ?� is the DSM. The question though, is whether there is any scientific validity to the DSMâ??s diagnoses. Each of the 374 has been approved and certified as real by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). There should be science behind that. Certainly, there are studies aplenty on symptoms and how symptoms can be manipulated with drugs and other duress but there is no proof that even one â??disorderâ?� is anything other than a list of symptoms. They are voted in by committee, so that if a majority vote that a particular list of symptoms â??isâ?� a disorder, then it â??isâ?� and everyone who has a majority of those symptoms â??hasâ?� that disorder.

The DSM-II listed homosexuality as an abnormal behavior under section "302. Sexual Deviations." It was the first deviation listed. After much political pressure, a committee of the APA met behind closed doors in 1973 and voted to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder in the new DSM-III. â??Opponents of this effort were given 15 minutes to protest this changeâ?�, according to Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, in Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Homosexuality was labeled as deviant behavior with no scientific basis, then removed in response to protest and political pressure. This is a polarizing issue amongst the public with strong opinion on both sides. Psychiatry has alienated both sides with their non-scientific methods.

Harvard Medical Schoolâ??s Joseph Glenmullen, M.D., says that in psychiatry, â??all of its diagnoses are merely syndromes [or disorders], clusters of symptoms presumed to be related, not diseases.â?� â?? from Prozac Backlash: Overcoming the Dangers of Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and other Antidepressants with Safe, Effective Alternatives

Even Columbia University acknowledges the unscientific nature of the DSM in their annual report of 2001, â??Problems with the current DSM-IV categorical (present vs. absent) approach to the classification of personality disorders have long been recognized by clinicians and researchers.â?� Among the problems, they list â??arbitrary distinction between normal personality, personality traits and personality disorderâ?� and point out the interesting fact that the most commonly diagnosed personality disorder is 301.9, Personality Disorder not Otherwise Specified.

"The field of mental health is highly subjective, capricious, and dominated by whims, mythologies, and public relations. In many ways it is a pop culture with endless fads but with no real substance." â?? Dr. Walter Fisher, Assistant Superintendent, Elgin State Hospital, Power, Greed, and Stupidity in the Mental Health Racket

"Finally, why must the APA pretend to know more than it does? DSM IV is the fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by medicine in general. Insiders know it is more a political than scientific document. ... It is the way to get paid." â?? Loren R. Mosher, M. D., Former Chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia, The National Institute of Mental Health, in his letter of resignation to the APA

While critics question its science, the DSMâ??s validity is endorsed by the APA, and the diagnosis numbers are generally accepted by insurance companies for billing purposes. Drug companies use DSM diagnoses to justify the need for their highly profitable psychotropic drugs, helping to build and maintain the multi-billion dollar psychotropic drug industry. "The way to sell drugs is to sell psychiatric illness." â?? Dr. Carl Elliot, University of Minnesota Bioethicist, as quoted in Drug Ads Hyping Anxiety Make Some Uneasy, Washington Post 2001

On a personal level, the psychiatrist or physician tells the patient that he or she has a disease, with a learned-sounding name. They hand that person a prescription for the specific drug that is supposed to treat that particular â??mental illnessâ?�. No actual medical tests are performed, only the list of symptoms from the DSM is used. If one exhibits the list of symptoms, he is deemed to have the disease. If the psychiatrist reports to the insurance company, Medicare or Medicaid that the patient has the right symptoms, it will pay the bill. True to Dr. Elliotâ??s observation, this is certainly the successful way to sell drugs.

The DSM has shown to be a useful tool for those who derive their living from â??treatingâ?� people who experience difficulties in life. Despite the controversy and questions, the DSM is broadly used to label and prescribe treatment, usually drugs, to millions of patients. The DSM diagnoses are also used by the research community as justification for millions in public and private research dollars.

One of the toughest question the DSM faces is the â??scienceâ?� or lack thereof that the APA uses to determine what is a disorder and what isnâ??t. Does even one of the 374 â??disorders" or "mental illnesses" actually exist? Are they diseases of the brain or simply lists of symptoms with a number of potential causes?

Paul Genova, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont, made the following astounding remarks in Psychiatric Times, April 2003, in an article entitled Dump the DSM: "The American Psychiatric Association's DSM diagnostic system has outlived its usefulness by about two decades. It should be abandoned, not revised. . . . it is time for the arbitrary, legalistic symptom checklists of the DSM to go. . .. The aggregate is an awkward, ponderous, off-putting beast that discredits and diminishes psychiatry and the insight of those who practice it." Consider the fact that your clinical practice is governed by a diagnostic system that:

â?¢ is a laughingstock for the other medical specialties;

â?¢ requires continual apologies to primary care doctors, medical students, residents, and the occasional lawyer or judge;

â?¢ most of our thoughtful colleagues privately rail against;

â?¢ insists upon rigid categories that often serve only to confuse and misinform patients and their clinical workers (sometimes abetted by televised drug advertising);

â?¢ is so intellectually incoherent as to raise eyebrows among the well-educated, critical thinkers in our own psychotherapy clientele;

â?¢ persuades the world at large that psychiatry no longer has anything of interest to say about the human condition.

The DSM diagnoses are compiled and voted in by committees at the APA convention. Voting is done by a show of hands on whether or not a new category should be created and what its symptoms should be. As psychiatrist and founder of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP), Peter Breggin, stated in the book, Toxic Psychiatry, "Only in psychiatry is the existence of physical disease determined by APA presidential proclamations, by committee decisions, and even, by a vote of the members of APA...â?�

The first two editions of the DSM categorized mental illnesses according to the conventional psychiatric ideology of its time. Difficulties were split into psychoses and neuroses. Then, with the introduction of the DSM III in 1980, the new "medical model" (chemical imbalance theory) became the norm, while dozens more categories of â??mental illnessâ?� were added. This was a revolution in the way the â??mentally illâ?� were studied and treated, yet no evidence was provided for this new convention. The DSM-III stated, "For most of the DSM-III disorders . . . the etiology (the actual cause of a disease) is unknown. A variety of theories have been advanced, buttressed (supported) by evidence not always convincing to explain how these disorders come about."

That was twenty-five years ago. Surely the billions of dollars poured into psychiatric â??researchâ?� in those years have resulted in final proof after all this time. No. Despite the decades and billions, not one single, objective scientific marker can be shown for even one so-called "mental illness." The disorders are ASSUMED to be genetic or related to a chemical imbalance in the brain yet not one scientific paper have clearly delineated a responsible gene and no one has even been able to identify what a normal chemical â??balanceâ?� would be. From the New York Times, June 14, 2005, "Psychiatrists have been searching for more than a century for some biological marker for mental disease, to little avail." â?? Benedict Carey

In the future, we can look forward to even more pseudo-science from psychiatry. The lead psychiatrist in charge of formulating the new DSM V openly admits to the lack of "scientific research" done to back up DSM diagnoses, "A primary purpose of this group then, was to determine why progress has been so limited and to offer strategic insights that may lead to a more etiologically-based diagnostic system. The group ultimately concluded that given the current state of technological limitations, the field is years, and possibly decades, away from having a fully explicated etiology- and pathophysiology-based classification system for psychiatry." â??Michael B. First, M.D. A Research Agenda for DSM-V: Summary of the DSM-V Preplanning White Papers, May 2002.

Psychiatric journals have reported studies into potential â??disordersâ?� that could be voted into the next iteration of the DSM. Arachibutyrophobia - the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth, Post Election Selection Trauma - your candidate loses, and Automatonophobia - the fear of ventriloquists' dummies have been created and seriously studied. Paul McHugh, Professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, understands how comical his profession has become, â??Pretty soon, we'll have a syndrome for short, fat Irish guys with a Boston accent, and I'll be mentally ill." â?? New York Times, June 7, 2005

The DSM has no scientific basis, therefore TeenScreen has no scientific basis. Psychiatrists themselves criticize its validity. This could all be an interesting discussion, scintillating parlor conversation, except for the simple, brutal, shocking fact that mental health screening programs like TeenScreen are busy right now infiltrating schools all over the USA in order to apply this pseudo-science to our children. This is not an academic discussion; this is a matter of life and death for Americaâ??s children. Do you want to trust your children to the very same group that cannot quite agree on their â??scienceâ?�, while boldly going forward with drugging millions of children with mind-altering, deadly drugs? If you are a parent, teacher, school administrator, elected official or anyone who cares about the future of this country, you need to find out if TeenScreen is operating in your local schools. Demand that TeenScreen is stopped and that children are allowed to grow up as the beautiful, normal children they are and not as lifelong drug addicts and mental patients.

Doyle Mills is an independent writer and researcher living in Clearwater, Florida. He may be contacted at [email protected].

For more information about TeenScreen, click on:

http://www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html

http://www.teenscreenfacts.com

http://www.teenscreentruth.com

pisshead Reviewed by pisshead on 01-08-2006. TeenScreenâ??s Pseudo-Scientific Basis TeenScreenâ??s Pseudo-Scientific Basis Doyle Mills | January 7 2006 David Shaffer of Columbia Universityâ??s psychiatry department led the development of the TeenScreen program, a controversial mental health screening tool. TeenScreen is controversial for a plethora of reasons, including matters of parental rights, the dangers of drugs used to treat symptoms of â??mental illnessâ?� and suspicious connections of TeenScreenâ??s personnel with the various drug manufacturers that stand to Rating: 5

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Over 5200 Concerned Adults Refuse to Comply with New Freedom Initiative for Mental Health Screening in the Schools

New Freedom Initiative/Mandatory Mental Health Screening of American Children Passes
Infowars.com | November 23, 2004

On Monday morning, Alex talked to Jeff Diest from Congressman Ron Paul's office.

Diest confirmed that Ron Paul's amendment requiring parental consent prior to government psychological testing/mental screening of all school children was not added to the bill.

The New Freedom Initiative passed sans amendment, as it stood.

[align=left]Congress Funds Mandatory Psychological Tests for Kids [/align]

[align=left]Newsmax | November 23 2004 [/align]

[align=left]One of the nation's leading medical groups, the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS), decried a move by the U.S. Senate to join with the House in funding a federal program AAPS says will lead to mandatory psychological testing of every child in America â?? without the consent of parents. [/align]

[align=left]When the Senate considered an omnibus appropriations bill last week that included funding for grants to implement universal mental health screening for almost 60 million children, pregnant women and adults through schools and pre-schools, it approved $20 million of the $44 million sought, Kathryn Serkes, public affairs counsel for AAPS, told NewsMax. [/align]

[align=left]This $20 million matches a like amount already approved by the House, Serkes advised. [/align]

[align=left]While the funding cut of some $24 million was a little good news, suggested Serkes, whose organization has zealously opposed the the measure, she said the organization was most worried about the failure of Congress to include â??parental consentâ?� language sought by the AAPS. [/align]

[align=left]Last September, AAPS lifetime member Rep. Ron Paul, M.D., R-Texas, tried to stop the plan in its tracks by offering an amendment to the Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Act for FY 2005. The amendment received 95 â??yesâ?� votes, but it failed to pass. [/align]

[align=left]According to Serkes, Paul is now mulling offering stand-alone legislation in the next session to once again try and get a provision for parental consent. [/align]

[align=left]The federal bill on its face does not require mandatory mental health testing to be imposed upon states or local schools, explained Serkes. [/align]

[align=left]However, the HHS appropriations bill contains block grant money that will likely be used â?? as is often the case with block funding â?? by the various states to implement mandatory psychological testing programs for all students in the school system. [/align]

[align=left]The spending bill has its roots in the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, created by President Bush in 2002 to propose ways of eliminating waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness of the mental health care delivery system. [/align]

[align=left]Although the report does not specifically recommend screening all students, it does suggest that â??schools are in a key position to identify the mental health problems early and to provide a link to appropriate services.â?� [/align]

[align=left]The bottom line, explained Serkes, is that a state receiving money under this appropriation will likely make its mental testing of kids mandatory â?? and not be out of synch with the federal enactment. [/align]

[align=left]The other telling point, said Serkes, is that although the relatively minimal funding at this point is certainly not enough to fund mandatory mental testing for kids countrywide, it's an ominous start: [/align]

[align=left]â??Once it's established and has funding, a program exhibits the nettlesome property of being self-sustaining â?? it gets a life of its own. More funding follows.â?� [/align]

[align=left]Officials of the AAPS decry in the measure what they see as â??a dangerous scheme that will heap even more coercive pressure on parents to medicate children with potentially dangerous side effects.â?� [/align]

[align=left]One of the most â??dangerous side effectsâ?� from antidepressants commonly prescribed to children is suicide, regarding which AAPS added, â??Further, even the government's own task force has concluded that mental health screening does little to prevent suicide.â?� [/align]

[align=left]Meanwhile, Rep. Paul says the mental testing scheme is a looming feature of "Big Brother" that if unchecked will push parental rights out of the picture: [/align]

[align=left]â??At issue is the fundamental right of parents to decide what medical treatment is appropriate for their children. The notion of federal bureaucrats ordering potentially millions of youngsters to take psychotropic drugs like Ritalin strikes an emotional chord with American parents, who are sick of relinquishing more and more parental control to government. [/align]

[align=left]â??Once created, federal programs are nearly impossible to eliminate. Anyone who understands bureaucracies knows they assume more and more power incrementally. A few scattered state programs over time will be replaced by a federal program implemented in a few select cities. Once the limited federal program is accepted, it will be expanded nationwide. Once in place throughout the country, the screening program will become mandatory. [/align]

[align=left]â??Soviet communists attempted to paint all opposition to the state as mental illness. It now seems our own federal government wants to create a therapeutic nanny state, beginning with schoolchildren. It's not hard to imagine a time 20 or 30 years from now when government psychiatrists stigmatize children whose religious, social, or political values do not comport with those of the politically correct, secular state. [/align]

[align=left]â??American parents must do everything they can to remain responsible for their children's well-being. If we allow government to become intimately involved with our children's minds and bodies, we will have lost the final vestiges of parental authority. Strong families are the last line of defense against an overreaching bureaucratic state.â?� [/align]



Background:

[align=left]Bush to screen population for mental illness [/align]
Sweeping initiative links diagnoses to treatment with specific drugs

WorldNetDaily.com | June 21, 2004

President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration.

The New Freedom Initiative, according to a progress report , seeks to integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the community, rather than institutions," the British Medical Journal reported.

Critics say the plan protects the profits of drug companies at the expense of the public.

The initiative began with Bush's launch in April 2002 of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, which conducted a "comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system."

The panel found that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children.

The commission said, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviors and emotional disorders."

Schools, the panel concluded, are in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.

The commission recommended that the screening be linked with "treatment and supports," including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions."

The Texas Medication Algorithm Project, or TMAP, was held up by the panel as a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes."

The TMAP -- started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas -- also was praised by the American Psychiatric Association, which called for increased funding to implement the overall plan.

But the Texas project sparked controversy when a Pennsylvania government employee revealed state officials with influence over the plan had received money and perks from drug companies who stand to gain from it.

Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General says in his whistleblower report the "political/pharmaceutical alliance" that developed the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, was behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, which were "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab."

Jones points out, according to the British Medical Journal, companies that helped start the Texas project are major contributors to Bush's election funds. Also, some members of the New Freedom Commission have served on advisory boards for these same companies, while others have direct ties to TMAP.

Eli Lilly, manufacturer of olanzapine, one of the drugs recommended in the plan, has multiple ties to the Bush administration, BMJ says. The elder President Bush was a member of Lilly's board of directors and President Bush appointed Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, to the Homeland Security Council.

Of Lilly's $1.6 million in political contributions in 2000, 82 percent went to Bush and the Republican Party.

Another critic, Robert Whitaker, journalist and author of "Mad in America," told the British Medical Journal that while increased screening "may seem defensible," it could also be seen as "fishing for customers."

Exorbitant spending on new drugs "robs from other forms of care such as job training and shelter program," he said.



However, a developer of the Texas project, Dr. Graham Emslie, defends screening.

[align=left]"There are good data showing that if you identify kids at an earlier age who are aggressive, you can intervene ... and change their trajectory."[/align]
[align=left] [/align]
[align=left] [/align]

Rep. Ron Paul seeks to yank program, decries use of drugs on children

WND |September 9, 2004
By Ron Strom

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, plans to offer an amendment in the House of Representatives today that would remove from an appropriations bill a new mandatory mental-health screening program for America's children.

"The American tradition of parents deciding what is best for their children is, yet again, under attack," writes Kent Snyder of the Paul-founded Liberty Committee. "The pharmaceutical industry has convinced President Bush to support mandatory mental-health screening for every child in America, including preschool children, and the industry is now working to convince Congress as well."

As WorldNetDaily reported, the New Freedom Initiative recommends screening not only for children but eventually for every American. The initiative came out of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, which President Bush established in 2002.

Critics of the plan say it is a thinly veiled attempt by drug companies to provide a wider market for high-priced antidepressants and antipsychotic medication, and puts government in areas of Americans' lives where it does not belong.

Writes Snyder: "The real payoff for the drug companies is the forced drugging of children that will result â?? as we learned tragically with Ritalin â?? even when parents refuse."

Paul's amendment to the Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2005 would take the new program out of the funding bill.

The congressman, who is known for his strict adherence to the Constitution, wrote in a letter to his colleagues: "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. 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."

The New Freedom Commission found that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and recommended comprehensive mental-health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children.

The commission said, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviors and emotional disorders."

Schools, the panel concluded, are in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.

The state of Illinois has already approved its own mental-health screening program, 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."

Members of the Illinois Children's Mental Health Partnership have held several public hearings on the program in recent months, hearing from parents and others who oppose the mandatory screening.

Karen R. Effrem, M.D., is a physician and leading opponent of mandatory screening. She is on the board of directors of EdWatch, an organization that actively opposes federal control of education.

"I am concerned, especially in the schools, that mental health could be used as a wedge for diagnosis based on attitudes, values, beliefs and political stances â?? things like perceived homophobia," Effrem told WorldNetDaily.

"There are several violence-prevention programs that do say if a person is homophobic, they could be considered potentially violent."

Continued Effrem: "This mental-health program could be used as an enforcement tool to impose a very politically correct, anti-American curriculum."

Effrem emphasized the new program has no guarantees of parental rights, noting some children have died because parents were coerced to put their kids on psychiatric medications.

Snyder says the following groups have come out in opposition to the screening program: Eagle Forum, Gun Owners of America, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Concerned Women of America, Freedom 21, the Alliance for Human Research Protection, and the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology.

A screening program in Paul's home state began nearly ten years ago. The Texas Medication Algorithm Project, or TMAP, was held up by the New Freedom Commission as a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes."

The TMAP â?? started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas â?? also was praised by the American Psychiatric Association, which called for increased funding to implement the overall plan.

But the Texas project sparked controversy when a Pennsylvania government employee revealed state officials with influence over the plan had received money and perks from drug companies who stand to gain from it.



Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General says in his whistleblower report the "political/pharmaceutical alliance" that developed the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, was behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, which were "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab."

[align=left]Jones points out, according to a British Medical Journal report, companies that helped start the Texas project are major contributors to Bush's re-election. Also, some members of the New Freedom Commission have served on advisory boards for these same companies, while others have direct ties to TMAP.[/align]





Mental Health and World Citizenship [align=left]Dr. Dennis Cuddy | August 11 2004[/align]

[align=left]In a recent article, I related that the Bush administration's Secretary of Education Rod Paige last October 3 declared that the U.S. is pleased to rejoin UNESCO where we could develop common strategies to prepare our children to become "citizens of the world." [/align]

[align=left]Then on June 21 WorldNetDaily published "Life With Big Brother: Bush to screen population for mental illness" describing President Bush's "New Freedom Initiative" that would have every citizen receive a mental health screening. What one needs to guard against is the use of mental health to pursue world government. [/align]

[align=left]The theme of the administration of President Woodrow Wilson was "The New Freedom" and it pursued the ideals of PHILIP DRU: ADMINISTRATOR, written in 1912 by President Wilson's chief adviser, Col. Edward M. House, who wrote of "socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx." Education would be a primary vehicle for achieving the objective, and John Dewey, the father of progressive education, promoted socialism. He said the society or group is most important, and that independent individualists have a form of "insanity." [/align]

[align=left]By the late 1940s, Dewey's progressive education was becoming dominant in American public schools. And in 1948 an International Congress on Mental Health was held in London with publication of a document "Mental Health and World Citizenship," declaring that "world citizenship can be widely extended among all peoples through the application of the principles of mental health." The Congress promoted the U.N. as the vehicle for promoting this objective, and UNESCO's director-general Sir Julian Huxley the same year wrote in UNESCO: ITS PURPOSE AND ITS PHILOSOPHY that "political unification in some sort of world government will be required." [/align]

[align=left]The 1950s and 1960s saw the growing strength of Dewey's progressive educational philosophy and mental health advocacy, and in 1965 the Joint Commission on Mental Health of Children was established. In 1969, the Commission released its report, which stated: "As the home and church decline in influence...schools must begin to provide adequately for the emotional and moral development of children....The school...must assume a direct responsibility for the attitudes and values of child development. The child advocate, psychologist, social technician, and medical technician should all reach aggressively into the community, send workers out to children's homes, recreation facilities, and schools. They should assume full responsibility for all education, including pre-primary education." [/align]

[align=left]In the 1970s, a representative of HEW (U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare) approached North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt, Jr. about developing a model for child health care around the nation. The N.C. Plan was called "Child Health Plan for Raising a New Generation," and included establishing a "health care home" for every child, stating "responsibilities belonging to child and family are required." The plan was released in 1979, the same year the N.C. State Health Plan was adopted, linking in two places religion with mental illness and mental retardation. [/align]

[align=left]In the same year (1979), Bill Clinton (supported by Hillary Clinton) began Arkansas' Governor's School for the Gifted and Talented, modeled after the first Governor's School in the nation which was established in 1963 in N.C., was funded in part by the Carnegie Corporation, and was attended by the writer of this article. We were given various psychological tests which, I believe, looked at us as guinea pigs to be remoulded for the Brave New World of the future. [/align]

[align=left]When Hillary Clinton became First Lady of the U.S. in 1993, she was in charge of a health care task force, about half the members of whom were connected with the Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Foundation. On the NBC "Today Show" (January 23, 1990), Dr. Michael Lewis of the New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School had claimed: "Lying is an important part of social life, and children who are unable to do it are children who may have developmental problems." [/align]

[align=left]What Hillary Clinton's task force was proposing was basically socialized medicine. Hillary's friend, former N.C. Gov. Hunt, became director of RWJ's Mental Health Services for Youth program. And regarding a January 4-5, 1996 symposium in Frankfurt, KY, attended by attorney Kent Masterson Brown, the attorney said: "He (former Gov. Hunt) came to Governor Wallace Wilkinson in Kentucky and told him that RWJ would like Kentucky to become part of this mental health program for youth, and said we'll give you $100,000 to plan a program....That's what they do. I mean, you think that's just buying legislation. Well, it is." [/align]

[align=left]The next year, early in 1997, former Gov. Hunt was chairman of the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP) and promoted the Early Childhood Public Engagement Campaign that actor Rob Reiner and others were starting, with the Carnegie Corporation once again playing a critical role (the Carnegie Institution in 1904 had financed the establishment of a biological experiment station related to eugenics at Cold Spring Harbor, NY). The NEGP indicated a desire for the creation of a nationalized system of child care from age zero based upon the principles of brain research (mental health). Roy Roemer, Governor of Colorado at the time, stated: "The ideal system would be...in every community or county you have an organizational structure that is responsible for the zero to 6, zero to 3 age level for the child....And then finally put in a hooker and say, 'Hey, you don't get any payments from state on their highways until you do this job.'" [/align]

[align=left]It may be this same type of coercive tactic that is used to facilitate the current New Freedom Initiative. Mental health screenings may be attached to the current vaccines most children are required to receive to attend public schools. And for older people, they may be asked by insurance companies to "voluntarily" accept the screenings if they don't want their premiums to increase. [/align]

[align=left]In 2001, President George W. Bush worked with U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy to pass the federal "No Child Left Behind" legislation, which includes provisions for expanding school-based mental health programs. This fits with the report of The New Freedom in Mental Health Commission, which stressed that "schools must be partners in the mental health care of our children." [/align]

[align=left]Where is all this leading? In the third volume of Arthur Calhoun's A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN FAMILY, published in 1919 and widely used as a social service textbook, one reads: "The new view is that the higher and more obligatory relation is to society rather than to the family; the family goes back to the age of savagery while the state belongs to the age of civilization. The modern individual is a world citizen, served by the world, and home interests can no longer be supreme....As soon as the new family, consisting of only the parents and the children, stood forth, society saw how many were unfit for parenthood and began to realize the need of community care....As familism weakens, society has to assume a larger parenthood. The school begins to assume responsibility for the functions thrust upon it....The kindergarten grows downward toward the cradle and there arises talk of neighborhood nurseries....Social centers replace the old time home chimney....The chlld passes more and more into the custody of community experts....In the new social order, extreme emphasis is sure to be placed upon eugenic procreation....It seems clear that at least in its early stages, socialism will mean an increased amount of social control....We may expect in the socialist commonwealth a system of public educational agencies that will begin with the nursery and follow the individual through life....Those persons that experience alarm at the thought of intrinsic changes in family institutions should remember that in the light of social evolution, nothing is right or valuable in itself." [/align]

[align=left]Relevant to this, Clinton administration official Mary Jo Bane said almost 30 years ago that "in order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them." (TULSA SUNDAY WORLD, August 21, 1977) And about that same time, HEW Executive Assistant Eddie Bernice Johnson (who would later become a Congresswoman from Texas) advocated the licensing of parents before they would be permitted to have children. Licensing of parents has also been proposed by Prof. Gene Stephens (THE FUTURIST, April 1981) and Dr. Jack Westman (LICENSING PARENTS, 1994). [/align]

[align=left]Under the American socialism planned for our future, government will increasingly control our lives via mental health screening and education, among other means. Only if the American people resist these efforts as soon as possible will we be successful in thwarting the plans of the power elite.[/align]