BUNK DRUG PUSHERS OF THE USA: SHRINKS & BIG PHARMA'S HAPPY PILLS

By Hal Womack 3-dan

PFAB* [* = "Please Find Appended Below"] an excellent article by Sandra
Lucas on the systematic deception and doping of American high school
students by the ruthless gang of  avaricious charlatans which presents
itself as America's "Mental Health" establishment.

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http://www.counterpunch.org/

December 30, 2005
The Making of Mental Patients
Inside TeenScreen
By SANDRA LUCAS
In October, 2004, after taking TeenScreen, a 10-minute computer test
developed in the psychiatric department of Columbia University,
16-year-old Chelsea Rhoades of Indiana was told she had two mental
health problems, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and social anxiety
disorder. The diagnoses were based upon Chelsea's responses that she
liked to help clean the house and didn't "party" much.

Chelsea is one of countless children who get labeled with fraudulent
diagnoses every day. The difference in her case is that her parents,
who were unaware that TeenScreen had infiltrated their daughter's
school and had not given permission for the screening, reacted quickly.
They filed a lawsuit against the officials of the high school who
allowed the test to be administered and the TeenScreen program. In
doing so, the Rhoades took a stand for all parents across the nation.

The unscientific nature of psychiatric labeling was admitted to by the
American Psychiatric Association's own president, Steven Sharfstein,
when he stated on June 27, 2005, during an interview on the Today Show,
"We do not have a clean cut lab test [for diagnosing mental illness or
chemical imbalance of the brain.]"

His admission was quickly followed by another similar statement from
psychiatrist Mark Graff, Chairman of the American Psychiatric
Association Committee of Public Affairs, "Chemical imbalance: it's a
shorthand term really, it's probably drug industry derived. We don't
have tests because to do it, you'd probably have to take a chunk of
brain out of someone - not a good idea." Graff did more than admit to
there being no science behind the chemical imbalance theory. He also
pointed out the incestuous relationship between the drug industries and
psychiatry.

TeenScreen is definitely a child born of that union, nothing more than
an unscientific written mental health survey which professes to
discover "mental illnesses", but in fact trolls for lifelong
psychiatric patients in our schools.

TeenScreen has been cleverly sold to numerous schools across the
country as a suicide prevention program with no scientific evidence
backing up the claim. The 1996 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
found no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide
attempts or mortality.

The individuals pushing TeenScreen make every effort to hide evidence
that mental health screening is of no use in combating teen suicide. In
order to gain wide acceptance in our nation's schools they paint youth
suicide as an epidemic and their program as the cure-all.

According to the latest Census Bureau information, gathered in 2000,
the U.S. population of 14-19 year olds was around 19,800,000 and
suicide for that year accounted for 0.0008% of the total teen
population. Each teen suicide is an unfathomable tragedy, yet the
actual numbers prove that suicide is not an epidemic. In fact, suicide
among American youth fell 25 percent in the last decade.

TeenScreen's executives are well aware of the actual situation. Rob
Caruano, former TeenScreen director, was quoted in the South Bend
Tribune on December 22, 2004, "Teen Suicides, while tragic, are so rare
that [any] study would have to be impossibly huge to show a meaningful
difference in mortality between screened and unscreened students. You'd
have to be screening almost the whole country to reach statistical
significance."

TeenScreen is far from being the solution. In fact, some experts agree
that widespread screening will increase the number of teen suicides.
Jane Pearson, PhD. who chairs the National Institute of Mental Health
Suicide Research Consortium said, " ... a prevention program designed
for high-school aged youth found that participants were more likely to
consider suicide a solution to a problem after the program than prior
to the program..." She also stated, " ... suicide is a very rare
occurrence compared to other causes of deaths. ... when researchers
have tried to predict suicide using as many known risk factors as
possible, they are still unable to predict who will and who will not
commit this act."
The TeenScreen test is a 14-item, self-completion questionnaire. It
usually takes 10 minutes to complete and is used to screen youths from
ages 11 to 18 who read at a 6th grade level. It asks questions such as
"have you often felt very nervous when you've had to do things in front
of people?", or, "Are you the kind of person who is often very tense,
and finds it very hard to relax?", or, "Has there been a time when
nothing was fun for you and you just weren't interested in anything?"

One would be hard pressed to find a teenager who wouldn't at one time
or another answer yes to those sorts of questions. TeenScreen refuses
to release copies of the questionnaire, even to parents and elected
officials who have requested to see the test.

TeenScreen, in an effort to make the program appear innocuous, claims
that it does not recommend or endorse any particular kind of treatment
for the youth who are identified by the screening. But, in one of many
conflicting statements Laurie Flynn, TeenScreen's director, reveals
that the long-term goal of TeenScreen is not just identification, but
treatment for those in need, and that parents of youths found to be at
possible risk a re notified and helped in identifying and connecting to
local mental health services.

Particularly distressing is the data released by a recent survey,
printed in JAM Academy Adolescent Psychiatry 2002, showing that nine
out of ten children who see a psychiatrist are given psychiatric drugs.

A recent survey showed that between 1995 and 1999, the use of
antidepressants increased 151% for 7 to 12 year olds and 580% for
children under six. Between 1998 and 2003, there was another 49%
increase in children taking antidepressants. Sales of the drugs have
now reached more than $13 billion a year.

To make matters worse, on September 15, 2004, the FDA stated that a
causal role for antidepressants in inducing suicidality had been
established in pediatric patients, and that children given psychiatric
dru gs were twice as likely to commit suicide as those given a placebo.
As a result of this finding, the FDA ordered drug manufacturers to
place a Black-Box warning on all antidepressant labels. The Black-Box
warning is the most serious measure that the FDA can take regarding a
prescription medication, short of an outright ban. That initial
Black-Box warning label requirement has since been followed by 15 more
official warnings on psychiatric drugs.

Eileen Dannemann of the National Coalition of Organized Women describes
the TeenScreen approach as a telling omission. "We've got eight million
American kids on psychiatric drugs," she said. "While TeenScreen asks
the kids if they are usin g street drugs, they omit to find out about
the use of psych drugs. Antidepressants play a major role in youth
suicide. If [TeenScreen] really wanted to help they would worry about
that. The fact that they don't shows their real intention."

It becomes obvious that teens will not benefit from TeenScreen. The
question that begs to be asked is "Who will benefit?"

Psychologist, author and director of Texans for Safe Education, John
Breeding, doesn't mince words, "TeenScreen is nothing more than a
government sponsored marketing tool created to serve the interests of
the corporate pharmaceutical industry and psychiatrists. It is a shame
and a disgrace that the United States is putting millions of children
on psychiatric drugs today. This is obviously not enough to satisfy the
insatiable greed of big pharma. We must stop TeenScreen and protect our
children from more deadly poisoning."

TeenScreen is the brainchild of psychiatrist David Shaffer of Columbia
University. Shaffer is a paid consultant for pharmaceutical companies
Hoffman la Roche, Wyeth, and GlaxoSmithKline. Shaffer is also the
director of the Division of Child Psychiatry at the New York State
Psychiatric Institute. A New York Post article dated January 31, 1999,
State Testing Prozac on 6-Year olds; Parents Not Told About Risks
Including Suicide and Mania, read, "The New York State Psychiatric
Institute in Manhattan is performing little-known but extensive Prozac
experimentation on troubled kids as young as 6 years old, according to
internal records. While the potentially deadly danger was cited in the
researchers' documents, it was not included in the consent forms given
to children and their parents to read and sign."

Laurie Flynn, the current director of TeenScreen is also the former
director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). While
Flynn was the director of NAMI, a group that bills itself as "a
grassroots organization of individuals with brain disorders and their
family members", NAMI received $11.72 million from various drug
companies between 1996 and mid-1999. One drug company went as far as
"loaning" one of its executives to NAMI, still paying for his salary
while he worked at NAMI's headquarters.

In view of Flynn's cozy relationships with drug companies, officials of
the program are working hard at minimizing any link to the drug
companies by saying that they are not funded by drug money. Yet, the
Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities
newsletter, Update - May/June 2002, revealed that a recent local
TeenScreen survey was partly funded by pharmaceutical giant, Eli Lilly.

The goal of TeenScreen is one item they are not afraid to reveal: to
provide mental health screening for every single American teen. If
TeenScreen' s goal is achieved, all 19,800,000 youths will receive a
"mental health checkup". Considering that 71% of teens who were
screened in Colorado were labeled with a mental disorder, should
TeenScreen succeed in its goal, it is possible that 71% of our teens
would end up being labeled. This means that no less than 14,058,000
American youth would end up labeled mentally ill. Since nine out of ten
children who receive "treatment" are given mind-altering psychiatric
drugs, the inevitable conclusion is that 12,652,200 would be drugged.

The average price of a prescription for psychiatric drugs is $102 per
month. TeenScreen's endeavors would increase the pharmaceutical
companies' monthly revenues by $1,290,524,400.

To ensure success, TeenScreen officials prefer the Passive Consent form
which requires parents to return a form to the school only if they do
not want their child to participate in the screening. Flynn is quick to
deny promoting the use of Passive Consent to schools. However, Flynn's
statement, like many others, is far removed from the truth. Numerous
high schools only use Passive Consent forms and, as in the case of
Flager Palm Coast High School in Florida, the passive acceptance style
was discussed by school officials to increase the numbers of
participants from 50% for Active Consent to near 95% for Passive.

Incentives such as pizza or movie coupons are distributed to the kids
because, as TeenScreen co-director, Leslie McGuire, said during a
national conference, "Getting the kids to buy-in is such an essential
thing because for the most part, you're distributing the consent forms
to the kids to bring home to their parents and bring them back. So you
have to get their buy-in, you have to get them interested."

TeenScreen goes as far as to advise local schools on how to circumvent
federal law. The Protection of Pupil Rights Act (PPRA) protects the
rights of parents by making instructional materials available for their
inspection if the materials are to be used in connection with a survey,
analysis, or evaluation in which their child is participating. It also
requires written parental consent before minors are required to take
part in such a survey, analysis, or evaluation.

The TeenScreen News (Fall 2003, Vol. 2, Issue 2) instructs schools that
making the TeenScreen survey a part of the curriculum will help them
get around the PPRA, " ... if the screening will be given to all
students, as opposed to some, it becomes part of the curriculum and no
longer requires active parental consent."

But even if active consent forms were used for all children being
tested by TeenScreen, it still would provide no protection for
unsuspecting parents. Before parents can make a truly educated decision
they must be told all the facts. Then, and only then, can they provide
informed consent.

A true informed consent form would tell parents the following:
* Chemical imbalance of the brain is only a theory with no science of
proof to back it up
* While screening is not a scientific and medical test it might still
result in the child being labeled depressed or mentally ill
* Should the child be labeled, the likely recommended course of
treatment will be psychiatric drugs
* Psychiatric drugs are known to cause children to commit sui cide
* Should parents refuse the recommended course of treatment, a referral
to the local child welfare agency might be made, which could result in
the child being taken away from home and forcibly drugged
Flynn has made it clear that she will go to any length in getting
acceptance for TeenScreen. While testifying in front of a Senate
Committee in Washington, she claimed to be in partnership with the
University of South Florida in piloting district wide mental Health
screenings of 9th graders in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties,
Florida.

Wilcox Clayton, Pinellas County School Board Superintendent, was quick
to set the record straight. He emphatically stated that no such
screening was taking place and added, "If this person [Laurie Flynn]
said what they allegedly said, I would have serious reservations about
partnering with such an organization."

TeenScreen is designed only to increase psychiatric and drug company
revenues by turning normal ch ildren into lifelong mental patients. Now
is the time for anyone who cares about children and the future to step
up and demand that mental health screening not be allowed in any
schools at any time.

Sandra Lucas is the Executive Director of the Utah Chapter of the
Citizens Commission on Human Rights, a mental health watchdog group.
She was born in Sydney, Australia, raised on the French South Pacific
island of New Caledonia. She moved to the United States at the age of
15 and has lived in Salt Lake City with her family since 1992. She can
be reached at lucsan@yahoo.com
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Author    Huxley, Aldous, 1894-1963
Title    Brave new world : a novel / by Aldous Huxley.
Imprint    Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, Doran & company, inc., 1932

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