The Mental Health EDGE

U.S. Spends $9 Billion on Child Mental Illness

2009-05-21T10:58:00.001-07:00

Wednesday 22, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Treating depression and other mental disorders in U.S. children cost $8.9 billion in 2006, making mental illness the most expensive condition to treat in childhood, U.S. government researchers reported on Wednesday.

An estimated 4.6 million children were treated for mental disorders in 2006 at an average cost of $1,931 per child, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported.

But more children were treated for asthma than any other disease or injury, the AHRQ found. It said nearly 13 million children were treated for asthma in 2006 at an average cost of $621 for a total of $8 billion.

Fractures, sprains, burns, and other physical injuries from accidents or violence sent 7 million children to doctors or clinics at a cost of $658 per child or $6.1 billion, the survey found.

Here are some key facts to consider:
FACT:
CHILDREN ARE A PRIME TARGET FOR PSYCHIATRISTS TO LABEL WITH A.D.H.D – IN 1987 THE LABELING OF A.D.D AND A.D.H.D WENT INTO FULL SWING AND WITHIN 1 YEAR OVER 500,000 CHILDREN WERE DIAGNOSED WITH A.D.D OR A.D.H.D -BY 1994 THIS HAD ROCKETED TO OVER 4.4 MILLION AND NOW THERE ARE OVER 6 MILLION KIDS DIAGNOSED WITH THIS A.D.H.D SCAM.

FACT:
IN THE LAST 15 YEARS THE WORLDWIDE PRODUCTION OF DRUGS THAT TREAT THE SO-CALLED A.D.H.D HAS GROWN BY 2800% WITH AN EQUIVALENT RISE IN ITS PRESCRIPTION RATES FOR CHILDREN.

FACT:
MORE THAN 20 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR IS MADE INTERNATIONALLY FROM DIAGNOSING CHILDREN WITH SO-CALLED A.D.H.D AND LEARNING DISORDERS. SPECIAL EDUCATION IN THE U.S., WHICH PSYCHIATRISTS INFILTRATED IN 1975 TO GARNER MORE FUNDS, NOW SPENDS MORE THAN 28 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR ON PSYCHIATRIST DEFINED LEARNING DISABILITIES. YET A RECENT FEDERAL INVESTIGATION OF THIS QUOTE-UNQUOTE LEARNING DISORDER FOUND THAT 40% OF THE STUDENTS SIMPLY HAD NOT BEEN TAUGHT TO READ.

FACT:
THESE DRUGS PROMOTE CRIME. RECENT STUDIES SHOW THAT CHILDREN WHO TAKE PSYCHIATRIC STIMULANTS FOR "A.D.H.D" ARE 46% MORE LIKELY TO COMMIT ONE FELONY, AND 36% MORE LIKELY TO COMMIT TWO OR MORE FELONIES. SO YOU CAN SEE, INSTEAD OF OVERCOMING SUPPOSED LEARNING DIFFICULTIES, THESE CHILDREN ARE AT RISK OF MOVING TOWARD A LIFE OF CRIME.

You can do something about it. Visit www.cchrflorida.org today!

Child's death was anything but a suicide

2009-04-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald
Child's death was anything but a suicide
By FRED GRIMM
April 27, 2009

Calling the death of Gabriel Myers a ''suicide'' lets his killers off the hook.

The 7-year-old was propelled by a vast conspiracy of abuse and neglect and malpractice. The boy only finished the job on April 15, when he locked himself in the bathroom of his Margate foster home and coiled a shower hose around his neck. We know that his mother, currently in jail in Ohio, her parental rights severed by the courts, seemed to be preoccupied with other matters, including drugs.

AN ALARMING PATHOLOGY

And we know that something awful in his short, sad life had triggered an alarming pathology of aggressive sexual behaviors. This stuff doesn't occur spontaneously. Someone, reportedly an older child, inflicted this kind of learned behavior on a small child. Gabriel was abused.

''Kids act out like this because someone hurt them,'' said Andrea Moore, the longtime child advocate in Broward County and director of Florida's Children First. ``And they are trying to tell us they're hurt.''

Gabriel was a child of obvious and urgent needs. He needed help, attention and therapy. What he got was Lexapro, Zyprexa and Symbyax (a combination of Zyprexa and Prozac). None of the three powerful psychotropic drugs doled out to Gabriel while he was a foster child was approved for children. All three drugs were known to raise the risk of ''suicidal tendencies'' in children.

And Moore points out that none of these anti-psychotic and anti-depressant drugs had a damn thing to do with repairing Gabriel's underlying problems. ``Give me a break. There is no drug that cures the pain of childhood sexual abuse.''

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS

The drugs, which come with a long and sobering list of possible side effects in children, have been doled out to troublesome kids to make them more manageable. Eli Lilly was fined $1.4 billion -- that's billion with a B -- in March for nefariously marketing the unauthorized use of Zyprexa for children, despite the known risks. A big chunk of those kids, like Gabriel, were foster kids, whose lives by definition were inflicted with the kind of trauma apt to cause unruly behavior.

State officials across the country seemed happy to pay $25 a pill to keep their unruly wards quiet. Eli Lilly also targeted elderly Medicaid patients. The federal lawsuit cited a ``thinly veiled marketing of Zyprexa as an effective chemical restraint for demanding, vulnerable and needy patients.''

Foster kids were essentially guinea pigs in a vast, public-financed drug experiment.

Of course, safeguards supposedly protected foster kids. Florida requires so-called ''informed consent'' before some doctor pumps a kid up with psychotropics. Parents are asked first -- though most foster children would hardly be foster children if it wasn't for lousy decisions by irresponsible parents.\

Absent a parent, a judge must give the OK for psychotropics. But the courts and case workers from the Department of Children & Families are all too overwhelmed by caseloads and beset by budget cuts to spend time contesting a doctor's judgment.

''No one was looking out for Gabriel,'' Moore said.

What Gabriel got, instead of real help, were powerful adult drugs laden with dangerous side effects. His cause of death was listed as suicide. It was just another misdiagnosis.

We just lost another....

2009-04-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

Miami Herald
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
April 21, 2009
Broward child's suicide raises questions about medication A Broward foster child who killed himself last week had been prescribed powerful psychiatric drugs, some of which the FDA does not approve for children.

Gabriel Myers, the 7-year-old Broward boy who hanged himself in the shower of his foster home

Weeks before his death, Gabriel Myers, the 7-year-old Broward boy who hanged himself in the shower of his foster home, had been prescribed a powerful mind-altering drug linked by federal regulators to an increased risk of suicide in children.

In all, Gabriel had been prescribed four psychiatric drugs, two or three of which he was taking at the time of his death, said Jack Moss, Broward chief of the state Department of Children & Families. Moss said he is not sure which medications the boy was taking because Margate police took the foster home's medication log as part of an investigation into Gabriel's death last week.

Three of the psychotropic drugs carry U.S. Food and Drug Administration ''black box'' label warnings for children's safety, the strongest advisory the federal agency issues. Three of the medications are not approved for use with young children, though they are widely prescribed to youngsters ''off label'' -- meaning doctors can prescribe the drug even if not formally approved for that use.

In 2005 -- reacting to a series of stories in The Miami Herald that as many as one in four foster children were prescribed potentially dangerous mind-altering drugs -- state lawmakers approved a law aimed at curbing their use. Children's advocates now question whether the law is being ignored.

Gabriel was being treated by a Broward psychiatrist who is on a list of Florida doctors that the state Agency for Health Care Administration red-flagged as having ''problematic'' prescribing practices, said Robert Constantine, director of AHCA's Medicaid Drug Therapy Management Program, which tracks prescribing of psychiatric drugs to children.

The list flags doctors with a high volume of prescriptions of mental-health drugs or potentially dangerous combinations of the medications.

Dr. Sohail Punjwani has been on the list every quarter in which regulators have monitored the prescribing of psychotropic drugs since the program was created in 2006, said Constantine, a professor at the University of South Florida's Mental Health Institute. The practices of about 17,000 Florida doctors who prescribe medications to children on Medicaid are studied every quarter, and about 300 to 450 end up red-flagged on the list.

And though Florida law requires that either a parent or judge consent to the use of psychotropic drugs on foster children, a source with knowledge of the boy's case said Gabriel already had been taking a three-drug cocktail when Broward Circuit Judge Lisa Porter was informed at a March 11 hearing. The judge approved the medications over the objection of a court-appointed guardian, the source said.

''We are devastated,'' said Jon Myers, the boy's maternal uncle, who cared for him from June through October 2008. ``Gabriel's problems could not be solved by a pharmacy.''

Four feet tall and 67 pounds, with short-cropped brown hair, Gabriel was a bright, charming and often sweet little boy, those who knew him say.

But he already had a sad past hinting at a troubling future. Records obtained by The Miami Herald show Gabriel may have been molested by an older boy while he was living with grandparents in Ohio, while his mother was in jail.

On Thursday, Gabriel locked himself in a bathroom and hanged himself with a detachable shower head after arguing with the 19-year-old son of his foster dad about his lunch, Moss said.

DCF petitioned a judge on Tuesday to unseal the boy's records in response to requests from The Herald and other media, spokeswoman Leslie Mann said.

Punjwani told The Miami Herald that he is board certified as a child psychiatrist. He did not recall Gabriel, but Punjwani said he was part of a ''huge'' group practice and may have been one of many clinicians to treat the boy.

Punjwani defended the use of psychiatric drugs on children, even if they are not approved for such use, saying the lack of approval stems from the reluctance of drug makers and the medical establishment to launch clinical trials on children.

The anti-psychotic drugs, he added, are used routinely to treat mood instability and insomnia among children.

Gabriel originally had been prescribed Vyvanse, an attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder drug approved for kids aged 6 through 12, Lexapro, an anti-depressant which is not approved for children, and Zyprexa, an anti-psychotic drug that also is not approved for kids, said Moss.

Both Punjwani and Moss said they think the Lexapro and Zyprexa were discontinued in recent weeks, and that a drug called Symbyax -- which contains the medication in Zyprexa along with another antidepressant -- was substituted.

Symbyax, recently approved for severe depression, is among a group of commonly prescribed anti-depressants, such as Prozac and Paxil, that the FDA warned in 2003 were linked to an increase in ''suicidal thoughts or behaviors'' among children. Symbyax is not approved by the FDA for use on children.

Dr. David L. Katz, professor of public health at Yale University's medical school, called the use of such drugs on youngsters ''extremely risky,'' He questioned whether the boy needed to be taking such powerful medications absent a diagnosis of schizophrenia. ''These are medications that are potent and potentially dangerous,'' Katz said. ``They certainly are powerful drugs for anybody, let alone a 7-year-old boy.''

Jon Myers, the uncle who cared for Gabriel after abuse investigators found him in a car in a Denny's parking lot after his mother had passed out, questions whether Gabriel needed such potent medications to begin with.

Myers said the boy's pediatrician had discontinued all psychotropic drugs while Gabriel lived with him, and the boy did well, earning A's and B's at the Hollywood Christian Academy.

''We did not have any issues with him having tantrums,'' Myers said. ``He would get upset, like little boys do.''

A week or two before Gabriel died, his grandfather in Ohio expressed concerns that the boy sounded overmedicated. ''My father said that the last conversation he had a couple of weeks ago Gabriel sounded like he was too drugged,'' Myers said.

``He sounded like he was doped up.''

Understanding the Mothers ACT

2009-04-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

Mothers suffering from depression are increasingly pushed into taking pills, putting them and their infants at great risk.

Today in the United States, 11 percent of women take antidepressants, the use of antidepressants by pregnant women has dramatically increased, and postpartum depression -- rare in those cultures in which women receive high levels of social support following childbirth -- has become so staggeringly common among U.S. women that Congress is legislating increased medical treatment.

Increasing Use of Antidepressants by Pregnant Mothers
Receiving little attention in 2007 was the study "Increasing Use of Antidepressants in Pregnancy," published by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Medical records of 105,335 pregnant women enrolled in Tennessee Medicaid from 1999-2003 revealed that antidepressant use during pregnancy increased from 5.7 percent in 1999 to 13.4 percent in 2003.
Among Tennessee Medicaid-treated women in 2003, 10 percent took antidepressants during the first trimester, 6.4 percent used antidepressants during the second trimester, and 5.9 percent used them during the third. White women were four times more likely than nonwhite women to have used antidepressants during pregnancy, and older women and those with greater schooling were also more likely to have used antidepressants while pregnant.
In another study of pregnant women treated at seven health maintenance organizations (HMOs), American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology reported in February 2008 that "antidepressant use in pregnancy nearly quadrupled from 1996 to 2005" and that nearly 8 percent of pregnant women used antidepressants in 2005.

Effect of Antidepressant on Newborns
To the delight of antidepressant manufacturers, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently told Americans that we need not worry about the effects of Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft and other antidepressants on newborns. In June 2007, the CDC issued a press release stating "New Study Finds Few Risks of Birth Defects from Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy." CDC epidemiologist Jennita Reefhuis concluded, "Overall, our results are generally reassuring with respect to the use of antidepressants during pregnancy."

This CDC press release was trumpeted by many U.S. newspapers with headlines such as "Antidepressants Not Big Risk for Defects" (Associated Press) and "Reassurance on Antidepressants in Pregnancy" (The Wall Street Journal). However, the actual research findings are the opposite of reassuring.
We have all heard about "crack babies" (newborns addicted to crack cocaine because their mothers were using it during pregnancy). What about "Paxil babies"? In 2006 the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine reported that 30 percent of infants who had prenatal exposure to antidepressants experience some withdrawal symptoms, with 13 percent of them experiencing severe ones, most notably tremors, respiratory distress, gastrointestinal problems, sleep disturbances, and high-pitched crying. Other withdrawal symptoms include rapid heart beat, irritability, feeding difficulties, and profuse sweating.

There are several other serious problems that newborns are more likely to suffer when exposed in utero to antidepressants. A 2006 U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alert stated, "A recently published case-control study has shown that infants born to mothers who took selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) after the 20th week of pregnancy were 6 times more likely to have persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN) than infants born to mothers who did not take antidepressants during pregnancy." In persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn, the newborn's arteries to the lungs are constricted, this limiting the amount of blood flow to the lungs and therefore the amount of oxygen into the bloodstream. The FDA alert also noted, "Neonatal PPHN is associated with significant morbidity and mortality."

It turns out that the CDC based its approval of antidepressant use during pregnancy on studies in which women were taking antidepressants the month before they became pregnant or in the first three months of pregnancy. But is it even in fact safe for newborns if mothers use antidepressants only in the first trimester?
Antidepressant use in first trimester, according to The New England Journal of Medicine in 2007, is associated with more than double the risk of anencephaly (birth without forebrain), omphalocele (the child's abdomen does not close properly allowing intestines and other organs to protrude outside the body), and craniosynostosis (premature closure of the connections between the bones of the skull before brain growth is complete).

The Rationale for Antidepressants for Pregnant Mothers
What then is the rationale of those medical authorities who encourage antidepressant use among depressed pregnant mothers? Their claim is that while antidepressants might present some risks, the stress of not receiving medication for depression is more risky for the newborn and mother. However, the research simply does not back up this claim.

Two major studies comparing the health of newborns from depressed mothers who took antidepressants versus newborns of depressed mothers who did not take antidepressants show that newborns are better off with mothers not taking antidepressants. In 2007 the American Journal of Psychiatry reported that the preterm birth rate of antidepressant exposed newborns was 14.3 percent as compared to 0 percent for newborns of depressed mothers who did not use antidepressants; and the rate of admission to the special-care nursery is more than double for antidepressant exposed infants compared to infants of depressed mothers who did not use antidepressants. These findings echo those reported in a 2006 Archives of General Psychiatry study using health data from a large sample of infants in British Columbia, Canada during a 39-month period.

Moreover, there is no evidence that antidepressant use by depressed pregnant mothers lowers their likelihood of suicide, and there is a great deal of evidence that antidepressant use can make some people manic, agitated, and violent. And while millions of people swear by their antidepressants, there is increasing evidence that antidepressants do not work much better than placebos. In 2002 Prevention & Treatment reported an analysis of forty-seven studies that had been sponsored by drug companies on Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Celexa, and Serzone. Many of these studies had not been published but all had been submitted to the FDA, so researchers used the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to the data. They discovered that in the majority of the trials, the antidepressant failed to outperform a sugar pill placebo.

Postpartum Depression and the Mothers Act
For politicians, a much safer issue than pushing antidepressants for pregnant mothers is promoting the expansion of medical treatment for postpartum depression. In 2007 the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the "Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act" and sent it to the U.S. Senate, which renamed it the Mothers Act. The stated goal of The Mothers Act, currently in committee, is to "ensure that new mothers and their families are educated about postpartum depression, screened for symptoms, provided with essential services, and to increase research at the National Institutes of Health on postpartum depression."
But will the Mothers Act merely ensure that federal dollars are used to identify more pregnant and postpartum women as depressed and then convince them that antidepressants are safe and effective? After all, while psychiatry authorities and antidepressant manufacturers admit that antidepressants used by nursing mothers do in fact enter breast milk, they maintain that antidepressant concentration in breast milk is too low to be terribly concerned about (though they do acknowledge that there are no long-term studies to confirm this).

In the "Findings" section of the Mothers Act we are told that postpartum depression is a "devastating mood disorder" and that "postpartum depression is a treatable disorder if promptly diagnosed by a trained provider." But inconvenient truths about postpartum depression are omitted. Not many in Congress would vote for legislation that stated the following: The U.S. could eliminate much of postpartum depression by transforming American values, culture, and economics.

The Mother Act states that "postpartum depression occurs in 10 to 20 percent of new mothers." It should state that postpartum depression occurs in 10 to 20 percent of American mothers. A 2004 BMJ (formerly known as the British Medical Journal) cross-cultural review reported that postpartum depression is rare in Fiji and in traditional African and Chinese populations. The BMJ authors concluded that "structured social supports after childbirth are described in groups of women with low rates of postpartum depression." Structured social supports for women after childbirth are decidedly missing from American culture.
The Mothers Act findings also neglects the 1996 British Journal of Psychiatry finding that postpartum depression is associated with unemployment of the mother (no job to return to), unemployment of the head of the household, unplanned pregnancies, and not breast-feeding.

And the Mothers Act omits relevant truths about Melanie Blocker-Stokes, the woman for whom the initial House bill was named for. Blocker-Stokes was a pharmaceutical sales manager who began suffering severe symptoms of depression after the birth of her child, and she did in fact receive extensive psychiatric treatment. She was hospitalized three times in seven weeks, given four combinations of anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety, and antidepressant medications, and underwent electroconvulsive therapy (electroshock). But despite her psychiatric treatment -- or because of it -- Melanie Blocker-Stokes jumped to her death from the twelfth floor of a Chicago hotel.
Postpartum depression could be dramatically reduced in the United States with a political will to transform American society from one that is dominated by money, productivity, and consumption to one that has vital communities which put energy into caring about the well being of new mothers -- as do cultures where postpartum depression is rare.

The rate of U.S. depression has increased more than tenfold in the last fifty years. During that same time, Americans have received increasing medical treatment for depression, especially antidepressants, which currently gross more than $13 billion annually in the U.S. Nowadays, drug companies, psychiatry officialdom, and U.S. governmental authorities recommend antidepressants even for pregnant women, and an increasing number of American newborns discover that their first worldly challenge is withdrawing from Zoloft.

When exactly will be the appropriate time to challenge mental health professional pretensions and rebel from cultural craziness?

More on Children and the so-called ADHD

2009-04-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

More than 18,000 children in Florida currently receiving atypical antipsychotic medication for conditions ranging from ADHD to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
If you look at the track on this, you’ll see that the number of children in the Florida Medicaid program prescribed these powerful drugs has nearly doubled from 9,364 kids in 2000 to 18,137 in 2006. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported this.

Among those children, the most common primary diagnosis was attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) -- an ailment not approved for treatment with antipsychotics by the Food and Drug Administration or by experts on the disease.
According to state guidelines, Medicaid will pay for a drug only if it is "medically necessary and prescribed for medically accepted indications," so evidently, based off of these stats, there are a lot of psychiatrists prescribing these powerful drugs when the mental illnesses they are prescribed for cannot be medically confirmed.

International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs:
January 2008: The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency issued an update to the product labeling and all antidepressants patient information leaflets to include information on the increased risk of suicide for children to young adults.
January 31, 2008: The FDA put out a warning to healthcare professionals about the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior with Antiepileptic drugs. “The increased risk of suicidal behavior and suicidal ideation was observed as early as one week after starting the antiepileptic drug and continued through 24 weeks.”
February 5, 2008: A direction was issued by the UK Government's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, that antidepressant manufacturers will be soon receiving letters asking them to update the warnings on suicidal thoughts and behavior, to keep in line with European agreements.

In Summary
Over 80 warnings have been issued internationally on the previously undisclosed dangers of psychiatric drugs since October 2004. This comes on the heels of public awareness campaigns by watchdog organizations, independent medical doctors, patients and their families repeatedly requesting independent evaluations of clinical drug trials and accountability for the harm and loss of lives. While drug regulatory agencies such as the FDA should be accountable for failing to act sooner, it must be noted that psychiatrists have been their advisors, and have a vested interest in maintaining a multi-billion dollar psychiatric drug industry.
Psychiatric drug sales have soared in recent years based solely on psychiatry’s criteria for a myriad of “mental disorders,” which are simply a checklist of behaviors, emotions and attitudes. Promoting these disorders as medical conditions requiring drug treatment is misleading to the public, governments and patients.
There are no blood tests, X-rays, brain scans or any scientific/medical means by which psychiatry’s diagnoses can be verified. Subsequently millions of men women and children have been wrongly diagnosed as mentally ill, and prescribed dangerous and potentially lethal psychiatric drugs.

The FDA should not be approving such drugs for mental “disorders” that cannot be medically/scientifically proven to exist.

2009-04-16T07:58:00.001-07:00

Help Defeat the federal Mother's Act - (Mental Screening of Pregnant Women and New Mothers)

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the "Mothers Act" without any debate whatsoever. The "plan" is to have it passed by the Senate and handed to America by Mother's Day.

This is your chance to tell Senators NO to the Mother's Act - HR 20 as fast as possible.

The MOTHERS ACT is a bill which will increase mental health screening of pregnant women and new mothers. This can lead to women being misdiagnosed and put on powerful mind-altering psychiatric drugs with their dangerous side effects.

Please compose a short letter and FAX as many Senators as you can on the below committee. Tell them NO to HR 20 - the "Mothers Act" and tell them why you disagree with it.

If you don't have access to a fax, please call as many as you can.

Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee US Senate

State	Senator	Phone	Fax
AK	Murkowski, Lisa R	202-224-6665	202-224-5301
AZ	McCain, John R	202-224-2235	202-228-2862
CT	Dodd, Christopher D	202-224-2823	202-224-1083
GA	Isakson, Johnny R	202-224-3643	202-228-0724
IA	Harkin, Tom D	202-224-3254	202-224-9369
KS	Roberts, Pat R	202-224-4774	202-224-3514
MA	Kennedy, Edward D	202-224-4543	202-224-2417
MD	Mikulski, Barbara D	202-224-4654	202-224-8858
NC	Burr, Richard R	202-224-3154	202-228-2981
NC	Hagan, Kay D	202-224-6342	202-228-2563
NH	Gregg, Judd R	202-224-3324	202-224-4952
NM	Bingaman, Jeff D	202-224-5521	202-224-2852
OH	Brown, Sherrod D	202-224-2315	202-228-6321
OK,	Coburn, Tom R	202-224-5754	202-224-6008
OR	Merkley, Jeff D	202-224-3753	202-228-3997
PA	Casey, Bob D	202-224-6324	202-228-0604
RI	Reed, Jack D	202-224-4642	202-224-4680
TN	Alexander, Lamar R	202-224-4944	202-228-3398
UT	Hatch, Orrin R	202-224-5251	202-224-6331
VT	Sanders, Bernard I	202-224-5141	202-228-0776
WA	Murray, Patty D	202-224-2621	202-224-0238
WY	Enzi, Michael R	202-224-3424	202-228-0359

The Loss of a Friend and Comrade

2009-03-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

This morning I was informed that my friend and former Mental Health EDGE radio show co-host Chris Rider had passed away in his sleep yesterday, March 18, 2009. This is a heavy, heavy blow as he was like family to me and a fellow comrade in the effort to raise awareness through exposing psychiatric human rights violations and fraud.

For well over a year, Chris and I researched psychiatric human rights violations, recorded facts and wrote shows to educate communities throughout Florida and the nation on the harmful effects of psychiatric drugs, electroshock therapy and on the massive 300 billion dollar a year fraud that psychiatry is. Together we participated in community events, candle light vigils for children that had died due to psychiatric drugging and spoke to many concerned citizens throughout our communities about how psychiatry continues to undermine medicine as a 100% pseudoscience. We produced and aired over 50 radio broadcasts together and I have to say that he was so dedicated to giving children a voice against fraudulent psychiatric labeling and drugging for money. He meant business in giving 20 million innocent children a voice against psychiatry's brutal attack against them. He was also an artist, a writer and a well known musician. He was very talented. He cared about people and human life. I will miss you my friend and you will always have a special place in my heart.

Sincerely,
Chris Corbell
The Mental Health EDGE

Mental Health Alert...On TeenScreen

2008-08-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release: August 6, 2008

TeenScreen Lawsuit Advances: Federal Court Affirms Family’s Right to Sue School for Subjecting Teen to Mental Health Test Without Parental Consent

SOUTH BEND, Ind.—A federal court has given the green light to a civil rights lawsuit filed by Rutherford Institute attorneys in defense of a 15-year-old Indiana student who was subjected by school officials to a controversial mental health examination without the knowledge or consent of her parents. In ruling that the lawsuit filed on behalf of Chelsea Rhoades and her parents, Teresa and Michael, may proceed to trial, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana upheld the claims that the local school district deprived the Rhoades family of their federal constitutional rights to family integrity and privacy when it subjected Chelsea to the “TeenScreen” examination. A copy of the lawsuit is available at http://www.rutherford.org/PDF/Filed_Complaint.pdf.

“This ruling rightly recognizes that parents have an intrinsic right to control their children’s education, as well as safeguard their mental and physical well-being,” stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.

On December 7, 2004, Chelsea Rhoades, a student at Penn High School in Mishawaka, Ind., was subjected to a mental health examination known as “TeenScreen” by personnel with the Madison Center for Children, a local mental health center. The mental health exam consisted of questions seeking only a “yes” or “no” answer, with no opportunity to explain or offer an alternative response. Only students with an opt-out slip were excused from taking the exam. All other students were divided into groups of 10-15, herded into classrooms and placed in front of computers. After completing the examination and being escorted into a private hallway by an employee of Madison Center, Chelsea was informed that, based on her responses that she liked to clean and didn’t like to party very much, she suffered from at least two mental health problems, obsessive compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder. Chelsea was also told that if her condition worsened, her mother should take her to the Madison Center for treatment. According to Chelsea, a majority of the students who were subjected to the TeenScreen exam were also told they were suffering from some sort of mental or social “disorder.” Chelsea’s parents were not informed about the mental health screening exam until after it had taken place, when Chelsea spoke to them about her so-called diagnosis. In September 2005, Rutherford Institute attorneys filed suit in federal district court on behalf of the Rhoades family, charging that school officials violated Chelsea’s constitutional right to be free from unnecessary intrusions by the state. In rejecting the school district’s attempt to have the case dismissed, the court also ruled that the school is liable for the false diagnosis of mental illness that was given to Chelsea.

Mental health screening exams like TeenScreen have increasingly been adopted by schools in 43 states, reportedly as part of an effort to identify students with mental health problems or at-risk tendencies for suicide that cannot be seen outwardly. However, while federal and state law generally requires that parents grant written consent in order for their children to take mental health screening exams, some schools had relied on “passive consent” forms in order to administer the exams. Passive consent requires parents to return a form only if they do not want their child to participate in the screening. However, according to the federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, as well as Indiana state law, schools are required to obtain “written parental consent” before engaging in such programs as mental health screening.

Founded in 1982 by constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.

YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS:

27,429 Signatures Against TeenScreen.
Make your signature the next.
Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU9puZQKBY

Is it just another Psychiatric Drug??

2008-08-08T10:22:00.000-07:00

One of the latest rages is to prescribe a drug called Prochlorperazine (marketed under the names Compazine, Buccastem, Stemetil and Phenotil) to pregnant women and chemotherapy patients as a so-called treatment for morning sickness and nausea.

Do your homework on this drug because Prochlorperazine is just another phenothiazine. This class of drugs starting with Thorazine which was first sold in the US 1954 as a “chemical lobotomy” by Smith Kline. Psychiatrists at the time couldn’t distinguish between people on Thorazine and people who had been lobotomized. Phenothiazine: One of a group of tranquilizing drugs with antipsychotic actions thought to act by blocking dopaminergic transmission (messages sent using the substance dopamine) within the brain.

Examples of phenothiazines include: chlorpromazine (brand name: Thorazine), fluphenazine (Duraclon), mesoridazine (Serentil), perphenazine (Etrafon and Trilafon), prochlorperazine (Compazine), promazine (Robinul and Anectine), thioridazine (Seroquel), trifluoperazine (Stelazine) and triflupromazine (Robinul).

People need to know about this drug!!! This is about the ultimate in psych drugs and classed as a “major tranquilizer.” It is the real, full on chemical straightjacket and is intended to and really does do brain damage, not just to the mother but to the unborn and nursing babies as well. It causes some of the worst of all psych drug side effects including involuntary movement disorders (major and permanent) and explosive rage and violence.

Some say that there is a better natural solution such as ginger. You or a young mother might like the candied version of ginger found in the health food store. http://www.thedietchannel.com/Fight-Chemo-Induced-Nausea-With-Ginger.htm

You should consult a competent medical doctor who knows something about this.

Here's the truth...

2008-07-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

Eagle TribuneLegislators want to get tough with drug manufacturers
July 20, 2008 By Terry Date
Seventeen state representatives wrote New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte in May, asking her to seek financial compensation from pharmaceutical companies that have improperly marketed or not fully disclosed side effects of antipsychotic drugs.
The petitioners didn't know it at the time, but the attorney general's office had been investigating one of those companies, Bristol-Myers Squibb, since 2004.
Just last week, the state's Medicaid fraud unit announced a $1.2 million settlement with the company and a former subsidiary over several alleged practices, including its marketing of Abilify to treat children and dementia patients, for whom it was not approved.
The $1.2 million is New Hampshire's share of a $515 million national civil settlement, which involved 43 states and the federal government.
The settlement also includes allegations that Bristol-Myers Squibb overpriced various drugs and made illegal payments to doctors to promote the sale of some drugs.
The lead petitioner, Rep. Al Baldasaro, R-Londonderry, said last week that he is happy with Ayotte's progress, but he wants continued action.
Each year, New Hampshire and the federal government split the cost of Medicaid, which helps pay for health care for the needy, aged and disabled, as well as low-income families with children.
What first caught Baldasaro's attention was a huge increase in state spending on newer antipsychotic drugs for children — almost $4 million last year, up from less than $300,000 in 2000.
"What got me going is how much money we are spending on Medicaid dollars to drug our kids, and on prescriptions that are designed for adults and not tested for use by children," he said.
When Baldasaro and other officials saw other states taking drug manufacturers to court to recover money wrongfully collected from them, the legislators wanted the Granite State to follow suit.
In particular, the petition asked Ayotte to sue Bristol-Myers Squibb, manufacturer of Abilify, and Eli Lilly, manufacturer of Zyprexa. Both drugs are prescribed for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Lilly has paid at least $1.2 billion in settlements to Zyprexa users nationwide, over claims they developed diabetes or other diseases from using the drug.
Baldasaro also wants the attorney general to consider joining the U.S. Department of Justice to criminally prosecute drug company executives, where appropriate, again as a deterrent to protect children and others from being placed on powerful medications.
Jeff Cahill, director of the state's Medicaid fraud unit, won't talk about any pending investigation. He said it is his office's policy to neither confirm nor deny any active investigation.
Regarding Ayotte's response to the petition, Baldasaro said he got a letter from her last month saying that New Hampshire has taken on cases against eight drug companies.
"I can assure you that we continue to be very active in investigating improper conduct and in seeking to recover any funds wrongfully collected from the state," Ayotte wrote.
Ultimately, Baldasaro and the other petitioners want a deterrent against improper marketing of powerful drugs.
Petition signer Rep. Gene Charron, R-Chester, said full disclosure is needed to protect consumers, and too often those safeguards are lacking.
Consumers are more likely to see an automobile recall than a drug recall, he said.
Charron and Rep. Marilinda Garcia, R-Salem, said too much is at stake — people's lives, children's lives.
"We want to make sure that with the increased use of medications by school-age children, that the kids are safe," Garcia said.
Baldasaro said, as a society, people should think more about prescription habits.
"In general, I think we are too quick to drug our kids," he said.

What about your State? How much did your State get?
If your state is not in the list below, contact your own State Attorney General here: http://www.naag.org/attorneys_general.php , ask for the Media Relations person and then ask for the press release (or the settlement dollar amount) on the Bristol-Myers Squibb settlement for illegally promoting their antipsychotic drug Abilify for use in kids and the elderly. Then you can flip the press release to your local newspaper. See articles here: http://tmap.wordpress.com/ (most recent are Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Oregon, South Dakota )
Arkansas$1.3 million
California $23 million
Connecticut $1.9 million
Florida $21.5 million
Georgia $12.1 million
Idaho $1.7 million
Illinois $10 million
Indiana $2.2 million
Kansas $3 million
Kentucky $3 million
Maine $829,862
Maryland $2.3 million
Massachusetts $9.2 million
Missouri $11 million
Nebraska$3.2 million
New Hampshire$1.2 million
New York $40 million
North Carolina $14.8 million
NYC$7.5 million Ohio $6.5 million
Oregon $3 million
South Dakota $700,000
Texas$15.7 million
Vermont $318,963

27,403 Signatures Against TeenScreen. Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU9puZQKBY

Taking Action Against Psychiatric Child Drugging!

2008-06-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Concerned & Responsible Parents,

Everybody wants a safe, friendly neighborhood. Our environment depends on what we do about it today and many of us have been very busy creating the best environment we can.

However, there is one aspect to our environment which cannot be overlooked or neglected: we can't make a safe and friendly neighborhood without taking care of that neighborhood's children. And this is where the 'hard-to-confront" truth lies.

THE MAKING OF SERIAL KILLERS NEXT DOOR!

Violence in the neighborhood can be traced directly to abusive prescription of psychiatric drugs. Children on psychiatric drugs are potential time bombs. One day they can become the serial killers we have all heard of. Consider the following facts: the 12 recent reported school/teen shooters were under the influence of psychiatric drugs -resulting in 54 killed and 105 wounded! Just to mention the most recent ones:

· Dekalb, Illinois , February 14, 2008: 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot and killed five people and wounded 16 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amount of Xanax in his system.

· Omaha, Nebraska , December 5, 2007: 19-year-old Robert Hawkins killed eight people and wounded five before committing suicide in an Omaha mall. Hawkins' friend told CNN that the gunman was on antidepressants, and autopsy results confirmed he was under the influence of the "anti-anxiety" drug Valium.

· Jokela, Finland , November 7, 2007: 18-year-old Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School in southern Finland, then committed suicide.

· Cleveland, Ohio , October 10, 2007: 14-year-old Asa Coon stormed through his school with a gun in each hand, shooting and wounding four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon had been placed on the antidepressant Trazodone.

· Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007: The psychiatric drug history of Seung-Hui Cho in the Virginia Tech Massacre was never made public. Initial reports stated that "depression medication" was found among Cho's belongings. But neither his toxicology reports, nor his recent medical history were ever released to find out whether Cho had been in withdrawal from psychiatric medication. (33 were killed and 29 injured, but this was not included in the total of dead and wounded cited above.)

THE SOURCE OF VIOLENCE IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

Our kids need help, not drugging. It has been proven again and again that psychiatric drugging does NOT heal, treat or help our children. The FDA has even recognized the obvious dangers of using antidepressants or psychotropic drugs on children. Ritalin, for example, was classified as a schedule II drug (in the same class as morphine, opium, cocaine and methadone).

Yet Ritalin is prescribed to more than 6 million American children. Over 17 million kids are under the influence of antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft or Paxil. Chances are, some kids in our neighborhood are already addicted. The potential liability is clear. Some examples:

· Houston, 2004: a 10-year old kid kills his father with a rifle. A psychiatrist had prescribed Prozac for the boy in early August after he was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. He started with a 10-milligram dose and gradually moved to higher doses. The week before the shooting, the boy started taking a once-a-week, time-release dosage of 90 milligrams. He took his second 90-milligram pill just hours before the shooting.

· Spotsylvania, Va. 2007: a teenager was charged with killing and raping his sister and beating his niece with a sledgehammer in a crime the sheriff called one of the most brutal he's ever seen. The mother said her son had no history of violence, but confessed to the authorities he was on medication for depression.

· COLUMBUS, OH, 2005: a 15-year-old boy pleaded guilty in Stillwater County District Court to two counts of mitigated deliberate homicide for the shooting deaths of two members of his family.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys said they agreed that Jake suffered from a mental disorder or extreme emotional distress when he shot his mother and younger brother in the head while they slept.

(For a complete story of over 2,200 murder or violence cases due to antidepressant "treatment" of children, go to http://ssristories.com/index.php )

THE SOLUTION TO A SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD AND GREAT KIDS

As part of your neighborhood actions, you can help by educating parents. CCHR Florida has recently published a great, informational booklet: "A New Approach to Healthy Mind." You can buy this booklet and distribute it to your neighbors. By doing so, you help parents know their rights about psychiatric drugging and/or involuntary commitment of their kids. Visit www.cchrflorida.org for details on how to get this new ground breaking booklet or call them directly at 800-782-2878 or International: +1-727-442-8820. Call today!

Get the truth about psychiatry...

2008-03-18T22:05:00.000-07:00

...every Wednesday night from 8PM to 9PM EST on WTAN AM 1340 or On-Line at www.tantalk1340.com with Chris and Chris from The Mental Health EDGE Radio Show! Get the facts and defend your human rights against psychiatric abuse!!

This is the first of many blogs that will blow your mind. Our official website for The Mental Health EDGE is on it's way and so is the Podcast so hang tight. Some of the show topics will include: Psychiatric Child Drugging, Psychiatry a Pseudoscience, The Harming of Artists, Psychiatry's War on Religion, The Real Mental Health Crisis, and many other topics!