More Dirt On TeenScreen

Check out this data on sites where TeenScreen bites the dust.

And here's more data about another TeenScreen Waterloo in Fresno, California:

In an article about TeenScreen entitled FIERCE OPPOSITION ARISES TO MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING IN SCHOOLS, published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in Sep 2005, Michael Hogan, chairman of Bush's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health called the grassroots uprising against mental screening a "Curious Coalition of people" who are "making a big noise about it"

Hogan is also on TeenScreen's advisory board and was the Director of Mental Health in Ohio. It's no coincidence that Ohio has more TeenScreen sites than any other state. Hogan is now the New York Commissioner of the Office of Mental Health. Watch out New York!!

In another article published in 2006, the Philadelphia Inquirer described the Curious Coalition further:

"Hogan called TeenScreen critics 'a curious coalition' with whom he disagrees, but who have understandable concerns about pharmaceutical companies and the safety of drugs for children.

In campaigns often conducted via the Internet, detractors including the Church of Scientology and self-described survivors of the psychiatric system accuse TeenScreen of undermining parental authority, violating privacy, putting potentially harmful ideas in children's heads, stigmatizing children, being a tool for the pharmaceutical industry, and potentially steering youths toward medication that may be unsafe for them. Some say mental health screening doesn't belong in schools.

Ken Kramer, a Florida man whose Web site PsychSearch.net documents alleged psychiatric abuse, has declared war on TeenScreen. He rejects disclaimers by the testing organization that it neither diagnoses children nor prescribes them drugs.

"They're not the hangman. They're the gallows-builders. They lead them to the drugs," said Kramer, whose Scientology religion bars psychotherapy.

Vera Hassner Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, which seeks to protect the rights of participants in medical research, called TeenScreen a "flawed instrument."

Critics like Sharav cite Columbia's own research to argue that TeenScreen has a high rate of false-positive results."

Last night the Curious Coalition struck again. The School Board of California’s 4th largest school district, Fresno Unified School District, made it crystal clear that "we have no interest in or intention to adopt TeenScreen”.

One school board member asked if the barrage of e-mails to school board members in opposition to TeenScreen could be stopped now.

So whoever has been e-mailing Fresno school board members - you can hold your fire now as Fresno TeenScreen is on the "Bites the Dust" page: http://www.teenscreen-locations.com/noteenscreen.htm

Special thanks to the Fresno, California chapter of the Curious Coalition goes to:

(I couldn't copy the picture.)

Sharon Kientz, who took the initiative and led the charge from the start. Sharon is a grandmother, retired teacher and board member of the Calfornia Eagle Forum and also AbleChild.

Alan Schaeffer of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State who eloquently spoke out against TeenScreen at a previous school board meeting.

Larry Scortt, a Fresno physician, representing the Citizens Commission on Human Rights who spoke out at two school board meetings and whose choice words on TeenScreen will forever be memorialized as below:

Fresno Bee
September 21, 2006 Thursday
Suicide-risk screening effort blasted
By: Anne Dudley Ellis
Fresno physician Larry Scortt called TeenScreen "bogus." One of his criticisms was that the program seemed slanted toward psychiatric treatment, when some emotional troubles could be caused by allergies or poor nutrition.

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