Suicide Victims Are Soaked With Psych Drugs

New Study Adds to Heated Debate over Suicide Risks of Antidepressants May 28, 2007

Analysis Reveals Suicide Victims Have Psych Drugs in Blood Stream The findings of a study presented at the annual American Psychiatric Association (APA) conference in San Diego and published in Psychiatric Times may incite another firestorm in the heated debate over the correlation between antidepressants and suicide. The psychiatric watchdog group, Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), says that in spite of psychiatric vested interests downplaying the suicidal side effects of antidepressants, which they have known about for more than a decade and a half (see video), new evidence has forced psychiatrists to acknowledge a link between antidepressants and suicide. The study, "Antidepressants and Suicide in Children and Adolescents in Virginia: Toxicology Findings," analyzed toxicology reports in "unnatural" deaths from the Virginia Medical Examiner's Office, and was presented to the APA last week. Researcher Dr. Antony Fernandez and colleagues found that youth suicide victims were significantly more likely to have SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) antidepressants in their bloodstream than were victims of other unnatural deaths. SSRIs were found in the bloodstream of at least 56 of the Virginia youth suicide victims whose toxicology results were available-the suicides ranged from poisoning to hanging and gunshots. These findings follow a 2004 warning by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that children and teens are twice as likely to experience "suicidal thoughts and behaviors" than they are on placebo. The APA has yet to acknowledge that eight recent adolescents committing homicide in school shootings were in fact under the influence of antidepressants-documented to cause mania, psychosis, depersonalization, and in some cases, "homicidal ideation." Despite mounting evidence of a link between antidepressants and suicide/violence, psychiatrists indiscriminately prescribe the drugs to millions, based on subjective diagnoses made without any physical tests-such as blood tests, brain scans or X-rays-and try to obscure the dangerous side effects of the drugs in order to protect billions in profit from drug sales. Psychiatrist David Brent, one of the researchers in a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that pushed that the "benefits" of antidepressants for kids trumped suicidal side effects, urged the FDA to moderate the black box suicide warning on antidepressants - - although many parents' rights activists say this warning is imperative in upholding their right to informed consent. Another leading psychiatrist, John Mann of Columbia University, further attempted to diminish the negative publicity on such profitable drugs by claiming, "The idea that antidepressants are responsible for suicides isn't supported by the data." CCHR says human rights activists, parents, experts and others who have been insisting that the public be warned about the suicidal side effects of antidepressants are once again vindicated by this new study on SSRIs in suicide victims. Because these findings are so alarming, the Psychiatric Times published "action points"-in effect, suggestions on how psychiatrists can assuage parents' fears that may prevent them from purchasing the drugs for their children-including telling consumers that the study "represents an association rather than causation..." and that "These data and conclusions should be considered preliminary...." The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.

For more information, contact CCHR at 800-782-2878 or email: laurie@cchrflorida.org. Citizens Commission On Human Rights of Florida 1217 N. Ft. Harrison Dunedin, FL 33755

Nevada TeenScreen Pusher Up On Ethics Charges

The entire article is reproduced below. To see it in its original setting, click here.

July 11, 2007
by Joe Enge

As reported by Samantha Stone with KOH Radio this morning, 2 of the 4 charges Joe Enge with EdWatch Nevada filed against state board member Gary Waters in June of 2006 in trying to implement TeenScreen have been upheld to warrant a formal hearing with the Nevada Commission on Ethics in September. Waters is no longer a board member, his final term ended in December of 2006. Waters set up The Center for Health & Learning as a non-profit to implement TeenScreen. I questioned whether it is legal for a state board member to set up a non-profit and use Nevada Department of Education equipment and office.

TeenScreen is a highly controversial mental health screen that asserts it can identify students from the 5th to 12th grades who are suicidal. Critics nationally point out TeenScreen does more harm than good with their self-admitted 84% rate of false positives and makes end runs around the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment without obtaining proper, positive consent from parents. You can read details about TeenScreen on my former EdWatch Nevada Web site at: www.campaignsitebuilder.com/templates/displayfiles1/Tmpl34.asp?id=19383.

Also available at http://www.edwatchnevada.com/ is one of the actual TeenScreen exams. Much to their chagrin, TeenScreen’s “super secret” exam is now public. The exam is listed under the heading of “Downloads.”

The two charges for setting up the non-profit were dropped. The Nevada Commission on Ethics came to the conclusion that it is legal for a non-profit, set up by a Nevada State Board of Education member, to use government equipment and offices. What’s legal is not always what’s right. I questioned also how this could be done without formal State Board of Education approval. They concluded the State Superintendent of Instruction, Keith Rheault, could do this on his own authority. They also concluded Waters did not make any money. $71,000 was awarded to the Center for Health & Learning, but he did not receive any of it.

My information shows Waters intended to start collecting money from a far larger federal grant of $1.2 million after he left office in December of 2006, the very reason he set up the non-profit. I suspect the publicity and scrutiny of my filing these Ethics charges in June of 2006 threw a monkey wrench into those plans. The federal $1.2 million grant has a table on page 29 showing a list of staff who will participate in the project with their role and level of effort. Waters is listed as director of the Center for Health & Learning and 100% FTE (full time equivalent). The center is also listed as a sub-grantee for funding. He can’t be convicted of his intentions once out of office since he was forced by these charges not to carry it out.

The Nevada Commission of Ethics did find just and sufficient cause exists to hold a hearing and render an opinion regarding whether Waters did not properly disclose his commitment, interests, or business relationship at the March, April, and June 2006 Nevada State Board of Education meetings at the time proposed standards for supplemental mental health and suicide were discussed, violating {NRS 281.501 (4)}. They also found just and sufficient cause exists to hear whether Waters acting on the same issues at these meetings violated {NRS 281.501 (2)}. The Nevada Commission on Ethics is scheduled to hear this matter on September 12, 2007 in Las Vegas at the Grant Sawyer State Building, room 4401.

Given it is legal in Nevada for non-profits to use government equipment and facilities, I think I will request an office in the Nevada Department of Education building in Carson City on behalf of EdWatch Nevada to better oversee their activities. I wonder what their reply will be.

+++
Joe Enge serves as an education analyst with NPRI, as chairman of EdWatch Nevada, and as a member of the Carson City School Board. Author of two world history textbooks, columnist for Liberty Watch Magazine, Joe was a high school teacher in Nevada from 1988 to 2006 and a Fulbright teacher to the former Soviet Union. He was named a Madison Fellow in 2005

1-1/2 minute video here: http://www.pharmalot.com/2007/07/paxil-settlement-on-you-tube-watch-here

Paxil Settlement On… You Tube;

July 10th, 2007

By Ed Silverman

In an unusual move, the Public Citizen advocacy group has posted a video on YouTube to alert parents to a $48 million settlement of a lawsuit concerning Glaxo’s Paxil antidepressant and side effects. The drugmaker was required to announce the settlement terms last October, but wasn’t to publicize that the terms were improved and simplified in April, the group notes.

Even without receipts, parents can recover up to $100, but any money that isn’t claimed prior to the August 31, 2007, deadline will revert back to Glaxo. Although it’s not clear, Public Citizen may be correct in noting this is the first time such a class-action settlement uses YouTube to publicize terms.

The video, which is just a minute and a half, resembles a public service announcment read by a news anchor, who says: “Now, $48 million is sitting in a fund waiting to pay back parents whose children were on Paxil before their 18th birthday.” You can visit www.paxilpayback.org

---

See here: www.paxilpayback.org

You are entitled to this money if:

• you live in the U.S. and

• you purchased Paxil or Paxil CR for someone under the age of 18.

If you qualify, you MUST fill out a claim form and mail it to the Paxil Pediatric Settlement Administrator in order to receive compensation. The claims must be received by August 31, 2007.

---

Citizens Commission on Human Rights Newsletter

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights has been an energetic watchdog on the subject of psychiatric abuses for decades. They continue to grow in size and effectiveness. In tribute to their efforts I am publishing their latest newsletter here, in full. If the urge to help them overtakes you, or if you need their help, there is contact information in the newsletter.

Please feel free to forward this News Update to anybody who you think will be interested in this information.

Precedent setting reports released this week exposed financial conflicts of interest between the pharmaceutical and psychiatric industry. Other media reports came out exploiting the dangers of psychiatric drugs and pointed out the criminal behavior of professionals charged with the responsibility of administering care to their patients. This week's media reports included stories of fraud, negligence and abuse:

• The New York Times ran an article entitled "Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts" showing that as states begin to require that drug companies disclose their payments to doctors for lectures and other services, a pattern has emerged: psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty. How drug company money is influencing psychiatrists and other doctors has become one of the most controversial issues in health care. For instance, the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed drugs such as Zyprexa to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved. Currently, there is no federal law requiring such disclosure of payments, only a few state laws. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa stated, "A federal law requiring public disclosure of payments to doctors could be very effective if it was carefully monitored and consistently applied."
http://www .nytimes.com/2007/06/27/health/psychology/27doctors.html?ref=us

• A Washington Post article on the same subject entitled, "Conflict Alleged in Drug Firms' Education Role," tied in the vested interests of the pharmaceutical industry using the annual American Psychiatric Association convention to illustrate how psychiatrists are entrenched in drug company money. The article states, "Last year's meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Toronto, the field's biggest educational conference, reflects the extent of corporate sponsorship. In that meeting program, a voluntary listing of the financial ties to drug firms of the physicians who served as instructors covered 14 pages. Some instructors were sponsored by at least a dozen companies."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2007/06/26/AR2007062601963.html

• Indianapolis Star published an article, "Judge sets date for first Zyprexa trial," which reports that Eli Lilly may be facing its first trial this fall in personal injury lawsuits over its top selling antipsychotic drug Zyprexa. U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein said he will try about 30 Zyprexa suits at one time. The article mentions that at least eight states have filed suit against Lilly and the company has paid out more than $1 billion to settle lawsuits relating to the adverse effects of Zyprexa.
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20070623/BUSINESS/706230434/1 003/BUSINESS

• Boston Globe published an article entitled "Backlash on bipolar diagnoses in children: MGH [Massachusetts General Hospital] psychiatrist's work stirs debate" about the heavy backlash against the psychiatric industry following the death of a 4-year-old girl named Rebecca Riley in Michigan last year from a combination of psychiatric drugs prescribed by her psychiatrist. The article points out the responsibility of "one of the world's most influential child psychiatrists," Joseph Biederman of MGH, in connection with Riley's death. Biederman's work helped fuel a surge in the number of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder over the past 15 years, and the psychiatrist who prescribed the combination of powerful drugs to the toddler has admitted that she was influenced by the work of Biederman and his assistant, Dr. Janet Wozniak. In the article, Dr. Lawrence Diller, a California behavioral pediatrician stated, "I find Biederman and his group to be morally responsible in part…he provided all the quote, 'scientific justification' to address a public health issue by drugging little kids."
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/diseases/
articles/2007/06/17/backlash_on_b ipolar_diagnoses_in_children/

• An Associated Press article entitled "Psychiatrist indicted for fraud in Paxil trials" exposes the crimes of psychiatrist Maria Carmen Palazzo who was indicted by a federal grand jury on 55 counts of health care fraud and false documentation in connection with a clinical trial of Paxil in children and adolescents. Palazzo defrauded Medicare by submitting fraudulent invoices to a local hospital for services that she claimed to have rendered to patients in the psychiatric program there. The indictment also charges that Palazzo defrauded Medicare because it paid her over $653,000 she was not entitled to receive.
http://www.wdsu.com/news/13508696/detail.html

• The Sunday Express (UK) ran an article entitled "NHS Spends Millions On Drug That Turns Children Into 'Drones'," about how the British National Health Service (NHS) is spending more than £1 million a month on Ritalin and writing almost 7,500 prescriptions a week for the mind-altering drug. Information obtained from the Freedom of Information Act show that the prescriptions will cost taxpayers about £12.48 million this year alone. The report comes after new figures reveal at least 11 deaths are being linked to Ritalin or similar drugs. The Sunday Express also reports that doctors link 73 blood disorder reactions, 39 heart disorders, and 80 stomach disorders as some of the side effects of Ritalin. Dr. Sami Timimi, an expert in child behavior, says that "We could be storing up big problems for this generation of youngsters."
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/10244/
NHS+spends+millions+on+drug+that+turns +children+into+'drones'

• The Philadephia Inquirer published an article entitled "Another life lost on DHS's watch." This story is about a 17-year-old boy, named Omega Leach, who was sent to Chad Youth Enhancement Center outside Nashville, Tennessee. The Center is a mental-health facility for troubled teenagers approved by the city's Department of Human Services. Leach was sent there on June 3rd after stealing a car, and a month later he died after a physical confrontation with staff that used restraint procedures.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/
20070624_Another_life_lost_on_DHSs_wat ch.html

• The Independent (UK) ran an article entitled "Ministers in U-turn on shock therapy" about how the government is making amendments to its controversial "Mental Health Bill" which originally pushed for electroshock on minors. Because of overwhelming opposition against the bill from concerned organizations, the government has agreed to a series of compromises. One of the most important changes is curbing the use of electroshock on minors. These changes to the bill are considered an improvement, but it's still said to be "not fit for the 21st Century."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2666412.ece

For decades, CCHR has fought to expose the dangers and fraud of the psycho-pharmaceutical industry despite the objections of vested interests that profit from keeping the truth concealed.

If you would like to make a donation to CCHR to assist with our public awareness campaigns, click here: https://www.cchr.org/donate

© 2007 CCHR. All Rights Reserved. CITIZENS COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, CCHR and the CCHR logo are trademarks and service marks owned by Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

Letter to Editor Says It All

This is a letter to the editor of the Fort Wayne Indiana News-Sentinel in response to an article about TeenScreen:

---

The article, "Help to ensure happy, healthy kids," by Jennifer L. Boen, barely scratches the surface over the controversy of mental health screening. Before the author goes touting supposed benefits, the pitfalls need to be examined. Why? Because it's a child's life that hangs in the balance.

To date there has been no study or documentation that proves that screening "benefits children," and there is no scientific study that shows that "early intervention can also spare a life." But there is plenty of evidence showing otherwise.

Experts say there is no evidence to support that TeenScreen does anything other than guarantee that a large number of children will end up on drugs. In May, 2004, after an in-depth investigation, the United States Preventive Services Task Force issued a report with findings that said:

1. There is no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality; 2. There is limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk; 3. There is insufficient evidence that treatment of those at high risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality.

A 2006 study that investigated TeenScreen, said that mental health screening should be considered only investigational in nature, and the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) labels screening as "experimental."

According to another 2006 peer-reviewed study: "Simply Asking Questions Can Increase Risky Behaviors" - the title says it all.

Then of course, there is the matter of TeenScreen's 10-minute questionnaire, a survey that asks questions such as:

1. Have you often felt very nervous or uncomfortable when you have been with a group of children or young people - say, like in the lunchroom at school or at a party?

2. Have you often felt very nervous when you've had to do things in front of people?

3. Have you often worried a lot before you were going to play a sport or game or do some other activity?

4. Has there been a time when you had less energy then you usually do?

5. Has there been a time when you felt you couldn't do anything well or that you weren't as good-looking or as smart as other people?

6. Has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you just weren't interested in anything?

Hmm, sounds like normal behavior and thoughts are being labeled as pathological.

The screening "tools" have an 84 percent false-positive rate, meaning that 84 percent of the children screened were falsely identified. The developer of TeenScreen says that the false-positive rate can overwhelm a school with the number of students identified and acknowledges that his screening tool "would deliver many who were not at risk for suicide, and that could reduce the acceptability of a school-based prevention program."

TeenScreen is set up to "arrange treatment" - their words. TeenScreen claims throughout their literature that "The TeenScreen Program makes no treatment recommendations," yet "treatment" is the long-term goal for TeenScreen, according to their director. The TeenScreen developer says, "The main role is to motivate the student and their parents to seek treatment and to connect the adolescent to a mental health service in their community."

There are ways to help our children but screening them for mental health is not one of them.

Susan Weibert

This One Speaks For Itself

Original link click here.

Boston Globe

Misguided standards of care

By Lawrence Diller

June 19, 2007

AS A doctor, I did the nearly unthinkable at a recent conference on bipoloar disorder in children. I charged another doctor with moral responsibility in the death last December of Rebecca Riley, a 4 -year-old girl from Hull. Naming names in medicine is just not done very often -- and I knew the personal and professional risks I was taking. Yet I felt compelled to name Joseph Biederman, head of the Massachusetts General Hospital's Pediatric Psychopharmacology clinic, as morally culpable in providing the "science" that allowed Rebecca to die.

Rebecca's parents have been jailed and charged in her death. They are accused of intentionally overdosing her with clonidine, an anti hypertensive and sedative drug -- one of three psychiatric medications prescribed by a Tufts-New England Medical Center child psychiatrist. Rebecca had been treated with these medications since the age of 2 1/2 for the purported diagnosis of bipolar disorder -- the new name for manic-depression.

While the psychiatrist involved has withheld comment on the case, both her lawyer and the medical center have defended her actions as "within the standards of care." Biederman and his colleagues at Harvard are the professionals most responsible for developing and promoting those standards of care -- which include diagnosing preschool children as young as 2 with bipolar disorder and treating them with multiple medications.

Biederman shocked the child psychiatric world in 1996 by announcing that nearly a quarter of the children he was treating for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder also met his criteria for bipolar disorder. Up until then bipolar disorder was rarely diagnosed in teenagers and unheard of in prepubertal children. Biederman could justify his findings by simply broadening the semantic definitions of a previously more circumscribed condition contained within American psychiatry's bible -- the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders."

Biederman has produced a number of studies and papers purporting to demonstrate the validity of his diagnosis and treatment. His research has always epitomized the best of what the DSM model of psychiatry could expect. But the diagnoses in the manual, in concept, are closely linked to the medical model of biologically based psychiatric disorders and focus exclusively on the individual.

While the manual provides helpful clinical guidance in adults, it begins to unravel with its assumptions about discrete and specific disorders in children and ignores the families and environments in which children live. The ultimate absurdity of this scientific model is diagnosing bipolar disorder in 2 year olds and linking it to the adult disorder with the same name -- in the process saddling young children as chronic mental patients condemned to a lifetime of psychiatric drugs.

Even the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry -- in its recent parameters on the diagnosis in children -- eschews the bipolar diagnosis and its consequent medical treatment in children under 6. Still there are thousands of potential Rebecca Rileys being treated with multiple psychiatric drugs because Biederman has said it's OK and necessary. Supported by millions of dollars of drug industry promotional funding, Biederman and his colleagues circle the globe offering professional medical "education" for their singular point of view.

Finally, it's sad but true -- the field of child psychiatry is afraid of Biederman. One can hear the worries and fears whispered in the academic halls and clinics over where Biederman has taken the profession. Yet to politely challenge Biederman in public is to risk public retribution and ridicule from him and his team. Also academic researchers in child psychiatry risk losing their funding if they criticize this darling of the pharmaceutical industry, which provides most of the money these days for psychiatric research.

The silence was deafening -- and Rebecca's death pushed me over the edge -- because for over a decade I've have been uncomfortable about these practices in young children. I am not against psychiatric drugs for children. I've written prescriptions for children for 30 years in a clinical practice not tied to the drug industry.

I risk personal censure and loss of credibility in an advocacy for a broader concept and treatment for children with behavior problems in naming this doctor. But this time, Dr. Biederman, you have gone far.

Dr. Lawrence Diller practices behavioral/developmental pediatrics in Walnut Creek, Calif., and is the author of "The Last Normal Child: Essays on the Intersection of Kids, Culture and Psychiatric Drugs."

FDA Panel Rejects A Bad Drug (Finally)

From the Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON -- A Food and Drug Administration panel Wednesday unanimously rejected Acomplia, a weight-loss drug from Sanofi-Aventis SA, due to concerns the drug increases the number of psychiatric events like depression and suicidal thinking among users.

The panel's decision is a potential blow to the Paris-based drug maker, which was hoping it could sell Acomplia on the U.S. market. The FDA typically follows its panels' advice but isn't required to do so. The FDA is set to make a final decision on whether to approve the drug by the end of July.

Analysts believe the FDA will reject Acomplia, which is known generically as rimonabant, as the agency has been under fire from Congress about its handling of various drug-safety issues including recent concerns that GlaxoSmithKline PLC's diabetes drug Avandia raises heart-attack risks.

...

Earlier, Richard Gural, Sanofi's vice president of drug development and scientific affairs, had told the panel that Acomplia shouldn't be given to patients being treated for depression or a history of depression. He also said the company hasn't seen an increase in psychiatric problems associated with the drug in post-marketing reports.

The FDA has been concerned about psychiatric side effects such as depression. The agency also said there was a doubling of the rate of suicidal thoughts and behaviors seen in clinical studies of the drug. Last February, the FDA rejected Acomplia as a smoking-cessation product and said it needed more information on psychiatric side effects before it would consider approving the drug as a weight-loss treatment.

A Sanofi analysis of the data showed a lower "suicidality rate," finding a rate about 1.3 times higher than the rate seen in patients receiving a placebo, or fake drug. Company officials also said all of the incidences were associated with underlying depression and don't appear to be caused by rimonabant itself. Suicidality is an increase in suicidal thoughts and behaviors and doesn't refer to acts of suicide. The actual "suicidality" numbers are small, with 88 reports out of about 16,500 patients studied.

...

Rimonabant is designed to help block a chemical in the endocannabinoid system, a physiological system in the body that is believed to play a role in how the body regulates food intake. The FDA is concerned, however, that blocking the same chemical could increase the risk for other problems including mood disorders and neurodegenerative disorders like multiple sclerosis.

Psychs Paid By Big Pharma To Prescribe Drugs

From the New York Times:

When Anya Bailey developed an eating disorder after her 12th birthday, her mother took her to a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota who prescribed a powerful antipsychotic drug called Risperdal.

Prescription for Influence

Beyond the Label

Created for schizophrenia, Risperdal is not approved to treat eating disorders, but increased appetite is a common side effect and doctors may prescribe drugs as they see fit. Anya gained weight but within two years developed a crippling knot in her back. She now receives regular injections of Botox to unclench her back muscles. She often awakens crying in pain.

Isabella Bailey, Anya’s mother, said she had no idea that children might be especially susceptible to Risperdal’s side effects. Nor did she know that Risperdal and similar medicines were not approved at the time to treat children, or that medical trials often cited to justify the use of such drugs had as few as eight children taking the drug by the end.

Just as surprising, Ms. Bailey said, was learning that the university psychiatrist who supervised Anya’s care received more than $7,000 from 2003 to 2004 from Johnson & Johnson, Risperdal’s maker, in return for lectures about one of the company’s drugs.

Doctors, including Anya Bailey’s, maintain that payments from drug companies do not influence what they prescribe for patients.

But the intersection of money and medicine, and its effect on the well-being of patients, has become one of the most contentious issues in health care. Nowhere is that more true than in psychiatry, where increasing payments to doctors have coincided with the growing use in children of a relatively new class of drugs known as atypical antipsychotics.

These best-selling drugs, including Risperdal, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Abilify and Geodon, are now being prescribed to more than half a million children in the United States to help parents deal with behavior problems despite profound risks and almost no approved uses for minors.

A New York Times analysis of records in Minnesota, the only state that requires public reports of all drug company marketing payments to doctors, provides rare documentation of how financial relationships between doctors and drug makers correspond to the growing use of atypicals in children.

From 2000 to 2005, drug maker payments to Minnesota psychiatrists rose more than sixfold, to $1.6 million. During those same years, prescriptions of antipsychotics for children in Minnesota’s Medicaid program rose more than ninefold.

Those who took the most money from makers of atypicals tended to prescribe the drugs to children the most often, the data suggest. On average, Minnesota psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from atypical makers from 2000 to 2005 appear to have written three times as many atypical prescriptions for children as psychiatrists who received less or no money.

The Times analysis focused on prescriptions written for about one-third of Minnesota’s Medicaid population, almost all of whom are disabled. Some doctors were misidentified by pharmacists, but the information provides a rough guide to prescribing patterns in the state.

Drug makers underwrite decision makers at every level of care. They pay doctors who prescribe and recommend drugs, teach about the underlying diseases, perform studies and write guidelines that other doctors often feel bound to follow.

But studies present strong evidence that financial interests can affect decisions, often without people knowing it.

In Minnesota, psychiatrists collected more money from drug makers from 2000 to 2005 than doctors in any other specialty. Total payments to individual psychiatrists ranged from $51 to more than $689,000, with a median of $1,750. Since the records are incomplete, these figures probably underestimate doctors’ actual incomes.

Such payments could encourage psychiatrists to use drugs in ways that endanger patients’ physical health, said Dr. Steven E. Hyman, the provost of Harvard University and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health. The growing use of atypicals in children is the most troubling example of this, Dr. Hyman said.

“There’s an irony that psychiatrists ask patients to have insights into themselves, but we don’t connect the wires in our own lives about how money is affecting our profession and putting our patients at risk,” he said.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/health/10psyche.html?ex=1181707200&en=4e5eec4661c15400&ei=5070

Drug Companies Employ Ethics-Challenged Docs

New York Times

By Gardiner Harris and JANET ROBERTS

June 3, 2007

After Sanctions, Doctors Get Drug Company Pay

A decade ago the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice accused Dr. Faruk Abuzzahab of a “reckless, if not willful, disregard” for the welfare of 46 patients, 5 of whom died in his care or shortly afterward. The board suspended his license for seven months and restricted it for two years after that.

But Dr. Abuzzahab, a Minneapolis psychiatrist, is still overseeing the testing of drugs on patients and is being paid by pharmaceutical companies for the work. At least a dozen have paid him for research or marketing since he was disciplined.

Dr. Faruk Abuzzahab

Medical ethicists have long argued that doctors who give experimental medicines should be chosen with care. Indeed, the drug industry’s own guidelines for clinical trials state, “Investigators are selected based on qualifications, training, research or clinical expertise in relevant fields.” Yet Dr. Abuzzahab is far from the only doctor to have been disciplined or criticized by a medical board but later paid by drug makers.

An analysis of state records by The New York Times found more than 100 such doctors in Minnesota, at least two with criminal fraud convictions. While Minnesota is the only state to make its records publicly available, the problem, experts say, is national.

One of Dr. Abuzzahab’s patients was David Olson, whom the psychiatrist tried repeatedly to recruit for clinical trials. Drug makers paid Dr. Abuzzahab thousands of dollars for every patient he recruited. In July 1997, when Mr. Olson again refused to be a test subject, Dr. Abuzzahab discharged him from the hospital even though he was suicidal, records show. Mr. Olson committed suicide two weeks later.

In its disciplinary action against Dr. Abuzzahab, the state medical board referred to Mr. Olson as Patient No. 46.

“Dr. Abuzzahab failed to appreciate the risks of taking Patient No. 46 off Clozaril, failed to respond appropriately to the patient’s rapid deterioration and virtually ignored this patient’s suicidality,” the board found.

In an interview, Dr. Abuzzahab dismissed the findings as “without heft” and said drug makers were aware of his record. He said he had helped study many of the most popular drugs in psychiatry, including Paxil, Prozac, Risperdal, Seroquel, Zoloft and Zyprexa.

The Times’s examination of Minnesota’s trove of records on drug company payments to doctors found that from 1997 to 2005, at least 103 doctors who had been disciplined or criticized by the state medical board received a total of $1.7 million from drug makers. The median payment over that period was $1,250; the largest was $479,000.

The sanctions by the board ranged from reprimands to demands for retraining to suspension of licenses. Of those 103 doctors, 39 had been penalized for inappropriate prescribing practices, 21 for substance abuse, 12 for substandard care and 3 for mismanagement of drug studies. A few cases received national news media coverage, but drug makers hired the doctors anyway.

The Times included in its analysis any doctor who received drug company payments within 10 years of being under medical board sanction. At least 38 doctors received a combined $140,000 while they were still under sanction. Dr. Abuzzahab received more than $55,000 from 1997 to 2005.

Drug makers refused to comment, said they relied on doctors to report disciplinary or criminal cases, or said they were considering changing their hiring systems.

Asked about the Minnesota analysis, the deputy commissioner and chief medical officer of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Janet Woodcock, said the federal government needed to overhaul regulations governing clinical trials and the doctors who oversaw them.

“We recognize that we need to modernize the F.D.A. approach in keeping people safe in clinical trials,” Dr. Woodcock said.

Drug makers are not required to inform the agency when they discover that investigators are falsifying data, and indeed some have failed to do so in the past. The F.D.A. plans to require such disclosures, Dr. Woodcock said. The agency inspects at most 1 percent of all clinical trials, she said.

Karl Uhlendorf, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the trade group would not comment on The Times’s findings.

The records most likely understate the extent of the problem because they are incomplete. And the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice disciplines a smaller share of the state’s doctors than almost any other medical board in the country, according to rankings by Public Citizen, an advocacy group based in Washington.

Dr. David Rothman, president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University, said the Times analysis revealed a national problem. “There’s no reason to think Minnesota is unique,” Dr. Rothman said.

“Clinical trial investigators must be culled from only the finest physicians in the country,” he said, “since they work on the frontiers of new knowledge. That drug makers are scraping the bottom of the medical barrel is an outrage.”

Payments by drug companies to doctors, whether or not the doctors have been disciplined, are a matter of much debate. Drug makers and doctors say the money finances vital research and helps educate doctors about helpful medicines. But others in the medical profession say the payments are thinly disguised incentives for doctors to prescribe more, and more expensive, drugs.

Among the other doctors who were disciplined or criticized by the board and paid by pharmaceutical companies:

Dr. Barry Garfinkel, a child psychiatrist from Minneapolis who was convicted in federal court in 1993 of fraud involving a study for Ciba-Geigy. His criminal case made headlines across the state. From 2002 to 2004, Eli Lilly paid him more than $5,500 in honoraria, according to state records.

Dr. Garfinkel said in an interview that he had wondered why drug makers would hire him as a speaker considering his statewide notoriety. He decided that “they’re hiring me to influence my prescribing habits,” so he quit giving sponsored talks and taking money from drug makers, he said.

Dr. John Simon, a Minneapolis psychiatrist who for years shared an office with Dr. Abuzzahab and was told by the state medical board in 1994 to complete a clinical training program after it concluded in a report that he “frequently makes abrupt and drastic changes in type and dosage of medication which seem erratic, not well considered and poorly integrated with nonmedication strategies.” He prescribed addictive drugs to addicts and failed to stop giving medicines to patients suffering severe drug side effects, the board concluded.

Dr. Simon earned more than $350,000 from five drug makers from 1998 to 2005 for consulting and giving drug marketing talks. Of this, Eli Lilly paid more than $314,000. Dr. Simon said in an interview that the board’s action was a learning experience, and that drug makers continued to hire him to speak because “I am respected by my peers.”

Asked about Drs. Garfinkel and Simon, Phil Belt, a spokesman for Eli Lilly, said that both doctors were licensed to practice medicine and that the company relied on doctors to report disciplinary actions or criminal convictions against them.

Dr. Ronald Hardrict, a psychiatrist from Minneapolis who pleaded guilty in 2003 to Medicaid fraud. In 2004 and 2005, he collected more than $63,000 in marketing payments from seven drug makers. In an interview, Dr. Hardrict said it was “insulting” and “ridiculous” to suggest that income from drug makers might influence doctors’ prescribing habits.

“I bought the Mercedes because it has air bags, and I use Risperdal because it works,” Dr. Hardrict said, referring to an antipsychotic medicine for schizophrenia. Johnson & Johnson, the maker of Risperdal, paid Dr. Hardrict more than $30,000 in 2003 and 2004.

Srikant Ramaswami, a spokesman for Johnson & Johnson, said the company removed Dr. Hardrict as a speaker in 2004 when, as a result of his conviction, his name appeared in a government database.

Asked why other drug makers continue to hire him despite a fraud conviction, Dr. Hardrict responded with an e-mail message stating only, “I will pray for you daily.”

In cases involving Dr. Abuzzahab over 15 years in the 1980s and ’90s, the medical board found that he repeatedly prescribed narcotics and other controlled substances to addicts, renewing one patient’s prescriptions six weeks after the patient was jailed and telling another that his addictive pills should be thought of as “Hamburger Helper.” He prescribed narcotics to pregnant patients, one of whom prematurely delivered a baby who soon died.

In explaining his abrupt discharge of the suicidal Mr. Olson, Dr. Abuzzahab told the medical board that “if a patient is determined to kill himself, he can’t be prevented from doing it and hospitalization postpones the event,” records show.

Mr. Olson’s sister, Susie Olson, said Dr. Abuzzahab “had no time for my brother unless David agreed to get into a drug study. He said, ‘You’re wasting my time and the hospital’s.’ It was all about money.”

Separately, the F.D.A. in 1979 and 1984 concluded that Dr. Abuzzahab had violated the protocols of every study he led that they audited, and reported inaccurate data to drug makers. He routinely oversaw four to eight drug trials simultaneously, often moved patients from one study to another, sometimes gave experimental medicines to patients at their first consultation, and once hospitalized a patient for the sole purpose of enrolling him in a study, the F.D.A. found.

Dr. Abuzzahab, 74, was president of the Minnesota Psychiatric Society and two decades ago was chairman of its continuing education and ethics committees. He would not discuss the specifics of his disciplinary record, saying he did not have the time. But in 1998 he signed an agreement with the board saying that his conduct “constitutes a reasonable basis in law and fact to justify the disciplinary action.”

A simple Google search reveals Dr. Abuzzahab’s 1998 medical board disciplinary file, which was reported at the time by a local newspaper and a TV station. In 1998, The Boston Globe featured Dr. Abuzzahab in a front-page article questioning the safety of psychiatric drug experiments. And in 1999, the NBC program “Dateline” did a segment about a woman who committed suicide while in a drug experiment he supervised.

In June 2006, the medical board criticized Dr. Abuzzahab, this time for writing narcotics prescriptions for patients he knew were using false names, a violation of federal narcotics laws.

Despite all this, drug makers continued to hire him. Dr. Abuzzahab’s résumé lists 11 publications or research presentations since 2000, when the medical board lifted its restrictions on his license.

Takeda, a Japanese drug maker, confirmed that Dr. Abuzzahab was doing a study financed by the company on its sleep medicine, Rozerem. Eisai, another Japanese drug maker, said that although Dr. Abuzzahab had signed a clinical trial agreement with the company to study its Alzheimer’s drug, Aricept, it told him two days after a reporter asked for comment on the case that he was not qualified to be an investigator. And at AstraZeneca, for which Dr. Abuzzahab said he had performed clinical trials and still gave drug marketing lectures, a spokesman said the company was “concerned” about Dr. Abuzzahab’s disciplinary record.

“We have our own internal processes for dealing with these matters, which are under way,” said Jim Minnick, an AstraZeneca spokesman.

The Minnesota records often fail to distinguish between drug company payments to doctors for research and for marketing, so it is sometimes impossible to determine why doctors were paid. Some doctors, like Dr. Abuzzahab, clearly performed both research and marketing.

Gene Carbona, who left Merck on good terms in 2001 as a regional sales manager after 12 years in drug sales, said the only thing the company considered when hiring doctors to give marketing lectures was “the volume or potential volume of prescribing that doctor could do.”

A Merck spokesman declined to comment.

Mr. Carbona, now executive director of sales for The Medical Letter, which reviews drugs, said that had he known that a doctor had a disciplinary record for excessive prescribing, “I would have been more inclined to use them as a speaker.”

Here is one example of how much damage one psych can do in an hour.

I Never Thought This Could Happen
by James Robison

"I am going to encourage you to have sex and encourage you to use drugs appropriately."

That was the message preached by clinical psychologist Joel Becker at a recent mandatory high school assembly in Boulder , Colorado . Children as young as 14 sat captive in the audience while other school administrators listened in silent consent.

"Now, what is healthy sexual behavior? Well, I don't care if it's with men and men, women and women, men and women -- whatever combination you would like to put together," Becker said in an event labeled, "STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs."

I am shocked and outraged that our culture has become so depraved that school officials require children to attend an assembly where supposed “experts” advocate rampant sexual relationships, including homosexuality and group sex. Abstinence was dismissed as unwise and indicative of “religious hang-ups."

But it gets even worse.

"We all experiment,” Becker was recorded as saying. “It's very natural for young people to experiment with same-sex relationships. When you are 13, 12... one of the most appropriate sexual behaviors would be masturbation. Even today, there are psychiatrists who will do sessions under the influence of ecstasy. If I had some maybe I'd do it with someone, but you know."

The nationwide outcry has been lukewarm at best. Compared to Don Imus’ racially offensive comment, there has been little media coverage or public upheaval. Apparently, rude comments are taboo, but pedophilic psychology is no big deal.

Words are not strong enough to express my disgust with this blatant manipulation of children to convince them that immoral acts should not only be considered normal, but perfectly acceptable. This predatory tactic lays the foundation for irresponsibility and abuse. Colorado ’s public school officials mentally molested these children by sanctioning dangerous and destructive behavior.

One parent that objected to the indoctrination was Priscilla White, whose daughter is a sophomore at Boulder High.

"The panel discussion was a completely irresponsible and dangerous invitation to Boulder High students to have sex and take drugs," White told the Boulder Valley school board. She read the transcript of the assembly, but was asked to stop because the language was “inappropriate.”

"But it was at Boulder High School ," Priscilla White told the board members. "If they can listen to it, I think you can listen to it."

Board members agreed that they should “investigate.” Investigate? Are you kidding me? I’ll tell you what should happen. Those who approved this assembly should be fired immediately. The Conference on World Affairs, which puts together these types of assemblies, should be banned from all public schools. (Jim Palmer, who heads the CWA, defended the presentation by saying, “When you're talking to high school students about these issues, I think there is a responsibility on the part of adults to be informed and to be candid.")

It is tough enough for parents to raise children without public schools holding them hostage to lessons promoting the very things that most families find unwholesome and damaging. Young people face enough temptation in their lives learning to control appetites and desires. They struggle with right and wrong as they face situations that will impact them forever. Will the Boulder school district take responsibility when a student contracts AIDS after a night of “normal experimentation”? Will the Conference on World Affairs comfort the family of a student who dies of an overdose?

The sickness of this mentality absolutely staggers my mind. I cannot imagine the entire community not being up in arms and literally protesting in mass. An old proverb says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” Joel Becker is that man and Boulder High has paved the path for its students.

Sources: The Denver Channel, WorldNet Daily, The Denver Post.

Big Pharma At Work

(CBS) Jim and Star Chavez didn't think twice when their doctor prescribed Advair for their son Ethan.

Inhaled daily, Advair was supposed to prevent his occasional mild asthma attacks. Instead, as CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports, shortly after he started using Advair, Ethan collapsed.

"He was totally lifeless," says Jim Chavez. "His eyes were rolled back in his head, and it was really terrifying."

"I shook him, and I kept on shaking him and kept on yelling his name, 'Ethan, Ethan, wake up, wake up,' and he wouldn't respond at all," says Star Chavez.

They didn't know it then, but asthma patients taking the same medicine in a study were dying in unexpected numbers.

Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline led a study of Salmeterol, the medicine in Advair and another Glaxo asthma product, Serevent. Designed to relieve asthma, it seemed to trigger fatal attacks in some. Three times more patients taking the medicine died of asthma than those not taking it.

A safety monitoring board took one look at the deaths and shut down Glaxo's study. The FDA recently forced Glaxo to disclose the small but significant risk of death in a black box warning on its medicine and in ads: "Rare but serious asthma episodes and asthma related fatalities occurred."

In the study, Glaxo found deaths among blacks were the highest, though white deaths were also elevated. Glaxo then sent out a carefully worded message that led some to believe white patients need not worry: "These risks may be greater in African-Americans."

Yet CBS News has learned a study ten years ago of only white patients also found an increase in asthma deaths. Glaxo dismissed the deaths back then as "probably due to the disease rather than the treatment."

Most people who use Advair have no serious problems, and the FDA says benefits outweigh risks. And despite the new warnings, sales have increased, approaching $2 billion a year.

And that black box warning ordered for Advair four months ago still isn't on the product. The FDA says Glaxo negotiated when it will be but won't tell CBS News the date.

Ethan has fully recovered from his trauma, and the whole family is breathing easier without the asthma remedy that may have been worse than the disease.

New Proposed Bill In Congress - Please Support It

You can find the federal bill here http://thomas.loc.gov/ by typing in HR 2387

Parental Consent Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)

110th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 2387

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental health screening program.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 17, 2007

Mr. PAUL (for himself, Mr. MILLER of Florida, Mr. EVERETT, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mrs. BLACKBURN, Mr. HUNTER, Mr. SIMPSON, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. NEUGEBAUER, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland, Mr. TANCREDO, and Mr. DOOLITTLE) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Education and Labor and Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

---

A BILL

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental health screening program.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Parental Consent Act of 2007'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The Congress finds as follows:

(1) The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued findings and recommendations against screening for suicide that corroborate those of the Canadian Preventive Services Task Force. `USPSTF found no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality. There is limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk in the primary care setting, including tools to identify those at high risk.'.

(2) The 1999 Surgeon General's report on mental health admitted the serious conflicts in the medical literature regarding the definitions of mental health and mental illness when it said, `In other words, what it means to be mentally healthy is subject to many different interpretations that are rooted in value judgments that may vary across cultures. The challenge of defining mental health has stalled the development of programs to foster mental health (Secker, 1998). . . .'.

(3) A 2005 report by the National Center for Infant and Early Childhood Health Policy admitted, with respect to the psychiatric screening of children from birth to age 5, the following: `We have mentioned a number of the problems for the new field of IMH [Infant Mental Health] throughout this paper, and many of them complicate examining outcomes.'. Briefly, such problems include:

(A) Lack of baseline

(B) Lack of agreement about diagnosis.

(C) Criteria for referrals or acceptance into services are not always well defined.

(D) Lack of longitudinal outcome studies.

(E) Appropriate assessment and treatment requires multiple informants involved with the young child: parents, clinicians, child care staff, preschool staff, medical personnel, and other service providers.

(F) Broad parameters for determining socioemotional outcomes are not clearly defined, although much attention is now being given to school readiness.

(4) Authors of the bible of psychiatric diagnosis, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, admit that the diagnostic criteria for mental illness are vague, saying, `DSM-IV criteria remain a consensus without clear empirical data supporting the number of items required for the diagnosis. . . . Furthermore, the behavioral characteristics specified in DSM-IV, despite efforts to standardize them, remain subjective. . . .' (American Psychiatric Association Committee on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV 1994), pp. 1162-1163).

(5) Because of the subjectivity of psychiatric diagnosis, it is all too easy for a psychiatrist to label a person's disagreement with the psychiatrist's political beliefs a mental disorder.

(6) Efforts are underway to add a diagnosis of `extreme intolerance' to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Prisoners in the California State penal system judged to have this extreme intolerance based on race or sexual orientation are considered to be delusional and are being medicated with anti-psychotic drugs. (Washington Post 12/10/05)

(7) At least one federally-funded school violence prevention program has suggested that a child who shares his or her parent's traditional values may be likely to instigate school violence.

(8) Despite many statements in the popular press and by groups promoting the psychiatric labeling and medication of children, that ADD/ADHD is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, the 1998 National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference said, `. . . further research is necessary to firmly establish ADHD as a brain disorder. This is not unique to ADHD, but applies as well to most psychiatric disorders, including disabling diseases such as schizophrenia. . . . Although an independent diagnostic test for ADHD does not exist. . . . Finally, after years of clinical research and experience with ADHD, our knowledge about the cause or causes of ADHD remains speculative.'.

(9) There has been a precipitous increase in the prescription rates of psychiatric drugs in children:

(A) The use of antipsychotic medication in children has increased nearly fivefold between 1995 and 2002 with more than 2.5 million children receiving these medications, the youngest being 18 months old. (Vanderbilt University, 2006)

(B) More than 2.2 million children are receiving more than one psychotropic drug at one time with no scientific evidence of safety or effectiveness. (Medco Health Solutions, 2006)

(C) More money was spent on psychiatric drugs for children than on antibiotics or asthma medication in 2003. (Medco Trends, 2004)

(10) A September 2004 Food and Drug Administration hearing found that more than two-thirds of studies of antidepressants given to depressed children showed that they were no more effective than placebo, or sugar pills, and that only the positive trials were published by the pharmaceutical industry. The lack of effectiveness of antidepressants has been known by the Food and Drug Administration since at least 2000 when, according to the Food and Drug Administration Background Comments on Pediatric Depression, Robert Temple of the Food and Drug Administration Office of Drug Evaluation acknowledged the `preponderance of negative studies of antidepressants in pediatric populations'. The Surgeon General's report said of stimulant medication like Ritalin, `However, psychostimulants do not appear to achieve long-term changes in outcomes such as peer relationships, social or academic skills, or school achievement.'.

(11) The Food and Drug Administration finally acknowledged by issuing its most severe Black Box Warnings in September 2004, that the newer antidepressants are related to suicidal thoughts and actions in children and that this data was hidden for years. A confirmatory review of that data published in 2006 by Columbia University's department of psychiatry, which is also the originator of the TeenScreen instrument, found that `in children and adolescents (aged 6-18 years), antidepressant drug treatment was significantly associated with suicide attempts . . . and suicide deaths. . . . '. The Food and Drug Administration had over 2000 reports of completed suicides from 1987 to 1995 for the drug Prozac alone, which by the agency's own calculations represent but a fraction of the suicides. Prozac is the only such drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in children.

(12) Other possible side effects of psychiatric medication used in children include mania, violence, dependence, weight gain, and insomnia from the newer antidepressants; cardiac toxicity including lethal arrhythmias from the older antidepressants; growth suppression, psychosis, and violence from stimulants; and diabetes from the newer anti-psychotic medications.

(13) Parents are already being coerced to put their children on psychiatric medications and some children are dying because of it. Universal or mandatory mental health screening and the accompanying treatments recommended by the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health will only increase that problem. Across the country, Patricia Weathers, the Carroll Family, the Johnston Family, and the Salazar Family were all charged or threatened with child abuse charges for refusing or taking their children off of psychiatric medications.

(14) The United States Supreme Court in Pierce versus Society of Sisters (268 U.S. 510 (1925)) held that parents have a right to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

(15) Universal or mandatory mental health screening violates the right of parents to direct and control the upbringing of their children.

(16) Federal funds should never be used to support programs that could lead to the increased over-medication of children, the stigmatization of children and adults as mentally disturbed based on their political or other beliefs, or the violation of the liberty and privacy of Americans by subjecting them to invasive `mental health screening' (the results of which are placed in medical records which are available to government officials and special interests without the patient's consent).

SEC. 3. PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL FUNDING OF UNIVERSAL OR MANDATORY MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING.

(a) Universal or Mandatory Mental Health Screening Program- No Federal funds may be used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program.

(b) Refusal to Consent as Basis of a Charge of Child Abuse or Education Neglect- No Federal education funds may be paid to any local educational agency or other instrument of government that uses the refusal of a parent or legal guardian to provide express, written, voluntary, informed consent to mental health screening for his or her child as the basis of a charge of child abuse, child neglect, medical neglect, or education neglect until the agency or instrument demonstrates that it is no longer using such refusal as a basis of such a charge.

(c) Definition- For purposes of this Act, the term `universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program'--

(1) means any mental health screening program in which a set of individuals (other than members of the Armed Forces or individuals serving a sentence resulting from conviction for a criminal offense) is automatically screened without regard to whether there was a prior indication of a need for mental health treatment; and

(2) includes--

(A) any program of State incentive grants for transformation to implement recommendations in the July 2003 report of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, the State Early Childhood Comprehensive System, grants for TeenScreen, and the Foundations for Learning Grants; and

(B) any student mental health screening program that allows mental health screening of individuals under 18 years of age without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of the parent or legal guardian of the individual involved.

It's Not A "Party" Issue

Fox National News exposes the link between psychiatric drugs and school shootings:

Click here to watch 3 min. video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S-7aNPf33A

Filmmaker Michael Moore calls for a federal investigation into school shooters and psychiatric drugs:

Click here to watch 3 min. video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSZ9YTnSkLc

In September 2005, following confirmation that Red Lake Indian Reservation school shooter, Jeff Weise, was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac, the National Foundation of Women Legislators called for a Congressional investigation into the
correlation between psychiatric drug use and school massacres.

Congress has yet to investigate the role of psychiatric drugs relating to school shootings despite international drug regulators warning these drugs can cause mania, psychosis, hallucinations, suicide and homicidal ideation.

At least eight of the recent school shooters were under the influence of such drugs, and according to media reports, investigators working on the Virginia Tech school shootings claim Cho Seung-Hui may also have been taking
drugs for "depression."

Click here to send a form letter to your Congressman (and Speaker Pelosi) requesting they act and call for a full investigation.

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/Ablechild/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=11069

Cho Seungo-Hui Toxicology Report

The Governor of Virginia has commissioned an independent "Virginia Tech Incident Review Panel" to review all data regarding the Virginia Tech shooting.

The coroner has yet to release the the toxicology report of the shooter (Cho Seung-Hui). THIS MUST BE DONE. In addition, the panel needs to investigate the link between psychiatric drugs and school shootings.

Investigators reportedly found anti-depression drugs among Cho's belongings -- drugs documented by the Food and Drug Administration to cause suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, hostility and "homicidal ideation."

If Cho Seung-Hui's psychiatric drug use is confirmed, it would bring the total to 61 killed and 77 wounded by psychiatric drug-induced school shootings. See list of 8 other school shooters (below) and the link to psychiatric drugs.

Please take 2 minutes and click here
http://www.vtreviewpanel.org/CitizenComments/# to send your request that the toxicology report be released and a full investigation be conducted into the link between psychiatric drugs and the school shootings:

Please forward to your friends and family to do the same,

In eight recent school shootings, psychiatric drugs were the common factor, in other instances, the shooter's medical records were never made public and their psychiatric drug use remains in question.

a.. September 28, 2006: Bailey, Colorado: Duane Morrison, 53, entered Platte Canyon High School and shot and killed one girl, and sexually assaulted 6 others. Antidepressants were found in his vehicle.

b.. March 21, 2005: Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minnesota: 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac when he shot and killed nine people and wounding five before committing suicide.

c.. April 10, 2001: Wahluke, Washington: 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his high school, and held 23 classmates and a teacher hostage while on a high dose of the antidepressant Effexor.

d.. March 22, 2001: El Cajon, California: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman was on two antidepressants, Effexor and Celexa, when he opened fire at his California high school wounding five.

e.. March 7, 2000: Williamsport, Pennsylvania: 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush was on the antidepressant Prozac when she blasted away at fellow students in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, wounding one.

f.. May 20, 1999: Conyers, Georgia: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with a mix of antidepressants when he opened fire on and wounded 6 of his classmates.

g.. April 20, 1999: Columbine, Colorado: 18-year-old Eric Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox when he and his partner Dylan Klebold killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 23 others before taking their own lives in the bloodiest school massacre to date. The coroner confirmed that the antidepressant was in his system through toxicology reports while Dylan Klebold's autopsy was never made public.

h.. April 16, 1999: Notus, Idaho: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school narrowly missing students; he was taking a mix of antidepressants.

i.. May 21, 1998: Springfield, Oregon: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his own parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been on Prozac.