ADD: The Big Lie

Michael Savage is a nationally syndicated talk show host, broadcasting from San Francisco.

3 minute audio here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C29OuQ9dmiU

Do What TeenScreen Doesn't Want You To Do

Based on TeenScreen's own internal documents - below are examples of what they don't want you to do:

Attend Local Meetings

http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070312/COMMUNITIES/703120323/1203

Daily Record

Morris County, New Jersey

Monday, March 12, 2007

CHATHAM -- The Library of the Chathams, 214 Main St., has a variety of programs in the works:

Dr. Lloyd Ross, Ph.D., FACAPP, from the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, will present the seminar, "Depression and Suicide: A Guide to Understanding and Resolution," on March 29 at 7:30 p.m.

Dr. Ross will discuss ways of working through depression that provide real help without the use of dangerous and brain-damaging chemicals.

Some of the topics to be discussed are diagnosis of depression and suicide; medication side effects; the research that drug companies do not want you to know about; real diagnosis and effective treatment; how parents can work with a school that wants the child on medication; and teenscreen -- a dangerous drug company-supported program coming to a school near you.

Persons who would like to attend this program are asked to sign up at the Circulation Desk or call (973) 635-0603.

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Make Web Sites and Blogs

http://yedies.blogspot.com/2007/03/just-to-annoy-teenscreen-and-sos.html

Consent Of The Governed
Featuring information you need to know before you consent...
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Just To Annoy TeenScreen and SOS

Apparently the people promoting TeenScreen and Signs of Suicide are upset at bloggers who are putting the truth about these programs out for everyone to see. They seem to be quite irked that anyone would have the nerve to pass on some unattractive disclosures about their mental health screening initiatives. Perhaps it is the bloggers job to "screen the screeners"!

So...add me to the list, because if one more parent can learn about this effort which has been shown to produce false positives in identification of teens, and have in fact caused kids to get therapy and medication unnecessarily, and who have been screened without their parents knowing, then I'll be happy.
And I am not even a Scientologist! (eye roll)

So if you haven't seen these then you should and pass them along to your friends who have kids in government or private schools:

Video showing the TeenScreen national controversy

Video: Mother speaking out

A smoking gun - Tax Records showing millions in Pharmaceutical funding for Signs of Suicide

TeenScreen survey questions

Some more points for the public to know:

The developer of TeenScreen 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." The program has an 84% rate of false-positives, which means that the chances of your child walking away falsely labeled as "suicidal" or "mentally ill" is 84%.

TeenScreen's purpose is to get those kids into treatment. A recent study showed that 9 out of 10 children who saw a psychiatrist walked out of the office on drugs.

As far as the reliability of screening, in 2004, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) stated that they "found no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality." Furthermore, they found "insufficient evidence that treatment of those at high risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality."

Ned Calonge, the chairman of the United States Preventive Services Task Force, was quoted in the June 16, 2006 Washington Post: "the panel would reach the same conclusion today... Whether or not we like to admit it, there are no interventions that have no harms... There is weak evidence that screening can distinguish people who will commit suicide from those who will not... And screening inevitably leads to treating some people who do not need it. Such interventions have consequences beyond side effects from drugs or other treatments.. . Unnecessary care drives up the cost of insurance, causing some people to lose coverage altogether."

The questions asked on these screening surveys may actually put suicide ideation into the heads of impressionable teens.

According to our government department of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHSA), TeenScreen is not listed as an evidence-based program - meaning the evidence doesn't support the program's aims. All of SAMHSA's programs for "evidenced-based" have been deemed by them to be "Experimental" programs, so even an inclusion on this list would still be experimenting with our children - not a purpose that most parents would support in their daughters' school.

The statistics thus far for TeenScreen resulted in one-third of the subjects being flagged as "positive" for mental health problems and 50% of those flagged were recommended for mental health treatment. If this system, already proven to be woefully inaccurate, is set loose on the 52 million public school students, it would mean affixing some sort of label on 17 million American children and putting 8 million children into the hands of the psychiatric/ drug industry. Imagine the financial gain for this monstrous industry with government taxpayers footing the bill. Follow the money.

A message to every taxpayer: don't let this nonsense into your schools.

A message to parents: talk to your kids about refusing participation in these types of programs without talking to you first.

A message to TeenScreen and SOS: We are on to you, and we'll continue to blow the whistle.

---

Write Letters. To the local school board. To area school principals. To the local paper. To anyone who will listen.

http://www.syracuse.com/opinion/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/opinion-2/1169287482176740.xml&coll=1&thispage=2

The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)
TEENSCREEN PROGRAM USED TO PUSH DRUGS TO STUDENTS
EDITORIAL

I read the article "New program focuses on fifth and ninth-graders" that appeared on Jan. 14 and am appalled at the contents.

The article states as if it were a fact that children need to be screened for mental health issues and that mental health issues for children are a growing concern nationally.

The program described in the article is called TeenScreen, a joint effort by psychiatric and pharmaceutical front groups. TeenScreen has been created in order to use our schools as a recruit pool for new patients.

TeenScreen promoters have stated that suicide is a leading cause of death among teenagers.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the suicide rate among children, including teens, actually dropped 25 percent in the last decade. A May 2004 Preventive Services Task Force concluded that there is no evidence that screening for suicide reduces suicide attempts. In essence, the program is unwarranted and unproductive.

TeenScreen is simply a front for the pharmaceutical industry to peddle their drugs to our children.

Additionally, nine out of 10 children who go to see a psychiatrist leave with a psychiatric drug prescription. When this frightening statistic is combined with the fact that 100 percent of the 10th graders tested under TeenScreen at Hoover High in Fresno, Calif. had "positive diagnostic impressions," you are looking at some terrifying results.

Todd Wilson

Santa Rosa, Calif.

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Utah Bans Teachers From Recommending Psych Drugs

From the Salt Lake Tribune

By Nicole Stricker
and Glen Warchol

03/10/2007

The fourth time was the charm for the so-called "Ritalin bill," signed into law Friday by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

The new law bars schools from forcing parents to put their kids on psychotropic drugs such as Ritalin. The law is the first of its kind in the nation, said Madeline Kriescher, a health policy associate at the National Conference for State Legislatures.

"Utah is pretty much on the forefront of doing that sort of thing," she said. "But New York has a bill right now that's similar in language."

Huntsman had vetoed similar legislation in 2005 and the 2002 and 2006 versions never made it to the governor's desk. This year's measure was virtually identical to the 2006 version, which had added language to clarify topics teachers may discuss with parents, and eliminated phrases banning school personnel from recommending psychological evaluations.

The Utah Board of Education opposed the legislation and urged Huntsman to veto the bill. Members said the board already has a rule prohibiting teachers from pushing medications and worry that replicating it with a law singling out psychiatric drugs would chill communication between teachers and parents.

It was those concerns that drove Huntsman's 2005 veto.

"This is a great bill. There are way too many kids on psychotropic drugs," said the Senate sponsor, Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan.

The reason for the bill's success this year is simple, Buttars said. "The governor told us the problems he had with the bill and we corrected them and he signed it."

More than 100 lines of text in the new law outline what teachers may and may not say to parents regarding children's behavior and possible psychiatric solutions. It says school personnel can't keep kids out of school or report parents for child abuse simply because parents refuse psychotropic medications.

No teacher who reads the law, Buttars maintains, would fear repercussions from discussing a student's needs with parents. Buttars said the law allows teachers to recommend a professional evaluation for a child, but not medication. "They can't say, 'We think he should be on Ritalin.' ”

Latest From CCHR Florida

Re: Update from CCHR Florida: Senate Committee Hearing on "ECT" Bill

Last week we sent you a briefing about Florida Senate Bill 112, a bill to outlaw the use of ECT (Electro-Convulsive "Therapy") on anyone under the age of 18. A hearing was held on Wednesday, Feb. 21 in Tallahassee, before the Senate Health Regulation Committee. The psychs—pushing their lies about how ECT is "harmless and safe"—attempted to get the bill killed outright. But in the face of heart-rending testimony from Linda Andre, an ECT victim whose memory and professional career was destroyed by ECT years ago, and who currently heads up a group of 500 similarly harmed ECT victims, as well as Dr. Lee Sheldon, of CCHR Florida’s Orlando Chapter, and the many hundreds of emails received by the members of the committee in favor of passing this bill, the Committee decided against killing it, and instead amended it to provide for a study of the issues, in order to clear up the false data presented by the psychs. We will keep you posted as further developments occur.

The next bill of extreme interest is a bill which would legally enforce "full informed consent" before any parent can give permission to putting their child on psych drugs in the State of Florida. CCHR Florida is part of the Florida Coalition for the Protection of Parental Rights, a coalition of over 100 grassroots parents groups and health professionals (including MDs, psychologists, and even a few psychiatrists) who are totally against the psychiatric drugging of children.

Sometime within the next weeks we are expecting committee hearings on this bill to be scheduled. Please stand by for your next Call to Action.

As you well know, this bill is vital, as exemplified by the recent death of 4-year-old Rebecca Riley, killed by a psychiatric drug cocktail she had been on, under the "care" of her family psychiatrist, who is now facing murder charges.

CCHR Florida is on the job. Our growing membership is proof that our local community is increasingly supporting us. But we need unanimous support from everyone who is aware of the role psychiatry plays in suppressing the society and keeping the civilization in a state of turmoil and unrest.

If you are not already a contributing member of CCHR (under $1.00 per day), please make your intentions known and join us in our goal to fully eradicate psychiatry as the major source of suppression of our environment.

If your membership is out of date, please go to www.cchrflorida.org and sign up. Or better still, call CCHR Florida right now at 727-442-8820 to join or renew, with a small monthly membership or single membership donation of any size. How much is it worth to you to have CCHR Florida out there, on the front lines, protecting our future generations, and making the possibility of a New Civilization really possible for all of us here in Florida and the rest of the country.

Contact:

CCHR Florida

1217 No. Ft Harrison Avenue

Clearwater, Florida 33755

727-442-8820

e-mail: info@cchrflorida.org

website: www.cchrflorida.org

FDA Is Lapdog Rather Than Watchdog

How concerned is the FDA about your health? Here's a story that illustrates the problem, on a different stage than our usual soapbox about psychiatric drugs. This is an exerpt from the Washington Post article. Read the whole story by clicking here.

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The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people.

The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine's last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals.

The American Medical Association and about a dozen other health groups warned the Food and Drug Administration that giving cefquinome to animals would probably speed the emergence of microbes resistant to that important class of antibiotics, as has happened with other drugs. Those super-microbes could then spread to people.

Echoing those concerns, the FDA's advisory board last fall voted to reject the request by InterVet Inc. of Millsboro, Del., to market the drug for cattle.

Yet by all indications, the FDA will approve cefquinome this spring. That outcome is all but required, officials said, by a recently implemented "guidance document" that codifies how to weigh the threats to human health posed by proposed new animal drugs.

The wording of "Guidance for Industry #152" was crafted within the FDA after a long struggle. In the end, the agency adopted language that, for drugs like cefquinome, is more deferential to pharmaceutical companies than is recommended by the World Health Organization.

Cefquinome's seemingly inexorable march to market shows how a few words in an obscure regulatory document can sway the government's approach to protecting public health.

Industry representatives say they trust Guidance #152's calculation that cefquinome should be approved. "There is reasonable certainty of no harm to public health," Carl Johnson, InterVet's director of product development, told the FDA last fall.

Others say Guidance #152 makes it too difficult for the FDA to say no to some drugs.

"The industry says that 'until you show us a direct link to human mortality from the use of these drugs in animals, we don't think you should preclude their use,' " said Edward Belongia, an epidemiologist at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Wisconsin. "But do we really want to drive more resistance genes into the human population? It's easy to open the barn door, but it's hard to close the door once it's open."

The FDA knows how hard it can be to close that door. In the mid-1990s, overriding the objections of public health experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the drug agency approved the marketing of two drugs, Baytril and SaraFlox, for use in poultry. Both are fluoroquinolones, a class of drugs important for their ability to fight the bioterror bacterium that causes anthrax and a food-borne bacterium called campylobacter, which causes a serious diarrheal disease in people.

Before long, doctors began finding fluoroquinolone-resistant strains of campylobacter in patients hospitalized with severe diarrhea. When studies showed a link to poultry, the FDA sought a ban. But while Abbott Laboratories, which made SaraFlox, pulled its product, Baytril's manufacturer, Bayer Corp., pushed back.

"They fought this tooth and nail. It took years," said Kirk Smith, an epidemiologist at the Minnesota Department of Health.

Finally, late in 2005, Bayer gave up, but not before fluoroquinolone resistance had spread even further.

Outrageous: She Admits Suicidal Thoughts, They Cart Her Away!

VIDEO HERE: http://www.wesh.com/news/11123803/detail.html

Screening for Mental Health, Inc. out of Massachusetts, has a program called "Signs of Suicide" which has been implemented in many public schools across the country. They receive millions in pharmaceutical funding. Tax records here: http://www.signsofsuicide.org They are also the ones that came up with the annual National Depression Screening Day.

Please write to the below Orange County, Florida school board chairman and cc the school board members and a few legislators who sponsored the SOS bill in Florida last year and may be filing the same bill this year. (e-mail addresses provided below) and let them have a piece of your mind - politely - and add that you saw the video in the news and that you don't want Signs of Suicide in schools.

The suicide movie is part of the SOS program. You can see the reference to: "Acknowledge, Care and Tell" right on their website here: http://www.mentalhealthscreening.org/champions/MetroWest.aspx (last paragraph)

Student's Suicide Confession Lands Her In Mental Clinic
February 27, 2007

APOPKA, Fla. -- An Orange County father is furious after school officials sent his daughter to a mental health clinic.

Jenny Helmick, a student at Wolf Lake Middle School, went to a guidance counselor and ended up spending the night at Lakeside Alternatives, WESH 2 News reported.

Her father, Paul Helmick, said the situation started with a movie about suicide prevention. The movie is part of a district-wide program that teaches students to ACT; Acknowledge, Care and Tell if they or a friend shows warning signs of depression or suicide.

Helmick said he believes the school's student resource officer acted way out of line by invoking the Baker Act, which allows law enforcement to take someone in for emergency evaluation.

Although she can forget her troubles when riding her go-cart around the family farm, Helmick said she'll always remember how she ended up at Lakeside Alternatives, by admitting she had once thought about suicide.

"I was pretty honest and I guess honesty can get you to a good place and get you in a bad place and at this point I think it's really messed my life up at this point so far," Helmick said.

Helmick made her confession to Latasha Hanna, the SAFE coordinator at the middle school, who said she was just taking precautions.
"I never want to gamble with their lives. So when a student comes to talk to me, I take everything that they say very seriously and try to get them help if I can," Hanna said.

Helmick's father said it didn't help when the resource officer considered her a threat to herself and had her admitted to Lakeside.

"If my daughter did say she wanted to kill herself, the right thing for them should have been to make sure that they held on to that child until a parent was brought in to that school to meet with them," he said.

Helmick believes the Baker Act that allowed the student resource officer to take his daughter to Lakeside gives police too much power.
"Keep in mind, a police officer does not have medical experience on telling me whether my daughter is crazy or not," He said.

Helmick said the movie encouraged her to seek out the SAFE cooridinator because she felt depressed about problems with bullies. School officials said they are looking into those problems.

Administrators said there have been four students taken to Lakeside from Wolf Lake Middle School this year.

+++

School board chairman, Karen Ardaman ardamak@ocps.k12.fl.us

School board members and legislators:
martinj7@ocps.net, geigera@ocps.net, cadlej@ocps.net, gordonk@ocps.k12.fl.us, roachr@ocps.k12.fl.us, flynnd@ocps.net
webster.daniel.web@flsenate.gov, ed.homan@myfloridahouse.gov, fasano.mike.web@flsenate.gov, sandy.adams@myfloridahouse.gov, frank.attkisson@myfloridahouse.gov

Whistle-Blower Speaks Out

Here is an interesting interview of a former pharmaceutical rep turned whistle-blower. It speaks for itself.

http://tinyurl.com/2rd5vq

Bill Introduced To Track Meds In Foster Kids

In California and most of the rest of the country, the misfortune of being placed in a foster home also means for a kid that he will almost undoubtedly be put on psych drugs. The whole foster program is psych infested. Now somebody's trying to do something about it. I hope it works. This article is from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Matthew Yi, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
February 24, 2007

Sacramento -- A Bay Area lawmaker introduced a bill on Friday that would require the state to collect personal and medical data on foster children as a first step to determine if they are being overmedicated because they are misdiagnosed with mental illnesses.

In many instances, foster children are given medications such as antidepressants when they're simply withdrawn because they are coping with the trauma of leaving their families to live with strangers, said Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa.

"What we've heard anecdotally is that for a lot of foster kids, rather than getting counseling for them ... they're given a drug," she said.

The bill, AB1330, would require the state Department of Social Services to collect information about a youth's sex, age and race; number of years in the foster care system; the type of drug prescribed; and whether the child lives with a foster family or a group home or resides in the juvenile justice system. There are about 80,000 children in the state's foster care system.

The legislation would also require the agency to ensure that foster children who are prescribed psychotropic medication receive appropriate medical care in accordance with the recommendations of the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Evans said the state agency said last year that it has started collecting such data. The lawmaker decided to go ahead with her bill to ensure that the department follows through with its promise of gathering the information.

This is not the first legislative attempt to collect data on foster youth and psychotropic medication. In 2004, a similar bill by then-Sen. Dick Mountjoy, R-Monrovia (Los Angeles County), stalled in the Legislature partly because of objections by the California Psychiatric Association.

Randall Hagar, the association's director of governmental affairs, said Friday that he has at least two concerns about Evans' bill.

"I think it'll be helpful to know how many (foster youths) are getting (psychotropic drugs)," he said. "But if you stop there, that's just a reflection about the nervousness about psychotropic medications and the feeling that psychotropic medications are bad."

Hagar said such a database would be more useful if it includes the diagnosis of each foster youth and figures out if they're getting the right medication.

The bill's insistence that foster children who receive psychotropic drugs be given medical care that's consistent with the FDA's recommendations is problematic because there's a lack of FDA standards for pediatric psychotropic medications, Hagar said.

That's because as a result of little research on such drugs for minors, there are very few medications that the FDA is recommending specifically for pediatric use. Currently, individual doctors and psychiatrists use their own discretion to prescribe a wide variety of psychotropic medications, he said.

"If we limit to only FDA-approved medications (specifically for children), we're denying children the vast majority of medications out there, and that's simply denying access," Hagar said.

But that's part of her concern, Evans said.

"Some of these psychotropic drugs are very heavy drugs, and there are anecdotal cases that the children are not being given right medications," she said.

One advocate of foster youths said she applauds Evans' efforts but fears every day spent simply gathering information is another day lost for children who are given these medications.

"We feel there is an urgency to this problem," said Jennifer Rodriguez, legislative and policy manager for California Youth Connection.

Even while the information is being gathered, there are other things that can help, such as asking public health nurses to visit individual group homes and educate the foster youths about these medications and that they have the right to refuse the drugs, Rodriguez said.

"There are about 7,000 youths in group homes in California. You can do a pilot project in certain counties first, if you want. But it seems like that's something that's doable," she said.

Evans also introduced AB1331, which would require counties to assess foster youths when they turn 16 1/2 years old to see if they qualify for federal disability money. If they do, the bill would allow counties to hold on to the last three checks, up to a total of $2,000, before the youths turn 18 and give them the lump sum to start their lives as adults.

A third bill, AB1332, would require private adoption agencies to have the same requirements as county adoption agencies in doing checks on adopting families. Lastly, the legislation would allow adopted foster youths with special needs who receive funds from the state's Adoption Assistance Program to continue receiving the benefit without interruption if the new parents die.

Just Say No To TeenScreen

Updates on Montana, Illinois and Florida legislation to come soon.

But, now Minnesota legislators are at it. SAY NO to S.F. 148

The Minnesota Senate Committee on Health, Housing and Family Security is hearing a bill on Monday 02/26/2007, 12:30 PM in Room 15 Capitol to fund TeenScreen. The agenda verifying this bill will be heard by this committee can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/223s5x

E-mail the Chairman of this committee and bcc the committee members. E-mail addresses provided below.

Full bill here: http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=S0148.0.html&session=ls85
Sec. 5. COLUMBIA TEENSCREEN GRANTS.
The commissioner of education shall develop a request for proposals for grants to implement the Columbia TeenScreen program. The request for proposals shall require the grant applicant to specify how the applicant will follow, implement, and conduct the essential components of the Columbia TeenScreen program. Applicants for grants shall be limited to public schools and family service collaboratives.

Some points to consider: :

1. There is a national controversy on screening kids for suicide. See petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html and video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfU9puZQKBY The petition can be presented as it is addressed to state legislators.

2. There is no evidence that screening for suicide works! See U.S. Preventive Services Task Force report here: http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/3rduspstf/suicide/suiciderr.htm
A. no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality.
B. limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk
C. insufficient evidence that treatment of those at high risk reduces suicide attempts
D. no studies were found that directly address the harms of screening and treatment for suicide risk. .

3. The chairman of the above Task Force, Ned Calonge, who is also chief medical officer for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said recently in the Washington Post "Whether or not we like to admit it, there are no interventions that have no harms, There is weak evidence that screening can distinguish people who will commit suicide from those who will not, he said. And screening inevitably leads to treating some people who do not need it. Such interventions have consequences beyond side effects from drugs or other treatments, he said. Unnecessary care drives up the cost of insurance, causing some people to lose coverage altogether. Reference: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/15/AR2006061501984.html

4. The bill has the high possibility of increasing suicides! Since 90% of shrinks use psychiatric drugs as their main method of treatment and the FDA says these drugs produce suicide ideation, what do you think will happen? See sample black box warning here: http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/antidepressants/SSRIlabelChange.htm

5. Ask them if they'd be willing to be suicide screened themselves with the suicide screening questions that were recently exposed nationally here: http://www.libertycoalition.net/cognitive-liberty/psychiatry-gone-wild-teenscreen-documents-exposed

6. If they want to reduce the rare instances of teen suicides they need to educate parents about the dangers and FDA suicide warnings on psychiatric drugs.

+++

Chair: Senator John Marty sen.john.marty@senate.mn

Senators - Committee on Health, Housing and Family Security:

sen.patricia.torres.ray@senate.mn, sen.paul.koering@senate.mn, sen.john.doll@senate.mn, sen.sharon.erickson.ropes@senate.mn, sen.michelle.fischbach@senate.mn, sen.linda.higgins@senate.mn, sen.debbie.johnson@senate.mn, sen.tony.lourey@senate.mn, sen.ann.lynch@senate.mn, sen.betsy.wergin@senate.mn, sen.linda.berglin@senate.mn; sen.david.hann@senate.mn; sen.yvonne.solon@senate.mn

New Warning for Attention Deficit Drugs

This just came up as TOP NEWS from AOL.

Updated:2007-02-21 15:33:06
New Warning for Attention Deficit Drugs

AP
WASHINGTON (Feb. 21) - Drugs prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder will include guides to alert patients and parents of the risks of mental and heart problems, including sudden death.


Karen Elshout, St. Louis Post-Dispatch / MCT
A patient takes part in a study on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The FDA ordered manufacturers to warn patients that ADHD drugs carry risks, including sudden death.

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday that it directed the manufacturers of Ritalin, Adderall, Strattera and all other ADHD drugs to develop the guides. In May 2006, the agency told manufacturers to revise the labels of the drugs to reflect concerns about the cardiovascular and psychiatric problems.

Draft versions of the guides posted on the FDA Web site include discussion of reports of increased blood pressure and heart rate in ADHD patients, as well as cases of sudden death in some who have heart problems and heart defects. In adult patients, the reported problems also include stroke and heart attack.

The alerts also cover psychiatric problems, such as hearing voices, unfounded suspicions and manic behavior, of which there is a slightly increased risk in patients who take the drugs, the FDA said. The guides also tell patients and their parents of precautions they can take to guard against the risks.


Affected Drugs
The FDA announced its order applies to 15 drugs:

· Adderall Tablets
· Adderall XR Extended-Release Capsules
· Concerta Extended-Release Tablets
· Daytrana Transdermal System
· Desoxyn Tablets
· Dexedrine Spansule Capsules and Tablets
· Focalin Tablets
· Focalin XR Extended-Release Capsules
· Metadate CD Extended-Release Capsules
· Methylin Oral Solution
· Methylin Chewable Tablets
· Ritalin Tablets
· Ritalin SR Sustained-Release Tablets
· Ritalin LA Extended-Release Capsules
· Strattera Capsules


Wednesday's announcement came roughly a year after two panels of FDA advisers recommended that the drugs include such patient medication guides. The announcement covers 15 drugs, including extended-release, patch and chewable versions of some of them.

Ritalin is manufactured by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. and in generic form by other companies; Adderall is made by Shire Pharmaceuticals Inc.; Strattera by Eli Lilly & Co.

ADHD affects an estimated 3 percent to seven percent of school-age children and four percent of adults, the FDA said.


Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2007-02-21 14:32:13

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/new-warning-for-attention-deficit-drugs/20070221143209990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

Yes They Still Do Shock Treatment On Kids

Yes, they still do Shock Treatment and yes they're doing it on kids in Florida.

The Florida Senate Health Regulation committee is meeting tomorrow Febuary 21, 2007 to consider a bill to ban Shock Treatment on kids under 18 in Florida. You can see the full bill here: http://tinyurl.com/2rvj2n

Please e-mail Senator Atwater, Chairman of the committee and cc the Senate committee members. Tell the Senators to vote YES on Senate Bill 112. (e-mail addresses provided below)

If you know any health care professionals who can testify against shock treatment or victims of shock treatment who want to speak out, please contact Lee Sheldon, placman@hotmail.com

How Electric Shock "Works"
1. The patient is injected with an anesthetic to block out pain and a muscle relaxant to shut down muscular activity and prevent spinal fractures.

2. Electrodes are placed on the temples bilaterally (from one side of the brain to the other) or unilaterally (front to back on one side of the brain).

3. A rubber gag is placed in the mouth to keep teeth from breaking or patients from biting their tongues.

4. Between 180 and 480 volts of electricity are sent searing through the brain.

5. To meet the brain’s demand for oxygen, blood flow to the brain can increase as much as 400%. Blood pressure can increase 200%. Under normal conditions, the brain uses a blood-brain barrier to keep itself healthy against harmful toxins and foreign substances. With electroshock, harmful substances “leak” from blood vessels into the brain tissue, causing swelling. Nerve cells die. Cellular activity is altered. The physiology of the brain is altered.

6. The results are memory loss, confusion, loss of space and time orientation and even death.

7. Most patients are given a total of six to 12 shocks, one a day, three times a week.

Ask the foremost psychiatrists and they have no explanation to justify why or how their “treatment” works. It is literally as scientific as sticking one’s head in a light socket. Do it often enough and you will become disoriented, confused, lose your memory or even die. Same result as ECT.

Texas, California, Colorado, Louisiana have passed similar laws. South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah have imposed limitations;

ECT is prohibited by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice. However, it has been documented that ECT has been given to 15, 16, and 17 year old girls paid by Medicaid in Florida (your tax dollars) over the last 5 years.

“Recent studies suggest that verbal learning decreased by a mean of 50% immediately after a completed course of ECT as compared with pre-ECT verbal learning scores.”—National Association for the Mentally Ill-Santa Cruz County, CA website

“There are no indications for the use of ECT on minors, and hence this should be prohibited by legislation.”
World Health Organization Resource Book on Mental Health, Human Rights, and Legislation, 2005

+++

Senator Atwater, Chair: atwater.jeffrey.web@flsenate.gov

Senate Health Regulation committee members:
siplin.gary.web@flsenate.gov, alexander.jd.web@flsenate.gov, aronberg.dave.web@flsenate.gov, fasano.mike.web@flsenate.gov, jones.dennis.web@flsenate.gov, lawson.alfred.web@flsenate.gov, peaden.durell.web@flsenate.gov

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Stop TeenScreen's Unscientific and Experimental "Mental Health Screening" of American School Children http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html

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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Sharon Stone Challenges "Prozac Society"

Sharon Stone says her latest film challenges the "Prozac Society".

Specifically she says, "I think that we live in a...Prozac society where we're always told we're supposed to have this kind of equilibrium of emotion. We have all these assignments about how we're supposed to feel about something."

Read the article on Reuters by clicking here.

Reaction to TeenScreen

Want to know how people feel about TeenScreen? Check out this site:

http://www.teenscreen-locations.com/photos.htm

Psychiatry Gone Wild: TeenScreen Exposed

A new article on TeenScreen has been issued by the folks at www.libertycoalition.net.

The goal of TeenScreen, the very controversial child screening program, is to do a mental suicide screening of every U.S. child before they graduate from high school. According to their website, they utilize screening instruments called the Diagnostic Predictive Scales (DPS) and the Columbia Health Screen (CHS).

Children as young as 9 years old are asked to answer the DPS or CHS questions. Afterwards, summary forms are then filled out by a clinician. TeenScreen's high false positive rate has many schools and parents alarmed that normal children will be labeled with mental disorders. For example the San Francisco Chronicle has just reported that "Local public schools have resisted TeenScreen. San Francisco Unified School District, for example, passed on TeenScreen because it can generate false positives and drain counseling resources. Other critics worry TeenScreen could send kids unnecessarily into treatment and land too many on psychiatric drugs."

Certainly pharmaceutical companies will benefit from mass screening of our children.

In the Liberty Coalition document you will find links to several important resources.

The documents are being made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of the ramifications of mass mental screening as related to human rights, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues. This material is distributed without profit.The Washington Post reported in an article entitled Suicide-Risk Tests for Teens Debated on June 16, 2006. "Shaffer said the screening test he developed is now in the public domain".

Shaffer, is the psychiatrist who created TeenScreen.

See What TeenScreen Wants For Our Kids

See what TeenScreen wants for our nation's kids.

7 foster children want you to listen to their story

VIDEO here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al2UfX7kycM

TeenScreen Bites the Dust in Another Major School District

A friend of mine sent me the following information on TeenScreen activities:

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You can see the new TeenScreen Bites the Dust page here: http://www.teenscreen-locations.com/noteenscreen.htm

A spot has been reserved on that page for your State's TeenScreen schools.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle of today "Local public schools have resisted TeenScreen. San Francisco Unified School District, for example, passed on TeenScreen because it can generate false positives and drain counseling resources, said spokeswoman Gentle Blythe." You can see the full article here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/22/SUICIDE.TMP

But according to the Chronicle article, private schools in San Fran are still experimenting on kids with TeenScreen. "About 30 percent of San Francisco private school teens tested so far were found to be at risk... about half of those were referred for treatment."

On another front in Kenosha, Wisconsin: NAMI, TeenScreen and Signs of Suicide, all with major ties to the pharmaceutical industry are attempting to overwhelm the local school district and convince them to throw common sense out the window.

Evidence of pharma ties to the below 3 organizations:

NAMI: http://www.psychsearch.net/nami.html,

TeenScreen http://www.teenscreentruth.com/teenscreen_key_players.html

Signs of Suicide http://www.signsofsuicide.org/

But the Kenosha Parent's Union is putting up a valiant fight. Please hook up with them and support them in any way possible: http://kenoshaparentsunion.org/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=27&func=view&id=2&catid=1

TeenScreen Is In Big Trouble

by Doyle Mills
January 15, 2007

The TeenScreen program is in big trouble.

TeenScreen is a highly controversial child suicide screening initiative with major ties to pharmaceutical companies. It is simply a marketing ploy to funnel massive numbers of our youth into the mental health system. An Internet search will pull up literally thousands of websites, articles and blogs critical of the program. Almost daily, newspapers publish articles and letters with the message that TeenScreen is a dangerous program, aimed at turning normal teenagers into new customers for the multi-billion dollar psycho-pharmaceutical industry. An on-line petition http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html with 16,000+ signatures, calls on state and federal legislators to "Stop TeenScreen's Unscientific and Experimental 'Mental Health Screening ' of American School Children ".

With public opinion against it, TeenScreen is on the defense. They are attempting to promote carefully crafted messages - over and over again. These "talking points" are seen every time a TeenScreen staffer is interviewed, and repeated in letters from TeenScreen's director, Leslie McGuire and local TeenScreen worker bees. With Rabin Strategic Partners, a high-dollar New York PR firm, at their disposal, such a coordinated strategy is of course expected. Yet, these talking points do not actually answer the hard questions posed by the program‘s critics. Instead they utilize a simple technique known as the “straw man argument”.

A straw man argument is a way of trying to win a debate while completely avoiding the actual subject at hand. It is done by taking a statement from one’s opponent and altering it so that it becomes ridiculous and thus easy to defeat. This is commonplace in politics. A candidate says “We need to be careful with our spending” and the other side sets up a straw man argument by saying: “My opponent wants to cut benefits to people who really need it.” It’s a dishonest way of trying to win the battle for public opinion. It’s a sign of desperation and an admission that one cannot confront the actual issues.

TeenScreen uses a handful of predictable statements to defend themselves. Unfortunately for TeenScreen, for Rabin, and for the pharmaceutical companies, these arguments are easily shot down by anyone who is willing to do a little research and who understands the straw man argument.

TeenScreen Straw Man Argument #1:

"We are not funded by drug companies!”, a statement found in practically every TeenScreen press release. Since TeenScreen refuses to divulge its funding sources, it’s impossible to know if this assertion is true. However, it is an example of the straw man argument. Nobody is claiming that TeenScreen is funded by drug companies. What is claimed, and can be verified, is that TeenScreen's advisory board is rife with major pharmaceutical company ties. Without belaboring the point, here is just a sampling:

• Robert Postlethwait, a TeenScreen advisory board member, spent 30 years at Eli Lilly until he retired in 1999. In 2004, according to a DarPharma Inc. press release, Postlethwait joined it's board of directors. DarPharma, Inc. is a company that develops "novel" psychotropic drugs.

• Catherine "Deeda" Blair, another TeenScreen advisory board member, has earned fees or stock from at least a half-dozen drug and biotech companies including Novartis, where she still consults, according a 2004 report by Fairchild Publications, Inc.

• In 2004 Michael Hogan, another TeenScreen advisory board member, won the Eli Lilly Lifetime Achievement Award.

You can find other TeenScreen advisory board members and their ties to pharmaceutical companies, courtesy of a website called www.TeenScreenTruth.com

Local TeenScreen operations can accept funds from drug companies or other groups that stand to make a profit from children identified as “mentally ill” by the screening process. One TeenScreen site, in Tennessee, accepted money directly from Eli Lilly, a major manufacturer of psychiatric drugs. TeenScreen’s defense is that they ”strongly recommend” that local groups do not receive drug company funding, so as to avoid the “appearance of a possible inducement to recommend treatment”. Note that they are concerned with the appearance of impropriety, not the truly dangerous situation of profit-oriented enterprises being given access to our young people.

Wherever TeenScreen pops up in various school districts, NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness) can be found there pushing it. Invariably, NAMI helps spearhead the introduction of TeenScreen into schools. When local parents and civic groups speak out against the program, NAMI is TeenScreen’s most vocal defender. NAMI published a guide for its members with TeenScreen's straw man “talking points” in an attempt to counteract opposition to TeenScreen. NAMI has received millions of dollars in pharmaceutical company funding. (Note: Although TeenScreen is very secretive and will not release the names of the schools they have infiltrated, many can be found here http://www.teenscreen-locations.com/index.htm thanks to the enterprising work of a few parents who are scouring the country hunting them down.)

TeenScreen Straw Man Argument #2:

"We don't provide treatment!" It is true that TeenScreen is not directly in the treatment business. That fact is easily proven and that’s why this straw man argument is used. What opponents actually say is that many of those students screened will be referred to psychiatric treatment (drugs). TeenScreen’s own website makes it clear that treatment is integral to the screening process. The section entitled How to Start a Site includes this line: “Before you begin screening, a plan must be in place to manage the teens identified from the screening and ensure that they can access appropriate mental health services.”

Laurie Flynn, the Executive Director of TeenScreen, makes this point very clearly in an article she wrote, “The long-term goal of TeenScreen is not just identification, but treatment for those in need. The TeenScreen program is a five-step process ... In the final step, a case manager meets with teens and makes referrals for further evaluation and treatment.”

Treatment for those children identified by the TeenScreen program likely would include psychotropic drugging - which of course is a very profitable enterprise. Some of the drugs used to “treat” depression are known to cause suicidal ideation and induce violent behavior, and are required by the Food and Drug Administration to carry “black box” warnings stating this danger. TeenScreen itself admits that a percentage of the kids they screen and refer will wind up on drugs. Of course, they prefer to use the more benign-sounding term "medication". According to a study recently published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, kids who committed suicide were 15 times more likely to have been on antidepressants. This supposed suicide "prevention" program will likely increase teen suicides. Ironic indeed.

TeenScreen Straw Man Argument #3:

"We don't diagnose!" Certainly opponents of the program are not claiming that TeenScreen's 2-day-trained screeners diagnose anyone. That would be grounds for criminal action - practicing medicine without a license. Yet, the truth is that TeenScreen personnel are involved in the diagnosis. TeenScreen's "Screening Information Form" is filled out by screeners after the suicide survey is done on a child. The form contains check boxes for Social Phobia, Generalized Anxiety, Obsessive Compulsive, Depression and Panic Disorder. No, TeenScreen does not diagnose but they do set up the child for a diagnosis. As an analogy, they are not the bank robbers; they are the get away drivers - an accomplice to the diagnosis.

TeenScreen Straw Man Argument #4:

"We require written parental consent!" Bowing to public and media pressure, TeenScreen announced in August of 2006 that they would start requiring schools to obtain written parental consent before a child is screened which crippled the program's reach. TeenScreen’s previous public stance was to allow a surreptitious scheme known as “passive consent”. If the parent did not return a form specifically saying NO to screening - parental consent was assumed. In reality, many children were screened without their parents’ consent or knowledge. Though clearly unethical and illegal per federal law, this method drastically increased the number of children who could be screened. Some schools, apparently unaware of the national controversy, still use TeenScreen's passive consent method.

The brouhaha about active and passive consent misses the point made by TeenScreen’s opponents. In a letter to the editor published in The Fort Madison Daily Democrat, Jeannie Hetzer stated, “(the school) sends home a permission slip, but the permission slip gives the parent no idea of the content of the test or the repercussions.” In her article entitled “What TeenScreen Doesn’t Want You to Know about Parental Consent”, educator Mary Collins stated, “There are federal and state laws requiring ‘informed consent’, meaning that before someone agrees to participate in any medical procedure or experiment, they must be informed of and must understand the medical facts and the risks involved…NO TeenScreen sites use full informed consent.”

Certainly, TeenScreen DOES NOT provide full informed consent on what the ramifications of screening are and does not inform parents about the national controversy and the arguments against screening.

TeenScreen Straw Man Argument #5:

"It's the Scientologists who are against us!" Although Scientologists certainly should be flattered with that honorable distinction, many of the 700 plus doctors (to date) who have signed the "NO to TeenScreen petition" found here http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html may disagree with that straw man argument. The creator of the petition, Teresa Rhoades is a Baptist according to the Daily Oklahoman. She is suing in federal court because her child was screened and diagnosed without parental consent. Rhoades says: "What does religion have to do with it?" Christians and homeschoolers have been some of the staunchest critics of psychiatric screening in schools. Many state directors of The Eagle Forum, a family rights group, have worked on legislation against mental screening in schools. Jews, Catholics, Christians and Hare Krishna's are working against mental screening of kids in schools. Many and various religious, scientific, education, medical, anti-government intrusion, media and other groups are rebelling against TeenScreen's goal to screen every child before they graduate from high school. Parents from all walks of life, whose children have been harmed by psychotropic drugs, might also wish to be included in the opposition. Michael Hogan, director of the Ohio Mental Health Department and TeenScreen proponent, referred to those opposed to mass child mental screening as the “Curious Coalition”. Although TeenScreen proponents don't feel the need to announce their own religion when they are out campaigning to suicide screen, chances are they belong to the cult of biological psychiatry.

TeenScreen Straw Man Argument #6:

“Suicide is a leading cause of death in teens!" Opponents of TeenScreen don't argue that point. It can be verified by simply looking up the statistics on the internet. However, TeenScreen will not tell you the actual numbers for fear that no one will take them seriously. Suicide in young people is very, very rare. The word “suicide” tugs at the heart strings. Any suicide is certainly a tragedy and one suicide is one too many. TeenScreen's sales pitch on this point is effective in gaining sympathy from school administrators and parents who have not done their homework. If they elected to do their research on their own geographical area, they could find the low numbers from the Center for Disease Control website, which you can find here. http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html

The solution, if there could possibly be one for the rare cases, would certainly not be to screen every child in a school, especially when many will wind up on the same drugs that carry FDA mandated Black Box warnings that these drugs carry a significant risk of serious or even life-threatening adverse effects such as suicidal ideation!

TeenScreen’s claims that they are a "suicide risk screening program for youth” is a carefully worked out marketing scheme to gain support for their activity. The public at large cares about our next generation and would do anything to prevent suicide. What TeenScreen actually does is get more youth into the mental health system. They "partner" with local mental agencies and shrinks who become the recipients of the new customers and the profits. TeenScreen does not "partner" with non-psychiatric medical doctors to find a very possible physical source of a child's behavior, such as allergies, nutritional deficiencies, lack of exercise, toxicities and even side effects of psychiatric drugs!

TeenScreen is under attack, and rightly so. Our next generation is in danger and we cannot afford to let the future of this society be decided by straw man arguments. Demand that TeenScreen answer the tough questions and the real concerns. Then our lawmakers and school personnel can make the right decisions.

Wisconsin Psychologist Rips TeenScreen - After Receiving TeenScreen Training!

This letter was published by the Kenosha Parents Union. You can read it on their web site by clicking here.

Kenosha Parents Union is an organization of parents and community members working to Kenosha's strengthen public schools

Letter to Sheboygan Psychologist re TeenScreen

Sheboygan South High School
Attn. Dr. Fred Sutkiewicz
School Psychologist

Dear Fred,

Thank you again for meeting with my psychology interns and myself a few weeks ago. This meeting, combined with the TeenScreen training that I went through with you about a year ago has helped me better understand the overall program. Based upon everything I have learned about the program, I have serious concerns about the program and how it will negatively impact our community and youth.

As you are well aware by now, I am interested in the TeenScreen program due to the overwhelming power it has on the students, parents and our community at large. You personally are in a unique position, given the sheer number of students you come across and the many other individuals you will meet as a result of this program (e.g. parents, caregivers, community groups). I definitely see a need for extending help to those in need and having an active interest in students’ academic and emotional well being; however, the TeenScreen Program is not the best course of action for helping our young community. I hope you carefully review my concerns listed below, do a follow up review of the information I provided, and do your best to track any potential benefits and the negative consequences the program. I must also add that I was pleased to hear that you decided to break from the TeenScreen Manual protocol, which clearly endorses and uses language endorsing referrals to medical practitioners (e.g. psychotropic drugs), and use your best judgment with regards to providing appropriate referrals.

Due to the multiple other concerns regarding the program, I am forwarding this letter to the School Board for review as well. If, after reviewing the information below, you or the school Board would like to conduct a more point-by-point discussion about the program or choose not to continuing endorsing the program (e.g. as did several other school districts such as the Pinellas County School District in Pinellas, FL, Fresno Unified School District in Fresno, CA- where I did my graduate work and helped stop the TeenScreen Program from starting) I would be happy to meet with you to discuss creating a specific outreach program for our young community, one that may be more cost effective in the long run.

Since the field of psychology and psychiatry is unlike all other branches of health and medicine, (e.g. not adhering to the same rigorous objective standards for diagnosing and instead being quite subjective in nature, not having even one biological test for any psychiatric disorder, having poor agreement between mental health professionals not only for diagnosing, but also for the cause for all the disorders-often called “illnesses”, and having even poorer agreement from mental health professionals as to the best coarse of treatment), I was concerned to learn that our local schools began making psychiatric and psychological referrals based upon a subjective test that identifies 50% more students as at risk than highly trained clinicians do (e.g. per the TeenScreen training session that stated approximately 50% of the students sent to the clinician for an immediate follow-up mental health screening interview will not be found in need of an outside referral.) Given the subjective nature of the mental health field, it also should be concerning that of the 60% of the student body that takes the TeenScreen test, 16% of the interviewed students will be referred to an outside “practitioner” or agency. I know you stated that our community only had approximately 50% screened and that about 11% were referred to outside practitioners, but I have not heard back from you with regards as to where these children were sent to (e.g. psychiatrist or other medical doctor for drugs, family treatment or individual counseling).

Since I still have not heard where the children are being sent to, and since I inquired at the training numerous times about the referral process but was told you could not go into details about the guidance counselor training or referral process, it is clear the TeenScreen program does not want to discuss where they are sending these children. When I am asked to conduct a client-centered consultation and to make treatment referrals and/or recommendations, the clinical interview and data collected from this in-depth interview guides the treatment referrals and recommendations that I make. It appeared much more appropriate when I heard that the “interviewers” by the volunteer therapists were able to have some discussion and follow up questioning when a student was marked as having a “mental illness” or problem. Unfortunately, Teen Screen does not allow for the one who has all the information to make the referral, but rather the one individual who was trained by Teen Screen, who may not have any in depth psychological training.

Your referral process, debriefing discussion and verbal discussions with parents will ultimately direct their understanding of any potential problem, and will also ultimately direct their care (e.g. family therapist, individuals therapy, Priest, Minister, Rabi, psychiatrist, neurologist, pediatrician, etc...). Given this, I am sure you understand the significant and considerable difference between seeing a individual therapist specializing in child-adolescent therapy, obtaining skill-based education, and obtaining a average fifteen minute medical consult where by the data states that 90% of them will walk out with a prescription for a psychotropic drug.

The mental health field has continually been plagued with each specific treatment camp claiming to have the best type of treatment for a particular disorder. However, with recent meta-analysis studies coming out about the effectiveness of particular treatments, it has become even more confusing for researchers and practitioners alike to decide which treatment may serve a particular client best (Kirsch & Moore, 2002; Prevention and Treatment, Vol. 5, #23). Since the mental health field has not been consistent in determining a “best course of treatment”, nor has agreed that any approach is superior to one or another, I can only hope you personally decide not to follow other Teen Screen programs that predominantly and/or only states you will refer to physicians who in turn prescribes psychotropic drugs. I hope you will keep categorical referral records, and will allow researchers like myself access to this data to determine if the program actually has any benefit.

Regarding the letters that are sent to parents, I am also concerned that the three letters you handed out to us during the training session (e.g. one thanking the parent for the follow through on the TeenScreen recommendation, one stating the parent agreed to the screening but the child chose not to take the test, and a third stating the parent did not comply and seek treatment for their child which was against your and the TeenScreen recommendation) are not the only letters that could be sent to a parent or child protective agency. I still have not seen the other letters you were going to forward to us for review. Nevertheless, the last letter indicated above assumes that a parent did not seek a consultation after hearing that the TeenScreen check off list marked their child as potentially having a “mental illness” or problem; however, this letter does not account for the possibility that a parent sought out another opinion or even treatment but simply wants to protect their family privacy from the school system and government (i.e. they did seek counseling and simply did not tell the child’s school about it.) During the training session, you mentioned a certified letter that would be sent to parents if they did not respond to initial letters. Based upon the numerous attempts to get children screened and the numerous follow up letters available, it is clear the goal is to have the parent follow the TeenScreen referral recommendation. Again, this places the TeenScreen recommendation in a very influential and powerful position. To this extent, I really am interested in your “training program” for making these recommendations, and I request to see what the TeenScreen Manual recommends, especially since my son and daughter could be potential South High School TeenScreen statistic.

I am additionally concerned that during the training session you made reference to the support of the TeenScreen Program, but failed to mention anything about the drawbacks and limitations of the program and of the mental health professionals who admittedly oppose it. As a researcher, it is difficult to weight the pros and cons of a program when the program discussion only focuses upon how beneficial it might be, but yet fails to produce peer reviewed evidence demonstrating the benefits and failures of the program. Most importantly, there is no data to suggest that the TeenScreen Program actually lowers suicides. This program has been running for quite some time now, and I have not seen any peer reviewed data showing that the TeenScreen actually lowers suicide. Instead, TeenScreen’s own co-director, Rob Caruano, has acknowledged there is no proof or data available to demonstrate that the program reduces suicide rates (Dec. 22, 2004; South Bend Tribune-IN by D. Rumach, “TeenScreen assesses mental health of high school students.”) Additionally, the TeenScreen program was established in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1997 . According to a 2003 Tulsa World newspaper article, Mike Brose, executive director of the Mental Health Association in Tulsa, stated: “To the best of my knowledge, this is the highest number of youth suicides we’ve ever had during the school year -- a number we find very frightening.” If the program is supposed to work, how can you explain this phenomenon?

Researchers and psychiatrists alike are even coming forth saying TeenScreen is unworkable. Nathaniel Lehrman, MD, former Clinical Director of Kingsbro Psychiatric Center in Brooklyn, NY, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein & SUNY Downstate Colleges of Medicine, stated, “The claim by the director of Columbia University’s TeenScreen Program that her program would significantly reduce suicides is unsupported by the data. Indeed, such screenings would probably cause more harm than good. It is impossible, on cursory examination, or on the basis of the Program’s brief written screening test, to detect suicidality or “mental illness,” however we define it.” Dr. Lehrman and I discussed these issues in person in October 2005, and he was quite clear that even the process of screening for mental disorders can evoke or create psychiatric symptoms, thus leading to and possibly accounting for all the False Positives that the Teen Screen researchers acknowledge. He and I also agree that by having the screening device in the schools, with all the pressure to take the test from teachers, counselors, parents, etc..., it violates the privacy of those in whom these subjective “diseases” are sought.

Additionally, Dr. Marcia Angell, Harvard Medical School professor of Ethics and best selling author stated that the TeenScreen Program “is just a way to put more people on prescription drugs” and that such programs will boost the sales of antidepressants even after the FDA in September ordered black-box warning labels, warnings that stated that these drugs will not reduce, but rather create suicidal thoughts or behaviors in minors (The New York Post, December 5, 2004). As a result of the black-box warning labels that stated the SSRI antidepressants cause suicides and suicidal ideation, even in people who are not suicidal, sales instantly and sharply fell. Nonetheless, our school system has adopted a catch-all screening program that was created by previously paid drug company representatives and researchers (e.g. Laurie Flynn).

I am also concerned about the inference you made during the training session last year, an inference I pointed out during our meeting with the interns, whereby you stated the decrease in suicides over the past few decades was the result of the SSRI antidepressants. As you recall, you showed a graph demonstrating the reduction in suicides for our youth; however, you indicated that the decrease came as a result of the antidepressants drugs commonly called SSRI’s coming to the market. This is simply not true, as there is no data to support such an inference. Instead, the FDA and research has been quite clear: if you take an SSRI antidepressant drug, such as Prozac, Paxil, Luvox, or Effexor, you will be more likely to commit suicide and to have suicidal ideation, all things being considered.

Because the increase in suicide from taking SSRIs has been so clearly demonstrated, the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the equivalent to our FDA, in Great Britain recently banned all but one of the SSRI’s for anyone under the age of eighteen, noting that the one remaining SSRI drug, Prozac, although they could not be certain it caused people to commit suicide or become suicidal, “only worked in 1 of our 10 cases”. The drug companies are not able to find one study showing a reduction effect, but yet you allowed this inference to be made to all the counselor attendees at South High. I hope you are not continuing to make this inference, as it is unethical and inaccurate at best and quite dangerous and proven to be deadly at worst.

Likewise, there is no data proving that screening will prevent suicides, the whole reason this screening program came about to begin with. According to The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (May 2004):

A. “There is no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality.” B. “There is limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk.” C. “There is insufficient evidence that treatment of those at high risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality.” D. “No studies were found that directly address the harms of screening and treatment for suicide risk. “

I will address the reason the FDA and the TeenScreen program did not follow Great Britain’s actions later, but for now, I believe the SASD and you personally need to consider the following. If the Sheboygan Area School District (SASD) and its counselors who adopt the Teen Screen approach adopt a program that has a tendency or makes it customary to refer to “practitioners”, whereby the leading referral is to a medical doctor (knowing that approximately 90% of psychiatric referrals lead to a prescription- (Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 2002), and the SASD and their counselors have been made aware of the serious health problems associated with these antidepressant, stimulant and neuroleptic drugs, and finally if the SASD and its counselors know that the number of students referred could exceed the number of student actually in need of true mental health assistance (e.g. based upon the difference in the screening instrument and a clinician’s expertise), then the Sheboygan School District and its counselors could be found liable for the negative consequences that will ultimately result from this program.

I know of only one case in which someone was potentially liable and needed to pay for not medicating a child, but yet there are thousands and thousands of cases in which children are harmed by these drugs, doctors and school system referrals. I found no less than 4 specific cases recently going through the court system whereby a children or their parents sued their school district for the TeenScreen Program. This number does not include the dozens of cases that came up for teachers, counselors and school officials referring students to medical doctors for psychotropic drugs outside of the TeenScreen Program and settled outside of court, sealing all documents from the public eye.

Now that I have addressed several concerns, I would like to review how and why the program is being so quickly accepted across the United States despite the lack of evidence that it lowers suicides.

So where did Teen Screen come from? TeenScreen was developed by psychiatrist David Shaffer of Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute’s Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Shaffer is a consultant for pharmaceutical companies that make psychotropic drugs (see page 21 of Executive Summary report, dated Jan. 21, 2004; American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, “Preliminary Report of the Task Force on SSRI’s and Suicidal Behavior in Youth.”) He has served as an expert witness for and on behalf of various drug companies, and he has been a paid consultant for specific psychotropic drugs. Some of his suicide surveys are made financially possible through an educational grant from Pfizer Inc., once receiving over $1,250,000 from just one of the drug companies (see American Foundation for Suicide Prevention press release, May 8, 2000.) In December of 2003, British drug regulators recommended against the use of SSRI antidepressants in the treatment of depressed children under 18 because some of the drugs had been linked to suicidal thoughts and self-harm. However, according to a Dec. 11, 2003, New York Times article, Shaffer, at the request of the maker of a psychotropic drug, attempted to block the British findings from being released, sending a letter to the British drug agency saying that there was insufficient data to restrict the use of the drugs in adolescents.

The director of the Teen Screen Program is Ms. Laurie Flynn. Ms. Flynn and the Teen Screen Program initially searched the newspapers throughout the US looking for reports of teens who had committed suicide. When they found such a tragedy, the program then sent a letter to the editors of the local newspaper telling them about how the Teen Screen Program could be a “solution” (Goode, E., British Warning on Anti-depressants Use for Youth, in New York Times, Dec. 11, 2003.) Like Shaffer, Flynn also had financial support from pharmaceutical companies that make psychotropic drugs. She served as the director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), which received no less than 11.7 million dollars from 18 different drug companies from 1996-1999, the largest being Eli Lilly, maker of Prozac. Ms. Flynn demonstrated her interest in trying to get children screened, calling for a “horse to ride” in order to gain access by an individual within or close to the school district board (see letter at http://www.psychsearch.net/Flynn_email.pdf).

Lastly, Ohio Mental Health Director, Michael Hogan, and California Director Stephen Mayberg are part of the Teen Screen Advisory Board. Hogan is also part of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, created by President Bush Sr.. The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health recommends the use of “state-of-the-art treatments” using “specific medications for specific conditions.” The Commission also praised the Texas Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a model medication treatment plan. This federal program endorsed the Teen Screen Program and called it a model program that should be used in all schools, daycares and agencies. The TMAP program, which sets the stage for the Teen Screen Program, is a set of guidelines for physicians to use when deciding what medication to give to a patient for a particular symptom or psychiatric problem. The program advocates the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, but when Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General, revealed that key officials with influence over the medication plan in his particular state received money and perqs from the drug companies to have the more expensive drugs listed higher on the TMAP type program, he was fired for talking to the New York Times. Pharmaceutical giant Janssen took the lead in exerting influence over state officials by creating “advisory boards” made up of state mental health directors who were regularly treated to all expense paid trips and conferences. By influencing 50 key officials, the company knew that it would have a good shot at getting a TMAP list adopted in every state. For example, Ohio Mental Health Director Hogan and California Director Mayberg, are New Freedom Commission members who control mental health services in their respective states, and both are also members of a Janssen advisory board. Hogan has proven to be so useful that Eli Lilly gave him a Lifetime Achievement Award. In granting the award it was noted that Hogan had given over 75 paid presentations at conferences since he accepted the position on Bush’s New Freedom Commission. In every keynote speaker engagement that Hogan has performed at, he has been paid by a pharmaceutical company and the conference has been sponsored by a drug company. Interestingly, Bush Sr., who developed the Freedom Commission on Mental Health, endorsing TMAP and TeenScreen, was also on Eli Lilly’s Board of Directors for many years, holds heavy stock in pharmaceutical companies, and obtains huge donations from such companies.

More specifically to Teen Screen, their Funding was said to be given by private donations; however, TeenScreen and Columbia University refused to divulge the source of their funding. Their website says they are funded by private family foundations, corporations and individuals, without naming them. One corner of their Internet site did give a clue to their funding: “A large pharmaceutical company funded the TeenScreen program in Tennessee (http://www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html, see page 4, left, mid-page). In Florida, Jim McDonough, the director of the Florida Office of Drug Control, was sent an email from Flynn threatening to pull funding if more children were not screened in their community (e.g. March 22, 2004, “We’ve been working with David Shern and USF for 18 months or so and still haven’t got a program going....At this point I’m inclined to re-think the use of our resources. We’re sending about $120k to USF annually. . . . but ultimately we’re not achieving our goals in the community,” Flynn wrote.) Flynn later stated to McDonough that she had to find kids to screen and said, “I’m looking for a horse to ride here!” According to Flynn’s testimony in March 2002, she hopes to screen no less than 7-12 million new potential drug company customers.

I pose the question, aren’t eight million kids on Ritalin enough?

I hope this raises your suspicion as to the “true” agenda to the Teen Screen Program, and has demonstrated sufficiently how the program fails to produce desirable results. The Teen Screen Program is about making profits, not about helping children. To this extent, I present some basic profit calculations. According to the Teen Screen 10 year strategy, TeenScreen wants to make the suicide survey available to all American children.

Since 1991, the Columbia University Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has invested nearly $19 million in the “research” and development of the Columbia TeenScreen program. I ask who will reap the returns?

There are 47.7 million (47,700,000) public school students.
There are 5 million (5,000,000) private school students.

17% of the kids screened by TeenScreen accept counseling (8,959,000). Seventeen percent (17%) may be a low percentage, but I am only taking numbers supplied by TeenScreen.

According to TeenScreen, 9.9% of the kids screened are drugged (5,217,300). TeenScreen says less than ten percent (10%) are prescribed some type of drug. This means that a whopping 60% of kids who accept referral counseling as a result of the suicide survey wind up on drugs. Keep in mind these are TeenScreen’s own numbers; actual figures may be much higher.

One example prescription for a common psychotropic drug is $15.56 per day.
5,217,300 students (customers) x $15.56 per day = $81,181,188 per day.
$81,181,188 x 365 days a year = $29,631,133,620 annually.

That’s nearly 30 billion dollars per year in pharmaceutical sales courtesy of the TeenScreen program.

Multiply that by a lifetime of addiction due to down or up regulation of neuroprocessing, and it is no wonder why drug companies are tripping over themselves to sponsor screening of everyone in the United States (e.g. It is mandated that every pregnant woman and child, infant to 18 years old, be mentally screened by every pediatrician, school and day care every year. That is three screenings per year, every year!). In one Colorado study over 350 youths were suicide screened using TeenScreen’s survey. They found that over 50% were at risk of suicide and 71% screened positive for psychiatric disorders at a youth homeless shelter. That’s not science, that’s a dream come true for drug companies.

Having presented all this, I would be happy to work with the SASD if they are interested in creating a specific program to address emotional well being in our children. I think it is noteworthy to acknowledge that just recently yet another study comparing cognitive psychotherapy to antidepressant medication (Paxil) was just published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. The research was done at the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University using 240 patients. It was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and confirmed that the use of psychotherapy intervention worked at least as well as the SSRI, even with moderately to severely depressed patients (i.e. keeping in mind that up to 90% of the medication effect can be explained by placebo effect-sugar pill; Antonuccio, D., Antidepressants: A Triumph of Marketing Over Science?, In Prevention & Treatment, Volume 5, Article 25, posted July 15, 2002.) The study went on to report that if the patients stopped taking the psychiatric drug, they were twice as likely to develop a relapse of depression. The researchers called for the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to revise their treatment guidelines to discourage the use of drugs for depressed individuals.

I would respectfully request that the following data and information be given to all parents prior to any screening, as I believe the real issue here is parental rights related to what they deem appropriate for their children. I do not believe the government should interfere and have any legitimate authority to direct a families intimate health matters. I believe there is a right to know about hidden agendas and what could occur if they disagree with the recommendations of the School Counselor. I also ask that the SASD offer an opinion regarding if they are willing to report parents to the Department of Family Services if the parents choose not to medicate their children or agree with the screening device that states their child has a mental disease (i.e. as in the cases of Matthew Smith and Shaina Dunkle who died of medication toxicity after their parents were coerced into placing their children on drugs by their school.) Other examples include the nightmare that Aliah Gleason went through when she was taken from her home, not allowed parental contact for five months while she was placed in foster care, and ultimately forced to take drugs due to the incorrect screening outcomes and misinformed school district. These are tough questions that have not been answered as of yet, and I believe they need to be addressed before child is torn between a well-intentioned school district, school counselor, profit driven program and parent.

Kindest Regards,

Dr. Toby Watson, Psy.D.
Clinical Depth Psychologist
Clinical and Doctoral Training Director
International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology Board Member