Try Limiting Sugar Before Using Prozac

Oslo teens who drank the most sugary soft drinks also had more mental health problems such as hyperactivity and distress, Norwegian researchers reported on Thursday.

Their study of more than 5,000 Norwegian 15- and 16-year-olds showed a clear and direct association between soft drink intake and hyperactivity, and a more complex link with other mental and behavioral disorders.

This story is from a Reuters article.

It's remarkable that at this late date, some researchers finally publish what most mothers know: If you give Junior a lot of sugar you're going to be scraping him off the ceiling with a spatula. I remember my own son's reaction to donuts when he was six years old. We traditionally had donuts for breakfast on Saturdays and after several weeks of complete Saturday insanity we finally realized what it was. We dumped the donuts, and the problem went away.

But apparently many are still not acting on this data. So Junior, who regularly ingests several tablespoons of sugar in soft drinks, is acting up in school. Give him a psych drug. Right?

Suicide-risk Screening Effort Blasted

The Fresno Bee

Suicide-risk screening effort blasted
By Anne Dudley Ellis

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Critics, including a Fresno doctor, blasted the Fresno Unified School District on Wednesday for a suicide-risk screening program the district tried out at Hoover High School the past two years.

Concerns were raised during the public comment period at a meeting of the governing board.

The district is not using the TeenScreen Program currently but is working with Fresno County officials and other agencies on possible implementation at high schools, said Pete Summers, executive director of prevention and intervention for the district.

The program includes a 10-minute computer survey that asks students a variety of questions, including whether the teens have considered suicide.

About 400 10th-graders at Hoover High took the survey last year and the year before as part of a pilot program, Summers said.
Critics said students who answered "yes" to many of the questions could be unfairly categorized as suicidal and the program could lead students to take unnecessary psychiatric drugs.

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.

Retired teacher Sharon Kientz said the questionnaire was "loaded for positive responses."

"How many [students] have been sucked into the psychiatric drug market?" Kientz asked the governing board.

Critics' harsh comments prompted alarmed murmuring through the board-meeting audience.

Board President Luisa Medina said Summers and John Marinovich, in charge of high schools for the district, would examine the concerns.

In responding to questions from the media outside the board room, Summers disputed the characterization of TeenScreen as a dangerous program that usurped parents' authority over their children. Summers said students must have their parents' permission to complete the survey, and subsequent counseling sessions with mental health professionals also required permission.

Summers said teen suicide is a significant problem and the questionnaire could help students in distress get help. He did not have statistics on students who have been helped because of the questionnaire.

The TeenScreen Web site says the program is overseen by the Carmel Hill Center at Columbia University in New York.

Media accounts indicate the program has attracted controversy nationwide.

Anna Nicole Smith's Son Killed By Antidepressants?

Anna Nicole Smith's Son on Prescribed Psychiatric Drugs at Time of Death

Antidepressants suspected as possible cause

Forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht, who performed the second autopsy on Daniel Smith, has announced that Daniel had been on antidepressants at the time of his death. Answers are being avidly sought by the media and the public for the unexpected death of the 20-year-old son of model/actress, Anna Nicole Smith. The recent revelation of his antidepressant use could likely lead to the answer.

Newer antidepressants, called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) have been connected with a life-threatening condition called "serotonin syndrome," caused by an excess of serotonin in the brain due to the drugs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned on July 19, 2006, that SSRIs, when combined with certain migraine drugs, can cause "serotonin syndrome," which may result in headaches, dizziness, vomiting, coma and death. The New York Post and other papers report that Daniel Smith was vomiting uncontrollably before his death.

Antidepressants can also cause cardiac complications, including heart attack and stroke, as well as headaches, nausea, internal bleeding and seizures. Read the Report on the Escalating International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs, published by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, to find out other dangers of psychiatric drugs.

INHUMAN BEINGS - The Chemicalized Personality

A mother murders her five children. High school students massacre their classmates. An Iraq vet stabs his wife 71 times. How can this happen?

A common thread in these occurrences is the fact that the killers have been taking psychiatric medications.

But that is too simple. So we hear about “post-partum depression” and “combat stress.” In the case of the teens, it's “the breakdown of the family" or it’s the music, the movies, the video games.

The real answer is the dehumanizing effect of drugs.

A human being has more than one aspect. There is a definite electro-chemical component. The body physically functions via electro-chemical processes.

Then there is that aspect which perceives and reasons and creates. This is not electro-chemical. When people communicate with each other, it is not chemical molecules that are exchanging ideas. This is the spiritual aspect; the conscious, aware individual.

There is also a mental component—a mind—which is an interactive link between the reasoning factor and the physical.

A healthy mind (motivated by the spirit) is analytical.

A less healthy mind is less analytical and more and more reactive. It operates on a stimulus/response basis, motivated by random factors. A troubled, unhealthy mind doesn't reason. It doesn't perceive well. It reacts to stimuli.

For a long time now, the mental health establishment has been telling us that we are chemical in nature. They would have us believe that they can solve our problems with mood-altering drugs—a little dash of this and a little dash of that.

That approach may work at the purely physical level, as in taking antibiotics to handle infection, but it is not the physical component that gives us our rationality, our humanity. It is not the molecules in the brain that are thinking and perceiving, loving and caring, creating great music and poetry.

No, the physical component is comprised of cells and electrical impulses, which are as reasoning and creative as an avocado or the electric current that powers your toaster.

When a person is troubled, he is already sliding in the direction of the reactive, unthinking, physical impulse side of his nature. To then give him chemical, mood-altering drugs, pushes him further in that direction. While the sedative effect may appear to calm him down, he is becoming, more and more chemicalized.

So is it any wonder that these killers seem less than human? They ARE less than human. Though they can appear bright and calculating at times, real judgment is gone. They are completely reactive; alienated.

Their minds bubble and boil like the mass of chemicals they have become. The analytical capacity is gone. The spirit is gone. Their humanity is gone. They respond randomly and literally to stimuli (enter music, movies and video games).

Then, in the extreme, they lash out with violence at the imagined demons and enemies in their own unreal world. They have been mentally short-circuited by the drugs that are supposed to be helping them. It is the ultimate betrayal.

And when their bizarre, chemically induced, nightmare world collides with the world of OUR reality—which consists of living people, loving families, children, teachers, learning, accomplishment—a slaughter ensues and we are left to wonder "WHY?" "WHAT HAPPENED?"

The answer: psychiatry happened. And why would anyone perpetrate such a crime as to drug children and adults, driving them insane, all in the name of help? It's too horribly simple. It’s a multi-billion dollar business. They do it for money.

The good news is that when society wakes up to these facts, we will cease to allow these evils to occur.

It's time.

Tom Solari
tom@tomsolari.com

Tom Solari is a professional writer and video producer, living and working in Los Angeles. He is concerned about a culture that promotes chemical dependency as a solution to problems, when logic and the evidence shows that this approach deepens the problem by numbing the brain, muddling the mind and undermining the human spirit.

FDA Puts New Warning On Prozac And Other SSRIs

According to an article in Web MD, the FDA is warning us that taking certain migraine drugs with some types of antidepressants may create a life-threatening condition. The FDA's warning focuses on migraine medications called triptans when taken together with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), or with serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs).

SSRIs and SNRIs are used to treat depression and mood disorders. SSRIs include Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, and Prozac. SNRIs include Cymbalta and Effexor.

"A life-threatening condition called serotonin syndrome may occur when triptans are used together with an SSRI or a SNRI," states an FDA news release.

An interesting side-issue here is that the triptan drugs are related to the natural remedy once available at health food stores, tryptophan. The FDA seized upon a contaminated batch of tryptophan to ban it from the market. But the back story seems to be that tryptophan was hysterically opposed by Big Pharma, because of its reaction when used with Prozac and the other SSRIs. It is more than interesting to note that the cheap health food product was simply banned, while the proven incompatibility with the profitable triptan drugs was solved with warning labels. In the meantime, there have been many more deaths from suicide attributable to SSRIs than ever occurred from sickness caused by the batch of contaminated tryptophan.

The question I've always pondered is; why did they ban the trytophan instead of banning the SSRIs? That question is more-or-less rhetorical, but the injustice is nevertheless manifest. I support the free market economy and I don't like bashing big corporations just because they are successful and doing well. But in the case of the Big Pharma drug companies, there is a constant undertow of amoral and corrupt manipulation, as well as distribution of drugs that cause harm rather than help. Without batting an eye, Big Pharma seems to be focused primarily on its profits, and the welfare of the public be damned.

Serotonin syndrome occurs when the body has too much serotonin, a chemical found in the nervous system. Triptans, SSRIs, and SNRIs all raise serotonin levels. As with tryptophan, the higher seratonin levels caused by triptans are an aid to helping with migraine headaches, as well as insomnia.

Big Pharma (Drug Companies) Control Psychiatry

Ever wonder how much control the drug industry exerts on psychiatry? Here's a good one:

As reported in the San Jose Mercury News, Juy 10, 2006:

Dr. Alan F. Schatzberg, Stanford's long-time chair of the department of psychiatry, has reported financial interests with a number of companies that make psychiatric pills and devices, including:

Abbott Laboratories Inc.: consultant or scientific advisory board
Bristol-Myers Squibb: consultant or scientific advisory board; grant support
Corcept Therapeutics: scientific advisory board chairman; board of directors; stock
Elan Pharmaceuticals: stock or options
Eli Lilly and Co.: consultant or scientific advisory board; grant support
Forest Laboratories: consultant or scientific advisory board
GlaxoSmithKline: consultant or scientific advisory board; grant support
Janssen Pharmaceutica Products: consultant or scientific advisory board
Merck: stock or options
Neuronetics: consultant or scientific advisory board
Organon Pharmaceuticals: consultant or scientific advisory board
Pathway Diagnostics: stock or options
Pfizer: consultant or scientific advisory board; stock or options
Sanofi-Aventis: consultant or scientific advisory board
Somaxon Pharmaceuticals: consultant or scientific advisory board; stock or options
Somerset Pharmaceuticals: consultant or scientific advisory board; grant support
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals: consultant or scientific advisory board; grant support

Source: American Psychiatric Association; Corcept Therapeutics

Ethics Are Put In On Another Psych School Counselor

This article is from the Patriot Ledger, a Boston area newspaper:

Read it at http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2006/07/08/news/news10.txt

State reprimands counselor; School worker pressured parent, allowed ADHD evaluation of student without parental consent

By JACK ENCARNACAO
The Patriot Ledger

WEYMOUTH - A state department of education investigation concluded that a veteran adjustment counselor at the Thomas Hamilton Primary School violated federal law when she allowed a special education evaluation of a student without parental consent.

The mother pulled her children out of the school over the incident, said Andre Afonso, deputy director of the Massachusetts Citizens Commission on Human Rights, where the mother initially brought her complaints.

The commission on Human Rights was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology to investigate psychiatric violations of human rights.

‘‘This is a big issue right now with us,’’ Afonoso said. ‘‘Bypassing the written consent law ... it can lead to (unnecessary) drugging in the schools.’’

Under a law enacted in 1998 called the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, a student can not be required to submit to an evaluation of mental or psychological problems without prior written consent of a parent.

The state board of education also has a similar regulation about parental consent.

The state’s investigation followed complaints from the student’s mother that for three years the adjustment counselor pressured her to medicate her daughter for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

The student’s mother, who was not named in documents about the case and did not respond to a call for comment, did not give verbal or written permission for a mental evaluation, only for an academic evaluation.

‘‘The district acknowledged parental consent was not obtained for the administration of this test,’’ reads a letter from the department of education to the Weymouth school district.

In an affidavit filed with the commission, the mother said the counselor, Cora Hall, acted ‘‘outside of the scope of her job description and her unrelenting harassment over these past three years (have been) outside the legal barrier.’’

The mother was studying to become a nurse, and sensed something was wrong with the way her daughter was evaluated.

‘‘She knew her rights,’’ Afonso said of the mother.

The state investigation concluded that Hall, a 30-year veteran of school counseling, administered a test called the Connors’ Teacher Rating Scale in April 2005 to detect signs of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in the student, a first grader who was enrolled in a special education class due to a speech delay.

‘‘I do think I rushed,’’ Hall said. ‘‘I regret that because we don’t want to alienate parents, we don't want to upset anybody.’’

Hall said a teacher, not her, conducted the evaluation with her direction.

The state concluded that no punishment is necessary. But officials did require the school district to hold review and training sessions on the issue, which were held in March.

‘‘The penalty is more corrective action to address whatever violations were in place,’’ said Nate Mackinnon, a spokesman for the state Department of Education. ‘‘If a district were to decide not to comply (with corrective action), then we'd take additional steps. But typically with situations like this, the law tends to be rather complex, and it’s more about ensuring that it doesn't happen in the future.’’

Copyright 2006 The Patriot Ledger

The Fraud Of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

A letter from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights:

Last week, major international news outlets such as the New York Times, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal ran articles exposing that the psychiatrists who vote “disorders” into existence have ties to pharmaceutical companies who then sell drugs to “treat” those disorders!

American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the DSM, lists the “mental illnesses” recognized by psychiatry. This “bible” of psychiatry has grown from mere 119 pages in 1968 to 886 in the latest edition, and includes categories sufficiently broad as to label anyone as “mentally ill.”

Addicted to coffee? See “Caffeine-Related Disorders.” Have problem with math? See “Mathematics Disorders.” Have a child in their “terrible twos”? The DSM has a whole section on childhood disorders including “Conduct Disorder” and “Oppositional Defiant Disorder."

Yet despite there being no objective medical test to prove any chemical cause for any disorder in the DSM, billions of dollars of psychiatric drugs are prescribed each year to “treat” these conditions.

One might question how so many psychotropic drugs could be prescribed each year to treat conditions that don’t really exist—until you see that same people who create the arbitrary list of “disorders” have financial relationships with drug companies that “treat” them.

A report published last month found that 56 percent of 170 panel members responsible for overseeing the DSM had some type of financial tie to the drug industry. What’s even more alarming is that 100 percent of the “experts” on DSM panels overseeing mood disorders were financially involved with the drug industry. (“Mood disorders” are psychiatry’s cash cow and result in billions of dollars a year in revenue.)

The study is the first to document extensive monetary connections between drug companies, psychiatrists and other people responsible for the list of “disorders” in the DSM — an event or major importance given that the and Drug Administration will not approve a drug to treat a mental illness unless the condition is in the DSM.

With your support CCHR has been working to raise the public awareness in the fight for human rights. Witness the fruits of our labor as story after story in the international media are expositing the fraud being perpetrated by psychiatry their partners in crime, the psychotropic drug industry.

CCHR is on a full-out campaign to rid the planet of the dangers of psychiatry. We are winning, but we have much more to do.

Please give generously and give now to keep the momentum rolling.

All donations are welcome. Please donate to CCHR International at 6616 Sunset Blvd., LA, CA 90028 or call me at 800-869-2247 today. Your donations are tax deductible and you will receive the satisfaction of knowing you helped fund this crucial campaign.

Thanks for your help,


Yours truly,
John B. Fleming
Senior Director of Development

Email john@protectinghumanrights.org
CCHR OFFICE 800 869-2247
LOCAL 323 467-4242
FAX 323 467-7526
CELL 727 647-2692

www.cchr.org

Since 1969, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) has worked to safeguard the public from psychiatric violations of human rights.
CCHR is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) public benefit corporation that relies on public donations to carry out its humanitarian objectives.

On Medication, Killed by Alligator

She was on medication, and her mother said she was "out of it" when she went for a jog. She was a drop-dead gorgeous model. The alligator must have found her attractive. They found part of her body in the water, and part in the stomach of the alligator.

The examiner said she was attacked on land, not in the water.

How much would the effect of being "out of it" on psych drugs contribute to the vulnerability of being successfully attacked on land by an alligator?

Read the story here.

State Sponsored Child Abuse

“State Sponsored Child Abuse” trumpets the subhead in the influential e-mail e-zine What We Now Know (subscribe by clicking on this link).

The story recounts a grizzly story about the severe psychiatric misuse of children in the Montreal foster child system. It would be shocking if it was the first time we heard about such shenanigans in the world of psychiatry.

“Of course you have heard of the Nazi Angel of Death, Dr. Josef Mengele, who became infamous for conducting grueling medical experiments on concentration camp inmates during WWII. Some of his victims were children. He tested unsafe drugs on them, injected them with lethal germs, removed their organs and limbs and performed sex change operations on them. His primary interest were identical twins,” says WWKN. It goes on:

“Thank goodness something like that could never happen here. Or could it?”

The children in this story are now called the “Duplessis Orphans”, in a dubious reference to Duplessis, the hard-nosed and seemingly heartless Premier of Quebec during the time the incident occurred.

In the 1940s and '50s, between 1,500 and 20,000 (some say up to 50,000) children living in Catholic orphanages in Quebec were subject to severe abuse. Practically overnight and without good reason, perfectly healthy children were declared mentally ill or retarded and entire orphanages were converted into psychiatric wards.

Why? Because psych hospitals were paid more than three times as much per “inmate” than orphanages. It became an obvious economic benefit to define an orphan as “insane”.

According to the article, Hervé Bertrand, one of the victims, remembers how a doctor visited his third-grade class and asked him what the word "compare" meant. "I didn't know," remembers Bertrand. "We hadn't studied it yet. That's how it was decided that I was retarded."

Surviving victims allege that some of the children underwent painful experiments, electroshock treatments, even lobotomies. Most were pulled from their schools and forced into farm labor or hospital maintenance and brutally beaten for non-compliance. Many were physically and sexually abused by the Catholic priests, nuns and administrators. Some died of their injuries. (According to unconfirmed news, a mass grave with the bones of hundreds of children was recently discovered just outside of Montreal.)

The Duplessis scandal was revealed when a 1961 commission on Quebec's psychiatric hospitals found that more than 30% of the 22,000 patients didn't belong there, most of the falsely diagnosed being illegitimate children. (Not all of the children were actual orphans; many were born out of wedlock.)

The Canadian Broadcasting Story on the subject is told at this link.

You Gotta Ask First!

The outcry over the Teenscreen program and its attempts to sneak past parents to test and label their kids without notice has reached a fever pitch. Check out the laws in progress at this site. In Tennessee, there are 71 legislators co-sponsoring the legislation!

ADHD Fraud

There is a new book out by Fred Baughman, Jr. MD, called ADHD Fraud. It's subtitled "How Psychiatry Makes 'Patients' of Normal Children". This data is critical, and we need to stop feeding out children as sacrifices to the Great God Big Pharma, whose attitude seems to be, "There are plenty of children in the world, more than enough to go around. What is one child more or less compared with the kinds of profits we can make by pushing a drug that makes you crazy as a solution to a problem that doesn't exist?"

A Message From Citizens Commission on Human Rights

Citizens Commission on Human Rights is a watchdog group that is exposing Psychiatry and its crimes. This is their latest newsletter:

On May 26, Health Canada (equivalent to the U.S. FDA) issued new warnings that stimulants prescribed for so-called “ADHD” can cause a risk of sudden death. The drugs, it said, increase heart rate and blood pressure which can lead to cardiac arrests and strokes.

Meanwhile, the FDA drags its heels while it considers whether or not its strongest “black box” warning is needed for these drugs in the U.S. And while the clock ticks away, so do the lives of innocent American children. There’s already been more than 200 child deaths from these drugs. In fact, every month a child could be potentially killed by a psychiatric drug prescribed for a “disease” that doesn’t even exist.

Yet Dr. Gerald Dal Pan, a division director in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said current warnings were “appropriate” given the agency's “current knowledge of the drugs.”

I don’t know about you, but such a complacent attitude toward drugs that can kill a child makes me angry. I can’t sit by while another parent loses a child to them. Years of exposing psychiatry’s dangerous “treatments” has taught us that the only way to turn this irresponsible attitude of FDA officials around is a massive public information campaign and pressure from those that oversee FDA operations.

If your response to this child drugging is also outrage, then you can help us do something about it. First, CCHR is producing a report that spells out very simply—with medical terms defined—the dangerous and potentially lethal side effects of all psychiatric drugs and providing a chronology of official drug warnings. This needs to be broadly distributed to all legislators and policy makers so that we are informing them about drug risks that the FDA and psychiatrists are failing to tell them about.

We also have to reach more parents with the truth about these drugs because every parent reached could be activated. They are the most powerful voice. When CCHR can headline a campaign about coercive psychiatric drugging of children and, along with parents and other concerned individuals, help secure protections such as the federal law that now prohibits schools forcing kids on to psychotropic drugs and ensure FDA “black box” warnings alert that antidepressants cause suicide in our youth, you know that we are no lightweight group.

Every CCHR membership provides the means to reach those still trapped in the web of lies and deceit spun for them by psychiatry. They are not bad parents; they are simply betrayed and desperate for the truth denied them. This is what CCHR brings.

That’s where you come in. The more than 20 international drug regulatory agency warnings last year against psychiatric drugs didn’t “just happen.” It took a combined effort and campaign, with CCHR backed up by the aligned power of its membership. An Advocate Member of CCHR International represents $2,000 and with this membership, you could help to secure the safety and survival of thousands of children by getting the truth to the parents and policy makers of America.

Recently, psychiatrists in the American Psychiatric Association’s Psychiatric News, admitted that they feel they are “fighting an uphill battle.” Bemoaned one psychiatrist, Carl Bell: "Parents tell me that putting their kids on Ritalin is a genocidal plot.”

Good! We are impinging! So, before another child is placed at risk, I am asking for your help TODAY by becoming an Advocate—a tax-deductible membership of $2,000 that will step up this campaign. If you are already an Advocate, then make a membership contribution for a loved one, family member or friend. Of course, any membership gift is welcome.

Help put the FDA on notice that it has all the evidence that it needs to not only issue “black box warnings” on stimulants but to also ban them! They must be told that enough is enough—NO parent should be visiting the grave of their child killed by a drug they were deceived into believing was “safe and effective.” There is urgency in this. This is a call to action.

Click here to make your donation.

ifeminists.com and Teenscreen

Tony Zizza's article in ifeminists.com is incredible.




The Trouble With TeenScreen
May 24, 2006
by Tony Zizza

"It has ruined the taste of the sweetest lies. Burned through my best alibis. Every sin that I deny keeps hanging 'round my door. Oh, the trouble with the truth is it always begs for more."
—Patty Loveless, "The Trouble With The Truth"

I guess you know you are recently divorced when you start quoting lyrics from country singers. I suppose I've taken it a step further by weaving the lyrics from one of my favorite country singers into perhaps the most controversial subject matter facing our culture today.

And that is the screening of our school children FOR mental illness.

Advocates for mental health screening will tell us the truth is screening prevents suicide among our young people. There is no evidence that supports this at all. From what I understand, suicide among young people is actually declining. I believe I read something from the Centers For Disease Control, (CDC) that showed suicide among young people has declined over the last two decades. If this is the case, why is teen suicide and the obsession with alleged teen depression all the rage?

One of the reasons is that thankfully, subjective mental disorders like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and its objectively dangerous drugs have come under fire. Critics from the left and right now have no fear in even questioning the existence of ADHD. Years ago, this would have never happened. Black box warnings on stimulants and psychotropic drugs are opening the eyes and ears of many parents and lawmakers. While we all dwell over Tom Cruise calling psychiatry into question, there is little doubt scientologists aren't the only ones fuming mad over the myth there is good work tied to what TeenScreen is doing.

So, what's the trouble with TeenScreen? TeenScreen is a subjective questionnaire that was developed by Columbia University to hopefully identify young people who allegedly have "undiagnosed" mental health issues. Students have been lured into taking the "test" by being given free movie tickets and food. From what I understand, TeenScreen is now in place in over 12 states, and in over 450 schools. To see if your state is supporting TeenScreen, check out this web site.

The screening is essentially a round of self-administered questions. Students who are screened and appear to have finally been diagnosed, are "in line" for treatment. Students have come home crying believing that they are now considered mentally ill because they have been labeled with subjective mental health disorders like OCD and ADD. Again, everything is shrouded in the alleged epidemic of suicide among young people. Both democratic and conservative members and officers of school boards accross the country are letting TeenScreen in, shutting out the trouble with it because these days anyone who speaks out against the false labeling and drugging of children must be a scientologist.

Imagine you are a parent of any race or political bent, and your child comes home believing they are mentally ill. How are they being stigmatized against seeking mental health treatment? Mental health advocates who think there is nothing wrong with America becoming one nation under medication have it backwards. A stigma of having a subjective mental disorder results when programs like TeenScreen label our young people in the first place! Our young people are being labeled mentally ill when they answer questions like these in the wrong light turned on by TeenScreen:

* Have you often felt nervous when you've had to do things in front of people?
* Has there been a time when you felt you couldn't do anything well or that you weren't as goodlooking or smart as other people?
* Have you often felt grouchy or irritable and often in a bad mood, when even little things would make you mad?

In regard to the first question, how much more subjective can you get? I mean, it sounds like TeenScreen is not acknowledging that people, young or old, are nervous when they have to do things in front of people such as what, give a speech? What's the big deal? I wonder why even "nerves" these days are associated with mental illness. What good does this kind of thinking do to our young people?

Looking at this second question, and remember, TeenScreen is comprised of 14-52 similar and equally asinine questions, I can't help but conclude TeenScreen denies the very existence of reality. The trouble with the truth is this, and get used to it: there will always be some people who are smarter than you, and more goodlooking than you. If you have trouble with that, it's not a mental health issue, it's an issue of being stubborn.

The third question must go over real well with young females who are suffering around that period of time in any given month. Being a teen and younger is a consistent exercise in being moody and mad. Again, when it comes to young people, it's not a question of mental illness, but one of what to do with stubborness and a self defeating attitude that is sometimes not helped with peer pressure. On the other hand, sometimes it is. Sometimes young people need to be instructed to suck it up. The world does exist outside of their subjective issues.

Again, you will hear people tell you TeenScreen is needed because of the epidemic of suicide among young people. Politicians are coming out in droves now because a young family member at one time commited suicide. Sure, all this is tragic. Terribly so. It is, however, incorrect to believe programs like TeenScreen can do anything about suicide or depression. Or the fact that a young person has to get through life to become what else, but older. What worries me most about TeenScreen is the obsession with the subjective, and the ties that ultimately bind to Big Pharma.

Mental health screening does not belong in any shape or fashion in our schools. There is nothing wrong with a student talking to a guidance counselor. Young people have a plethora of feelings to get through, and sometimes things do not go as planned. Talk therapy can be a good thing. A way of getting things off one's chest by talking and keeping a journal. Setting an action plan to feel better and forget about it over time.

Unfortunately, TeenScreen is quite frankly an exercise in promoting mental health in absolutely the wrong way. As our culture becomes more advanced and dynamic, should there not be a reduction of alleged mental health disorders among young people? If I was back in grade school or high school and someone from TeenScreen or the National Alliance For The Mentally Ill, (NAMI) told me that based on some slippery questions, I had a mental disorder, I would be insulted, and say: prove it! Problem is, and the trouble with the truth is - it's young people we are talking about. While some of our young people may properly rebel against TeenScreen and other dangerous mental health propoganda that helps Big Pharma in the short and long run, what about all the young people who come running home convinced they are - mentally ill?

Whether are not you sit on the left or right end of the political spectrum, TeenScreen is something we need to come together on and bounce out of our schools. It's an assault on the growing minds of young people. It's a slap in the face to all the hard working parents in this country. Bring the subject up at your next school board meeting, and watch the sparks fly. You'll see for yourself who truly wants young people in our schools to believe they are mentally ill. You can find out more about TeenScreen by visiting http://www.teenscreentruth.com.


Zizza is a freelance writer who lives in Atlanta, Georgia. He serves as Vice President for the State of Georgia for the non-profit organization, Parents For Label and Drug Free Education.

Another Antidepressant Attack

In another act of seemingly senseless and unexplainable violence, Larry Barnes, a 36-year-old Georgia man, jumped the curb, ran down a family of 5, including three small children. He smashed them against the building, then backed up and rammed them again, "smiling the whole time" according to an onlooking McDonalds employee.

Senseless it is. But is it unexplainable? No it's not. According to the man's mother, "He's been suffering with depression for years," she said, her voice shaking after learning what happened.

We know what that means, don't we? It's another antidepressant homicide.

A Pharmacist Speaks Out

Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida)
May 18, 2006 Thursday
DEAR PHARMACIST SUZY COHEN
ADHD DRUGS NOT A CURE
By: Suzy Cohen, a registered pharmacist, syndicated writer for the Tribune Media Services

Dear Pharmacist: My 8-year-old son just started medicine for ADHD. My husband disagrees with his taking the medicine; he says our son is "all boy" and that I can't handle him. But the doctor prescribed the medicine, I didn't force it. His teachers recommended it. Do you think I should continue? --
L.D., Fort Lauderdale

Dear L.D.: As a mother myself, I understand the emotional pain you must feel about a child who isn't faring well. The controversy surrounding ADHD and its treatments creates agony for many families.

You husband sees his rambunctious son as "all boy" and his concern has merit -- you shouldn't medicate a child who is merely distracted or fidgety. Impulsive dispositions need to be differentiated from human tornadoes who recklessly run into streets.

ADHD isn't completely understood, so it can't be cured, just treated. Parents struggle because diagnosis is subjective; there are no blood tests or MRIs to make a diagnosis conclusive. Controversy shrouds ADHD and its possible connection to everyday toxins, lead paint, food allergies, immunizations containing mercury, genetics and chemical imbalances.

Most prescribed medications for ADHD are amphetamine stimulants. In normal adults, they act like uppers, but in kids with ADHD, they slow the brain down. Popular ones include Ritalin (methylphenidate), Adderall, Dextroamphetamine and Concerta.

Amphetamines can speed heart rate, raise blood pressure, cause stomach aches, dizziness, insomnia and eye wiggling. Long-term use may cause agitation and hostility. ADHD drugs reduce appetite, which, by the way, can stunt growth, according to a new study presented at the annual Pediatric Academic Societies meeting.

Toxic side effects occur more often in kids than adults. The question isn't: Should I treat my child? Rather, it is: What natural or pharmaceutical
options should I use to help my child feel better with little or no risk?

Generally speaking, Americans have been indoctrinated into taking heavily advertised drugs dispensed like candy, deemed by the FDA as "safe and effective" until one day ... guess what? They are no longer deemed safe and effective. I fear this will happen with some ADHD drugs.

This information is not intended to treat, cure or diagnose your condition. Always consult your physician. Suzy Cohen is a registered
pharmacist. For more information or to contact her, visit www.dearpharmacist.com

(Note: The above advice also appeared in Newsday (New York), May 16, 2006, The Times Union (Albany, New York), May 16, 2006,
Tulsa World (Oklahoma), May 13, 2006).

The Army Knows Better Than To Use Psych Drugs

It has long been a fact that the use of psych drugs can disqualify you for military service. One of the shooters in the Columbine Massacre school disaster had tried to get into the Army and had been turned down because he was on Luvox. But apparently once you're in, the Army has a different attitude. The current controversy is based on the Army taking psychotic soldiers, giving them psych drugs, and putting them back on the front line, where they become dangerous "loose cannons" (almost literally).

The following two quotes are from a Los Angeles Times article, "U.S. Redeploying Troops with Mental Health Issues":

"I can't imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on [antidepressants], when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal," said Vera Sharav, president of the watchdog Alliance for Human Research Protection. "You're creating chemically activated time bombs."

Sgt. Syverson, back in Kuwait after a breakdown, in an e-mail to his family: "Nearly died...out here on a nice and really mild night because of the medication that I am taking. Head about to explode from the blood swelling inside, the lightning storm that happened in my head, the blurred vision, confusion, dizziness and a whole lot more."

A Little Paxil Story...

Maybe it isn't so hard to understand why GlaxoSmithKline is bending over backwards to work with the FDA on warning the public about Paxil. Amongst the group of psych drugs known as SSRIs (like Prozac, Zoloft etc.) Paxil is definitely the baddest bad boy of them all. Web sites supporting Paxil victims are rife with horror stories. Click here to hear one of them in the form of a video -- it's a news article by a Texas news station.

In a sharp turnabout from the usual behavior of Big Pharma companies, GlaxoSmithKline is participating with the FDA to disseminate the data that their version of the Prozac prototype, Paxil, may raise the risk of suicidal behavior in young adults. This is commendable, at least on the surface, because Big Pharma has been stiff-arming any attempt to get them to admit their putting out drugs that kill rather than cure.

It smells a lot like the period when the tobacco companies realized they were going to go down. They began to promote themselves as concerned about young people taking up smoking and so forth.

I don't think this is going to start a stampede this week amongst Big Pharma robber barons to step up to the responsibility of admitting their crimes, but sooner or later there will be just such a rush to appear to be concerned and responsible. It will happen when they realize that the public has discovered that the emperor has no clothers and that they are navigating the fine line between mere fiscal responsibility on one hand, and criminal responsibility on the other.

Psychology Goes To The Dogs

Not content with imposing their failed methods on mankind, psychologists have begun extending their travesties to the animal world, with the advent of "psychology" for animals.

Perhaps we should applaud this. It is a step up from abusing animals in their ghoulish experiments (ala Pavlov et al) but the latest report in this dark carnival is worthy of note:

According to CNN, California man Flody Suarez is suing the owner of the "Dog Psychology Center", to whom he took his 5-year-old Labrador. The dog apparently suffered from fears of other dogs and strangers.

Apparently the techniques of the dog psychologist, who appears on a regular TV show and calls himself the "Dog Whisperer", left Suarez' lab in intensive care at the veterinarian, "bleeding from his mouth and nose, in an oxygen tent gasping for breath and with severe bruising to his back inner thighs,"

According to the article, "The facility's workers allegedly placed a choke collar on the dog, pulled him onto a treadmill and forced him to "overwork." Suarez says he spent at least $25,000 on medical bills and the dog must undergo more surgeries for damage to his esophagus."

It's too bad Suarez wasn't aware of what psychology does to its human victims. He might have been more chary of trusting his beloved dog to such a charletan. The best expose of psychology and psychiatry is at the CCHR Exhibit "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death" in Hollywood.