Posted on 06/21/2004 10:19:15 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration.
The New Freedom Initiative, according to a progress report, seeks to integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the community, rather than institutions," the British Medical Journal reported.
Critics say the plan protects the profits of drug companies at the expense of the public.
The initiative began with Bush's launch in April 2002 of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, which conducted a "comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system."
The panel found that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children.
The commission said, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviors and emotional disorders."
Schools, the panel concluded, are in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.
The commission recommended that the screening be linked with "treatment and supports," including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions."
The Texas Medication Algorithm Project, or TMAP, was held up by the panel as a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes."
The TMAP -- started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas -- also was praised by the American Psychiatric Association, which called for increased funding to implement the overall plan.
But the Texas project sparked controversy when a Pennsylvania government employee revealed state officials with influence over the plan had received money and perks from drug companies who stand to gain from it.
Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General says in his whistleblower report the "political/pharmaceutical alliance" that developed the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, was behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, which were "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab."
Jones points out, according to the British Medical Journal, companies that helped start the Texas project are major contributors to Bush's election funds. Also, some members of the New Freedom Commission have served on advisory boards for these same companies, while others have direct ties to TMAP.
Eli Lilly, manufacturer of olanzapine, one of the drugs recommended in the plan, has multiple ties to the Bush administration, BMJ says. The elder President Bush was a member of Lilly's board of directors and President Bush appointed Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, to the Homeland Security Council.
Of Lilly's $1.6 million in political contributions in 2000, 82 percent went to Bush and the Republican Party.
Another critic, Robert Whitaker, journalist and author of "Mad in America," told the British Medical Journal that while increased screening "may seem defensible," it could also be seen as "fishing for customers."
Exorbitant spending on new drugs "robs from other forms of care such as job training and shelter program," he said.
However, a developer of the Texas project, Dr. Graham Emslie, defends screening.
"There are good data showing that if you identify kids at an earlier age who are aggressive, you can intervene ... and change their trajectory."
Excellent post. Possibly the best in the thread.
It puts the lie to all the claims that "it's only WND" and all the other not-just-a-river-in-egypt noisemakers -- which is probably why they're all so silent in reply to it, eh? ;)
Actually I’m an ardent pessimist about most things political. I realize it would be difficult to force everyone to be screened - but not impossible.
Most likely, it'll be reserved for the "troublemakers". Not only will silencing them make it easier to move the agenda forward, but, it will also serve to frighten the rest into quiet obedience.
I did look at the white house and mental health commission and it appears this is just another way to expand govt and give money to the drug companies (for the "consumers" of mental health).
"the coordinated efforts of more than 25 Federal agencies must undergird and reinforce the states’ processes. Every adult with a serious mental illness or child with a serious emotional disturbance must have an individualized plan of care coordinating services among programs and across agencies. Every state must have a comprehensive mental health plan, the ownership of which is shared by all state agencies impacting the care of persons with serious mental illnesses."
25 AGENCIES !!!! EVERY STATE MUST
then this recommendation "Screening for mental disorders in primary care settings across the life span."
But that is followed on the next page with "Protect and enhance rights" Whose rights would these be? Drug companies, certainly not private individuals who were just going to their primary care physician for a physical.
I would be apt to right it off as just another govt. pork barrel and power grab but this is not a road project it involves people's privacy and health.
At the rate things are going, they'll be dancing in the street before too long.
Frightening, isn't it.
I never thought I'd see the crap that's going on these days.
I never thought I'd live in an age in which Hubert Humphrey would qualify as a "far-right-wing fringe candidate."
You're just jealous. :)
No one, except for the deviate.
Better to prepare them for their entry into OPRAH nation.
Picture an aging, smarmy, leering Alan Alda watching and rubbing his hands together...
It goes far beyond that. Read section 4.4 of the mental health report that's referenced by the White House report.
I loved hearing about that experiment where they gave boys a doll house and dolls to play with.
Within minutes, the house was a wreck, kicked into pieces, dolls were being as cudgels by the boys.
It's both sad and frightening to wake up to the reality of what's happening to our children -- our boys, in particular.
Boyhood is being stigmatized. Masculinity is classified as a disorder. Not taking sh!t is categorized as anti-social behavior.
Emasculation is the only societal norm.
I shudder when I consider what the next two or three generations will face.
It's hard to extrapolate, because the madness is -- mercifully, perhaps -- self-limiting. You simply cannot run a superpower nation into the ground and not have "the rest of the world" move in for the kill.
I'm writing science fiction, and the toughtest part is staying ahead of the surreality curve.
I got put on a shitlist by a friend's wife for having the temerity to bring him a couple of really really cool nerf guns for him to play with on his birthday.
He never even got the chance to hold one of them.
Of course, we fashioned make believe guns out of tree branches and badminton rackets)after we broke the toy ones! .
Yeah - I'm a dumbass. I fell for it too, under the guise of hornswaggling leftists for their vote. AKA "triangulation"
Now I sit here embarrassed - at being the hornswagglee.
When they levy absurdly heavy penalties on young kids for the "crime" of "aggressive behavior" like aiming a chicken finger at another kid in the lunchroom, you know we've crossed through the looking glass.
There's "zero tolerance" for sanity.
Welcome to the club. (Or was that "the clubbed"? :)
I remember when the school system decided, in 1st grade, that they wanted my middle daughter "evaluated" by a medical doctor (who they would recommend). They said I did not have to agree to it. (at this point, the handwriting on the wall was that they wanted to give her Ritalin)
I said "OK, I do not agree to this happening"
They said "OK, please fill out this form stating that you do not give permission". At this point, an alarm went off. Why would they need me to sign something that I did NOT give permission? I should only have to sign if I DID give permission.
They have me an info packet (about 40 pages of not-very-readable text) and sent us home with the form to think about it. Upon reading the whole info packet, buried around page 30 or so, was the tidbit that, if a parent refused to give permission for evaluation, the school could ask a judge to grant permission anyway on a bypass of the parent. But they needed my signature on the form to put those wheels in motion
So I came back the next day with my home-schooling paperwork and pulled her out
So, yes, there is "consent", but it remains to be seen whether consent will be overridden, or the parent simply told "You don't have to consent, but if you don't, your kid can't come to school until you do. And by the way, if the kid is not in school, you will be arrested for allowing truency. Have a nice day"
Most likely, it'll be reserved for the "troublemakers". Not only will silencing them make it easier to move the agenda forward, but, it will also serve to frighten the rest into quiet obedience.
Her story is hardly isolated. I know of others like it personally, have heard of a few more from friends and have read several similar accounts from FReepers. Where would I find this mythical reputable shrink?
HMOs have reduced psychiatry to bottom line financial accounts. Couch time is expensive and hard to show tangible results on paper. Pills are cheap and show immediate results. Whether those results are lasting or even positive is beside the point. A dramatic change in behavior can be succintly written in the patient file.
The further we move towards fully socialistic medicine the more this will occur. When the government finally nationalizes medicine the Congress will be the budgetary overseer with all the political wranglings and influences holding sway over who is treated, what is treated, what treatments are approved and how treatment is administered.
As with SS Congress will rob Peter to pay Paul and there won't be enough money for health care while at the same time scammers will be sucking dry what is available. Name me a politically run industry that hasn't gone that way.
As for my friend, she is doing wonderfully for her age and health conditions and it was never my business to stick my nose in this couples private life. Her husband is far more capable than I. He did a heroic job while the doctors had their hooks in her. As a friend I did what I could to help. Advice was not where I fit in.
Thanks for your well wishes.
I think I hit just this point in #1057. The more socialized medicine becomes the more all aspects of medicine will follow this pattern. Once medicine is fully nationalized no one will be able to buy any better health care than the next guy whether you are a gutter drunk illegal alien or a corporate exec. Only the ultra-rich will have that luxury.
Let's be straight about it. She didn't attack me, nor I her, but she did choose not to reply.
Thanks for the heads up. I hadn't seen her post to me before I saw yours. Sounds like she got a bit tired of it all. Counseling for potential mental cases is one thing. But drugging them is another. I think its a hard position to defend, unless your totally into the psycho-pharmaceutical model, which more and more people are rejecting due to the very side effects stated in the articles. And don't worry, I'll keep posting away.
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