|
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."
|
This is a stretch, even for you. You are honestly going to post to this thread, and say that because the President says that all who suffer from mental illness deserve treatment and respect, that he is saying that all Americans will be screened?
Jeanne Lenzer is a "hysterical nutcase"? I thought you'd said this article was merely warmed over copy from the BMC?
Which is it?
This is like getting someone into the double corner of the checkerboard, and watching them shuttle from box to box. First it's poppycock because Joe Farah wrote it (hint: his name appears nowhere in the article), then, it's poppycock because it's just copy lifted form the British Medical Journal? Oh, but this is a three-cornered checkerboard -- because then it's nonsense because even though the actual documents referenced on the White House website confirm it, they can't be true, because Bush would never do anything like that.
And they let you run roughshod over other people's lives? (I am presuming for the moment that your earlier assertions were true.) *shudder* What are you, some kind of social worker or something? In my experience (I've got one of that breed in the family), insecure busybodies with "control issues" migrate to that "workstyle" like... well, you get the idea.
We are not all going to be forced to get evaluated and drugged against our will.
When you wish... upon a staaaaar....
Just leave it the hell at that.
What happened to all that "I am a well bred southern woman" crap? Did we suddenly enter the "Don't make me lower my voice to you" zone?
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Why are you sure of that? Six years ago, if someone would have told me that Congress would have enacted a law that would have put *every* school district in the US under direct federal control and oversight, I'd have said they were crazy. I don't think this is so farfetched, especially since this administration likes to issue federal *edicts* and then dump the bill into the laps of the states.
I'm sure we'll be reminded when it's AWB renewal time, and Our Fearless Leader whips out his almighty pen and makes like a thirsty horse for the dotted line.
So it's a poorly produced online site; so what? The article served as a port to the *original source material.* That's what people should read and evaluate if interested. Sometimes a poorly written, poorly produced broadside is the first outlet to bring people's attention to something.
There is no way this could reasonably be considered "constitutional" in any logical sense. Psychiatry is an inexact science based on a lot of guess work and speculation. The whole idea of any sort of mandatory government screenings is absurd. Sounds more like something from the old Soviet Union or out of a wacky science fiction movie.
It's an obvious attempt to silience that which her shell-like ears do not with to tolerate hearing -- confirmed by her expressed wish to relegate the thread to the backwaters of FR, where it will (hopefully, to her agenda) be missed by most readers.
Agreed!
Nice flame from someone putatively bitching about imagined flames, eh? Nice agenda -- you don't like the truth, so, go out of your way to demonize it, and then, silence it.
Oh, there are too many useful links here to squander the whole thread by relegating it to the Backroom
Precisely. Why else would she want it shoved there?
I guess we'd better watch it. Wouldn't want her making a referral on us. :)
You are honestly going to post to this thread, and say that because the President says that all who suffer from mental illness deserve treatment and respect, that he is saying that all Americans will be screened?
|
1. His name was not in that document.
2. For lack of a better term, "your side" has repeatedly asserted that WND's article is a substantially identical copy of the British Medical Review article by Jeanne Lenzer, so I guess we should copy her on this, because realistically, she is being defamed here by people saying the most outlandish things about her article.
3. When all is said and done, "your side" falls back on its position of final desperation, i.e., so WHAT if the charges are true (hint: they are, they've been confirmed in the source material, referenced on the White House web server), Bush would NEVER do that anyway, because he's a nice man.
4. And finally, when all else fails, put beans in your ears, and demand that the opposition be either silenced, or moved to the back room. Ah, censorship -- the final refuge of the lost debate.
Oh, I don't mind the "don't get it" part so much. It's those damn pitchforks and torches that bother me.
I think I will just let your own statements stand for what they are. I've always known that I don't see things the way you do, but this time, it proves to me you live in a different universe. I'm happy to keep it that way.
It doesn't even sound like Bush is proposing anything
Well, follow the money.
Read the source material.
You know -- the document referenced in the document contained on the White House web site, referenced in the article, based on an article by the British Medical Journal.
Or do you prefer to wait for the Dan Rather version to drop in your lap?
BTW, it's been front-page material on Drudge all day now. This will be going *splat* in a big way, I suspect, now that it's spotlight-on-the-cockroach time.
I don't make a lot of predictions, but I don't think I'm going out on much of a limb when I predict that within five years, the hegelian blend of "child abductions" and terrorism will combine to make DNA collection at birth a federal mandate. I think we'll fondly look back and chuckle at how optimistic we were when we even questioned its inevitabilty.
When baby comes home from the hospital (after the mandatory "parenting" counseling session), we'll get a copy of the footprints, and the DNA will go to some federal agency.
Read later.
LIAR! I can tell -- you don't REALLY like it at all, you traitor!
It's people like you who refuse to let the government make us SAFE, because of your outmoded concepts of "liberty."
Thanks to people like you, countless VICTIMS will remain chained to that demon COFFEE, and, have conflicts as they try to embrace their adult selves.
You wicked, wicked, man. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I'm telling President Bush on you. We'll see who's laughing when He finishes with you!
(It's sad, but this thread convinces me that alas, I must affix a /sarcasm tag to this post.)
Man - you're killin' me...:-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.