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."
I respect your opinion about this and the non confrontational way that you expressed it.
This thread has gotten pretty aggressive and at times even hostile.
Your post has reminded me that I have been a bit confrontational myself and I need to back off.
You make valid points about the actualities of governmental oversight.
I won't deny the potential for abuse, or mismanagement, but the initiative itself seems reasonable to me.
But you are right, the government really can mess things up sometimes.
Dern tooting. If Mr. Bush urged to Congress to pass a "July is Mental Health Month" or something equally symbolic, it would be one thing. Subsidies -- Katy bar the door. Once the nitty gritty comes of what screening qualifies for subsidy, the whole thing is going to get tied up in big ugly political and court wrangles. Either that, or everyone from the local Christian Science practitioner, to Rev. Myung Moon, to the Scientologists is going to get on this dole.
Imagine Hillary Clinton with this program. And your kid, in a school controlled by her Department of Education.
Don't fool yourself - there will be literally tons of drugs involved. And for every person who is correctly diagnosed and treated who wouldn't have been otherwise, there will be ten who will be given treatment on invented diagnoses. What if they label conservatism as a mental disease? (The academic studies have already been done, FYI, and they have "proof" that conservatives are crazy - no I'm not kidding). What do you do when some Leftist teacher has your kid medicated because he refuses to believe in global warming hysteria?
If that doesn't frighten the wits out of you, I don't know what you're doing here on FR. This program is as anticonservative as they come. It's way way way too much power for the government to have over a citizen who has not committed an aggravated felony.
I had a child psychologist when I was in the third grade.
But she committed suicide.
I just read your paramedic scenario and find it hard to believe. Do you realize how many times you used the words "I" or "me" in that scenario?
Most paramedics work in pairs. Where was your partner in all of this?
LOL
Maybe, through extensive screening, they'll find out that "little Johnny" is really good at athletics...then they can put him in a special camp...so that he can be in the Olympics someday! Oh, what a joy!
Oh, wait...they already tried that...(For you, and others so historically-deprived, I will go ahead and point out that they did that in the Soviet Union and Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe).
I think, that in our FREE society, we'll leave the screening up to the parents. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the Constitution.
My service had only one paramedic and a volunteer EMT that arrived in their personal vehicle. That's the way it was done. The volunteer's car was left at the scene when we transported a patient.
This was done so the volunteer could be at home and not stuck at the station like the paid paramedic.
The crew did not return to the station with me.
It would have been extremely cumbersome and not remotely necessary to get the point of the story, for me to describe for you that I was the one who intubated the patient, but my EMT was the one who opened the tube packaging while the EMT student that was with me did the bagging and so on.
The patient care was my responsibility to direct and perform all of the advanced skills.
You just let me know if you want the entire story. If you do, you will get it.
There was no attempt to decieve you. You my word on that.
Nor was there any attempt to deny my crew members credit for any of their assistance. (which was terrific btw)
Let me know if you want more detail OK? It's important to me that you approve.
But after you get the whole story, will you tell me whether it changes anything about my point?
Please. The only reason I posted to this thread at all was to counter those that were saying that George Bush was planning to force everyone to be evaluated and drugged.
That premise is false. That was the only thing that I cared to comment about.
But for some reason I am accused of being all sorts of things throughout this entire thread by many people. Not just you.
The theory that this was going to be done to everyone in the country is completely false.
Just because I can see some benefit to early detection and treatment of mental illnesses does not make me a liberal or a druggie.
In a nutshell. (NUT shell get it?)
Flower, if you would like to start your own counseling charities, more power to you. That's the only way it is going to be any good, if it is kept private. Otherwise the cure will become worse than the disease.
Is there any remote possibility that this isn't the real GW? I have heard of impersonators doing a crackup job. Sure doesn't seem to be the same person who ran for office?
Just wondering.
Perhaps.
Oh, wait...they already tried that...(For you, and others so historically-deprived, I will go ahead and point out that they did that in the Soviet Union and Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe).
And they do it now in Cuba. Bet you don't see THAT mentioned in the looiestream press when it fawns on Cuba. Be good little Castro Scouts!
Mental health is so intimately tied to the concept of fitness to participate in society at all, that the government fingers should be kept far, far away.
Plant your own flowers, Flower. Then you know what they are. Do not recruit a soulless government to plant them for you.
That is a lovely way to put that. Thank you.
You probably have noticed that "big government liberals" get a lot of drubbing here.
That's not because we "don't care," but because we have seen with our own eyes what happens when "caring" lets itself get mixed up with political ambition and the lust for power, through its own naivete. Remember, that you may care about people getting better but Joe Politician definitely cares about influence, power, and votes. The two do not a happy marriage make or a healthy family raise.
You can "care" all you want; stay away from other people's children. You are supporting socialist techniques.
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