[Orange1998]

I wish we had more Ron Paul's in government.

[Fishing-guy]

Government requires all sorts of mandatory health screenings and tests before a child can attend public school. What's the difference with mental health screening?

[B4Ranch]

We need someplace on FR where 'important' parental threads can be placed. Just so we can keep track of where Washington is taking us.

The other thing that surprises me is how few responses this thread has received. Where did all the parents and grandparents go today?

[freeangel]

This is one of the most stupid proposals I have ever heard. There is NO substitute for good parenting. Perhaps it is potential parents that need screened.

[Coleus]

Shouldn't we contact President Bush who started this Nonsense?  Our mental health system is fine and it should be left up to the states as to what to do with their citizens.

President Says U.S. Must Make Commitment to Mental Health Care
      View the President's Remarks
     Listen to the President's Remarks

Mailing Address The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Phone Numbers Comments:   202-456-1111 Switchboard: 202-456-1414 FAX:             202-456-2461	TTY/TDD Comments:      202-456-6213 Visitors Office: 202-456-2121

E-Mail

President George W. Bush: president@whitehouse.gov
Vice President Richard Cheney: vice.president@whitehouse.gov

Psychiatry and the State (Excerpt)
by Dennis Behreandt

The federal government plans a new role in delivering mental health care.  Historically, however, governments have used psychiatric techniques for harm rather than good.

On April 29, 2002, President George W. Bush issued an executive order creating a new commission charged with finding ways to “improve America’s mental health service delivery system.” One year later, the Orwellian-sounding New Freedom Commission on Mental Health released its findings.  Its final report recommended mental health screening for all Americans and, in a proposal that should alarm parents everywhere, recommended that the nation’s schools be used to assess the mental health of all schoolchildren.

President George W. Bush wants to have  American citizens, beginning with all school age children, examined by psychiatrists.

"The New Freedom Initiative is a plan to screen the entire U.S. population for mental illness and to provide a cradle-to-grave continuum of services for those identified as either mentally ill or at risk of becoming so. Under the plan, schools would become hubs of the screening process, not only for children, but for their parents and teachers. There are even components aimed at senior citizens, pregnant women, and new mothers.

"In April 2002, President Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health to conduct a 'comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system.' The commission issued its recommendations in July 2003, chief among them being that schools are in a 'key position' to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at educational facilities."

This Draconian federal program began in Texas while G.W. Bush was Governor. It was called the Texas Medication Algorithm Project as an alliance between the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas, and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas. Now that Bush is President, he has begun implementing the program at the national level.