Reader David Lehane emailed this article by Evelyn J. Pringle:
he scheme concocted by the pharmaceutical industry and pushed forward by the Bush administration to screen the entire nation’s public school population for mental illness and treat them with controversial drugs was already setting off alarms among parents all across the country. But in the state of Indiana, the alarm just got louder.
Tax payers had better get out their check books because school taxes are about to go up as the law suits against school boards start mounting over the TeenScreen depression survey being administered to children in the school.
The first notice of intent to sue was filed this month in Indiana by Michael and Teresa Rhoades who were outraged when they learned their daughter had been given a psychological test at school without their consent.
In December 2004, their daughter came home from school and said she had been diagnosed with an obsessive compulsive and social anxiety disorder after taking the TeenScreen survey.
http://www.teenscreen.org/cms/content/view/107/139/
If the district in Indiana is using Teen Screen appropriately, there is no way the student was diagnosed with anything. It’s a screener, not a diagnostic test.
The key is training in appropriate use and having an information/consent process for parents.
Protect Your Children Against Mental Health Screening
Please visit the website for information on the President’s commission on mental health and screening of children. http://www.adhdfraud.com
Find out for yourself that this will lead to mandatory mental health screening for our entire nation. The mental health agency (Psychiatry) will just start out with the kids and move into all of our lives. Just think, if you are found out to have some sort of mental disorder how many rights can you lose? How about your Job? Your health insurance? How will people treat you?
This program is just starting, stop it now! Say no to TEENSCREEN.
Looks like Tim Schell is trying to distance Columbia University from the whole Madison Center – TeenScreen fiasco in Mishawaka, Indiana.
Obviously Mr. Schell is not up to speed on TeenScreen tactics. The consent process TeenScreen prefers is “passive consent” which tries to bypass parents by not requiring written parental consent. That is the consent method used in Mishawaka. According to TeenScreen’s own numbers they screened nearly 6000 kids last year without written parental consent.
Mr. Schell is also incorrect when he says TeenScreen does not diagnose and TeenScreen was used inappropriately. The TeenScreen suicide survey itself does not diagnose but the followup “clinical interview and referral form” used in the TeenScreen program certainly labels kids with social phobia, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and other unproven, unscientific labels based on opinions only. And what then follows? Drugs.
Parents across the nation need to be informed of this “program” that will reap billions of dollars for pharmaceutical companies.
If you want to see some of the invasive questions TeenScreen is asking kids as young as 9 years old and other documented evidence of what TeenScreen actually is, see: http://www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html
Parents everywhere would do well educating themselves on the dangers of mass mental health screening programs on children.
If they take the time to check the statistics in states where the program has been in use for some time, I think they would be surprised at the number of kids that are being prescribed dangers drugs as a result of this marketing scheme.
Cheers,
Evie (Evelyn Pringle)
I have seen the results of the teen screen and the follow-up “treatment” on kids. Research on this bears out what I have seen as well. That the treatment becomes the cause of teen suicide. That under the “care” of the psychiatrist and under the drugs more kids end up committing suicide. In fact now there is a warning label on the drugs stating such.
I’d rather my kids talk to me or their minister about their problems. The old ways are not bad, talking to ones parents is a good thing. We need to bring family issues back to the family. Isn’t that part of the platform President Bush ran for President on. Responsibility brought back to the family?
Alan
This is in reference to TeenScreen as well as other aspects of ‘Therapy, Drugs and Treatments’ at the hands of psychs…This message is for all the Shrinks out there, which is an appropriate term considering Ritalin and/or Prozac changes the actual receptors in our brains and shrinks our brains 20%…Tom Cruises whole point was that the DRUGS are bad yet you (APA) want to slant it that he says YOU are bad, shaking your collective heads that he would have the audacity to call your Profession a pseudo-science…
“Drugs do… quiet them down. So does a lead pipe to the head”.4.
-Dr. Jerome Avron Associate Professor of Social Medicine at Harvard University
You state that there has been much ‘Scientific Research’ into diseases of the mind but tell us, show us one single lab report that shows a ‘Chemical Imbalance’.
Tell us exactly how ‘Scientific’ is it to have a show of hands at a “Psychiatry Conference’ to determine such horrible diseases such as “someone who likes tomatoes too much” that goes into your “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” Handbook…So if someone goes by the FDA’s Food Pyramid where fruits and vegetables top the list for healthy bodies and minds, they are sick in the head?
You say there are MILLIONS of diseases of the mind…Oh Pullease.
Tell all of us exactly WHY there is such a thing as Baby Ritalin, for those too young with no teeth who cannot chew or swallow the pill form….it comes in convenient BABY DROPS. How do you determine a Baby is attention deficit anyway??? Enlighten us as to exactly what ‘Scientific Testing’ is used for that? We’re waiting…..
Enlighten us as to why Schools get $500 and more per each child that is ‘Labeled’ with a disorder…Does it not benefit the Schools to have as many ‘Labeled children’ as possible?
And while you’re at it, explain to the General Public that every single child who has been on Ritalin/Prozac/Psychotropic drug is completely INELIGIBLE for the Armed Forces, Coast Guard and cannot be Police Officers??? Who will protect us when the Baby Boomers all reach retirement age? You? That’s a laugh. Everybody deserves to know this and what you are doing to our children and our Countrys Future INability to protect itself! WE WILL BE SITTING DUCKS!
Explain why TeenScreen (Blanket Mental Screenings) is a good thing, in a way that I, a concerned Grandmother can understand….Who benefits monetarily from these ‘Screenings’? And didn’t Laurie Flynn, spokesperson for TeenScreen commit perjury in front of Congress? Aren’t you just attempting to drum up future business and new (underage) customers? Here’s how ridiculous the so-called psychiatric “diagnoses” are: the examples of “The teen doesn’t like doing math assignments, parents should not worry. TeenScreen may determine that the child has a mental illness known as developmental-arithmetic disorder. There’s also a diagnosis for those children who like to argue with their parents, they may be afflicted with a mental illness known as oppositional-defiant disorder. And for anybody critical of the of the above two disorders, they may be suffering the mental illness called noncompliance-with-treatment disorder. No kidding, these illnesses are included in the more than 350 “mental disorders” listed in the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the insurance billing bible for mental disorders.” Oh and don’t forget the ‘disease’ for people who like tomatoes too much…
Explain why the FDA black-labeled your Anti-depressant and Psychotropic Drugs?
Explain why Mothers are killing their babies and cutting off their limbs, killing their Husbands and others when on Anti-depressnt and Psychotropic Drugs!!
Explain why 9 of the last 13 School Shooters were on Anti-depressant and Psychotropic Drugs!! 9 that we know of so far anyway!
Explain why a drug dealer dealing within 500 feet of a school is charged with a Felony yet you drug our children inside our schools with no ramifications?
Explain how much of a ‘Science’ it is, putting people on Anti-depressant and Psychotropic Drugs that make them kill themselves and/or others?
Explain how any part of Psychiatry is a Science at all?
Enlighten us as to how the use of Electric Shock Therapy <—Oxymoron. No, allow me. Electric Shock Therapy was first thought of in 1938, when Italian psychiatrist Ugo Cerletti visited a Rome slaughterhouse to see what could be learned from the method that was employed to butcher hogs. In Cerletti’s own words, “As soon as the hogs were clamped by the [electric] tongs, they fell unconscious, stiffened, then after a few seconds they were shaken by convulsions…. During this period of unconsciousness (epileptic coma), the butcher stabbed and bled the animals without difficulty….
“At this point I felt we could venture to experiment on man, and I instructed my assistants to be on the alert for the selection of a suitable subject.”
Cerletti’s first victim was provided by the local police – a man described by Cerletti as “lucid and well-oriented.” After surviving the first blast without losing consciousness, the victim overheard Cerletti discussing a second application with a higher voltage. He begged Cerletti, “Non una seconda! Mortifierel” (“Not another one! It will kill me!”)
Ignoring the objections of his assistants, Cerletti increased the voltage and duration and fired again. With the “successful” electrically induced convulsion of his victim, Ugo Cerletti brought about the application of hog-slaughtering skills to humans, creating one of the most brutal techniques of psychiatry.3.
What kind of a Sick Demented mind would make the huge leap to use this on actual HUMANS? Who then proceeded to torture and kill hundreds upon hundreds of people with this barbaric, sick method along with all the “Scientific Associates, ie. psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors? Tell us how scientific is that? This ‘Method’ is still being utilized today! And it is considered Therapy???
Toward the end of his life, recalling the first time he had tried the ‘treatment’ on a human being, Professor Ugo Cerletti remarked to a colleague:
“When I saw the patient’s reaction, I thought to myself: This ought to be abolished!”5
If he had only said and done something in the beginning . . .
Not to mention the thousands of sick psychiatrists/psychologists/counselors who have molested their innocent victims, some as young as 3 years old, who came to them to be treated for being sexually molested then got more sexual abuse at their hands? Yet you psychos want to try to discredit Tom Cruise? Not on MY shift. Tom Cruise was absolutely 1000% correct in calling your ‘Profession’ a pseudo-science! You are a sick, sick bunch of individuals and you will be stopped. And all of you are being found out as we speak.
This Link Below is a Must Read!
http://www.sntp.net/ect/ect3.htm
Follow the Money People!!!
It’s interesting how they explain the fact that when Teenscreen was implemented in Oklahoma City, teenage suicide skyrocketed. Before it’s implementation it was a very low number.
If there’s one thing a child does not have on his mind it’s suicide. He’s interested in the adventure called Life! Unless of course he’s given mind altering drugs which get’s him very depressed and often destructive. Just look at Columbine to see the nice effects this 18th century “technology” has produced.
When electrocution and drugging of a patient (or rather – victim) into coma and then penetrating the brain via the eye sockets with an icepick was given the Nobel Price in Medicine, you can see how vulnerable people are in believing the best out of those who claim to know the mind. Yet it does not take very much common sense to see that’s not a good idea!
Prozac, and it’s chain of psychotropic drugs that has followed, are NOT helping a person any more than a swift blow to the head will cure headache. The person may not appear to feel very much while knocked out, but he will tell you it did not help. It is however the same principle that drugs “help” someone, by numbing their senses.
The very same people are now trying the latest method of “help” – teenscreen.
An interesting observation I’ve made. People are easily helped when the help is actually helpful. It’s hard to push man down into the mud. Just look at how hard you can push him and he still comes back up. Then when you give someone some simple help, does he not spring back into shape quickly? Yet here we have a group of people who need government funding to stay in business.
This group with the 18th century idea of giving three month old babies drugs to prevent them from becoming criminals, are in fact the real criminals! (You think I’m kidding! But they lobbied for long time to get the right to “help” three month old babies with drugs.)
So what does this have to do with teenscreen you may ask? For one it’s the same 18th century technology being applied to your child, next it’s going to now turn your childs attention to suicide. Of course the “solution” is drugs.
At least until the insurance money runs out. They magically become cured when the insurance money runs out, as insurance investigators have been discovering.
Simply look at the statistics of areas where teenscreen has operated and you will see a drastic increase in suicides. Since the beginning of time parents have raised their children with very low suicide rates. Now all of a sudden suicide goes up once in the hands of this group of people…
If any of the many psychiatric programs introduced into our schools since the 1965 Secondary Education Act were based on science, doesn’t it seem reasonable to expect that SAT scores and behavior of children in schools and society would have improved? We know that psychiatry and psychology are focused on controlling behavior, so does it not seem slightly contradictory that these same people are claiming increasing numbers of children are in need of greater control at greater cost to tax payer, despite the billions already poured into their coffers? If a mechanic kept telling you how bad your car was and kept demanding more and more money to fix the most unlikely of things, all based on tests that he refused to show you, wouldn’t you smell something rotten after a while?
What is remarkable to me is not that a con artist cons, but that his victims keep believing in him. I believe with TeenScreen, the con artist has finally gone one step too far, and the country is beginnning to realize it’s been had. And at what a cost to millions of young lives.
Send me an email address that accepts MS word documents and I will forward the 8 page letter I just send to Governor Blagojevich.
You don’t want to screen children for mental health – it’s not science.
Just today the FDA is considering warning on the side effects of another drug for ADHD.
TeenScreen will do nothing but cost taxpayers money, and much worse – some children their lives. The drugs they be put on are required by law to state right on the package that they can cause violent and suicidal tendencies. These drugs have even proven to be fatal in many cases. Yet they remain on the market, prescribed daily to our children as well as adults. This is proof that the pharmaceutical companies and their partners in crime, the psychiatrists who prescribe their harmful drugs, care only about money. So much so that they are willing to sacrifice our children to get and stay rich. It is time they were fully exposed for the villains they are. Our children deserve better.
Evelyn Pringle is absolutely correct about Teenscreen. Thank you Mr. David Lahane for posting it here.
Teenscreen is bad, really bad. It is nothing but a scheme to get more vulnerable people (in this case children) labeled with a bogus psych disorder and drugged.
This will create MORE suicide, not less, and Teenscreen knows it.
Everyone should click on http://www.psychsearch.net/teenscreen.html NOW and check back often for updates.
Find out for yourself that psych “disorders” have no science, their treatments are dangerous and their days are numbered.
Show me the evidnece, Show me the lab tests.
“pseudo” adj. False or counterfeit: Fake.
[from PSEUDO-] “Pseudo-” pref. 1. False,deceptive; Sham: example; pseudoscience {Ref. American Heritage
Dictionary} ADD, ADHD etc, etc, etc, are all just
subjective observations with no valid scientific
testing to back it up. Tom Cruise was correct
Psychiatry is a PSEUDOSCIENCE. So how is it that
Federal Funds, Tax payers monies are approved for
this SHAM? The answer is; so called authority has
used a P.R. campaign to create a “truth” out of a
lie and the world bought it because people want
a quick fix. No time to really find out so now
here we are once again with an insidious corrupt
scam milking the cash cow. How do you all feel
about waking up? and finding out the truth?
TeenScreen is the worst fraud since…all psychiatry. Don’t trust these slithering snakes. They’re are complete liars! I’ve met several parents whose kids came home talking about how stupid these “counselors” were, asking them the most idiot questions and then having the complete audacity to label them and insist they needed drugs?!?!? Hello, people! Time to wake up and smell the coffee, as it were!
There was a great interview with Katie Couric the day after Tom Cruise blasted Matt Lauer for blindly trusting this pseudo-scientific group. She actually interviewed 2 shrinks. One, a raving nut, the other, someone who did seem to care about helping others, and both said THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CHEMICAL IMBALANCE! THERE IS NO TEST TO TEST FOR THIS, AND, IT DOESN’T EXIST–WE’VE KNOWN THIS FOR YEARS! Katie Couric’s response was totally logical–“you know this, but you still prescribe dangerous drugs for it?” The nut shrink said, “YES! You have to!” The other said, “I agree there are much better ways, as Tom Cruise pointed out, to help mental disturbances, such as good food. Exercise is very key”.
From the “Good Morning Today” interview of two psychiatrists, as a follow-up to the Cruse interview:
COURIC: Well, obviously, are they [drugs] helping with brain chemistry?
Dr. GLENMULLEN: Well, we don’t know that. It’s never been proven. Do you know that the FDAs in other countries have actually banned pharmaceutical companies and doctors from making that claim because it’s actually never been proven. So it’s misleading to tell a patient, `You have an biochemical imbalance. This drug is going to correct that imbalance.’ It’s in TV ads, it’s in magazine ads. It’s said all the time in doctor’s offices. That’s why people–millions of people are shocked by what Tom Cruise said, but that is actually true.
while you might not like Teen Screen’s methodology, they are obviously barking up the right tree in trying to help with mental health screening. then again, you might object to mental health screening, period. however, I don’t believe L. Ron Hubbard had a clue what he was talking about when he described psyciatry as a psuedo-science. just talk to anyone who works with the chronic schizophenica or bipolars or manic/depressives and they’ll tell you that vitamins and diet do not cure psychosis anymore than prayer cures fractured limbs. then again, maybe you’ve only been exposed to quack shrinks and not the real deal!