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A Front Group for the Psycho-Pharmaceutical
Industrial Complex
Updated: October 26, 2005 10:20 PM
ST
TeenScreen is a very controversial so-called
"diagnostic psychiatric service" aka suicide survey; done on
children who are then referred to psychiatric treatment. The
evidence suggests that the objective of the psychiatrists who
designed TeenScreen is to place children so selected on psychotropic
drugs. 
"It's just a way
to put more people on prescription drugs," said Marcia Angell, a
medical ethics lecturer at Harvard Medical School and author of "The Truth About Drug Companies." She said such
programs will boost the sale of antidepressants even after the FDA
in September ordered a "black box" label warning that the pills
might spur suicidal thoughts or actions in minors. (The New York
Post, December 5, 2004)
Procedure on Young Children
Step One
TeenScreen lures kids as young as 9 years old into doing the
suicide survey by offering them free movie passes, food coupons, "I
completed TeenScreen" stress balls and pizza parties, if they
consent to the procedure.
One tactic TeenScreen officials use
is to sell the child on the suicide survey first and after they have
the child's agreement,
they later contact parents.
TeenScreen Project Coordinator,
Kathleen Cigich, was quoted as saying: "We found early on, though,
that sending out letters directly to parents is prohibitively time
consuming and gets a low response rate. We thought, why not go to
students themselves and offer a $5 video store coupon to anyone who
brings back a parental consent form within a two-day turnaround
period. It works. Our response rate is extremely
high."
TeenScreen also utilizes a "passive consent"
form which requires no written parental approval. The passive
consent form is sent home to parents and if they don't return it
TeenScreen considers that the parents approve. TeenScreen officials
favor passive consent because they say it boosts
their chances of screening kids to 95% as opposed to the written
parental consent technique. What if the child forgets to bring the
consent form home? What happens if the parent is too busy to refuse
in writing? They've consented in the eyes of TeenScreen personnel.
Step Two
The youngster is sat down and asked introverting questions
such as:
- Has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you
just weren't interested in anything?
- Has there been a time when you felt you couldn't do
anything well or that you weren't as good-looking or as smart as
other people?
- How often did your parents get annoyed or upset with you
because of the way you were feeling or acting?
- Have you often felt very nervous when you've had to do
things in front of people?
- Have you often worried a lot before you were going to play
a sport or game or do some other activity?
Step Three
Based on the answers the child gives to the above questions
he is then shuffled off to a "clinician", who ponders the bogus
label to use.
Social Phobia?
Panic Disorder?
Anxiety?
Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder?
Active Suicide Ideation?
Passive Suicide
Ideation?
You can find the checklist used to label the child
here: labeling
checklist
IMPORTANT NOTE TO
PARENTS:
Parents are being mislead by a multi
billion-dollar a year child drugging industry that a diagnoses of
"mental disorder" (ADHD, Bi-Polar, Social Anxiety Disorder) are
medical diseases or illnesses. This is a fraud. No child has a brain
scan, blood test, X-Ray or any evidence of physical abnormality to
verify they are "ill" or "diseased."
Yet psychiatrists
continue to pound the public with misleading and fraudulent
statements that these so called mental disorders are biochemical or
neurological conditions. That is false. They are simply a list of
behaviors that psychiatrists vote into existence and insert into
their billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders.
This has led to over 8 million children in the
U.S. taking mind-altering psychiatric drugs.
The Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, 4th Edition (DSM-IV),
published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), is
psychiatry's billing bible of "disorders" from which psychiatric
screening, diagnoses and their treatment are derived. The current
edition lists 374 psychiatric conditions that have been identified
as mental disorders.
Yet, the disorders contained in the
DSM-IV are arrived at by consensus, not by scientific criteria.
There are no blood tests, brain scans, X-Rays, MRIs or "chemical
imbalance" tests that can scientifically validate any mental
"disorder" as a disease or illness. Canadian psychologist Tana
Dineen reports, "Unlike medical diagnoses that convey a probable
cause, appropriate treatment and likely prognosis, the disorders
listed in DSM-IV are terms arrived at through peer consensus"-
literally, a vote by APA committee members.
Step Four
The "clinician" summarizes his report and comes up with an
"impairment score".
Step Five
Based on how the child answered the "suicide survey", and
which label the clinician conjured up and how the child did on his
"impairment score" the child is then sent off for
"treatment".
What treatment?
Drugs. A survey of
recently trained child psychiatrists found the treatment
for 9 out of 10 children consisted of drugging. (Journal of the
American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry 2002)
The
"treatment" used on children with these bogus labels can be found
here: Medication
Guidelines
"Treatment" is the long term goal for
TeenScreen according to their director, Laurie Flynn.
What
does the Food and Drug Administration say about these drugs? See
here: Black
Box Warning
TeenScreen — no evidence of
workability
As to studies on TeenScreen itself, the U.S. Preventive
Services Task Force (top U.S. Government Research outfit) report of May of 2004 states:
A. There is
no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts
or mortality.
B. There is limited evidence on the accuracy of
screening tools to identify suicide risk.
C. There is
insufficient evidence that treatment of those at high risk reduces
suicide attempts or mortality.
D. No studies were found that
directly address the harms of screening and treatment for suicide
risk.
TeenScreen has no
proof that their survey reduces suicide rates. The co-director
of TeenScreen Rob Caruano, says that suicides are so rare that you'd
have to screen the whole country to see a difference in mortality
between screened and unscreened students.
TeenScreen was
established in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1997
. According to a 2003 Tulsa World newspaper article, Mike Brose,
executive director of the Mental Health Association in Tulsa,
stated: "To the best of my knowledge, this is the highest number of
youth suicides we've ever had during the school year -- a number we
find very frightening."
Psychiatrists are even coming forth
saying TeenScreen is unworkable. Nathaniel Lehrman says: "The claim by the director
of Columbia University's TeenScreen Program that her program would
significantly reduce suicides is unsupported by the data. Indeed,
such screenings would probably cause more harm than good. It is
impossible, on cursory examination, or on the basis of the Program's
brief written screening test, to detect suicidality or "mental
illness," however we define it. "
So much for the workability
of TeenScreen.
Suicides on decline, despite TeenScreen/media
hysteria
TeenScreen attempts to create in the media, a suicide
hysteria, when in fact suicides are on the decline. The suicide rate
for ages 10 to 19 fell from 6.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 1992 to
4.6 per 100,000 in 2001, according to the Center for Disease
Control. In 1991, 10 of 100,000 people in Florida ages 10-24
committed suicide. By 1999, that number had dropped to six out of
100,000.
The Visible Players
Origin of TeenScreen? A drug company paid
psychiatrist!
David Shaffer
 TeenScreen was developed by psychiatrist David Shaffer of
Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute's
Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Shaffer is a consultant (see page
21 of this Executive Summary report) and apologist of pharmaceutical
companies. Shaffer has served as an expert witness for various drug
companies and a consultant on various psychotropic drugs.
The
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention sent out a press release on
May 8, 2000, that said Shaffer was their president and they had just
released a national survey they had done on suicide. The funder of
the survey? A pharmaceutical company. Shaffer's American Foundation
for Suicide Prevention has also received $1,250,000
from yet another drug company.
Shaffer attempted to block negative British
findings
In December of 2003 British drug regulators recommended
against the use of antidepressants in the treatment of depressed
children under 18 because some of the drugs had been linked to
suicidal thoughts and self-harm. According to a December 11, 2003,
New York Times article, Shaffer
at the request of a maker of psychotropic drugs attempted to block
the British findings, sending a letter to the British drug agency
saying that there was insufficient data to restrict the use of the
drugs in adolescents.
TeenScreen's Director: Laurie Flynn
 Laurie Flynn, TeenScreen's director,
searches out teens who have committed suicide and then writes
letters to the editors throughout the country, promoting TeenScreen
as the "solution". Flynn is no stranger to the pharmaceutical
industry. She formally served as the head of the National Alliance
for the Mentally Ill which received millions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies.
Flynn has a tough time selling TeenScreen. TeenScreen has resorted
to luring kids with movie rental coupons and food
and drink coupons, simply for the return of a release form,
whether or not the student agrees to be screened.
Flynn perjured herself in a Capitol Hill Hearing on
March 2, 2004, in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions Committee on Bill H.R. 3063, when she testified: "In
partnership with the University of South Florida we are piloting
district wide mental health screening of 9th graders in Hillsborough
and Pinellas counties". But in fact, the day before Flynn's
testimony, the Hillsborough County School District said they were
not partnering with TeenScreen, did not feel comfortable with the
information provided by TeenScreen and had serious concerns about
TeenScreen including liability and risk issues. In Pinellas County,
TeenScreen is prohibited from doing their suicide survey because
Board policy protects the identity of students when surveys are
done. In addition, the Pinellas County School Board Superintendent,
Dr. Clayton Wilcox, has serious reservations about partnering with such an
organization.
E-mails are public record in Florida if sent
to a government agency. Here is one example of Flynn's "confidential" e-mails. She says she needs a horse
to ride and she needs those kids screened!
Flynn should learn
to just say no to drugs .
TeenScreen's Co-Director: Leslie
McGuire
 Mcguire's presentation at the national NAMI convention June
2005:
"Getting the kids to buy in is such an essential thing
because for the most part, you're distributing the consent forms to
the kids to bring home to their parents and bring them back. So you
have to get their buy in, you have to get them interested in it."
When asked about "incentives", McGuire replied: "Hollywood Video
coupons, you get that regardless. Even if the form says no, you
still get the reward."
"I've been talking a bit about this
campaign of mis-information that's going on. And we do need your
help, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to pass around a blank
notebook here. And if anyone in this room would be willing to be
contacted if umm there if, if there was a sort of a uprising against
screening in your community we have lots of people throughout the
country who - ya' know - there might already be screening going on
in your community, we may ask you to write a letter to the editor in
support of screening. We could possibly ask you to go to a school
board meeting, umm something like that. Obviously this would be your
choice, but, we are starting to create really a response network and
an e-mail list sorta' kinda thing, to keep people in the loop on
this, ummm, so I'll pass it around and if you're interested please
sign up."
William J. Ruane
Investment Advisor
 Although the name TeenScreen was not mentioned,
the New York Times, reported, on December 17, 1998 that William J.
Ruane, an investment advisor put $8 million into the screening
research of Shaffer, the TeenScreen psychiatrist.
As far back
as 1995, Ruane already had a "longstanding relationship" (see bottom of
reference) with Shaffer. In June of 1995 the Ruanes funded a
professorship of Pediatric Psychopharmacology at Columbia University
which "supported training and research into the effectiveness of
psychopharmacological agents in treating childhood psychiatric
disorders".
The Psychiatric Times reported in March of 1998
that Ruane and wife Joy, gave 1.5 million to study the effects of
psychiatric drugs in children to the New York State Psychiatric
Institute, Shaffer's home base.
According to a New York Post
article in 1999, the New York State Psychiatric
Institute conducted experiments on kids, some as young as 6, with a
powerful mood-altering drug and failed to tell the children or their
parents about the most serious risks. While testing the drug on 30
severely depressed patients ages 12 to 18, researcher's notes
indicated "Some patients have been reported to have an increase in
suicidal thoughts and/or violent behavior". Records showed that at
least four experiments used this drug on young children including
one funded by a large pharmaceutical company.
TeenScreen Sales Duo, (Florida Region)
David
Shern and Justin Doan
In Florida, David
Shern and his sidekick, Justin Doan, both of the Florida
Mental Health Institute attempted to lobby
the Pinellas County School Board to change it's policy on anonymous
surveys of children. Shern wanted the school board policy changed so that he could obtain the names
of children after the suicide survey was done on them. He did not
want student surveys to be anonymous, as they are now under existing
regulations.
Shern, Doan and company received $180,000
from Columbia University to sell TeenScreen to the local school
boards. Shern and his FMHI have also raked in cash from
pharmaceutical companies to study anti-psychotic drugs: $381,664
from a major pharmaceutical company and $130,416
from another.
The Tampa Tribune posed some good questions on
March 7, 2004: "What if someone at risk is identified, but there's
no one who can help? What if the test misses someone at risk? What
if the test falsely identifies someone who isn't at
risk?"
"Liability comes up immediately," Shern
said.
On March 22, 2004, Laurie Flynn, TeenScreen's Director,
said in a "confidential
e-mail" that she had concerns about Shern and his inability to
get TeenScreen going in Florida. She said that Doan was a concern,
that he's young, full of himself and not very politically savvy. She
said that he had never screened a kid or run a project and that when
he goes into meetings with local school officials he gets into deep
water.
Foster Care report warns of adverse side
effects of drugs on children
A report
entitled "Psychotropic
Drug Use in Foster Care", by the Florida Statewide Advocacy
Council, discovered that of the 1,180 children reviewed 652 were on
one or more psychotropic drugs. The report warned of the side
effects of these drugs including suicidal tendencies. The report
concluded that unnecessary dispensing of psychotropic drugs remains
a threat to the children. They recommended that their findings be
incorporated into an agenda in order to preserve and protect the
health, safety, welfare and rights of children.
Study links suicide to psychotropic drugs and
psych treatment
In Florida, an ongoing
research project has already established that a large majority of
teens who committed suicide were on psychotropic drugs or had
received psychiatric treatment. In the years 2002 and 2003, 81% of
the suicides in Pinellas County were either on psychotropic drugs or
had received psychiatric treatment. This percentage may rise as the
research continues. During a 5 year period, 2000-2004, 100% of the
child suicides in Pasco County were either on psychotropic drugs or
had received psychiatric treatment.
Pharmaceutical Industry Front
Group
TeenScreen and Columbia University refuse to divulge the
source of their funding. Their website says they are funded by
private family foundations, corporations and individuals without
naming them. One corner of the Internet did give a clue to their
funding: A large pharmaceutical company funded the TeenScreen
program in Tennessee. (See page 4, left,
mid-page).
Simple Math
According to their 10 year strategy,
TeenScreen wants to make the suicide survey available to all
American children. Their long
term goal is psychiatric "treatment" of our children.
Since 1991, the Columbia University Division of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry has invested nearly $19 million in
the "research" and development of the Columbia TeenScreen program.
Who will reap the returns?
There are 47.7 million
(47,700,000) public school students.
There are 5 million
(5,000,000) private school students.
17% of the kids screened
by TeenScreen accept counseling.(8,959,000) 17% may be a low
percentage. (We're only taking numbers supplied by
TeenScreen.)
9.9% of the kids screened are drugged,
(5,217,300) TeenScreen says less than ten percent are prescribed
some type of drug. Note: This means that a whopping 60% of kids who
accept counseling as a result of the suicide survey wind up on
drugs. Keep in mind these are TeenScreen's own numbers, actual
figures may be much higher.
One example prescription for a
common psychotropic drug is $15.56 per day.
5,217,300
students (customers) x $15.56 per day = $81,181,188 per
day.
$81,181,188 x 365 days a year =
$29,631,133,620 annually.
That's nearly 30 billion dollars
per year in pharmaceutical sales courtesy of the TeenScreen
program.
Multiply that by a lifetime of addiction.
No
wonder drug companies are tripping over themselves wanting to
sponsor Screening.
In Colorado over 350 youths were
suicide screened using TeenScreen's survey. They found that over 50%
were at risk of suicide and 71% screened positive for psychiatric
disorders at a youth homeless shelter. That's not science! That's a
dream come true for pharmaceutical company marketing types and bean
counters.
TeenScreen Sales Reps
PR Firm, Rabin Strategic Partners
In Florida, e-mails to public agencies such as school boards
are public record. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of e-mails
poured into the Pinellas County School Board AGAINST TeenScreen.
They were obtained under Florida public records law. One was
found in favor of TeenScreen.. It was from Steve Rabin. It turns
out Rabin is from Rabin Strategic Partners, a public relations firm
in New York City. Rabin complained about a certain website that was
"using misinformation to scare the board into inaction". Some of Mr.
Rabin's clients include Columbia University (the homebase
for TeenScreen), The Carmel Hill Center for the Early Diagnosis
& Treatment of Mental Illness (oversees the TeenScreen program),
and the maker of a psychotropic drug. That
pharmaceutical company admitted hiding from the public that their
psychotropic drug increases the risk of potentially fatal illnesses.
The Miami Herald reported that the drug was commonly used on
childen in state care. Child-welfare advocates said the drug was
being used by foster care providers as a "chemical restraint" on
children.
Check out Mr. Rabin's 10 year plan to implement TeenScreen so that
"every teen in the United States has access to this free mental
health check-up".
According to Brandweek, April 11, 2005,
Rabin Strategic Partners had just hired Charles A. Borgognoni,
partner, from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Rebecca S. Hoppy,
communications associate, from Columbia University's Division of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
PR Firm, Widmeyer Communications
PR Firm, Roberts
Communications & Marketing, Inc.
According to David Shern of the Florida Mental
Health Institute a focused effort needed to be placed upon
increasing the likelihood that children and families consented to
participate in screening. Shern hired Roberts Communications who
detailed in their "communications plan" how to sell TeenScreen in
the Tampa Bay area. Roberts Communications opined that school
clinicians were primarily concerned with potential liability,
staffing/workload issues and funding for mental health follow-ups.
Roberts Communications' goal was to increase the percentage of
parents that sign consent forms for screenings. Their plan targeted
elected officials, school district administrators, community
leaders, teachers, parents and others. Their plan was to utilize
"communication tactics" to achieve the goal of written parental
consent. Their "Phase I tactics" were to get the Tampa Tribune to
do an editorial series, to brief the editorial board of the St.
Petersburg Times, to make a web page with a petition that people can
"sign" to demonstrate their support, a press conference at Raymond
James stadium, (although they did not anticipate a crowd), to get
appearances on the Kathy Fountain show and to identify sources of
funding.
Luckily, Shern and Roberts Communications failed to
make TeenScreen palatable in the Tampa Bay area.
Lobbyist, Cavarocchi Ruscio Dennis Associates, LLC
According to the Center for Public Integrity, the Washington D.C.
based lobbying firm Cavarocchi Ruscio Dennis Associates, LLC has
received $122,500 to lobby for the Columbia University TeenScreen
program.
THE DOMINOS START TO
FALL
Hillsborough County, Florida
School officials did not
feel comfortable with the information provided by TeenScreen to
implement it anywhere in the district and did not have all their
questions answered by the organization. They stated that TeenScreen
continued to say to others that Hillsborough County had "partnered"
with them when, in fact, they were only exploring. Officials in
Hillsborough County had serious concerns about TeenScreen including
confidentiality, the "capacity" in the community for follow up
mental services for identified students, the lack of information
from other school districts, the lack of written agreements with
community mental health providers, "ill defined" levels of "at risk"
concerns as a result of the screenings, the lack of a well defined
"continuity of care" and liability for the school
district.
Pinellas County Florida
On January 25, 2005, the Pinellas County School Board decided
in front of many concerned citizens that TeenScreen should not be
implemented there. School Board member Jane Gallucci said that she
was angry that Laurie Flynn, of Columbia University, told a U.S.
Senate committee on health and education matters 10 months ago that
pilot TeenScreen programs were operating in Hillsborough and
Pinellas counties. Board Chairwoman Nancy Bostock called the program
"an intrusion for our students.'' False labels could embarrass
students and cause turmoil at home. "We could seriously do more harm
than good," she said.
According to the St. Petersburg Times,
February 6, 2005, Ken Kramer spearheaded opposition to TeenScreen in
Pinellas County. Kramer saw the program as a thinly veiled attempt
to get more kids into the psychiatric system and on psychotropic
drugs. That, he said, is the real cause of high rates of teen
suicide. Kramer encouraged friends to e-mail the School Board and
argue against TeenScreen. Bombarded with more than 700 e-mails, the
board voted 6-1 not to go with TeenScreen. The lone school board
member said that she believed most of the e-mails came from people
who believe that psychiatrists are drug pushers, abusive and cause
suicide.
Mishawaka, Indiana
Teresa and Michael Rhoades, parents in Osceola, Indiana
became aware that their daughter was "suicide screened" without any
parental consent whatsoever. TeenScreen used what they call passive
consent, a skimpy form with no warnings. Parents who did not
sign the form and return it were considered to have given
permission. The trouble is Teresa and Michael did not receive the
passive consent form. Teresa
Rhoades became active in informing citizens in her area that
TeenScreen had infiltrated their school system. Local TV and
newspaper covered Teresa's story. One newspaper reported about a
half-page ad that ran in the paper there against TeenScreen: "The ad
says diagnosis of psychological problems is entirely subjective and
there is no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide
attempts."
On February 28th, 2005, the Superintendent
recommended in front of concerned
parents that TeenScreen be suspended pending a thorough study
and also recommended that "passive consent" be abolished.
On
June 9, 2005, the South Bend Tribune reported that Teresa and Michael filed papers to
sue the Madison Center and also Penn-Harris-Madison School
Corporation. They claim their daughter took the test, was improperly
diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and social anxiety
disorder. The family intends to seek the "maximum amount of
damages."
YOUR SCHOOL'S INFORMATION
HERE
Just contact us with your story on TeenScreen and we will
include it here.
SETTING THE RECORD
STRAIGHT
1. Does the Columbia University TeenScreen
Program endorse mental health screening for all
teens?
The goal of
TeenScreen is to screen every child in the United States by the time
they're out of high school. According to TeenScreen's Director,
Laurie Flynn, their long term goal is "treatment" for "those in need."
2. Does TeenScreen recommend
treatment?
TeenScreen materials say they make no treatment
recommendations. However, let's pose this question: If you have a
child who's been asked a battery of potentially upsetting questions,
has been labeled with a bogus "mental disorder", has been assigned a
certain "impairment score" and then referred to a psychiatrist, what
do you think the treatment will be? When TeenScreen says they do not
recommend treatment it's like the gallows builder saying he didn't
hang that man!
3. Is TeenScreen free?
TeenScreen's promotional materials claim their suicide survey
is free. article,
Gwen Luney, assistant superintendent for supportive services and
federal programs at Hillsborough County (Florida) Schools, says
TeenScreen would cost the school district roughly $200,000 a year --
$200K they don't have. "We're hesitant to commit to a new program if
there's a strong possibility we'll be seeing some [money]
shortfalls. Also, are we going to find a place for this [diagnosed]
child to go? If so, what if the child doesn't have insurance? Who
picks up the cost? Does it get passed on to the county? It can't be
passed on to the school district. And the liability factor is
greater now that you've identified [the at-risk student]."
Even at a very small high school like Brimfield High School,
in the Peoria, Illinois area, the cost is not cheap. According to a
Peoria Journal Star article dated
July 11, 2004 "organizing the system and employing a part-time
counselor specifically for the program is estimated to cost about
$100 per student... The Brimfield High School program alone will
cost around $20,000 for the first semester."
4. Where are all the schools that use
TeenScreen?
It's all a big secret. According to TeenScreen's director
Leslie McGuire, they are fearful there will be an uprising against
mental health screening, therefore TeenScreen refuses to divulge
their locations. They use a canned e-mail message: "We get a lot of
requests from people who are interested in locating and speaking
directly with local TeenScreen sites and this can become a burden on
them. We are not authorized to give out our sites contact
information unless we have requested their permission to do so."
5. What is "passive consent"? What does this
really mean?
Passive Consent is way to get around written parental consent
and an effective method to get more children screened. Passive
consent requires parents to return a form only
if they do not want their child to participate in the screening.
According to an e-mail
sent by a school official concerning implementation of TeenSceen,
"The interest would be to screen as many as possible, beginning in
9th grade. The Passive acceptance style was mostly discussed to
increase the numbers from 50% for Consent to near 95% for
Passive"
This means if a parent does not open the mail or was
too busy to study the form and return it or if a child as young as 9
years old loses the form on the way home, then TeenScreen will
accept that as "parental consent".
A federal law known as the
Protection of Pupil Rights Act, requires written parental consent
before a child undergoes a survey, analysis or evaluation. A
TeenScreen newsletter
(see page 3) discusses making screening a matter of the schools
curriculum as a method to bypass this law and use passive consent
instead.
According to TeenScreen, 15% of
their programs use passive consent. TeenScreen says they
screened 39,080 kids in 2004 . Based on the numbers they
provided, 5,862 children were screened in 2004 without written
parental consent.
Passive consent is controversial and has
already upset parents. Teresa
Rhoades is one parent who found out about "passive consent" but
only after it was too late.
Has your child received a mental
health screening without your written permission? Contact
us.
6. Are the results of the screening
confidential?
No. TeenScreen officials require that all screening
results be shared with them. Let's face it, the minute anything
is recorded, there is a chance it can get into the wrong
hands.
7. Does talking about suicide encourage
teens to attempt suicide?
According to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force report
of May of 2004, no studies were found that directly address the
harms of screening and treatment for suicide risk.
8. Is the pharmaceutical industry behind
TeenScreen?
Absolutely. Their national advisory council is full of major
pharmaceutical company connections.
9. How prevalent is suicide in
teens?
It's very rare. For example the number is 50 per year out of
over 3.5 million students in the State of Florida. Coincidentally,
the number 50 is the same number of people who get hit by lightning
in Florida each year.
10. Do children screened using the
TeenScreen suicide survey wind up on dangerous
antidepressants?
Absolutely. 9 out of 10 children referred to psychiatrists
are prescribed psychotropic drugs.
11. What can I do?
E-mail your school district superintendent and ask if
TeenScreen has been implemented or if there are any plans to
implement it. Keep things in writing. If the answer is yes, alert
other parents and voice your opposition. Let us know what you find
out and what you are doing about it. File a "parental informed
consent notice" with your child's school. Click here for a
sample.
No Child Left Unmedicated
Grateful acknowledgement is made to Phyllis Schlafly for
permission to reproduce the following 2 paragraphs from her article
No Child Left Unmedicated, March 1, 2005. Phyllis is a columnist,
commentator, author, and founder of the Eagle Forum.
Parental
rights are unclear or nonexistent under these mental health
screening programs. What are the rights of youth and parents to
refuse or opt out of such screening? Will they face coercion and
threats of removal from school, or child neglect charges, if they
refuse privacy-invading interrogations or unproved medications? How
will a child remove a stigmatizing label from his records?
A
Columbia University pilot project for screening students, called
TeenScreen, resulted in one-third of the subjects being flagged as
"positive" for mental health problems. Half of those were turned
over for mental health treatment. If that is a preview of what would
happen when 52 million public school students are screened, it would
mean hanging a libelous label on 17 million American children and
forcibly putting 8 million children into the hands of the
psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry.
It is time the American public squarely confronts
TeenScreen's insidious assault on our children.
Researchers Ken Kramer records@psychsearch.net
and Sue Weibert info@teenscreentruth.com
are collaborating on this ongoing TeenScreen investigation.
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The Arizona Republic
August
16, 2002
"Programs like TeenScreen experiment on kids,
who will eventually end up on psychotropic drugs...I went
through what I went through because they were on
antidepressants."
—Mark Taylor
Survivor - Columbine High
School shooting
The Montel Williams Show
April 15,
2003
"Parents are being misled, they're being deceived about
the unscientific and truly subjective nature of psychiatric
diagnosis and the addictive and potentially dangerous side
effects of the drugs used to treat them."
—Bruce
Wiseman
President
Citizens Commission on Human Rights,
International
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
October
21, 2003
"Authorities in schools should be very cautious about
these kinds of screening programs. It is easy to overidentify
adolescents with problems, when they in fact don't have any
problems. This in itself creates more problems."
—Louis A.
Chandler
Chairman of the Psychology in Education
Department
University of Pittsburgh.
The Olympian
September
25, 2004
"We should ask ourselves: What kind of people would we
have become if the government tested us and forced our parents
to drug us in order to settle us down?"
—Rosie
Morton
The Washington Times
October
17, 2004
"America's schoolchildren should not be medicated by
expensive, ineffective and dangerous medications based on
vague and dubious diagnoses."
—Dr. Karen
Effrem
Pediatrician, Researcher
Eagle
Forum
November
16, 2004
"Big Brother is on the march. A plan to subject all
children to mental health screening is under way, and
pharmaceutical companies are gearing up for bigger sales of
psychotropic drugs."
—Phyllis Schlafly
Lawyer, Political
Analyst and Author
The
New York Post
December
5, 2004
"It's just a way to put more people on prescription
drugs... such programs will boost the sale of antidepressants
... even after the FDA in September ordered a black box label
warning that the pills might spur suicidal thoughts or actions
in minors."
—Marcia Angell
Medical Ethics
Lecturer
Harvard Medical School
United Press
International
December
15, 2004
"What are the credentials of the screeners? Most
importantly, how many children have they raised to adulthood,
and with what outcome?"
—Dr. Jane M. Orient
Executive
Director
Association of American Physicians and
Surgeons
South Bend
Tribune
January
19, 2005
Teresa
Rhoades and her husband, Michael, said they're upset that
their daughter took the screening without their knowledge.
They monitor her activities and personal contacts closely and
don't like surprises. "We want to be sure we know what she's
being exposed to,'' Teresa Rhoades
said.
Christian
Science Monitor
January
20, 2005
"The pharmaceutical companies have been heavily
involved in pushing programs like this, and they have an
obvious, overt economic interest...They'll sell a lot more
drugs if they can get more people diagnosed and put on them.
We ought to be concerned about that."
—Sheldon
Richman
Senior Fellow
Future of Freedom
Foundation
Tampa
Tribune
January
25, 2005
When
Cheslea Rhoades took the test at her Osceola, Ind., high
school last month, a clinician told her she demonstrated
social anxiety and obsessive-compulsive tendencies. She was
stunned. So was her mom. "My daughter is an honor-roll
student. She's in five clubs. There's nothing wrong with this
kid," said Teresa Rhoades, Chelsea's
mother.
Tampa
Tribune
January
25, 2005
Board
Chairwoman Nancy Bostock called the program "an intrusion for
our students." False labels could embarrass students and cause
turmoil at home. "We could seriously do more harm than good,"
she said.
Tampa
Tribune
January
26, 2005
Pinellas
school board member Jane Gallucci...said Tuesday that she was
angry that Laurie Flynn, of Columbia University, told a U.S.
Senate committee on health and education matters 10 months ago
that pilot TeenScreen programs were operating in Hillsborough
and Pinellas counties.
US
Fed News
January
31, 2005
"It is
important to understand that powerful interests, namely
federal bureaucrats and pharmaceutical lobbies, are behind the
push for mental health screening in schools...the
pharmaceutical industry is eager to sell psychotropic drugs to
millions of new customers in American
schools."
— Rep. Ron
Paul, R-Texas
St.
Petersburg Times
February
6, 2005
Kramer
saw the program as a thinly veiled attempt to get more kids
into the psychiatric system and on psychotropic drugs. That,
he said, is the real cause of high rates of teen
suicide.
Des
Moines Register
March 21,
2005
I see it
as stepping into my role as a mom," said Pam Wheeler, who has
a freshman and a senior at Des Moines' Lincoln High School, an
Iowa TeenScreen site. "If these are 15-and 16-year-old kids,
depending on the day of the week, or of the month, if they
didn't make cheerleading or something, how does that affect
this screening?" she asked.
The
Washington Times
March 29,
2005
"Journalists continue to be beguiled by speculative
scientific hypotheticals which psychiatrists discuss as though
they have been proven. Misinformation is transmitted to the
public about unproven 'chemical imbalances' in the brain of
depressed people - when, in fact, no evidence exists
demonstrating any chemical or structural brain abnormality in
people diagnosed with a mental illness."
—Vera
Sharav
Alliance for Human Research
Protection
The
Washington Times
March 29,
2005
To
paraphrase Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," the fault is not in
our children's brains or genes, but in ourselves, and it is to
our own treatment of children we must look to find an answer
to their problems - and ours.
— Keith
Hoeller
Editor
Review of Existential Psychology &
Psychiatry
Scunthorpe
Evening Telegraph
May 9,
2005
"The
claim children are suffering from a 'chemical imbalance', the
cornerstone of psychiatry's disease model, is nothing more
than a myth."
— Brian
Daniels
Citizens Commission on Human Rights
UK
Sarasota
Herald Tribune
May 17,
2005
"Scientific truth cannot be suppressed permanently.
Eventually it will be widely known that people with normal
brains can become mad by living in toxic social environments,
and that the best therapy is based on caring relationships. I
say this with trepidation because any criticism of the current
chemical model brings angry denunciation from
believers".
— George
W. Albee
Emeritus professor, University of
Vermont
Independent
Media TV
May 22,
2005
Its time
to start placing the blame for the rise in teen suicide where
it belongs; on the greedy bastards involved in programs like
TeenScreen who invent schemes to get our kids hooked on these
dangerous drugs in the first place.
—Evelyn
Pringle
Letter to
Florida Secretary of State
May 26,
2005
"I share
the concerns of many of the proponents of this bill who draw
attention to the all too frequent use of pharmaceuticals for
children whose health and behavioral problems may benefit from
other forms of intervention. Further, I am a firm supporter of
parental notification in all types of medical care provided to
children."
—Jeb Bush
Florida Governor
Chicago
Tribune
June 5,
2005
"More
screened kids means more money for psychiatrists and the
pharmaceutical industry"
—Vera Sharav
Alliance for
Human Research Protection
Chicago
Tribune
June 5,
2005
"When I
listened to constituents on this issue, I heard real fear in
their voices . . . that their kids would be labeled"
—Chris Lauzen
State Senator, Illinois
American
Journal of Psychiatry
June,
2005
"A survey
of recently trained child psychiatrists found that only one in
10 children in their practices does not receive a
medication."
—Lawrence Diller, M.D.
Walnut Creek,
Calif.
New
York Times
June 7,
2005
""Pretty
soon, we'll have a syndrome for short, fat Irish guys with a
Boston accent, and I'll be mentally ill."
—Paul
McHugh
Professor of psychiatry, Johns Hopkins
University
Tampa
Tribune
June 11,
2005
"Psychiatry has a long history of abject failure.
Psychiatric treatments - drugs, electroconvulsive therapy,
lobotomies - have harmed millions and robbed them of any hope
of a normal life."
—Doyle Mills
New
York Times
June 14,
2005
"Psychiatrists have been searching for more than a
century for some biological marker for mental disease, to
little avail."
—Benedict Carey
British
Medical Journal
June 18,
2005
"The
antidepressant and 'everybody's depressed' message was spun by
a greedy pharmaceutical industry and a myopic medical
profession. Stop the widespread use of antidepressants as they
are eroding our wellbeing and dismiss life as a simple spark
of synaptic electricity."
—Des
Spence
General Practitioner
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
September
18, 2005
Led by
groups like Ablechild.org and EdAction, these opponents want
to prohibit schools from having anything to do with students'
mental health, saying it is the job of parents to ensure their
children's well-being.
Toledo
Blade
September
18, 2005
Opponents
of school-based mental health programs point to parents who
say their children have been misdiagnosed with mental health
problems, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD), and forced to take medication to attend classes after
school officials pressured them to get psychological care.
Indianapolis
Star
September
18, 2005
A history
of giving the test to some students without parental
permission, has put TeenScreen in the hot seat. Friday, a
lawsuit outlining these complaints was filed in federal court
in the Northern District of Indiana in South Bend by a
Northern Indiana couple and their 16-year-old daughter. They
charge that the Columbia University test violates parental and
child rights at federal and Indiana levels and invades
privacy.
Rutherford
Institute
Press Release
September 19,
2005
“Parents
need to understand that there are some immediate steps which
can be taken to combat the increasing problem of government
encroaching into the privacy of the family. First, it’s
critical to learn your rights as a parent. Second, contact
your local school officials and demand that you be notified
immediately if they are planning to conduct mental health
screening on your children. Finally, follow the Rhoades’
example and fight back against this encroachment on parental
rights.”
—John W. Whitehead
President and
Founder of The Rutherford Institute
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