I became a clinical social worker because I believe in the value of psychotherapy — in the human ability for call and response, for listening, for reasoning about one’s own life, for growth through learning, self-reflection, and the strengthening of bonds between people. I generally believe that support and counsel should come from the natural sources — friends and family — but in the absence of these things, and they are frequently absent or deficient in our world, I believe it can be beneficial to see a therapist. But as I’ve gone along over the past 10 years practicing in various settings, I’ve noticed some disturbing trend due to the overwhelming influence of the pharmaceutical industry. One disturbing trend is the overmedication of children with Ritalin and its various newer forms. Another is the trend toward diagnosing children with Bipolar Disorder and putting them on medications that are dangerous and untested on children.

Now there is a new method being employed to herd children into pharmaceutical care. It’s called TeenScreen and comes out of Bush’s New Freedom Commission. This initiatives starts out with good intentions — to provide mental health care for children in need, but the method to achieve this end is a dubious screening instrument that is designed to be given in school to every one of the nation’s 52 million students, to determine if they need to be seen for follow-up psychiatric care.

There are several problems with this screen. First, it has an 84% rate of false positives. That means that 84% of the children who test positively from the screen, indicating that they need follow-up mental health care, do not actually need this care.

Once these children are identified, the New Freedom Commission recommends that they be treated with a method called TMAP, which is basically a plan to put children on some of the most expensive and most dangerous psychiatric medications.

Why is the Bush “New Freedom” Commission hellbent on doing this? George Stone at Choice America Network provides this response as part of a lengthy article entitled The President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health: The Plan to Drug American School Children. This is a partial excerpt and I recommend reading the entire article:

THE NEW FREEDOM COMMISSION: Sacrificing American Children

Rather than influencing an existing prestigious organization, like WHO (World Health Organization), Pharma simply got the President of the United States to create a new, unimpeachable organization, to its exact specifications- – the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (NFC). Pharma fingerprints are all over the development of the NFC in the familiar strategies of 1) an expert panel 2) broadening the scope of disease, while 3) narrowing treatment to a few drugs and 4) subsidizing screening/diagnosis to identify potential customers. Mr. Bush created and named the NFC and named the panel of experts that sat on it. This means that Pharma has captured control of U S public mental health policy. This scam is one of the biggest hijacking of public tax dollars in history. Since individuals citizens are unable and insurance companies are unwilling to pay for high priced psychiatric drugs, Pharma arranged that Uncle Sam foot the bill with public money.

The NFC recommendations I want to call your attention to are: 1) the universal mental health screening for all Americans, beginning with 52 million American school children, and 2) the use of the Texas Medication Algorithmic Program (TMAP) as the standard of treatment for mental illness.

The school mental health screening is based on a program called “TeenScreen,â€? a computerized, self-administered psychological test. Once identified as mentally ill by the mental health screening, the children would be treated according to the algorithms of TMAP. TMAP is a pseudo-scientific list of the most expensive psychiatric drugs; its purpose is to ensure that only the newest, most expensive drugs are used. Once TMAP is adopted by a state it becomes the standard of practice for treating mental illness in that state. Physicians must comply with that standard, which means they must prescribe the most expensive drugs on the market – – these drugs also happen to be the most dangerous and least effective on the market as well, as I will show in a moment.

What a sweetheart deal for Pharma: using TeenScreen ensures massive screening to create new customers, while TMAP locks in the most expensive drugs as the standard of “treatment.� What ever happened to the “Free Market� here?

I will show that these NFC recommendations are being made despite the fact that there is no scientific evidence to support them. On the contrary, the evidence is against them: there is no known valid and reliable mental health screening test available at this time, psychiatric drugs are ineffective and harmful. Only the power and prestige of the US presidency sustains them.

I find it disturbing (but not surprising) that this corrupt process is taking place in full public view, and is being presented as a scientifically based, cutting edge US Public Mental Health Policy. Furthermore, it is even more disturbing that both TMAP and the NFC were created under the stewardship of George W. Bush. He signed off on TMAP as governor of Texas, and on the NFC as President of the United States. He has been taken in by drug interests, which means he is stupid, or he is a knowing participant in this corrupt process. (Whitehead 2005) In either case, he is culpable; the system that created him must be examined and revised.

Since Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 911 and the publication of Kevin Phillips Dynasty, many American’s are aware of the strong ties between the Saudi Royal family and the Bush family around oil. However, not as many know that there are also strong ties between the Pharmaceutical industry and the Bush family as well. George H.W. Bush sat on Lilly’s board of directors. Lilly gave $1.6 million dollars in campaign contributions during the 2000 election. 82 percent of this money went to Republicans and George W. Bush. And, Mr. Bush, or his advisor and brain Karl Rove, appointed one active and one former Lilly employee to important public positions. Sidney Taurel, Lilly’s CEO, was appointed to the Homeland Security Council (HSC), while Robert N. Postlehwait was appointed to the NFC. (Whitehead 2005)

TMAP

Here’s how the TMAP scheme works: administrative changes in Texas government made the University of Texas Medical Center (UTMC) a key mental health player in the state. UTMC was placed in charge of all public mental health, including the mental health of all state prisoners. The drug companies recognized this change and began to court the University, as well as mental health and correction personnel. They donated money to create TMAP and “educate� state providers about its benefits. There are also two or three drug lobbyists for every legislator in the state of Texas. So, in addition to influencing the university, mental health and corrections systems, the drug companies influenced the Texas legislature. When TMAP was officially adopted, Texas Medicaid, which insures public mental health patients, picked up the bill. It was nearly driven into bankruptcy by the expensive TMAP drugs.

Again we see a Pharma pattern: relatively modest investments pay high returns: Pfizer contributed $232,000 to TMAP start up and, in return, Texas paid Pfizer $233 million in tax dollars for drugs like Zoloft. Johnson & Johnson (Janssen Pharmaceuticals) contributed $224,000 and collected $272 million for Risperdal. Eli Lilly had the biggest jackpot; it gave only $109,000 and collected $328 million for Zyprexa. As the Governor of Texas, George W. Bush had oversight on this process. (Pringle 2005)

The drugs on the TMAP list are hundreds of times more expensive than the older typical antipsychotics and antidepressants, which are now “generic� drugs because their patents have expired. For example, the typical antipsychotic Haldol, which is off patent, costs around 8 cents per pill, or about $2.40 per month, while the atypical Zyprexa, which is still under patent to Eli Lilly, costs $8 per pill or about $240 per month. (Whitehead 2005)

Texas Medicaid picked up the huge tab for TMAP drugs in that state because the expert consensus process presented itself as “scientific.� But it was pseudo-science. In fact, the CATIE studies recently completed by NIMH show that the older drugs are as effective, cheaper, and safer than the new drugs on TMAP. It is interesting to note that every drug on TMAP now bears a “black box’ warning label mandated by the FDA.

Hey ho, nobody home! With Governor Bush supporting the TMAP, and with key experts and the legislature in its pocket, there was virtually no oversight for the project. (Whitehead 2005) The scheme worked so well that drug companies began exporting it to other states and even other countries. [full text]

The Alliance for Human Research Protection opposes Teenscreen. They oppose the screening for “scientific, legal, ethical, and common sense considerations.” Their review of the problem is comprehensive, and if this issue concerns you I recommend reading the entire statement.

Writer Evelyn Pringle has done some of the groundbreaking research on this issue. Two of her articles on this topic are available at Dissident Voice:

Bush Wants Pharma Trojan Horse Unleashed

Bush-Backed Drug Marketing Schemes

If you would like to sign a petition expressing your opposition to this plan to screen and potentially medicate children with dangerous drugs, you can click here.

Finally, regarding Rhode Island’s plan to address suicide prevention in children, I am relieved to report that it does not appear that Rhode Island is planning to use TeenScreen. However, this could change. Therefore, as a mental health practitioner and a parent, I recommend that parents remain vigilant on this issue. You could also take a pro-active approach by calling your school administrator to express your concerns about TeenScreen or any kind of mental health screening. Let them know that you will not allow your child to be screened without informed, written consent.