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http://www.changingworldviews.com/GuestCommentaries/karenreffremarticle3.htm Problems with Screening and Drugging Eliminate funding for the following reasons: 1) Screening does not prevent suicide - The U.S. Preventive ServicesTask Force (USPSTF) issued its findings and recommendation againstscreening for suicide that corroborate those of the Canadian PSTF.\"USPSTF found no evidence that screening for suicide risk reducessuicide attempts or mortality. There is limited evidence on theaccuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk in the primarycare setting, including tools to identify those at high risk. (Seehttp://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/05/21.html). 2) Mental health diagnoses are \"subjective\" and \"socialconstructions\" as admitted by the authors of the diagnostic manualsthemselves. Both the World Health Organization and the Surgeon Generalreports say that it is especially difficult to accurately diagnoseyoung children because they are so rapidly changing and developing.This is particularly relevant to our opposition to the Foundations forLearning Act within No Child Left Behind, section 5542 (USC 20,sec.7269a). 3) Parents are already being coerced to put their children onpsychiatric medications and some children are dying because of it.Universal screening and the accompanying treatments recommended by theNew Freedom Commission will only increase that problem. Across thecountry, Patricia Weathers, the Carroll Family, the Johnston Family,and the Salazar Family were all charged or threatened with child abusecharges for refusing or taking their children off of psychiatricmedications. Both Matthew Smith and Shaina Dunkle died of medicationtoxicity after their parents were coerced to place their children ondrugs by the schools. What are the rights of youth and their parents torefuse or opt out of this screening? Will they face coercion andthreats of removal from school or child abuse/neglect charges if theyrefuse? How reliable are the screening instruments? What if thediagnosis is wrong? How will a child or adolescent remove astigmatizing label from their records that could follow them the restof their lives? Will parents be honestly told about the potentiallysevere side effects of the medications used in treatment? There are nostudies on the long-term effects of any of these drugs on the brains ofchildren, especially in the 2 to 4 year old children that areincreasingly being put on these drugs and more is being spent on themthan on antibiotics. (http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/05/25.html) 4) Most psychiatric medications do not work in children - Medicaltextbooks, published and unpublished research, and government reportsconsistently state that the long term safety and effectiveness ofantidepressants like Prozac and stimulants like Ritalin have yet to beproven. 5) The side effects of these medications in children are severe -They include suicide and violence from the new antidepressants; cardiac(heart) toxicity from the older antidepressants; growth suppression,psychosis, and violence from stimulants; and diabetes from the neweranti-psychotic medications. Several school shooters, like Eric Harris(Columbine), Kip Kinkel (Oregon), and Jason Hoffman (San Diego) were onantidepressants or stimulants or both at the time of their crimes. (For detailed references for points 2-5, seehttp://www.edaction.org/2003/030827.htm) 6) Merging screening with the academic standards required by No ChildLeft Behind, as is happening in Illinois, will lead to diagnosis forpolitical reasons. A school violence prevention program funded by thefederal government called \"Early Warning, Timely Response\" lists\"intolerance for others and prejudicial attitudes\" as an earlywarning sign for violence and mental instability, saying, \"Allchildren have likes and dislikes. However, an intense prejudice towardothers based on racial, ethnic, religious, language, gender, sexualorientation, ability, and physical appearance when coupled withother factors may lead to violent assaults against those who areperceived to be different.\" (See http://edaction.org/2004/080204.htm)The Phoenix office of the FBI put out a pamphlet for their jointcounterterrorism operations that said that people who are \"defendersof the US Constitution against federal government and the UN\" and\"make numerous references to the US Constitution\" should bemonitored as potential murderous and fanatical terrorists, byextension, considered mentally unstable.(http://www.keepandbeararms.com/newsarchives/XcNewsPlus.asp?cmd=view&articleid=2126) 7) Physicians and the public are rapidly losing confidence in thevalidity of scientific research because the FDA has allowed thepharmaceutical industry to withhold data not favorable to theirproducts.(http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/9401899.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp) (http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/08/13.html;http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58130-2004Jan28?language=printer);The FDA also suppressed the testimony of its medical officer Dr. AndrewMosholder at a February hearing when he found that children on thenewer antidepressants were nearly twice as likely as have suicidalideation or commit suicide than children on placebo. After paying foranother study at taxpayer expense, Dr. Mosholder\s findings wereconfirmed. (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/science/20depress.html)It is now nearly a year since Britain banned the use of all of the SSRIantidepressants in children except Prozac, and all that the FDA hasdone is issue a caution to monitor people on these drugs more closely.If data is withheld about the dangers or lack of effectiveness of thenew psychiatric drugs, why should physicians believe and carry out therecommendations of the New Freedom Commission for treatment, such asthe Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) that uses those drugs aspaid for the state incentive grants? 8) The untoward influence by the pharmaceutical industry, or at leastthe appearance of impropriety, is abundantly clear in two importantaspects of this issue. First, \"...Dr. Peter J Weiden, who was amember of the project\s [TMAP] expert consensus panel, charges that theguidelines are based on \opinions, not data\ and that bias due tofunding sources undermines the credibility of the guidelines since\most of the guideline\s authors have received support from thepharmaceutical industry.\(http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/bmj;328/7449/1153) Inaddition, just when the US House was to investigate the drug companyrole in suppressing negative data and the FDA\s handling of theMosholder report, the chairman of the subcommittee, James Greenwood(R-PA) abruptly \"postponed\" the hearing, decided he would not seekre-election, and went to work with a lobbying organization that worksfor the very companies he was to investigate. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A106-2004Jul20?language=printer)The recommendations of the New Freedom Commission should not be carriedout and paid for with tax dollars in the state incentive transformationgrants until the level of drug company corruption of FDA policies andCongress is thoroughly investigated.