From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia.
President George W. Bush
established the President’s New
Freedom Commission on Mental
Health in April 2002 as part of
his commitment to eliminate
inequality for Americans with
disabilities. The President
directed the Commission to
identify policies that could be
implemented by Federal, State and
local governments to maximize the
utility of existing resources,
improve coordination of treatments
and services, and promote
successful community integration
for adults with a serious mental
illness and children with a
serious emotional disturbance.[1]
Opponents of the plan claim that
its objectives are to foster
mind control of American
citizens and increase the profits
of pharmaceutical companies. A
broad-based coalition of mental
health consumers, families,
providers, and adovcates has
enthusiastically supported the
Commission process and
recommendations, using the
Commission's findings as a
launching point for recommending
widespread reform of the nation's
mental health system.
[2]
Critics, concerned by what they
see as the pharmaceutical
industry's use of
front organizations[3]
and compromise of scientific
integrity
under color of authority,[4]
look askance at the irony of the
commission's 'freedom' descriptor,
contending the commission is yet
another example of the excesses of
drug industry marketing[5][6]
and that the effects of its
recommendations will simply foster
drug use rather than prevention
and alternative treatment
modalities. Opponents of the plan
see little in the way of potential
benefits from the plan, except
increased profits for
pharmaceutical companies, and have
grave concerns about the potential
for unnecessarily causing
neurological damage and
contributing to increased
substance abuse.
Commission reports
On July 22,
2003, the President's hand
picked commission returned a
report recommending a nationwide
screening program based on the
Texas Medication Algorithm Project
(TMAP), which was created in
1995 while President Bush was
governor of
Texas, beginning as an
alliance of individuals from the
University of Texas, the
pharmaceutical industry, and
the
mental health and
corrections systems of Texas.
The commission reported that
"despite their prevalence, mental
disorders often go undiagnosed,"
so it recommended comprehensive
mental health screening for
"consumers of all ages," including
preschool children, because "each
year, young children are expelled
from preschools and childcare
facilities for severely disruptive
behaviors and emotional
disorders."
The report of the commission
was accepted enthusiastically by
certain consumer, provider and
other interest groups in mental
health. The most enthusiatic
response has centered around the
commission's emphasis on recovery
from mental illness, its call for
consumer and family-centered care,
and the recommendation that states
develop a more comprehensive
approach to mental health.
Opponents of the plan have
questioned the motives of the
commission largely from a
civil liberties perspective,
asserting the intitiative campaign
is little more than a thinly
veiled proxy for the
pharmaceutical industry, which, in
its pursuit of profits, is too
eager to foster
psychotropic medication
interventions, often coercively.
Opposition brewing
However, the plan by President
Bush to screen all Americans for
mental health problems is being
opposed by a coalition of advocacy
groups, who say the plan was
cooked up by the pharmaceutical
industry. A coalition of over 100
advocacy organizations, united
under the banner of
MindFreedom International in
representing the
psychiatric survivors movement,
has been galvanized by their
strong opposition to the New
Freedom Commission. Using
celebrity to advance their
opposition, the MindFreedom
coalition has again enlisted the
support of long time member and
Gesundheit Institute founder
Patch Adams, an alternative
medicine practitioner made famous
by the movie that bears his name.
Since
1992, Adams has supported
MindFreedom campaigns, and in
August,
2004, he kicked off the
campaign against the New Freedom
Commission by volunteering to
screen President Bush himself. "He
needs a lot of help. I'll see him
for free," said Adams.
Through the guise of TMAP,
critics contend, the drug industry
has methodically influenced the
decision making of elected and
appointed public officials to gain
access to citizens in
prisons and State
mental health hospitals. The
person primarily responsible for
bringing these issues to the
public's attention is
Allen Jones, a former
investigator in the Commonwealth
of
Pennsylvania Office of
Inspector General (OIG), Bureau of
Special Investigations.
Jones wrote a lengthy
report in which he stated
that, behind the recommendations
of the New Freedom Commission, was
the "political/pharmaceutical
alliance." It was this alliance,
according to Jones, which
developed the Texas project,
specifically to promote the use of
newer, more expensive
antipsychotics and
antidepressants. He further
claimed this alliance was "poised
to consolidate the TMAP effort
into a comprehensive national
policy to treat mental illness
with expensive, patented
medications of questionable
benefit and deadly side effects,
and to force private insurers to
pick up more of the tab."
A bill, 'The Parental Consent
Act of 2005', or HR 181, has been
introduced in the
US House of Representatives by
Dr. Ron Paul, MD, a Republican
from Texas. The proposal forbids
federal funds from being used for
any
mental health screening of
students without the express,
written, voluntary, informed
consent of parents.
Opponents of the plan suggest
it fosters the use of
progressively more stringent and
coercive use of chemical
interventions, championed by
Sally Satel and other
pharmaceutical industry backers,
rather than basic preventative
strategies and
alternative medicine
modalities. Opponents are gravely
concerned about what they see as
the skyrocketing use of primitive
chemical
mind control techniques upon
citizens, little different from
chemical straitjacketing,
which are solely based upon an
unproven
chemical imbalance theory.
Uninformed consent and the
incremental evisceration of civil
rights, exemplified by legislation
allowing
outpatient commitment in 42
States now, have contributed to
the heightening of their ill will
toward the New Freedom Commission.
Funds approved for screening
The New Freedom mental health
screening initiative has received
funding from both House and Senate
appropriators in the
2005
federal budget. This funding
allows States to create or expand
mental health screening programs.
See also
Official US government links
References
-
PsychRights.org (pdf) - Bush
Plans To Screen Whole US
Population for Mental Illness',
Jeanne Lenzer, British
Medical Journal, Vol 328,
pp1458, June 19, 2004
-
PsychRights.org (pdf) -
'Secret US report surfaces on
antidepressants in children',
Jeanne Lenzer, British
Medical Journal, Vol 329, p
307 August 7, 2004
-
PsychRights.org (pdf) -
Untitled TMAP Critique, Allen
Jones (January 20, 2004)
