Congressman Ron Paul has just introduced HR 2387, "The Parental Consent Act
of 2007" We need as many co-sponsors of this bill as possible. It is urgent
that you send a letter asking your representative to sign onto HR 2387 (To
read the bill, see below) The Parental Consent Act needs support from both sides
of the aisle. Please take two minutes to _send your representative a letter_
(http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=354497230&url_num=1&url=htt
p://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/Ablechild/campaign.jsp?camp
aign_KEY=11666) . Your actions will make a difference.
_http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/Ablechild/campaign.jsp?
campaign_KEY=11666_
(http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/Ablechild/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=11666)
Respectfully,
Sheila Matthews
Patricia Weathers
Cofounders www.ablechild.org
____________________________________
HR 2387 IH
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 2387
To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental
health screening program.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
May 17, 2007
Mr. PAUL (for himself, Mr. MILLER of Florida, Mr. EVERETT, Mr. BURTON of
Indiana, Mrs. BLACKBURN, Mr. HUNTER, Mr. SIMPSON, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. NEUGEBAUER,
Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland, Mr. TANCREDO, and Mr. DOOLITTLE)
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy
and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Education and Labor and Ways
and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in
each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction
of the committee concerned
A BILL
To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental
health screening program.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Parental Consent Act of 2007'.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds as follows:
(1) The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued
findings and recommendations against screening for suicide that corroborate those of
the Canadian Preventive Services Task Force. `USPSTF found no evidence that
screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality. There is
limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk in
the primary care setting, including tools to identify those at high risk.'.
(2) The 1999 Surgeon General's report on mental health admitted the serious
conflicts in the medical literature regarding the definitions of mental
health and mental illness when it said, `In other words, what it means to be
mentally healthy is subject to many different interpretations that are rooted in
value judgments that may vary across cultures. The challenge of defining
mental health has stalled the development of programs to foster mental health
(Secker, 1998). . . .'.
(3) A 2005 report by the National Center for Infant and Early Childhood
Health Policy admitted, with respect to the psychiatric screening of children
from birth to age 5, the following: `We have mentioned a number of the problems
for the new field of IMH [Infant Mental Health] throughout this paper, and
many of them complicate examining outcomes.'. Briefly, such problems include:
(A) Lack of baseline
(B) Lack of agreement about diagnosis.
(C) Criteria for referrals or acceptance into services are not always well
defined.
(D) Lack of longitudinal outcome studies.
(E) Appropriate assessment and treatment requires multiple informants
involved with the young child: parents, clinicians, child care staff, preschool
staff, medical personnel, and other service providers.
(F) Broad parameters for determining socioemotional outcomes are not clearly
defined, although much attention is now being given to school readiness.
(4) Authors of the bible of psychiatric diagnosis, the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual, admit that the diagnostic criteria for mental illness are
vague, saying, `DSM-IV criteria remain a consensus without clear empirical data
supporting the number of items required for the diagnosis. . . . Furthermore, th
e behavioral characteristics specified in DSM-IV, despite efforts to
standardize them, remain subjective. . . .' (American Psychiatric Association
Committee on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV 1994), pp. 1162-1163).
(5) Because of the subjectivity of psychiatric diagnosis, it is all too easy
for a psychiatrist to label a person's disagreement with the psychiatrist's
political beliefs a mental disorder.
(6) Efforts are underway to add a diagnosis of `extreme intolerance' to the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Prisoners in the California State penal
system judged to have this extreme intolerance based on race or sexual
orientation are considered to be delusional and are being medicated with
anti-psychotic drugs. (Washington Post 12/10/05)
(7) At least one federally-funded school violence prevention program has
suggested that a child who shares his or her parent's traditional values may be
likely to instigate school violence.
(8) Despite many statements in the popular press and by groups promoting the
psychiatric labeling and medication of children, that ADD/ADHD is due to a
chemical imbalance in the brain, the 1998 National Institutes of Health
Consensus Conference said, `. . . further research is necessary to firmly establish
ADHD as a brain disorder. This is not unique to ADHD, but applies as well to
most psychiatric disorders, including disabling diseases such as
schizophrenia. . . . Although an independent diagnostic test for ADHD does not exist. .
. . Finally, after years of clinical research and experience with ADHD, our
knowledge about the cause or causes of ADHD remains speculative.'.
(9) There has been a precipitous increase in the prescription rates of
psychiatric drugs in children:
(A) The use of antipsychotic medication in children has increased nearly
fivefold between 1995 and 2002 with more than 2.5 million children receiving
these medications, the youngest being 18 months old. (Vanderbilt University,
2006)
(B) More than 2.2 million children are receiving more than one psychotropic
drug at one time with no scientific evidence of safety or effectiveness.
(Medco Health Solutions, 2006)
(C) More money was spent on psychiatric drugs for children than on
antibiotics or asthma medication in 2003. (Medco Trends, 2004)
(10) A September 2004 Food and Drug Administration hearing found that more
than two-thirds of studies of antidepressants given to depressed children
showed that they were no more effective than placebo, or sugar pills, and that
only the positive trials were published by the pharmaceutical industry. The
lack of effectiveness of antidepressants has been known by the Food and Drug
Administration since at least 2000 when, according to the Food and Drug
Administration Background Comments on Pediatric Depression, Robert Temple of the
Food and Drug Administration Office of Drug Evaluation acknowledged the
`preponderance of negative studies of antidepressants in pediatric populations'. The
Surgeon General's report said of stimulant medication like Ritalin, `However,
psychostimulants do not appear to achieve long-term changes in outcomes such
as peer relationships, social or academic skills, or school achievement.'.
(11) The Food and Drug Administration finally acknowledged by issuing its
most severe Black Box Warnings in September 2004, that the newer
antidepressants are related to suicidal thoughts and actions in children and that this data
was hidden for years. A confirmatory review of that data published in 2006
by Columbia University's department of psychiatry, which is also the
originator of the TeenScreen instrument, found that `in children and adolescents (aged
6-18 years), antidepressant drug treatment was significantly associated with
suicide attempts . . . and suicide deaths. . . . '. The Food and Drug
Administration had over 2000 reports of completed suicides from 1987 to 1995 for
the drug Prozac alone, which by the agency's own calculations represent but a
fraction of the suicides. Prozac is the only such drug approved by the Food
and Drug Administration for use in children.
(12) Other possible side effects of psychiatric medication used in children
include mania, violence, dependence, weight gain, and insomnia from the newer
antidepressants; cardiac toxicity including lethal arrhythmias from the
older antidepressants; growth suppression, psychosis, and violence from
stimulants; and diabetes from the newer anti-psychotic medications.
(13) Parents are already being coerced to put their children on psychiatric
medications and some children are dying because of it. Universal or mandatory
mental health screening and the accompanying treatments recommended by the
President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health will only increase that
problem. Across the country, Patricia Weathers, the Carroll Family, the
