Drug Marketing Scheme Hits Nation's School System
http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/teenscreen.html
Lawyers and Settlements
Drug Marketing Scheme Hits Nation's School System
January 26, 2006
By Evelyn Pringle
TeenScreen, the elaborate drug marketing scheme concocted by the
pharmaceutical industry and a front group operating out of Columbia
University, is being promoted by the Bush administration's
recommendation to screen the nation's school population for mental
illness.
The Bush appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health issued a
report in July 2003 urging the screening of students in all 50 states
and recommended TeenScreen as the model program for the job.
Although touted as a suicide prevention tool, TeenScreen backers also
claim it can diagnose a host of mental health disorders in students
with the completion of the 10-minute survey. On March 2, 2004, the
program's Executive Director, Laurie Flynn, testified at a
congressional hearing and said that in the screening process, "youth
complete a 10-minute self-administered questionnaire that screens for
social phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major
depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicidality."
Warnings against the mass screening of children are coming from every
segment of society, including parents, medical professionals,
investigative journalists, and human rights groups, in large part,
because the influence of pharma in TeenScreen is so blatantly obvious.
For example, prior to joining TeenScreen, Flynn served as the
executive director of National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI)
for 16 years. NAMI calls itself as "a grassroots organization of
individuals with brain disorders and their family members."
But in reality, NAMI is pharma's number one front group, dedicated to
promoting the sale of as many "legal" drugs as possible. Which means
prior to her promotion to the position with TeenScreen, Flynn was the
number one "legal" pusher for 16 years.
While employed by NAMI, Pharma paid Flynn's salary. Internal NAMI
documents obtained by Mother Jones Magazine, for the period between
1996 and mid-1999, show that 18 drug companies gave NAMI a total of
$11.72 million. The firms include Janssen ($2.08 million), Novartis
($1.87 million), Pfizer ($1.3 million), Abbott Laboratories ($1.24
million), Wyeth-Ayerst ($658,000), and Bristol-Myers Squibb
($613,505).
The group's top donor during that period was Eli Lilly with total
contributions of $2.87 million.
Flynn even wrote an article titled, "Before Their Time: Preventing
Teen Suicide," which said: "The TeenScreen Program developed 10 years
ago by Columbia University and offered in partnership with the
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill helps communities across the
nation identify teens with mental illness who might be at risk for
suicide."
Now NAMI can hardly dispute the charge that it serves as a funnel for
drug money when its web site lists "Corporate Partners, Grants, and
Foundations," as Abbott, AstraZoneca, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Eli
Lilly, Forest Lab, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Jannsen, McNeil, Pfizer, and
Wyeth.
So if TeenScreen is "offered in partnership," with the NAMI, its
logically safe to assume that drug money is involved in the
development of the program.
Pharma constantly funnels money through groups like NAMI, which in
turn become conduits for the promotion of industry marketing schemes.
According to psychiatrist, Dr Peter Breggin, founder of the
International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology,
"these groups hold national meetings that bring together drug
advocates to talk directly to consumers. They also put out newsletters
and other information that praise medications. Sometimes they actively
suppress viewpoints that are critical of drugs - for example, by
discouraging the media from airing opposing viewpoints."
In some states, pharma money funded TeenScreen openly. On June, 2002
the Update Newsletter published by the Tennessee Department of Mental
Health and Developmental Disabilities, reported that 170 Nashville
students had completed a TeenScreen survey conducted by the NAMI and
Columbia University and according to newsletter, the survey was funded
by grants from AdvoCare and Eli Lilly.
The TeenScreen program is actually a brilliant idea from a marketing
standpoint. The promotional talking points include the mantra that the
program is free and TeenScreen receives no government funding. Those
assertions are false with a capital F.
Tax payers are funding this recruitment scheme from start to finish.
Tax dollars are being used to set up TeenScreen in schools all over
the country and tax dollars are being used to pay for the resulting
treatment and prescription drugs for children.
For instance, on November 17, 2004, officials at the University of
South Florida announced receiving $98,641 in funding from the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to expand
the TeenScreen Program in the Tampa Bay area.
In Ohio, the implementation of TeenScreen sites in five counties was
funded through a grant of $15,000 from the Department of Mental Health
for each of five mental health boards who participated in the pilot
program.
According to a July 11, 2005, Peoria Illinois Journal Star, in
Brimfield Illinois, "organizing the system and employing a part-time
counselor specifically for the program is estimated to cost about $100
per student." Overall, the "Brimfield High School program alone will
cost around $20,000 for the first semester," the Journal wrote.
During Flynn's testimony to Congress, she said, "close to 750,000
teens are depressed at any one time, and an estimated 7-12 million
youth suffer from mental illness."
So this means pharma has its eye on capturing 7-12 million new
customers from the nation's 52 million students.
Dr Jane Orient, Executive Director of the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons, had a few comments to offer on the topic of
school screening. "Teams of experts are awaiting an infusion of cash,";
she said, "they'll be ensconced in your child's school before you even
know it."
And an added "bonus," Orient says, "is that your little darlings will
probably give them quite a bit of information about you also, and then
you can receive therapy you didn't know you needed."
There are already too many people using the expensive and dangerous
drugs TeenScreen is pushing. On January 13, 2005 WebMD Medical News
reported a government study that showed more Americans than ever are
being treated for substance abuse, depression, and other mental health
disorders, and that the treatment they are getting is increasingly
limited to prescription drugs alone.
The study reviewed changing patterns in the treatment of mental
illnesses from the mid-1990s to 2001, and determined that the cost of
mental health drugs rose 20% each year.
According to Economist Samuel H Zuvekas, PhD, who conducted the
analysis, about 80% of the growth can be explained by the increase in
the use of SSRIs and other antidepressants, and high-priced
schizophrenia drugs called "atypical antipsychotics," like Risperdal,
Zyprexa, and Geodon.
Tax payers are already unwittingly footing the bill for the mass
drugging of children. For instance, an investigation by the Columbus
Dispatch, found that nearly 40,000 Ohio children on Medicaid were
taking drugs for anxiety, depression, delusions, hyperactivity and
violent behavior as of July 2004, and that overall, Ohio spent over
$65 million on mental-health drugs for children in 2004.
The investigation also revealed that doctors in Ohio had prescribed
sedatives and mood-altering medications for nearly 700 babies and
toddlers who were on Medicaid in 2004.
Robert Whitaker, author of the best-selling book, Mad in America,
tracked the profits of the new so-called wonder drugs since 1987, and
reviewed government data that showed not only an huge increase in the
use of the drugs, but a tremendous rise in the cost to taxpayers.
According to Whitaker, in 1987, psychotropic drug expenditures were
approximately $1 billion, but by 2002 the price tag to tax payers had
risen to $23 billion.
The May 8, 2005 issue of Lab Business Week, reported on an analysis by
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that
revealed that Medicaid is now the largest payer of mental health
services, exceeding private insurance, Medicare, or other state and
local spending. The report also noted that one out of every $5 spent
on mental health care now goes for psychotropic drugs.
The increase in the use of these psychiatri |