Should EVERYONE Be Screened For mental Illness?

random · Aug 6, 2004

I thought that perhaps this should be in the politics forum, but I'm not allowed, so I tried to find the next most appropriate one.

While trying to find out what the statutory rape laws actually say, I ran across this on the congress.org website.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=6219686&content_dir=ua_congressorg

Should EVERYONE Be Screened For mental Illness?
A Bill Now Exists to Force ALL Americans to Submit to Mandatory Mental Screenings

EXTREMELY URGENT ACTION ALERT!!! (UPDATED) August 4, 2004

Tell your Members of Congress and the Senate Labor Appropriations Subcommittee NO FUNDING FOR THE “NEW FREEDOM COMMISSION ON MENTAL HEALTH” INITIATIVE! THEIR PLAN CALLS FOR SCREENING ALL AMERICANS FOR MENTAL ILLNESS.

On July 14th, the House Appropriations Committee approved $20 million in new federal dollars for up to 14 states to transform their mental health systems as set forth by the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (NFC). As one mental health group put it, “…even limited funding of the (state grants for transformation) is a vital step toward realizing the Commission’s important vision of a transformed public mental health system.”

Apparently there are members of Congress that have not read the New Freedom Commission’s “Goals and Recommendations,” so here are quotes directly from their report which highlight the plan to screen all Americans for “mental illness.”

So apparently the states will get money to implement the plans set for by this New Freedom Commission. Some states have already jumped on the bandwagon to transform their mental health system. The State of Illinois has already passed a law for compulsory mental health screening of all children ages 0-18 as well as pregnant mothers! The Illinois plan is the first in the nation to have progressed thus far. If the plan is implemented as suggested, pregnant women will begin evaluation for depression and will check in during the first year after their expected babies are born. As part of the “Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership Preliminary Plan,” in the next 1-2 years they want to, “Align systems of care with the President’s New Freedom Report, particularly the child and adolescent recommendations.”

If this “sweeping mental health initiative” is implemented, millions more American’s will certainly be diagnosed and drugged given that all of the diagnoses are based solely on opinion. The NFC based its entire findings on the definition of mental illness as defined by psychiatry’s billing bible, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The methods of mental health “screening” recommended by the New Freedom Commission are lists of arbitrary questions based on this DSM.

In a recent report by Allen Jones, a former investigator in the Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General, Bureau of Special Investigations, condemning the NFC, he states, “Despite a nearly 500% increase in American children being prescribed mental health drugs during the past 6 years, the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health found that not enough adolescents are benefiting from mental health treatment. The NFC recommendations prominently call for mandatory mental health screening for all high school students, with follow-up ‘treatment’ as required – this means more kids on mind-altering and potentially lethal psychiatric drugs.”

WHAT TO DO:

1) Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or go to www.congress.org to be connected to your U.S. Representative and your 2 Senators at their home office numbers (they are on “August Recess”). Urge them to STOP the $20 million funding of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health’s “State Grants for Transformation” (currently in the House Labor/HHS appropriations bill). Urge them to read the NFC’s report thoroughly, or point out the above quotes from it to show them it is ALL about screening, labeling and drugging.

2) If you are from the states below, contact the following Members of the Senate Labor HHS Appropriations Subcommittee in their home states and tell them to STOP the $20 million funding of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health’s “State Grants for Transformation” in the Labor/HHS appropriations bill for the above reasons.

Alen Specter (R-PA) 717-782-3951
Thad Cochran (R-MS) 601-965-4459
Judd Gregg (R-NH) 603-225-7115
Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) 512-916-5834
Larry Craig (R-ID) 208-342-7985
Ted Stevens (R-AK) 907-586-7400
Mike DeWine (R-OH) 614-469-5186
Richard Shelby (R-AL) 334-223-7303
Tom Harkin (D-IA) 515-284-4574
Ernest Hollings (D-SC) 803-765-5731
Daniel Inouye (D-HI) 808-541-2542
Harry Reid (D-NV) 775-686-5750
Herb Kohl (D-WI) 414-297-4451
Patty Murray (D-WA) 206-553-5545
Mary Landrieu (D-LA) 225-389-0395

Sincerely,

Joe Kerner
Clearwater, FL

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Should EVERYONE Be Screened For mental Illness?

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