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Federal Funding for Mental Health Screening of Kids
http://ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=415
June 27, 2005
[An oldie but goodie]
On Friday Congress defeated an amendment
I introduced that would have prevented the
federal government from moving forward with
an Orwellian program to mandate
mental health screening of kids in schools.
This program, recommended by a presidential
commission, has not yet been established at
the federal level.
However, your tax dollars are being given to
states that apply for grants to establish their
own programs-- and a full-fledged program
run by the Department of Health and
Human Services is on the way.
Nearly 100 members of Congress supported my
amendment. Many of these members represent
Texas and Illinois, two states that already
have mental health screening programs in place.
They have heard from their constituents, who believe intimate mental
health problems should be addressed by parents, kids, and their
doctors- not the government.
These parents do not appreciate yet another government
program that undermines their parental authority.
The psychiatric establishment and the pharmaceutical industry of
course support government mental health screening programs in
schools, because they both stand to benefit from millions of new
customers.
But we should not allow self-interested industries to use a government
program to create a captive audience for their products. We should be
especially careful about medicating children with psychotropic drugs
when their brains are still developing.
Far too many children are being stigmatized by dubious diagnoses like
Attention Deficit Disorder, and placed on drugs simply because they
exhibit behavior that we used to understand as restlessness or
rambunctious horseplay.
This is especially true of young boys, who cannot thrive in our
increasingly feminized government schools. Sadly, many parents and
teachers find it easier to drug energetic boys than discipline them.
Dr. Karen R. Effrem, a pediatrician and leading opponent of
government mental health screening, makes the following points about
such programs:
- Parental rights under such programs are at best unclear, at worst
nonexistent;
- Many parents already have been forced by schools to put their
children on psychotropic drugs, and this surely will accelerate
under a federal screening program;
- Screening programs do not prevent suicide; [the way it's
'marketed']
- Psychiatric diagnoses are inherently subjective and based on
“social constructions”;
- Most psychiatric drugs do not work in children;
- We do not know the long-term consequences of using psychiatric
drugs on children; [which are banned in Britain on kids
under 18]
- Screening programs will be influenced by politics. Children of
religious parents, for example, risk being labeled “homophobic.”
Certainly there are legitimate organic mental illnesses, [which are
handled with good nutrition - deb] but that does not mean it is the
role of government to subject every child to arbitrary screening without
the consent of parents.
Most Americans still understand that certain things are none of
the government’s business, even if Congress does not.
If you are a parent, do everything you can to protect your children by
demanding to be notified of any screening program in their schools.
As a voter, let your state and federal legislators know that you don’t
want tax dollars spent on mental health screening programs.
If we act now, we still can prevent the federal government from creating
a nationwide, mandatory program that will place millions of American
youngsters into a stigmatized, drugged, mental health ghetto.
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There's NOTHING in
the constitution that
says the gov't gets
involved in education
or 'mental health' -
Every time in history if
the gov't got involved
in these 2 items, it
was suppress free
people.
Bush completely
VIOLATED the
constitution by putting
in 'New Freedom
Mental Health
Commission' in - on
behalf of the billion
dollar pharma to
generate more sales
with FRAUDULENT
drugs.
Period.
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