Keith Hoeller

Bush Wants to Screen All Children for Mental Illness
Keith Hoeller, Ph.D.
September 19, 2004

(Editor, Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry, Seattle,WA;
Recipient, 2002 Thomas S. Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Cause of Civil Liberties)

If President Bush gets his way, when your child enters elementary school, he or she will be subject to a formal, mandatory determination of his or her mental fitness.

This is because President Bush has placed into his "Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Bill of 2005" (HR 5006) a proviso for the federal government to begin spending $20 million as an incentive for the states to screen all schoolchildren for "mental illnesses" and place them on "treatment."  News of this proposal first appeared in the British Medical Journal in June of this year.

Why do all American children need to be screened for the possibility that they need to be placed on powerful mind-altering psychiatric drugs?

We all know the standard answers given by the various branches of the mental health movement, from the American Psychiatric Association to the Nationally Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) to Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (CHADD).  These children have been discovered to have a "mental illness," which prevents them from learning "normally".  This "chemical imbalance" in their brains is corrected by psychoactive drugs, which the child will need to take daily throughout their childhood years, and perhaps well into adulthood. 

Not surprisingly, all of these mental health groups are heavily funded by the very same companies whose drugs they recommend.

Currently, when teachers detect symptoms of "mental illness" in some children having learning or discipline problems, the schools refer those children for psychiatric evaluation.  Psychiatrists and school psychologists then diagnose most of these children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) or depression.  The children are then prescribed drugs (Ritalin, Prozac, etc.) and their academic performance and behavior supposedly improves.

Even the Appropriations Committee Report says that President Bush's proposed $20 million is less than needed to start the nationwide program; if passed, this bill is likely to become a multi-billion dollar, unfunded mandate for the states.

Many thoughtful professionals in the mental health field, however, have developed an alternative view of why millions of children are being drugged in our schools.  From psychiatrist Thomas Szasz's The Myth of Mental Illness (1961) to journalists Peter Schrag and Diane Divoky's The Myth of the Hyperactive Child and Other Means of Child Control (1975) to psychologist Diane McGuinness's When Children Don't Learn: Understanding the Biology and Psychology of Learning Disabilities (1985) to psychiatrist Peter Breggin's Talking Back to Ritalin: What Doctors Aren't Telling You About Stimulants for Children (1998) to psychologist David Stein's Ritalin is Not the Answer: A Drug-Free Program for Children Diagnosed with ADD or ADHD (1999), all point out that these children are perfectly healthy by all current physical tests and they do not "need" drugs.

Why then are millions of American children being drugged?

Corporal punishment as a means of school discipline came under attack in our schools in the 1960s; New York City banned it in 1965 and the states followed over the next three decades.   Ritalin was approved for use with children by the Food and Drug Administration around 1960,  and quickly became the alternative form of discipline.

Unruly children were no longer seen as bad kids needing punishment; they were now seen as mentally ill children needing medication.  School administrators and their paddles were replaced by school psychologists and their diagnoses.

(While I am not in favor of corporal punishment as a means of  discipline in the schools, I do not see medication as a form of chemical restraint as either a scientific or humanitarian step forward.  Professional teachers ought to be able to solve discipline problems without either hitting or drugging their students.)

The success of medication, however, is belied by the fact that these students and their parents continue to ask for exemptions from normal educational tests and standards and recent research shows they continue to have attention problems well into adulthood, despite years of medication.

On September 10, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), a physician, introduced an amendment to President Bush's budget bill that reads:  "None of the funds made available in this Act [HR 5006] may be used to create or implement any new universal health screening program."

Apparently, the rush to medicate America's schoolchildren is a bipartisan issue.  Mr. Paul's amendment was defeated by a House vote of 315 to 95 (23 abstained).  It now moves to the Senate where, given Democratic support of the mental health movement, passage would seem to be assured.

President Bush's plan runs in the opposite direction of recent trends in such states like Colorado, which are trying to take teachers and schools out of the business of diagnosing children with mental illnesses.

But unless the American people quickly tell President Bush and their Senators in Congress to oppose this universal mental health screening plan for children, we are likely to have millions more perfectly healthy children being told they have a "brain disorder" and taking lifelong psychoactive drugs.

Mental health providers and the drug companies will surely profit from Bush's plan.

But parents' rights and children's liberties will suffer the consequences.

Keith Hoeller, Ph.D.
Editor, Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry
Director, Center for the Study of Psychiatry Northwest
4739 University Way NE / #1238
Seattle, WA 98105
206/367-5764

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Another teenager has shot and murdered schoolchildren, and those who believe that "mental illness" is the cause of all our social problems have offered the standard explanation and usual solution: This child suffered from a mental illness, and if only someone had seen the symptoms and notified mental-health authorities, he would have received an accurate diagnosis and the proper medication, and the tragedy could have been prevented. If only Red Lake High School student Jeff Weise had been placed on antidepressant medications, psychiatrists say, then this murder/suicide would never have happened. The story is usually followed by calls for more mental-health screening and treatment of our nation's schoolchildren.

In most of the recent cases of school shootings, however, the signs were noticed: The child was reported to mental-health authorities, received a psychiatric diagnosis, was put on medications and was taking them when he pulled the trigger. It was true with Eric Harris of Columbine and Kip Kinkel in Oregon , as well as 10 other youths. This may be the tip of the iceberg, because this information is often kept confidential and out of the papers, even when a murder occurs.

Now news reports indicate Weise, who murdered nine in Red Lake , Minn. , before turning the gun on himself, had been suicidal and was committed to a mental hospital. He began taking an antidepressant last summer, and his dosage had been increased a week before the shootings, according to the New York Times.

In 2003 Britain banned antidepressants for use in children and adolescents, and last year Health Canada issued a stern warning about these drugs, noting "clinical trial and post-marketing reports (of) ... severe agitation-type adverse events coupled with self-harm or harm to others."

This year, the Food and Drug Administration has mandated a black-box label on antidepressants warning of the potential for increased suicidal thoughts and behavior with children and adolescents. Yet, as Vera Sharav of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, has said: "Journalists continue to be beguiled by speculative scientific hypotheticals which psychiatrists discuss as though they have been proved. Misinformation is transmitted to the public about unproven 'chemical imbalances' in the brain of depressed people - - when, in fact, no evidence exists demonstrating any chemical or structural brain abnormality in people diagnosed with a mental illness."

Indeed, the papers are full of quotes of psychiatrists claiming that depression is a serious medical disease caused by a serotonin imbalance in the brain. But no conclusive scientific evidence exists to support this theory. In "Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health" (Free Press, 1998), neuroscientist Eliot Valenstein says, "Although it is often stated with great confidence that depressed people have a serotonin or norepinephrine deficiency, the actual evidence contradicts these claims. It is not now possible to measure norepinephrine and serotonin in the brains of patients."

Not surprisingly, psychiatrists have never developed any physical test to detect depression or any mental illness, and all diagnosis is done based solely on symptoms. In other words, antidepressants and all other psychiatric medications are not in fact being prescribed to treat bona fide diseases.

Yet, whenever anyone criticizes the drugs, psychiatrists shout about the increased risk of suicide if patients stop taking their antidepressants, despite the fact that no antidepressant has ever been tested on suicidal patients and therefore never approved by the FDA as safe and effective in preventing suicide.

President Bush included an unprecedented call for mandatory mental-health screening of schoolchildren in his recent budget. Violating the rights of parents to just say "no" to psychiatric diagnosis and treatment of their children, this idea originated in the president's New Freedom Commission.

According to a study last year in the Lancet, U.S. psychiatrists, pediatricians and family practitioners wrote 11 million prescriptions for antidepressants for children in 2002. All the signs indicate this method of dealing with our children is not working. It is high time for both parents and schools to find a different method of dealing with troubled children. To paraphrase Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," the fault is not in our children's brains or genes, but in ourselves. It is to our own treatment of children that we must look to find an answer to their problems -- and ours.

Dubious drug therapy


By Keith Hoeller

The Washington Times

3/29/05

   Another teenager has shot and murdered schoolchildren and mental health movement proponents have offered us the standard explanation and the usual solution. This child was mentally ill, we are told, and if only someone had seen the symptoms and notified mental health authorities, the child would have been accurately diagnosed, given the proper medication, and this tragedy could have been prevented.

 
    If only the child had been placed on antidepressant medications, psychiatrists say, this murder/suicide would never have happened. The story is usually followed by calls for more mental health screening and treatment of schoolchildren.

    However, in most cases of school shootings, the signs had been noticed, the child had been reported to mental health authorities, he had received a psychiatric diagnosis, he been put on psychiatric medications and was taking the medications when he pulled the trigger.

    Eric Harris of Columbine was on the antidepressant Luvox and Kip Kinkel in Oregon was on Prozac. And the same was true in perhaps a dozen cases in all. And this may be the tip of the iceberg, since this information is often kept confidential and out of the papers, even when a murder occurs.

    Now news reports indicate Jeff Weise, the murderer of 10 in Red Lake, Minn., had been suicidal and committed to a mental hospital. He began taking an antidepressant last summer, and his dosage had been increased a week before the shootings.

    In 2003, Britain banned giving antidepressants to children and adolescents, and last year Health Canada issued a stern warning about these drugs: "There are clinical trial and post-marketing reports with SSRIs and other newer anti-depressants, in both pediatrics and adults, of severe agitation-type adverse events coupled with self-harm or harm to others."

    This year the Food and Drug Administration has mandated a black box on antidepressants labels, warning of the potential for increasing suicidal thoughts and behavior in children and adolescents. Yet, as Vera Sharav of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, has said:

    "Journalists continue to be beguiled by speculative scientific hypotheticals which psychiatrists discuss as though they have been proven. Misinformation is transmitted to the public about unproven 'chemical imbalances' in the brain of depressed people -- when, in fact, no evidence exists demonstrating any chemical or structural brain abnormality in people diagnosed with a mental illness."

    Indeed, the papers are full of quotes of psychiatrists claiming depression is a serious medical disease caused by a serotonin imbalance in the brain. But there is no conclusive scientific in support of this theory. Not surprisingly, psychiatrists have never developed any physical test to detect depression or any mental illness, and all diagnosis is done based solely on symptoms. In other words, antidepressants and all other psychiatric medications are medically unnecessary.

    Yet whenever anyone criticizes the drugs, psychiatrists shout about the increased risk of suicide if patients stop taking their antidepressants, though no antidepressant has ever been tested on suicidal patients and therefore never approved by the FDA as safe and effective in preventing suicide.

    President Bush included an unprecedented call for mandatory mental health screening of schoolchildren in his recently passed budget bill. Violating the rights of parents to just say no to psychiatric diagnosis and treatment of their children, this idea originated in the President's New Freedom Commission.

    With 8 million children on psychiatric drugs, all signs indicate this method of dealing with our children is not working.

    It is time both parents and schools find a different way to deal with troubled children. To paraphrase Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," the fault is not in our children's brains or genes, but in ourselves, and it is to our own treatment of children we must look to find an answer to their problems -- and ours.
    
    Keith Hoeller is editor of the Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry, Seattle, Wash.