Frist to introduce bill, to define "political paranoia as mental illness"

[rumpel]

snip

"When the 109th Congress convenes in Washington in January, Senator Bill Frist, the first practicing physician elected to the Senate since 1928, plans to file a bill that would define 'political paranoia' as a mental disorder, paving the way for individuals who suffer from paranoid delusions regarding voter fraud, political persecution and FBI surveillance to receive Medicare reimbursement for any psychiatric treatment they receive," writes Hermione Slatkin, Medical Correspondent for the Swift Report. "Rick Smith, a spokesman for Senator Frist, says that the measure has a good chance of passing­something that can only help a portion of the population that is suffering significant distress."

snip

Characterizing political dissent as a form of mental illness is the hallmark of authoritarian government. In China, for instance, forensic psychiatrists label dissent "political lunacy" (see Jacob Sullum, Head Games: What are the rules for defining mental illness?) and in Soviet Russia political dissenters were routinely cosigned to mental hospitals. Nowadays, with modern pharmacology, mental hospitals are no longer required­the mental hospital is internalized through chemical intervention.

http://www.rense.com/general61/emen.htm

We have to keep an eye on the bills that will be introduced and mobilize.
My Mom says, that is exactly what Stalin did...

[BlueEyedSon]

1. What about the politically paranoid freepers?

and xtians ("they're going to outlaw the Bible!")
etc
etc...?

[rumpel]

2. Oh, no, that is not paranoia, it's only freedom of expression....

[pbartch]

34. Does that mean that the Repukes in WA state whining about losing

and the vote fraud that happened in Washington are mentally ill??? Are they paranoid?? Can we put them all in the "nut houses" ?????

[Webster Green]

3. Its looking more and more like the old Soviet Union.....

This is bullshit!:tinfoilhat:

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. My god we are going to politize psychiatry

and kid your mom is correct... damn these people... this is ONE way to silence the oposition

[genieroze]

5. Oh My God, I posted something about this a few weeks ago. I thought

it was a joke. They are the ones out of their minds. We all know * is the one who is psycho. The only think that makes * not like Caligula is he isn't a pervert (as far as we know he's not).

[bush_is_wacko]

23. Believe it or not there were allegations of this nature regarding his

father. The man with the information and his son were killed in a plane explosion. I haven't done a whole lot of exploring regarding this story but it is kind of interesting.

Gary Caradori. The allegations he was making are ASTOUNDING!

<<snip>>
Gary Caradori was a retired state police investigator who had been hired by the Nebraska Senate to investigate what the Washington Times called "A homosexual prostitution ring." On the morning of 1989-06-29, the Times reported, "A homosexual prostitution ring is under investigation by federal and District authorities and includes among its clients key officials of the Reagan and Bush administrations, military officers, congressional aides and U.S. and foreign businessmen with close ties to Washington's political elite." Gary Caradori died mysteriously while investigating Lawrence E. King, Jr., (not CNN's Larry King) a very influential black Republican and close friend of George H.W. Bush. King was director of the Franklin Community Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska, and was suspected of embezzling $40 million. Within weeks, the Nebraska Senate found itself questioning child prostitutes, who accused King of running a child prostitution ring. One of these children said that she saw George H.W. Bush at one of King's parties. "Pronto", a newspaper in Barcelona, Spain, reported that the scandal "appears to directly implicate politicos of the state of Nebraska and Washington DC who are very close to the White House and George Bush himself." On 1990-07-11, Gary Caradori was killed along with his 6-year old son in the crash of his small plane after a mid-air explosion, the cause of which was never discovered. He had told friends repeatedly in the weeks before his death that he was afraid his plane would be sabotaged. Caradori told Senator Loran Schmit he would fly that night from Chicago on his private plane with his son en route to Lincoln, Nebraska, with the evidence. Immediately after his death, the FBI seized and sealed all his papers.

http://mindprod.com/asbestos.html

[genieroze]

26. more links on this

VoxFux is a real neat site.

http://www.voxfux.com/features/cia_child_sex.html

For the video that they pulled from the discovery channel
http://www.voxfux.com/features/bush_child_sex_coverup/franklin.htm

[bush_is_wacko]

41. Thanks for these. n/t

[orthogonal]

6. Satire from the "Swift Report"

"writes Hermione Slatkin, Medical Correspondent for the Swift Report."

The Swift Report is satire site.

[Demit]

7. That's satire. There's no Hermione Slatkin. That was a satirical piece.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

11. It might be satire now, but coming from the team that has brought

to you "The New Freedom Initiative", you never know what's going to happen in the future.

[ruthg]

49. Thank god for that. I hope you are right .

[New Earth]

8. uh

thoughtpolice?

this literally made me cry in disgust. you have got to be fucking kidding me.

please tell me it WAS sattire!!!!

[tridim]

9. That sends shivers up my spine

This probably goes hand in hand with the Bush backed mandatory psych testing plan. Screw fascism, this is pure evil.

For the record Frist and **, I will NEVER take a government mandated drug. I would rather be dead.

[Zan_of_Texas]

10. check this though

The Rense site is not fact-checked, as far as I know.

The article itself says a googling did not find a reference to this elsewhere.

[rumpel]

14. That is why I said, we have to keep an eye on the bills...

I would not be surprised, but would hope this is a satire....

[whistle]

12. Even paranoidal people have real enemies...H. Kissinger

...It looks like Frist may want to go after Oliver Stone for his movie JFK


<snip>
POLITICAL PARANOIA
THE PSYCHOPOLITICS OF HATRED

Co-author: Robert S. Robins
Co-author: Jerrold M. Post, M.D.

October 1997
408 p., 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Cloth 0-300-07027-6 $45.00

Paranoia is not an obscure mental state afflicting some individuals but a widespread condition of modern societies, say the authors of this engrossing book. Robert S. Robins and Jerrold M. Post, m.d., experts in political psychology, document and interpret the malign power of paranoia in a variety of contexts--in political movements like McCarthyism, in organizations like the John Birch Society, in leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, and David Koresh, and among extreme groups that commit violence in the name of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Indeed, Robins and Post show that the paranoid dynamic has been aggressively present in every social disaster of this century.

Robins and Post describe the paranoid personality, explain why paranoia is part of human evolutionary history, and examine the conditions that must exist before the message of the paranoid takes root in a vulnerable population, leading to mass movements and genocidal violence. Their wideranging discussion sheds light on many troubling episodes in our history:

why more than 900 people committed suicide in Guyana in 1978 with their leader, Jim Jones;

<more> http://yalepress.yale.edu/YupBooks/viewbook.asp?isbn=0300070276

Another site of interest:

<snip>
Paranoia in Political Context

paranoia, n.
mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others; chronic functional psychosis of insidious development, characterized by persistent, unalterable, logically reasoned delusions, commonly of persecution and grandeur
paranoid, n.
suffering from paranoia
a. morbidly or excessively suspicious
paranoid style.
of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy. Hofstadter, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics."
The paranoid personality disorder is characterized by a pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent. Individuals with the paranoid personality disorder

suspect, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving them;
are preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty, or untrustworthiness, of friends or associates;
are reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against them;
read hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events;
persistently bear grudges, i.e. are unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights;
perceive attacks on their character or reputation that are not apparent to others and are quick to react angrily, or to counterattack;
have recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner.
At its most malignant, the paranoid response is associated with serious mental illnesses, both functional and organic. Severe paranoid symptoms are associated with paranoid schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorders, the late stages of substance-abuse diseases, and organic psychoses.
Increasingly the term paranoia has been used more broadly to refer not only to this specific diagnostic entity but also to a personality trait and a personality style, characterized by guardedness, suspiciousness, hypersensitivity, and isolation. An important aspect of this style is a pattern of disowning uncomfortable personal feelings and attributing them to others, the psychological defense mechanism known as projection.

<more> http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/robins.htm

[rumpel]

21. very informative. thanks.

[RC]

13. Do a DU search for "political paranoia"

This is not for real - at least not yet.

[bush_is_wacko]

25. NOT YET...is the key statement though. You do realize a whole lot of

sci-fi Hollywood fiction has ended up as "the real deal" lately. Did you see the "Manchurian Candidate?" RFID is currently in use at Walmart locations and has been used to track lost pets for years. Apparently people have willingly implanted themselves with it in Europe to avoid having to carry those pesky credit cards around with them.

RFID tracking devices information:

http://www.miamedia.com/votergate/action.html


http://www.globalchange.com/ppt/rfid


http://www.newswithviews.com/Mary/starrett14.htm


http://www.geocities.com/queencole19/rfidpet.htm

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

15. http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/files/selftest.pdf n/t

[bush_is_wacko]

16. So TELL him what you think of his DELUSION! Contact information below

Senator Bill Frist

E-mail: Contact Via 'Web Form.'

Washington Office:
461 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-4205
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

From Congress.org

I intend to provide him with the snippets and tell him that he is utterly DELUSIONAL! Involvement in politics has KEPT me from taking the little red pill Doctors like HIM want to hand out like candy! This country takes those pills at a higher rate than ANY other country in the WORLD. Something is not right when a country resorts to MEDICATION to be able to function!

[bush_is_wacko]

20. Her's what I sent him regarding these allegations!

January 17, 2005
The Honorable Bill Frist
United States Senate
461 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4205
Senator Frist:
I have been unable to verify this story and the writer of this story clearly states the same. Here is the link to the allegations in question:

http://www.rense.com/general61/emen.htm

The story claims you want to classify "political paranoia" as a mental illness and "make sure" these paranoid American citizens pain is "eased" through psychological counseling and "MEDICATION."

I want to know Senator whether you intend to introduce a bill such as this. If this story is indeed true, you Sir, are DELUSIONAL! The ONLY "political paranoia" I see is someone like you thinking you need to hand anti-depressants out like candy to the masses when they decide they have a right to investigate the political powers that have such devasating effects on the world around them.

I and MANY American citizens have AVOIDED having to take your "magic" pills by becoming more invloved with those around us that see the situation in our White House more clearly.

It is my belief that the reason soooo many Americans have resorted to asking their doctors for medication is BECAUSE they don't want to look at the disastrous direction the Republican party is taking this country in.

When Republicans that speak out against the policies that are dangerous are immediately SILENCED by this administration and American citizens are taking anti-depressants at a rate FAR greater than ANY other country in the WORLD the problem is NOT the citizens or the Republican "dissidents".

You, the administration, the president, and a LARGE number of YOUR party are THE problem!

[genieroze]

28. Go straight to the horses ass er uh mouth. lol eom

[pbartch]

36. GREAT letter!!!!! I'll forward your letter to a doctor friend of mine

to see if she has heard about this.

[saltpoint]

17. The Cat Butcher isn't medically qualified to speak on this.

There's a whiff of Nurse Cratchet in Bill Frist.

Maybe a strong whiff.

[rumpel]

18. I did some checking on "New Freedom Initiative"

from the Executive Summary
Established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, which issued a report recommending ways to improve America’s mental health care delivery system; and

from "Background"
Some of this progress builds on efforts undertaken during the first year of the New Freedom Initiative. For example, on March 21, 2002, nine agencies released a report entitled Delivering on the Promise in response to Executive Order 13217, which called for swift implementation of the Olmstead decision. Progress is being made on implementing many of the report’s more than 400 solutions to remove barriers to full integration that exist in Federal programs affecting people with disabilities. Presidential commissions established by Executive Orders – the Commission on Excellence in Special Education and the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health – have now completed their work and have issued reports and recommendations that will inform future policy development.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/newfreedom/toc-2004.html

Commision on Mental Health

http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov/reports/reports.htm

I am checking Frist's site, bear with me...

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

24. It was passed in the new budget. They sneaked it in. n/t

[rumpel]

19. I have found no mention of Mental Health issues on Frist's site:

Therefore, I would keep an eye on what is introduced on the floor...

Anything is possible, with these people...

conclusion: satire

but stay vigilant!

sorry, I freaked

self
:spank:

[Lisabtrucking]

22. Another act of the Hitler ERA. n/t

[rumpel]

27. Here is an article about this initiative on screening the the population

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39078

Bush plans to screen whole U.S. population for mental illness
Sweeping initiative links diagnoses to treatment with specific drugs

Posted: June 21, 2004
5:00 p.m. Eastern

By Jeanne Lenzer
© 2004 Jeanne Lenzer

A sweeping mental health initiative will be unveiled by President George W Bush in July. The plan promises to integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the community, rather than institutions," according to a March 2004 progress report entitled New Freedom Initiative (www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/newfreedom/toc-2004.html). While some praise the plan's goals, others say it protects the profits of drug companies at the expense of the public.

Bush established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in April 2002 to conduct a "comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system." The commission issued its recommendations in July 2003. Bush instructed more than 25 federal agencies to develop an implementation plan based on those recommendations.

snip

The commission also recommended "Linkage with treatment and supports" including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions." The commission commended the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes."

Dr Darrel Regier, director of research at the American Psychiatric Association (APA), lauded the president's initiative and the Texas project model saying, "What's nice about TMAP is that this is a logical plan based on efficacy data from clinical trials."

He said the association has called for increased funding for implementation of the overall plan.

But the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, sparked off controversy when Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General, revealed that key officials with influence over the medication plan in his state received money and perks from drug companies with a stake in the medication algorithm (15 May, p1153). He was sacked this week for speaking to the BMJ and the New York Times.

so, according to this, it is more about money...?

[whistle]

29. Now that is an example of political paranoia

:wtf:

[Mitt Chovick]

30. This has to be a hoax

[newyawker99]

39. Hi Mitt Chovick!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Mitt Chovick]

42. Thanks for the kind welcome

Cheers :toast:

[demodonkey]

31. IS THIS FOR REAL? eom

[RaulVB]

32. This is satire!

Frist will not be telling the truth about himself, or would he?

[Vinca]

33. This has got to be a joke.

Otherwise, we should all apply for SSI and totally screw up Dubya's social security machinations.

[SharonRB]

35. Are you sure this is for real?

[MadisonProgressive]

37. OH MY GOD!!! They'll lock us ALL up!!

I knew the bastards would do something to finally 'disappear' his political enemies. I'm keeping a cyanide pill on me at all times!:scared:

[L. Coyote]

38. It's part of a conspiracy to defend Bush and Cheney against war crimes

They are just planning a good defense. Of course, the nation will fall apart if we lose these two great leaders to some country club, cupcake-baking psychiatric hospital.

I remember when the paranoids were called "John Birchers." Now the paranoid politicos run the country. So perhaps, it's a good time to revisit the issue of paranoid politics. Especially when it was the primary tactic for re-election.

This really brings back fond memories of my "Democracy vs. Communism" correspondence course.

[NationalEnquirer]

40. This is a joke, right?

This can't be serious..

[mordarlar]

43. THE following IS NOT SATIRE... It is just as scary....

http://www.progressive.org/0901/roth0102.html

Donna Huanca works as a docent at the Art Car Museum, an avant-garde gallery in Houston. Around 10:30 on the morning of November 7, before she opened the museum, two men wearing suits and carrying leather portfolios came to her door.

"I told them to wait until we opened at 11:00," she recalls. "Then they pulled their badges out."

The two men were Terrence Donahue of the FBI and Steven Smith of the Secret Service.

"They said they had several reports of anti-American activity going on here and wanted to see the exhibit," she says. The museum was running a show called "Secret Wars," which contains many anti-war statements that were commissioned before September 11.

"They just walked in, so I went through with them and gave them a very detailed tour. I asked them if they were familiar with the artists and what the role of art was at a critical time like this," she says. "They were more interested in where the artists were from. They were taking some notes. They were pointing out things that they thought were negative, like a recent painting by Lynn Randolph of the Houston skyline burning, and a devil dancing around, and with George Bush Sr. in the belly of the devil."

There was a surreal moment when they inspected another element of the exhibit. "We had a piece in the middle of the room, a mock surveillance camera pointed to the door of the museum, and they wondered whether they were being recorded," she says.

All in all, they were there for about an hour. "As they were leaving, they asked me where I went to school, and if my parents knew if I worked at a place like this, and who funded us, and how many people came in to see the exhibit," she says. "I was definitely pale. It was scary because I was alone, and they were really big guys."

Before the agents left the museum, Huanca called Tex Kerschen, the curator of the exhibit. "I had just put down a book on COINTELPRO," he says, referring to the FBI's program of infiltrating leftwing groups in the 1960s. "Donna's call confirmed some of my worst suspicions. Donna was frightened, and we're all a little bit shocked that they were going to act against a small art space, to bring to bear that kind of menace, an atmosphere of dread. These old moldy charges of 'anti-American,' 'un-American'--they seem laughable at first, like we can't be accused of anything that silly. But they've started coming down with this."

The director of the Art Car Museum is James Harithas, who served as the director of the Corcoran Art Museum in Washington, D.C., in the late 1960s. "It's unbelievable," he says of the visit from the G-men. "People should be worried that their freedoms are being taken away right and left."

Robert Dogium, a spokesman for the FBI in Houston, says the visit was a routine follow-up on a call "from someone who said there was some material or artwork that was of a threatening nature to the President." He says it was no big thing. "While the work there was not their cup of tea, it was not considered of a threatening nature to anybody or terrorism or anything."

She is a freshman at Durham Tech in North Carolina. Her name is A.J. Brown. She's gotten a scholarship from the ACLU to help her attend college. But that didn't prepare her for the knock on the door that came on October 26. "It was 5:00 on Friday, and I was getting ready for a date," she says. When she heard the knock, she opened the door. Here's her account.

"Hi, we're from the Raleigh branch of the Secret Service," two agents said.

"And they flip out their little ID cards, and I was like, 'What?'

"And they say, 'We're here because we have a report that you have un-American material in your apartment.' And I was like, 'What? No, I don't have anything like that.'

" 'Are you sure? Because we got a report that you've got a poster that's anti-American.'

"And I said no."

They asked if they could come into the apartment. "Do you have a warrant?" Brown asked. "And they said no, they didn't have a warrant, but they wanted to just come in and look around. And I said, 'Sorry, you're not coming in.' "

One of the agents told Brown, "We already know what it is. It's a poster of Bush hanging himself," she recalls. "And I said no, and she was like, 'Well, then, it's a poster with a target on Bush's head,' and I was like, nope."

The poster they seemed interested in was one that depicted Bush holding a rope, with the words: "We Hang on Your Every Word. George Bush, Wanted: 152 Dead." The poster has sketches of people being hanged, and it refers to the number who were put to death in Texas while Bush was governor, she explains.

Ultimately, Brown agreed to open her door so that the agents could see the poster on the wall of her apartment, though she did not let them enter. "They just kept looking at the wall," which contained political posters from the Bush counter-inaugural, a "Free Mumia" poster, a picture of Jesse Jackson, and a Pink Floyd poster with the quotation: "Mother, should I trust the government?"

At one point in the conversation, one of the agents mentioned Brown's mother, saying, "She's in the armed forces, isn't she?" (Her mother, in fact, is in the Army Reserve.)

After they were done inspecting the wall, one of the agents "pulled out his little slip of paper, and he asked me some really stupid questions, like, my name, my Social Security number, my phone number," she says. "Then they asked, 'Do you have any pro-Taliban stuff in your apartment, any posters, any maps?'

"I was like, 'No, I don't, and personally, I think the Taliban is just a bunch of assholes.' "

With that, they left. They had been at her apartment for forty minutes.

"They called me two days later to make sure my information was correct: where I lived, my phone number (hello!), and my nicknames," she says.

Brown says she's "really annoyed" about the Secret Service visit. "Obviously, I'm on some list somewhere."

Welcome to the New McCarthyism. A chill is descending across the country, and it's frostbiting immigrants, students, journalists, academics, and booksellers.

[rumpel]

47. That is scary, but I also wonder what happened to the

intelligence unit inside the defense dept, they had to dismantle. I would not be surprised that they reassembled elsewhere, considering those phantom FBI agents in Ohio Warren county...

[Mr.Green93]

44. Will there be

free pills. I'm paranoid, give me some Valium.

[WHAT]

46. red pill or blue pill?...

Will the people in the red states have to take the blue pill? Ironic, isn't it.

[Hugin]

45. Psssst...

Start a rumor "Political Paranoia" is treated
with Hydrocordone... Mebbe we can get rid of Limbaugh. ;)

[ruthg]

48. This is terrifying. nt

[rumpel]

50. IMPORTANT Please read this bill co-sponsored by "Feeney"

INTRODUCING THE PARENTAL CONSENT ACT -- (Extensions of Remarks - January 04, 2005)


GPO's PDF


---
SPEECH OFHON. RON PAULOF TEXASIN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVESTUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2005
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Parental Consent Act. This bill forbids Federal funds from being used for any universal or mandatory mental-health screening of students without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of their parents or legal guardians. This bill protects the fundamental right of parents to direct and control the upbringing and education of their children.

The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health has recommended that the Federal and State Governments work toward the implementation of a comprehensive system of mental-health screening for all Americans. The commission recommends that universal or mandatory mental-health screening first be implemented in public schools as a prelude to expanding it to the general public. However, neither the commission's report nor any related mental-health screening proposal requires parental consent before a child is subjected to mental-health screening. Federally-funded universal or mandatory mental health screening in schools without parental consent could lead to labeling more children as ``ADD'' or ``hyperactive'' and thus force more children to take psychotropic drugs, such as Ritalin, against their parents' wishes.

Already, too many children are suffering from being prescribed psychotropic drugs for nothing more than children's typical rambunctious behavior. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, there was a 300-percent increase in psychotropic drug use in two- to four-year-old children from 1991 to 1995.

Many children have suffered harmful side effects from using psychotropic drugs. Some of the possible side effects include mania, violence, dependence, and weight gain. Yet, parents are already being threatened with child abuse charges if they resist efforts to drug their children.

Imagine how much easier it will be to drug children against their parents' wishes if a federally-funded mental-health screener makes the recommendation.

Universal or mandatory mental-health screening could also provide a justification for stigmatizing children from families that support traditional values. Even the authors of mental-health diagnosis manuals admit that mental-health diagnoses are subjective and based on social constructions. Therefore, it is all too easy for a psychiatrist to label a person's disagreement with the psychiatrist's political beliefs a mental disorder. For example, a federally-funded school violence prevention program lists ``intolerance'' as a mental problem that may lead to school violence. Because ``intolerance'' is often a code word for believing in traditional values, children who share their parents' values could be labeled as having mental problems and a risk of causing violence. If the mandatory mental-health screening program applies to adults, everyone who believes in traditional values could have his or her beliefs stigmatized as a sign of a mental disorder. Taxpayer dollars should not support programs that may label those who adhere to traditional values as having a ``mental disorder.''

Mr. Speaker, universal or mandatory mental-health screening threatens to undermine parents' right to raise their children as the parents see fit. Forced mental-health screening could also endanger the health of children by leading to more children being improperly placed on psychotropic drugs, such as Ritalin, or stigmatized as ``mentally ill'' or a risk of causing violence because they adhere to traditional values. Congress has a responsibility to the nation's parents and children to stop this from happening. I, therefore, urge my colleagues to cosponsor the Parental Consent Act.




Parental Consent Act of 2005 (Introduced in House)


HR 181 IH

109th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 181

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental health screening program.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES


January 4, 2005

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.181:

Mr. PAUL (for himself and Mr. FEENEY) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Education and the Workforce 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 2005'.



SEC. 2. FINDINGS.


The Congress finds as follows:


(1) The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued findings and recommendation 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) The Surgeon General's report also says, `The diagnosis of mental disorders is often believed to be more difficult than diagnosis of somatic or general medical disorders since there is no definitive laboratory test or abnormality in brain tissue that can identify the illness.'.


(4) Accurate mental health diagnosis of children is difficult as admitted by the Surgeon General's report that says, `The science is challenging because of the ongoing process of development. The normally developing child hardly stays the same long enough to make stable measurements. Adult criteria for illness can be difficult to apply to children and adolescents, when the signs and symptoms of mental disorders are often also the characteristics of normal development.'.


(5) 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, the 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).


(6) 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.


(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) A 300-percent increase in psychotropic drug use in 2 to 4 year old children from 1991 to 1995 (Journal of the American Medical Association, 2000).


(B) A 300-percent increase in psychotropic drug use in children from 1987 to 1996 (Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, 2003).


(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 in September 2004, that the newer antidepressants are related to suicidal thoughts and actions in children and that this data was hidden for years. 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 Johnston Family, and the Salazar Family were all charged or threatened with child abuse charges for refusing or taking their children off of psychiatric medications.


(14) The United States Supreme Court in Pierce versus Society of Sisters (268 U.S. 510 (1925)) held that parents have a right to direct the education and upbringing of their children.


(15) Universal or mandatory mental health screening violates the right of parents to direct and control the upbringing of their children.


(16) Federal funds should never be used to support programs that could lead to the increased over-medication of children, the stigmatization of children and adults as mentally disturbed based on their political or other beliefs, or the violation of the liberty and privacy of Americans by subjecting them to invasive `mental health screening' (the results of which are placed in medical records which are available to government officials and special interests without the patient's consent).



SEC. 3. PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL FUNDING OF UNIVERSAL OR MANDATORY MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING.


(a) Universal or Mandatory Mental Health Screening Program- No Federal funds may be used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health screening program.


(b) Refusal to Consent as Basis of a Charge of Child Abuse or Education Neglect- No Federal education funds may be paid to any local educational agency or other instrument of government that uses the refusal of a parent or legal guardian to provide express, written, voluntary, informed consent to mental health screening for his or her child as the basis of a charge of child abuse or education neglect until the agency or instrument demonstrates that it is no longer using such refusal as a basis of a child abuse or education neglect charge.


(c) Definition- For purposes of this Act, the term `universal or mandatory mental health screening program'--


(1) means any mental health screening program in which a set of individuals (other than members of the Armed Forces or individuals serving a sentence resulting from conviction for a criminal offense) is automatically screened without regard to whether there was a prior indication of a need for mental health treatment; and


(2) includes--


(A) any program of State incentive grants for transformation to implement recommendations in the July 2003 report of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health; and


(B) any student mental health screening program that allows mental health screening of individuals under 18 years of age without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of the parent or legal guardian of the individual involved.