Illinois, eye of national mental health storm

August 31, 2004

http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/newsview.asp?c=19137

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

By Rhonda , Leader correspondent

SPRINGFIELD -- When members of the Illinois House voted to pass the Illinois

Children’s Mental Health Act in 2003, Rep. Flowers (D-Chicago, 31st Dist.]

predicted, “I’m sure [the bill] is gonna fly out of here, but I guarantee each

and every last one of you that this will be revisited.“

Flowers was one of only five representatives to vote against the measure.

Flowers was right.

As Illinois prepares to become the first state to implement President Bush’s New

Freedom Commission on Mental Health, controversy is brewing around the nation

over its “Orwellian” mandates, as one observer called them.

So far, only Internet sites are exploring the controversy, with newfound

information traveling throughout a nationwide network of “intelligence”

gatherers and disseminators on a daily basis.

The concerns are sweeping - over pharmaceutical influence on the Food and Drug

Administration and medical profession, over lack of or faulty clinical trials,

and over political corruption.

The Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership, charged with putting the

Children’s Mental Health Act into action and overseeing its implementation,

stated in its preliminary plan last month it will “explore strategies for

maximizing the purchase of psychotropic drugs from the state Pharmacy at

discount prices.”

In Pennsylvania, Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, a clinical professor of psychiatry has

filed a federal lawsuit against state officials and six pharmaceutical

companies, alleging they, “through the use of political friendships, money and

other emoluments, effectively achieved a level of influence with Pennsylvania’s

state government that allowed them to abuse state finances and state citizens

with impunity.”

Kruszewski conducted medical reviews and appeals for the Pennsylvania Department

of Public Welfare and was a consultant for the Bureau of Program Integrity.

Kruszewski’s lawsuit “centers upon making money at the expense of public

finances through the improper use of state employees and custodial populations

including dependent children.”

Kruszewski charged the misuse of medications on innocent humans, deaths of

children under the care of the Pennsylvania Office of Medical Assistance, and

the improper adoption of drug company sponsored algorithms.

On August 27, New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced he had

settled a major lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company GlaxoKline,

which manufactures the popular antidepressant, Paxil.

Spitzer charged that GSK committed fraud by hiding Paxil study results that “not

only failed to show any benefit for the drug in children but demonstrated that

children taking Paxil were more likely to become suicidal than those taking a

placebo,” according to the August 26 New York Times.

The NFC recommends that states incorporate the Texas Medication Algorithm

Project, known as T-MAP, as a model to follow. These are flowcharts prescribing

the use of specific drugs for specific mental illness diagnoses.

About T-MAP are questions of pharmaceutical influence among state policy makers,

the safety of antidepressants in children, the FDA approval process, and program

oversight.

According to the British Medical Journal, the Texas project, which promotes only

the newest, more expensive antidepressants, began in 1995 “as an alliance of

individuals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas, and the

mental health and corrections systems of Texas. The project was funded by a

Wood grant - and by several drug companies.”

The RWJ foundation funded the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Task Force,

which produced the report Illinois’ Children’s Mental Health Act of 2003 is

based on.

The BMJ ran the story that sparked the current controversy by reporting the

findings of , an Investigator in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Office of Inspector General, Bureau of Special Investigations, who had to file a

whistleblower report to preserve his rights to speak to the press.

told the BMJ, " The same political/pharmaceutical alliance that generated

the Texas project was behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission,”

which, according to ’ whistleblower report, was " poised to consolidate the

T-MAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with

expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects,

and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab. "

Meeting minutes of the NASMHPD Medical Directors Council in May 2002 list

Illinois as one of eight states employing some degree of medication algorithm

activity.

Where T-Map is implemented fully, children in state care, prison inmates, and

patients in state mental hospitals are all subject to the use of these

algorithms.

In Illinois, “The same system, the Department of Children and Family Services,

that has given children - wards of the state - psychotropic drugs, don’t know

the consequences of their actions,” said Flowers in objection to ICMHA.

“These are the same children who I’ve seen acting out simply because they’re

guilty of wanting to be returned home to their parents, as opposed to being

turned into the juvenile justice system because they don’t want to be abused and

misused,” said Flowers.

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August 31, 2004