Re: [ASPIRE-US] here is my oped piece on Psychiatry and the Schools: Mental Hygiene in the 21st Century

[Guest guest]

Great work, . Thank you!!!

john breeding <wildcolt@...> wrote:

Psychiatry and the Schools: Mental Hygiene in the 21st Century

By Breeding, PhD

512-799-3610

It was only about 70 years ago that the Nazis' final solution began with the

extermination of an estimated 100,000 " mentally handicapped " Germans

considered unfit for living. Many today are unaware that the Nazis looked to

the early 20th Century example of the United States eugenics movement for

inspiration. As the American Eugenics Records Office (ERO) proudly reported

at the time, " the text of the German statute reads almost like the American

model sterilization Law. " Upon receiving an honorary degree in 1936 from the

University of Heidelberg for his devotion to racial biology, ERO

superintendent Harry Laughlin gave thanks to the university for validating

" the common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of

eugenics. " Largely because of the shameful excesses of the Holocaust, the

American eugenics experiment was gradually discontinued.

We all now decry the notion of eliminating life judged " unfit " , and with

less unanimity, we reject sterilization to prevent birth from unfit parents

such as the mentally retarded or " mentally ill. " A modern analogue remains,

however, in the form of our mental health system, as illustrated in how we

deal with our school-age children today.

In 1970, alarmed by the fact that almost 200,000 American children were

taking stimulant drugs, the U.S. Congress convened a special hearing on the

issue. Despite the fact that these hearings resulted in the stimulant drugs

being classified as Schedule 2 controlled substances by the Drug Enforcement

Administration because of their high addictive potential and risk of abuse,

rates of administration to our children soared during the last 30 years.

Today, an estimated 6 million children are being prescribed stimulants and

millions more are taking other psychotropic drugs such as the

antidepressants Zoloft and Paxil and the antipsychotics Thorazine and

Zyprexa. Vascallero reports in the July 2nd Boston Globe that " About

11 million schoolchildren and adolescents took prescription drugs for mental

health in 2002, and the number is rising. That would be close to 20 percent

of our nation's school-age children, which is about a 5,000 percent increase

since 1970.

Many think the drugs represent a benevolent medical response to our hordes

of mentally ill children. Others like myself consider the practice a

shameful disgrace, a form of institutionalized child abuse. Regardless of

one's opinion, here are two significant facts:

1. No children's behavioral problem routinely seen by a psychiatrist or

other physician has been scientifically demonstrated to be of biological or

genetic causation. There is no objective test, no confirmatory physical or

chemical abnormality-for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Depression, Bipolar Disorder,

Schizophrenia, or any of the other childhood diagnoses popular among

psychiatrists. These diagnoses are wholly subjective, based on judgments of

what is and isn't normal behavior.

2. psychiatric drugs are dangerous: they are toxic and potentially lethal.

Consider these facts. There were 186 Ritalin-related heart deaths reported

to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the 1990s. Because the

system of reporting is voluntary, experts believe that this figure

represents only 1-10 percent of the actual number of deaths. In other words,

from this one drug alone, during a ten-year period, there were 1,800 to

18,000 deaths. In addition, because of evidence indicating their potential

for inducing suicidal thinking and behavior in children, the United Kingdom

has banned, for children, the use of all but one of the antidepressants

known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI's such as Paxil,

Zoloft, Celexa, Effexor and Remeron). The FDA is investigating the matter,

but thus far has issued only a warning.

That over 10 million of our nation's children are on these drugs is

intensely disturbing. That parents are being cajoled, threatened and forced

to drug their children is no less troubling. People in the schools and in

our Child Protective Service (CPS) agencies have become such true believers

in the value of drugging our children that they are using coercion on

parents. This helps explain why it was necessary for the 2003 Texas

legislature to pass House Bills 1406 and 320 prohibiting schools and CPS

employees, respectively, from pressuring parents to drug their children.

Many other states have enacted similar legislation.

Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Child Medication

Safety Act by a vote of 425-1. This Act would make it unlawful for a school

to force children to take psychotropic drugs as a condition of attending

school. The bill has been held up in the Senate Health, Education, Labor &

Pensions Committee all year. The chair of the committee is Judd Gregg, and

according to the Boston Globe article mentioned above, it is Senator

Kennedy who is responsible for committee's failure to act.

As a graduate from a school psychology training program at the University of

Texas, I am absolutely appalled that the National Association of School

Psychologists is trying to kill the bill. The Association's lobbyist, Libby

Nealis, says " it would deter schools from discussing crucial mental health

information with parents " This is nonsense. All the law says is that drugs

cannot be required as a condition of attending school.

Incredibly enough, promoters of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry

are not satisfied with drugging 15-20 percent of our nation's children. As

Jeanne Lenzer reports in the June 19th issue of the British Medical Journal,

President Bush's New Freedom Commission (NFC) plans to unveil this month an

initiative to screen for possible " mental illness " all 52 million children

and 6 million adults in our nation's public schools. Not only that, but the

screening is linked to a policy which has been used in Texas and other state

s to require certain recommended drugs for treatment! For those who still

believe] that the schools are about academic education, it is time to wake

up to the overwhelming presence of psychiatry in the schools and resolve to

do something about it. The NFC's understanding of freedom is clearly not

freedom to be or think or do, but freedom to be " treated " with psychotropic

drugs as the educational/psychiatric forces deem necessary.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------

See my website, www.wildestcolts.com, for information on psychology,

psychiatry, parenting and personal transformation.

[Guest guest]

Great work, . Thank you!!!

john breeding <wildcolt@...> wrote:

Psychiatry and the Schools: Mental Hygiene in the 21st Century

By Breeding, PhD

512-799-3610

It was only about 70 years ago that the Nazis' final solution began with the

extermination of an estimated 100,000 " mentally handicapped " Germans

considered unfit for living. Many today are unaware that the Nazis looked to

the early 20th Century example of the United States eugenics movement for

inspiration. As the American Eugenics Records Office (ERO) proudly reported

at the time, " the text of the German statute reads almost like the American

model sterilization Law. " Upon receiving an honorary degree in 1936 from the

University of Heidelberg for his devotion to racial biology, ERO

superintendent Harry Laughlin gave thanks to the university for validating

" the common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of

eugenics. " Largely because of the shameful excesses of the Holocaust, the

American eugenics experiment was gradually discontinued.

We all now decry the notion of eliminating life judged " unfit " , and with

less unanimity, we reject sterilization to prevent birth from unfit parents

such as the mentally retarded or " mentally ill. " A modern analogue remains,

however, in the form of our mental health system, as illustrated in how we

deal with our school-age children today.

In 1970, alarmed by the fact that almost 200,000 American children were

taking stimulant drugs, the U.S. Congress convened a special hearing on the

issue. Despite the fact that these hearings resulted in the stimulant drugs

being classified as Schedule 2 controlled substances by the Drug Enforcement

Administration because of their high addictive potential and risk of abuse,

rates of administration to our children soared during the last 30 years.

Today, an estimated 6 million children are being prescribed stimulants and

millions more are taking other psychotropic drugs such as the

antidepressants Zoloft and Paxil and the antipsychotics Thorazine and

Zyprexa. Vascallero reports in the July 2nd Boston Globe that " About

11 million schoolchildren and adolescents took prescription drugs for mental

health in 2002, and the number is rising. That would be close to 20 percent

of our nation's school-age children, which is about a 5,000 percent increase

since 1970.

Many think the drugs represent a benevolent medical response to our hordes

of mentally ill children. Others like myself consider the practice a

shameful disgrace, a form of institutionalized child abuse. Regardless of

one's opinion, here are two significant facts:

1. No children's behavioral problem routinely seen by a psychiatrist or

other physician has been scientifically demonstrated to be of biological or

genetic causation. There is no objective test, no confirmatory physical or

chemical abnormality-for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Depression, Bipolar Disorder,

Schizophrenia, or any of the other childhood diagnoses popular among

psychiatrists. These diagnoses are wholly subjective, based on judgments of

what is and isn't normal behavior.

2. psychiatric drugs are dangerous: they are toxic and potentially lethal.

Consider these facts. There were 186 Ritalin-related heart deaths reported

to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the 1990s. Because the

system of reporting is voluntary, experts believe that this figure

represents only 1-10 percent of the actual number of deaths. In other words,

from this one drug alone, during a ten-year period, there were 1,800 to

18,000 deaths. In addition, because of evidence indicating their potential

for inducing suicidal thinking and behavior in children, the United Kingdom

has banned, for children, the use of all but one of the antidepressants

known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI's such as Paxil,

Zoloft, Celexa, Effexor and Remeron). The FDA is investigating the matter,

but thus far has issued only a warning.

That over 10 million of our nation's children are on these drugs is

intensely disturbing. That parents are being cajoled, threatened and forced

to drug their children is no less troubling. People in the schools and in

our Child Protective Service (CPS) agencies have become such true believers

in the value of drugging our children that they are using coercion on

parents. This helps explain why it was necessary for the 2003 Texas

legislature to pass House Bills 1406 and 320 prohibiting schools and CPS

employees, respectively, from pressuring parents to drug their children.

Many other states have enacted similar legislation.

Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Child Medication

Safety Act by a vote of 425-1. This Act would make it unlawful for a school

to force children to take psychotropic drugs as a condition of attending

school. The bill has been held up in the Senate Health, Education, Labor &

Pensions Committee all year. The chair of the committee is Judd Gregg, and

according to the Boston Globe article mentioned above, it is Senator

Kennedy who is responsible for committee's failure to act.

As a graduate from a school psychology training program at the University of

Texas, I am absolutely appalled that the National Association of School

Psychologists is trying to kill the bill. The Association's lobbyist, Libby

Nealis, says " it would deter schools from discussing crucial mental health

information with parents " This is nonsense. All the law says is that drugs

cannot be required as a condition of attending school.

Incredibly enough, promoters of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry

are not satisfied with drugging 15-20 percent of our nation's children. As

Jeanne Lenzer reports in the June 19th issue of the British Medical Journal,

President Bush's New Freedom Commission (NFC) plans to unveil this month an

initiative to screen for possible " mental illness " all 52 million children

and 6 million adults in our nation's public schools. Not only that, but the

screening is linked to a policy which has been used in Texas and other state

s to require certain recommended drugs for treatment! For those who still

believe] that the schools are about academic education, it is time to wake

up to the overwhelming presence of psychiatry in the schools and resolve to

do something about it. The NFC's understanding of freedom is clearly not

freedom to be or think or do, but freedom to be " treated " with psychotropic

drugs as the educational/psychiatric forces deem necessary.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------

See my website, www.wildestcolts.com, for information on psychology,

psychiatry, parenting and personal transformation.

[Guest guest]

Great work, . Thank you!!!

john breeding <wildcolt@...> wrote:

Psychiatry and the Schools: Mental Hygiene in the 21st Century

By Breeding, PhD

512-799-3610

It was only about 70 years ago that the Nazis' final solution began with the

extermination of an estimated 100,000 " mentally handicapped " Germans

considered unfit for living. Many today are unaware that the Nazis looked to

the early 20th Century example of the United States eugenics movement for

inspiration. As the American Eugenics Records Office (ERO) proudly reported

at the time, " the text of the German statute reads almost like the American

model sterilization Law. " Upon receiving an honorary degree in 1936 from the

University of Heidelberg for his devotion to racial biology, ERO

superintendent Harry Laughlin gave thanks to the university for validating

" the common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of

eugenics. " Largely because of the shameful excesses of the Holocaust, the

American eugenics experiment was gradually discontinued.

We all now decry the notion of eliminating life judged " unfit " , and with

less unanimity, we reject sterilization to prevent birth from unfit parents

such as the mentally retarded or " mentally ill. " A modern analogue remains,

however, in the form of our mental health system, as illustrated in how we

deal with our school-age children today.

In 1970, alarmed by the fact that almost 200,000 American children were

taking stimulant drugs, the U.S. Congress convened a special hearing on the

issue. Despite the fact that these hearings resulted in the stimulant drugs

being classified as Schedule 2 controlled substances by the Drug Enforcement

Administration because of their high addictive potential and risk of abuse,

rates of administration to our children soared during the last 30 years.

Today, an estimated 6 million children are being prescribed stimulants and

millions more are taking other psychotropic drugs such as the

antidepressants Zoloft and Paxil and the antipsychotics Thorazine and

Zyprexa. Vascallero reports in the July 2nd Boston Globe that " About

11 million schoolchildren and adolescents took prescription drugs for mental

health in 2002, and the number is rising. That would be close to 20 percent

of our nation's school-age children, which is about a 5,000 percent increase

since 1970.

Many think the drugs represent a benevolent medical response to our hordes

of mentally ill children. Others like myself consider the practice a

shameful disgrace, a form of institutionalized child abuse. Regardless of

one's opinion, here are two significant facts:

1. No children's behavioral problem routinely seen by a psychiatrist or

other physician has been scientifically demonstrated to be of biological or

genetic causation. There is no objective test, no confirmatory physical or

chemical abnormality-for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Depression, Bipolar Disorder,

Schizophrenia, or any of the other childhood diagnoses popular among

psychiatrists. These diagnoses are wholly subjective, based on judgments of

what is and isn't normal behavior.

2. psychiatric drugs are dangerous: they are toxic and potentially lethal.

Consider these facts. There were 186 Ritalin-related heart deaths reported

to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the 1990s. Because the

system of reporting is voluntary, experts believe that this figure

represents only 1-10 percent of the actual number of deaths. In other words,

from this one drug alone, during a ten-year period, there were 1,800 to

18,000 deaths. In addition, because of evidence indicating their potential

for inducing suicidal thinking and behavior in children, the United Kingdom

has banned, for children, the use of all but one of the antidepressants

known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI's such as Paxil,

Zoloft, Celexa, Effexor and Remeron). The FDA is investigating the matter,

but thus far has issued only a warning.

That over 10 million of our nation's children are on these drugs is

intensely disturbing. That parents are being cajoled, threatened and forced

to drug their children is no less troubling. People in the schools and in

our Child Protective Service (CPS) agencies have become such true believers

in the value of drugging our children that they are using coercion on

parents. This helps explain why it was necessary for the 2003 Texas

legislature to pass House Bills 1406 and 320 prohibiting schools and CPS

employees, respectively, from pressuring parents to drug their children.

Many other states have enacted similar legislation.

Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Child Medication

Safety Act by a vote of 425-1. This Act would make it unlawful for a school

to force children to take psychotropic drugs as a condition of attending

school. The bill has been held up in the Senate Health, Education, Labor &

Pensions Committee all year. The chair of the committee is Judd Gregg, and

according to the Boston Globe article mentioned above, it is Senator

Kennedy who is responsible for committee's failure to act.

As a graduate from a school psychology training program at the University of

Texas, I am absolutely appalled that the National Association of School

Psychologists is trying to kill the bill. The Association's lobbyist, Libby

Nealis, says " it would deter schools from discussing crucial mental health

information with parents " This is nonsense. All the law says is that drugs

cannot be required as a condition of attending school.

Incredibly enough, promoters of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry

are not satisfied with drugging 15-20 percent of our nation's children. As

Jeanne Lenzer reports in the June 19th issue of the British Medical Journal,

President Bush's New Freedom Commission (NFC) plans to unveil this month an

initiative to screen for possible " mental illness " all 52 million children

and 6 million adults in our nation's public schools. Not only that, but the

screening is linked to a policy which has been used in Texas and other state

s to require certain recommended drugs for treatment! For those who still

believe] that the schools are about academic education, it is time to wake

up to the overwhelming presence of psychiatry in the schools and resolve to

do something about it. The NFC's understanding of freedom is clearly not

freedom to be or think or do, but freedom to be " treated " with psychotropic

drugs as the educational/psychiatric forces deem necessary.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------

See my website, www.wildestcolts.com, for information on psychology,

psychiatry, parenting and personal transformation.

[Guest guest]

Great work, . Thank you!!!

john breeding <wildcolt@...> wrote:

Psychiatry and the Schools: Mental Hygiene in the 21st Century

By Breeding, PhD

512-799-3610

It was only about 70 years ago that the Nazis' final solution began with the

extermination of an estimated 100,000 " mentally handicapped " Germans

considered unfit for living. Many today are unaware that the Nazis looked to

the early 20th Century example of the United States eugenics movement for

inspiration. As the American Eugenics Records Office (ERO) proudly reported

at the time, " the text of the German statute reads almost like the American

model sterilization Law. " Upon receiving an honorary degree in 1936 from the

University of Heidelberg for his devotion to racial biology, ERO

superintendent Harry Laughlin gave thanks to the university for validating

" the common understanding of German and American scientists of the nature of

eugenics. " Largely because of the shameful excesses of the Holocaust, the

American eugenics experiment was gradually discontinued.

We all now decry the notion of eliminating life judged " unfit " , and with

less unanimity, we reject sterilization to prevent birth from unfit parents

such as the mentally retarded or " mentally ill. " A modern analogue remains,

however, in the form of our mental health system, as illustrated in how we

deal with our school-age children today.

In 1970, alarmed by the fact that almost 200,000 American children were

taking stimulant drugs, the U.S. Congress convened a special hearing on the

issue. Despite the fact that these hearings resulted in the stimulant drugs

being classified as Schedule 2 controlled substances by the Drug Enforcement

Administration because of their high addictive potential and risk of abuse,

rates of administration to our children soared during the last 30 years.

Today, an estimated 6 million children are being prescribed stimulants and

millions more are taking other psychotropic drugs such as the

antidepressants Zoloft and Paxil and the antipsychotics Thorazine and

Zyprexa. Vascallero reports in the July 2nd Boston Globe that " About

11 million schoolchildren and adolescents took prescription drugs for mental

health in 2002, and the number is rising. That would be close to 20 percent

of our nation's school-age children, which is about a 5,000 percent increase

since 1970.

Many think the drugs represent a benevolent medical response to our hordes

of mentally ill children. Others like myself consider the practice a

shameful disgrace, a form of institutionalized child abuse. Regardless of

one's opinion, here are two significant facts:

1. No children's behavioral problem routinely seen by a psychiatrist or

other physician has been scientifically demonstrated to be of biological or

genetic causation. There is no objective test, no confirmatory physical or

chemical abnormality-for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD),

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Depression, Bipolar Disorder,

Schizophrenia, or any of the other childhood diagnoses popular among

psychiatrists. These diagnoses are wholly subjective, based on judgments of

what is and isn't normal behavior.

2. psychiatric drugs are dangerous: they are toxic and potentially lethal.

Consider these facts. There were 186 Ritalin-related heart deaths reported

to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the 1990s. Because the

system of reporting is voluntary, experts believe that this figure

represents only 1-10 percent of the actual number of deaths. In other words,

from this one drug alone, during a ten-year period, there were 1,800 to

18,000 deaths. In addition, because of evidence indicating their potential

for inducing suicidal thinking and behavior in children, the United Kingdom

has banned, for children, the use of all but one of the antidepressants

known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI's such as Paxil,

Zoloft, Celexa, Effexor and Remeron). The FDA is investigating the matter,

but thus far has issued only a warning.

That over 10 million of our nation's children are on these drugs is

intensely disturbing. That parents are being cajoled, threatened and forced

to drug their children is no less troubling. People in the schools and in

our Child Protective Service (CPS) agencies have become such true believers

in the value of drugging our children that they are using coercion on

parents. This helps explain why it was necessary for the 2003 Texas

legislature to pass House Bills 1406 and 320 prohibiting schools and CPS

employees, respectively, from pressuring parents to drug their children.

Many other states have enacted similar legislation.

Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Child Medication

Safety Act by a vote of 425-1. This Act would make it unlawful for a school

to force children to take psychotropic drugs as a condition of attending

school. The bill has been held up in the Senate Health, Education, Labor &

Pensions Committee all year. The chair of the committee is Judd Gregg, and

according to the Boston Globe article mentioned above, it is Senator

Kennedy who is responsible for committee's failure to act.

As a graduate from a school psychology training program at the University of

Texas, I am absolutely appalled that the National Association of School

Psychologists is trying to kill the bill. The Association's lobbyist, Libby

Nealis, says " it would deter schools from discussing crucial mental health

information with parents " This is nonsense. All the law says is that drugs

cannot be required as a condition of attending school.

Incredibly enough, promoters of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry

are not satisfied with drugging 15-20 percent of our nation's children. As

Jeanne Lenzer reports in the June 19th issue of the British Medical Journal,

President Bush's New Freedom Commission (NFC) plans to unveil this month an

initiative to screen for possible " mental illness " all 52 million children

and 6 million adults in our nation's public schools. Not only that, but the

screening is linked to a policy which has been used in Texas and other state

s to require certain recommended drugs for treatment! For those who still

believe] that the schools are about academic education, it is time to wake

up to the overwhelming presence of psychiatry in the schools and resolve to

do something about it. The NFC's understanding of freedom is clearly not

freedom to be or think or do, but freedom to be " treated " with psychotropic

drugs as the educational/psychiatric forces deem necessary.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------

See my website, www.wildestcolts.com, for information on psychology,

psychiatry, parenting and personal transformation.