Re: NYT: Campaign on Childhood Mental Illness - NYU center

[Guest guest]

Speaking of ransom notes, here's an article on it:

Subject: NYU Assault On Children Must Be Stopped

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION

Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability

http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI

" We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to

care for

himself or interact socially as long as he lives. "

This is one of six " ransom notes " that are part of an aggressive

advertising

campaign unleashed in New York City by New York University Child

Study

Center.

The irresponsible ad is reminiscent of the 1988 Willie Horton

presidential

campaign ad--

However, unlike the Horton ad the NYU ad has the seal of approval by

a

prestigious medical institution--and it specifically targets 12

million

children and their parents, scaring them with false threats and

unsubstantiated claims.

Even as the world expresses shock by the number of US children being

labeled

as mentally ill and drugged with powerful psychotropic drugs, Dr.

Harold

Koplewicz, the founder and director of the NYU Child center makes the

following patently false claim:

" Children's mental disorders are truly the last great public health

problem

that has been left unaddressed. "

Dr. Koplewicz was a co-author of a discredited report that had made

false

claims about the findings of a pediatric trial testing Paxil, study

# 329:

That report misled doctors by stating the drug was found to be " well

tolerated and effective " for children.

The authors' false claims were refuted by the drug manufacturer's

internal

memorandum indicating that only the positive data from study 329

would be

published--not the negative findings.

The evidence that the report about study 329 was false led (then) NYS

Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, to file suit against

GlaxoKline, for

concealing the negative findings.

In the New York Times, Dr. Koplewicz compares children's alleged

problems to

AIDS: " It's like with AIDS. "

This is a demonstration of the assaultive tactics used by psychiatry

today--in particular, academic psychiatrists and university based

medical

centers that are under the influence of their pharmaceutical

partners.

The ad campaign has been formulated by BBDO, a major direct to

consumer

prescription drug advertising firm.

These modern snake oil salesmen pose a menace to children and they

should be

stopped.

We ask the NYS Attorney General's office to investigate.

If Dr. Koplewicz et al are not stopped, the campaign will be hitting

the

rest of the country:

" We're going to see how it goes in New York, " Dr. Koplewicz

said. " If it

goes well, we're going to go to four other cities. "

Reference:

Keller MB, ND, Strober M, Klein RG, Kutcher SP, Birmaher B,

Hagino OR,

Koplewicz H, Carlson GA, e GN, Emslie GJ, Feinberg D, Geller B,

Kusumakar V, Papatheodorou G, Sack WH, Sweeney M, Wagner KD, Weller

EB,

Winters NC, Oakes R, McCafferty JP. Efficacy of paroxetine in the

treatment

of adolescent major depression: A randomized, controlled trial.

Journal of

the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2001, 40:762-

772.

" THE New York office of BBDO Worldwide makes a belated entrance this

week

into one of the advertising industry's more lucrative categories

with the

creation of a division dedicated to pitching prescription drugs

directly to

consumers. " The New York Times: THE MEDIA BUSINESS: BBDO Worldwide

enters

the lucrative category of marketing prescription drugs to consumers.

by

COURTNEY KANE February 20, 2003.

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav

veracare@...

212-595-8974

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/business/media/14adco.html

The New York Times

December 14, 2007

Advertising

Campaign on Childhood Mental Illness Succeeds at Being Provocative

By JOANNE KAUFMAN

We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to

care for

himself or interact socially as long as he lives.

— Autism

SO reads one of the six " ransom notes " that make up a provocative

public

service campaign introduced this week by the New York University

Child

Study Center to raise awareness of what Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, the

center's founder and director, called " the silent public health

epidemic of

children's mental illness. "

Produced pro bono by BBDO, an Omnicom agency that worked on two

previous

campaigns for the Child Study Center, the campaign features scrawled

and

typed communiqués as well as simulations of classic ransom notes,

composed

of words clipped from a newspaper.

In addition to autism, there are ominous threats concerning

depression,

obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity

disorder,

Asperger's syndrome and bulimia . The campaign's overarching theme

is that

12 million children " are held hostage by a psychiatric disorder. "

The public service announcements began running this week in New York

magazine and Newsweek as well as on kiosks, billboards and

construction

sites around New York City.

" Children's mental disorders are truly the last great public health

problem

that has been left unaddressed, " said Dr. Koplewicz, adding: " It's

like with

AIDS . Everyone needs to be concerned and informed. "

In some quarters, however, the campaign has raised hackles as much as

awareness. The Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a national grass-roots

organization of children and adults, is circulating a petition

asking the

Child Study Center to end the campaign.

a Chew, founder of the blog Autism Vox ,

which has a link to the petition, says that " the reaction has been

mostly

outrage from parents of special-needs children, autistic adults,

teachers,

disability rights advocates and mental health professionals. "

" It's rallied them around one issue, and these aren't people who

normally

agree about treating autism, " said Ms. Chew, who lives in Bernards

Township,

N.J., and has a 10-year-old son with autism. She says her blog

attracts

3,000 to 4,000 visitors a day; traffic is up a third since the

campaign was

introduced, she said.

" It emphasizes a lot of negative aspects, " she said. " To say that

autism or

bulimia has kidnapped a child suggests that these conditions are

part of a

criminal element. I'm not saying it's easy to have an autistic

child, but it

could be framed in a more positive way. "

Vicki Forman, an adjunct professor of creative writing at the

University of

Southern California whose 7-year-old son is blind and nonverbal,

learned

about the campaign on Ms. Chew's blog and said it made her

distraught. " The

idea of an autistic person being held hostage is a very disturbing

and

backward image, " she said. " Rather than promote public awareness,

this

reinforces stereotypes — that there is something damaged about the

autistic

person, something in need of a repair. "

According to Dr. Koplewicz, the campaign was inspired by filmed

conversations of parents and children talking about life with a

psychiatric

disorder. " These families felt their children were trapped by their

disorders, " he said.

Osborn, the president and chief executive of BBDO New York,

said the

effort was intended to increase the sense of urgency about the

diseases and

encourage conversation. " It's tricky because there are a lot of

messages in

the air, particularly at holiday time. That makes it a challenge to

cut

through the clutter. "

BBDO's earlier ads for the Child Study Center — which included

images of a

child running happily through a sprinkler and a drawing of a child

caught in

a maze — " were wonderful, but they didn't get this kind of attention

from

anyone, " Dr. Koplewicz said. " They were too pleasant and innocuous.

That's

the reason we decided to go along with BBDO. "

He was further emboldened, he said, by the reaction of focus groups

of women

whose children have the disorders mentioned in the ads. " Everyone who

participated felt the ads were informative, " he said. " While we knew

the

campaign was edgy and we knew it would be harsh and upsetting, the

facts of

mental illness are even more upsetting.

" I am disappointed. I thought the people we'd be arguing with are

the people

who believe psychiatric illness doesn't exist " or those who believe

children

are being overmedicated, he said.

" I thought we'd be fighting ignorance. I didn't think we'd be

fighting adult

patients or the parents of patients whose feelings have been hurt. "

Etlinger of San Francisco is one such parent, but she

maintains that

hers is " not the P.C. outcry of an offended parent. "

" It's a legitimate claim that children with disabilities are

vulnerable

enough as it is, " said Ms. Etlinger, whose 4-year-old son has mild

autism.

" I think we need to take special care that they're not further

stigmatized.

This campaign characterizes them as a series of symptoms rather than

as the

unique people they are. "

L. Leventhal, a professor of psychiatry at the University of

Illinois Medical Center in Chicago, said he understood the parents'

dismay.

" We live in a world where people are still defensive about having a

psychiatric illness or having a child with psychiatric illnesses, "

he said.

" But I think it's a very bold campaign. I think the ads speak to the

point

that these are real diseases and if you don't do something they can

consume

your child. "

Dr. Koplewicz said he had not considered jettisoning the campaign,

but there

was some discussion about dropping its two most controversial

components:

the autism and Asperger's ads.

He decided to retain the ads after conferring with colleagues whose

attitude, he said, " was that some people would be upset but that we

should

stick with it and ride out the storm. "

" We're going to see how it goes in New York, " Dr. Koplewicz

said. " If it

goes well, we're going to go to four other cities. "

FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted (© ) material the use

of which

has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner.

Such

material is made available for educational purposes, to advance

understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral,

ethical, and

social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes

a 'fair

use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17

U.S.C.

section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed

without

profit.

> The NYU Center is listed as a resource on the Autism

Speaks website amd

> the head of the ad agency the created the campaign, the world

famous

> BBDO (Batten, Barton Durstin and Osborn) is a board member of

Autism

> Speaks. Well la di da! And the push to drug our children goes into

> high gear. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the NYU

center

> per se - I don't know anythinbg about them. But it IS a

psychiatric

> based center. In keeping with Autism Speaks' incessant drumbeat

that

> autism is a psychiatric disorder, which means not treatable

through

> medical means, but through psych drugs.

>

> Remember the lead doctors at Autism Speaks are psychiatrists and

their

> new head of " science " is a social scientist, a psychologist.

>

> Diagnosis code 299.0 ain't changing if AS has anything to do with

it....

>