Mental screening for young to begin

[Guest guest]

Mental screening for young to begin Mass. doctors to offer questionnaires for children on Medicaid By Carey Goldberg Globe Staff / December 27, 2007 "As of Monday, annual checkups for the nearly half a million Massachusetts children on Medicaid will carry a new requirement: Doctors must offer simple questionnaires to detect warning signs of possible mental health problems, from autism in toddlers to depression in teens...Supporters say the screening can catch issues earlier, before they develop into hard-to-manage crises...Skeptics warn that more children could end up on heavy-duty medications that they don't really need." http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/12/27/mental_screening_for_young_to_begin/?page=1

[Guest guest]

Shriek.

http://tinyurl.com/ytzwve

http://www.edwatch.org/

The alert below appeared beneath a graphic used in promotional

material describing government plans to further a pharma-concocted

mental health screening program for toddlers and infants. This

program was not initially meant to include screening for autism

until the FDA approved Risperdal for use in children with " autistic

symptoms " . It's just a thinly veiled manner to corral children into

psychiatropic drug treatment at younger and younger ages:

November 23, 2005

The above shocking graphic is from a federally funded

coalition of academic institutions centered at UCLA promoting early

childhood mental health. It should remove any remaining shred of

doubt that the federal government is moving to implement a universal

system of mental health screening, intervention, and monitoring,

beginning with our very youngest children. This program is called

the State Early Childhood Comprehensive System (SECCS), administered

by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) and the

Administration for Children and Families (ACF). The paper containing

the graphic is all about infant mental health, as well as the

integration of mental health into early childhood programs.

The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (NFC) report

was bad enough, suggesting mental health screening and intervention

should begin in preschool to ensure that children are ready for

school. This UCLA document, however, demonstrates the clear

presumption of government to interfere in the mental and emotional

lives of citizens from birth on.

In addition to this document, the federal agency (SAMHSA)

that administers the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission,

has issued its action plans. These plans, called the Federal Mental

Health Action Agenda ( FMHAA), are also in line with the UCLA

planning document shown above.

The federal Action Agenda says that their Prevention and

Early Intervention Grant Program is designed to develop mental

health promotion and early intervention services targeted to

infants, toddlers, preschool, and school-aged children, and/or to

adolescents in mental health care settings and other programs that

serve children and adolescents.

The Action Agenda, in describing this infant mental health

program, also states: State Maternal and Child Health Early

Childhood Comprehensive Systems Grants will bring in other Federal

partners to plan for and develop statewide systems of care to

support the healthy social and emotional development of childrenIn

particular, grants support the development of a State plan that

addresses access to health insurance and regular primary care

services, mental health and social-emotional development

interventions, early child care and educational supports, and parent

education and family support.

This program integrates mental health into early childhood

programs. Several state early learning standards and national Head

Start standards include vague, subjective, and controversial social

and emotional outcomes, such as Develops ability to identify

personal characteristics including gender and family composition.

Standards like these, beside violating parental roles, cause

psychological harm by involving young children in highly

controversial sexual and social issues that are completely

inappropriate for their developmental level.

Notice in the graphic above that screening is the very first

service listed to promote infant mental health under

universal/preventive services. The explanatory text then says,

Universal/Preventive Services - are aimed at improving child

development, parenting, knowledge and behavior, and infant mental

health for all families within their service range. The number one

policy recommendation in this document is to Integrate Infant Mental

Health into all child and family service systems. They then state

their rationale: Pediatric, early care and education, and family

support providers have roles in providing education, conducting

assessment, performing interventions, and care management.

Regardless of whether ones child is considered at risk, even

by the undefined criteria used in the above quote; regardless of

whether parents plan to avoid public preschool or education

programs; and regardless of where a child is at home, at the doctors

office, in preschool or daycare, or any government child health or

education program -- to these bureaucrats, ALL means ALL.

The federal Action Plan goes on to say, Propose a

comprehensive approach at the Federal and State levels for the

appropriate intervention for children identified to be at risk for

mental disorders in early childhood settings. Even if it was

constitutionally proper for the federal government to intervene in

childrens mental health, intervention means almost exclusively

chemical intervention with psychotropic drugs. This is true because

government programs rarely pay for any kind of therapy other than

medication. In addition, the pharmaceutical industry, mental health

advocacy groups, and professional organizations all want their share

of profits and government grants.

Dr. Willis, Medical Director of the Northwest Early

Childhood Institute in Portland, Oregon, and a key opinion leader

with influence on government policies affecting children's mental

health, confirmed the primacy of medications in childrens mental

health when he said in January, 2004 Pediatric News,

Psychopharmacology is on the horizon as preventive therapy for

children with genetic susceptibility to mental health problems.

Apparently it makes no difference to infant and childhood

mental health proponents that accurate diagnosis, safety, and

efficacy of medications is nearly non-existent in very young

children. In 2001, Dr. Benedetto Vitiello, director of Child and

Adolescent Treatment and Preventive Interventions Research Branch

for the National Institutes of Mental Health, acknowledged the

diagnostic uncertainty surrounding most manifestations of

psychopathology in early childhood. [10/2001, " Psychopharmacology

for Young Children: Clinical Needs and Research Opportunities

Pediatrics, " Vol. 108, No. 4, pp. 983-989] Every drug mentioned in

the Texas Medication Algorithm Project as recommended by the NFC is

under a black box warning, the FDAs most serious warning before a

ban.

The mental health establishment and their Congressional and

bureaucratic apologists, have with vehement and vitriolic statements

denied the concept of universal mental health screening programs:

Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH), chairman of the Labor/HHS/Education

Appropriations Subcommittee during floor debate on the

amendment against coerced screening:

We have never proposed in appropriations any program of universal

mental screening, and all it does really, this amendment, is to

stigmatize the issue of mental health. The sponsor mentions $26

million, and let me point out that the funds provided in this bill

that respond to recommendations put forward in the final report of

the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, `'Achieving

the Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America,'' go toward

State incentive grants for transformation to support the development

of comprehensive State mental health plans, and has absolutely no

funding included for universal mental health screening.

Anyone looking at the government funded graphic shown above

can see that these denials are useless. They would be comical if the

incalculable damage done by scientifically invalid, dangerous, and

ineffective screening and treatment programs to the lives of

children, parental rights and freedom in general was not so

enormously tragic. Thousands of children have been injured or killed

by dangerous and ineffective medications prescribed after being

falsely labeled mentally ill by these vague and dubious screening

programs.

Although parental consent for any kind of screening and

stopping coerced medication are vital, the even more immediate issue

is to fight back against the presumption that any government local,

state, or federal -- has the right to screen, treat, or intervene in

the emotional life of any citizen, much less an innocent and

vulnerable infant. Here and now, EdWatch is sounding the alarm. Will

you join with us to protect the lives and minds of your babies?

These wretched programs must be dismantled. The US House

rejected the massive Labor/HHS/Education Appropriations bill last

week. In that funding bill, the state incentive transformation

grants to implement the NFC recommendations and the federal Action

Plan (FMHAA) were slated to receive $6 million more in funding this

year than last. A Senate inspired demonstration project for mental

health screening was also included.

Please stay tuned for more information on this, as well as

what can be done to fight early child mental health. Because funding

action is very fluid in Washington at this time, it may actually be

possible for the outcome to change. If there is no final compromise

on the full funding bill, due to hurricane and war costs, these and

other infant and child mental health programs would continue to be

funded at the same level as last year, instead of being increased.

It is not impossible that one or more of these terrible programs

could be eliminated altogether.

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