"New Freedom Commission" labels kids mentally ill for profit?

Citing recommendations by the New Freedom Commission
on Mental Health (NFC), Bush wants to launch a
nationwide mental illness screening program in
government institutions, including the public school
system, for all students from kindergarten up to the
12th grade.

The New Freedom Commission was established by an
Executive Order Bush issued on April 29, 2002.
According to a July 22, 2003, press release, the
Commission recommends transforming America’s mental
health care system.

“Achieving this goal will require greater engagement
and education of first line health care providers -
primary care practitioners - and a greater focus on
mental health care in institutions such as schools,
child welfare programs, and the criminal and juvenile
justice systems. The goal is integrated care that can
screen, identify, and respond to problems early,” the
Commission’s press release stated.

According to the NFC, its recommendations are being
already being promoted in Alaska; Arizona; Arkansas;
California; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; Florida;
Georgia; Hawaii; Idaho; Illinois; Indiana; Kansas;
Kentucky; Louisiana; Maryland; Massachusetts;
Michigan; Montana; Nebraska; New Hampshire; New
Jersey; New Mexico; New York; North Carolina; North
Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; South Carolina; Tennessee;
Texas; Utah; Virginia; Washington; West Virginia;
Wisconsin; and Wyoming.

The truth is, this is nothing but another Bush
profiteering scheme to implement a drug treatment
program for use in the public institutions that will
generate high volume sales of the relatively new, but
inadequately tested, high-priced psychiatric drugs. If
all goes as planned, the scheme will generate millions
of new customers for the drug companies.

Original Scheme Hatched In Texas

The commission’s final report identifies what it
claims are several model programs as examples of how
aspects of mental health care have been transformed in
selected communities.

One program is the Texas Medication Algorithm Project
(TMAP), a medication treatment program that screens
people for mental illness and then prescribes highly
profitably psychiatric drugs.

However, the plan came under intense scrutiny when it
was implemented in the state of Pennsylvania. A
whistle-blower by the name of Allen Jones,* who was an
employee of the Pennsylvania office of Inspector
General, published a report that described how medical
leaders in Pennsylvania who controlled the medication
plan, received payments from the drug companies who
were going to benefit from the plan.


Through the Texas scheme, drug companies were able to
gain unlimited access to the Texas prison system,
juvenile justice system, foster care program, and
state mental health hospitals, to recruit new
customers.

In Texas, the list of medications to be prescribed was
established by what was termed, an “expert consensus,”
and drugs recommended for first line treatment,
included high-priced drugs such as Paxil, Zyprexa,
Adderall, Zoloft, Risperdal, Seroqual, Depakote,
Prozac, Wellbutron, Zyban, Remeron, Serzone, and
Effexor.

After securing access to the public systems, the next
step in the Texas scheme was to get lawmakers to pass
legislation to increase Medicaid coverage to persons
who ordinarily would not qualify, in order to provide
funding by way of tax dollars to pay for the drugs
prescribed to customers within theses systems.

The fact is, our children are already being
overmedicated. According to a May, 2003 report by the
New York Times, "National sales of anti-psychotics
reached $6.4 billion in 2002, making them the
fourth-highest-selling class of drugs, behind
cholesterol-lowering drugs, ulcer drugs and
antidepressants.”

The number of children on antidepressant medication
increased by over 500% between 1999 and 2003.
Antidepressants and anti-psychotics now constitute two
of the four top classes of drug sales.

For example, Zyprexa is manufactured by Eli Lilly and
is one of the drugs on the list in Texas. In 2002,
according to the watchdog group, NDC Health, "more
than 7.4 million prescriptions were written for
Zyprexa."

In 2003, it became Eli Lilly’s top seller with
worldwide sales of over $4 billion. According to the
New York Times, 70% of the Zyprexa purchased in the US
that year, was paid for by government programs like
Medicare and Medicaid.

Eli Lilly has well-known ties to the Bush
administration. After he left the CIA in 1977, Bush
Senior became a member of Lilly's board of directors.
When he left the company to become Vice President
under Reagan in 1980, he forgot to mention that he
owned stock in the company at the same time that he
was lobbying for tax breaks for the company even
though it manufactured drugs in Puerto Rico. Bush
Junior made Eli Lilly CEO, Sidney Taurel, a member of
the Homeland Security Council.

During the 2000 presidential election year, Lilly gave
over $1.5 million to political candidates and over 80%
that $1.5 million went to Bush and other Republican
candidates.

Many members of the New Freedom Commission also have
ties to the pharmaceutical industry and have served on
drug company advisory boards.

What’s In Store For Us

The NFC appointed 15 subcommittees to review of the
mental health service delivery system and appointed a
Chair for each one. Several other Commissioners served
on each subcommittee, and chose experts to provide
advice and support. The experts prepared discussion
papers that outlined key issues and presented policy
options for consideration by the full subcommittee.
The subcommittee reported to the full Commission only
in summary form, on which the full Commission reached
a consensus on the policy options that would be
included in its final report entitled, “Achieving the
Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America.”

A February 5, 2003, summary report by the Policy
Options Subcommittee on Medicaid, began by stating,
“An effective and comprehensive mental health system
must rely on many sources of financing. Many States
have made significant use of flexibility in the
Medicaid program to support their systems of care.
This has resulted in Medicaid being the largest payer
of public mental health services in the country.”

The report outlined the following recommendations:

Enhance Service Delivery

1. Public financing should support evidenced-based
practices that are necessary and effective for
successful community living.

2. Medicaid financial incentives and opportunities
for the most appropriate community-based care should
be increased.

Enhance Service Planning and Coordination

1. Federal leadership should guide and facilitate
improved planning among State agencies that fund and
implement services for persons with mental illness.

2. The federal government should assure proper data
collection and reporting to facilitate and support
mental health planning and quality management at all
levels of the public mental health system.

One February 5, 2003, report by a subcommittee titled,
Promoting, Preserving and Restoring Children’s Mental
Heath, began in part, by saying, “Mental health
problems among children and adolescents constitute a
public health crisis for our nation. ... The extent,
severity, and far-reaching consequences of mental
health problems in children and adolescents make it
imperative that our nation adopt a comprehensive,
systematic, public health approach to improving the
mental health status of children,” the report said.

The approach, the report advised, should focus on
“both strengthening services and supports for children
with serious emotional disorders and their families,
and on prevention and early intervention strategies
for all children.”

The subcommittee wanted the Federal and State
governments to formulate a plan to (1) implement a
cross-agency, comprehensive, public health approach
for children’s mental health at Federal and State
levels; (2) strengthen children’s mental health focus
in State governments; and (3) establish a Federal
interagency entity for children’s mental health.

As for funding, the subcommittee said: “Federal and
state agencies and commercial insurers should realign
funding policies related to children’s mental health
to support a comprehensive array of services and
supports, including home and community based services
and supports that are individualized, family focused,
coordinated, and culturally competent.”

The subcommittee specified that a plan should be
developed for Medicaid to support home and
community-based services and support and
individualized care, and maximize strategies to
provide coverage and mental health care to uninsured
children.

In addition, the subcommittee wanted the government to
provide technical assistance related to more efficient
and effective implementation of early and periodic
screening, diagnosis, and treatment (EPSDT).

Here’s good one. The subcommittee we should
strengthen Federal and State requirements for family
participation. “Federal and state governments should
promote a broader concept of “mental health” services
for children and adolescents with emotional disorders
and their families,” it advised.

“Recognizing that children receive more services
through schools than any other public system,” the
report recommended that “federal, state, and local
agencies should more fully recognize and address the
mental health needs of youth in the education system,”
it advised. “Likewise, these agencies should work
collaboratively with families and develop, evaluate,
and disseminate effective approaches for providing
mental health services and supports to youth in
schools,” it wrote.

The subcommittee recommended training teachers and
school personnel to recognize signs of emotional
problems in children and to make appropriate referrals
for assessment and services. “Systematic screening
procedures to identify ... problems and treatment
needs should be implemented in specific settings in
which youngsters are at high risk for emotional
disorders or where there is known to be a high
prevalence of these or co-occurring mental health and
substance abuse disorders,” according to the report.

And get this! Anyone involved in the juvenile justice
system or welfare system is really in for trouble.
“Screening should be implemented upon entry into, and
periodically thereafter in, the juvenile justice and
child welfare systems, as well as in other settings
and populations with known high risk, such as the
Medicaid population. When mental health problems are
identified, youth should be linked with appropriate
services and supports,” the report advised.

This gang of thugs is even coming up with ways to make
money off infants shortly after they enter the world.
This particular report recommends screening for all
children ages 0 to 5 for social and emotional
development as part of primary health care visits.

Mega-Bucks For Shrinks

Dr Jane Orient, the Executive Director of the
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)
has a few things to say about this latest profiteering
scheme. "Teams of experts are awaiting an infusion of
cash,” she says, “They'll be ensconced in your child's
school before you even know it.”

Orient says an added “bonus is that your little
darlings will probably give them quite a bit of
information about you also, and then you can receive
therapy you didn't know you needed."

According to Orient, kids will be asked invasive
personal questions like whether their parents raise
their voice, or “Ever spank them? Have politically
incorrect attitudes? Use forbidden words? Own a gun?
Smoke cigarettes, especially indoors? Read extremist
literature? Refuse to recycle? Prepare for a knock at
the door."

The answers to these questions could lead to a home
visit with parents, and accusations of "poor parenting
skills, inadequate housekeeping, harmful literature,
or a baby who is crying. ...," Orient warns.

She lists the many tools at the disposal of what she
calls "the mental health squad," including
"Counseling sessions. Drugs. Group therapy. Removing
the child from the home." Although removing a child
from the home is listed as a last resort, the mere
threat of it "can accomplish wonders," Orient noted.

According to the he University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Student Health Center, privacy rights are essentially
being ignored. The center is telling patients that if
government agencies want to see their medical records,
they get to review them without a patient’s knowledge
or consent. "By law we cannot reveal when we have
disclosed such information to the government," the
center advised.

Screen Those In Dire Need First

If you want to see mental illness, just go knock on
the door of the White House, or the Bush‘s home in
Crawford, Texas. I recommend that we start this
mandatory screening program with the Bush family.

Lets find some treatment for their deep-seeded mental
health problems. For instance, what rotten things
happened in the Bush home that drove the twins to
start drinking excessively while under age. And what
emotional problems caused them to intentionally
embarrass their father in a matter of months after he
took office.

Then lets screen the President’s nieces and nephews to
see why Jeb’s kids find it appropriate to forge
prescriptions for drugs, and why his son would engage
in underage sex in a car parked in a public shopping
center lot. Or why Jeb’s wife would try to smuggle in
goods from other countries without paying the fees.

Then lets move on to brother Neil and have him
screened to find out what compelled him to have sex
with strange women who showed up at his motel room
door in foreign countries, which resulted in a case of
incurable VD. And let’s find out what possessed him
to have an affair with his mother’s secretary while
both parties were still very married..

Next, let’s line up members of the Bush administration
and find out what compulsions need eradicating. Then
let’s continue on to the officials at the FDA and
figure out what happened to their consciences, which
allow them to promote medicating kids for profits.

Freedom My Butt

Granted, the "New Freedom Commission" is a catchy
title. However, words can be very deceptive. I fail
to see how forcing people to undergo mental health
testing can possibly represent freedom, or how
drugging people for profit can hardly be viewed as a
form of freedom.

I agree with an article I read on NewsTarget.com that
said, “these people have lost their minds in a mad
attempt to generate obscene profits regardless of the
cost to human life, individual privacy, and human
rights.”

Evelyn Pringle
e.pringle@sbcglobal.net
Miamisburg OH

(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media
TV and an investigative journalist focused on exposing
corruption in government)

* To the millions of doctors, parents and patients who
will be affected, Allen Jones says educate yourselves.
The Internet has many sites that will help you. The
Alliance for Human Research Protection, www.ahrp.org
would be a good place to start.

©†ƒ……•™¼‡_Original_Message_¾€š½ž¢«»¬ï°©



Citing recommendations by the New Freedom Commission
on Mental Health (NFC), Bush wants to launch a
nationwide mental illness screening program in
government institutions, including the public school
system, for all students from kindergarten up to the
12th grade.

The New Freedom Commission was established by an
Executive Order Bush issued on April 29, 2002.
According to a July 22, 2003, press release, the
Commission recommends transforming America’s mental
health care system.

“Achieving this goal will require greater engagement
and education of first line health care providers -
primary care practitioners - and a greater focus on
mental health care in institutions such as schools,
child welfare programs, and the criminal and juvenile
justice systems. The goal is integrated care that can
screen, identify, and respond to problems early,” the
Commission’s press release stated.

According to the NFC, its recommendations are being
already being promoted in Alaska; Arizona; Arkansas;
California; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; Florida;
Georgia; Hawaii; Idaho; Illinois; Indiana; Kansas;
Kentucky; Louisiana; Maryland; Massachusetts;
Michigan; Montana; Nebraska; New Hampshire; New
Jersey; New Mexico; New York; North Carolina; North
Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; South Carolina; Tennessee;
Texas; Utah; Virginia; Washington; West Virginia;
Wisconsin; and Wyoming.

The truth is, this is nothing but another Bush
profiteering scheme to implement a drug treatment
program for use in the public institutions that will
generate high volume sales of the relatively new, but
inadequately tested, high-priced psychiatric drugs. If
all goes as planned, the scheme will generate millions
of new customers for the drug companies.

Original Scheme Hatched In Texas

The commission’s final report identifies what it
claims are several model programs as examples of how
aspects of mental health care have been transformed in
selected communities.

One program is the Texas Medication Algorithm Project
(TMAP), a medication treatment program that screens
people for mental illness and then prescribes highly
profitably psychiatric drugs.

However, the plan came under intense scrutiny when it
was implemented in the state of Pennsylvania. A
whistle-blower by the name of Allen Jones,* who was an
employee of the Pennsylvania office of Inspector
General, published a report that described how medical
leaders in Pennsylvania who controlled the medication
plan, received payments from the drug companies who
were going to benefit from the plan.


Through the Texas scheme, drug companies were able to
gain unlimited access to the Texas prison system,
juvenile justice system, foster care program, and
state mental health hospitals, to recruit new
customers.

In Texas, the list of medications to be prescribed was
established by what was termed, an “expert consensus,”
and drugs recommended for first line treatment,
included high-priced drugs such as Paxil, Zyprexa,
Adderall, Zoloft, Risperdal, Seroqual, Depakote,
Prozac, Wellbutron, Zyban, Remeron, Serzone, and
Effexor.

After securing access to the public systems, the next
step in the Texas scheme was to get lawmakers to pass
legislation to increase Medicaid coverage to persons
who ordinarily would not qualify, in order to provide
funding by way of tax dollars to pay for the drugs
prescribed to customers within theses systems.

The fact is, our children are already being
overmedicated. According to a May, 2003 report by the
New York Times, "National sales of anti-psychotics
reached $6.4 billion in 2002, making them the
fourth-highest-selling class of drugs, behind
cholesterol-lowering drugs, ulcer drugs and
antidepressants.”

The number of children on antidepressant medication
increased by over 500% between 1999 and 2003.
Antidepressants and anti-psychotics now constitute two
of the four top classes of drug sales.

For example, Zyprexa is manufactured by Eli Lilly and
is one of the drugs on the list in Texas. In 2002,
according to the watchdog group, NDC Health, "more
than 7.4 million prescriptions were written for
Zyprexa."

In 2003, it became Eli Lilly’s top seller with
worldwide sales of over $4 billion. According to the
New York Times, 70% of the Zyprexa purchased in the US
that year, was paid for by government programs like
Medicare and Medicaid.

Eli Lilly has well-known ties to the Bush
administration. After he left the CIA in 1977, Bush
Senior became a member of Lilly's board of directors.
When he left the company to become Vice President
under Reagan in 1980, he forgot to mention that he
owned stock in the company at the same time that he
was lobbying for tax breaks for the company even
though it manufactured drugs in Puerto Rico. Bush
Junior made Eli Lilly CEO, Sidney Taurel, a member of
the Homeland Security Council.

During the 2000 presidential election year, Lilly gave
over $1.5 million to political candidates and over 80%
that $1.5 million went to Bush and other Republican
candidates.

Many members of the New Freedom Commission also have
ties to the pharmaceutical industry and have served on
drug company advisory boards.

What’s In Store For Us

The NFC appointed 15 subcommittees to review of the
mental health service delivery system and appointed a
Chair for each one. Several other Commissioners served
on each subcommittee, and chose experts to provide
advice and support. The experts prepared discussion
papers that outlined key issues and presented policy
options for consideration by the full subcommittee.
The subcommittee reported to the full Commission only
in summary form, on which the full Commission reached
a consensus on the policy options that would be
included in its final report entitled, “Achieving the
Promise: Transforming Mental Health Care in America.”

A February 5, 2003, summary report by the Policy
Options Subcommittee on Medicaid, began by stating,
“An effective and comprehensive mental health system
must rely on many sources of financing. Many States
have made significant use of flexibility in the
Medicaid program to support their systems of care.
This has resulted in Medicaid being the largest payer
of public mental health services in the country.”

The report outlined the following recommendations:

Enhance Service Delivery

1. Public financing should support evidenced-based
practices that are necessary and effective for
successful community living.

2. Medicaid financial incentives and opportunities
for the most appropriate community-based care should
be increased.

Enhance Service Planning and Coordination

1. Federal leadership should guide and facilitate
improved planning among State agencies that fund and
implement services for persons with mental illness.

2. The federal government should assure proper data
collection and reporting to facilitate and support
mental health planning and quality management at all
levels of the public mental health system.

One February 5, 2003, report by a subcommittee titled,
Promoting, Preserving and Restoring Children’s Mental
Heath, began in part, by saying, “Mental health
problems among children and adolescents constitute a
public health crisis for our nation. ... The extent,
severity, and far-reaching consequences of mental
health problems in children and adolescents make it
imperative that our nation adopt a comprehensive,
systematic, public health approach to improving the
mental health status of children,” the report said.

The approach, the report advised, should focus on
“both strengthening services and supports for children
with serious emotional disorders and their families,
and on prevention and early intervention strategies
for all children.”

The subcommittee wanted the Federal and State
governments to formulate a plan to (1) implement a
cross-agency, comprehensive, public health approach
for children’s mental health at Federal and State
levels; (2) strengthen children’s mental health focus
in State governments; and (3) establish a Federal
interagency entity for children’s mental health.

As for funding, the subcommittee said: “Federal and
state agencies and commercial insurers should realign
funding policies related to children’s mental health
to support a comprehensive array of services and
supports, including home and community based services
and supports that are individualized, family focused,
coordinated, and culturally competent.”

The subcommittee specified that a plan should be
developed for Medicaid to support home and
community-based services and support and
individualized care, and maximize strategies to
provide coverage and mental health care to uninsured
children.

In addition, the subcommittee wanted the government to
provide technical assistance related to more efficient
and effective implementation of early and periodic
screening, diagnosis, and treatment (EPSDT).

Here’s good one. The subcommittee we should
strengthen Federal and State requirements for family
participation. “Federal and state governments should
promote a broader concept of “mental health” services
for children and adolescents with emotional disorders
and their families,” it advised.

“Recognizing that children receive more services
through schools than any other public system,” the
report recommended that “federal, state, and local
agencies should more fully recognize and address the
mental health needs of youth in the education system,”
it advised. “Likewise, these agencies should work
collaboratively with families and develop, evaluate,
and disseminate effective approaches for providing
mental health services and supports to youth in
schools,” it wrote.

The subcommittee recommended training teachers and
school personnel to recognize signs of emotional
problems in children and to make appropriate referrals
for assessment and services. “Systematic screening
procedures to identify ... problems and treatment
needs should be implemented in specific settings in
which youngsters are at high risk for emotional
disorders or where there is known to be a high
prevalence of these or co-occurring mental health and
substance abuse disorders,” according to the report.

And get this! Anyone involved in the juvenile justice
system or welfare system is really in for trouble.
“Screening should be implemented upon entry into, and
periodically thereafter in, the juvenile justice and
child welfare systems, as well as in other settings
and populations with known high risk, such as the
Medicaid population. When mental health problems are
identified, youth should be linked with appropriate
services and supports,” the report advised.

This gang of thugs is even coming up with ways to make
money off infants shortly after they enter the world.
This particular report recommends screening for all
children ages 0 to 5 for social and emotional
development as part of primary health care visits.

Mega-Bucks For Shrinks

Dr Jane Orient, the Executive Director of the
Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)
has a few things to say about this latest profiteering
scheme. "Teams of experts are awaiting an infusion of
cash,” she says, “They'll be ensconced in your child's
school before you even know it.”

Orient says an added “bonus is that your little
darlings will probably give them quite a bit of
information about you also, and then you can receive
therapy you didn't know you needed."

According to Orient, kids will be asked invasive
personal questions like whether their parents raise
their voice, or “Ever spank them? Have politically
incorrect attitudes? Use forbidden words? Own a gun?
Smoke cigarettes, especially indoors? Read extremist
literature? Refuse to recycle? Prepare for a knock at
the door."

The answers to these questions could lead to a home
visit with parents, and accusations of "poor parenting
skills, inadequate housekeeping, harmful literature,
or a baby who is crying. ...," Orient warns.

She lists the many tools at the disposal of what she
calls "the mental health squad," including
"Counseling sessions. Drugs. Group therapy. Removing
the child from the home." Although removing a child
from the home is listed as a last resort, the mere
threat of it "can accomplish wonders," Orient noted.

According to the he University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Student Health Center, privacy rights are essentially
being ignored. The center is telling patients that if
government agencies want to see their medical records,
they get to review them without a patient’s knowledge
or consent. "By law we cannot reveal when we have
disclosed such information to the government," the
center advised.

Screen Those In Dire Need First

If you want to see mental illness, just go knock on
the door of the White House, or the Bush‘s home in
Crawford, Texas. I recommend that we start this
mandatory screening program with the Bush family.

Lets find some treatment for their deep-seeded mental
health problems. For instance, what rotten things
happened in the Bush home that drove the twins to
start drinking excessively while under age. And what
emotional problems caused them to intentionally
embarrass their father in a matter of months after he
took office.

Then lets screen the President’s nieces and nephews to
see why Jeb’s kids find it appropriate to forge
prescriptions for drugs, and why his son would engage
in underage sex in a car parked in a public shopping
center lot. Or why Jeb’s wife would try to smuggle in
goods from other countries without paying the fees.

Then lets move on to brother Neil and have him
screened to find out what compelled him to have sex
with strange women who showed up at his motel room
door in foreign countries, which resulted in a case of
incurable VD. And let’s find out what possessed him
to have an affair with his mother’s secretary while
both parties were still very married..

Next, let’s line up members of the Bush administration
and find out what compulsions need eradicating. Then
let’s continue on to the officials at the FDA and
figure out what happened to their consciences, which
allow them to promote medicating kids for profits.

Freedom My Butt

Granted, the "New Freedom Commission" is a catchy
title. However, words can be very deceptive. I fail
to see how forcing people to undergo mental health
testing can possibly represent freedom, or how
drugging people for profit can hardly be viewed as a
form of freedom.

I agree with an article I read on NewsTarget.com that
said, “these people have lost their minds in a mad
attempt to generate obscene profits regardless of the
cost to human life, individual privacy, and human
rights.”

Evelyn Pringle
e.pringle@sbcglobal.net
Miamisburg OH

(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media
TV and an investigative journalist focused on exposing
corruption in government)

* To the millions of doctors, parents and patients who
will be affected, Allen Jones says educate yourselves.
The Internet has many sites that will help you. The
Alliance for Human Research Protection, www.ahrp.org
would be a good place to start.
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