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dbeach Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-01-05 10:00 AM
Original message
"No Child Left Un-drugged"
Uncle Sam wants U AND YOUR KIDS TOO!!

http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=15
No Child Left Un-drugged

"Tell a friend about this campaign!Congressman Ron Paul, a physician by profession, has sponsored HR 181. Here's how he explains his cause … A presidential initiative called The “New Freedom Commission on Mental Health” has issued a report recommending forced mental health screening for every child in America, including preschool children. The goal is to promote the patently false idea that we have a nation of children with undiagnosed mental disorders crying out for treatment.

One obvious beneficiary of the proposal is the pharmaceutical industry, which is eager to sell the psychotropic drugs that undoubtedly will be prescribed to millions of American schoolchildren under the new screening program. Of course a tiny minority of children suffer from legitimate mental illnesses, but the widespread use of Ritalin and other drugs on youngsters who simply exhibit typical rambunctious, fidgety, and impatient behavior is nothing short of criminal. It may be easier to teach and parent drugged kids, but convenience is no justification for endangering them. Children's brains are still developing, and the truth is we have no idea what the long-term side effects of psychiatric drugs may be. Medical science has not even exhaustively identified every possible brain chemical, even as we alter those chemicals with drugs.

Dr. Karen Effrem, a physician who strongly opposes mandatory mental health screening, warns us that “America's children should not be medicated by expensive, ineffective, and dangerous medications based on vague and dubious diagnoses.” She points out that psychiatric diagnoses are inherently subjective, as authors of the diagnostic manuals admit. She also is concerned that mental health screening could be used to label children whose attitudes, religious beliefs, and political views conflict with the secular orthodoxy that dominates our schools.


… Parents must do everything possible to retain responsibility and control over their children's well-being. There is no end to the bureaucratic appetite to rule every aspect of our lives, including how we raise our children. Forced mental health screening is just the latest of many state usurpations of parental authority: compulsory education laws, politically-correct school curricula, mandatory vaccines, and interference with discipline through phony “social services” agencies all represent assaults on families. The political right has now joined the political left in seeking the de facto nationalization of children, and only informed resistance by parents can stop it. The federal government is slowly but surely destroying real families, but it is hardly a benevolent surrogate parent."
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derby378 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-01-05 10:03 AM
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1. I've been diagnosed with ADHD under DSM-IV
I was medicated for it as a child, but this was back in the day when people thought kids "grew out" of hyperactivity. No such luck.

I can't comment further on this until I get a good read on this mental health initiative, but there is a fine line between "Big Brother" intrusion and looking out for the future welfare of a child who needs a little extra help due to neurologic or psychiatric needs.
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dbeach Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Sep-01-05 11:32 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. oh yeh.
work in the field myself..worried that big bro is sticking his nose where it should not be apokin..we have many ways of detecting any psyche problems and the motivation behind this bill is highly suspect...
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