Mandatory Psychological Testing and Treatment of Children

I have stumbled across an issue that has flown completely under my radar but srikes a chord of outrage like none I have come across (keep in mind, I'm with the MIHOP train of thought, this to me, is worse). My Government may soon attempt to force me to allow my children to undergo pschological testing and, if they deem appropriate, treatment by administering psychotropic drugs.

Appearantly, a commission exists that has issued a report calling for the "psychiatric screening of American Schoolchildren". (1) The name of this commission is the “New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.” I have visited there website and downloaded a copy of thier report. (2) I strongly urge you to do the same. Don't allow my personal outrage and bias to affect you, I want you to read this with an open mind. I would like you to analyze this thouroughly and without passion. I am livid right now so I would like some comment on this to sort of settle me down.

These are the links to information on this topic

Website of Congressman Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk Weekly Column
(1) http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2005/tst013105.htm

The Interim Report of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health
(2) http://www.mentalhealthcommission.gov/reports/Interim_Report.htm#P96_16353

The Blog of The Green Latern entitled " Orwellian Forced Mental Screening: No Child Left Unmedicated"
http://thegreenlantern.blogspot.com/2005/03/orwellian-forced-mental-screening.html

The Heartland Institute's website entitled "Commentary: No Child Left Unmedicated"
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16574

Please take a moment and offer your opinion on this topic.

Sincerely,
Michael Lewis

late last year. It's really disgusting. They could ask these kids question's that they could see as being "democrat" or "liberal" and put them in a mental home because of it and try controlling. That's what I'm afraid of. :scared:

before the election. Seems to be one issue we agree on (at least the more independent Republican types)

kids would benefit greatly from an evaluation.

On the other hand, this could be a way of government medicating us into submission.

psychological testing of school children without parental consent..it is the parental consent issue that should be of concern. At present, no testing can occur without the parent being informed and with signed parental consent..and this is all school testing..to include vision, hearing, etc. It is this "parental consent" wording that has been excluded..and is what we should all be the most concerned about when it comes to psychological testing of our children.

,...are who will be contracted to do the testing and evaluations and whether this testing intrudes upon parental rights/responsibilities. Moreover, are there any due process protections included in this legislation.

On edit: I am serious about why the adults aren't being tested first. I would vote to have every "representative" go through a thorough evaluation.

posted here awhile back, really needs sigs:

http://www.thelibertycommittee.org/pcapetition.htm

But also adults working in the schools.

... of presidents?

Sorry, I don't mean to make light of this issue.

This twit-in-chief's goal would seem twofold:

1) To medicate the next generation into submission

2) To increase pharma's profits

I'll contact my representative and pass this info on... thanks for posting this.

it would logically follow ...

Anyway, I doubt if they will be able to enforce this mandate, which will surely be unfunded, as are the bulk of their NCLB mandates. Plus, such enforcement will certainly be subject to years of court challenges all over the country if they try.

,...it would be FANTASTIC!!!!

However, I suspect there are profiteers/cronies beyond merely the pharmeceutical industry.

I don't have the time to research it right now- and I don't believe I need to back up every educated opinion I post here with research, however I will try to look it up later as to which companies/industries were the largest donors to the author/s of that provision.

I'm not saying that other cronies won't profit from labeling an additional hundreds of thousands of children with various diagnosis, but the pharmeceutical industry is a multi-million dollar industry. Perscribing common medications, such as ritalin, etc for the expected additional dignosis is the cheapest and quickest treatment "solution" (although not neccessarily the best course for all). This industry would benefit nationally. Other treatment programs outside of perscription medications are far more expensive will have to rely on additional subsidized state and medicaid funds to provide "mandatory" treatment because of such legislation- which will not be there.

in addition to the drug companies and potential HMOs which offer alternative non-pharmaceutical treatment programs.

btw: My challenge wasn't intended to be personal, just explorative with some basis in fact. ;)

It's most often school-based teams, such as school psychologist, speech/language pathologist, school social worker, with input from the child's pediatrician and family. If they were to farm that out on a regular basis it would create a whole new 'industry' and the funds aren't there to pay for that. As it is already, most school districts across the country can barely keep up with the caseload of students that they already have to deal with.

Oh, and no problem with the 'challenge'. I didn't take it personally. :)

They actually wrote most of the legislation...Their goal being 50% of all school age children on psychotropics, up from the current 10% of today. This was leaked out years ago by insiders with a conscience who sat in on the industry meetings.

But don't blame the Repugs for this one ....Dem support was overwhelming. Ron Paul actually tried to add last minute provisions, to require parental consent...as usual he was ignored.

welcome to the new freedom!

in July. Am I wrong on that?

My bet is they ask some political questions and medicate anyone who shows any sign of independent thought and aversion to this administration. Screw the kids with real ADHD, we want to get the dissenters.

I talked to my Aunt over Thanksgiving and she was not even aware of this bill. She has worked in legislature before. She was head nurse in a psych ward for awhile and is now a lawyer in MD. She seemed very outraged that we don't have enough psych specialists to go around now as it is, let alone to properly evaluate every person in the US. I said they probably weren't gonna use real trained professionals. They're probably going to use cronies hired by the drug companies to do the evaluation.

What she said about her time in the legislature was that very seldom do you know much more than what is assigned for you to research because, if you're good, you go whole hog trying to dig up info about/against/in suppport of the one item, bill, etc. you're responsible for.

knows where to run with his cell phone to call me to pick him up!

I am open-minded about this issue - A lot of children suffer from mental illness, and because of societal stigmas and ignorance, parents don't seek help for them. Some kids are deemed 'behaviour' problems, or in many cases just not performing to the best they could if they were getting treatment

If handled correctly,< I know thats a big 'if',> medical evaluations could help kids get help they need.

Not the state. This is wrong. Many conditions, such as ADHD are already thought to be over-diagnosed. We should not have a society where perfect conformity to some people's idea of what the norm is overtake the concept of multiple learning styles and intelligences. You cannot enforce medical treatment by the state. I think this legislation will go through a number of challenges when they attempt to enforce it. If a student has emotional disturbances to the point where they cannot function in the classroom there are already proceedures that are spelled out in legislation, such as IDEA 2004 for how the process works.

It begins with a referral by the teacher/school for a full evaluation of the child's social and developmental history, interviews with the parents, school-based team evaluations that include speech/language, psychological, IQ, Motor coordination, etc. Then the team come up with decisions and woks alongside the parents to put goals and special services in place. If the parents are not cooperative and the child is in need of serious help there is an arbitration/mediation process. If that is not successful, it goes before a judge who rules. If he/she rules for the school district the parents are ordered to comply. Also the state department of child welfare/social services are called in. So there already exists a process. The purpose of this legislation is to test EVERY child in order to line the pocket of the pharmeceutical companies, pure and simple.

I want open debate.

According to the report "About 7-9 percent of all children (ages 9 to 17) have serious emotional disturbance, or SED (DHHS, 1999). That means one or two kids with serious emotional problems in virtually every classroom."

7-9% of 55 million is 3.85 to 4.95 million children who are in desperate need of psychotopic drugs like ritalin. That's a lot of children taking millions of doses everyday of mind altering drugs. Doesn't this scenario concern you?

google on "new freedom initiative" comes up with many hits.