Medicaid

Medicaid

It’s in the news today, constantly. What is it, and what should we know about it? What’s all this talk about expanding state Medicaid?

Medicaid is a state and federal partnership providing health coverage for people who qualify. Across the U.S. over 62 million people are enrolled in Medicaid, with a total federal plus state budget of $400 billion per year.

The Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS) is one of six Centers within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). CMCS serves as the focal point for all national program policies and operations related to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

If you don’t have and are unable to afford health insurance, you and your family may qualify for free or low-cost health insurance coverage through Medicaid.

Each state operates its own Medicaid program that provides health coverage for lower-income people, families and children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. The eligibility rules for Medicaid are different for each state.

Enacted in 1965 through amendments to the Social Security Act, Medicaid is a health and long-term care coverage program that is jointly financed by states and the federal government. Each state establishes and administers its own Medicaid program and determines the type, amount, duration, and scope of services covered within broad federal guidelines. States must cover certain mandatory benefits and may choose to provide other optional benefits.

Federal law also requires states to cover certain mandatory eligibility groups, including qualified parents, children, and pregnant women with low income, as well as older adults and people with disabilities with low income. States have the flexibility to cover other optional eligibility groups and set eligibility criteria within the federal standards.

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 creates a new national Medicaid minimum eligibility level that covers most Americans with household income up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level. This new eligibility requirement is effective January 1, 2014, but individual states may choose to expand their Medicaid coverage before this date. For a household of one person, 133% of the current federal poverty level is an annual income of $15,282 (and add $5,347 for each additional person.)

Medicaid is the single largest payer for mental health services in the United States. Examples of provided mental health services include screening, counseling, therapy, medication management, psychiatric services, licensed clinical social work services, peer supports, and substance abuse treatment.

There is a large and active Medicaid fraud culture, both provider and participant fraud, that wastes billions of dollars per year. For example, estimates range between $2 billion and $4 billion in fraudulent psychiatric drug claims per year nationally. Medicaid spends roughly $25 billion per year on prescription drugs.

Some of the more common provider fraud includes: billing for services when no service was provided; billing for a more expensive treatment or service than was actually provided; billing for unnecessary services; billing for the same service multiple times; receipt of kickbacks; excessive compensation for medical directorships or consultancies; physicians referring patients to obtain services from a Medicaid provider whom the physician or physician’s immediate family member has a financial relationship.

Some of the more common participant fraud includes: signing documentation indicating services were provided when not provided; selling prescription medications obtained through the Medicaid program; forging prescriptions to obtain medications; allowing someone other than the card holder to use a Medicaid card; falsifying information to qualify for Medicaid services.

Of course, CCHR supporters will understand that all psychiatric treatments and drugs are harmful and fraudulently prescribed.

Medicaid is an enormous and complex bureaucracy, making it extremely difficult to distill meaningful statistics across all 50 states and the federal government. Diligent research is required to isolate relevant information.

In Missouri, the Medicaid program is known as MO HealthNet. Of the 6 million people in Missouri, over 1 million are Medicaid recipients. Each year, Missouri Medicaid spends over $8 billion to provide health services. Roughly $6 billion is provided by the federal government, and Missouri contributes another $2 billion per year. $600 million goes toward prescription drugs; $43 million goes toward long term mental health care facilities; roughly $500 million goes toward all mental health services, not including drugs.

Missouri offers home- and community-based programs for developmentally disabled adults and children, provided by the Department of Health and Senior Services or the Department of Mental Health. There have been double-digit increases in yearly Medicaid drug spending since 1995. Psychiatric drugs are among Medicaid’s most costly and commonly prescribed drugs. One-third of seniors and people with disabilities enrolled in Missouri’s Medicaid program are prescribed psychotropic drugs.

What do we think about all this? We don’t necessarily think that Medicaid is a bad idea. We do think that expanding Medicaid without also expanding fraud control is a mistake. We think that expanding Medicaid without reducing or eliminating the use of psychiatric treatments and psychiatric drugs is a mistake. We think there are enough non-psychiatric alternatives so that people with mental trauma can actually be helped rather than harmed.

Write your state legislators and let them know what you think about this. More information about psychiatric fraud can be found by clicking here.

By the way, report Medicaid fraud in Missouri to Missouri Medicaid Fraud & Compliance.

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Cogitations on BRAIN

Cogitations on BRAIN

The BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) initiative, a project President Obama discussed in his most recent State of the Union address, was formally announced April 2 at the White House.

The White House would like to spend $100 million taxpayer dollars in 2014 to find new ways to treat conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

They’re talking about things such as molecular-scale probes that can sense and record the activity of neural networks; examining how thoughts, emotions, actions, and memories are represented in the brain; and exploring how the brain records, processes, uses, stores, and retrieves information.

Given that brain researchers to date have been unable to recognize the pivotal role of psychiatric drugs in PTSD, for example, we have little faith that another $100 million will be used for developing anything but more abusive psychiatric drugs or more torturous devices such as Vagus Nerve Stimulation or Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.

The cornerstone of psychiatry’s disease model today is the theory that a brain-based, chemical imbalance causes mental illness. Despite the billions of pharmaceutical company funding in support of the chemical imbalance theory, this psychiatric “disease” model is thoroughly debunked. The whole theory was invented to push drugs.

For example, the “brain scans” that have been pawned off as evidence that schizophrenia or depression are brain diseases, have been disproven as valid research. Most have not been done on drug naive patients, meaning someone who has not been on psychiatric drugs such as antipsychotic drugs, documented to cause brain atrophy (shrinkage). Other brain scans have shown the brains of smaller children to show smaller brains in comparison to larger/older children and then claimed children with ADHD have smaller brains. None have been conclusively proven to verify mental disorders as abnormalities of the brain. If there were such verifiable brain scans, or in fact any medical/scientific test that could show a physical/medical abnormality for any psychiatric disorder, the public would be getting such tests prior to being administered psychiatric drugs.

The larger problem is that the biological drug model based on bogus mental disorders prevents governments from funding real medical solutions for people experiencing difficulty. There is a great deal of evidence that medical conditions can manifest as psychiatric symptoms, and that there are non-harmful medical treatments that do not receive government funding because the psychiatric/pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars on advertising and lobbying efforts, and on wasteful things like this BRAIN initiative.

A study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2010 claimed to be able to detect “brain abnormalities associated with schizophrenia risk” in infants just a few weeks old. We would like to point out the obvious flaw in this bogus study: there is no medical/scientific test in existence that schizophrenia is a physical disease or brain abnormality to start with. There is not one chemical imbalance test, X-ray, MRI or any other test for schizophrenia, not one. So with no evidence of medical abnormality to start with, the “associated with schizophrenia risk” amounts to what George Orwell called Doublespeak (language that deliberately disguises, distorts, misleads) — it means nothing.

There is a concerted push in the psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries for the global implementation of a new mental health paradigm called “preventative mental health” — pre-diagnosing and pre-drugging children before they show any “signs” of a mental disorder. In other words, if we wait to administer drugs to them it may be too late.

This is the BRAIN initiative in action. Desperately seeking justifications for more drugs earlier in life.

BRAINThis is your
BRAIN on psychiatric drugs.

Please express your outrage to your government representatives.

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The Aurora Shooter Case Confirms CCHR Predictions

The Aurora Shooter Case Confirms CCHR Predictions

Two mind-altering prescription psychiatric drugs, alcohol and a gun … and the media blamed the gun.

April 4, 2013 – The Los Angeles Times reveals that a search of James Holmes apartment found 48 containers of beer and other liquor, and prescription medication for the psychiatric drugs sertraline and clonazepam.

Holmes was charged with 166 counts of first-degree murder, attempted murder and weapons charges after a shooting rampage at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater that left 12 dead and 70 injured in July, 2012.

Details about the case have been tightly sealed from the earliest days of the investigation. Yet on April 4 District Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. reversed previous rulings on public access and made public the arrest affidavit and 12 search warrants. The newly unsealed documents provide a list of things found in Holmes’ apartment: chemicals used for explosives, rounds of ammunition, pistol cases and paper targets, 48 containers of beer and other liquor, and prescription psychiatric drugs sertraline and clonazepam.

The fact missed by most is that psychiatric, mind-altering drugs have been found to be the common factor in an overwhelming number of acts of random senseless violence and suicide. The scientific research documenting the connection between violence, suicide and psychiatric drugs is overwhelming.

There have been 22 international drug regulatory warnings issued on psychiatric drugs causing violence, mania, hostility, aggression, psychosis, and other violent reactions. Sertraline, a generic form of Zoloft, is a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant, known to cause violence and suicidal actions. Clonazepam is a highly addictive hypnotic anti-anxiety drug, also known to cause violence and suicidal actions. These adverse side effects can occur both on taking the drugs and withdrawing from the drugs. Use of alcohol while taking clonazepam greatly intensifies the side effects of the drug. Combining sertraline with alcohol is also generally highly discouraged. Finding alcohol, sertraline and clonazepam in Holmes’ apartment, and the resulting violent behavior, strongly suggest he was taking them all together.

We have to ask whose purpose was served by keeping this information secret for so long? How can we use this information now to prevent further tragedies? Take every opportunity you can to make the connection between violence and psychiatric drugs known, and insist that authorities ask the proper questions in every case of senseless violence or suicide:

  • Was the perpetrator subjected to psychiatric treatments prior to the violence?
  • Was the perpetrator on psychiatric drugs at the time of the violence?
  • Has the perpetrator been on psychiatric drugs in the past?

Even now, in the case of the Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, the authorities refuse to release this information. Despite a formal request from AbleChild, a Parent’s Rights organization, citing numerous state and federal laws supporting the release of Adam Lanza’s toxicology results and medical records, Connecticut Medical Examiner, H. Wayne Carver, M.D., has arbitrarily denied the request.

The M.E.’s decision to withhold the information is at odds with Connecticut law, the State’s Constitution, federal law and the United States Constitution. In response, AbleChild has filed an appeal with the State’s Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) for the release of the records and, if necessary, is prepared to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sheila Matthews, a founder of AbleChild, understands the immediate implications of the Lanza toxicology results saying, “The M.E. admitted toxicology testing could provide vital insight into Adam Lanza’s mental state, but in denying our request, it appears that he is the only one worthy of knowing that insight. We disagree and absolutely believe the public has a right to know the results… lives may depend on it.”

Sign the petition to release Adam Lanza’s toxicology report.

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The New ECT – Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

The New ECT – Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

In our last newsletter we discussed Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) as an alternative to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in order for the psychiatric industry to continue generating income if ECT were banned.

One can even buy, with a doctor’s prescription, a portable home cranial electrical stimulation device for $695 from Fisher Wallace Laboratories, with a special price of $595 for the military. The doctor, by the way, does not have to be your own doctor; the company will provide someone for $50 who will write the prescription with a phone call.

As if that prospect wasn’t bad enough, we now have Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), the new horizon of psychiatric brutality, for use when other psychiatric methods have failed. TMS is recommended for those who are squeamish about getting ECT.

Guess what — none of these psychiatric methods have failed to produce their intended effect — making patients for life and ensuring the continuation of psychiatric profits at the expense of actually helping anyone.

With TMS, a large electromagnetic coil is placed against the scalp near the forehead. The electromagnet used in TMS creates electric currents that stimulate nerve cells in the brain. As with VNS, TMS is experimental; no one knows quite how it works or its long term adverse effects; it is still under investigation, so anyone succumbing to this procedure is in actual fact a research subject, a guinea pig as it were. There is still considerable controversy over its effectiveness, with the psychiatric industry touting miracle cures and pretty much everone else highly skeptical.

TMS is an outpatient procedure that doesn’t require anesthesia, surgery or electrode implantation. A typical course of “treatment” is five 40-minute sessions per week for up to six weeks. The cost can range from $6,000 to $10,000, depending on the clinic and the number of sessions, and is usually not covered by insurance. The cost of a portable TMS machine is around $6,000.

Health care costs are being driven out of control by litigation, malpractice suits, fraud, and the coercive use of psychiatric drugs and other psychiatric methods. Decades of psychiatric monopoly over mental health has only lead to upwardly spiraling mental illness statistics and continuously escalating funding demands.

The many critical challenges facing societies today reflect the vital need to strengthen individuals through workable, viable and humanitarian alternatives to harmful psychiatric options. For more information, download and read the CCHR booklet The Real Crisis in Mental Health Today – Report and recommendations on the lack of science and results within the mental health industry.

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The New ECT – Vagus Nerve Stimulation

The New ECT – Vagus Nerve Stimulation

An electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) device is used for treating psychiatric disturbances by inducing in the patient a major seizure by applying a brief intense electrical current to the patient’s head, also called shock treatment.

About 100,000 people are being given ECT each year in the U.S. ECT has long been known to cause serious harm to patients, including extremely severe and permanent memory loss, inability to learn and remember new events, depression, suicide, cardiovascular complications, prolonged and dangerous seizures and even death. An ECT session costs between $1,000 and $2,000 and is usually given between 6 to 12 times to an individual over several weeks; an ECT machine sells for about $15,000.

In January, 2011 the Neurological Devices Advisory Panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended that ECT machines remain classified as high-risk devices (Class III for the most dangerous medical devices, also called “premarket approval”.) The panel recommended that the companies which manufacture ECT devices be required to prove that ECT is both effective and safe in order to remain in use, with the exception of catatonia for which a less stringent classification was recommended. No effective date has yet been established for ECT machine manufacturers to provide this proof, so the machines are still very much in use.

To confuse the issue, psychiatrists also call this “cranial electrotherapy stimulation,” which uses less electrical current than an ECT machine but is supposed to be something new and different.

To offset the potential loss of income if ECT machines are banned, new methods of psychiatric income are being devised. Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) is one such.

The vagus (Latin for “wandering”) nerve stretches from the head, through the neck and chest, to the abdomen. Besides connecting to the various organs in the body (heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, etc.), it conveys sensory information about the state of the body’s organs to the central nervous system. This means that the vagus nerve is responsible for such varied tasks as heart rate, intestinal contractions, sweating, keeping the larynx open for breathing, and so on.

VNS produces short bursts of electricity directed into the brain via the vagus nerve. The energy comes from a battery, about the size of a silver dollar, which is surgically implanted under the skin, usually on the chest. Leads are threaded under the skin and attached to the vagus nerve. The device is programmed to deliver these small electrical bursts every few minutes. The mechanism by which this is supposed to work is not entirely understood; it’s just a theory, and the patient is the research guinea pig.

Health care costs are being driven out of control by litigation, malpractice suits, fraud, and the coercive use of psychiatric drugs and other psychiatric methods. Decades of psychiatric monopoly over mental health has only lead to upwardly spiraling mental illness statistics and continuously escalating funding demands.

The many critical challenges facing societies today reflect the vital need to strengthen individuals through workable, viable and humanitarian alternatives to harmful psychiatric options. For more information, download and read the CCHR booklet The Real Crisis in Mental Health Today – Report and recommendations on the lack of science and results within the mental health industry.

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On the Sea of Memory

On the Sea of Memory: A Journey from Forgetting to Remembering

a book by Jonathan Cott

Cott describes what it was like to re-invent himself after 36 ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy) sessions created a fifteen year gap in his memory. “At the end of the 1990s, the esteemed writer Jonathan Cott lost fifteen years of his life. After receiving repeated rounds of electroshock treatments to combat his severe clinical depression, Cott couldn’t remember anything he had experienced between 1985 and 2000. Not a shred remained of his intimate relationships, his travels, his writings, his joys and sorrows.”

Mr. Cott was interviewed by Steve Paulson on Public Radio International’s To The Best Of Our Knowledge (12/21/12). He said, “…basically, I don’t remember anything for 15 years from about 1985 to about 2000. And when I got out of the hospital I was still depressed. … I would never have signed a consent form to have ECT knowing what I know now.”

When a string broke during one of Itzhak Perlman’s performances, he continued to play on the remaining strings, and said, “…make new music with what you have, then with what you have left.”

Jonathan Cott continued to play his life with the memory he had left, going around to everyone in his address book and asking them to tell him who they were and how they knew him — little by little reconstructing his own memories from the memories of others.

One shouldn’t have to cope through this kind of trauma; life is tough enough without psychiatry destroying a person’s memory with ECT. Perhaps you know someone who has been harmed by psychiatric abuse; have them contact CCHR at www.CCHR.org/abuse.

Find out more about the harm that ECT does by clicking here, then write your state representative and senator and tell them to stop funding ECT, which is a big money-maker in the psychiatric mental health industry. Let us know who you contacted and what they said.

When we talk with people about ECT, many have the mistaken impression that this barbaric procedure is no longer used, when in fact it is still being heavily promoted and used by the psychiatric industry. The last time we checked, Medicare was paying for roughly 153,000 ECT shocks per year; over 6,000 of these in Missouri. Washington University in St. Louis is a leader in promoting and delivering ECT, and the WU psychiatrists say that if ECT didn’t fix your depression, you just didn’t get enough of it.

The second quarter 2010 newsletter of the Missouri Psychiatric Association (edited at Washington University) promoted ECT for pregnant women, and lamented the fact that in Missouri a cumbersome court order is required to shock someone under court protection for dementia, saying, “We believe that psychiatrists who administer ECT should be able to do so without legal and/or legislative barriers.” We say that these barriers are not strong enough; what say you?

Write your state legislators to abolish the practice of Electro-Convulsive Therapy. This barbaric pseudo-medical treatment is responsible for thousands of Missouri citizens being on the roles of Medicare and Medicaid. ECT causes permanent brain damage and the victims rely on Medicaid to survive.

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Struck by a turtle lately?

No? Then surely you’ve been smacked by a raccoon, chicken … or at the very least, a nonvenomous lizard.

TurtlesWell, regardless, starting in 2014, your doctor will be prepared when animals, lightning, or even unpowered watercraft strike, burn, bite or injure you in just about any other way.

The U.S. health care system is ramping up to implement a massive new coding system called ICD-10. It’s a bland name for a system capable of coding thousands of colorful injuries. A full 68,000 to be exact, as opposed to the 13,000 under the current ICD-9. The codes are intended to help health care providers keep track of what happened to you, how much it should cost and what follow-up care you need.

Take these, straight from ICD-10:

Hurt at the opera: Y92253

Stabbed while crocheting: Y93D1

Walked into a lamppost: W2202XA

Walked into a lamppost, subsequent encounter: W2202XD

Submersion due to falling or jumping from crushed water skis: V9037XA

Even with the new descriptive phrases at their disposal, many health care providers strongly oppose the coding system. In December, the American Medical Association, 42 state medical organizations and 40 medical specialty groups, wrote a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to cancel implementation of the ICD-10 code set.

Not only do they say it will “create significant burdens on the practice of medicine with no direct benefit to individual patient care,” they also say ICD-10 will distract from other upcoming health information initiatives, including major ones tied to the health care reform law.

[The above taken from an NPR News Hour interview on March 4, 2013.]


Briefly reviewing the 263 pages of ICD-10 devoted to the classification of mental and behavioral disorders, we counted roughly 500 codes. There were codes for PTSD, insomnia, abuse of vitamins or herbal remedies, reading disorder, spelling disorder, arithmetical skills disorder, sibling rivalry, drug withdrawal symptoms, too little sex, too much sex, mental disorders due to tobacco and caffeine indulgence, and of course the catch-all “mental disorder, not otherwise specified.”

We’ve been alerting you about the DSM-5. This may be even worse.

Find Out! Fight Back!

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Petition to Release Adam Lanza Toxicology Reports

A few weeks ago, AbleChild, a parents’ group (www.ablechild.org) started a petition requesting that the Newtown Selectwoman and Connecticut lawmakers take the necessary steps to ensure that the complete autopsy/toxicology results of alleged Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, be released to the public. This is important because toxicology tests would determine whether Lanza was yet another school shooter under the influence of, or in withdrawal from, psychiatric drugs, documented to cause violent behavior.

In just a few weeks, there are already 2,200 signatures on this petition but in order to get this to occur, they need more signatures. So please sign it if not already done and forward it to your friends and associates to help get this widely supported.

Here is the link to the petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/release-adam-lanza-toxicology-reports.html

For more information about psychiatric drug side effects click here.

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Too Many Missouri Children Drugged for ADHD

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov) analyzes and publishes statistics for various conditions. A January 24, 2013 CDC research survey [“State-Based and Demographic Variation in Parent-Reported Medication Rates for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, 2007–2008”] reports that Missouri had the second-highest number of children in the nation who are prescribed ADHD drugs.

The actual statistic is that in 2007-2008 Missouri had the second highest rate, 78.3%, of children aged 4 to 17 years who had an ADHD diagnosis and were taking ADHD drugs. Only Mississippi with 79.0% was higher.

Of U.S. children aged 4 to 17 years, 4.1 million had a current ADHD diagnosis in 2007, and approximately 2.7 million were taking ADHD medication. The average rate by state was 66.3% of children having an ADHD diagnosis and taking ADHD drugs. Missouri comprised 6.7% of the national total of children diagnosed with ADHD and taking ADHD drugs.

Should we be worried that such a large percentage of children are being diagnosed and drugged for ADHD? You bet!

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on this survey February 4th, saying that the CDC is working with the Missouri Department of Mental Health to determine why this rate is so high. Email your concerns about psychiatric drugging of children to Patsy Carter (patsy.carter@dmh.mo.gov) in the Office of Children, Division of Comprehensive Psychiatric Services, Missouri Department of Mental Health. You might want to mention that ADHD is a fraudulent diagnosis, and that psychiatric drugs are harmful and addictive.

The ADHD diagnosis does not identify a genuine biological or psychological disorder. The diagnosis, from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is simply a list of behaviors that may appear disruptive or inappropriate.

These are the spontaneous behaviors of normal children. When these behaviors become age-inappropriate, excessive or disruptive, the potential causes are limitless, including: boredom, poor teaching, illiteracy, inconsistent discipline at home, tiredness, malnutrition, and underlying physical illness. Children who are suffering from bullying, abuse or stress may also display these behaviors in excess. By making an ADHD diagnosis, we ignore and stop looking for what is really going on with the child. ADHD may also be Teacher Attention Disorder or Parent Attention Disorder. These children need the adults in their lives to give them improved attention.

Go here for more information about the fraudulent ADHD diagnosis.

Go here for more information about ADHD drug side effects.

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More About Presidential Memoranda

In a previous newsletter, we discussed what at the time were being called Presidential Executive Orders regarding gun violence. One of these has now shown up on the Whitehouse web site as a Presidential Memorandum rather than an Executive Order.

In any case, we thought you might be interested in more detail about this issue and how it might relate to the purpose and mission of Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

Following are selected quotes from this Presidential Memoranda and the White House web page devoted to preventing gun violence — which is located at http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/preventing-gun-violence.

Presidential Memorandum “Engaging in Public Health Research on the Causes and Prevention of Gun Violence”, January 16, 2013:

“The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary), through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other scientific agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, shall conduct or sponsor research into the causes of gun violence and the ways to prevent it.”

From the White House web page on preventing gun violence:

“Though the vast majority of Americans with a mental illness are not violent, we need to do more to identify mental health issues early and help individuals get the treatment they need before dangerous situations develop. As President Obama has said, ‘We are going to need to work on making access to mental health care as easy as access to a gun.’ The Administration is proposing steps to identify mental health issues early and help individuals get the treatment they need before these dangerous situations develop.”

If you have information about the causes of gun violence and ways to prevent it, please send it to:

Secretary HHS in care of Kathleen.Sebelius@hhs.gov

Director CDC in care of Tomfrieden@cdc.gov

You might want to mention that important and often neglected causes of violence are psychotropic drugs, whose violence-causing side effects are already documented by the Food and Drug Administration; and that the way to prevent it is to simply stop taking these drugs (but do not stop taking these drugs suddenly, as the violence caused by withdrawal symptoms are just as deadly as violence caused by taking the drugs in the first place.) For evidence, go to the FDA’s web site www.fda.gov and search for “black box warning antidepressant” — for example, the increased risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in children and adolescents being treated with antidepressant drugs.

For more information about the relation between violence, suicide and psychotropic drugs, download and read the booklet “Psychiatry and the Creation of Senseless Violence” from the CCHR St. Louis web site.

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