Posts Tagged ‘Parental Consent Act’

Emergency Room Visits for Children’s Mental Health Fails to Help

Monday, January 9th, 2023

A New York Times article (12/27/2022) proclaimed, “Families of children with mental health needs increasingly rely on the emergency department (ED) for care.”

The article goes on to say that, “Pediatric mental health ED visits are commonly repeat visits, and most revisits occur within 6 months of initial presentation.”

The article cites a research study published December 27, 2022 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, which analyzed 308,264 pediatric (ages 3 to 17) mental health ED visits at 38 hospitals between 2015 and 2020.

Such pediatric mental health ED visits made up 4.0% of all ED visits.

The NYTimes further said that, “The patients most likely to reappear in emergency rooms were not patients who harmed themselves, but rather those whose agitation and aggressive behavior proved too much for their caregivers to manage. In many cases, repeat visitors had previously received sedatives or other drugs to restrain them when their behavior became disruptive. … Patients who required medications to subdue them were 22 percent more likely to revisit than patients who did not.”

“Families come in with their children who have severe behavioral problems, and the families really just are at their wit’s end, you know,” said Dr. Anna M. Cushing, a pediatric emergency room physician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and one of the authors of the study.

“The JAMA study found that overall visits to pediatric emergency rooms for mental health crises increased 43 percent from 2015 to 2020, rising by 8 percent per year on average, with an increase in emergency visits for every category of mental illness. By comparison, emergency room visits for all medical causes rose by 1.5 percent annually.”

The sad conclusion: “Emergency room treatment is comforting to caregivers but offers little long-term benefit.”

We see several serious issues with the situation here.

1. Mental health behavior problems for children appear to be increasing.
2. Parents and other caregivers generally do not know how to cope with this.
3. Psychiatric drugs used as chemical restraints, and other psychiatric treatments, are not helping.
4. Emergency rooms are not a solution.

Why is this happening and what can be done about it?

1. Drugging children in America has reached epidemic proportions. More than 8 million children and teenagers are prescribed harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs: antidepressants, stimulants and antipsychotics. And the targets are getting younger. Children five years old and younger are the fastest growing segment of the non-adult population using antidepressants in the United States today. Many health professionals question this rampant use of pharmaceuticals on children.

The truth is, in MANY cases children acting disruptive is not a symptom of psychological or chemical disorder but … A SYMPTOM OF CHILDHOOD!

Regardless of any social, economic, political, or other considerations, these psychiatric drugs are known to cause harmful side effects including behavior problems, violence and suicide. Small wonder that mental health behavior problems for children appear to be increasing.

2. When it comes to raising children, parents must always be the first defense and have the final word. Yet witness the social upheavals currently occurring as local, state and federal governments battle among parents, school boards, psychiatrists, pharmaceutical companies, and other “know-best” vested interests, about how children should be raised and educated. No wonder parents and caregivers are confused about who is lying and who is telling the truth!

In Missouri, legislators have to fight to pass laws giving parents the right to raise their children, a right which they should already have, but are consistently denied. This makes it exceedingly difficult to provide the sane education parents need to decide what is best for their children.

3. Not only are psychiatric drugs not helping, they are actively hurting. The trouble is that psychiatric propaganda has thoroughly duped well-meaning parents, teachers and politicians alike, that normal childhood behavior is a “mental illness”, and that only by continuous, heavy drugging from an early age can children make it through life’s worst.

Seventeen million schoolchildren worldwide have now been diagnosed with so-called mental disorders and prescribed cocaine-like stimulants and powerful antidepressants as “treatment.” Biological psychiatry has yet to validate a single psychiatric diagnosis as anything neurological, biological, chemically imbalanced or genetic. The rise in gratuitous and murderous violence amongst youth is linked to the introduction of and increases in these violence-inducing drugs.

4. If emergency rooms are obviously not a solution, then what is? Well, there isn’t a single magic wand, but there are multiple recommendations; pick those you can do, and do them.

a. Contact your local, state and federal officials, and your parents’ groups and school boards, and tell them what you think; and that coercive and unworkable psychiatric methods should not be funded by the State.
b. You have the right to refuse permission for your child to be subjected to psychiatric drugs or other psychiatric treatments or interference.
c. If your child has been subjected to psychiatric treatment without your consent, consult a lawyer to determine your right to prosecute criminally and civilly.
d. Support legislative measures that will protect children from psychiatric interference.
e. Educate yourself on sane and effective alternatives to coercive and harmful psychiatric treatments.

Stop psychiatric drugging of kids.
Stop psychiatric drugging of kids

URGENT Take Action – Missouri Legislature

Thursday, February 3rd, 2022

Periodically we let you know the progress of various proposed legislation making its way through the Missouri General Assembly and suggest ways for you to contribute your viewpoint to your state Representative and state Senator.

The Missouri General Assembly is the state legislature of the State of Missouri and is composed of two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The General Assembly is responsible for creating laws for governing the State of Missouri. The Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo) are electronically available on this site:  http://revisor.mo.gov/.

You can find your Representative and Senator, and their contact information, by entering your 9-digit zip code here.

The 2022 Regular Session (101st General Assembly, 2nd Regular Session) convened on Wednesday, January 5, 2022, and will end on Friday, May 13, 2022.

This time we’d like to further discuss two bills about which we’d like you to contact your legislators. Please write, call or visit to express from your viewpoint as an individual or professional, and not as a representative of any organization. Let us know the details and any responses you get. The full text of each bill can be found on the House and Senate Joint Bill Tracking site. Just put the bill number into the search box (e.g. SB123 or HB123).

Check out our handy discussion about How to write to a legislator.

If you are not a voting resident of Missouri, you can find out about legislation in your own state and write your own state legislators; also, we are looking for volunteers to monitor legislation in Missouri and the states surrounding Missouri — let us know if you’d like to help out.

Very Very Bad Bill

HB2342 (Sponsor: Representative Tricia Derges, Republican, District 140 – Christian county)

This bill provides for children to seek mental health counseling and treatment without parental consent, and all records and referrals are confidential from parents and guardians. The provider must immediately determine if the child is a danger to self or others.

By their own admission psychiatrists cannot predict a person’s dangerousness or violence. The popular refrain that psychiatry can determine if a person is a danger to self or others is a complete fraud.

This bill would expand harmful psychiatric services to vulnerable children. This is the gateway to sending a child to a psychiatric hospital without any parental knowledge or consent. Psychiatrists, school counselors and other mental health practitioners have a terrible track record of accurately determining if a child is a danger to self or others, and this is the criteria for determining such things as involuntary commitment.

First, this bill violates US Constitutional Rights. Amendment IX to the U.S. Constitution grant parents a constitutional right to be parents for their children. The courts have repeatedly affirmed those rights[i].

Second, it could also be argued that this bill violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which requires that parents be given notice and an opportunity to be heard prior to any deprivation of parental rights, even if they are temporary deprivations[ii]. 

[i] “[T]he interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children… is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by [the United States Supreme] Court.” Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65, 120 S.Ct. 2054, 147 L.Ed.2d 49 (2000) (plurality opinion) (citing Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158, 166, 64 S.Ct. 438, 88 L.Ed. 645 (1944); Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 534-35, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 401, 43 S.Ct. 625, 67 L.Ed. 1042 (1923)). Parents have a fundamental right “to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.” Troxel, 530 U.S. at 66, 120 S.Ct. 2054 (citing Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 138 L.Ed.2d 772 (1997); Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753, 102 S.Ct. 1388, 71 L.Ed.2d 599 (1982); Parham v. J.R., 442 U.S. 584, 602, 99 S.Ct. 2493, 61 L.Ed.2d 101 (1979); Quilloin v. Walcott, 434 U.S. 246, 255, 98 S.Ct. 549, 54 L.Ed.2d 511 (1978); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 232, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972); Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645, 651, 92 S.Ct. 1208, 31 L.Ed.2d 551 (1972)).

[ii] [T]he Supreme Court made clear that termination of parental rights impinges upon a liberty interest of which a citizen may not be deprived without due process of law. This circuit has applied Santosky’s holding … to the temporary seizures of children and has held that notice and a hearing are required before a child is removed “`except for extraordinary situations where some valid governmental interest is at stake that justifies postponing the hearing until after the event.'” “Valid governmental interests” include “emergency circumstances which pose an immediate threat to the safety of a child.” As the Second Circuit has noted, the “mere possibility” of danger is not enough to justify a removal without appropriate process. (emphasis added)

Roska ex rel. Roska v. Peterson, 328 F. 3d 1230, 1245 (10th Cir. 2003) (emphasis added).  Since this proposed statute allows for removal based solely on the “belief” of “substantial danger”, it is authorizing removal based on the “mere possibility” of danger and “is not enough to justify a removal without appropriate process.” Id. In other words, a parent needs the ability to appear in court prior to any deprivation of parental rights or custody.



Very Good Bill

HB1755 – Establishes Parents’ Bill of Rights (Sponsor: Representative Chuck Basye, Republican, District 47 – Boone, Randolph, Howard, Cooper counties) 

This bill prohibits the state, any of its political subdivisions, any other governmental entity, or any other institution from infringing on fundamental rights of a parent to direct the upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of their children.

This bill also requires school boards to implement policies that will allow parents to have more involvement in the public school system including having a voice as to what materials the children will be instructed on as well as the ability to withdraw their child from any portion of the school district’s comprehensive health education that relates to instruction in sexually transmitted diseases or any instruction regarding human sexuality if they do not want their child to participate. The school board must also implement procedures that allow parents to learn their parental responsibilities and rights.

No one but their parents should be determining the mental health care for a child.

CCHR suggests the inclusion of this simple statement in any Parents’ Bill of Rights:

“Infringement of parental rights. — The state, any of its political subdivisions, any other governmental entity, or any other institution may not infringe on the fundamental rights of a parent to direct the upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of his or her minor child without demonstrating that such action is reasonable and necessary to achieve a compelling state interest and that such action is narrowly tailored and is not otherwise served by a less restrictive means.”

This one paragraph does two things 1) mental health is specifically included and 2) it requires that any potential infringement on parental rights is reviewed using strict scrutiny. Strict scrutiny is a form of judicial review that courts use to determine the constitutionality of certain laws. This is basically the highest form of review that exists and the greatest protection.

Forced Psychiatry is Legislated Violence

Take Action – Missouri Legislature

Wednesday, January 29th, 2020
Periodically we let you know the progress of various proposed legislation making its way through the Missouri General Assembly and suggest ways for you to contribute your viewpoint to your state Representative and state Senator.

The Missouri General Assembly is the state legislature of the State of Missouri and is composed of two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The General Assembly is responsible for creating laws for governing the State of Missouri. The Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo) are electronically available on this site:  http://revisor.mo.gov/.

You can find your Representative and Senator, and their contact information, by entering your 9-digit zip code here.

The Second Regular Session of the 100th General Assembly convened on  January 8, 2020, and will end May 15, 2020.

This time we’d like to discuss two Joint Resolutions which we’d like you to write your legislators about. Please write from your viewpoint as an individual or professional, and not as a representative of any organization. Let us know the details and any responses you get.

The full text of each Resolution can be found here:
House Joint Resolution 105
Senate Joint Resolution 55

Check out our handy discussion about How to write to a legislator.

If you are not a voting resident of Missouri, you can find out about legislation in your own state and write your own state legislators; also, we are looking for volunteers to monitor legislation in Missouri and the states surrounding Missouri — let us know if you’d like to help out.

HJR 105 and SJR 55
Provides for parents’ exclusive right to control the upbringing of their children

This constitutional amendment, if approved by the voters, declares that every parent has a fundamental right to exercise exclusive control over all aspects of their minor children’s lives without governmental interference, including, but not limited to, decisions regarding their minor children’s custody, upbringing, education, religious instruction, discipline, physical and mental health care, and place of habitation. 

We think this is a good idea because the psychiatric mental health care industry is known to interfere in parental rights regarding their minor children.

For example: Parents of millions of schoolchildren worldwide have been told that their children have a “mental disorder” that requires them to be chemically restrained by powerful mind-altering, addictive and harmful psychiatric drugs; or even worse, electroshocking them when the drugs don’t “work.”

Children are human beings who have every right to expect our protection, care, guidance, and the chance to reach their full potential. They will be denied this if they are trapped in the verbal and chemical strait-jackets of psychiatry’s invented labels, mind-altering drugs, and other harmful “treatments.”

There has been a persistent lobbying effort, funded by pharmaceutical companies, to increase the number of psychiatric drugs prescribed to even more children. A universal mental health screening program is the stated goal of these lobbyists. Mental “screening” of school children aims to Leave No Child Unmedicated.

Please express your personal concerns to your Missouri State Representative and Senator, along with your support for HJR 105 and SJR 55.
BAN ECT

CCHR STL MO Legislative Take Action

Thursday, February 18th, 2016

Legislative Take Action

Periodically we let you know the progress of various proposed legislation making its way through the Missouri General Assembly and suggest ways for you to contribute your viewpoint to your state Representative and state Senator.

This time, we’d like to discuss SJR 38 and HB 1755.
Contact your Missouri state Representative and Senator, and let them know what you think about these. We suggest supporting these two bills.  You can find your Representative and Senator, and their contact information, by entering your 9-digit zip code here.
SJR 38 (Senate Joint Resolution)
Creates a new constitutional provision relating parental rights
Introduced by Senator Kurt Schaefer (R-19). Read the full text here.
This proposed constitutional amendment, if approved by the voters, declares that every parent has a fundamental right to exercise exclusive control over all aspects of their minor children’s lives without governmental interference, including but not limited to, decisions regarding their minor children’s custody, upbringing, education, religious instruction, discipline, physical and mental health care, and place of habitation. This fundamental right does not extend to any action by the parent that threatens clear, immediate, and substantial physical injury to their minor child, nor permit a parent to compel a minor child to have an abortion.
This amendment also declares that every parent has a fundamental right to require government entities to obtain the parent’s explicit permission before soliciting or sharing information obtained from a minor child about the child or the child’s family, unless the information is obtained during a criminal investigation or, if enrolled in public school, the child’s knowledge of academic subjects.
This amendment guarantees that every parent shall have the fundamental right to decide what educational settings in which to place their child.
This amendment lists several circumstances in which government interference with parental rights will be justified, including: (1) when protecting a child from a clear, immediate, and substantial threat of physical injury; (2) when a parent has been found by a court to have knowingly exposed a child to physical neglect, abandonment, reckless endangerment, or sexual or physical abuse; (3) when a parent has been found by a court to be incapacitated or mentally incompetent; (4) when a child has been emancipated by court order in accordance with state statutes; (5) when a court has assumed jurisdiction over a minor child charged with or convicted of violating a criminal statute; and (6) when a court of law has assigned parental rights to one parent or a non-biological parent as a result of mental incompetence, adoption, or marital dissolution.
Finally, this amendment permits any parent whose rights have been adversely affected to challenge the constitutionality of the infringing law, policy, or other government act and seek damages and attorney’s fees.
HB 1755 (House Bill)
Specifies that parental liberty to direct the upbringing, education, and care of his or her children is a fundamental right not subject to infringement without demonstrating a compelling governmental interest
Introduced by Representative Kurt Bahr (R-102). Read the full text here.
This bill specifies that the liberty of a parent to direct the upbringing, education, and care of his or her child is a fundamental right. The State of Missouri and any political subdivision of the state is prohibited from infringing on this right without demonstrating a compelling governmental interest. Any law or policy must be narrowly tailored and by the least restrictive means to achieve the interest. These provisions apply to all laws of the state, whether adopted before or after the enactment of these provisions. Any law adopted after the enactment of these provisions is exempt only if the law explicitly excludes the application by reference to these provisions.
Let us know that you contacted your state legislators and let us know any response you get.

 

Missouri HB 1987 TAKE ACTION

Saturday, March 31st, 2012

We are delighted to report that Missouri State Representative Mike Leara (Republican, District 095 – Sunset Hills, Crestwood, Fenton and Grantwood Village in St. Louis County) introduced House Bill 1987 with the stated purpose to establish requirements for parental consent for mental health screenings in school and the use of psychotropic medications with children in the custody of the Department of Social Services.

The full text of the bill can be read here. Here are some pertinent quotes:

“The use of educational settings to screen children and adolescents for mental disorders has led to parents not being given sufficient information about the purpose of such screenings, the ramifications if they consent, such as mandatory psychological or psychiatric treatment for their child and family, thereby violating the recognized requirements and standards regarding full informed consent.”

“Based on the subjective nature of the mental health diagnostic system and mental health screenings, millions of children are prescribed antidepressants or stimulants recognized by leading drug regulatory agencies as causing suicidal behavior, suicide, violence, hostility and in the case of stimulants, the potential for strokes and heart attacks.”

“The department of elementary and secondary education shall prohibit the use of schools for any mental health or psychological screening or testing of any student, whether a nonemancipated minor or emancipated minor without the express written consent of the parent or guardian.”

“On or before January 1, 2013, the department of social services shall promulgate rules or amend any current rules to establish and maintain standards and procedures to govern the administration of psychotropic medications.”

ANALYSIS

This is a particularly valuable piece of legislation as it reflects the growing awareness and concern of parents about the harm done to their children by mental health screenings and psychotropic drugs in schools, and the indiscriminate administration of harmful and addictive psychotropic drugs to children in the foster care system.

TAKE ACTION

Please thank Representative Leara for his efforts and let Representative Leara know that you support this legislation, and write your own Missouri State Representative urging them to bring it through Committee and to a vote on the floor.

If you do not live in Missouri, then forward this proposed legislation to your own state representatives and urge them to sponsor and enact similar legislation.

FURTHER INFORMATION

For more information about the harm caused by mental health screenings and psychotropic drugs, visit the CCHR STL web site.

Illinois Public Act 097-0245

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

Illinois Public Act 097-0245, signed into law on 4 August 2011, creates the Administration of Psychotropic Medications to Children Act, requiring the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) to create and publish rules establishing and maintaining standards and procedures to govern the administration of psychotropic medications to children in its care.

Recognizing that drugging children under state care has been problematic, one of the provisions of this law prohibits the administration of psychotropic medications to persons for whom the Department is legally responsible as punishment for bad behavior, for the convenience of staff or caregivers, or as a substitute for adequate mental health care or other services.

Furthermore, DCFS must identify the name and dosage of psychotropic drugs administered to children along with any negative side effects.

This is a positive step forward for Illinois. Other states should seriously consider implementing safeguards against harmful child drugging by their respective Children and Family Services departments.

We also suggest supporting the federal Parental Consent Act introduced by Congressman Ron Paul, a bill which prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program.

Model Legislation to prevent a range of psychiatric abuses should also be distributed to your state representatives, urging them to incorporate these safeguards against psychiatric fraud and abuse into your state laws.