{"id":31,"date":"2007-10-14T14:15:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-14T21:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/?p=31"},"modified":"2024-07-14T05:44:36","modified_gmt":"2024-07-14T10:44:36","slug":"mental-health-day-urges-protections-against-school-mental-health-screenings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2007\/10\/14\/mental-health-day-urges-protections-against-school-mental-health-screenings\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental Health Day urges protections against school mental health screenings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta content=\"Microsoft Word 11 (filtered)\" name=\"Generator\" \/><\/p>\n<style>        <!--   \/* Font Definitions *\/   @font-face   {font-family:Verdana;   panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}  @font-face   {font-family:AntiquaSSK;   panose-1:0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;}  @font-face   {font-family:Tahoma;   panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}   \/* Style Definitions *\/   p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal   {margin:0in;   margin-bottom:.0001pt;   font-size:12.0pt;   font-family:Verdana;}  h1   {margin-top:12.0pt;   margin-right:0in;   margin-bottom:3.0pt;   margin-left:0in;   page-break-after:avoid;   font-size:16.0pt;   font-family:Arial;   font-weight:bold;}  h2   {margin-top:12.0pt;   margin-right:0in;   margin-bottom:3.0pt;   margin-left:0in;   page-break-after:avoid;   font-size:14.0pt;   font-family:Arial;   font-weight:bold;   font-style:italic;}  a:link, span.MsoHyperlink   {color:blue;   text-decoration:underline;}  a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed   {color:purple;   text-decoration:underline;}  p   {margin-right:0in;   margin-left:0in;   font-size:12.0pt;   font-family:\"Times New Roman\";}  p.CCHRHeading, li.CCHRHeading, div.CCHRHeading   {margin-top:12.0pt;   margin-right:0in;   margin-bottom:3.0pt;   margin-left:0in;   text-align:center;   page-break-after:avoid;   font-size:18.0pt;   font-family:AntiquaSSK;   font-weight:bold;}  @page Section1   {size:8.5in 11.0in;   margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}  div.Section1   {page:Section1;}  --><\/style>\n<div class=\"Section1\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><strong><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: black\">MENTAL HEALTH DAY URGES PROTECTIONS AGAINST <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><strong><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: black\">SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING AND PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><strong><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: black\"><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><strong><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: black\"><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><strong><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: black\">Human Rights Group Calls on Missouri Commissioner of Education to Act<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><strong><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: black\"><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><strong><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"font-size: 14pt; color: black\"><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\">St. Louis &#8211; International Mental Health Day was a launching pad to draw attention to the dangers of b<\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\">ehavioral screening and programs and psychiatric drugs in schools. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a 38-year psychiatric watchdog group, has asked Missouri State Commissioner of Education Dr. D. Kent King to protect schoolchildren from potentially being placed on dangerous psychiatric drugs by cutting funding for mental health screening of schoolchildren. The screening can lead to students being referred for psychiatric drug treatment that can induce violent and suicidal behavior. In a letter sent to the Commissioner, CCHR asked Dr. King to re<\/span><span style=\"color: black\">direct state funds towards non-drug educational programs, additional teachers and music\/art education instead.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\"><span style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\">A federal recommendation to screen all 52 million schoolchildren for \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cmental disorders\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d has drawn scathing criticism and \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201ctriggered fierce controversy\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d according to a 2004 <em>British Medical Journal<\/em> article. The controversy hasn\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2t died, CCHR says, and thousands of petition signatures across the nation have since condemned screening that parents charge is aimed at feeding the $27 billion a year sales in psychotropic drugs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\">To raise public awareness on this issue CCHR members were present at the Federal Courthouse in downtown St. Louis, having petitions signed and handing passers-by <\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\">\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cFact Sheets on Mental Health Screening and Psychiatric Drugs for Children\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0warning of at least 18 acts of school violence by students taking psychiatric drugs, half of them antidepressants. In 2002, the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Education report on prevention of school attacks found school shootings\/attacks between 1974 and June 2000 averaged 1.4 incidents per year. Since 1988, when the first of the new antidepressants came on the market, the number of incidents almost doubled to 2.5 per year. Despite increased mental health funds to prevent school violence, the opposite has occurred. CCHR spokesperson Teresa Hassler said, \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cThis is because the correct reason for the violence is not being addressed:\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0mental health screenings, psychological programs and psychotropic drugs being prescribed to <\/span><span style=\"color: black\">curtail the violence are the very things causing it.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\"><span style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\">At least 7 of the 18 students above had also undergone anger management\/conflict resolution classes or psychological counselling, including the Columbine school shooters\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dprograms that experts have also indicated could increase violent tendencies. Ms. Hassler said, \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cIt\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s time to put an end to our schools being used as mental health labs and get education back on track, without wasting millions of taxpayers\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 money on unworkable and potentially dangerous psychological curricula and drugs.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\">Parents consenting to mental health screening are unaware that it is based on the American Psychiatric Association\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cbilling bible,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM), which is not based on science. Unlike for most medical conditions, psychiatrists admit they do not know the cause of or cure for any mental disorder. Dr. Thomas Szasz, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York, Health Science Center says, \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cThere is no blood or other biological test to ascertain the presence or absence of a mental illness, as there is for most bodily diseases.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\">The DSM has been criticized as unreliable because of its subjective nature and the influence of pharmaceutical companies on it. A study published last year in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics determined that psychiatric drug makers funded 100% of the APA panel members that decided what \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cmood\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d and \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cpsychotic\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d disorders were included in the DSM. TeenScreen, one of the \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cdepression screening programs\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d being used across the country, is based on the DSM. Its developer, David Schaffer of Columbia University, admitted to the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0that the test has an 84% false positive rate. This means that 84% of teens diagnosed as having some sort of mental health or social disorder are, in fact, perfectly normal teenagers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\">Ms. Hassler said, \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cMental Health Day was chosen to raise awareness about the need for greater protection for schoolchildren because psychiatrists often use tragedies such as school shootings to demand millions more in government funds, and to increase mental health protocols being used in schools without ever being held accountable for not reducing the problems it claims to be able to help. If nothing is done about this, we could be looking at 40 million American kids taking psychiatric drugs within the next decade.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\">Since 2000, there have been 119 international drug regulatory agency warnings against psychiatric drugs, including more than a dozen FDA warnings in the past three years. Depending upon which group of drugs, they could cause agitation, blood disorders, hallucinations, hostility, psychotic depression, strokes, heart attack, psychosis, severe liver damage, diabetes, seizures, suicide, violence and death.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/span><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-AU\" style=\"color: black\">Citizens Commission on Human Rights was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry, as a watchdog organization to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MENTAL HEALTH DAY URGES PROTECTIONS AGAINST SCHOOL MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING AND PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS Human Rights Group Calls on Missouri Commissioner of Education to Act St. Louis &#8211; International Mental Health Day was a launching pad to draw attention to the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2007\/10\/14\/mental-health-day-urges-protections-against-school-mental-health-screenings\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-v","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}