Victory in Texas

A major victory in Texas!

EdAction Alert —
June 1, 2005

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The Texas legislature has
adjourned, but not without an all-out battle over implementing
recommendations from the controversial 2004 New Freedom Commission on
Mental Health (NFC) that could have set a dangerous precedent for the
rest of the states. The NFC recommended mental health screening for
adults and children as young as preschool age in primary care health
settings, schools, and correctional facilities — basically anywhere
people interact with government or medicine. Other recommendations of
the New Freedom Commission included requiring specific treatments for
specific conditions, including the use of specific medications. (See
2004 EdWatch alert on the New Freedom Commission.)

According to MerryLynn Gerstenschlager, education director for Texas
Eagle Forum, much-needed mental health/mental retardation reform
legislation in Texas (HB 2572) became a vehicle last week for a
dangerous and far-reaching amendment that was unexpectedly added to the
bill going into conference committee. The amendment aroused heated
reaction from the public and from groups monitoring the issue.

Dr. Karen Effrem of EdWatch, who has alerted the public to the dangers
of the NFC recommendations nationally, provided extensive background
research and analysis on the issue to those involved. John Breeding,
Ph.D., a psychologist and founder of Texans for Safe Education (TFSE),
provided testimony against the amendment and mobilized his members
against it. Dr. Breeding has experience with the dangers of mental
health screening. He is the psychologist caring for Aliah Gleason, the
young girl who was forcibly admitted to a state mental hospital and
drugged after a school screening. [Note: You may click here to join TFSE
and Ablechild to sign a declaration of refusal to submit your children
to mental health screening and drugging.]

A Texas Eagle Forum alert stated that the Texas amendment would have
done the following:
 

• Resulted in the creation
  of socialized medicine in Texas.

• Cost billions of
  dollars, at the expense of Texas taxpayers to integrate mental and
  physical health care in Texas with no limits on what is spent.
  

• Called for a system that
  is performance-based and assurance that local authority will achieve
  improved performance outcomes. This means that the state would have
  determined the standard for what is healthy mental behavior. One
  must then ask how this would be measured and how one s behavior
  would be remediated to meet the state outcome [standard]. There is
  an enormous potential for people to be screened, labeled and drugged
  based on their beliefs.

• Called for establishing
  a health care services delivery system that integrates primary
  health care services and behavioral health care services delivery.
  This would have implemented mental health parity in Texas codifying
  the belief that mental health and physical health are equivalent in
  their scientific understanding, agreement on treatment strategies,
  safety and effectiveness of treatment, etc, when nothing could be
  farther from the truth.

• Called for screening for
  co-occurring physical, mental, and substance-abuse disorders. This
  language is right out of the
  controversial New Freedom Commission report that recommended
  screening consumers of all ages…across the life span, starting in
  preschool. Mental illness is extremely problematic because of the
  problems of already existing coercion of parents to have their
  children screened and drugged, subjective criteria for disorders
  such as ADHD, dangerous and ineffective medication, and the failure
  of screening to prevent suicide.

• Called for integrated
  treatment strategies for both adults and children. This would have
  resulted in the labeling and drugging of adults and children. The
  treatment plan would have used the controversial Texas Medication
  Algorithm Project (TMAP) that uses expensive new psychiatric drugs
  that have severe side effects and are not very effective. Note that
  the FDA reported and warned about antidepressants in 2004, stating
  that these drugs cause lethal and dangerous side effects like
  suicide, violence, and withdrawal.

Gun Owners of America also
issued an alert to its Texas members, stating, “The amendment calls for
a mental health screening system that could potentially cover every
child in the state — with no guarantee that it won’t be done over the
objections of the parents. It is common knowledge,” the GOA alert
stated, “that public schools routinely insist upon medicating (drugging)
students to control behavior.” The alert described how the state would
first determine that a child has “unacceptable” mental behavior, then
insist upon prescribed drugs as a solution.

Thanks to the incredible grassroots work of these and other groups and
individuals, the legislators involved wisely saw the amendment’s many
problems and dangers. It was withdrawn during conference committee
negotiations on the final weekend, in spite of major support from
wealthy and influential political supporters. Initially the committee
wanted to establish an “interim study committee” of the mental health
system in Texas. The number one goal of that committee would have been
to study the “integration” of behavioral and physical health care. Such
a study would have simply postponed the battle until next year. In the
end, legislators amended the conference report to study only the
“effectiveness” of these two systems.

The Texas battle is part of larger coordinated effort to implement the
NFC recommendations in every state. The powerful pharmaceutical
industry, wealthy foundations with political agendas, and the mental
health establishment have a huge financial and political stake in seeing
these recommendations implemented nationally and through federal
legislation. Minnesota legislators, for example, are being lobbied
heavily by these same groups to adopt

mental health screening for toddlers in proposed

Nanny State legislation. Congress

allocated $20 million last year to assist states in implementing the
recommendations of the NFC.

Dr. Karen Effrem of EdWatch

has written that “Mental health diagnostic criteria are very vague
and subjective.” She has noted that “Experts admit the lack of science
underlying psychiatric labels.” Effrem’s sources include the World
Health Organization, the

US Surgeon General, authors of psychiatrys Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual, and other psychiatric textbook authors and experts
who admit that psychiatric diagnostic criteria are “subjective” and
“social constructions.'” “How could it be wise,” Effrem asked, “to
integrate these two very different health systems at taxpayers expense?
                                                                      

The Texas legislation (HB 2572) was a
top priority in the Texas 2005 legislature and had been promoted heavily
by Republican Governor Rick Perry. At the federal level, Texas
Congressman Ron Paul has gained the support of 36 co-sponsors for a bill

(HR 181) that forbids federal funds from being used for any mental
health screening of children without the consent of parents.  Five of
the co-sponsors have signed on in May.

You may

click here to send an email to
your elected officials to encourage co-sponsorship and support of this
very important federal legislation.

ORDER TODAY!


Universal Mental Health Screening Packet



Provides the informed citizen with hardcopies of nine (9) informative
articles on the push for universal mental health screening, by five
nationally recognized authors. This packet also includes a CD which has
copies of all the articles plus a PowerPoint presentation and a radio
interview by Dr. Effrem.

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