"I feel bad for them," she added.
Another irate parent, Shelley Abate, calls TeenScreen an "absolute outrage."
"Who doesn't go through a day on this crazy planet and have some of the same thoughts that these teenagers are being told are mental disorders," she points out.
Carole Osgood, a retired daycare provider of 30 years says TeenScreen, "is the ultimate insult to anyone's intelligence."
"Kids did not suddenly change into a strange breed of humans" she notes, "with tons of mental illness over the last 30 years."
Ms Osgood says "common sense needs to be revived as a guide," and tells parents "if it doesn't make sense to you, do not accept it."
Irate parent, Ron Meyerson, says: "What gets me is that this issue is so blatantly obvious and so overtly Orwellian that the public, the politicians, and the media should be all over this thing."
"The fact that it has any credibility at all," he states, "is a sad testament to just how far this country has sunk."
Experts say there is no evidence to support that TeenScreen does anything other than guarantee that a large number of children will end up on drugs. In May 2004, after an indepth investigation, the United States Preventive Services Task Force issued a report with findings that:
(1) There is no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality; (2) There is limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk; and (3) There is insufficient evidence that treatment of those at high risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality.
Two years later, on June 16, 2006, Ned Calonge, the chairman of the Task Force, and the chief medical officer for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, spoke to the Washington Post and said the same findings apply to screening today:
"The panel would reach the same conclusion today... Whether or not we like to admit it, there are no interventions that have no harms... There is weak evidence that screening can distinguish people who will commit suicide from those who will not... And screening inevitably leads to treating some people who do not need it.
"Such interventions have consequences beyond side effects from drugs or other treatments... Unnecessary care drives up the cost of insurance, causing some people to lose coverage altogether."
According to Ken Kramer, who succeeded in leading the crusade to keep TeenScreen out of several school districts in Florida, most people do not realize half of the consequences that come with a diagnosis of a mental illness. For instance, he says many states have laws restricting the purchase of firearms based on an adjudication of mental illnesses and kids labeled mentally ill who are placed on drugs become ineligible to serve in the military.
TeenScreen claims it can diagnose mental disorders in 10 minutes. In March 2004, the program's Executive Director, Laurie Flynn, testified at a Congressional hearing and said that in the screening process, "youth complete a 10-minute self-administered questionnaire that screens for social phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicidality."
Back in 1999 the US Surgeon General noted why children can not be diagnosed with a mental illness and said: "The normally developing child hardly stays the same long enough to make stable measurements ... the signs and symptoms of mental disorders are often also the characteristics of normal development."
Another irate parent, Shelley Abate, calls TeenScreen an "absolute outrage."
"Who doesn't go through a day on this crazy planet and have some of the same thoughts that these teenagers are being told are mental disorders," she points out.
Carole Osgood, a retired daycare provider of 30 years says TeenScreen, "is the ultimate insult to anyone's intelligence."
Ms Osgood says "common sense needs to be revived as a guide," and tells parents "if it doesn't make sense to you, do not accept it."
Irate parent, Ron Meyerson, says: "What gets me is that this issue is so blatantly obvious and so overtly Orwellian that the public, the politicians, and the media should be all over this thing."
"The fact that it has any credibility at all," he states, "is a sad testament to just how far this country has sunk."
Experts say there is no evidence to support that TeenScreen does anything other than guarantee that a large number of children will end up on drugs. In May 2004, after an indepth investigation, the United States Preventive Services Task Force issued a report with findings that:
(1) There is no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality; (2) There is limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk; and (3) There is insufficient evidence that treatment of those at high risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality.
Two years later, on June 16, 2006, Ned Calonge, the chairman of the Task Force, and the chief medical officer for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, spoke to the Washington Post and said the same findings apply to screening today:
"The panel would reach the same conclusion today... Whether or not we like to admit it, there are no interventions that have no harms... There is weak evidence that screening can distinguish people who will commit suicide from those who will not... And screening inevitably leads to treating some people who do not need it.
"Such interventions have consequences beyond side effects from drugs or other treatments... Unnecessary care drives up the cost of insurance, causing some people to lose coverage altogether."
According to Ken Kramer, who succeeded in leading the crusade to keep TeenScreen out of several school districts in Florida, most people do not realize half of the consequences that come with a diagnosis of a mental illness. For instance, he says many states have laws restricting the purchase of firearms based on an adjudication of mental illnesses and kids labeled mentally ill who are placed on drugs become ineligible to serve in the military.
TeenScreen claims it can diagnose mental disorders in 10 minutes. In March 2004, the program's Executive Director, Laurie Flynn, testified at a Congressional hearing and said that in the screening process, "youth complete a 10-minute self-administered questionnaire that screens for social phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, alcohol and drug abuse, and suicidality."
Back in 1999 the US Surgeon General noted why children can not be diagnosed with a mental illness and said: "The normally developing child hardly stays the same long enough to make stable measurements ... the signs and symptoms of mental disorders are often also the characteristics of normal development."
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