On June 22, 2009, the RWJF website posted a link to download the full text of an article in Time Magazine, by John Cloud titled, "Staying Sane May Be Easier Than You Think," who reported: "The most exciting research in mental health today involves not how to treat mental illness but how to prevent it in the first place."
"In fact," Cloud said, "many mental illnesses -- even those like schizophrenia that have demonstrable genetic origins -- can be stopped or at least contained before they start."
"This isn't wishful thinking but hard science," he claimed.
The article discussed a report by the National Academics, "an organization of experts who investigate science for the Federal Government," nearly two years in the making, "on how to prevent mental, emotional and behavioral disorders." A quick check found one of the sponsors of the National Academies to be RWJF.
"The report concludes that pre-empting such disorders requires two kinds of interventions," Cloud said, "first, because genes play so important a role in mental illness, we need to ensure that close relatives (particularly children) of those with mental disorders have access to rigorous screening programs."
"Second," he noted, "we must offer treatment to people who have already shown symptoms of illness (say, a tendency to brood and see the world without optimism) but don't meet the diagnostic criteria for a full-scale mental illness (in this case, depression)."
"Some prevention programs even prescribe psychiatric medications, including antipsychotics and antidepressants, to people who aren't technically psychotic or depressed," Time reported.
"This is a big concern," Joseph Rogers, founder of the Philadelphia-based National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse told Cloud. "Because, gee, if you miss, you can really do more harm with some of these drugs than good."
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