It becomes obvious that teens will not benefit from TeenScreen. The question that begs to be asked is "Who will benefit?"
Psychologist, author and director of Texans for Safe Education, John Breeding, doesn't mince words, "TeenScreen is nothing more than a government sponsored marketing tool created to serve the interests of the corporate pharmaceutical industry and psychiatrists. It is a shame and a disgrace that the United States is putting millions of children on psychiatric drugs today. This is obviously not enough to satisfy the insatiable greed of big pharma. We must stop TeenScreen and protect our children from more deadly poisoning."
TeenScreen is the brainchild of psychiatrist David Shaffer of Columbia University. Shaffer is a paid consultant for pharmaceutical companies Hoffman la Roche, Wyeth, and GlaxoSmithKline. Shaffer is also the director of the Division of Child Psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. A New York Post article dated January 31, 1999, State Testing Prozac on 6-Year olds; Parents Not Told About Risks Including Suicide and Mania, read, "The New York State Psychiatric Institute in Manhattan is performing little-known but extensive Prozac experimentation on troubled kids as young as 6 years old, according to internal records. While the potentially deadly danger was cited in the researchers' documents, it was not included in the consent forms given to children and their parents to read and sign."
Laurie Flynn, the current director of TeenScreen is also the former director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). While Flynn was the director of NAMI, a group that bills itself as "a grassroots organization of individuals with brain disorders and their family members", NAMI received $11.72 million from various drug companies between 1996 and mid-1999. One drug company went as far as "loaning" one of its executives to NAMI, still paying for his salary while he worked at NAMI's headquarters.
In view of Flynn's cozy relationships with drug companies, officials of the program are working hard at minimizing any link to the drug companies by saying that they are not funded by drug money. Yet, the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities newsletter, Update - May/June 2002, revealed that a recent local TeenScreen survey was partly funded by pharmaceutical giant, Eli Lilly.
The goal of TeenScreen is one item they are not afraid to reveal: to provide mental health screening for every single American teen. If TeenScreen's goal is achieved, all 19,800,000 youths will receive a "mental health checkup". Considering that 71% of teens who were screened in Colorado were labeled with a mental disorder, should TeenScreen succeed in its goal, it is possible that 71% of our teens would end up being labeled. This means that no less than 14,058,000 American youth would end up labeled mentally ill. Since nine out of ten children who receive "treatment" are given mind-altering psychiatric drugs, the inevitable conclusion is that 12,652,200 would be drugged.
The average price of a prescription for psychiatric drugs is $102 per month. TeenScreen's endeavors would increase the pharmaceutical companies' monthly revenues by $1,290,524,400.
To ensure success, TeenScreen officials prefer the Passive Consent form which requires parents to return a form to the school only if they do not want their child to participate in the screening. Flynn is quick to deny promoting the use of Passive Consent to schools. However, Flynn's statement, like many others, is far removed from the truth. Numerous high schools only use Passive Consent forms and, as in the case of Flager Palm Coast High School in Florida, the passive acceptance style was discussed by school officials to increase the numbers of participants from 50% for Active Consent to near 95% for Passive.
Incentives such as pizza or movie coupons are distributed to the kids because, as TeenScreen co-director, Leslie McGuire, said during a national conference, "Getting the kids to buy-in is such an essential thing because for the most part, you're distributing the consent forms to the kids to bring home to their parents and bring them back. So you have to get their buy-in, you have to get them interested."
TeenScreen goes as far as to advise local schools on how to circumvent federal law. The Protection of Pupil Rights Act (PPRA) protects the rights of parents by making instructional materials available for their inspection if the materials are to be used in connection with a survey, analysis, or evaluation in which their child is participating. It also requires written parental consent before minors are required to take part in such a survey, analysis, or evaluation.
The TeenScreen News (Fall 2003, Vol. 2, Issue 2) instructs schools that making the TeenScreen survey a part of the curriculum will help them get around the PPRA, "["] if the screening will be given to all students, as opposed to some, it becomes part of the curriculum and no longer requires active parental consent."
But even if active consent forms were used for all children being tested by TeenScreen, it still would provide no protection for unsuspecting parents. Before parents can make a truly educated decision they must be told all the facts. Then, and only then, can they provide informed consent.
A true informed consent form would tell parents the following:
" Chemical imbalance of the brain is only a theory with no science of proof to back it up
" While screening is not a scientific and medical test it might still result in the child being labeled depressed or mentally ill
" Should the child be labeled, the likely recommended course of treatment will be psychiatric drugs
" Psychiatric drugs are known to cause children to commit suicide
" Should parents refuse the recommended course of treatment, a referral to the local child welfare agency might be made, which could result in the child being taken away from home and forcibly drugged
Flynn has made it clear that she will go to any length in getting acceptance for TeenScreen, including perjury. While testifying in front of a Senate Committee in Washington, she claimed to be in partnership with the University of South Florida in piloting district wide mental Health screenings of 9th graders in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, Florida.
Wilcox Clayton, Pinellas County School Board Superintendent, was quick to set the record straight. He emphatically stated that no such screening was taking place and added, "If this person [Laurie Flynn] said what they allegedly said, I would have serious reservations about partnering with such an organization."
Flynn and Shaffer have proven that what they care about is the money they receive from the drug companies, not our children.
Psychologist, author and director of Texans for Safe Education, John Breeding, doesn't mince words, "TeenScreen is nothing more than a government sponsored marketing tool created to serve the interests of the corporate pharmaceutical industry and psychiatrists. It is a shame and a disgrace that the United States is putting millions of children on psychiatric drugs today. This is obviously not enough to satisfy the insatiable greed of big pharma. We must stop TeenScreen and protect our children from more deadly poisoning."
TeenScreen is the brainchild of psychiatrist David Shaffer of Columbia University. Shaffer is a paid consultant for pharmaceutical companies Hoffman la Roche, Wyeth, and GlaxoSmithKline. Shaffer is also the director of the Division of Child Psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. A New York Post article dated January 31, 1999, State Testing Prozac on 6-Year olds; Parents Not Told About Risks Including Suicide and Mania, read, "The New York State Psychiatric Institute in Manhattan is performing little-known but extensive Prozac experimentation on troubled kids as young as 6 years old, according to internal records. While the potentially deadly danger was cited in the researchers' documents, it was not included in the consent forms given to children and their parents to read and sign."
Laurie Flynn, the current director of TeenScreen is also the former director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). While Flynn was the director of NAMI, a group that bills itself as "a grassroots organization of individuals with brain disorders and their family members", NAMI received $11.72 million from various drug companies between 1996 and mid-1999. One drug company went as far as "loaning" one of its executives to NAMI, still paying for his salary while he worked at NAMI's headquarters.
The goal of TeenScreen is one item they are not afraid to reveal: to provide mental health screening for every single American teen. If TeenScreen's goal is achieved, all 19,800,000 youths will receive a "mental health checkup". Considering that 71% of teens who were screened in Colorado were labeled with a mental disorder, should TeenScreen succeed in its goal, it is possible that 71% of our teens would end up being labeled. This means that no less than 14,058,000 American youth would end up labeled mentally ill. Since nine out of ten children who receive "treatment" are given mind-altering psychiatric drugs, the inevitable conclusion is that 12,652,200 would be drugged.
The average price of a prescription for psychiatric drugs is $102 per month. TeenScreen's endeavors would increase the pharmaceutical companies' monthly revenues by $1,290,524,400.
To ensure success, TeenScreen officials prefer the Passive Consent form which requires parents to return a form to the school only if they do not want their child to participate in the screening. Flynn is quick to deny promoting the use of Passive Consent to schools. However, Flynn's statement, like many others, is far removed from the truth. Numerous high schools only use Passive Consent forms and, as in the case of Flager Palm Coast High School in Florida, the passive acceptance style was discussed by school officials to increase the numbers of participants from 50% for Active Consent to near 95% for Passive.
Incentives such as pizza or movie coupons are distributed to the kids because, as TeenScreen co-director, Leslie McGuire, said during a national conference, "Getting the kids to buy-in is such an essential thing because for the most part, you're distributing the consent forms to the kids to bring home to their parents and bring them back. So you have to get their buy-in, you have to get them interested."
TeenScreen goes as far as to advise local schools on how to circumvent federal law. The Protection of Pupil Rights Act (PPRA) protects the rights of parents by making instructional materials available for their inspection if the materials are to be used in connection with a survey, analysis, or evaluation in which their child is participating. It also requires written parental consent before minors are required to take part in such a survey, analysis, or evaluation.
The TeenScreen News (Fall 2003, Vol. 2, Issue 2) instructs schools that making the TeenScreen survey a part of the curriculum will help them get around the PPRA, "["] if the screening will be given to all students, as opposed to some, it becomes part of the curriculum and no longer requires active parental consent."
But even if active consent forms were used for all children being tested by TeenScreen, it still would provide no protection for unsuspecting parents. Before parents can make a truly educated decision they must be told all the facts. Then, and only then, can they provide informed consent.
A true informed consent form would tell parents the following:
" Chemical imbalance of the brain is only a theory with no science of proof to back it up
" While screening is not a scientific and medical test it might still result in the child being labeled depressed or mentally ill
" Should the child be labeled, the likely recommended course of treatment will be psychiatric drugs
" Psychiatric drugs are known to cause children to commit suicide
" Should parents refuse the recommended course of treatment, a referral to the local child welfare agency might be made, which could result in the child being taken away from home and forcibly drugged
Flynn has made it clear that she will go to any length in getting acceptance for TeenScreen, including perjury. While testifying in front of a Senate Committee in Washington, she claimed to be in partnership with the University of South Florida in piloting district wide mental Health screenings of 9th graders in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, Florida.
Wilcox Clayton, Pinellas County School Board Superintendent, was quick to set the record straight. He emphatically stated that no such screening was taking place and added, "If this person [Laurie Flynn] said what they allegedly said, I would have serious reservations about partnering with such an organization."
Flynn and Shaffer have proven that what they care about is the money they receive from the drug companies, not our children.
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