**Previously Recorded by Phyllis Schlafly**
Big Brother is on the march. A plan to subject all children to mental health screening is underway, and the pharmaceuticals are gearing up for bigger sales of psychotropic drugs. Like most liberal big-spending ideas, this one was slipped into the law under cover of sweet words. It started with the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health created by President George W. Bush in 2002.
This commission recommends “routine and comprehensive” testing and mental health screening for every child in America, including preschoolers. President Bush has instructed 25 federal agencies to develop a plan to implement the Commission’s recommendations. The commission recommends “linkage” of these mental examinations with “state-of-the-art treatments” using “specific medications for specific conditions.” That means prescribing more expensive patented antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs such a Ritalin.
Even the so-called experts admit that 1nental health diagnoses are inherently subjective. Many thousands if not millions of children would receive stigmatizing diagnoses that would follow them for the rest of their lives. “State-of-the-art treatments” will result in many thousands of children being medicated by expensive, ineffective, and dangerous drugs. The long-term safety and effectiveness of
psychiatric medications on children have never been proven.
The side effects of suggested medications in children are severe. They include suicide, violence, psychosis, cardiac toxicity, and growth suppression.
Parental rights are unclear or non-existent under these mental screening programs. What are the rights of youth and parents to refuse or opt out of mental screening? Will they face coercion and threats of removal from school, or child neglect charges, if they refuse privacy-invading interrogations or unproved medications? How will a child remove a stigmatizing label from his records? Ask your congressmen to put a stop to this mandatory mental screening.
