Drugged from birth

By Michael Hampton

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The federal government wants to perform mental health screening on infants and get them started on drugs which they will take for their entire lives, if the drugs don’t kill them first. And you’re going to pay for it, whether you want to or not.

Already, children as young as 3, who wind up in the foster care system, are receiving psychiatric drugs for such disorders as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or depression, with over 60% of foster children in Texas, nearly two-thirds in Massachusetts, and 55% of foster children in Florida on as many as 16 different psychiatric drugs.

Where did the drive to medicate every child in the United States begin?

It began in Texas, with the Texas Medication Algorithm Project, an effort to create “one size fits all” treatment for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons says that the “TMAP algorithm guidelines for psychotropic drugs are not backed by scientific evidence, but rather on self-interested opinion. Indeed the scientific evidence contradicts all claims made about the superiority of the drugs recommended by TMAP as first line treatment — these drugs have not been shown to be either more effective or safer than non-drug interventions or existing, cheaper, old drugs. TMAP guidelines were formulated by a consensus panel whose opinions were solicited by pharmaceutical companies that sponsored TMAP. The TMAP formularies recommend the drugs manufactured by those companies that are all on patent, very expensive, and have no better safety or effectiveness profiles than older, cheaper drugs that themselves are not very safe or effective.”

Yet under programs being pushed by a little-known federal government agency, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the discredited TMAP algorithms, originally designed for adults, would be used on children.

In SAMHSA’s Action Agenda, based on current Bush administration policy, the government wants to “fundamentally alter the form and function of the mental health service delivery system in this country” by implementing the recommendations of the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.

One of these programs, which is already in operation, is Foundations for Learning, which was added into the No Child Left Behind Act at the last minute by the conference committee. According to Dr. Karen R. Effrem, of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, it “provides federal funds in the form of grants to states and other agencies to provide preschool screening, parent education, social services, home visits, transportation and curriculum to support ’social and emotional development’” for children from birth to age 7. A child can receive these services if the child has been removed from child care, Head Start or similar programs for behavioral problems, or is at risk of being removed from such programs, or if one of the child’s parents has depression or another mental illness.

“The criteria for diagnosing mental disorders are very vague in general, but are extremely vague and inaccurate for children,” Effrem wrote. “These grants will further subsidize the labeling and drugging of an alarmingly large population of young children with potent medications that have not been studied in that age group.”

Oh, and there’s one other little point. “The federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in mental health and early childhood issues and the record of success of these types of programs is abysmal.”

The NFC recommendations include a wide variety of mental health programs targeted at children as young as age 3, and early intervention for some children from birth.

Michael Ostrolenk, a licensed psychotherapist and public policy consultant who founded the Medical Privacy Coalition, wrote, “Their influence [of the mental health establishment over government] causes our children to be labeled in infancy, and it creates a never-ending market for psychiatric drugs. The long term effects of these drugs on the brains of our children are unknown. They also create a market for other drugs used to treat the chronic side effects like obesity and diabetes, and they will be needed throughout the lives of those affected, enhancing drug company profits while bankrupting taxpayer funded programs. As these programs multiply, the use of politically motivated labeling and drugging for children who do not comply with the indoctrination of the federal curriculum will increase. Brave New World will appear less and less like fiction unless these programs are stopped.”

It appears that dumbing down the schools wasn’t enough to get everyone in America to be conforming, subservient little sheep. Now they want to drug all of our children into submission. Baa.