Teenscreen

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Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs Melody Petersen See book keywords and concepts

The checks were part of Solvay s pledge to pay $1 million to the foundation, which has helped spread the word about teenscreen. In 2005 the foundation's chairman was David A. Dodd, the former chief executive of Solvay. Other directors of the foundation included executives from Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. By the end of 2005 at least seven school districts in Iowa were using TeenScreen, and not all parents were happy about it.

The staff of the teenscreen program, which had its offices in Manhattan, offered to test schoolchildren regularly for a variety of mental illnesses. Their mission—to reduce teenage suicides—was a noble one. The problem was that scientific studies had not been able to prove that the benefits of such screening outweighed the possible harm, which includes the danger of diagnosing and prescribing medications to students who are not mentally ill. The pharmaceutical industry had long been involved in promoting Dr. Shaffer's work. For example, at the press conference in 2000 at which Dr.

In 2005 many Iowa school boards heard presentations about a program called teenscreen, a program started by Dr. David Shaffer, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, who has worked as a consultant to some of the leading makers of psychiatric drugs. Dr. Shaffer was the leader of a team that reported in 1996 that nearly 21 percent of American children suffered from a mental disorder, a study that started a flurry of discussions across the nation about "a crisis" in children's mental health. The team's estimate meant that in every classroom of thirty students, six were mentally ill.

The teenscreen program focused on teenagers, but some of the antidepressant manufacturers had also pushed in recent years to screen Iowa children who were much younger. For example, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, and Eli Lilly paid in 2001 to promote mental health screenings for all kids during what organizers called Child Health Month. The event's main message was that one out of every five Iowa children had a mental illness that could be diagnosed and treated.

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A program in Indiana modeled after TMAP, called teenscreen, used passive screening, where schools were allowed to test children for mental disorders if the parents did not return a form to the school specifically asking them not to. This outraged many of the parents who did not feel they had provided consent. The 2002 Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act also had a significant impact on how drugs are now tested and administered to children in this country.

Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills That Kill Kelly Patricia O'Meara See book keywords and concepts

For example, out of 350 high school students screened by teenscreen in Colorado, 87 percent of those tested were found to be either at risk of suicide or had a history of suicidal ideation. And, at Colorado youth homeless shelters, 71 percent screened positive for a psychiatric disorder.24 Does the word "absurd" come to mind?

And, recall, all of these impressive screening numbers are regurgitated as success stories in spite of TeenScreen's creator, Shaffer, admitting in his own study that there was an 84 percent failure rate—that only 16 children out of 100 were correctly identified. But the implications of the above "success" rate in Colorado are truly Orwellian when one considers that there are 19.8 million 14- to 19-year-old children in the U.S. The grand psych plan is to screen each one for mental illnesses.

Laurie Flynn, Director, teenscreen, Columbia University, U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions, Congressional Testimony, "Suicide Prevention and Youth: Saving Lives," March 2, 2004 12 Ibid. 13 Laurie Flynn, Community Voices "Before Their Time: Preventing Teen Suicide," September 2005. 14 Allen Jones, "Introduction" Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, January 20, 2004 15 Allen Jones, "Rx:Smoke and Mirrors - The Texas Medication Algorithm Project," Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, January 20, 2004, pg 6-8. 16 Barry Duncan, PSY.D., Scott Miller, PhD.

Although I have obtained copies of two of the tests, officials at teenscreen did not respond to my request for reprint approval. Given that all three tests involve questions, in part, that specifically deal with the child having thoughts about killing himself/herself; it is not difficult to understand why the questions have been withheld from public review. Really, one has to wonder how many parents would consider it a good idea for their 9-year-old elementary school child to be questioned about suicidal thoughts, how often they have the thoughts and if they've ever tried to kill themselves.

Step two is the first leg of the actual screening process. The teenscreen program utilizes three "instruments" for determining the likelihood of a mental health "problem." The first "tool" that may be used in the screening process is the Columbia Health Screen (CHS), a 14-item self-completion questionnaire that takes about 10 minutes to complete. The second "tool" that may be used for screening is the Columbia Depression Scale (CDS) consisting of 22 items that also is a selfcompletion, paper-and-pencil questionnaire.

This is perfect. Despite the fact that methylphenidate has been in use since 1955, the high priests of the FDA again appear to be taking the low road, suggesting that the 25 known deaths and dozens of other reported adverse cardiovascular events associated with ADHD drugs are an acceptable risk. But what has been missed by the public in all the clamor about the potentially harmful effects of ADHD "treatments" is that the cardiovascular events are NOT caused by the alleged abnormality ADHD.

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