Schools Seem Eager to Drug Your Kids

Here is part of a petition that is being circulated these days:
"To: School Board Members and State and Federal Legislators

"Whereas children as young as 9, who previously had not thought of the concept of suicide, are being asked invasive and leading questions by TeenScreen such as: Have you tried to kill yourself in the last year? Are you still thinking of killing yourself? Have you thought seriously about killing yourself? Have you often thought about killing yourself? Have you ever tried to kill yourself?" and kids are being lured into doing the suicide survey by TeenScreen's offers of free movie passes, food coupons, pizza parties and $50 mall gift certificates;"

What’s going on here? TeenScreen is a state-sanctioned program with an advisory board that has major pharmaceutical company ties, that is infiltrating the public schools of America in a blatant attempt to get the schools to shill for them with the ultimate goal of placing as many kids as possible – millions – on their drugs. It is as simple as that.

So why not just forbid this practice? Well, it’s not that easy, because some believe that the public schools have become adjuncts of the drug industry; they have ties between them and big money is at stake. The more kids they can put on drugs, the more money can be made from selling the drugs, the more people can be employed by the schools, the more, the more.

Here’s more of the petition: " Whereas TeenScreen is based on the controversial and unscientific Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, written by psychiatrists with financial ties to drug companies, and children screened by TeenScreen are not given valid medical testing such as brain scans, blood test, urine tests, X-Rays or any other valid medical tests to detect evidence of any possible physical abnormality that may be contributing to certain behavior;

"Whereas, according to TeenScreen psychiatrist David Shaffer, "TeenScreen does identify a whole bunch of kids who aren't really suicidal, so you get a lot of false-positives. And that means if you’re running a large program at a school, you’re going to cripple the program because you’re going to have too many kids you have to do something about;

"Whereas TeenScreen has screened children across the nation without written parental consent in violation of federal law and state laws and has screened children across the nation without fully informed consent and did not warn parents that after taking the TeenScreen suicide survey, certain children have been and will be labeled with false mental disorders, based upon the unscientific DSM and the "chemical imbalance of the brain" theory, which relies solely upon observation and for which no scientific or medical test exists;

"Whereas an epidemic already exists with children using psychiatric drugs and will further skyrocket if children are referred to psychiatrists after screening. According to a survey of recently trained child psychiatrists it was found that treatment for 9 out of 10 children consisted of prescription drugs. (Journal of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry 2002);

"Whereas TeenScreen's leaders and advisory board members have ties to pharmaceutical companies and front groups for pharmaceutical companies;

"Whereas antipsychotic drugs are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for children; the FDA's "black box warning" states antidepressants increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children and adolescents with psychiatric disorders; and drug safety experts have recommended additional "black box" warnings be placed on ADHD drugs: for the increased risk of stroke and heart attack;

"Whereas TeenScreen only partners with and seeks to immediately refer students to "mental illness" practitioners and does not refer students to medical disciplines that could test for underlying health problems such as allergies, nutrition, toxicities and physical illnesses;

"Whereas child suicides are very rare and have been on a decline for years; and TeenScreen is very secretive about their suicide survey and refuses to allow parents to obtain a copy and is also very secretive about which schools they've convinced to use their suicide survey." For the petition, go to: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html

Know your rights: be sure you are informed and that the schools have your consent to do any psychiatric testing of your child.

Ned Vare is an architectural designer and author; former private school teacher, businessman, and elected official.