BUSH WATCH...Evelyn Pringle

TeenScreen - Another Gross Distortion

Here's another gross distortion of the truth by TeenScreen. On its web site, in response to the question, is TeenScreen related to TMAP, the Texas Medication Algorithm Project? It says: “No. ... Some Web postings inappropriately and inaccurately claim that TeenScreen is a bridge to medication and hence the TMAP program. This is entirely false.”

“There is absolutely no relationship between TeenScreen and TMAP. ... TeenScreen does not endorse any particularly mental health treatment or medication.”

"TMAP ... is a medication formulary for seriously mentally ill adults in Texas. The adults served by this program are cared for in public programs. TeenScreen and TMAP have nothing to do with one another."

That's what TeenScreen says. Now lets look at the truth.

Simply put, a TMAP (aka, algorithm) is a list of drugs that doctors are required to use in treating persons with specific illnesses who receive medication funded by the government with tax dollars.

Contrary to what TeenScreen claims, this list is not limited to mentally ill adults in Texas. In fact, Texas has a children's version that apes the adult version and is used for kids in hospitals, foster care institutions, prisons, juvenile programs and every other public program that is funded with tax dollars in Texas.

It all started in the mid-90s while Bush was governor. TMAP was developed by what's referred to as an "expert consensus" made up of a group of "experts" already known to have favorable opinions of certain drugs, chosen by drug company sponsors, Janssen Pharmaceutica, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Astrazeneca, Pfizer, Novartis, Janssen-Ortho-McNeil, GlaxoSmithKline, Abbott, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Wyeth-Ayerst and Forrest Laboratories.

In 1997-98, with pharma funding, a panel was assembled to determine which drugs would be used in treating children and decided that the same drugs used on adults could be used on kids. There were no studies conducted to test the safety of giving the TMAP drugs to kids and most had never been FDA approved for use by children.

Experts are speaking out against these lists. According Dr Grace Jackson, author of the new book, Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs : A Guide for Informed Consent, “Outside of emergency & trauma medicine, where algorithms can and do save lives, the use of medical flowcharts and guidelines must be evaluated carefully and critically. This is because the algorithms have arisen from "Evidence Based Medicine" -- a statistically based approach to studying treatment effects in populations, rather than a reality based approach to discerning treatment effectiveness in each unique individual.”

The TMAP is still being used to push drugs on kids in Texas, according to an article by the Associated Press on February 09, 2005, “As lawmakers work to revamp Texas' foster care system, they also are reviewing the use of mind-altering drugs by foster children.”

In October, 2004, the Texas inspector general for the Health and Human Services Commission said his office interviewed staff at three state licensed wilderness camps, which provide care for foster children, and found that the average child arrives on four or five psychotropic drugs.

After investigating the issue of drug use with foster kids, in an April, 2004 report, Texas Comptroller, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, blasted the agency for giving children drugs so ``doctors and drug companies can make a buck."

An update on Texas, comes from noted author Dr John Breeding who reports, "We are fighting off a swarm of efforts to codify New Freedom language into Texas law. Driven by Big Pharma and psychiatry, Texas is a focal point as the Texas Medication Algorithm Project started it all, the same folks were behind the New Freedom Commission, and the end result is more and more folks on drugs," said Breeding.

TeenScreen's underlying motive is to recruit customers to funnel money to pharma by drugging kids and a TMAP model, under whatever name it goes by in each state, is the list of the drugs that the new customers will be given. In fact to push the overall scheme along, the Bush appointed New Freedom Commission (NFC) has recommended that TMAP be used in all 50 states.

And it is spreading to other states. In Ohio, the list is called “OMAP” and includes all the high-priced psychotropics such as Paxil, Zyprexa, Adderall, Zoloft, Risperdal, Seroqual, Depakote, Prozac, Wellbutron, Zyban, Remeron, Serzone, and Effexor.

But first things first, they have to get TeenScreen in schools and this is where the NFC comes in. Its recommendations include, "Early detection of mental health problems in children and adults - through routine and comprehensive testing and screening - will be an expected and typical occurrence." "Both children and adults will be screened for mental illnesses during their routine physical exams."

Citing recommendations by the NFC, TeenScreen’s Executive Director, Laurie Flynn, reports the Bush plan, “to launch a nationwide mental illness screening program in government institutions, including the public school system, for all students from kindergarten up to the 12th grade.”

While testifying before the committee on March 2, 2004, Flynn praised the NFC for recommending TeenScreen. “I am especially pleased to report that the commission named the ... TeenScreen Program a model program for early intervention.”

Flynn’s testimony discussing TeenScreen’s goal of finding students to “link them with treatment:”

“In 2003, we were able to screen approximately 14,200 teens at these sites; among those students, we were able to identify approximately 3,500 youth with mental health problems and link them with treatment. This year, we believe we will be able to identify close to 10,000 teens in need, a 300 percent increase over last year.”

Make no mistake, the lists are being used to drug children and any new recruits will end up on drugs.

For instance, according to a report in the April 25, 2005, Columbus Dispatch, as of July, 2004, nearly 40,000 Ohio children on Medicaid were already on psychiatric drugs. After concerns were raised nationally about the number of kids being medicated, a reporter for the Dispatch investigated prescriptions records paid for by the Ohio Medicaid program and discovered that 31% of children ages 6 to 18 in foster and group homes, were on mental-health drugs. And 22% of kids in detention were on psychiatric drugs as of January, 2005, with many on five or more.

These drugs have never been approved for kids and they have been found to cause suicide and violence. Nearly all the children involved in violent rampages in recent years have been on the antidepressants known as SSRIs.

Christopher Pittman, the 12-year-old who shot and killed his grandparents while they slept, and then burned down the house, was on Zoloft. In describing the event, Christopher said it was like he was watching a show on television and that he could see everything happening but there was no way to stop it.

One of the country’s leading experts on SSRIs, Dr Ann Tracey, explains that people on these drugs, like Christopher, will appear as if they are wide awake, when in fact they are half asleep walking around in a dream-like state.

Despite the testimony of two highly qualified psychiatrists that Christopher was "involuntarily intoxicated" on Zoloft that night, the jury found him guilty, and barring a miracle, this poor child will sit in prison for the next 30 years because a negligent doctor placed him on a lethal medication.

Dr Grace Jackson is against giving kids drugs. “It would be difficult to engage in a form of medical experimentation more potentially hazardous than child psychopharmacology. With increasing frequency, researchers have demonstrated how and why the psychiatric drugs are powerful neuroendocrine disruptors which exert negative effects upon cognition, growth, metabolism, and reproductive functioning,” she explained.

According to Jackson, “The question should not be whether or not American children are being "overdrugged" -- rather, the question should be: what evidence justifies the drugging of even one child ?”

State Officials Compromised By TMAP

Allan Jones was an Investigator in the Pennsylvania Office of Inspector General, when the PennMap scheme was set up in Pennsylvania. According to Jones, "TMAP and the NFC represent the deceptive marketing of fraudulent science through the corruption of our governmental safeguards at all levels."

When charged with examining the receipt of drug company funds by state employees, Jones said, "I began to look at the overall issue of Pharma marketing and immediately became alarmed that the tactics used in marketing to the private sector were being replicated with public employees. Trips, perks, travel, honorariums, consultant fees etc."

"The most shady aspects of the program emerged quickly," he said, “the recommended drugs were exclusively new, patented and expensive and were selected by persons with financial ties to Pharma; and the claims of increased efficacy and safety made by the drug companies and State employees, were contradicted by the available science," Jones discovered.

"The pharmaceutical industry purchased the "opinions" of a few key doctors and the endorsement of a few key state administrators, and in exchange they illicitly opened the market for billions of tax dollars spent on dubious and dangerous drugs," Jones said.

Pharma giant, Janssen, took the lead in exerting influence over state officials by creating “Advisory Boards” made up of State Mental Health Directors who were regularly treated to all expense paid trips and conferences. By influencing 50 key officials, the company knew that it would have a good shot at getting a TMAP list adopted in every state.

For example, Ohio Mental Health Director, Michael Hogan, and California Director, Stephen Mayberg, are New Freedom Commission members who control mental health services in their respective states, and both are members of a Janssen advisory board.

Hogan has proven to be so useful that Eli Lilly has given him a “Lifetime Achievement Award.” In granting the award it was noted that Hogan had given over 75 presentations at conferences since he accepted the position on Bush’s New Freedom Commission.

According to my ace records researcher, Sue Weibert, every conference that she was able to track down that featured Hogan, was sponsored by drug companies, and the group that organized the conference solicited money from pharma to pay the key note speaker.

Hogan is also on TeenScreen’s Advisory Board.

In Florida, Flynn has Jim McDonough, the Director of the Florida Office of Drug Control, in her back pocket.

In a March 22, 2004 email to McDonough she griped about paying the Florida gang $120,000 a year and not getting enough in return. “We've been working with David Shern and USF for 18 months or so and still haven't got a program going,“ she said, “At this point I'm inclined to re-think the use of our resources. We're sending about $120k to USF annually. ... but ultimately we're not achieving our goals in the community,” she wrote.

Flynn went on to tell McDonough that she had to find kids to screen and said, “I'm looking for a horse to ride here!”

At this point, the NFC, TMAP, and TeenScreen, working together, have managed to weave together a web of key government officials who control funding for the nation’s mental health services in states all across the country.

By using TeenScreen, pharma has hopes of roping in 7-12 million new customers, according to Flynn’s March 2002 testimony:

“The need for increased ... screening is evidenced by the fact that close to 750,000 teens are depressed at any one time, and an estimated 7-12 million youth suffer from mental illness. While treatments are available for these severely disabling disorders, sadly, most children do not receive the treatment they need. Among teens that are depressed, 60-80 percent go untreated.”

State Officials Starting To Get Busted

As it turns out, bribing state officials is really not uncommon. In Pennsylvania, Allen Jones discovered that Janssen and Pfizer had both been courting the same guy, Steve Fiorello, the State Pharmacist. Each company had paid Fiorello as a consultant, treated him to travel accommodations, and provided him with educational grants to promote PennMap.

Fiorello was in a unique position. He was paid about $82,000 to oversee pharmacy operations at Pennsylvania’s mental health hospitals, and he was also a member of the committee that determined which drugs would be on the PennMap list for doctors to prescribe at those hospitals.

When finally busted, the ethics commission charged that he "played both sides; he participated with Pfizer ... as to its drug-selling strategies, and he participated on the committee as to selecting drugs for the state formulary."

A 101-page report said Fiorello had earned money from Pfizer while serving on a panel that chose what drugs would be used and that he improperly took money from Janssen and Duquesne University. The Commission fined him $27,000.

An April 2002 company publication showed that Janssen knew exactly what it was paying for. Under Faculty Bio, Janssen described Fiorello as being “responsible for the formulation of policies and procedures for drug use for ten state hospitals and facilities including the development and implementation of the PENNMAP project."

Flynn & Hogan - Expert Consensus

So where does TeenScreen fit in here? After all, it insists on its web site that it is absolutely not involved with this list business.

Well low and behold, that’s not quite true. Just look what my talented records researcher, Sue Weibert, discovered in "The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry," Vol 60, 1999 Supplement 11: under Expert Consensus Guideline Series: Treatment of Schizophrenia 1999.

Here we have none other than Laurie Flynn listed as an "expert" who took part in creating the list. She surely must have forgotten about this.

Flynn and her band of pushers from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) must be geniuses when it comes to picking drugs because 39 members of NAMI got to cast votes in determining which drugs could be on this list. The only group with more votes than NAMI was academic experts with 42 votes.

Another “expert” who took part in this “expert consensus” process was Flynn’s good buddy, Mr Mike Hogan.

On its web site, TeenScreen claims that it does not endorse any specific drugs. Well the author obviously did not check with its Executive Director because she sure does.

Surprise, surprise! “Experts” Flynn and Hogan recommended the most expensive drugs on the market for the treatment of schizophrenia: Risperdal, Seroquel, and Zyprexa.

No affiliation with drug companies either huh? According to the report, "This project was supported by unrestricted educational grants from Eli Lilly and Co; Janssen Pharmaceutica, Inc; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical; Pfizer, Inc; Zeneca Pharmaceuticals."

The truth is, NAMI is pharma’s main front group and is used to implement every marketing scheme the industry dreams up. As its former Executive Director, Flynn was its top pusher for 16 years. The group even admits that its goal is to help pharma “grow the market,” in an excerpt from the its 2000 990 entitled, "Guidelines for the Relationship between NAMI and the Campaign's Founding Sponsors.”

Providers, health plans, and pharmaceutical companies want to grow their markets and to increase their share of the market. A. NAMI will cooperate with these entities to grow the market by making persons aware of the issues involving severe brain disorders, by giving professionals and providers the NAMI perspective, by bringing into treatment persons who are not being served, and by helping persons to adhere to their treatment plans. (2000 990 is available at Guidestar.com).

On March 2, 2004, Flynn testified at a congressional hearing that in the screening process, "youth complete a 10-minute self-administered questionnaire that screens for social phobia, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, alcohol and substance abuse.

This is amazing, if Flynn is right, all it takes is ten minutes and a paper and pencil to unearth any one of 30 deep-seeded mental illnesses. I'm surprised they haven't figured out a way to cut out the middle-man doctor and set up a drive through for kids to go pick up their pills at Walgreens without a prescription. That’s probably in the works.

Experts warn that TeenScreen will do more harm than good. “It is impossible, on cursory examination, or on the basis of the Program's brief written screening test, to detect suicidality or "mental illness," however we define it. Indeed, the fears evoked by the process of seeking out mental illness can create psychiatric symptoms,“ according to Dr Nathaniel Lehrman, MD, former Clinical Director, Kingsboro Psychiatric Center, Brooklyn NY; former Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein and SUNY Downstate Colleges of Medicine.

“Searching out those "illnesses," rather than relying on the troubled to seek help for themselves, violates the privacy of those in whom these "illnesses" are sought,” Lehrman warns, “for those youngsters whose screenings supposedly reveal such "mental illness," the major treatment will then be drugs.”

“Aren't eight million kids on ritalin enough?” Dr Lehrman wants to know.

TeenScreen is always bragging that its screening tools are free. Apparently that was also a scam to convince schools to adopt the program. According to a September 27, 2004, email to Jim McDonough, schools will have to pay a fee beginning in 2006:

"The DPS (the 19 minute computer administered screening tool) that TeenScreen offers has been sold to Mental Health Systems ... Sites can continue using the DPS, but starting Jan 2006, they will have to pay a few hundred dollars. (The exact prices is yet to be decided) ... The DPS will still be offered by TeenScreen, it will just not be free anymore.”

On December 4, 2002, Flynn spoke to the NFC, and explained the cost of setting up one TeenScreen program: "Implementation in just one school district often requires piecing together over a dozen funding streams from the education and mental health fields."

Think about that for a minute, "piecing together over a dozen funding streams." So how much are local tax payers going to end up paying for school employees to set up a TeenScreen program in every school?

Something is very wrong here. This is pharma’s marketing scheme, yet tax payers are paying to set it up, paying school employees to administer the survey, paying for “clinicians” and “case managers,” and in 2006, the use of the survey itself will cost money.

On top of all that, mark my word, tax payers are going end up paying for shrinks for students without insurance and Medicaid programs will end up funding at least three-fourths of the drugs prescribed.

As I’ve said before, this has got to be the most brilliant scheme that I have come across in my 2 years of investigating the pharmaceutical industry. Its all profit - tax dollars funneled through kids directly into pharma coffers. Brilliant.

No Laughing Matter

The pharmaceutical industry is taking over the world right before our very eyes. The harmful effects of the drug-makers' take-over is well-documented in Bob Whitaker's book, "Mad In America."

Right now pharma has over a 100 NAMI type marketing front groups in place all over the globe. It has succeeded in greasing enough palms to compromise the few government officials necessary to control the Federal and State funding allocated for prescription drug programs, and it has doctors in every field of medicine writing out prescriptions for expensive psychiatric drugs as if they were the cure-all for everything under the sun.

Its gotten so bad, that Dr Lehrman notes a need for public awareness of the extent to which the American medical profession is being prostituted by the drug companies, “In no other medical specialty has that prostitution reached the depths it has in my specialty, psychiatry,” he added.

Pharma has infiltrated the staff responsible for prescribing drugs in the country’s health care facilities, to boost profits by overmedicating patients, with most of the funding coming from tax dollars, causing state Medicaid programs to go broke left and right.

In addition, it controls the media with billions of advertising dollars so that when it does get busted for hiding harmful effects of drugs that kill people or paying doctors to push drugs for ailments they were never approved for, or shooting poisonous vaccines into infants for profit, or any of the other 1000 money-making schemes that its got going on any given day, the story might make front page headlines for a day or two at most.

It took hold of the nation’s regulatory agencies by making sure to get the majority of government researchers and scientists on their payrolls so that they will readily approve new drugs and then allow companies to make a killing off selling new drugs by hiding their adverse effects until people start dropping over dead.

But most importantly, Pharma has gained a stronghold on every branch of government by funneling a steady stream of campaign cash to politicians to make sure that favorable legislation is passed and investigations of industry crimes are shut down.

Last, but certainly not least, it now appears more and more likely every day that pharma is going to have its way with the nation's children via the public school system. God help us. --posted July 6, 2005

(Records researchers, Sue Weibert and Ken Kramer contributed to this report)

TeenScreen Is Not A Pill Pusher - Honest

TeenScreen's web site contains a lot of bull but for now I shall only address its assertions that the program is not affiliated with the pharmaceutical industry and that it has nothing to do with plugging any particular drug.

Laurie Flynn, is the former Executive Director the National Alliance for the Mental Illness (NAMI). In 2000 she left NAMI to become Executive Director of the TeenScreen program at Columbia University.

Flynn is the author of an article I ran across titled, "Before Their Time: Preventing Teen Suicide," in which she states: "The TeenScreen Program developed 10 years ago by Columbia University and offered in partnership with the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill helps communities across the nation identify teens with mental illness who might be at risk for suicide."

Now I do not know if Flynn remembers writing that article but I do know that nowadays, she is trying to distance TeenScreen's affiliation with NAMI and for good reason, since myself and others have publicized the fact that the NAMI gang is nothing but a pill-pushing front group funded by the pharmaceutical industry.

Its kind of hard to dispute this charge being that the NAMI website lists "Corporate Partners, Grants, and Foundations," as Abbott, AstraZoneca, Bristol-Meyers-Squibb, Eli Lilly, Forest Lab, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, Jannsen, McNeil, Pfizer, and Wyeth.

So if TeenScreen is being "offered in partnership," with the NAMI, I'd say there is a good chance that a bit of drug money might be seeping into its coffers.

The truth is, during Flynn's 16 year reign over the NAMI, pharma paid her salary. According to internal documents obtained by Mother Jones Magazine, over a period of just 3 years, from 1996 to mid-1999, 18 firms game NAMI a total of $11.72 million, and included Janssen, Novartis, Pfizer, Abbott Labs, Wyeth-Ayerst, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

NAMI's lead donor was Eli Lilly, which gave $2.87 million during that period. In 1999 alone, Lilly delivered $1.1 million in quarterly installments, according to Jones.

Flynn did not leave NAMI to facilitate the TeenScreen scam, she merely received a promotion within the same company most like because over the years she proved herself to be the best drug pusher.

The truth is that none of the 100 or more front groups named association of this, or alliance of that, that make up the gigantic world wide web and serve as the hub for all the industry marketing schemes, would even exist if they were not propped up with drug money.

According to a March 9, 2005, Press Release, the Health and Social Campaigners' Network International, conducted a survey of annual reports from these "patient advocacy groups" that revealed an escalation in pharma donations, but for market-driven reasons.

The survey looked at the top 12 donors (Pfizer; GSK; AstraZeneca; Johnson & Johnson; Merck; Novartis; Aventis; Roche; Eli Lilly; Bristol-Myers Squibb; Wyeth; and Abbott), plus the types of health-based charities to which the companies gave their money.

In almost 100% of cases, the companies gave money to the groups that specialize in the therapeutic areas in which the drug companies research, develop or market products.

Overall, pharma funding can account for more than half of the revenue received by these groups and yet only four of the 125 annual reports contained information about the specific amounts of money provided by pharma. Not surprisingly, these details were almost entirely absent from most of the reports.

In fact, only four of the groups were willing to name their drug company donors and reveal exact amounts. Why all the secrecy? I would think that they would want to openly thank these gracious drug companies for all their kind donations that supposedly come with no strings attached.

An official statement recently added to TeenScreen's web site states: "Even though local programs make no treatment recommendations, we believe any funding received from a pharmaceutical company could create the appearance of a possible inducement to recommend treatment. We strongly recommend that local TeenScreen programs do not receive funding from companies that market medicines for adolescent depression or other mental health problems identified by the screening program."

That statement is a blatant lie. The May 2002 issue of the Update Newsletter reported: "Some 170 students responded to a “TeenScreen” survey conducted by NAMI Nashville and Columbia University."

"TeenScreen was funded through grants from AdvoCare and Eli Lilly," the newsletter reported. In fact, Eli Lilly funded an entire week of events, according to Update.

TeenScreen also says it does not recommend any certain medications. Well as it turns out, that happens to be a lie as well because in 1999, Executive Director Laurie Flynn, wrote the forward for a book that was written to specifically promote the most expensive psychiatric drugs on the market titled, "Breakthroughs in Antipsychotic Medications: A Guide for Consumers, Families, and Clinicians," by Peter J Weiden, Ronald J Diamond.

FYI. The current prices for a month's supply of the top 3 antipsychotics that Flynn recommends in the book (and is now pushing on our children) are: Risperdal $342; Seroquel $414; and Zyprexa $572.

FYI. Antidepressant prescriptions written for children in the US increased over 500% from 1999 to 2003. For the middle-dose range on three antidepressants that Flynn promoted, prices are Zoloft $214; Effexor $234; and Wellbutrin $144.

How safe are these drugs that TeenScreen is pushing overall?

On March 22, 2004, the FDA issued a “Public Health Advisory” that cautioned about the risks associated with all of the antidepressants including Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, and Lexapro, as well as Wellbutrin, Effexor, Serzone, and Remeron. The warning followed a public hearing at which dozens of family members and victims testified about suicide and violence committed by people who were taking these medications.

About 40 relatives of children testified that the drugs had had tragic consequences. A father testified how his 17-year-old daughter hanged herself after seven days on Pfizer's Zoloft, which her doctor had stressed was safe.

Parent Mark Miller, testified that his 13-year-old son, Matt, had hanged himself after taking seven doses of Zoloft.

Paxil was one of the drugs prescribed to children when it was relatively untested. It has since been linked to numerous lethal side effects in kids. Lawsuits have listed the drug as the culprit in cases of murder, suicide, debilitating disease and school shootings. In June of 2003, the FDA issued a warning that Paxil should not be prescribed to persons under 18 due to an alarming number of suicides by kids on the drug.

On April 12, 2005, the New York Times reported that the FDA now requires Black Box warnings about the increased risk of death on the labels of Zyprexa (Eli Lilly) and Risperdal (Johnson & Johnson).

The drug companies have known all along that these drugs are dangerous. In 2003, the Journal of the American Medical Association published the results of 2 trials on children treated with Zoloft. Seventeen children had to be pulled out of the trial because of side effects, compared with only five who were given a placebo.

But to top it off, with all of their lethal side affects, these drugs don't even work. In the Zoloft studies, only 10% more children improved on the drug than those taking a placebo.

Dr David Antonuccio, a psychologist at the University of Nevada, also testified at the FDA hearing and said that after doing an analysis of 12 studies on the use of antidepressants on children, his team of experts determined that the benefits of antidepressants on kids were so small as to be clinically insignificant, and do not warrant any of the increased risk for suicidal behavior or even some of the lesser common side effects, such as agitation, insomnia, and gastrointestinal problems.

Beyond that, Dr Peter Breggin, MD, who for more than a decade, has written books and reports on these drugs, has said, "multiple studies have shown that antidepressants are no better than a sugar pill. People who are depressed often respond to a placebo because it gives them hope."

In July 2005, the FDA issued another warning which states, "Children taking antidepressants may increase suicidal thoughts and actions in about 1 out of 50 people 18 years or younger."

Official estimates have revealed that more than 1 million kids in this country are taking these drugs. So using the FDA's numbers, that would mean that 200,000 children are having suicidal thoughts and actions.

As for saving kids from suicide, statistics show that neither TeenScreen nor the drugs its been peddling have shown any success whatsoever in reducing the number of teen suicides.

While discussing Jeff Weise, the latest teen shooter from Minnesota who was on one of these drugs at the time of his rampage and subsequent suicide, staunch anti-child drugging advocate, Doyle Mills, raised an excellent point about teen suicides when he said "try to find a suicide victim who has not already received some form of psychiatric treatment, usually drugs." --posted July 27, 2005

(Records researchers, Sue Weibert and Ken Kramer contributed to this report)

TeenScreen: Mandatory Screening Never Entered Its Mind

TeenScreen recently posted a whole slew of responses to the various allegations some of us (well mostly me I guess) have made about its screening program to "set the record straight." I began my response with the intention of responding to the whole litany of lies but decided I best break them down and cover each lie one by one or I'd be here forever.

I will cover the rest in future articles but I decided to start with this set of questions and answers posted on TeenScreen's website and I quote:

"Does the Columbia University TeenScreen Program endorse mandated mental health screening for all teens?

"No. The Columbia University TeenScreen Program does not endorse or support government mandated screening. The TeenScreen program is offered only to communities that want to sponsor suicide prevention and mental health check-up programs. Participation in these programs by parents and teens is also always voluntary. All local TeenScreen programs require parental or guardian consent and teen assent.

"What about President Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health? Didn’t they endorse mandatory screening and TeenScreen?

"The Commission did cite screening and TeenScreen as an effective approach to improving teen mental health, but did not endorse mandatory screening.

"Why then are some people worried about mandatory screening?

"We are unaware of any elected official, health professional, corporation, government employee or organization that believes mandatory screening of all teens is a good idea. Last year as Congress was debating new mental health legislation some people incorrectly thought that the legislation would require mandatory screening. An article in the January 20, 2005 Christian Science Monitor explains what happened:

I'll start right here. Never mind the Christian Science Monitor. That reporter obviously did not read TeenScreen's Fall 2003, Newsletter with its funny little words like "requirements," and catchy phrases like "endorse it as federal policy," and I quote:

"In other good news, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) reintroduced the Children’s Mental Health Screening and Prevention Act (H.R. 3063) on September 10. The bill is modeled after the success of the Columbia University TeenScreen® Program and was introduced with our support.

"Once passed and funded, this bill will direct the federal government to collect “proof” that preventative screening works and endorse it as federal policy. This will be accomplished through piloting screening in ten demonstration sites. Look to this newsletter for updates on the bill’s progress," said the Newsletter. It also said,

"In the last edition of the newsletter, we told you about the requirements of each state to develop a suicide prevention plan. Our staff is authoring a chapter in the New York State Suicide Prevention Plan."

So not only will it be a requirement for each state to develop a suicide prevention plan, TeenScreen will be so sweet as to help them do it. Here's the paragraph that TeenScreen posted on its website from the Christian Science Monitor in answer to the questions above:

“Throughout last summer and into the fall the news crept across websites and spilled onto talk radio: The Bush administration was planning to screen every American child for mental-health problems and put those deemed in need of help on powerful psychotropic drugs. Parental rights would be taken away, and the stigma of mental illness would stain the school records of innocent children. Libertarians and conservatives, home-schoolers and psychiatric rights groups, expressed their concerns. Yet so far, the fears seem overblown... By the time Congress passed its enormous spending bill late last fall, only $20 million of new money was appointed as a grant to states to explore new ways of coordinating their "fragmented" mental-health services. The provision contained no mandate that the money be spent to screen children.”

The Monitor says there is no provision that the money be spent on screening kids? What was Queen Bee, Laurie Flynn, talking about in the 2004 TeenScreen Annual Report then while giving an overview of the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Act, and said and I quote:

(1) This legislation, signed in October 2004 by President Bush, offers local communities and Native American tribes up to $82 million in assistance to implement and expand programs like TeenScreen.

(2) Provides grants to states, public organizations, and nonprofits for the development of youth suicide prevention and intervention strategies

(3) Authorizes funds for a variety of programs related to suicide prevention and intervention, including a priority for youth mental health screening programs—such as TeenScreen

(4) Requires that at least 85 percent of the funds be dedicated to implementing youth suicide prevention strategies

The author on TeenScreen's website should have looked back on some of the past statements made by people pushing this suicide BS.

The next question I will respond to is TeenScreen's answer to this question:

"But aren’t the commission and TeenScreen in favor of universal screening? Aren’t mandatory and universal the same thing?"

Here's where we get a lesson in definitions. I thought I was losing it when I first read TeenScreen's definition of universal because that's not what I thought it meant. So I looked it up on my thesaurus which said universal means entire, total, world-wide, complete, and unanimous which is what I thought to begin with. However, this is how TeenScreen defines "universal" on its website and I quote:

"Universal screening and mandatory screening are different ideas. The goal of screening is to find teens who may be silently suffering from depression and other mental disorders that put them at risk of injury, suicide, substance abuse and poor academic achievement. Universal screening means to offer voluntary screening to as many teens as possible because many mental disorders, especially depression, are often impossible to detect by just looking at a teen.

"The opposite of universal screening is selective screening, where screening is offered only to teens that are showing clear signs of a problem. Selective screening unfortunately misses many teens that would otherwise go unnoticed."

Now what the hell does that mean? After reading those two paragraphs, I know how a dog must feel while chasing his tail.

But the Bush Commission's report makes it clear that the goal is to screen adults and children and states, "The early detection of mental health problems in children and adults-through routine and comprehensive testing and screening-will be an expected and typical occurrence."

I'll be anxious to see what TeenScreen's meaning of the term, "screening-will be an expected and typical occurrence," is.

On its website, TeenScreen now says they only want to offer a survey to as many teens as possible. I thought I read somewhere that TeenScreen was on a mission to screen every child before graduation from high school.

I took a moment to go and check and my memory was correct. Here's the tune that TeenScreen was singing about the Bush report in its Newsletter in the fall of 2003:

"We are pleased that the report focuses on children’s mental health and has taken a strong stance in support of youth mental health check-ups and school-based mental health care. We are even more pleased, however, to report that the commission has named the Columbia TeenScreen® Program a model program for early intervention. This recognition will raise the profile of our program, as well as our mission to provide every child a mental health check-up before high-school graduation.

So then guess what TeenScreen did to try achieve its mission? It went and took out ads in the New York Times and Washington Post, according to its newsletter and I quote:

"In order to continue with the momentum created by the recognition received from the New Freedom Commission, we are running public service advertisements in The New York Times and The Washington Post to raise awareness of our new report entitled “Catch Them Before They Fall.” This report outlines the actions that policymakers, parents, educators, and health professionals can take to implement screening programs in their communities."

I wonder if the average Joe realizes how much money it costs to run ads in those 2 papers. Let's just say lots.

But not to worry, even if Bush and the drug companies don't succeed in getting their mandatory screening schemes set up, Illinois has come up with a way to get around that problem. As part of implementing what has been referred to as the model plan, Illinois is going to train and designate certain people to watch kids and identify signs of mental illness which means every time a kid sets foot on the school grounds he or she can wonder who might be looking for indications that they might be crazy.

And that ain't all. The Bush initiative plans to provide “social and emotional check-ups” in all primary healthcare facilities, which means parents and kids both can wonder whether they are being assessed for a mental illness every time they set foot into a doctor’s office.

Don't let anybody fool you, any kid they decide is mentally ill will be put on drugs. A survey of recently trained child psychiatrists found that only one in 10 children in their practices does not receive a medication. So that means the odds are 10 to 1. A kid would have better odds at a blackjack table in Vegas.

Isn't life grand now that we have Big Brother backed by the pharmaceutical industry? --posted 07.13.05

Tax Dollars Pay For Vaccine-Damaged Kids

During the same time period that the number of doses of childhood vaccines nearly tripled and vaccination rates soared to nearly 95% for five year olds, the number of kids diagnosed with immune and brain system disorders skyrocketed. There is only one commonality in these children - they received vaccines that contained the mercury-based preservative thimerosal.

Vaccines are the only product whose use is mandated by law and all 50 states require children to be vaccinated before entering school. According to a 1999 report by the General Accounting Office (GAO), an estimated 12 million vaccinations are given to children every year across the country.

While licensing new vaccines and adding them to the childhood schedule, the government failed to add up the cumulative amounts of mercury that a child would receive in shots in one doctor's visit or over the course of the full vaccination schedule. But in 1999, while conducting a review of all mercury containing products, the government finally realized that mercury exposure from vaccines grossly exceeded safety guidelines set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

As a consequence, there has been a doubling of learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, and between a 300 to 600% increase in autism in most states at precisely the same time that the number of vaccinations tripled.

Since the government literally forced children to be vaccinated with thimerosal-containing products for decades, it now has an obligation to find a cure for the epidemic of autism and other vaccine related disorders and to hold the vaccine-makers financially responsible for the damage caused by their products.

In the absence of a cure and drug company accountability, tax payers in every state in the nation will be forced to carry the life-time load of educating and caring for a generation of injured people and their state and local taxes will go through the roof.

These increasingly common disorders are forcing public school systems to hire record numbers of newly trained professionals and build special education classrooms to meet the needs of these children.

Autistic students are the fastest-growing segment of special ed students nationwide and schools lack specifically trained personnel to work with autistic children, as well as policies defining what appropriate services are. The school systems were caught completely unprepared for this epidemic.

Unlike normal children, children with autism do not instinctively learn from a natural environment. They must be taught even the simplest skills such as making eye contact, waiting in line, following directions or how to hold a conversation. Behaviors, skills, and abilities vary from one child to the next and about half of autistic children have few or no language skills. They also may suffer from other problems that impair learning, such as hearing loss or epilepsy.

On February 15, 2005, the GAO, released a Report titled, "Special Education Children With Autism," that revealed the number of children ages 6 through 21 diagnosed with autism receiving services has increased more than 500% over the past 10 years, from under 20,000 in 1993 to almost 120,000 in 2002.

The cost of educating the increased number of autistic kids is predictable and enormous. The Department of Education spends about $53 billion a year on K-12 education. If it provides $60,000 per year to educate each of the currently identified school-age autistic children nationwide, the price tag will be over $7 billion a year, or about 13% of the Department's entire budget. And by the end of each year, the cost will be even higher than that because the increased number of autistic kids entering the system each year is not waning.

Special education costs are so high because staff requirements are high. For instance, in a program that serves Minneapolis Minnesota students, each classroom usually has 6 students with staff consisting of one licensed special ed teacher and two special ed assistants. Toddler classrooms have one licensed special ed teacher and one special ed assistant with four students. Services provided by social workers, occupational therapists, speech and language clinicians, and adapted physical education teachers are also available at each site based on individual student needs.

But the educational services reflect only part of the costs that taxpayers will have to bear. Other costs include tuition for summer programs to help students retain learned skills, transportation costs, psychological and behavioral evaluations.

State and local governments are already scrambling to find ways to meet the needs of autistic children.

The New York Center for Autism Charter School will open this fall in a Manhattan public school. At full capacity, the school plans to educate 28 children, 5 to 14 years old, with a one-to-one ratio of staff members to children, in a full-day 12-month program. Children will be admitted by lottery, according to the May 4, 2005 New York Times.

The school will receive more than $60,000 per student in public money for special ed needs, compared to the $8,586 given for normally developing children at charter schools.

The city's Department of Education says 3,788 autistic children are enrolled in the public system, 786 of them educated at private schools, with their fees paid by the city, the Times reports.

School systems throughout Pennsylvania are feeling the pressure. Statewide, in 10 years, the number of school-age children in special ed for autism disorders has increased more than eight-fold, from 634 to 5,145 in 2002-03, the most recent year for which state statistics are available.

Since 1999-2000, the number of Bucks County Pennsylvania school-age autistic children receiving special ed services has jumped at least 22% every year, according to the US Department of Education.

The September 12, 2004 Bucks County Courier reported: "In 1993-94, the county had 64 kids. In 2002-03, it had 448 - a 700 percent increase. No other special education category comes close to the same yearly growth rate."

In Bucks Country, for tuition, transportation, evaluations, and other services, the price tag can reach $60,000 per child. That's far more than the additional $7,000 in school services that the average special education student receives, David Mandell, co-chairman of the Pennsylvania Autism Task Force, told the Courier.

For California schools, in December 2003, the National School Board Association quoted the Sacramento Bee, and reported that the number of autistic students in California has doubled over the past four years at a cost of up to $60,000 a student per year. That translates to 13% of the state’s student population or 20,377 children.

According to the March 25, 2005 Chicago Tribune, the figures from the Illinois Autism and PDD Training and Technical Assistance Project show that 1,960 children between the ages of 3 to 21 received special ed services for autism during the 1996-97 school year, compared to 6,125 children in 2002-03.

In Michigan, the April 27, 2005 Detroit News reported that the number of autism cases among people ages 6-22 grew fourfold from 1993 to 2003, to 7,259.

Education officials in Wayne County Michigan said the cost of its Autistic Impaired Program has increased from $35.5 million in 2002 to $58.8 million for 2005.

The number of students in the Impaired Program in the Macomb Intermediate School District increased from 142 kids in 29 classrooms 10 years ago, to 338 autistic kids in 45 classrooms in 2005.

Schools in Oakland County Michigan saw a 400% increase in children with autism between December 2002 and December 2004 when the cases went from 786 to 1,015, the Detroit News reported. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education currently identifies 2,801 children between the ages of 3 and 21 as autistic, up from 294 children in 1991.

The group, Research & Education for Autistic Children's Treatment, determined that between 1989 and 1999 the number of school age kids with autism in Oregon increased from 250 cases to 2,877 cases, according to the state's Department of Education statistics.

In dealing with this epidemic, the first order of business must be to find a way to force the government to ban thimerosal in all vaccines. Unbeknownst to many people, thimerosal is still in some vaccines.

The EPA recommends ingesting no more than 0.1 micrograms of mercury and the FDA recommends no more than 0.4 micrograms per day for pregnant women, nursing mothers, and small children, which amounts to a recommendation that they eat no more than 12 ounces of tuna per week, because the EPA says, "mercury consumed by a pregnant or nursing woman or by a young child can harm the developing brain and nervous system."

Yet the CDC still recommends that children aged 6 to 23 months and pregnant women get the flu vaccine with its 25 micrograms of mercury which amounts to 250 times the safety limit for mercury intake set by the EPA for fish-eaters.

Unless a cure is found or drug companies are held financially responsible, state and local taxes are going to have to be increased to cover the cost of educating and caring for these injured children. Its inevitable.

And its sad to say that this is likely the aspect of the whole vaccine-autism controversy that will in the end get the public's full attention. --posted July 8, 2005

Evelyn Pringle epringle05@yahoo.com

(Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an investigative journalist focused on government corruption)

Bush-Backed Drug Marketing Schemes

At an FDA hearing on the safety of psychotropic drugs on Feb 2, 2004, dozens of tortured parents testified that their children had committed suicide or other violent acts after being prescribed the same drugs that are being marketed in the Bush-backed pharmaceutical industry schemes aimed at recruiting the nations 52 million school children as customers.

In July 2003, the Bush appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health (NFC) recommended screening all children for mental illness and designated TeenScreen as a model program to ensure that every student receives a mental health check-up before finishing high school.

The NFC also has a preferred drug program in place modeled after the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), that lists what drugs are to be used on children found to be mentally ill.

The list contains every drug that people complained about at the FDA hearing, including Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Wellbutron, Zyban, Remeron, Serzone, Effexor, Buspar, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroqual, Geodone, Depakote, Adderall, and Prozac.

There is little if any evidence that these drugs work on children but nevertheless, an estimated 10 million children in the US are now taking these mind-altering drugs even though they have documented side-effects including suicidal ideation, mania, psychosis, and future drug dependence.

According to a May 2003 report in the New York Times, national sales of anti-psychotics reached $6.4 billion in 2002, making them the fourth highest-selling class of drugs which proves the drug companies are already making a killing by drugging our kids.

Experts Against Screening

Dr Jane Orient is an internist and executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. She offered a few words to the wise in United Press International's "Outside View" on December 16, 2004.

In regard to TeenScreen, Orient says parents ought to be asking some very serious questions before the government experts interview the first child such as:

What are the credentials of the screeners? What are the criteria for possible abnormality? What is the scientific validation? Will you be allowed to get a second opinion? Can you see the record and enter corrections if indicated? Will the record at any point be destroyed, or will the stigma of a diagnosis such as "personality disorder" follow the child throughout life?

What will happen if your child fails the screen? What sort of treatment will be given? Who will supervise it? What if you don't approve of it?

Do drug companies expect to have a large number of new consumers of their psychoactive drugs? Who might profit from the program (perhaps discoverable by asking who lobbied for it)?

Bingo, right question Dr. Who stands to profit?

In 2003, Medico Health Solutions, reports that the use of behavioral drugs for children topped all other types of drugs at 17% of total spending. In the year 2003, the market research firm, IMS Health, calculated worldwide sales of antidepressants at $19.5 billion, up 10% from the year 2002.

Phyllis Schlafly, author of "No Child Left Unmedicated," raises several valid questions. What are the rights of youth and parents to refuse or opt out of such screening? Will they face threats of removal from school, if they refuse privacy-invading interrogations or medications? How will a child remove a stigmatizing label from his records?

Psychiatrist Peter Breggin, a court-qualified medical expert, and author of books, Talking Back to Prozac and The Anti-Depressant Fact Book, warns about the life-long damage a label of mentally illness can cause.

"There is nothing worse that you can do to a human being in America today than give them a mental illness kind of label and tell them they need drugs and these children are 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 years-old being treated in this manner," Breggin reports, "I then see them coming to me as adults saying I'd like to be a doctor but how can I when I have crossed wires in my head," he warns.

In a report, Allen Jones, former investigator Penn Office of Inspector General Bureau of Special Investigations, points out that there has been a 500% increase in children being prescribed drugs during the past 6 years.

Jones says the NFC call for mandatory screening of all students, with follow-up treatment as required, translates into putting more kids on mind-altering and potentially lethal drugs.

"TeenScreen is purely and simply a marketing scam to sell psychotropic drugs," according anti-child drugging advocate, Ken Kramer, "When they use "even if we save one life" as an argument to arouse emotions in parents that truly care, they are lying," he warns.

Bush Promotes Dangerous Drugs

The truth is, with full support from Bush, the pharmaceutical industry is using TeenScreen as a vehicle to push dangerous drugs on children who in the eyes of many experts are already being overmedicated.

Despite that the fact that SSRI antidepressants are banned for use with children in the UK and despite the FDA “black box” warning label now required on all SSRIs that the drugs increase suicidal thinking and behavior in kids, the NFC not only recommends that the same drugs be prescribed to children, it promotes the very schemes that will increase the number of kids on these drugs in schools and other public institutions.

According to a report by the Florida Statewide Advocacy Council, posted on Ken Kramer's website records@psychsearch.net, an investigation in Florida found that of 1,180 kids in foster care, 652 were on one or more psychotropic drugs.

In Texas, Dr John Breeding, an Austin psychologist, has seen cases where some foster children were placed on as many as 17 drugs and says drugs are being used as chemical restraints in Texas. He wants all SSRIs and neuroleptic drugs banned from use on children 'The SSRIs are extremely harmful and addictive; and can cause or exacerbate suicidal or homicidal tendencies; withdrawal is painful and dangerous,' Breeding warns.

Dr Ann Blake Tracy is the Director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness, holds a doctorate in biological psychology, and is a specialist in the adverse reactions to SSRI medications. Tracy claims the whole hypothesis of SSRIs is "backwards." She says the drugs increase serotonin while decreasing the metabolism of serotonin, especially in the 7 to 10% of the population that studies have shown don't have the proper enzyme to metabolize SSRIs in the first place, according to the Aug 22, 2004 Desert Morning News.

Dr Tracy can recite hundreds of horror stories involving violence by people taking the same drugs that TeenScreen is marketing to more children.

She told the Morning News about, the professor on Prozac who bit her mother to death; the Stanford graduate on Paxil who stabbed herself in the kitchen while her parents slept; the mother who bludgeoned her son and then drank a can of Drano; and the 12-year-old girl who strangled herself with a bungee cord she attached to a plant hanger on the wall."

"Most of these drugs are not approved for children, but it doesn't stop doctors from prescribing them," Tracy points out.

Turning People Into Psychotic Murderers

Besides causing suicide, enough evidence now exists to prove that psychotropic drugs have played a major role in the senseless acts of violence by school-age children in this country in recent years.

Dr Breggin, is against the use of psychotropic drugs in children, and has testified in civil and criminal cases numerous times about the link between SSRIs and suicide and other acts of violence.

On April 15, 2001, 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his High School in Washington State and held 23 classmates and a teacher hostage. Cory sat in jail for 14 months before finally being released based on expert testimony by psychiatrists that his behavior was an adverse reaction to the drugs he was prescribed.

Cory has no memory of his actions at the school that day. 21 days before the event, he had been taken off Paxil and prescribed a high dose of the drug Effexor.

Cory's father Jay told Insight News, "They always talk about how the kids who do these things are the ones who get picked on by the jocks and stuff, but Cory was a jock. He was on the varsity basketball team, played football and golf, and was very popular in school.

Jay wants the media to warn people about the dangers of putting kids on these drugs, "If Cory had been on PCP the media would say 'Oh, he needs drug rehabilitation,' but because these were prescribed medications they say 'Oh, it can't be that,' but now we know it can be," he said.

"The morning that Cory went to school and did what he did, my wife and I just knew that it had to be something with the drugs," Jay reports. One of Cory's friends described the incident to Jay, "Cory was yelling and then he just stopped, looked down and saw the gun in his hand and woke up," he said.

Cory recently made an unlikely new friend in Colorado, when he met Columbine High School shooting victim, Mark Taylor, who is suing the manufacturer of the antidepressant that Eric Harris was on when he opened fire at Columbine.

Kelly Patricia OMeara interviewed Mark Taylor, and recounted his description of the shooting incident in a report for Insight on Sept 2, 2002.

Taylor told Kelly, "I was sitting on a hill outside the school eating lunch with my best friend when Eric Harris came over and started shooting me," Taylor recalled, "I was shot between seven and 13 times. No one really knows the exact number because there were so many bullet tracks. Most of the bullets just went right through me. After I was shot I just lay there, playing dead, and could see others being shot," Taylor recalled.

It has never been revealed if Dylan Klebold was on any legal drugs at the time of the shootings, but an autopsy revealed that Harris was on the psychotropic drug Luvox, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).

Taylor's attitude toward the teen who nearly killed him is surprising. He told O Meara, "I'm suing Solvay because I believe that Eric Harris did what he did because of this drug."

Taylor's suit claims the drug made Harris manic and psychotic and as a consultant in the suit, Dr Tracy agrees. "All you have to do is read the Luvox package insert to see that Eric's actions were due to an adverse reaction to this drug," she told Insight News, "Show me a drug anywhere that has listed mania and psychosis as frequent adverse reactions. That is what the insert says for Luvox. There is no doubt in my mind that Luvox caused Eric Harris to commit these acts," she explained.

Gary Null & Associates of New York is filming a documentary called “The Drugging of Our Children,” that will feature interviews with both Cory Baadsgaard and Mark Taylor, and will chronicle the long history of tragic events that have resulted from the use of these drugs on children.

A little known fact is that a few days before the Columbine tragedy, Eric Harris had been rejected by the Marine Corps specifically because he was taking the drug Luvox.

In 2001, 18-year-old Jason Hoffman, shot five students and teachers at a California High School, while on the drugs Celexa and Effexor, and he too was rejected by the Navy one day before he went on his rampage, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

In a letter to his mother, Hoffman said, "I want people to know that what happened was not the real me, I was just angry, maybe my medication. It was a fluke of the moment. The person was not the true Jason Hoffman," he wrote.

On Oct 29, 2001, Jason Hoffman killed himself by hanging from a vent screen in his jail cell, the Tribune reported.

Kip Kinkel was 15 on May 21, 1998, when he murdered his parents, and then went to Thurston High School in Springfield, OR where he shot and killed 2 students and injured 22 more. Kinkel was on Ritalin and Prozac at the time of the killings even though Prozac was not approved for pediatric use.

Seven years after the senseless killings by Kinkel, on December 18, 2003, Eli Lilly sent letters to British healthcare providers, warning that Prozac was not recommended for any use in children.

14 year-old Elizabeth Bush was on antidepressants when she took a gun to school and wounded another student in Williamsport, PA in 2001.

12-year-old Christopher Pittman was on Zoloft when he shot his grandparents and set their house on fire, and says his violence was caused by the drug he was. Before Zoloft, he had been on Paxil.

According to court records, the doctor who prescribed the drug to Christopher mentioned no problems in his medical notes. A few days before the murders, the doctor wrote: "Lots of energy. No plans to harm self. Not flying off the handle."

Christopher now sits in prison.

His father, Joe Pittman, testified about the effects of the drugs on his son at the FDA Hearing and read a letter Christopher wrote that described how he felt when he committed the murders, "Through the whole thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show," he wrote, "You know what is going to happen but you can't do anything to stop it."

Dr Tracy explains how this happens. SSRIs suppress "the REM state or dream state [of sleep] ... These drugs allow a person to be awake but at any time they can slip into the REM state. This is why people often discuss how they couldn't tell the difference between the dream and reality. These drugs are horribly damaging to the entire system," she warns.

Even the people closest to Jeff Weise are at a loss to say what led to the deadly killing spree by Weise in Minnesota, where the 16-year-old shot his grandfather, his companion, and then went to the high school and shot 5 students, a teacher and a security guard before killing himself. According to school employee, Gayle Downwind, Weise was on Prozac at the time of the shootings.

Dr Tracy has consulted on many cases where children engaged in violent behavior including a 15-year-old boy on Zoloft who shot and killed a woman and is serving life in prison; a 17-year-old boy on Paxil for three months who jumped off an overpass into the path of a trailer truck; a 14-year-old girl prescribed Paxil to deal with the suicide of her father (who was on Paxil before killing himself) drank Drano in a suicide attempt; and a 16-year-old boy on Paxil who stabbed a woman over 60 times, drove his car into a cement abutment in a failed suicide attempt, and is now serving life in prison.

"In each of these cases," Tracy told Insight News, "individuals close to them were shocked at the violent and destructive behavior because it was so out of character for them."

Courts Starting to Get It

Drug companies are finally starting to be held responsible for violent behavior associated with these drugs. A jury in Cheyenne, Wyoming recently determined that Paxil, "can cause some individuals to commit suicide and/or homicide." The jury decided Paxil caused Donald Schell to shoot his wife, daughter and granddaughter before killing himself after being on the drug only two days.

The jury allocated 80% of the fault on Paxil drug maker GlaxoSmithKline and awarded the surviving family members $8 million in damages.

On June 18, 2003, GlaxSmithKline issued a warning to British physicians against the use of Paxil in children, acknowledging failure of clinical trials "to demonstrate efficacy in major depressive disorders and doubling the rate of reported adverse events - including suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts - compared to placebo."

In Bismarck, ND, 10 days after Ryan Ehlis began taking Adderall, he shot and killed his 5-week-old baby and then turned the gun on himself. He survived and was tried for the murder but was acquitted after the Judge agreed with psychiatrists who testified that the murder resulted solely from a psychotic state caused by the drug.

In February 2005, Canadian regulators ordered Adderall off the market after the drug was linked to 20 sudden deaths and a dozen strokes. Of the 20 deaths, 14 were children.

There has been a lot written about the increase in teen violence and school shootings but no one has identified a common denominator in the lives of these kids with one exception, the drugs. If we allow the Bush-backed marketing schemes to succeed in recruiting more kids as customers for these dangerous drugs, according to Tracy, we had better prepare for more of the same.

"We've got a nightmare on our hands with these drugs, an absolute nightmare," she warns, "We've got kids on these drugs that are ticking time bombs in every school in America."

"When all of this is over and we count up the dead, we're going to be in shock," she adds.

Evelyn Pringle
epringle05@yahoo.com
Miamisburg OH

The views expressed are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Bush Watch.