Preschoolers at Risk

Preschoolers at Risk

Urgent Action and Emails Needed
Thursday, July 12, 2001

Dear Friends,

We have alarming news; Congressman Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I), announced legislation Monday that would funnel $250 million to create a federal program that will get child care and preschool operators to identify and treat children under age 5 with mental health programs. The name of the legislation is "The Foundation for Learning Act." There is currently an attempt to tag this legislation onto the education bill that has passed both the U.S. Senate and the House and is just waiting to go through a conference committee before becoming a law. There is urgency here, as the education bill could go through committee very soon. If this legislation is successfully tagged onto the education bill, this "early intervention" treatment program for preschoolers will simply open the door for the mental health industry to target young children as future mental patients.

According to Kennedy, "I'm amazed we're living in the 21st century and mental health care is looked upon as being soft science and somehow not legitimate." The truth is that mental health is not just soft science, it is 100% junk science and millions of children are currently tagged with these unscientific labels and subsequently subjected to mind altering drug which has already created a situation of growing alarm and national controversy. The idea of subjecting children less than 5 years of age to being targeted for mental health services and treatments is extremely alarming. Consider the legitimacy of mental disorders:

California psychiatrist Al Parides remarked that the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which lists disorders psychiatry considers "legitimate" is actually "a masterpiece of political maneuvering." "...What they have done is medicalize many problems that don't have a demonstratable, biological cause."

Thomas Szasz, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York and the author of more than 24 books says that The designation disease can only be justified when the cause can be related to a demonstrable anatomical lesion, infection, or some other physiological defect. As there is no such evidence for any mental disorder, the term disease is a misnomer; in fact, it is fraudulent.

The U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment Report of 1992 states, "Research has yet to identify specific biological causes for any of these [mental] disorders€?.Mental disorders are classified on the basis of symptoms because there are as yet no biological markers or laboratory tests for them".

In 1996, psychiatrist David Kaisler wrote: "...modern psychiatry has yet to convincingly prove the genetic/biologic cause of any single mental illness...Patients [have] been diagnosed with 'chemical imbalances' despite the fact that no test exists to support such a claim, and... there is no real conception of what a correct chemical balance would look like. Yet conclusions such as depression is a chemical imbalance are created out of nothing more than semantics and the wishful thinking of scientist/psychiatrists and a public who will believe anything now that has the stamp of approval of medical science.

New York Psychiatrist Ron Leifer stated: "There's no biological imbalance. When people come to me and say, 'I have a biochemical imbalance,' I say, 'Show me your lab tests.' There are no lab tests. So what's the biochemical imbalance?"

A psychologist who witnessed the process of how disorders come to be included in Psychiatry's DSM (and thereby gain legitimacy as mental disorders) was quoted in Time magazine as saying, "The low level of intellectual effort was shocking, Diagnoses were developed by majority vote on the level we would use to choose a restaurant. You feel like Italian, I feel like Chinese, so let's go to the cafeteria. Then typed into the computer. It may reflect on our naivety, but it was our belief that there would be an attempt to look at things scientifically."

By identifying at risk children, this proposed program opens the door to children being labeled "mentally disabled" by a variety of unscientific and unproven psychiatric disorders, thereby making them "eligible" for mental health services and treatments.

These treatments sounded off a national alarm in February 2000, when The Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) released a startling report that found over a five-year period, from 1991 to 1995, the number of stimulant prescriptions written for preschoolers (ages 2 to 4) increased twofold to threefold. An increase of 200% to 300%. This report garnered national and international media coverage, nearly all expressing concern that young children and toddlers were being labeled with psychiatric disorders and prescribed powerful psychiatric drugs.

The "Foundations for Learning Act" being promoted by Rep Patrick Kennedy is specifically aimed at preschoolers, and would simply open the door to more young children being at risk of getting tagged with psychiatric labels and subjected to mind altering psychiatric drugs. Millions of children are already being stigmatized with these unproven and unscientific mental disorders. This early intervention program must not be passed “particularly in light of the current controversy regarding the psychiatric labeling of children that has resulted in over 6 million U.S. children currently on psychiatric drugs. The sponsors of this legislation include the National Mental Health Association, the National Head Start Association and the American Psychological Association

We urge you to email or fax your concerns regarding this program to the following individuals alerting them to this situation, and urging them to not pass this Foundations for Learning Act as part of the current education bill: Speaker of the House;

Congressman Dennis Hastert's email: dhastert@mail.house.gov

Or Fax: 202-225-0697 House Minority Whip; Congressman Tom Delay - go to website at http://majoritywhip.house.gov/

And click on upper right corner contact the Whip send your email from here. Or Fax: 202-225-5241

Congressman John Boehner; Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee Email: john.boehner@mail.house.gov

Or Fax: 202-202-225-0704

Opinions expressed in this web site do not necessarily reflect the views of NAMI Santa Cruz County, NAMI California or any affiliated organizations. We attempt to present a balanced perspective on issues by presenting multiple viewpoints.

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