Across the country people are finding out about mental health
screening of children.

You can back Mari Carroll up by writing a letter to the editor here:
http://tinyurl.com/6yjy34

North Kitsap Herald (Poulsbo, Washington)
TeenScreen has a downside
July 05, 2008

I am writing in response to a May 28 article, “Saving Lives One Teen
at a Time.” John Perona from Kitsap Mental Health shared his goal to
screen Kitsap teenagers for mental health issues with the intention of
providing “intervention.” According to the article, this goal would be
accomplished by the implementation of a program called “TeenScreen,” a
combined effort between the school districts, Kitsap Mental Health and
the Kitsap County Health District.

In most cases, “intervention” means referral to psychiatric services
and treatment with psychotropic drugs (the ones with the FDA Black Box
warnings). A survey of child psychiatrists conducted by “The Journal
of the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry” found that
nine out of 10 patients were prescribed drugs.

The article states that the program is “active in more than 400
communities.” What it doesn’t say is that warnings against the mass
mental screening of children are coming from every segment of society,
including parents, medical professionals, investigative journalists,
and human rights groups, in large part, because the financial
influence of pharmaceutical companies in TeenScreen is so blatantly
obvious.

The Olympic Mountains from Poulsbo

Because of the controversial and potentially harmful nature of this
program, I urge all parents to demand full disclosure and informed
consent from the schools, Kitsap Mental Health and the Health
District. There are federal and state laws requiring “informed
consent,” meaning that before someone agrees to participate in any
medical procedure or experiment; they must be informed of and must
understand the medical facts and the risks involved. This would
include:
• The purpose of screening (TeenScreen sells their service as suicide
prevention but no study has even shown a reduction in suicide or
proven even one prevented suicide).

• Who is performing the screening? It may be performed by employees or
agents of a for-profit “mental health” treatment facility or volunteer
counselors with little or no experience.

• That the screening has an 84 percent rate of false-positives
(meaning that as many as 84 percent of students can be falsely
identified as “mentally ill”).

• The screening questions (TeenScreen will not reveal the questions to
parents).

• The potentially bad effect of presenting suicide as something to be
considered.

• A full understanding of the basic foundation of psychiatry’s
“diagnosis,” since there are no scientific tests that show whether a
person has or does not have a mental disorder.

• The fact that Psychiatry’s “Diagnostic Statistical Manual,” which
TeenScreen is based on, has over 300 behaviors that have just been
voted on, according to whim; not tests or real facts.

• The fact that the child may be diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder
with no objective medical testing, a label which can remain with that
child for the rest of his life.

• That some career paths may be closed to the child because of the
diagnosis and/or psychiatric treatment.

• That the parents may lose their parental rights or even be
criminally charged with neglect if they refuse to accept the diagnosis
and give the child psychiatric treatment.

• A full understanding of the dangers and effects of the drugs that
may be given to children for these “mental disorders” including
deaths, violence and suicide.

While child and teen suicide has fallen by 25 percent in the last
decade (according to the Center for Disease Control), it nonetheless
is a tragedy. However, unscientific screening with the potential to
label perfectly normal children with a “disorder” is not the answer.

However, the biggest threat that TeenScreen poses may not be the drugs
at all. How does it affect a young person to be told by an “authority”
that he or she has a permanent, incurable brain disorder? After a
child takes the TeenScreen survey, a mental health counselor reviews
his answers and speaks to the child. In this conversation, the
“professional” can make disturbing statements to the child. He may
tell the child, without any brain tests, that his brain is abnormal,
that he has a permanent and potentially disabling disease, that he is
“damaged goods.” The child will then be sent on his way with the new
“knowledge” that he is not a normal, healthy teenager as he thought in
the morning but rather that he has a “mental disorder” that can ruin
his life.

Mari Carroll
Poulsbo
Link: http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/kitsap/nkh/opinion/23205984.html