The following declaration is a vigorous response to and rejection of the recommendations of the President's New Freedom Commission on mental health policy in the United States, a health policy that would mandate virtually universal mental health screening, including the 52 million children and 6 million adults in the public schools. We prefer to call it the "New Intrusion Commission."  Its recommendations are a direct assault on child and family privacy, and a real threat to our children's well-being. Already, about 9 million school age children are on very dangerous psychotropic drugs, all for  alleged "mental illnesses" like so-called ADHD, none of which have been validated as real diseases by scientific medicine. All over the country, we have been actively working to stop the pattern of subtle pressure and overt threatening by school and Child Welfare personnel of parents who do not want to label and drug their children . The New Freedom Commission wants to even more vigorously pursue the labeling and drugging of our children, by screening ALL children and adults in the public schools (and elsewhere) for signs of possible "mental illness." This really means they are actively pursuing an expansion of the child market for psychiatric pharmaceuticals. This declaration will be used in our effort to halt the policy recommendations of the New Freedom Commission. We invite all concerned citizens to sign on to this declaration and defend our space to allow our children to grow and learn without labels and drugs, and to make parenting decisions without pressure from various governmental agents.

A DECLARATION OF REFUSAL TO COMPLY WITH ANY NEW FREEDOM COMMISSION MANDATE FOR  UNIVERSAL MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING OF CHILDREN IN THE SCHOOLS



We, the undersigned, solemnly declare that we will not allow our children to be the subjects of any form of implementation of New Freedom Commission recommendations to screen our children for signs of "mental illness."

We are aware that the New Freedom Commission report states that "Schools are in a key position to identify mental health problems early, and to provide a link to appropriate services."  We know that many of the New Freedom commissioners are linked directly or indirectly to the Texas Medical Algorithm Project (TMAP), which provides formulas recommending specific psychotropic drugs to treat various "mental illnesses." According to whistleblower reports, TMAP pushes an off-label drug marketing scheme that appears to skirt federal law. We know, therefore, that this commission's recommendations are intended to encourage an expansion of the fact that "appropriate services" in today's psychiatric world means psychotropic drugs, and that there are already an estimated 9-million school-age children on psychiatric drugs. We consider this to represent a tragic situation, and a clear and present danger to our children.



We promise to actively resist further intrusion of psychiatry into the public schools, and will not cooperate in any way with those who act as agents of this wrong-headed government initiative. We do not now and will not later consent to the psychiatric or psychological testing of our children by those who act as agents to implement New Freedom recommendations for universal mental health screening of our children.

This extraordinary intrusion of psychiatry into our schools shows a blatant disregard of the public will, as demonstrated in the first four years of this millennium by a number of resolutions, education department statements and state laws, all defending a parent's right to make treatment decisions for a child without coercion, and a child's right to education without psychiatric labeling and drugs.  Through 2003, there have been at least 46 state bills or resolutions supporting parental choice, in 28 states, that have either passed, or are still pending action, across the United States. For example, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Texas have passed laws explicitly stating that a parent's refusal to consent to the administration of a psychotropic drug to a child does not constitute neglect, therefore is not in itself grounds for CPS investigation. Other states have passed related laws either monitoring or curbing CPS policy in this area. Many states are pursuing related legislation as the wave of activity in support of parental choice continues to expand. Texas law now prohibits school personnel from suggesting a diagnosis or recommending a psychotropic drug to a parent for their child. Many of these laws relate to prohibiting coercion in schools to have a child put on psychiatric drugs; several establish investigations and/or tracking systems for children being psychiatrically labeled and drugged; others increase parental consent rights; still others eliminate the threat of parents being criminally charged with "medical neglect" if they refuse to place their child on a psychiatric drug. The public will is clearly for the schools to educate, not medicate, and for the state to allow privacy and autonomy to parents and families.

We ask that our legislators and educational leaders discard the New Freedom Commission recommendations of extraordinary intrusion of psychiatry into our schools, and refocus on authentic education.

We object to the New Freedom Commission recommendations for many reasons; these include scientific, legal, and moral or philosophic objections.

Scientifically, we are aware that the Commission report is based on the same pseudo-science that has already resulted in the psychiatric drugging of an estimate 9 million school-age children, over 15% of our young people. The two most important scientific objections are:

1. No children's behavioral problem routinely seen by a psychiatrist or other physician has been scientifically demonstrated to be of biological or genetic causation. There is no objective test, no confirmatory physical or chemical abnormality-for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, or any of the other childhood diagnoses popular among psychiatrists. These diagnoses are wholly subjective, based on judgments of what is and isn't normal behavior.

2. Psychiatric drugs are dangerous: they are toxic and potentially lethal. Consider these facts. There were 186 Ritalin-related heart deaths reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the 1990s. Because the system of reporting is voluntary, experts believe that this figure represents only 1-10 percent of the actual number of deaths. In other words, from this one drug alone, during a ten-year period, there were 1,800 to 18,000 deaths. In addition, because of evidence indicating their potential for inducing suicidal thinking and behavior in children, the United Kingdom has banned, for children, the use of all but one of the antidepressants known as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI's such as Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Effexor and Remeron). The FDA has launched its own investigation of  the matter and has issued that warning labels be placed on these drugs.  There is a great deal of  legal action against drug companies and practitioners regarding the harmful and sometimes deadly effects that these drugs have had on our children and young adults.  As a result, the number of legal cases are continuing to skyrocket.   The National Institute of Health  is also under Congressional investigation for conflict of interest and withholding potentially damaging outcomes of drug trials from the public. The New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, has filed a lawsuit against Glaxo-Smith-Kline (makers of Paxil) and other companies for suppression of information relating to adverse side effects of their antidepressants.     All of these intentionally clandestine activities place our children's' lives, health and well being at great risk. 
   

Legally, we strongly insist on two revered concepts in United States law, the doctrines of informed consent and the

 right to privacy.

1. Our nation's courts have explained that, "true consent to what happens to one's self is the informed exercise of choice, and that entails an opportunity to evaluate knowledgeably the options available and the risks attendant upon each." (Baker, 1997; see http://www.wildestcolts.com/mentalhealth/consent2.html).  In the case of our children, this doctrine must be interpreted to mean that parents have a
   legal right to sufficient information necessary to make a fully informed choice on behalf of their children. Any mandatory mental health screening is a gross violation.

2. The right to privacy is a fundamental American value; we see mandatory mental health screening as direct violation of a liberty interest under Fourteenth Amendment due process rights. The right of parents to refuse psychological or psychiatric evaluation of their children in the schools has been repeatedly made clear. As an example, we are aware of the 1970 hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations ("Federal Involvement in the Use of Behavior Modification Drugs on Grammar School Children of the Right To Privacy Inquiry," House of Representatives, 91st Congress, 2nd Session). Section 1232h of Title 20, Chapter 31 of the Education Code explicitly states, "No student shall be required, as part of any applicable program, to submit to a survey, analysis, or evaluation that reveals information concerning (1) political affiliations; (2) mental and psychological problems potentially embarrassing to the student or his family; (3) sex behavior and attitudes; (4) illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating and demeaning behavior."
   

We have philosophical or moral objections to government-sponsored intrusion of psychiatry into the schools. The legal doctrines of privacy and informed consent reflect underlying value placed on privacy, autonomy, and informed consent. We consider New Freedom recommendations to be a serious threat not only to our educational system, but most importantly to the development and well-being of our children. Therefore, we insist that any New Freedom Commission policy recommendations that put our children at risk for unwarranted intrusion, labeling and psychiatric drugging be immediately discarded.