Skip to main content

Tag: school shootings

The Mental Health Agenda of Sandy Hook

Written by Able Child on . Posted in Sandy Hook.

The 47 recommendations presented yesterday by the Task Force to Study the Provisions of Behavioral Health Services for Young Adults is nothing short of a never-ending mental health assault on the families of Connecticut. Forty-two of these recommendations benefit the psychiatric and drug industries, while only five address quality of service and human rights.

The most galling part of the 60-odd page report is that, while its recommendations are reportedly in response to the passage of P.A. 13-3, which was in response to the Sandy Hook shooting, nowhere in the report is there any information provided about Adam Lanza’s mental health.

In fact, on page 1 of the report, the Task Force writes, “among other issues, the event (Sandy Hook) focused attention on Connecticut’s behavioral health services for young adults and raised questions about the extent of their availability, accessibility, and affordability.” Why?

If the mental health legislation (P.A. 13-3) was passed in response to the shooting at Sandy Hook, wouldn’t the focus be on the mental health treatment Adam Lanza received? Wouldn’t the Task Force be interested in the 2007 “treatment” provided to Adam Lanza by the Yale Child Study Center, including Yale mental health providers who labeled Nancy Lanza as “non-compliant” because she refused to continue Adam on a psychiatric drug that was causing serious adverse effects?

One would think that if these increased mental health services were in response to the actions of Adam Lanza, then his mental health “treatment” would be the focus of any recommendations. Of course, given that the last five years of Lanza’s mental health history is missing from the State Police Investigation of Sandy Hook, it would be difficult for the Task Force to provide any real insight. But here’s the rub, the Task Force apparently didn’t even ask for mental health data on Adam Lanza. Why?

Given the complete lack of interest in the mental health “treatment” of Adam Lanza – the reported reason behind the push for increased mental health services in Connecticut – one can only assume there is another agenda.

Without getting into too much detail, what becomes immediately clear is that the Task Force is hell-bent on “early recognition, assessment, intervention and treatment of childhood and adolescent behavioral health disorders.” In other words, because of Adam Lanza’s mental health (which no one seems remotely interested in) Connecticut’s preschoolers and adolescents need to be screened for mental disorders, and the sooner the better.

To insure that the State’s preschoolers are properly screened and “treated,” the Task Force is recommending truckloads of taxpayer dollars to pay for an army of mental health guessperts to identify these alleged mental disorders. It doesn’t matter that no psychiatric disorder is based in science. It doesn’t matter that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the premier mental health agency in the world, admits on its website that science doesn’t know what causes any psychiatric disorder, the Task Force cannot stop itself from passing on the fraud.

For example, on page xi of the report, the Task Force recommends to “increase the age of majority to 18 years old for making decisions regarding one’s mental health and substance abuse treatment, given the current understanding of mental illness to be a biologic disease.”

Sure, that may be the State’s and the Task Force’s “understanding” of mental illness, but it’s wrong. Continuing to spew this disinformation does not help those suffering, and certainly raises questions about the Task Force’s understanding of mental illness and the reported “treatment” options.

The most important section of this report comes as part of the human rights issues. The Task Force, apparently unwilling to tackle the issue, passes off the discussion of forced psychiatric care onto “a separate Task Force,” which also would address the use of psychiatric drugs on children who refuse such treatment.

The Task Force’s unwillingness to address these important issues does not, however, stop it from recommending to “…provide aggressive outpatient services, shy of forced medication, to clients with severe illness in Connecticut.”

Mental health “treatment” always comes back around to psychiatric drugging and, perhaps, that is the reason the Task Force deliberately steered clear of Adam Lanza’s mental health history. After all, if it were revealed that Lanza received the best mental health care possible, what reason would there be to increase mental health services within the state?

Worse, still, if it were revealed that Lanza actually received quality mental health care, then it’s quite possible that the mental health community’s “treatment” may actually come under fire. In the end, though, without any information about Adam Lanza’s mental health, these are 47 mental health recommendations too many.

 

 

 

 

CT AAG Nervous About Releasing Adam Lanza’s Medical Records: Disclosure “Can Cause A Lot of People to Stop Taking Their Medications.”

Written by Able Child on . Posted in Sandy Hook.

For Immediate Release:

Contact Sheila Matthews
203-253-0329

STATE of Connecticut Claims Disclosure of Adam Lanza’s Records “Can Cause A Lot of People to Stop Taking Their Medications” in Recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Hearing.

Ablechild vs. Chief Medical Examiner (FIC Docket No: 2013-197):

Attorney, Patrick B. Kwanashie, AAG for the Office of the Attorney General argues release of Adam Lanza’s records to public “can cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications”.  Ablechild argues that lack of transparency compromises informed consent and puts public health “at risk”.

December 14, 2012, 20 year-old Adam Lanza fatally shot twenty children and six adults in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the village of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut.  He committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.

Many would agree that to prevent future tragedies from occurring like those in Newtown and Littleton, Colorado we should have a deeper understanding of what the key components and common factors are that drive a person to such acts of violence.  Ablechild, a national parent rights organization with parent members within Sandy Hook and Newtown, have been on the front lines of the Newtown tragedy as it unfolded.  It has been asking for accountability in the form of disclosure of all records pertaining to the shooter as a means of transparency, to provide the public with facts that could be pertinent in protecting their safety. Sadly this transparency has eluded the Newtown “investigation” from the start.

One relevant question that has remained unanswered was whether or not Adam Lanza was under the influence of one or more drugs, to include all prescription drugs.

“What plagues this investigation is that some are simply fixated on having it remain secret in spite of the urgency of transparency that is clearly needed to protect the public,” said Patricia Weathers Cofounder of Ablechild.  “It is alarming that here we are very close to a year later and the public still remains in the dark, records are still sealed, and the State is now saying that it is opposing a release of the records because those records “can cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications”.  This opposition comes despite the fact that 31 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 162 wounded and 72 killed and despite the fact that Ablechild for years has been asking for a federal investigation into the link between psychiatric drugs and these violent acts, without result.

Mrs. Weathers went on to add, “If there is nothing to hide then disclose, especially if this information has the potential for reevaluating the use of certain psychiatric drugs that evidence shows are contributing to the rapidly growing acts of violence in this country in recent years.  Our organization thinks that both the Medical Examiner’s office and State’s actions are unacceptable and reprehensible because in actuality they place the public at risk.”

What should be more alarming to the public is that the media doesn’t question this failure to disclose that is being arbitrarily wielded by the State Medical Examiner’s Office, despite the evidence that at the very least should call for a review.  In the midst of this tragedy the State itself has scrambled for solutions in the form of firearm prevention legislation and sweeping mental health funding without ever actually demanding that all evidence be reviewed first before passing such legislation.

Newtown was the second deadliest mass shooting by a single person in American history, after the 2007 Virginia Tech Massacre and comes 14 years after Columbine.  What is telling in all of this…America is still chasing its tail while the public pays a heavy price!

For more information on Ablechild’s demand for accountability and transparency within the State of CT watch our case before the Freedom of Information Act Commission.