A presidential initiative called The "New Freedom Commission on
Mental Health" has issued a report recommending forced mental health
screening for every child in America, including preschool children. The
goal is to promote the patently false idea that we have a nation of
children with undiagnosed mental disorders crying out for treatment.
http://jahtruth.net/why.htm
One obvious beneficiary of the proposal is the pharmaceutical
industry, which is eager to sell the psychotropic drugs that
undoubtedly will be prescribed to millions of American schoolchildren
under the new screening program. Of course a tiny minority of children
suffer from legitimate mental illnesses, but the widespread use of
Ritalin and other drugs on youngsters who simply exhibit typical
rambunctious, fidgety, and impatient behavior is nothing short of
criminal. It may be easier to teach and parent drugged kids, but
convenience is no justification for endangering them. Children?s brains
are still developing, and the truth is we have no idea what the
long-term side effects of psychiatric drugs may be. Medical science has
not even exhaustively identified every possible brain chemical, even as
we alter those chemicals with drugs.
Dr. Karen Effrem, a physician who strongly opposes mandatory
mental health screening, warns us that "America's children should not
be medicated by expensive, ineffective, and dangerous medications based
on vague and dubious diagnoses." She points out that psychiatric
diagnoses are inherently subjective, as authors of the diagnostic
manuals admit. She also is concerned that mental health screening could
be used to label children whose attitudes, religious beliefs, and
political views conflict with the secular orthodoxy that dominates our
schools.
http://jahtruth.net/heal.htm
The greater issue, however, is not whether youth mental health
screening is appropriate. The real issue is whether the state owns your
kids. When the government orders "universal" mental health screening in
schools, it really means "mandatory." Parents, children, and their
private doctors should decide whether a child has mental health
problems, not government bureaucrats. That this even needs to be stated
is a sign of just how obedient our society has become toward
government. What kind of free people would turn their children's most
intimate health matters over to government strangers? How in the world
have we allowed government to become so powerful and arrogant that it
assumes it can force children to accept psychiatric treatment whether
parents object or not?
Parents must do everything possible to retain responsibility and
control over their children's well-being. There is no end to the
bureaucratic appetite to rule every aspect of our lives, including how
we raise our children. Forced mental health screening is just the
latest of many state usurpations of parental authority: compulsory
education laws, politically-correct school curricula, mandatory
vaccines, and interference with discipline through phony "social
services" agencies all represent assaults on families. The political
right has now joined the political left in seeking the de facto
nationalization of children, and only informed resistance by parents
can stop it. The federal government is slowly but surely destroying
real families, but it is hardly a benevolent surrogate parent.
September 14, 2004
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
The ONLY solution is to enforce The Plan and reinstate God’s Law:-
http://jahtruth.net/plan.htm
