Tell the Senate to Just Say No to Universal Psychiatric Screening and Drugging of Children

Action Needed Now!

• The Senate meets in a lame duck session this week to pass an appropriations bill.

• The bill includes funding for universal mental health screening and recommendations for treating children with psychotropic drugs.

• Contact your senators and tell them to withdraw this funding.

• Please forward this notice to people you know (click “Send This Page to a Friend” at the bottom of this page.

The Senate will convene this week in a lame duck session with the sole purpose of passing an omnibus appropriations bill work left incomplete before the elections.

Included in the current version of the appropriations bill is funding for grants to implement universal mental health screening for almost 60 million children, pregnant women, and adults through schools and preschools.

The bill would fund initiatives of the “New Freedom Commission on Mental Health,” including a program designed to subject every school-age child in this country to psychological testing and recommendations for treatment, including psychotropic drugs, antidepressants, etc.

The House has already voted to appropriate $20 million for the scheme, and the Senate wants to bump it up to $44 million.

This is a dangerous scheme that will heap even more coercive pressure on parents to medicate children, with potentially dangerous side effects.  Furthermore, even the government’s own task force has concluded that mental health screening does little to prevent suicide.

Tell the Senate leadership to remove the funding for grants to implement the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission in Mental Health from the omnibus appropriations bill.

Take action now and tell the Senate not to fund any programs that call for universal mental health screening of our children.  Tell the Senate leadership to remove the funding for grants to implement the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health from the omnibus appropriations bill.  Protect our children from being screened, stigmatized, categorized, and forcibly treated.

Here’s How to Help

Everyone:  There’s an easy, one-step way for everyone to send a letter to their senators, courtesy of the Health Action Center run by Citizens for Health.  Click the link, enter your name and address, and a letter will automatically be sent to your senators with your signature.  It takes about one minute.

Update 11/16/2004:  Thanks in great measure to public  efforts, we have made significant progress to stop universal psychiatric screening for almost 60 million children, pregnant women, and adults through schools and pre-schools.

Leadership in the House of Representatives has now agreed to help us, and your letters last week have brought a number of Senators on board as well.  But we now need the support of four key Senators:

  Sen. Spector  (R-PA) 202-224-4254   Sen. Stevens (R-AK) 202-224-3004   Sen. Harkin    (D-IA) 202-224-3254   Sen. Frist      (R-TN) 202-224-3344

Please call their offices and ask them to make sure the omnibus spending bill or final committee report on Labor/HHS appropriations includes the following language:

“None of the funds made available for state incentive grants for transformation should be used for any programs of mandatory or universal mental health screening that performs mental health screening on anyone under 18 years of age without the express written permission of the parents or legal guardians of each individual involved.”

Especially, call Majority Leader Senator Bill Frist, M.D. at 202-224-3344.

Doctors and Health Care Professionals:  If you are a doctor, click here to download a one-page flyer to copy and distribute at your office and hospital today!

Association of American Physicians & Surgeons 1601 Tucson Blvd., Suite 9 Tucson, AZ  85716 (800) 635-1196 (520) 325-4230  Fax www.aapsonline.org