Pharmaceuti-schools usher in an Enslaved New World Welcome to the medication machine, part 1
I know that the public school systems in this country are all screwed up, from the Federal level on down. Heck, I write about it all the time. But since it has been a while since I had a kid in school, the true scope of just how bad it really is (and will really be in the future) can sometimes elude me
That is, until some colleague of mine – or concerned reader – clues me in on some aspect of a problem I haven’t talked about. Either that, or my routine daily reading and research leads me to an informational can of worms (more like a Pandora’s Box) that dovetails into a core topic of mine. Such is the case today. But first, a little back-story:
As you know, I’ve talked a lot in the past about the proliferation of drugs in our schools. Not the illegal ones like marijuana, mind you – but prescription drugs like Ritalin, anti-anxiety drugs and antidepressants.
In past essays, I’ve railed against both the tendency of children to peddle their own prescriptions (even faking illnesses to obtain them) on the schoolyard black market AND the tendency of school nurses, guidance counselors, teachers, and other administrators to steer parents toward the medication of kids instead of the disciplining of them.
This two-part Daily Dose series focuses on a sinister thread that weaves in and out of both these discussions. It’s about a Bush-proposed federal program that began in 2002 called the New Freedom Initiative. Ostensibly, this patriotic-sounding program purports to increase access and opportunities for Americans with disabilities. And elements of the initiative do indeed seem like they would further this goal
However, some other components of the program would turn schools into the equivalent of mental health testing sites (though without attending doctors, of course) – and funnel potentially millions of kids into the morass of antidepressant and anti-anxiety drug addiction!
Building on a Presidential commission’s findings that childhood mental disorders “often go undiagnosed,” the New Freedom Initiative is aggressively moving toward the use of public schools as drug-screening and diagnostic centers for the 52 million kids (and 6 million adults) who attend or work at them.
Modeled after a program from Bush’s home state called the Texas Medical Algorithm Project (TMAP), schools under the New Freedom Initiative are poised to soon be in position to bully parents into forcing the newest and most expensive prescription mind-altering medications on their children
Based on a sort of “flowchart” system of pseudo-diagnosis pioneered by TMAP, the decision to recommend specific medications to kids will be delegated to a template that dictates the prescription of certain name-brand drugs in response to certain symptoms. Naturally, the prescription-happy American Psychiatric Association lauds the TMAP system – which isn’t surprising, since the treatment guidelines used by the program are based on the findings of Big Pharma’s clinical trials of mental health drugs.
It isn’t clear whether any actual doctors will take part in this process at its most fundamental level (in schools) – I can find no mention of them in any description of the New Freedom Initiative I’ve unearthed so far. If I had to bet, I’d say the task of determining who needs treatment for which mental health “condition” will fall either to schools themselves or to brave new bureaus of government
Who benefits from this, aside from Bush’s favorite lobby, Big Pharma?
Answer: No one.
I’ll give you all the shocking details about the horrendous, Orwellian and Brave-New-World-ish ramifications of this program in the next Daily Dose.
