Left Field by Patricia Nell Warren

Remember how the Greeks couldn’t capture the walled city of Troy, so they resorted to a trick? They built a giant wooden horse and left it at the city gate. The Trojans thought it was a gift, and pulled the horse into the city. Little did they know that the horse was full of Greek soldiers, who crawled out that night and captured the city.

These days our government often passes legislation that is carpentered with doubletalk, so the American people think they’re getting a gift. In the health field, there’s a flood of Trojan Horse legislation that insists it’s for our help and protection. But the real intent is for government to tighten the grasp of coercive medicine, and ensure that more of our hard-earned dollars go to the pharmaceutical industry.

The latest Trojan Horse—one that may affect people with HIV and AIDS—is President Bush’s plan to impose national mandatory mental-health screening. MMHS is already funded by Congress and quietly operating in a dozen states. For the moment it mainly affects public-school children and pregnant women, but its language indicates that all Americans will eventually be required to submit to a Q&A test. Your answers are scrutinized by “experts”; they render an opinion, not a scientific diagnosis. If you’re a parent, your child can be screened without your permission, and diagnosed with “illnesses” like “conduct disorder” or “oppositional defiant disorder.” Even preschoolers are being diagnosed with “manic depression” now. If you’re a gay kid, you might get nailed with “gender identity disorder.”

Treatment with powerful psychotropic drugs like Prozac is also mandatory. Penalties for non-compliance will doubtless mirror the criminal penalties already in place for other compulsory things like TB treatment. Not to mention that treatment will go on your record, clouding your future education, employment, security clearance, etc.

MMHS is a long-time pet project of George Bush’s. In 1995, when he was governor of Texas, he quietly launched a project linking pharmaceutical funding (from Johnson & Johnson and others) with the Texas mental health system, universities, etc. By 1997 the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) was doing studies and trials to develop screening tests, and identify “treatment algorithms for ADHD, MDD [major depressive disorder], and several common comorbidities, along with recommended tactics for use of the medications.” The idea was that screenings would allow for early intervention. The drugs recommended were (surprise) manufactured by the sponsoring drug companies.

When Bush became President, he quietly took TMAP to the White House with him. In 2002, he created the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, using many of the people who had worked on TMAP in Texas. The Commission was directed to “recommend improvements to enable adults with serious mental illness and children with serious emotional disturbances to live, work, learn, and participate fully in their communities.” Sounds wonderful, right? Especially with the buzzword “Freedom” in the name?

A year later the Commission obediently reported: “For too many Americans with mental illnesses, the mental-health services and supports they need remain fragmented, disconnected and often inadequate, frustrating the opportunity for recovery.” The Commission recommended that the mental-health system be “transformed.” So last year, despite the first rumbles of opposition, Congress appropriated the first $90 million for national TMAP planning.

Next was implementation at the state level. Illinois was first to jump on the bandwagon. There Democrats and Republicans cosponsored a Children’s Mental Health Act, and the state legislature approved it by a whomping majority, seemingly with little concern for the far-reaching implications of what they were setting up. All Illinois minors and pregnant women must now be screened. Children’s screening will be done along with academic tests required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Women’s screening will presumably be done by their pediatricians, or by hospitals when they arrive to give birth, and continue through the first year of post-partum. Legislators appropriated $10 million to develop tests and do other restructuring—despite the howls of protest from parent and medical rights groups, who are concerned about loss of parental consent and overmedication of children.

What other vulnerable demographics may be deemed to “need” screening?

People with HIV and AIDS are a sitting duck. According to CDC figures, more than a million Americans are still living with AIDS, and full-blown AIDS is still said to result in “psychosis” for some. A person’s normal anxiety and depression about living with AIDS could be construed by the MMHS posse as a treatable condition—meaning yet another pricey prescription in that person’s battery of treatment. The government could ensure compliance by requiring anyone with a positive HIV antibody test to submit to periodic screening. Homeless people are a vulnerable subgroup. According to the DHHS, “In major urban areas, 10-20% of homeless persons who suffer from chronic mental illnesses are infected with HIV.”

Another, vaster target will be our 36 million seniors, who already are a gold mine because they use so many prescription drugs. A recent Medicare study showed that one quarter of the 1.6 million seniors in nursing homes are kept on psychotropic drugs, mostly to ensure that they make minimal demands on staff. Yet another target is the nation’s prison population of 3 million souls. What better way to stop prison violence than by drugging inmates?

MMHS cheerleaders seem oblivious to the growing evidence of some antidepressants’ dangerous side effects. Schoolchildren in treatment have a higher incidence of suicide. It’s a matter of record that most of the kids who went on rampages of shooting up their schools were on this type of meds. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on studies that show a higher death rate among elderly patients who take psychotropic drugs.

For women, MMHS creates a horrible double standard. If a pregnant woman puts nicotine and alcohol into her body, she can be criminally prosecuted for harming her unborn baby. But it’s not a criminal act for the government to order powerful prescription drugs put into her body if she’s diagnosed with “chronic depression.” Yet a recent study compels the FDA to admit that major birth defects are seen in babies exposed to Paxil during pregnancy. Prozac has been linked to premature births.

A little arithmetic reveals how colossal the profits will be. Let’s take Zoloft, second most popular antidepressant with sales reported at $1.89 billion a year. Treatment with Zoloft can run $840 a year for one person. If just ten percent of those 1 million living with HIV could be Trojaned into Bush’s program, that is $84,400,000 in new sales for Pfizer, who makes Zoloft. Three million prisoners kept conveniently defused with Zoloft would come in at over $2 billion. But the real whopper is profits from those 60 million schoolchildren. If just ten percent more of them are Trojaned into treatment (in addition to kids already diagnosed with ADHD and taking Ritalin), the total new sales would top $5 billion. This is nearly triple the annual income that Pfizer gets from Zoloft now. Similar tidy sums can be earned by any pharmacorp that rushes their products into this vast new market.

How will the country afford this program, on top of Katrina rebuilding and keeping Social Security afloat and fighting wars overseas? In Texas, Bush’s TMAP almost bankrupted Medicaid. Only the more affluent, or their insurance companies, can afford to pay for treatment of mental illness, which tends to be long and expensive. Who will pay for the balance, which could run into billions? President Bush hasn’t offered a clue.

Meanwhile, the wooden horse is inside the gates. And you can hear the clank of armor inside it.

Further reading:
Long list of disorders accepted by the mental health profession: www.mentalhealth.com/
p20-grp.html
Wikipedia’s account of the TMAP boondoggle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Allen_Jones_%28whistleblower%29

Author of fiction bestsellers and provocative commentary, Patricia Nell Warren has her writings archived at www.patricianellwarren.com. Reach her by e-mail at patriciawarren@aol.com.

January 2006

Copyright © Patricia Nell Warren. All rights reserved.