H.R.2646, Psych Drugs for Toddlers

by Deanna Spingola
July 21, 2016

 

Sandy Hook deniers distract people with ridiculous claims that have been repeatedly refuted and try to convince people that Sandy Hook was a staged event, a hoax, supposedly to seize our guns. Certainly, anti-gun proponents exploited the situation. Meanwhile, congress (corporate courtesans), which advances the profitable objectives of big pharma, has been engaging in surreptitious, dastardly deeds against the nation’s toddlers. This legislation, with demands of compliance associated with federal grants, passed the House on July 6, 2016, and will place children from birth to 5-years of age in great jeopardy. The senate bill is S.1945, Mental Health Reform Act of 2015. It was introduced on August 5, 2015 and is still in committee.


In 1941, British psychiatrists introduced new psychiatric measures into the British military, the perfect obedient guinea pig population where officials can classify the dreadful results. In 1945, Dr. John Rawlings Rees, who claimed that psychiatry’s influence is everywhere, addressed the National Council for Mental Hygiene and set the world’s agenda for psychiatry for the next sixty years.
[1] In 1975, Henry Gadsden, the head of Merck, told Fortune magazine that he wanted Merck to be more like chewing gum maker Wrigley. It had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people so that Merck could “sell to everyone.” [2] Since the early 1990s, the pharmaceutical industry has been the most profitable industry in America (perhaps on earth), with margins exceeding eighteen percent.

 

There were no campaign contribution limits in Texas. Therefore, it was the perfect place for George W. Bush to run for office and acquire a veritable fortune from politically well-connected individuals. Bush and his cronies, by creating public-private partnerships, raided the pension funds ($13 billion) of the University of Texas and also the Texas Teachers Retirement System, which managed a pension fund (over $100 billion). Connecticut-born Bush was a graduate of Yale and a member of secretive Skull and Bones. They invested a lot of that money in crony corporations ($525 million) such as the Carlyle Group which would make millions from the second invasion of Iraq. Carlyle also invested heavily into big pharma. George H. W. Bush, Eli Lilly board of directors (1977–1979), James Baker and Donald Rumsfeld (CEO of G.D. Searle) were deeply invested in the Carlyle Group. Bush announced his candidacy for the Texas governorship on November 8, 1993. With millions behind him, he was elected Texas’s first Republican governor (1995–2000) since Reconstruction.

 

Under Governor Bush, the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, the University of Texas Southwestern, NIMH, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas accepted the marketing proposal of several pharmaceutical companies for what became the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP). Algorithms allow a health care professional to select a treatment protocol based on symptoms without considering the foundational cause of those symptoms. TMAP was initiated in late 1997.

 

That was the same year that Bush supported Mental Health Parity, the Patient’s Bill of Rights that required private industry to provide increased insurance coverage for mental health treatment, including mental health drugs. It was also the same year that the FDA released its draft guidance that permitted the use of direct to consumer (DTC) advertisements, allowing big pharma to use the services of high-priced Madison Avenue professionals. In 1997, the Wall Street Journal said the SSRI drug makers viewed younger children as potential consumers and were designing palatable easy-to-swallow medications. Clinton’s 1997 FDA Modernization Act benefitted big pharma as it compelled the FDA to “fast track” drug approval and permits the FDA to request pediatric studies by drug companies and subsequent pediatric labeling. This legalized experimentation on children. A couple of years later, on June 8, 1999, the Gores and the Clintons promoted the use of psychiatric drugs during the first White House Conference on Mental Health.

 

Now back to TMAP and its inception. The Harvard Psychopharmacology Algorithm Project composed of several psychiatrists, said, “The most effective treatment modality for inpatients with severe psychotic depression is electroconvulsive therapy. The first-line psychopharmacological treatment is a combination of an antidepressant (either a tricyclic or a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and an antipsychotic.” [3] TMAP was marketed and financed by Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca Pfizer, Novartis, Janssen-Ortho-McNeil, GlaxoSmithKline, Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Wyeth-Ayerst Forrest Laboratories, and U.S. Pharmacopeia. Janssen Pharmaceutica aggressively developed the Medication Algorithm Project model that necessitates “compromising and influencing public officials” and by bypassing “governmental safeguards.” [4]

 

Bush, financed largely by big pharma, was elected president. He intended to implement a pervasive mental health program nationally. Although Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, the US military, under Bush invaded that country and bombed it to the point that only four percent of its electrical power remained which led to mass emigration and thousands of deaths. That was in addition to the 500,000 children that perished because of the sanctions imposed by the US government between the first and second invasions of Iraq. Warfare puts more people under government authority than almost any other circumstance. Especially since 1944, the government and the drug industry have used the military personnel as guinea pigs. State and federal governments are the industry’s biggest customers.

 

President Bush proposed a sixteen percent increase in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as an increase for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which Congress approved. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the Ad Hoc Group on Medical Research Funding (AAMC) influenced the government’s decision to almost double the NIH budget between 1998 and 2004. [5] In FY 2017, with the support of AAMC, Congress approved $32.1 billion for medical research conducted by the NIH. [6]

“The NIMH is the primary source of research grants for psychiatrists who conduct mental health research at their local institutions.” [7]

 

The 2003 APA’s consortium was co-chaired by Lewis Judd M.D., David Kupfer M.D., and Paul S. Appelbaum M.D., currently Chair of the DSM Steering Committee for APA. In 2003, he was the APA president, and is currently a Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. The consortium was attended by over forty people, including representatives from National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), and American Association of Chairmen of Departments of Psychiatry (AACDP). The general attitude was that the president’s proposed Fiscal 2004 for NIMH was inadequate. Appelbaum complained to Psychiatric News during the consortium that he was concerned about the president’s proposed budget for NIMH. [8]

 

According to the article by Christine Lehmann, “Judd and Kupfer encouraged consortium members to approach their legislators regarding the “tremendous contribution NIH funding has made in translating research advances into psychiatric treatment. Kupfer reminded them to mention their own research projects and to contact their legislators throughout the year.” [9] On May 18, 2013, the APA published the DSM-V, after David J. Kupfer, a Yale graduate, led the task force. Kupfer was assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine (1969-1973) then joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh. Kupfer, a professor, became chair of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh (1983 to 2009). On November 16–18, 1998, Kupfer was the chair of the NIH Consensus Conference with thirty-one “experts” to discuss the diagnosis and treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

 

Tim Murphy received his Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh and then spent three decades as a psychologist in Pittsburgh. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Senate (1996–2002) when he authored the state’s Patient Bill of Rights to increase funding for medical research. He is now a member of the US House of Representatives (2003-present). While he was a practicing psychologist he was also an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh where Kupfer was chair of psychiatry. Murphy is Co-chair of the Mental Health Caucus and a founding member of the GOP Doctors Caucus, giving him a platform to inculcate other members of Congress and the public on ways to allegedly make healthcare more affordable and accessible for all families. Murphy co-authored, with Loriann Hoff Oberlin, of The Angry Child: Regaining Control When Your Child is Out of Control (2002) and Overcoming Passive-Aggression: How to Stop Hidden Anger from Spoiling Your Relationships, Career, and Happiness (2005).

 

Some of Murphy’s most recently sponsored bills include...

 

Murphy authored the Generic Drug and Biosimilar User Fee Act of 2012  (H.R. 3988), which was signed into law by Obama in July 2012 (part of the FDA Reform package. Murphy also wrote the Seniors Access to Mental Health Act, which became federal law as part of the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act on July 15, 2008. Murphy wrote Strengthening Medicare and Repaying Taxpayers Act (SMART Act, H.R. 1063) which Obama signed into law.
He also introduced the Mental Health Security for American Families in Education Act which was passed. This allows depressed college students to get help (psych drugs) “before tragedy strikes.”
[11]

 

Murphy reminds me of Richard Pan, a former pediatrician turned politician (many of whom are psychopathic) who received his M.D. at the University of Pittsburgh (interesting) who devised Senate Bill 277 which mandated vaccines for all school children – no exemptions allowed. [12]

http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/app/journals/content/pn/2003/pn.2003.38.issue-9/pn.38.9.0001/production/images/medium/4.jpeg

Tim Murphy and David Kupfer at the APA conference in 2003

 

Tim Murphy is paid $174,000 (2016 House of Representatives Default Member Salary); does he actually serve his constituents or big pharma for that salary? [13] Murphy is financed largely by big pharma such as health professionals, pharmaceuticals/health products, hospitals/nursing homes, and health services/HMOs. [14] [15]

 

On December 16, 2013, nine days before the release of the official report on the Sandy Hook shooting, on the PBS New Hour, Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman, president of the APA’s board of trustees (2013–2014), regarding Murphy’s efforts claimed that “our treatment of mental illness has not gotten any better and over half of the mass killings that have occurred in the last five years has been from untreated people with mental illness.” Lieberman praised Murphy for his “historic legislation on the anniversary of the Newtown tragedy to reform how mental health services are delivered. We need comprehensive and proactive mental health care services and with a particular focus on youth because youth is really the breeding ground for mental illness.” [16]

 

Murphy, though a psychologist without the authority to write prescriptions, is well-connected and endorses psychiatry and their penchant for prescribing psych drugs for the majority of their patients. Initially, in 2013, Murphy authored a bill to help fix the nation’s broken mental health system, supported by the American Psychological Association, the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police, the APA, and the drug-industry-funded National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) masquerading as a grass-roots organization. How many other police groups will jump on the bandwagon to support Murphy’s current bill with all of the recent well-publicized police shootings? He reintroduced his 2013 bill as H.R.2646 the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2015.

 

Let’s critically evaluate the bill titled: “To make available needed psychiatric, psychological, and supportive services for individuals with mental illness and families in mental health crisis, and for other purposes.”

Subtitle C, Strengthening Mental Health Care for Children and Adolescents is the part of the bill that defines what the government and big pharma have in store for America’s children. DHHS officials amended the Public Health Service Act by appointing an Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders who would work along with other federal agencies to authorize states in accordance with the Education Assistance Act to promote behavioral health integration in pediatric primary care.

·        Promoting “behavioral health” includes the development and/or improvement of statewide child mental health care access programs.

·        Federal money to the states that submit an application and a plan to the Secretary will be used to create a statewide network of individuals to counsel pediatricians or primary care doctors

·        a team or network will consist of case coordinators, child and adolescent psychiatrists, and licensed clinical mental health professionals, such as a psychologist, social worker, or mental health counselor

·        States will develop an online database and communication mechanisms, including telehealth, to facilitate consultation support to pediatric practices

·        statewide telephone or telehealth consultations between the pediatric mental health teams and pediatric primary care providers;

·        conduct training and give assistance to pediatric primary care providers for the early identification, diagnosis, treatment, and referral of children with behavioral health conditions or …other developmental disabilities;

·        establish mechanisms…to increase access to child and adolescent psychiatric and psychology services by pediatric primary care providers and… to identify, treat, and refer children with mental health problems including involuntary mental health treatment if it is court-ordered.

 

Under part 399Z-2, it states that federal money will also be given to eligible entities, including human services agencies, to develop, maintain, or enhance infant and early childhood mental health promotion, intervention, and treatment programs for infants and children. The same network and “specialists” listed above are applicable to this section. Those entities, to keep getting federal money, must provide appropriate evidence-based models (complete compliance), practices, and methods (use of psych drugs). According to the bill, the children who are serviced must be eligible - a child from birth to not more than 5 years of age who—

·        is at risk for, shows early signs of, or has been diagnosed with a mental illness, including serious emotional disturbance;

·        may benefit from infant and early childhood intervention or treatment programs or specialized preschool or elementary school programs…;

·        an eligible entity is a non-profit institution, that submits an application to the Secretary, that is state-approved to provide for children from infancy to 5 years of age mental health promotion, intervention, or treatment services.

 

Apparently, the following was insufficient:

According to IMS Health’s Vector One: National and Total Patient Tracker Database for 2013 these are the figures for just 0-1 year olds being prescribed psychiatric drugs:

·        249,669 0-1 year olds are on anti-anxiety drugs (such as Xanax, Klonopin, and Ativan).

·        26,406 0-1 year olds are on antidepressants (such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil).

 

There are 1,422 infants up to the age of twelve months who are taking ADHD drugs (such as Ritalin, Adderall, and Concerta).

·        There are 654 up to the age of twelve months who are taking antipsychotics (such as Risperdal, Seroquel, and Zyprexa). The CDC issued a report on the 10,000 two-three- year olds being prescribed ADHD drugs.

 

The number of toddlers on anti-anxiety and antidepressants are staggering in comparison:

·        318,997 2-3 year olds are on anti-anxiety drugs.

·        46,102 2-3 year olds are on antidepressants.

·        3,760 2-3 year olds are taking antipsychotics.

 

In the other age groups, the numbers start in the millions with 0-5 year olds:

·        The total number of 0-5 year olds currently prescribed psychiatric drugs is 1,080,168.

·        The number of 6-12 year olds on psychiatric drugs is 4,130,340.

·        The number of 13-17 year olds taking psychiatric drugs is 3,617,593. [17]

 

Nope, the paid-for politicians (psychopaths) were not satisfied with having big pharma medicating the military, those on Medicaid or Medicare, those in rest homes, and a significant number of preschoolers. They want the birth to five-year old group and probably within a relatively short time, that psych treatment will be mandatory, just like vaccines in California are mandatory, thanks to Richard Pan, the former pediatrician-turned-politician. It’s all about money; always has been with big pharma.



[1] The Shaping of Psychiatry by War by John Rawlings Rees, MD, Brigadier: Consulting Psychiatrist To The British Army Medical Director, The Tavistock Clinic, Chapman and Hall, London, 1945,  p. 15

[2] Deanna Spingola, Screening Sandy Hook, Causes and Consequences, Trafford Publishing, 2015, pp. 210-211

[3] Hesham M. Hamoda, MD, and David N. Osser, MD, The Psychopharmacology Algorithm Project at the Harvard South Shore Program: An Update on Psychotic Depression, http://www.harvardsouthshorepsychiatry.org/sites/default/files/2010residentresearch/resresearchPDFs/HamodaDepression.pdf, viewed 8/30/2014

[4] Allen Jones, Internet by the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, January 20, 2004, p. 17, http://psychrights.org, viewed 4/19/2014

[5] Christine Lehmann, APA Calls for Budget Increase For Mental Health Institutes, Psychiatric News, May 2, 2003, http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/pn.38.9.0001, last viewed 7/18/2016

[6] The Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research, https://www.aamc.org/research/adhocgp/, last viewed 7/19/2016

[7] Christine Lehmann, APA Calls for Budget Increase For Mental Health Institutes, Psychiatric News, May 2, 2003, http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/pn.38.9.0001, last viewed 7/18/2016

[8] Christine Lehmann, APA Calls for Budget Increase For Mental Health Institutes, Psychiatric News, May 2, 2003, http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/pn.38.9.0001, last viewed 7/18/2016

[9] Christine Lehmann, APA Calls for Budget Increase For Mental Health Institutes, Psychiatric News, May 2, 2003, http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/pn.38.9.0001, last viewed 7/18/2016

[10] Rep. Tim Murphy, Representative from Pennsylvania’s 18th District, Republican, GovTrack, https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/tim_murphy/400285, last viewed 7/17/2016

[11] Tim Murphy Biography, https://murphy.house.gov/biography/, last viewed 7/20/2016

[12] Jeremy B. White, Richard Pan Recall Effort Falls Short on Vaccine Issue http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article52931130.html, last viewed 7/19/2016

[13] Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pennsylvania, 18th) - Staff Salary Data, https://www.legistorm.com/member/388/Rep_Tim_Murphy.html, last viewed 7/17/2016

[14] Open Secrets, https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00024992&cycle=2016#cont, last viewed 7/17/2016

[15] Many Pharmaceutical Companies Funding Congressman Tim Murphy, Mad in America, http://www.madinamerica.com/2015/03/many-pharmaceutical-companies-funding-congressman-tim-murphy/, last viewed 7/19/2016

[16] APA’s Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman Praises Murphy Mental Health Reforms, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFjBxTNxYEs&index=21&list=UUmMrDji88FxLeqgin2ehA9A, viewed 5/21/2014

[17] Kelly Patricia O’Meara, Watchdog Says Report of 10,000 Toddlers on ADHD Drugs Tip of the Iceberg—274,000 0-1 Year Olds and 370,000 Toddlers Prescribed Psychiatric Drugs, May 21, 2014, http://www.cchrint.org/2014/05/21/10000-toddlers-on-adhd-drugs-tip-of-the-iceberg/, viewed 7/24/2014