Jersey Desk - CCHR Warns Parents Must Guard Children from Subjective Mental Health Screening

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Invasive mental health screenings risk false psychiatric labels, dangerous drugging, and erosion of parents' constitutional rights, while studies show no improvement in children's mental health outcomes.

LOS ANGELES - JerseyDesk -- By CCHR International

The mental health industry watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) is recommending that parents shield their children from invasive mental health screening in schools. To assist families, CCHR provides a downloadable Parent's Exemption Form Prior to Mental Health and Psychological Screening or Counseling. A growing number of states now require psychiatric screening in schools, most recently Illinois, which calls for annual screenings beginning in third grade (ages 8–9).

CCHR says mental disorder screening is a pipeline to children and even toddlers being prescribed psychotropic drugs, already given to 6.1 million 0–17-year-olds in the U.S.[1] It warns that this will likely increase, given the American Academy of Pediatrics recently recommended mental health screening from the newborn visit through age 21 and depression and suicide screening from age 12. CCHR says parents are ill-informed that the screening questionnaires are based on a diagnostic system experts say is unreliable.

Dr. Thomas Insel, former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, conceded psychiatric diagnoses "lack validity" and are based on "consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure."

Between 2016 and 2022, more than 221 million antidepressant prescriptions were written for adolescents (12–17) and young adults (18–25). By 2022, antidepressant use in youth had surged by 66%.[2] Antidepressants carry a black box warning of suicidal behavior in those aged 24 and younger. The Nordic Cochrane Centre found that antidepressants double the risk of aggression and suicide in youth.[3] CCHR says it is not surprising, then, that today suicide is a leading cause of death among children, teens, and young adults.

Jan Eastgate, president of CCHR International, states, "Despite the aggressive expansion of screening—from toddlers through college-age youth—the results speak for themselves: more children are being labeled, drugged, and funneled into psychiatric treatment, yet rates of suicide and poor outcomes have worsened, not improved. Screening escalates the stigmatizing and medicalization of normal childhood behavior."

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One widely used tool is the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), created by a pharmaceutical company to help market its antidepressant. Yet psychiatrist Robert Spitzer, who helped develop the PHQ-9, conceded that psychiatric diagnoses are unreliable: "To say that we've solved the reliability problems is just not true."[4]

The PHQ-9's vague nine questions are so broad that ordinary experiences like tiredness, overeating, or difficulty concentrating can lead to a diagnosis of depression—and a prescription for antidepressants.

Journalist Kelly Patricia O'Meara, in Still Psyched Out: And Nobody is Getting Better, warns parents that "for the psychiatric community, confirmation of objective, confirmable abnormalities in the brain have never been a scientific standard to be met when considering what constitutes mental illness."

Evidence of Harm:

A 2017 review found no evidence that screening improves children's mental health outcomes and warned of potential harm.[5]
A 2022 study in Preventive Medicine confirmed that depression screening does not reduce suicidal behavior in adolescents.[6]
Providers misdiagnose depression 66% of the time and anxiety disorders 71% of the time.[7]

Dr. Allen Frances, former chair of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) Task Force, stated: "Accumulating evidence makes clear how ineffective and harmful are almost all the highly touted screening tests."[8] Further, "Misplaced diagnostic exuberance has turned age-appropriate immaturity into a psychiatric disease and treats it with a pill, rather than just letting the kid grow up."[9]

Screening for the subjectively determined Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has proven equally unreliable. A 2023 Journal of Attention Disorders study documented high false-positive rates.[10] Psychiatrist Dr. Niall McLaren remarked: "The labels are so loose you could diagnose a ham sandwich with inattentive-type ADHD."[11]

Yet the stimulants prescribed to treat ADHD are pharmacologically "nearly identical to cocaine," according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Beyond the medical risks, mandated mental health screenings undermine parental rights. Vera Sharav, founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, warned that such programs leave "no room for individual choice—or the freedom for parents to say no to psychotropic drugs for their children."[12]

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Congressman Ron Paul similarly cautioned: "Government health care mandates undermine the basic principles of a free society."

CCHR urges lawmakers and school officials to reject psychiatric screening in schools. Far from protecting children, these programs promote false labeling, dangerous drugging, and can strip parents of their constitutional rights to direct their child's care. "Psychiatric screening has already fueled an epidemic of mental disorder diagnosis and psychotropic drugging," Eastgate said. "Parents must be empowered to protect their children from this."

Founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and leading professor of psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz, CCHR is a non-profit mental health industry watchdog. CCHR has obtained protections from abusive psychiatric practices through legislative reform, education, and advocacy.

Sources:

[1] www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/children-on-psychiatric-drugs/

[2] publications.aap.org/journal-blogs/blog/28366/Trends-in-Antidepressant-Prescriptions-for

[3] Sarah Knapton, "Antidepressants can raise the risk of suicide, biggest ever review finds," The Telegraph, 27 Jan 2016

[4] Alix Spiegel, "The Dictionary of Disorder," The New Yorker, 4 Jan. 2005

[5] "Depression Screening and Health Outcomes in Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review," Can J Psychiatry, 29 Aug. 2017

[6] "Emergency health services use and medically-treated suicidal behaviors following depression screening among adolescents: A longitudinal cohort study," Preventive Medicine, Aug. 2022; "Depression Screens Do Not Reduce Suicidal Acts in Teens: Study," Medscape, 8 July 2022

[7] "Rates of Detection of Mood and Anxiety Disorders in Primary Care: A Descriptive, Cross-Sectional Study," Prim Care Companion CNS Disorders, 2011

[8] Allen J. Frances, M.D., "The Obama Plan: Spending MH Money In The Wrong Places," Psychology Today, 11 Apr. 2013

[9] Allen Frances, M.D., "12 Ways Parents Can Protect Their Kids From Too Many Pills," Huffington Post, 2 Oct. 2014

[10] Allyson G. Harrison and Melanie J. Edwards, "The Ability of Self-Report Methods to Accurately Diagnose Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Systematic Review," Journal of Attention Disorders, 2023, Vol. 27

[11] Niall McLaren, MD, "Last mention of ADHD for the year," 21 Nov. 2023

[12] Vera Sharav, Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP), 11 Aug. 2004