This is a long post ,Please read it.

[undergroundpanther]

Here below is some of the hate mail my freind sent me. She was discussing why it's bad to cuff little kids....It's tearing her up.
Here is a clip of her reply to them first..

"Thank you sir, you would not believe the nasty emails i`ve recieved! My husband and I are parents of a mentally dissabled daughter,she is now 30years old and suffers from violent episodes on a daily basis, We do not give her any prescription meds to sedate her. We try as always to deal with it ,but it is hard,very hard! we worry that she may some day have something like this happen to her or worse.

My husband and I have a lot of patience but we don`t expect every one else to be the same!*** was born with a birth defect called Microcephally, her head did notgrow as big as a normal child. She does not have Downs Syndrome,Her birth defect is rare.Doctors told us when she was born that our daughter would never walk or talk or be any where near normal,Take her home and watch her closely that`s all they kept saying.So I stayed home with her,I`ve always been home with her!

While my husband worked and she went to school for the handicapped every day for 17 years.When her school program ended she could understand, she thought she did something bad,,.There were no programs that continued her education,no curriculum,nada,zip..and she hated the sheltered work program she went to for a little over a year, It was awful I don`t blame her..

So we`ve been coping since 1997 and she began to get upset about not having school to go to and she wondered where her friends went.. She just doesn`t grasp it.. So she has these mini temper tantrums, sometimes she`ll haul off and scratch herself,and on a few ocassions she actually got mad enough to smack her father while we were driving.She has a lot of energy we walk a few miles with her every day, she strong and healthy,but her temper could get her in a lot of trouble! I constantly worry about her future.She was always for the most part well bhaved when she was at school or in stores or at resturants,but now things are changing..

Here is hate mail she gets she was responding to as is ,I only edited out contact information:
Subject:
5 year old
From:
**
Date:
Sat, 23 Apr 2005 09:48:40 -0400
To:******
You stupid bitch. The whole problem with America today is that everybody is afraid to handle/punish/discipline their kids. I'm sure your kids (if you even have any) are a bunch of spoiled dis-respectful punks that will someday cost our court systems time and money while we figure out what to do with them. Respect is a word that everyone seems to be losing track of. I would bet you don't even know how to spell it.

Have a nice day.

fm


Subject:
Handcuffs
From:
<[e-mail]>
Date:
Sat, 23 Apr 2005 14:04:44 -0700
To:*****
Dear Mrs.***! I just read your report on the handcuffing of a 5-year old girl in Florida and am as outraged (understanding our society - NOT shocked) as you are. Your mindless usage of ''Fascist'' cops is disturbing. It was in fascist countries, that family values were esteemed far higher then ever in any ''democracy''. Such behavior would have been unthinkable in either Franco-Spain, Mussolini-Italy or Hitler-Germany. These countries, without exception valued family life and womanhood extremely high and did all possible (particularly Hitler-Germany) to further the family and child rearing. For you to use ''Fascist'' this-that-or the other as you did shows jew-induced ignorance. The words, Fascist, Nazi, Racist, Hate, Tolerance, Equal rights, Anti-semitism etc. are all without exception jew-words designed to twist reality and to shut up those who want to defend their heritage. Those words have been coined to destroy people like us. What you are witnessing these days in the US and elsewhere is the result of 100 years of unchecked jewish influence and the subsequent brutalizatoion of our society.
Gerry Frederics
----------------------------------------------------------------
** Grrr...We all know how the German abusive parenting style made fine Nazis of thier children..
----------------------------------------------------------------
Subject:
FL Cops Cuff Crying 5-Year-old School Girl in Class
From:
"Betty"
Date:
Sat, 23 Apr 2005 20:08:53 -0400
To:
****

I read your article, SAB, and saw this spoiled BRAT creating so much destruction that she should've been taken to a room and smacked across her ass with a paddle like they did in my days. This brat wasn't crying when she was hitting people and destroying property was she? WHICH THE TAXPAYERS PAY FOR. This brat is just spoiled and anyone who says she is just an innocent "baby" will see this same "baby" growing up, committing crimes and having a bunch of babies if she isn't corrected and corrected NOW, and it will be the stupid taxpayers who pay for her destructive behavior. And, I am against the government 100%.

BETTY DEHART, CHAMBERSBURG, PA

Subject:
Sick kid
From:
"George Hamilton, Geologist"
Date:
Sat, 23 Apr 2005 13:00:45 -0400 (EDT)
To: ****

It was obvious from the video that appeared on the news that this kid must have been dribbled around the kitchen by her mother.

A small straight jacket would have been more appropriate.

What would you have done???????????"

_______________________________________________________________

"To be fully open to the baby's emotional needs is to become reacquainted with oneself as a baby, to reexperience the pain of being totally dependent and desperate in love and yet being shut out and feeling unwanted."
-- Robert Karen, Ph.D.


I for one am very wary of this growing hateful additude twords rebellious kids angry kids and the disabled.(remembber the hateful talk directed at Terry Shiavo?)
This "disapline" game some parents glorify plays right into what Bush and his authoritarian gang on the hill want us to think twords kids and the disabled...He wants us to dehumanize them and lock them away or put them out of'our' misery. This is why The media tool is generating hostility twords kids and disabed people right now.Bush wants to cut social security for all the "useless eaters",

It is important to observe and speak out about this. The Bush admin knows young people have nothing to lose they will fight for thier own freedom like thier parents won't..So conditioning parents to go law and order on kids is the way to get kids to conform to authoritarian domination wheether they resist or not. Already a huge amount of teens in thier ignorance think free speech should be limited this is tragic.Parents who go ballistic over every controversial thing kids do to express themselves are a menace to freedom for all. Especially if they can't sort out what is a real danger from thier own inconveinence or just different ways of thinking or behaving that kids do that isn't harmful it's just different than what they themselves know.Remember Elvis the Pelvis meant doom to America when mother hens were clucking...

This situation is getting bad,"New"freedom" is being rammed into our lives,One news story after another full of demonization.Already pharma companies pressure and bribe doctors to hand out drugs,some are not even tested well.. In case you havent noticed,this is a way to make them push drugs..there are IMPLANTS aleady yo insert to force you to take psychotropic medicine against your will.Wanna know why ,the for your own good authoritarians handcuffed 5 year old girl,who was being a pain on TV? really?

What do you think is the propagandic reason for this latest tragedy being hyped on TV right now? Could it be To test parents willingness to see thier own kids cuffed and carted to the hospital, by "offcials".
Read my article about media manipulation..http://upits.pitas.com/082302.html.
http://www.unknownnews.net/041022a-upits.html

Nothing on TV is innocent random news anymore.NOTHING. News becomes news because it has a propaganda value.It's all planned in advance scripted just so,staged for maximum effect.News can get us to react and by observing our reaction authoritarians can gauge how hard to push bad agendas so they will go past the public's rejection and bullshit detectors ..pushing agendas that normally clear headed,not hysterical and reacting citizens would rebel against.

The little girl getting cuffed is news because the authoritarians want to condition us,and spin the reality and language into making bad policy look normal or even good,Redefining abuse as if it's something else other than a horrible assault on human rights,our freedom ..It's there to get us to accept the unacceptable.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/breaking_news/11171266.htm

And this below is part of the the coming Unacceptable.

~"If you do not specify and confront real issues,what you say will
surely obscure them .If you do not alarm anyone morally you yourself remain morally asleep.If you do not embody controversey what you say will be an acceptance of the drift of a coming human hell."
~C.Wright Mills,The Power Elite.

------------------------------------------------------------------
The below superb article in the new _Mother Jones_
May/June 2005 issue ***EXPLODES*** the controversy
of psychiatric drugging of USA kids! Read how drug
companies are manipulating President Bush and state
officials to push drugs using "screening programs."

Did you know President Bush is calling for screening
*every* child and even every *ADULT* in the USA with
the drug company screening programs exposed below?

Are you next?

SAY NO TO PSYCHIATRIC DRUG SCREENING NOW!

Join a peaceful protest by MindFreedom International
to say "no" in Washington, D.C. on Monday, 2 May 2005
at noon directly in front of the headquarters of the
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
(PhRMA). For a downloadable news release, poster, etc.
see Protest Info Center at http://www.MindFreedom.org.

*BELOW* is a full copy of the _Mother Jones_ article.
Please get this out far & wide on & off the Internet!

~~~~~~~~~~

_Mother Jones_ May/June 2005 Issue

Medicating Aliah

When state mental health officials fall under
the influence of Big Pharma, the burden falls
on captive patients. Like this 13-year-old girl.

by Rob Waters

ALIAH GLEASON IS A BIG, lively girl with a
round face, a quick wit, and a sharp tongue.
She's 13 and in eighth grade at Dessau Middle
School in Pflugerville, Texas, an Austin
suburb, but could pass for several years
older. She is the second of four daughters of
Calvin and Anaka Gleason, an African American
couple who run a struggling business taking
people on casino bus trips.

In the early part of seventh grade, Aliah was
a B and C student who "got in trouble for
running my mouth." Sometimes her antics went
overboard -- like the time she barked at a
teacher she thought was ugly. "I was calling
this teacher a man because she had a
mustache," Aliah recalled over breakfast with
her parents at an Austin restaurant.

School officials considered Aliah disruptive,
deemed her to have an "oppositional disorder,"
and placed her in a special education track.
Her parents viewed her as a spirited child
who was bright but had a tendency to argue
and clown. Then one day, psychologists from
the University of Texas (UT) visited the
school to conduct a mental health screening
for sixth- and seventh-grade girls, and
Aliah's life took a dramatic turn.

A few weeks later, the Gleasons got a "Dear
parents" form letter from the head of the
screening program. "You will be glad to know
your daughter did not report experiencing a
significant level of distress," it said. Not
long after, they got a very different phone
call from a UT psychologist, who told them
Aliah had scored high on a suicide rating and
needed further evaluation. The Gleasons
reluctantly agreed to have Aliah see a UT
consulting psychiatrist. She concluded Aliah
was suicidal but did not hospitalize her,
referring her instead to an emergency clinic
for further evaluation. Six weeks later, in
January 2004, a child-protection worker went
to Aliah's school, interviewed her, then
summoned Calvin Gleason to the school and
told him to take Aliah to Austin State
Hospital, a state mental facility. He
refused, and after a heated conversation, she
placed Aliah in emergency custody and had a
police officer drive her to the hospital.

The Gleasons would not be allowed to see or
even speak to their daughter for the next
five months, and Aliah would spend a total of
nine months in a state psychiatric hospital
and residential treatment facilities. While
in the hospital, she was placed in restraints
more than 26 times and medicated -- against her
will and without her parents' consent -- with at
least 12 different psychiatric drugs, many of
them simultaneously.

On her second day at the state hospital,
Aliah says she was told to take a pill to
"help my mood swings." She refused and hid
under her bed. She says staff members pulled
her out by her legs, then told her if she
took her medication, she'd be able to go home
sooner. She took it. On another occasion, she
"cheeked" a pill and later tossed it into the
garbage. She says that after staff members
found it, five of them came to her room, one
holding a needle. "I started struggling, and
they held my head down and shot me in the
butt," she says. "Then they left and I lay in
my bed crying."

What, if anything, was wrong with Aliah
remains cloudy. Court documents and medical
records indicate that she would say she was
suicidal or that her father beat her, and
then she would recant. (Her attorney
attributes such statements to the high
dosages of psychotropic drugs she was
forcibly put on.) Her clinical diagnosis was
just as changeable. During two months at
Austin State Hospital, Aliah was diagnosed
with "depressive disorder not otherwise
specified," "mood disorder not otherwise
specified with psychotic features," and
"major depression with psychotic features."

In addition to the antidepressants Zoloft,
Celexa, Lexapro, and Desyrel, as well as
Ativan, an antianxiety drug, Aliah was given
two newer drugs known as "atypical
antipsychotics" -- Geodon and Abilify -- plus an
older antipsychotic, Haldol. She was also
given the anticonvulsants Trileptal and
Depakote -- though she was not suffering from a
seizure disorder -- and Cogentin, an
anti-Parkinson's drug also used to control
the side effects of antipsychotic drugs. At
the time of her transfer to a residential
facility, she was on five different
medications, and once there, she was put on
still another atypical -- Risperdal.

The case of Aliah Gleason raises
troubling -- and long-standing -- questions about
the coercive uses of psychiatric medications
in Texas and elsewhere. But especially
because Aliah lives in Texas, and because her
commitment was involuntary, she became
vulnerable to an even further hazard:
aggressive drug regimens that feature new and
controversial drugs -- regimens that are promoted
by drug companies, mandated by state
governments, and imposed on captive patient
populations with no say over what's
prescribed to them.

In the past, drug companies sold their new
products to doctors through ads and articles
in medical journals or, in recent years, by
wooing consumers directly through television
and magazine advertising. Starting in the
mid-1990s, though, the companies also began
to focus on a powerful market force: the
handful of state officials who govern
prescribing for large public systems like
state mental hospitals, prisons, and
government-funded clinics.

One way drug companies have worked to
influence prescribing practices of these
public institutions is by funding the
implementation of guidelines, or algorithms,
that spell out which drugs should be used for
different psychiatric conditions, much as
other algorithms guide the treatment of
diabetes or heart disease. The effort began
in the mid-1990s with the creation of
TMAP -- the Texas Medication Algorithm Project.

Put simply, the algorithm called for the
newest, most expensive medications to be used
first in the treatment of schizophrenia,
bipolar disorder, and major depression in
adults. Subsequently, the state began
developing CMAP, a children's algorithm that
is not yet codified by the state legislature.
At least nine states have since adopted
guidelines similar to TMAP. One such state,
Pennsylvania, has been sued by two of its own
investigators who claim they were fired after
exposing industry's undue influence over
state prescribing practices and the resulting
inappropriate medicating of patients,
particularly children.

Thanks in part to such marketing strategies,
sales of the new atypical antipsychotics have
soared. Unlike antidepressants -- which have been
marketed to huge audiences almost as lifestyle
drugs -- antipsychotics are aimed at a small but
growing market: schizophrenics and people
with bipolar disorder. Atypicals are
profitable because they are as much as 10
times more expensive than the old
antipsychotics, such as Haldol. In 2004,
atypical antipsychotics were the
fourth-highest-grossing class of drugs in the
United States, with sales totaling $8.8
billion -- $2.4 billion of which was paid for by
state Medicaid funds.

At a time when ethical questions are dogging
the pharmaceutical industry and algorithm
programs in Texas and Pennsylvania, President
Bush's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health
has lauded TMAP as a "model program" and
called for the expanded use of screening
programs like the one at Aliah Gleason's
middle school. The question now is whose
interests do these programs really serve --

THE TEXAS MEDICATION ALGORITHM PROJECT got
under way in the mid-1990s just as the new
generation of antipsychotic drugs was coming
on the market. For some 40 years before,
medications like Thorazine, Haldol, and
Mellaril were given to patients with
schizophrenia or psychosis to silence their
voices and calm their agitation. But they
caused terrible side effects, including
sedation, social withdrawal, and tardive
dyskinesia, which causes muscle and facial
tics and strange jerking movements like those
in people with Parkinson's disease. Many
patients would refuse to take them -- when they
had a choice. Some sued drug companies and
doctors for failing to warn them about the
side effects and won large awards.

Into that environment, drug companies brought
out the new atypical antipsychotics and began
describing them in almost miraculous terms.
The drugs -- including Janssen Pharmaceutica's
Risperdal, Eli Lilly's Zyprexa, Pfizer's
Geodon, AstraZeneca's Seroquel, and
Bristol-Myers Squibb's Abilify, as well as a
slightly older drug, Clozapine by Sandoz -- were
said to be more effective than the
first-generation antipsychotics and less
likely to cause motor problems and other side
effects. "A potential breakthrough of
tremendous magnitude," Stanford University
psychiatrist Alan Schatzberg gushed to the
New York Times. Laurie Flynn, executive
director of the National Alliance for the
Mentally Ill, added that now "the long-term
disability of schizophrenia can come to an
end."

Despite the hoopla, not all doctors
immediately embraced the new drugs, and many
patients bounced haphazardly between the old
and new antipsychotics. "They complained that
whenever they got new doctors, their whole
medication regimen usually changed," says Dr.
Steven Shon, the medical director for
behavioral health for the Texas Department of
State Health Services (DSHS).

In 1995, Shon began talking with researchers
at the UT-Southwestern Medical Center in
Dallas about the use of algorithms to address
these random prescribing practices. From the
start, the process of creating the algorithms
reflected the extensive ties between academic
psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical
industry. UT-Southwestern was a major
research center stocked with investigators
conducting drug trials paid for by
pharmaceutical companies.

One of Shon's key collaborators was Dr. John
Rush, a nationally known psychopharmacologist
who has extensive ties to industry. Rush
declined to speak for this article, but
according to a disclosure statement appended
to one of his published articles, he has
received grant and research support from 14
pharmaceutical companies, has served as a
consultant to 11, and has been a member of 10
drug company speakers' bureaus.

Together, Shon, Rush, and the then-chair of
UT-Southwestern's psychiatry department
convened panels of experts who drew up
"consensus guidelines" for schizophrenia,
bipolar disorder, and major
depression -- blueprints on which drugs to give
patients in what order and combination. Of
the 46 members of the three panels, 27 have
conducted research on behalf of
pharmaceutical companies, served on drug
company speakers' bureaus, or served as
consultants to a drug company, according to a
review conducted for Mother Jones by the
Center for Science in the Public Interest, a
watchdog group that maintains a database on
the financial links of researchers.

For the drug companies, TMAP represented an
opportunity. Their products were given a high
priority in the algorithm, and if the
algorithm was widely followed, it could mean
thousands of prescriptions and millions of
dollars in revenue. The industry didn't miss
the chance. "We went to the pharmaceutical
companies or, actually, they approached us
because they are always dropping by," Shon
told Mother Jones. "Once we created the
algorithms, they said, 'Could you use any
financial help for any materials?' And we
said, 'Yeah,' because we have to publish
manuals. We have to create training
videotapes."

Shon says the initial creation of the TMAP
guidelines was underwritten by state funds,
along with $3 million in grants from
foundations, including $2.4 million from the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a charity set
up by the estate of a former chief executive
of Johnson & Johnson, the parent of Janssen.
Shon insists that no industry money went into
the creation of the guidelines, though a 1999
paper he coauthored outlining the
"development and implementation" of TMAP
acknowledged grant support from seven
pharmaceutical companies.

Shon also told Mother Jones that his
department received only $285,000 from drug
companies for TMAP's training materials in
the program's "feasibility testing stage."
But Nanci Wilson, an investigative reporter
for KEYE-TV in Austin, reviewed the DSHS
accounts, and her analysis indicates that
gifts from pharmaceutical companies totaled
$1.3 million from 1997 to July 2004, at least
$834,000 of which was earmarked for TMAP. For
example:

*** Janssen Pharmaceutica, the maker of
Risperdal, gave $191,183 "to help support
further developmental activities of TMAP" or
in general support of TMAP.

*** Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac and
Zyprexa, gave $47,000 to "help fund the
collaborative effort to develop medication
best practices for the treatment of major
depression, schizophrenia and bipolar
disorders." All together Lilly contributed
$103,000 to support TMAP.

*** Pfizer, the maker of the antidepressant
Zoloft and the new antipsychotic Geodon,
contributed at least $146,500 for TMAP.

While not refuting Shon's statement, DSHS
spokesman Doug McBride says he is "aware"
that industry donated $1.3 million.
Representatives of pharmaceutical companies
contacted by Mother Jones denied that their
contributions were intended to shape TMAP.
"We didn't participate in the development or
influence the content," said Janssen
spokesman Doug Arbesfeld. "It was an
arm's-length contribution." Heather Lusk, an
Eli Lilly representative, said contributions
to TMAP were "educational" grants made by a
company grants office that "is completely
independent of any kind of sales and
marketing function."

Pfizer's Jack Cox pointed out that nonprofit
mental health advocacy groups also raise and
spend money to influence policy. "There's an
assumption that our money is dirty and
corrupt," he said. "I beg to differ."

AS THE TMAP PANEL MEMBERS worked on the
protocols, drug companies aggressively
promoted the new antipsychotics across the
psychiatric landscape. Their key selling
point: that they were more effective and
caused fewer serious side effects than the
older antipsychotics, especially Haldol, the
most widely used. Though it did approve six
atypicals, the FDA was dubious of some of
these claims. "We would consider any
advertisement or promotional labeling for
Risperdal false, misleading or lacking fair
balance if there is a presentation of data
that conveys the impression that
is superior to or any other marketed
antipsychotic drug product with regard to
safety or effectiveness," an FDA official
wrote in a 1993 letter to Janssen
Pharmaceutica. But the letter was only made
public 53years later, when journalist Robert
Whitaker quoted it in his 2002 book, Mad in
America. Most prescribing doctors were left
in the dark. (For more on how drug companies
manipulated clinical trials for atypicals see
motherjones.com/spinningdoctors.)

The largest study to date, a review of 52
clinical trials including more than 12,000
patients published in the British Medical
Journal in 2000, found "no clear evidence
that atypical antipsychotics are more
effective or better tolerated than
conventional antipsychotics." A 2003 study
comparing Zyprexa, the top-selling atypical
antipsychotic, and Haldol, published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association,
found the new drug "does not demonstrate
advantages compared with in
compliance, symptoms or overall quality of
life."

The new drugs now appear to be associated
with higher suicide rates and to cause
tardive dyskinesia, too, though perhaps at
lower rates than the first-generation drugs.
They can cause rapid weight gain and thus an
increased risk of diabetes. In September
2003, the FDA required the makers of all
atypicals to add to their labels a warning
that the drugs can cause hyperglycemia,
diabetes, and even death. Janssen was also
made to send doctors a letter conceding it
had misled them when it said that Risperdal
does not increase the risk of diabetes. In
fact, the company had to admit, it probably
does.

When TMAP's schizophrenia algorithm was
finalized in 1997, however, it did exactly
what industry representatives must have hoped
for: It called for the newest, most expensive
drugs -- five atypicals -- to be used first. If a
patient does not respond well to one of those
drugs, a second member of this group should be
tried. If that drug also fails, a third drug
should be tried, this time either another
atypical or an older antipsychotic. The
guidelines for major depression and bipolar
disorder similarly favor new drugs.

"When saw the newer
medications were there, they liked that, of
course," says Shon. "I know that has raised
questions in people's minds: 'Why are the
newest, most expensive first?' Well, the
newest, most expensive are either the most
efficacious and/or the safest."

But that assertion is increasingly disputed.
"When atypicals came out, they looked a
little better in effectiveness and a lot
better in terms of side effects," says Mike
Hogan, Ohio's mental health director and
former chairman of President Bush's New
Freedom Commission on Mental Health. "These
days, they look perhaps a tiny bit better in
terms of effectiveness, but increasingly it's
not clear whether the side-effect profile is
better or just different."

Ohio adopted a TMAP-like algorithm in 2001
but with a critical difference. According to
Hogan, it's merely a guideline for
prescribing doctors to consider. But in
Texas, state officials put far more pressure
on its physicians to follow the protocols.
Under regulations codified by the legislature
in 1999, doctors in state-owned and
state-funded mental health entities must
follow the algorithm, or justify a different
course with a note in a patient's file -- a
hurdle that sends the message that such
deviation should be the rare exception.

As the TMAP guidelines began to be adopted in
1997, Texas Medicaid spending on the five
atypical antipsychotics skyrocketed from $28
million to $177 million in 2004.

MANY DOSES OF THESE DRUGS went to patients
like Aliah Gleason. She was one of 19,404
Texas teenagers prescribed an antipsychotic
in July or August of 2004 through a publicly
funded program, according to ACS-Heritage, a
medical consulting firm hired by Texas to
investigate the use of psychotropic drugs on
children. Nearly 98 percent were atypical
antipsychotics -- unapproved for children and
prescribed "off-label," a controversial
practice in which doctors legally prescribe
FDA-cleared drugs to patients, such as
children, or for conditions, such as
depression, for which they are not approved.
The report found that more than half of the
doses for antipsychotics appeared
inappropriately high, that almost half did
not appear to have valid diagnoses warranting
their use, and that one-third of child
patients were on two or more medications.

When she was transferred from Austin State
Hospital to a residential facility on March
18, 2004, Aliah was on five different
medications, putting her on the extreme end
of a growing practice known as polypharmacy
that worries many doctors. "This is a
complicated regimen using powerful
psychotropic medications in a barely
adolescent girl, so I would be quite
concerned about it," says Dr. Joseph
Woolston, a Yale University professor and
chief of child psychiatry at Yale-New Haven
Hospital. "It isn't grossly, acutely
dangerous, but it is sedating and would make
it difficult for a child to experience the
world in a normal way. If you or I were on
that regimen we would have a lot of trouble
attending to work or school. We don't have
any idea what that combination of medications
does to a developing child. It may have a
number of long-term side effects." He also
suspects that the drugs may have been used as
much to control the angry reactions of a girl
who was hospitalized against her will
as to treat any mental and emotional
problems.

Dr. Clifford Moy, clinical director of Austin
State Hospital, says that while the hospital's
philosophy is to avoid using more than one
member of any particular class of psychiatric
medication, using multiple drugs from
different classes is often the best way to
treat a patient with multiple symptoms. While
declining, for privacy reasons, to discuss
Aliah's treatment, he said medication and
restraint would never be used for punitive
purposes or merely to promote compliance with
hospital rules, but only in the case of a
"significant emergency behavioral situation."
He added that forced injection of an
antipsychotic -- which happened to Aliah several
times -- might be used "if there were a legal
consent for an oral antipsychotic medication,
which the patient refused." Such consent was
apparently provided, in Aliah's case, by the
Department of Protective and Regulatory
Services.

The 46-bed child and adolescent wing where
Aliah stayed was not, like the rest of Austin
State Hospital, obligated to follow TMAP. Its
treatment regimens were influenced more by
CMAP, the children's algorithm not yet
mandated by the legislature. CMAP steers
clear of providing protocols for
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder -- the
disorders that atypicals were designed to
address -- in part, says DSHS's Doug McBride,
because there's "little scientific evidence"
as to what the appropriate regimen for kids
would be. CMAP does, however, call for
combining atypicals with antidepressants for
children diagnosed -- as Aliah was -- as suffering
from depression "with psychotic features."
McBride defends such off-label use of
prescription drugs, saying that the FDA
approval process "is not the end of clinical
and other scientific evidence on the use of
that medication."

Beyond their technical dictates, the
algorithms established a culture that
affected which medications were prescribed.
Steven Shon, who, along with his colleagues,
had led training sessions for the staff of
Austin State Hospital, argues that the
algorithms were designed to prevent
irrational and excessive medication. Yale's
Woolston agrees with the goal, though not
necessarily the reality. "Algorithms are
supposed to cut down on people using
medications inappropriately and to take into
account medication interaction," he says.
"Where they become a problem is when people
use them as a mandate, forget their own
clinical judgment, and believe that when
you're in doubt, you're supposed to move
forward in the algorithm and add more
medication."

Medications can be invaluable, and some
patients say their lives have been
transformed by atypicals. But algorithms
reinforce the perception in both psychiatry
and popular culture that mental problems
always require drug treatment. "An algorithm
may put blinders on a psychiatrist and create
the presumption that the only clinical
approach to problems is to use medications,"
Woolston says. If a patient doesn't respond
to a particular medication, a doctor relying
on an algorithm may think they need to use or
add a different medication, he says. "But
sometimes, the best approach is to say,
'Medication isn't working; let's try
something else.'"

ONCE THE DEVELOPMENT of the algorithms was
largely complete, Shon began hitting the
road, making about one trip a month -- often at
the expense of drug companies -- to spread the
TMAP gospel to officials in other states.
This close relationship between TMAP and the
pharmaceutical industry raises disturbing
questions about whether the drug companies
were wielding undue influence or profiting at
the expense of patients. But no one raised
these questions until 2002, when Allen Jones,
an investigator for the state of
Pennsylvania's Office of Inspector General
(OIG) began to look into a complaint that
mental health officials had set up an
unorthodox bank account to collect money from
drug companies.

Jones, a lanky, 50-year-old chain-smoker, had
spent several years with the OIG in the late
'80s and early '90s, but left to pursue real
estate investing to pay for his daughters'
college tuition. He had only just rejoined
the agency in the summer of 2002 when he
began investigating this case. Over several
months, he interviewed state officials,
traveled to New York and New Jersey to
question pharmaceutical company executives,
and learned all he could about TMAP. He soon
felt that something inappropriate, and
possibly illegal, was going on. "It just did
not pass the smell test," he says.

Jones learned that in early 2000, Dr. Steven
Karp, who was then medical director of the
state's Office of Mental Health, had become
interested in implementing a Pennsylvania
version of TMAP. Karp discussed his interest
with executives of Janssen Pharmaceutica,
Jones found, and the company paid for Shon to
come to Pennsylvania in late 2000 to meet with
Karp and Steven Fiorello, the state's chief
pharmacist. Shon returned in March 2001 to
train state medical personnel, according to
records Jones obtained and provided to Mother
Jones. To cover Shon's travel expenses,
Janssen made an "educational grant" of
$1,765.75. A Janssen funding request form
notes that the grant was to support the "TMAP
initiative to expand atypical usage and drive
Steve Shon's expenses." A box marked
"Risperdal" is checked on the form. Janssen's
check was sent to Fiorello and placed in the
account where other donations from
pharmaceutical companies were deposited.

Two months later, Janssen provided $4,000 for
Fiorello and a state psychiatrist to travel to
New Orleans for meetings with Dr. Madhukar
Trivedi, a UT-Southwestern psychiatrist and
TMAP project team director. The funding
request form for this payment listed the
"deliverable" as the "successful
implementation of PennMAP." A Janssen
representative also attended and paid for
$80-per-person dinners for the Pennsylvania
and Texas officials. Fiorello and the
psychiatrist made another trip to New Orleans
later that year, also paid for by Janssen,
according to Jones. Such perks, while of no
great consequence to a company the size of
Janssen, did forge a friendly relationship
with Pennsylvania officials whose decisions
carried enormous financial stakes for the
company.

Fiorello told Jones he was the state's "point
man" for selecting drugs for the state
formulary -- those used in state hospitals -- and
that industry representatives visit him often
"to ensure access of their drugs to the state
system," Jones wrote in a file memo as he
pursued his investigation. In April 2002,
Fiorello and Dr. Frederick Maue, clinical
director for the state's Department of
Corrections, spoke at a Janssen-sponsored
symposium for prison doctors and nurses on
treating mentally ill offenders. They were
paid $2,000 by Comprehensive NeuroScience, a
marketing firm working for Janssen that
helped shape their presentation. Another
marketing company hired by Janssen appointed
Karp to its advisory board, flying him to
meetings in Seattle and Tampa. Pfizer put
Fiorello on an advisory council and twice
paid his expenses to come to New York.

Jones became convinced that, as he puts it,
"the pharmaceutical companies were buying
influence with key decision makers in state
government, trying to turn their drugs into
blockbusters." But as he brought these
findings to his boss, Daniel Sattele, he was
told to stop pushing so hard. After he was
barred from investigating whether state
officials had received inappropriate payments
from drug companies, Jones sued in federal
court, alleging that "major public corruption
investigations were being delayed, obstructed,
or otherwise hindered by officials in the
OIG." Sattele subsequently conceded in a
deposition taken in 2003 that he asked Jones
if he were "a salmon," telling him, "go with
the flow, don't swim against the current."
Sattele also said that after Jones came to
him with his concerns for the fourth or fifth
time, he reminded Jones of the industry's
power and influence. "I said, 'Allen,
pharmaceutical companies are very aggressive
in their marketing. They probably donate to
both sides of the aisle,'" he recalled in the
deposition.

When Jones continued to pursue the case he
was removed as lead investigator, then pulled
off altogether, he says. Nonetheless, over the
coming months, he quietly copied documents
and, on his own time, gathered more
information.

In February 2004, Jones laid out his charges
for the New York Times and the British
Medical Journal. In April he was suspended.
In May he again sued in federal court,
charging that his superiors were harassing
him to "cover up, discourage, and limit any
investigations or oversight into the corrupt
practices of large drug companies and corrupt
public officials who have acted with them." He
was then fired. He is now working as a
bricklayer; both his actions are pending.

A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Office of
Inspector General declined to comment on
Jones' allegations or his termination. A
representative of the Department of
Corrections told Mother Jones that Maue
donated the honorarium he was given by
Comprehensive NeuroScience to the state's
general fund. And Stacey Ward, a spokeswoman
for the Department of Public Welfare, said
that the state "did not receive contributions
of any kind from any pharmaceutical company to
study or support the implementation of
PennMAP." of this story went to press, the Pennsylvania
State Ethics Commission fined Steven Fiorello,
the state's chief pharmacist, $27,000 for
using his position to earn extra income from
sources that included Pfizer.]

Meanwhile, another Pennsylvania official was
becoming increasingly alarmed with how drugs
being pushed by the pharmaceutical industry
were actually affecting patients. Dr. Stefan
Kruszewski, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist
working for the state's Department of Public
Welfare, was charged with reviewing
psychiatric care provided by state-funded
agencies to identify cases of waste, fraud,
and abuse. In the summer of 2001, he began
documenting examples of what he calls "insane
polypharmacy" and widespread use of drugs for
reasons not approved by the FDA. Most
shocking to him were the cases of children
placed in state-funded residential treatment
facilities, sometimes for years, and heavily
drugged on the new antipsychotics and
anticonvulsants, including some of the same
medications given, off-label, to Aliah
Gleason.

"These kids were on multiple medications
without the clinical diagnoses to support the
medications," Kruszewski says. One drug,
Neurontin, approved for controlling seizures,
"was being massively prescribed for anxiety,
social phobia, PTSD, social anxiety, mood
instability, sleep, oppositional defiant
behavior, attention deficit disorder. Yet
there's almost no evidence to support these
uses in adults and no evidence for kids
whatsoever."

Last year a Pfizer subsidiary pleaded guilty
to criminal fraud and agreed to pay $430
million in fines for promoting off-label
prescribing of Neurontin, which racked up
$2.8 billion in U.S. sales in 2004. Officials
estimate that off-label uses account for some
90 percent of its sales. New York attorney
Andrew Finkelstein says he's been enlisted by
the relatives of 425 people who committed
suicide while on Neurontin, and thus far has
filed 46 lawsuits against Pfizer.

Kruszewski sent memos to his bosses about
dangerous off-label uses of these medications
but says they were ignored. He also looked
into the deaths of four children in
residential programs and submitted a report
on an Oklahoma facility, where Pennsylvania
children were sometimes sent. He found that
many of the kids "were severely
overmedicated" with atypical antipsychotics,
antidepressants, and anticonvulsants, and he
theorized that the death of at least one
child could be attributed to a culture that
combined polypharmacy and neglect.

His report earned him no plaudits. The day
after submitting it, he says, he was yelled
at for "trying to dig up dirt." The next day
he was fired and escorted to the street. He
has since filed suit in federal court against
the state officials who fired him, along with
several drug companies that, he charges, have
"distorted statistics, violated regulations
and misrepresented the effects of the use of
their psychotropic drugs simply to make
money." (The Pennsylvania Department of
Public Welfare declined to comment on
Kruszewski's charges because of his pending
lawsuit.) Months after he was fired,
Kruszewski alternates between anger and
sorrow as he thumbs through documents piled
in the dining room of his Harrisburg home. "I
get very emotional about these reports," he
says. "The people who were paid to protect
consumers did exactly the wrong thing."

UNLIKE SOME OTHER HEAVILY medicated children,
Aliah Gleason survived. In June 2004, more
than five months after she was taken from
school, Calvin and Anaka Gleason saw their
daughter for the first time -- in a courtroom.
"I was so excited," Aliah recalls. "I hid
under the table so I could surprise them. I
started crying when I saw them. I thought I
would never see them again."

It would take another four months of legal
wrangling with the state before a district
court judge ordered Aliah released into her
parents' custody. Finally, the Gleasons were
allowed to choose the people who would treat
their daughter. They selected Austin
psychologist John Breeding, a well-known
critic of the overuse of psychiatric
medications, and soon the whole family began
meeting with him.

The first priority, Breeding said, "was to
get her off the medication." Working with the
family's doctor, he helped design a program
for tapering her off her final drugs,
Risperdal and Depakote, a process that was
completed by the end of last year. He says
the goal now is to help her recover from the
emotional wounds she suffered as a result of
her time under the state's care. She also
needs to lose all the weight she gained while
on the atypicals.

The good news, he says, is that "the family
is reunited, she's doing well in school, and
is even participating in extracurricular
activities." Like her sisters, Aliah plays in
the school band and also takes part in a drill
team. "She's coming back, starting to get that
gleam in her eye," Breeding says.

Aliah found herself at the intersection of a
capricious child-protection system and a
health care system that's all too ready to
medicate. As doctors dispense ever-greater
quantities of potent psychiatric drugs, and
the industry spends ever-greater amounts of
money promoting them, how can consumers be
confident that decisions about their care are
truly informed and in their interest? Whatever
the stakes for the drug companies, the stakes
for patients are infinitely higher.

~~~~~~~~~~

Rob Waters has written extensively on the use
of psychiatric medication by children. Last
year he revealed in the San Francisco
Chronicle that the FDA suppressed an internal
report linking antidepressants to an increased
risk of suicide among children, a story that
led to congressional hearings and warnings
being issued for the drugs.

- end -

~~~~~~~~~~

For a photo of Aliah see the above article on
the _Mother Jones_ web site at:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/05/medicating_aliah.html

To write a letter to the _Mother Jones_ editor
e-mail to: [e-mail]. They need
to hear that readers applaud this excellent job.

~~~~~~~~~~

MINDFREEDOM INTERNATIONAL has helped
break the silence about how President Bush is
pushing for psychiatric screening of every youth
and even every *ADULT* in the USA using programs
described by _Mother Jones_ above.

Protest the screening of every American citizen!
Protest PhRMA's front groups and lies!

Join us on Monday, 2 May 2005, at noon, when
MindFreedom is holds a peaceful protest in
front of PhRMA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

For complete information on the protest see
http://www.MindFreedom.org. You may also
discover there about how President Bush
is pushing for the screening of every USA
citizen, child and adult. Read about how about
the USA right wing & left wing finally may be
uniting on something: saying "no" to screening
programs that push psychiatric drugs into kids!

For more information and to join MindFreedom
go to http://www.MindFreedom.org or phone
541-345-9106 or e-mail [e-mail].

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MindFreedom International is a non-profit
coalition uniting 100 grassroots groups
campaigning for human rights and alternatives
in the mental health system. Our coalition is
the only group of its kind to be accredited
by the United Nations as a Non Governmental
Organization with Consultative Roster Status.

MindFreedom is 100 percent independent with
no funding from government, mental health
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Open to the public, a majority of MindFreedom
members, board and staff have personally
experienced human rights violations in the
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