Bush's Mental Health Program Endangers Children and Will Bankrupt Medicaid

The story in the news is that Bush is endorsing a mental health program that will target children in schools for mental health screenings. The commission claims that even though child mental health prescriptions have increased 500% from 1999-2003, they aren't getting enough "treatment". The screenings will be mandatory and prescription drug treatment will be too. That's not all this program does though, under the new plan doctors can only prescribe the most dangerous and expensive drugs on the market. The new plan is ironically named "New Freedom commission"(NFC).

TMAP- Bankrupting Medicaid Before the Baby Boomers Even Use It

Bush endorsed and implemented TMAP in Texas and of the 22 members in the New Freedom Commission, 14 are directly associated with that organization. The New Freedom Act is a fraud. It is modeled after The Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP). An algorithm is like a menu at a restaurant with drugs as the choices, if its not on the menu the doctor cannot order the prescription. TMAP takes advantage of foster children, institutionalized people, veterans and prisoners to further drug company profits as well as robbing the American tax-payers. It forces state and Medicaid doctors to prescribe super-expensive, dangerous new medications to mental health patients.

TMAP has even persuaded officials into giving Medicaid to people who don't need it so they can afford the overpriced medications and by early 2001 the program bankrupted Texas's Medicaid system. At the rate TMAP guidelines explode Medicaid expenses we will be paying an outlandish 3.7 billion a year for schizophrenia medications alone, effectively bankrupting Medicaid nationwide.

Here's an example of a Drug that doctors will be required to prescribe:

Zyprexa
This is a new Medication for bi-polar disorder and it costs $6,000 more per patient than older, safer drugs like Haldal according to Yale researchers, Veterans Medical Hospital researchers and FDA trials. FDA Data also shows Zyprexa to be one of he deadliest drugs ever approved, yet our war veterans and children will be forced to use it while the rest of us pay for it. FDA trials for Zyprexa show that 65% of patients dropped out of the trial due to side effects and during the 6-week trial 20 deaths occurred, 12 of them suicides. The FDA approved Zyprexa ONLY for short-term treatment of bi-polar individuals.

TMAP mandates that Zyprexa be used for many different disorders for long term use.
Hurting our children

TMAP developed a special children's algorithm (drug menu) called The Texas Children's Medication Algorithm Project or TCMAP. The same group of bribed experts decided that the same drugs would be used for children as adults; no facts were needed because the recommendations were made based on what the drug companies told them to recommend.

Drugs TCMAP forces doctors to prescribe to children:
(All are brand name)

Zoloft, which is expensive, has a 17% dropout rate in child clinical trials due to intolerable side effects and only has a 10% improvement rate on children with depression and mood disorders. The FDA specifically states that this drug should not be used by persons under the age of 18.
Seroxat, which is expensive and has been shown to increase suicide attempts in minors.
Paxil. This drug is not only expensive but has been directly shown to increase murder, violence, school shootings and debilitating conditions such as brain dysfunction and heart problems in young people. It also increases self-harm and suicide attempts in children. On top of all this British studies show that Paxil didn't improve children's mood anymore than a sugar pill. The FDA said in 2003 that Paxil should not to be prescribed to minors.
Serzon. Expensive and has a earned a "black box" warning due to its tendency to cause liver failure and death in adults and children.
Safer, cheaper drugs are available but TCMAP maintains that the drugs they make the most money on are the best choice for children's mental health issues.
Bribery In Action

TMAP is fully owned and operated by drug companies, mainly Janssen pharmaceuticals, and parades itself as a medically oriented and helpful government program. The organization accomplished this by bribing doctors, university officials and government officials into lying about the superiority of their drugs; then the officials they've duped allow them to make laws that use the lies as medical guidelines. Although all Janssen's activities cannot be known here's what is known so far:

Janssen pays $2,000 speaking fees to gov. officials and doctors who are in the position to approve TMAP and make laws favoring their algorithms. The "speakers" tell people that Janssen drugs are superior and miraculous and then approve their drugs and guidelines from within government agencies and universities. Multiple speeches result in multiple payments in the sum of $2,000 or more. Here's an example of a speakers relationship with Janssen:
Boston Globe | November 10 2003
Dr. Douglas Hughs was charged with endangering his patients by the Massachusetts government and had his license taken because, without medical reason, he forced several patients to switch to the new drug Risperdal and nearly killed a patient. Risperdal is an expensive, dangerous new schizophrenia drug made by Janssen. The doctor switched the drugs to experiment on the patients for the drug company, which paid him a grand total of $30,000 in "public speaking fees" to talk about their new drugs. Dr. Hughs has since resigned his position at The Soloman Carter Fuller Mental Health Center.

Janssen paid for luxury trips, expensive meals and entertainment for officials who were in the position to approve TMAP and the drugs they endorse.
To keep state health officials from investigating TMAPS dangerous, expensive drug regimen, Janssen's government official "speakers" have issued TMAP medication guidelines as administrative orders in many of the states it now operates in. The reason is that administration is the paperwork end of government and cannot be investigated for safety by state medical regulators.
TMAPS drug company founders contributed a total of $384,735 in 2002 in Texas alone. It must be mentioned that these are only the known contributions and that there are probably many more undisclosed contributions.
Fighting Back
Already Colorado and Nevada are suing approximately 17 of the drug companies associated with TMAP for fraud and racketeering. Officials of Pennsylvania's Office of the Inspector General are suing several other government officials in that state because they lied about drug safety and took bribes from TMAP and their funders: Dwight McKee & Allen Jones v. Henry Hart, Sydni Guido and several other officials.

References & Resources:
-FDA Links Suicide in Children to Antidepressants
-Medicine Merchants-Tracking Dr.'s NY Times November 16, 2000
- US Government Veterans Study
-Dr. David Healy "Testing Psychotrophic Drugs in Children" April 30, 2002
-FDA Warning Letters to Drug Companies
-Money in State Polotics/ Lookup State: Texas, Contributor: Drug Companies
- FDA Mental Health Drug Warnings - Report on Suicides & Antipsychotics
-Studies Show TCMAP Drugs Do Not Work on Children

About the Author

Melissa Gordon is a health writer and researcher at http://www.suppressedhealth.com