TAMPA, Fla. — Mind-altering drugs for kids as young three years old? It’s a national scandal that has hit home in Florida.

Twelve percent of children in Florida who have been removed from their homes and are in state foster care are prescribed psychotropic drugs. According to a government accountability report, kids in foster care in Florida are about three times more like to receive the drugs.

The side effects from these drugs can be suicidal thoughts, hallucinations, nightmares, and even death.

Parents send their children off to school every day in hopes of them getting a good education and growing up to be mature responsible adults.  But what about child mental health?  Is that something you want addressed at your child’s school?  Are you aware of any sort of child mental health activities in existence at the school?  If not, perhaps your rights as a parent are at risk.

Back in the day it used to be there was a resident school nurse, who every September would note down height and weight and do a quick eye exam or something of the sort.  If you became ill during school hours, she would take your temperature and send you home.  Today the school nurse has largely been replaced with child mental health programs implemented in schools where students are screened for mental disorders.  Instead of being sent home with a fever, your child could be sent home with a diagnosis of mathematics disorder, reading disorder, ADHD, bipolar disorder, or a host of other so-called disorders.

It is vital that you know about any child mental health program in the school so that you as a parent remain in charge of your son or daughter’s health and welfare.   If your kids’ school does have a child mental health program in operation, it is very possible that your child could be screened for mental or behavioral disorders without your consent or knowledge.  Perhaps a parental consent form was legitimately sent out but didn’t make its way into the parents’ hands or, was conveniently overlooked.  In either case, the child or teen gets screened and that is the first step of your child’s mental health being under the direction of the school and not you.

These mental health screenings are a result of the government’s formation of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.  The goal is to screen all children through the school system and then the entire general public.  In theory, screening people in an effort to prevent something undesirable or to handle a condition before it gets worse is a good idea.  However, this does not apply to child mental health as it is impossible to screen someone for something that has never been proven medically or scientifically to exist.  Mental illnesses and mental disorders are only based on subjective opinions  and not on any physical evidence.  How else would school personnel ever be qualified to diagnose a mental or behavioral condition?

Additionally, some programs such as TeenScreen, admittedly have a false positive rate of 84-94 percent!  Imagine countless normal children being labeled with something they don’t have and put on a drug that has the strongest FDA warning of increased risk of suicide!  Imagine knowing that there is nothing wrong with your son or daughter and being told he/she must take a drug or you will be charged with child neglect! 

Needless to say, this is not some fly by night fluke of a situation to be ignored.  As a parent, you need to know these psychiatric drugs are prescribed to supposedly “improve” child mental health, but they actually alter the mind and are dangerous.  They have horrendous side effects such as violence, suicidal thoughts and mania to name a few.

This is why it would be a good idea to do your homework and find out what child mental health programs exist in your local schools.  That way you can exercise your rights as a parent so that you are informed on what can and can’t be done to your child without your consent.  Every parent should be allowed to raise and educate their child as they see fit.  Government or school intervention to handle behavioral problems in the name of mental health violates that right.  Get informed on your rights to informed consent.

 http://www.naturalnews.com/033969_mental_health_screening_teens.html

 http://www.naturalnews.com/026187.html

Talking to children is a parent’s best defense against their child’s use of synthetic drugs. In a culture where psychiatry and Big Pharmaceutical companies have made drug use commonplace among our youth, it may be wise to take another look at the side effects not only of the new and dangerous synthetic drugs, but of the often prescribed ones as well. The best defense may well be open communication with young children and teenagers. 

There are synthetic drugs so harmful that children have ended up in psych wards after ingesting them. This is no wonder, but of course the psychiatrists have no idea how to treat what is obviously a physical reaction to a toxic substance, not a mental illness. The director of the Louisiana Poison Center, Mark Ryan, pointed out that powerful antipsychotics were used by some doctors to “calm” users when sedatives failed. The antipsychotics, of course, are incredibly dangerous in themselves. Obviously, being falsely diagnosed as mentally ill while in a psychiatric hospital can be a traumatic and dangerous situation in itself.

Since hospital employees are unfamiliar with treatment for such abuse, there exists a real danger of misdiagnosis and improper treatment. As of now, there is no reliable medical test for synthetic drug use. Only anecdotal evidence can point to its existence.

Drug abusers compare the effects of synthetic drugs to that of methamphetamine, with the addition of extreme anger, hallucinations and physical anxiety so strenuous as to be uncontrollable. One emergency room doctor reported that he has had to administer “the equivalent” of general anesthesia to persons suffering extreme toxic effects from synthetic drugs.

Side effects of the synthetic drugs may include paranoia, panic attacks, depression, reduced perception of reality and difficulty in thinking clearly.  Some have even committed suicide days after using these easy to purchase drugs.

One of the most insidious things about these substances is the fact that they are sold legally in many states. Inexpensive and marked “not for human consumption,” they have managed to slip right by the FDA, often sold as bath salts and plant food. Some of the drugs are manufactured overseas, in Pakistan and other countries, by rogue chemists. Thankfully, some states are starting to ban them, encouraged by the many poison control centers around the country having to deal with emergency calls after synthetic drug use.

In September of 2011 the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced plans to make selling or possessing synthetic drugs of this nature illegal in the USA. This will be an emergency action that will be effective for a year. During this time, it is expected that the government will call for permanent control of the drugs.

Many of the side effects of synthetic drugs (including suicidality, heart problems, paranoia, anger, hallucinations) sound similar to warnings on prescribed psychiatric medications. One hopes the DEA will inspect the dangers of these drugs at the same time. Shouldn’t our children be protected from drug abuse whether it lines the pockets of a chemist in Pakistan or a psychiatrist in New York City?

http://verdenews.com/m/Articles.aspx?ArticleID=43722

http://www.crossroadsme.org/blog/?p=1763

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/features/bath-salts-drug-dangers

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/us/17salts.html?

“In 1998 Dr. S. Swedo from the National Institutes of Health described another pediatric problem… psychiatric symptoms during or after a strep infection.  These children were all before puberty and did not respond to the usual psychiatric medications.  They all had extremely elevated levels of the anti strep antibody, ….  Some of them improved dramatically after treatment with antibiotics.”

Antibiotics lead to mental illness, destroy gut health | Natural Society

Another aspect of dealing with this problem is that antibiotics, though sometimes necessary, are a double-edged sword.  Since the onset of their use in the 1930s, they have been found to themselves sometimes cause mental problems, which were traditionally treated by discontinuing the antibiotic or lowering the dosage.  Mental side effects such as delirium and behavioral changes are now automatically labeled by psychiatrists as “disorders” from their Diagnostic Manual, and drugged.  The claim of a brain-based cause of such disorders has never been scientifically proven.  And once again, unfounded labeling and drugging of behavior is being done without establishing the scientific cause – in this case the need for antibiotics or probiotics.

Pharmaceutical companies have recently developed such super strong antibiotics that they are often dangerous, not just to the bacteria they kill, but to the rest of the human body as well.  One class of antibiotics – Quinolones (brand names “Levaquin” and “Cipro”) – carry such destructive side effects that the FDA issued Black Box (the highest level) warnings on them.

“In July of 2008, the FDA mandated that all quinolone antibiotics carry a ‘Black Box’ warning for tendon rupture and tendonitis.  This is the strongest warning label a drug can have before it is removed from the market.  ….

“The FDA gets approximately 50% of their funding for the review of drugs directly from the pharmaceutical companies in what is called prescription drug user fees.  This is a conflict of interest that has made the FDA very slow and often reluctant to react to drug toxicities of all kinds. ….

David Flockhart, professor of medicine and chief of clinical pharmacology at Indiana University School of Medicine, says as many as a third of patients taking a quinolone will experience some sort of psychiatric side effect, such as anxiety, personality change, or confusion.  ‘The psychiatric effects of the quinolones are underappreciated by the medical profession as well as by the public,’ says Dr. Flockhart, who has treated more than one hundred patients with severe psychiatric side effects.”

Article about quinolone toxicity | “Levaquin Hurts” Brain/Body Toxic Drug

Thanks to drug companies, we now have super strong antibiotics encouraging the growth of superbugs, requiring even heaviery antibiotics that have even heavier side effects.  Still another serious consequence of antibiotics is the destruction of naturally existing intestinal bacteria, or “flora”, necessary for health.  This resultant lack of healthy intestinal flora has been linked to both physical and psychiatric problems.  Properly addressing the condition requires replacement of healthy flora with “probiotics”, a remedy that some doctors recognize as essential.  On the other hand, psychiatrists who ignore this deficiency do not cure it with their psychotropic drugs, because they are not what is lacking.

“After kids are given excessive amounts of antibiotics that lead to the destruction of their gut health and the subsequent onset of mental illness, they are then given deadly antipsychotics and other psychiatric drugs to ‘treat’ the condition that originated from pharmaceutical drug use.  It is a system that, whether purposeful or not, generates large profits for any prescription-happy doctors and drug manufacturers alike.

“A doctor in the UK has had success addressing ‘mental’ illness by restoring intestinal flora balances, previously destroyed by antibiotics.  Remember, there are antibiotics all around us – not just from medical prescriptions.  Beef and chicken on the market are replete with antibiotics, which the consumers then ingest, and suffer the destruction of their healthy intestinal bacteria.

Antibiotics can lead to crippling side effects and mental disorders

The pharmaceutical merry-go-round is an endless parade of drugs, with no health end in sight except healthier profits annually.  Drugs which merely squelch symptoms and have devastating side effects are obviously not the answer.  The fallacy in prescribing them to treat strep or antibiotic symptoms is obvious to any layman.  Certainly any worthy doctor is expected to use science; and good science investigates and finds actual causes, and then applies the appropriate remedy.

Dr. Dorval, a child psychiatrist hired to treat and medicate jailed children in Florida had formerly pleaded no contest to a felony grand theft charge. He had already used juvenile delinquents in state custody to bilk the government out of funds.

There are other cases of child psychiatrists taking jobs with the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) after having been cited for law breaking or making grave medical errors in their past.

Dr. Dorval would have failed a state-mandated background check were he given one. In the late 1990s Dorval was found to be using bogus counselors to bill medicate for over $350,000.

All these claims were fraudulent, and included his billing the government for round the clock therapy. The children he used for this scheme were either in foster care, juvenile delinquents or homeless.

The child psychiatrist was charged with four felonies in Broward, but after pleading no contest to one count of grand theft in 2004 Dorval was allowed to keep his medical license after paying $10,000. His punishment? He was suspended and reprimanded, then put on four years of probation.

However, this plea did disqualify Dorval from seeing juvenile delinquents. Despite this, his employer (Miami based Compass Health Systems) sent him to the Broward Juvenile Detention Center in late 2007. His background was not checked.

In another example, Dr. Charles Dack had prescribed a dangerous cocktail of antidepressants and painkillers to one of his adult patients for six years. He increased her dosage to a toxic level for 2 ½ years, resulting in her death at the age of 42.

Yet he was allowed to prescribe drugs to jailed children.

In just two years, the state of Florida purchased huge amounts of powerful antipsychotic drugs for kids in state-run jails and other programs. The prescriptions were not tracked, and the child psychiatrists, based on their own opinions were given free rein to dose these kids.

Another such child psychiatrist was Dr. Samuel McClure. While practicing in Orlando, he diagnosed an 11 year old boy, David Morganthal, with ADD.  McClure prescribed powerful drugs, mirtazapine (which is not approved for use in children) and citalopram, an antidepressant, for David.

This again ended in tragedy. The youngster’s mother discovered David’s lifeless body on the floor of her mobile home. He was only four foot 2 inches and weighed 49 pounds, and was discovered to be way overmedicated due to his small size. The autopsy concluded he had most likely died from heart problems and a seizure caused by his reaction to the drugs.

David’s mother filed a suit alleging medical negligence against McClure and the health care company he worked for. Yet while the suit was pending, this child psychiatrist was hired to care for children at two separate facilities under the DJJ. (Frances Walker Halfway House and Brevard Group Treatment Home.)

Just a year later, McClure’s insurance company settled the suit for $500,000, yet McClure continued to work in DJJ programs.

Our troubled youth deserve better. To allow psychiatrists with shady pasts to drug juvenile delinquents and foster children is an act of supreme neglect, if not outright sadism. Our children are our future, and should not be used as pawns or a means to bilk the government out of much needed funds for the personal profit of a few unworthy child psychiatrists.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/state/dosed-in-juvie-jail-troubled-doctors-hired-to-1549240.html?viewAsSinglePage=true

Psychiatrists admit, at an American Psychiatric Convention, that there are no medical test to evidence one single psychiatric disorder, yet, billions of vested dollars go into the marketing of child mental illnesses.

Newspapers, magazines, radio and television ads that are keen to point out unwanted behaviors and dress it up with glossy photos or clever sound-tracks, are simply advertising in disguise.

There is news in print and online, insinuating that children can possibly have a mental health problem from having had a recent infection, such as Strep Throat.

Psychiatrists call it “Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcus”, or PANDAS.  They say that the child will develop “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder” symptoms, tics, or neurological problems like anxiety, hyperactivity, and even anorexia.

The psychiatric industry is even stretching further by stating that mental illness may be caused by bacteria.

What they are not saying is that the FDA labeling on antibiotics includes side effects that include, “Central nervous system effects, including convulsions, anxiety, confusion, depression, and insomnia may occur after the first dose. Use with caution in patients with known or suspected disorders that may predispose them to seizures or lower the seizure threshold.”

Hallucinations have been reported as a side effect to one class of antibiotics, Flouroquinolones, in addition to the side effects, above.  According to a report, written in a psychiatric journal, “A wide range of drugs can cause mental status changes. Fluoroquinolones are one among them and are underrecognised.”

It is no wonder that some children are exhibiting non-optimum behavior and/or symptoms after going through Strep Throat or similar illnesses that may have required a course of antibiotics.  The side-effects of antibiotics are clearly stated, by the FDA and supportive research shows that they do carry psychiatric side effects.

With no clear proof of any child mental illness, it is fraudulent to suggest that any child has a mental health disorder.  No one denies that children may experience symptoms due to stress, loss of a loved one, divorce, or any of the myriad of things that life throws their way.  No one denies that a child may need a thorough physical examination to detect if there is an underlying physical cause to their unwanted behavior and/or symptoms.

Most importantly, the mental health community admits that they cannot evidence one single mental health disorder.

Brain scans do not show mental illness; blood tests cannot reveal a clue to mental illness and there are no chemical imbalance tests to evidence a chemical imbalance in the brain that leads to a mental illness.

Therefore psychiatric claims, that an infection could cause child mental illness,  is an attempt to channel paying patients in their direction.  It is an expensive advertising campaign with fraudulent claims that lack any science whatsoever.

Parents have the right to full information regarding their child’s health.  Begin by getting all of the relevant and supported facts so that you can ensure your child’s well-being.

http://www.april.org.uk/pages/fluoroquinolones.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2745871/

What is it that makes depression for kids so worrisome? If a child is diagnosed with this disorder, he may be put on an antidepressant such as Prozac. Some of the side effects of Prozac that have been noted are:

·        Suicidal thoughts

·        Hostile behavior and other mood changes

·        Very little evidence of long-term safety of this drug

·        Distressing feelings of restlessness

·        Possible seizures or convulsions

·        Skin rash or unexplained allergic reaction

These possible side effects are not just theoretical. Men, women and children have died because of this drug. Young people on Prozac and other drugs of this kind have murdered and committed suicide.

In September of this year, Dr. Breggin MD (a psychiatrist) presented evidence in a Canadian court concerning the Prozac-induced murder of a teenage boy by his friend, a young man earlier diagnosed with depression for kids, then put on Prozac.

The boy had been 16 years old at the time he committed the murder. While chatting with two friends in his home, the teenager abruptly stabbed one of them to death. He had been on Prozac for 3 months, his mental condition deteriorating the entire time. Prior to the tragedy, his concerned parents alerted the psychiatric clinic, but were told he needed to stay on the drug. In fact, the dosage was doubled.

Dr. Breggin testified that the symptoms of this young man were a direct result of Prozac, and the violence would not have been committed were he not on the drug. Dr. Breggin also stated that when he was taken off the Prozac he improved dramatically. After just a few months in jail, Breggin noted that the young man was no longer a danger to himself or others.

Dr. Breggin’s evidence included many independent scientific studies that confirmed a large percentage of young people taking antidepressants like Prozac may develop dangerous side effects (such as violent behavior.) And that these hazards are listed on the FDA-approved drug labels for these drugs.

An original hearing was held to decide if the now 17 year old should be sentenced as a minor. If that were to be the case, his maximum jail time would be only four years. The prosecution’s goal was to try him as a result. But on September 16, 2011, based on evidence presented by Dr. Breggin, the presiding judge decided that the young man should be tried as a minor. Judge Heinrich had determined the boy’s violent behavior and deterioration was caused by Prozac.

This is the first criminal case in North America where an antidepressant has been acknowledged as the cause of a murder. It is a tragic event that leaves more than one family destroyed in the wake of recognizing that antidepressant use is connected to violent behavior. If a child is diagnosed with depression for kids, a concerned parent might want to have a thorough medical checkup done by a competent physician (not a psychiatrist). There are natural and even medical means available to handle children who are depressed. Antidepressant use in children is a dangerous proposition.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-checkup/post/more-than-one-in-10-americans-aged-12-and-older-take-antidepressants-survey-shows/

http://www.prlog.org/11680432-prozac-turned-teen-into-murderer-judge-agrees-with-testimony-of-psychiatrist-peter-breggin-md.html

The CCHR Florida Youth Group will be decorating our X-Mas tree from 4-5pm. 

Celebrate the X-mas season with our team and remember all the children helped by our office.

Guest Performer: Nicky Baker and CCHR Florida Youth Group singers