Bush: Mental illness screening for everyone!

Sadly, this isn’t a joke:

The president’s commission found that “despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed” and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for “consumers of all ages,” including preschool children. According to the commission, “Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviours and emotional disorders.” Schools, wrote the commission, are in a “key position” to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.

Of course, drugs are the answer:

The commission also recommended “Linkage [of screening] with treatment and supports” including “state-of-the-art treatments” using “specific medications for specific conditions.” The commission commended the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a “model” medication treatment plan that “illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes.”

What the commision doesn’t say is that the TMAP project exclusively used drugs provided by Eli Lilly, a pharmacom who Bush Sr. sat on the board of, and Bush Jr appointed Lilly’s CEO to a position on the Homeland Security council.

Did I post the portrait of Alan Human? (oh well, there it is). Contrast Alan’s writing to the statements above:

My feelings about [mental illness treatments] and the way it treats people are very strong indeed. I think it’s organised harm, basically. They break your personality with drugs and the way that they treat you, until you’re just a brain dead zombie. The ethnomethodology of [mental illness treatment] is very crude. The standard medical model is that schizophrenia is a chronic condition, it can’t be cured and can only be managed by symptom management with medication. The first question they ask you when you have a schizophrenic interview is, ‘do you hear voices and have visions?’ You say ‘yes’, and they say, ‘OK, off you go, 1600 milligrams’.

I especially like this statement from Alan:

They don’t have any overall holistic approach at all. I think schizophrenia is a rational response to experience.

Is this how you win the War on Drugs? Change the rules of engagement? 🙂 Come’on.. go watch Requiem for a Dream. They’re all the same.

“if you don’t get in line; we’ll lock you away” – Dave Matthews Band