The Depression Test

Main Category: Depression
Also Included In: Mental Health;  Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 01 Jun 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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There is a frenzied push by mental health providers--almost all of whom have financial ties to psychotropic drug manufacturers--to persuade government to adopt a policy of screening teenagers and women for depression.

The women being targeted at this juncture are vulnerable: they are either pregnant or have just given birth to a child. In both cases, both mother and infant are at risk of being harmed by pharmacological interventions.

The problem with mental screening starts with the fact that the method for mental screening is an unreliable suggestive questionnaire which is noted for its high rate (84%) for misidentifying normal teens as having mental disorders.

The diagnostic tools used by psychiatrists remain subjective and unscientific. And, overwhelmingly, the "therapeutic" interventions prescribed are dangerous psychotropic drugs that have often aggravated an emotional problem. Indeed, antidepressants increase the risk of suicide--as these drugs' warning labels indicate.

Schools should not be turned into medical fishing terminals; it is devastating for any child to be labeled as having a mental illness as such a label opens the child to a life of stigmatization, discrimination and undesirable status.

When the "diagnosis" is false, a crime has been committed: who will assume responsibility for such a child's derailed life and shattered dream of becoming President?

The proponents of screening are disingenuous as they pretend that non-pharmacological therapies are widely available--they are not, especially for the non-wealthy.

ABC- Good Morning America will have a segment about this issue tomorrow --

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Alliance for Human Research Protection

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