Texans For Safe Education (TFSE) is a citizens group whose purpose is to defend the safety of children in our schools. We see grave harm being done by our society’s current decision to give psychiatric drugs to an estimated 1,000,000 of our school-age children in Texas. TFSE is aware that child psychiatric diagnoses such as ADHD, other “disruptive behavior disorders,” bipolar and depression have not been scientifically demonstrated to be legitimate medical illnesses. We consider subsequent use of psychiatric drugs with children to be based, therefore, not in science but in fraud. We view psychiatric labeling as unnecessary stigmatization, false explaining away of real problems, and abdication of adult responsibility to keep thinking and express the necessary will and resolve to meet our children’s needs by addressing these problems. We think that psychiatric drugs are directly harmful and dangerous, physically and psychologically, to the children who take them. We think they are also dangerous to everyone else because of effects on school climate and relationships, because of the large incidence of illegal and recreational use of these drugs, and because of the proven “side” effects of agitation, aggression and violence.
Texans For Safe Education knows that there are better solutions available, and calls on our caring and committed parents, educators, and allied professionals to demand a positive focus on finding ways to implement these methods. We especially encourage a strong focus on proven methods for enhancing learning, especially reading fluency and comprehension. As a group, we think that human resource is the key to meeting our children’s needs in the schools. Societal resources should be spent on better pay for well-prepared teachers working with lower student-teacher ratios.
Statement of Purpose

1. Protect our children from the harmful effects of psychiatric drugs.
2. Safeguard our schools from violence related to psychiatric drug use.
3. Educate parents and educators about the fraud of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment.
4. Empower parents and educators to “say no” to psychiatric drug use with children.
5. Encourage educators to refocus on proven methods to enhance learning.
6. Support educators by investing resources in teacher training, salaries and lower student-teacher ratios.

State Board of Education Action in 2000

Inspired by the work of Patti Johnson and others in Colorado, one of our first successful initiatives, in the year 2000, was to encourage the Texas State Board Of Education to pass a resolution supporting parents and educators in their right to say no to the psychiatric labeling and drugging of children in the schools. We also wanted the Board to emphasize a positive focus on proven methods for meeting the educational needs of our children. Here is the successful result, and a subsequent press release and editorial:

• Texas State Board of Education Resolution of Nov. 3, 2000.
• Texas Board of Education Rethinks Ritalin, Editorial by Fred Baughman, M.D.
• Press Release of August 27, 2001: Public Schools Warned: Requiring Ritalin is Unlawful

Here is my own testimony at the hearing:

• November 2000 Testimony to the State Board of Education Special Hearing on Psychiatric Drugs in the Schools

Here are a few of the documents we produced to use in that yearlong effort:

• Appeal to Texas State Board of Education members
• Is ADHD a Real Disease?
• An Estimate of Current Psychiatric Drug Use with School Age Children in the United States
• May Testimony to Texas State Board of Education From The Director

Historic Legislation in Texas in 2003

Another major action took place in 2003, when we took our message to the halls of the Texas legislature. However great the State Board of Education resolution is as a statement, it is non-binding. So we wanted the sentiment in law! We were successful in that Texas passed two historic pieces of legislation protecting children and families in Texas schools and in the Child Protective Services system. This was our call to action:

• A Call to Legislative Action: Stop the Mass Psychiatric Drugging of United States School Children

And here are the results:

• Press Release of June 4, 2003: Legislators Strike a Blow for Parent Rights: Two New Laws Put a Halt to Coercion of Parents to Put Texas Children on Psychotropic Drugs
• A Legislative Success Tale: Changing Child Psychiatric Policy in Texas

Another result was a 2004 special hearing on psychotropic drugs in foster care, held by Committee Chair Suzanna Hupp, who was working to reform the CPS system in Texas. Here is my testimony:

• Testimony to Texas House Select Committee: Hearing on Psychotropic Drugs in Foster Care

2009 Texas Legislative Initiatives

Our efforts have continued over the years. In the legislative domain, it has taken tremendous energy to fight off state efforts in 2005, 2007 and 2009 to implement various versions of mental health screening.  Here are a couple of my general statements to the legislature in 2007 and 2009, respectively:

• Testimony on the state of Texas Mental Health Services
  (The Need for Greater Accountability, Less Coercion,
  and Greater Protection of Citizens)
  March 15, 2007
• Open Letter on the Texas Mental Health System and Legislature
  April 23, 2009

And here is some of what we attempted in 2009. Although we did stop the mental health screening again, we had less success with the positive initiatives. We did get a study version of HB 2163 passed into law. Here are some of the handouts we used in our efforts:
-Suicide Prevention: Mental Health Screening Revisited Oppose SB 84 and SB 85
-Help protect Medicaid children from poisoning by antipsychotic drugs (HB 2163)
-Help protect Youth in the juvenile justice system from psychotropic drugging (HB 3127)
-Help protect Foster children from polypharmic psychiatric drugging (HB 3662)

Parental Consent Act of 2009
Here is an up to the moment statement supporting Congressman Ron Paul’s effort to pass related federal legislation, called the Parental Consent Act:

• http://www.cchrint.org/2009/10/14/congressman-ron-pauls-parental-consent-act/

Please call TOLL FREE 1-800-572-2905 to obtain a packet of information you can use as a group in your own area. Also, please call to report grievances and bad experiences with the use of psychiatric drugs in the schools.

John Breeding · 5306 Fort Clark Dr., Austin, TX 78745· 512-326-8326 voice
E-mail Dr. Breeding at: john@wildestcolts.com

Congressman Ron Paul’s Parental Consent Act

By John Breeding
Psychologist, Author, The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses

The bill forbids federal funding for universal or mandatory mental health screening, and also forbids money for any educational or other government agency that would use a parent’s refusal to consent to their child’s screening as basis for a charge of child neglect or abuse.

A little recent history is relevant. On April 29, 2002, President George Bush created the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. In 2003, this industry-studded commission presented their recommendations for the reform of the United States mental health system.

“To aid in transforming the system,” the authors of the report wanted to do many things, including:

• Improve and expand school mental health programs.

• Screen for co-occurring mental and substance use disorders and link with integrated treatment strategies.

• Screen for mental disorders in primary health care, across the lifespan, and connect to treatment and supports.

This rhetoric serves to hide the truth that New Freedom is better called No Freedom or New Intrusion, and that mental health screening really means mass marketing and target recruitment of a captive population.

By the time of these New Freedom Commission recommendations, there already existed very large numbers of citizens around the country wising up to the extraordinary intrusion of psychiatry into our schools, as demonstrated in the first four years of this millennium by a number of resolutions, education department statements and state laws, all defending a parent’s right to make treatment decisions for a child without coercion, and a child’s right to education without psychiatric labeling and drugs.

Through 2003, there had been at least 46 state bills or resolutions supporting parental choice, in 28 states, that had either passed or were still pending action across the United States.  For example, Connecticut, Minnesota and Texas had passed laws explicitly stating that a parent’s refusal to consent to the administration of a psychotropic drug to a child does not constitute neglect, therefore is not in itself grounds for Child Protective Services (CPS) investigation.  Other states have passed related laws either monitoring or curbing CPS policy in this area.

Many states are pursuing related legislation as the wave of activity in support of parental choice continues to expand.  Texas law now prohibits school personnel from suggesting a diagnosis or recommending a psychotropic drug to a parent for their child.  The public will is clearly for the schools to educate, not medicate, and for the state to allow privacy and autonomy to parents and families.  At a federal level the fight over the Child Medication Safety Act was eventually won so that nowhere in the country is it legal to require a psychiatric controlled substance as a condition of attending school.

Ron Paul has been a key leader in this effort for some time.  On October 6, 2004, he introduced an earlier incarnation of his current Parental Consent Act.  This one, aptly titled the Let Parents Raise Their Kids Act, also attempted to forbid federal funds from being used for any universal or mandatory mental-health screening of students without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of their parents or legal guardians.

Since that time, the fight has only intensified.  In 2005 in Texas, for example, we fought tooth and nail to the bitter end to defeat a bill that would have initiated mental health screening in schools throughout Texas.  Since we have defeated them consistently, this session they tried to get a pilot program approved for San Antonio and we defeated that as well, but the psychiatric and pharmaceutical lobbies are relentless.  PsychSearch.net provides one of the best websites on mental health screening and the ongoing resistance.

We have been aided by our awareness.  Made possible largely by the work of Pennsylvania whistleblower Allen Jones, we know that many of the New Freedom commissioners are linked directly or indirectly to the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), which provides formulas recommending specific psychotropic drugs to treat various “mental illnesses.”  It has been revealed that TMAP pushed an off-label drug marketing scheme that appears to skirt federal law.  We know, therefore, that this commission’s recommendations are intended to encourage an expansion of the fact that “appropriate services” in today’s psychiatric world means psychotropic drugs; there are already millions upon millions of school-age children on psychiatric drugs.

Senator Charles Grassley’s work outing the severe ethical financial conflicts of so many psychiatric industry spokespersons makes it a little easier to challenge these things.  For example, it tends to impress legislators when they hear that three psychiatry department chairs—Charles Nemeroff of Emory University ($1 million from GlaxoSmithKline alone), Martin Keller of Brown University (associated with a severely compromised drug trial) and Alan Shatzberg of Stanford (who was principal investigator on a drug developed by a company in which he owned $6 million of stock) have all recently resigned their positions as a result of Grassley’s investigation.

The very high number of false positives in mental health screening is good data.  In one study at Columbia University, the authors concluded that use of the Columbia Suicide Screen would result in 84 non-suicidal teens being referred for further evaluation for every 16 youths correctly identified.  It also helps to know that these type programs tend not to work anyway.  For example, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) found that screening for suicide risk does not reduce suicide attempts or mortality.

Finally, the facts about the severe dangers and lack of efficacy of the various types of psychiatric drugs gets attention once the truth is made known.

I consider this to represent a tragic situation, and a clear and present danger to our children.  Here is a pledge that thousands specifically signed and that so many more are acting on in the concerted challenges around the country to this scourge:

We promise to actively resist further intrusion of psychiatry into the public schools, and will not cooperate in any way with those who act as agents of this wrong-headed government initiative.  We do not now and will not later consent to the psychiatric or psychological testing of our children by those who act as agents to implement New Freedom recommendations for universal mental health screening of our children.

The Parental Consent Act of 2009 is a great idea. Passing this bill in Washington would make a significant difference in protecting children and families against further intrusion of psychiatry into the schools. I know it would also make this Texas activist’s life a little easier!

John Breeding, Ph.D. has been a counseling psychologist in Austin, Texas for 25 years. He is the director of Texans For Safe Education, a citizens group dedicated to challenging the ever-increasing role of psychiatric drugs in schools.  He is the author of numerous articles and four books including: The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses and True Nature and Great Misunderstandings: On How We Care For Our Children According To Our Understanding.

Click here to read The Parental Consent Act

Contact your member of Congress to support The Parental Consent Act. To find your Representative and get their contact information, go to http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt to look them up (you need to enter your zip code).