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Easter Seals (ES)
March
11, 2004
Attention:
Katy Neas,
Thank
you for taking the time to speak with me regarding Easter Seals position
on "The Child
Medication Safety Act" and your involvement as a
member of The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) that
opposes “The Child Medication Safety Act”, S. 1390. It is
often difficult to confront psychiatric abuse. We all can agree
that most people want to help children. We must not forget the
history of psychiatric abuse, Willowbrook Landmark Court Ruling on
Informed Consent, and The Kenneth Donaldson story of the landmark
Supreme Court decision on the Right to Treatment, as well as the rise
and fall of America's premier psychiatric hospital McLean Hospital, to
name only a few.
As discussed with you this morning, Ablechild.org would be delighted to provide Easter Seals with documented cases of psychiatric coercion within the public education system. Coercion is a terrible injustice for any family to face, as well as the child who is “treated” under such constraints. It is quite clearly another form of child abuse itself. To force a child onto a psychotropic “medication” in the name of “treatment” against the parents and child’s wishes (see New England Law Review) is not only unconstitutional but a basic human rights violation, which is being addressed in the Federal courts today.
Our
organization represents a growing number of parents who are deeply
concerned with this coercion that is occurring in our public schools
across the nation. Many of these same parents have had children
who have died as a direct result of the drugs that they were pressured
into giving their children by schools.
Furthermore, many of them detail this coercion and pressure
clearly occurring in every State in the Country (refer to http://www.ablechild.org/data/thelist.asp).
Ablechild.org
welcomes any investigation or report done on the topic of coercion in
the public schools and the department of family services by the GAO.
We would point out that the GAO already conducted a study, which
failed to include the coercion crisis (please see the “GAO Study Plays
Guessing Games” by Kelly O’Meara).
Such an investigation, however, must also include the 775 parents
across the country that has come forward with psychiatric coercion
complaints. Our
organization wants to clearly point out that “The Child Medication
Safety Act” would not in any way prohibit school personnel from
discussing behavioral issues with a parent. Our position is clear,
a parent must not be coerced into a label or a drug and must be
guaranteed their right to full informed consent, which would
disclose to them the raging controversy within the medical community
itself questioning the validity of ADHD as it is being marketed to
parents today. With
informed consent in mind, our organization is alarmed at certain groups
claiming to be “support/advocacy” systems for parents.
We are greatly concerned with the one-side, selective research,
and pro-drug information that many of them are marketing to parents
through schools and advertisements.
They are not disclosing to parents critical information (one such
example is drug risks) that directly impacts a parents ability to make
sound, educated decisions regarding whether or not to opt for drug
“treatment”. What is
most disturbing to us is that these groups take significant funds from
pharmaceutical companies, which we know to be a direct conflict of
interest. All of these
factors place a child at risk.
I
am sure that we both can agree that there are many wonderful medicines
that the pharmaceutical industry produces to treat objective diseases.
I hope that we can further agree on that parents should not be
forced to drug their child with psychotropic “medications” by
schools as a means of “treatment” for subjective attentional/behavioral
issues. Truly, I hope that
you will see that marketing and forcing drugs onto our children in a
public education setting is unacceptable. In addition, there are
many mental health as well as non-mental health options today regarding
a child’s attention and behavior. All parents should be provided
with these options. We
seriously hope that based on the above information Easter Seals will
look at our documented cases of coercion and child death and stand with
us stating that No parent
should be forced into giving their child mind-altering “medications”
by a school. We urge Easter
Seals to look at the evidence, and consider the human rights
implications that forced psychiatric drugging has on children, as well
as on their parents. Parents,
in many cases simply do not wish to see their children harmed by the
dangerous side effects that the drugs can or had caused. With
this said we strongly appeal to Easter Seals to support “The Child
Medication Safety Act”. Everyday this bill pends in committee is
another day a child is put at risk.
We cannot afford to sit back and wait.
We
look forward to Easter Seals response and to working with you to protect
the basic human rights of children.
Respectfully, Sheila Matthews,
Contact
Information: Phone
(203) 966-8419, fax (203) 966-2840, cell (203) 253-0329
Enclosed
under Separate Cover The
New England Law Review The
Association of School Psychology handout to parents The
Dunkle Case The
Mathew Smith Case A
listing of all the other children that have died from the coercion and
the recommended
"treatment".
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