Tag: Ablechild

Drug Industry Human Testing Masks Death, Injury, Compliant FDA

Written by Able Child on November 2, 2005. Posted in MedWatch.

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) — Oscar Cabanerio has been waiting in an experimental drug testing center in Miami since 7:30 a.m. The 41- year-old undocumented immigrant says he’s desperate for cash to send his wife and four children in Venezuela.

More than 70 people have crowded into reception rooms furnished with rows of attached blue plastic seats. Cabanerio is one of many regulars who gather at SFBC International Inc.’s test center, which, with 675 beds, is the largest for-profit drug trial site in North America.

Across the U.S., 3.7 million people have enrolled in drug tests sponsored by the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. The companies have outsourced 75 percent of experimental drug trials to centers like SFBC, a leader in a $14 billion industry.

A Pragmatic Approach for Troubled Kids

Written by Able Child on November 1, 2005. Posted in Lawmaking.

By Leila Abboud, The Wall Street Journal

With persistent concerns about using powerful psychiatric drugs on children, there is growing interest in counseling techniques for troubled kids that aim to change destructive behavior.

These therapies are getting a push because they have been shown in numerous clinical trials over the past decade to be effective on kids with severe behavioral problems, where other approaches have often failed. The techniques take a pragmatic approach, often using a set curriculum to teach new behaviors, rather than ferreting out the underlying emotional problem as with traditional psychotherapy. In another departure from traditional talk therapies, much of the counseling is often directed at parents.

Report: Teen Left Suicidal Messages on Website Before Rampage

Written by Able Child on November 1, 2005. Posted in Violence.

’19-year-old vowed ‘to hurt those that have hurt me’

CNN.com

ALISO VIEJO, California (AP) — A 19-year-old man who authorities say killed two neighbors then himself posted suicidal messages on a Web site before the rampage, according to a report published Tuesday.

William Freund posted an Internet message October 16 that threatened a “Terror Campaign to hurt those that have hurt me,” the Los Angeles Times reported. In the same message, he said, “My future ended some time ago.”

Ablechild’s Statement on Teen Screen

Written by Sheila Matthews on October 10, 2005. Posted in Lawmaking.

Sheila Matthews
National Vice President
www.ablechild.org
(203) 966-8419

“ AbleChild strongly opposes Teen Screen. Giving teenagers subjective questionnaires and surveys on suicidal behavior simply does not prevent or stop suicide. This is risky research that lacks scientific merit. Teen Screen is nothing more than the bio-behavioral health industry’s attempt to garner big government funding for useless programs that profitably promote a course of recommended psychotropic drug “treatment” which has been clearly linked to suicide and violent behavior.”

Computer: Your Kid Has “Disorders”

Written by Able Child on October 8, 2005. Posted in Lawmaking.

Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning:

Imagine your teenager comes home from school looking depressed. You ask what’s wrong. She says, “Oh, it’s just my social anxiety disorder.”

What?

Yes, she tells you, she has social anxiety disorder. And also obsessive compulsive disorder.

What are you talking about, you ask? Who is telling you this?

Generation Ritalin

Written by Able Child on September 19, 2005. Posted in MedWatch.

Doctors are at odds over the treatment of children affected by ADHD … to drug them or not to drug them?

Michelle Wiese Bockmann reports.

At the age of 10, Brandon Frances screamed for hours on end, suffered psychotic episodes and daily beat his mother.

A pediatrician in Perth diagnosed Brandon with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when he was four, and for the next seven years he was constantly medicated with a cocktail of up to six different drugs to control his behaviour.

Now 13, Brandon no longer takes the medication, is behaving and doing well at school. Eighteen months ago doctors at a Perth public hospital clinic found Brandon did not have ADHD, but a learning disorder. His entire treatment was changed.

Rutherford Institute Attorneys Sue Indiana School for Conducting Mental Health Screening Exam on Teenager Without Parental Consent

Written by Able Child on September 19, 2005. Posted in Lawmaking, MedWatch.

South Bend, IN—Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana on behalf of an Indiana family whose 15-year-old daughter, Chelsea Rhoades, was subjected to a mental health screening examination at school without her parents’ knowledge or consent.

Fierce Opposition Arises to Mental Health Screening in Schools

Written by Able Child on September 18, 2005. Posted in Lawmaking, MedWatch.

By Karen MacPherson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

WASHINGTON — Back in 2003, a federal commission created by President Bush recommended improving and expanding mental health programs in schools to provide help as early as possible to students with learning problems or those who might turn violent or disruptive.

The commission highlighted one means of early diagnosis, the Columbia University “TeenScreen” program, that allows students — with parental permission — to get a mental health “check-up” via a computer-based questionnaire before graduating from high school.

Are ADHD Drugs Safe? Report Finds Little Proof

Written by Able Child on September 13, 2005. Posted in Lawmaking, MedWatch.

M. ALEXANDER OTTO; The News Tribune

At a time when millions of children and adults are taking drugs for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, the most comprehensive scientific analysis of the drugs to date has found little evidence that they are safe, that one drug is more effective than another or that they help school performance. The 27 drugs studied included Adderall, Concerta, Strattera, Ritalin, Focalin, Cylert, Provigil, and others that, in some households, are well-known for their sometimes calming affects.

Antidepressant Protest in Front of White House

Written by Able Child on September 4, 2005. Posted in Lawmaking.

by James Torlakson

I flew back to Washington, DC to participate in a protest focused on the often-lethal nature of SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) and other atypical antidepressants, which took place in front of the White House on August 24th, 25th, and 26th. My twenty-one year old daughter, Elizabeth, committed “suicide” as a direct result of her use of the SSRI, Celexa. More than five thousand young people have committed violent suicides induced by their antide- pressants. Though known by those involved in this cause, it is just now reaching the media that the SSRIs have the same fatal effects on many adults of all ages.