“Immediate public input is necessary to stop this bad piece of legislation from being passed in the Senate. CCHR is asking everyone to contact their Senators and urge them to vote NO on H.R. 34.”

By Kelly Patricia O’Meara
Published by Citizens Commission on Human Rights
The Mental Health Industry Watchdog
December 5, 2016

Within days Congress intends to rush passage of the 996-page H.R. 34, the Tsunami Warning, Education, and Research Act of 2015 (21^st Century Cures Act), a massive bill that is so controversial and loaded with damaging mental health policies that even lawmakers understand that many of the provisions would never stand up to public scrutiny.

By virtue of how this legislation is being considered there is little doubt that this legislative action is a backdoor operation, with the original H.R. 34 Tsunami Warning bill being replaced by the 21^st Century Cures Act and the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, allowing the legislation to immediately be considered by the Senate, rather than voting on whether the legislation is even worthy of consideration.

These kind of legislative shenanigans are a clear warning sign that much of the legislation is deeply flawed and in need of legitimacy, hence the rush for passage.  The consequence of such little-considered, far-reaching public policy is dangerous and even life-threatening.

For example, the most egregious provisions are:

• The bill dangerously broadens the criteria for who can be given psychiatric treatment against their will under “Assisted Outpatient Therapy.” Every state has existing laws that allow for involuntary psychiatric treatment of those who are considered a danger to themselves or others. There is NO need for more language at the Federal level, especially such dangerously broad language.

• Per the language in the new bill, if you are an adult and are considered mentally ill, you can be court-ordered to submit to psychiatric treatment for the simple reason that you are “substantially unlikely to voluntarily participate in treatment.”

(In just one 24-hour period for which SAMHSA collected data, more than 560,000 individuals who received mental health treatment services in out-patient, day treatment, or partial hospitalization care settings had been involuntarily admitted for care.)

• The bill lowers scientific standards required to get medical devices approved through the FDA—exactly the opposite of what patients need.

(In fact, the role of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is “ensuring the safety, efficacy and security” of new treatments and devices. Passing the “assurance” of safety and efficacy to manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies clearly is a failure of the FDA’s stated duty).

• It would allow for new high-risk medical devices to be approved based on anecdotal case studies or reports in medical journals, rather than having to be held to the gold standard of testing in clinical trials.  Furthermore, manufacturers would be allowed to make changes to these high-risk devices without any FDA oversight. Instead, the changes would be monitored by third-party contractors—paid by industry.[i]

(During a one-year period, half a billion medical devices were recalled as high-risk, including some that resulted in death. This bill lowers the FDA standards for drug and device approval.)

• Title X of the bill promises “strengthening mental and substance use disorder care for children and adolescents” and increases pediatric access, programming, treatment, and interventions for young people…”

(This section allows for “screening” even our youngest children, including infants and toddlers, for mental disorders despite there being zero medical or scientific test to validate the unscientific psychiatric label).

The above provision is an extremely egregious policy given the epidemic of child-drugging that has swept the nation in the last decade.  With 8.4 million children in the U.S. taking psychiatric mind-altering drugs, including 11% of 4 to 17-year olds (6.4 million), having been diagnosed with ADHD and 4.4 million of those taking ADHD drugs that double the risk of developing heart problems, among a host of other life-threatening adverse effects.

This all-encompassing, one-size-fits-all-legislation does little to “cure” the ills of America’s sick but handily weakens – not strengthen – the already limited oversight measures currently in place.

Immediate public input is necessary to stop this bad piece of legislation from being passed in the Senate.  CCHR is asking everyone to contact their Senators and urge them to vote NO on H.R. 34. Find your senators below:

LIST OF U.S. SENATORS, IN ORDER BY STATE:

Kelly Patricia O’Meara is an award-winning former investigative reporter for the Washington Times’ Insight Magazine, penning dozens of articles exposing the fraud of psychiatric diagnosis and the dangers of the psychiatric drugs—including her ground-breaking 1999 cover story, “Guns & Doses,” exposing the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed book, Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills that Kill. Prior to working as an investigative journalist, O’Meara spent sixteen years on Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer to four Members of Congress. She holds a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Maryland.