Reinforcing the Campaign to Educate Parents on Preventing Coerced Mental Health Screening and Drugging of Schoolchildren
By Jan Eastgate
President CCHR International
March 7, 2025
- CCHR’s Nationwide Campaign: Increasing parental awareness about the risks of mental health screenings in schools, warning that misdiagnoses can lead to dangerous psychotropic drug prescriptions for children.
- Tragic Consequences of Psychiatric Drug Prescriptions: Parents featured in CCHR’s documentary Dead Wrong share heartbreaking stories of losing their children to psychiatric drug side effects, highlighting the dangers of these drugs prescribed based on misdiagnoses.
- Financial Incentives for ADHD Diagnoses: Financial incentives, such as federal funding through programs like IDEA and Medicaid, drive the diagnosis of ADHD in schools, using subjective questionnaires, not medical proof.
- Greater Parental-Child Protections Needed: CCHR and parents have helped pass laws protecting students from coerced psychiatric drugging, emphasizing the need for broader protections and urging parents to educate themselves on their rights to opt out of school-based mental health screenings.
CCHR International has stepped up its nationwide campaign to increase parents’ awareness of the risks associated with mental health screening in schools. CCHR warns that misdiagnoses of children’s behavior can lead to dangerous psychotropic drug prescriptions.
CCHR praised the courageous efforts of a group of mothers who shared their devastating experiences in CCHR’s documentary, Dead Wrong: How Psychiatric Drugs Can Kill Your Child—relevant today in light of a federal investigation into American children being drugged with antidepressants, stimulants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers. These parents, some who lost children due to mislabeling and psychiatric drug prescriptions, have worked with CCHR for years to raise awareness about the dangers associated with parents being misinformed about their child’s needs being a mental disorder, when other options may be available to them.
One of the featured parents, Celeste Steubing, spoke about her son Matthew, an 18-year-old who tragically took his own life shortly after being prescribed the antidepressant Lexapro for dealing with a rough patch in his senior year of high school, which left him feeling down. “Matthew had been a vibrant kid, happy and full of life,” Celeste said. After starting the drug, however, he became withdrawn and anxious, ultimately taking his life just nine weeks later.[1]
Mathy Milling Downing, another grieving mother, lost her 12-year-old daughter, Candace, only four days after she was prescribed an antidepressant for exam anxiety. Likewise, Vicki Dunkle recalled how her 10-year-old daughter, Shaina, died in her arms after suffering a toxic reaction to an antidepressant prescribed for ADHD—despite it not being approved for children under 13.[2] Dunkle had raised concerns about her daughter’s troubling side effects but was dismissed by her psychiatrist as “overprotective” and “paranoid.”
CCHR’s campaign also highlights financial incentives driving ADHD diagnoses. At a 2002 congressional hearing, Colorado Representative Bob Schaffer reported that federal programs such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) provided financial incentives to schools for each student diagnosed with ADHD—averaging $400, with later reports saying $1,000.[3]
Patti Johnson, a member of the Colorado State Board of Education, also told a Congressional hearing in the early 2000s that in many states, schools had also become authorized Medicaid providers and collected funds for children labeled with one of the learning or behavior disorders.[4] This should be investigated today to determine how Medicaid funds may be potentially misused.
Dr. Allen Frances, Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University, and former chair of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) Task Force has warned diagnostic changes fueled a “false epidemic” of ADHD and autism, drastically increasing the number of children labeled with the disorder and prescribed stimulants. ADHD rates tripled, in part due to aggressive drug marketing, Frances said.[5]
“Misplaced diagnostic exuberance has turned age-appropriate immaturity into a psychiatric disease and treats it with a pill, rather than just letting the kid grow up,” he stated.[6] Exacerbating this concern is the widespread use of school-based mental health screenings. Professor Frances cautioned, “Accumulating evidence makes clear how ineffective and harmful are almost all the highly touted screening tests.” Further, “Encouraging mental health screening for children is unsupported by scientific evidence and amounts to a reckless public health experiment on children.”[7]
Sheila Matthews, Vice President of the parents’ rights advocacy group ABLECHILD, has firsthand experience with coercive psychiatric labeling. Her seven-year-old son was diagnosed with ADHD based on a simple checklist questionnaire at his school. Matthews was pressured to drug him, even being told that without medication, he would likely “self-medicate” and become a drug addict. Refusing to comply, Matthews exposed the misleading tactics used by school psychologists to pressure parents into medicating their children. She later worked with Connecticut State Representative Lenny Winkler to pass a groundbreaking law preventing schools from recommending psychiatric drugs for students.[8]
A 2023 study published in the Journal of Attention Disorders underscored the subjectivity in diagnosing ADHD, revealing a significant rate of false positives when using ADHD scales and screening measures for diagnosis.[9]
In September 2004, Patty Weathers, the founder of ABLECHILD, testified at an FDA advisory panel hearing about the lack of science behind psychiatric labels given to children, leading to their being drugged. “Parents are told that their child has a chemical imbalance or a neurobiological illness. We risked our child’s life based on this fundamental lie,” she testified. “The FDA is well aware that there are no x-rays, biopsies, blood tests or brain scans that verify these mental disorders as a disease or illness.” Furthermore, “The FDA should not be condoning or approving these drugs without evidence of disease, illness or physical abnormality that would justify risking our children’s lives with a harmful and potentially lethal drug.”[10]
The parents and CCHR were instrumental in securing legislative protections against coerced psychiatric drugging of students, helping get passed the federal Prohibition of Mandatory Medication Amendment preventing schools from making psychotropic drug use a requirement for a child’s education. However, CCHR warns that much broader protections are needed to safeguard children and adolescents from coercive psychiatric practices in schools.
CCHR urges parents to educate themselves about their rights. On its website, CCHR provides a Parents: Get the Facts—Know Your Rights resource page, which includes a Parent’s Exemption Form to opt children out of mental health screenings in schools.
It also offers PSAs to help parents:
Dr. David Stein, Ph.D., emphasized in Dead Wrong that parents are often misled. Addressing Celeste Steubing’s experience, he reassured her, “You did not let your son down. You were an honest parent, honestly seeking help for your son who was having some trouble…. All you would get is ‘chemical imbalance’ or ‘neurological disorder.’”
CCHR is committed to empowering parents with information and legal protections for their children’s well-being.
References:
[3] Evelyn Pringle, “Ablechild—Unsung Hero in Battle Against Psychopharmaceutical Industry,” CCHR International, https://www.cchrint.org/2010/11/18/ablechild-unsung-hero-in-battle-against-psychopharmaceutical-industry/; https://beforeitsnews.com/health/2013/01/schools-gets-up-to-1000-or-more-for-every-student-diagnosed-as-addadhd-heres-why-2466482.html
[4] Evelyn Pringle, “Ablechild—Unsung Hero in Battle Against Psychopharmaceutical Industry”
[5] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/03/21/adhd-marketing-brands-children-to-hook-them-on-psychostimulants/; “Does your child really have a behavior disorder? A shocking book by a leading therapist reveals how millions of us – including children – are wrongly labeled with psychiatric problems,” Daily Mail, 6 May 2013, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2320493/Does-child-really-behaviour-disorder-A-shocking-book-leading-therapist-reveals-millions–including-children–wrongly-labelled-psychiatric-problems.html
[6] Kelly Patricia O’Meara, “ADHD Awareness Month”—A Pharmaceutical Marketing Campaign to Get More Kids on Drugs,” 16 Oct. 2014, https://www.cchrint.org/2014/10/16/adhd-awareness-month-a-pharmaceutical-marketing-campaign-to-get-more-kids-on-drugs/, citing: Allen Frances, MD, “12 Ways Parents Can Protect Their Kids From Too Many Pills,” Huffington Post, 2 Oct. 2014, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/12-ways-parents-can-prote_b_5888392
[7] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/10/28/cchr-launches-investigation-into-educational-decline/; Allen J. Frances, M.D., “The Obama Plan: Spending MH Money In The Wrong Places: Preventive psychiatry won’t make our kids safer,” Psychology Today, 11 Apr. 2013, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/saving-normal/201304/the-obama-plan-spending-mh-money-in-the-wrong-places
[8] Evelyn Pringle, “Ablechild—Unsung Hero in Battle Against Psychopharmaceutical Industry”
[9] “ADHD Tests Lead to Mass Overdiagnosis, Researchers Warn,” MAD, 4 Dec. 2023, citing: Allyson G. Harrison and Melanie J. Edwards, “The Ability of Self-Report Methods to Accurately Diagnose Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Systematic Review,” Journal of Attention Disorders, 2023, Vol. 27 (12), https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1177/10870547231177470
[10] Evelyn Pringle, “Ablechild—Unsung Hero in Battle Against Psychopharmaceutical Industry”
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