October 19, 2004
State of Connecticut: Mental Health - Finding Unmet Mental Health Needs in the State of Connecticut: Budget Considerations:
Statement by Sheila Matthews, National Vice President,
http://www.ablechild.orgThank you for holding these hearings to assist Governor Rell on input for the upcoming Fiscal Budget for unmet Mental Health Needs in the State of Connecticut.
Our organization Ablechild.org located here in Connecticut and throughout the Country has identified clear unmet mental health needs, which require immediate attention. Our organization has testified before the FDA Advisory Panel that recommended the Black Box Warning on Antidepressants, as well as federal and state investigative congressional hearings on behavioral drugs and public schools as well as foster care. I personally testified on the first law in the Country to prevent school personnel from recommend behavioral drugs to parents, which now serves as model legislation around the Country. We have been featured on CNN, Hannity & Colmes, NPR Radio, and the Front Cover of the New York Times.
We have six current recommendations, and would like to share them with the State of Connecticut and look forward to working with the State to ensure their implementation.
1. We recommend that current laws be enforced to protect and ensure that potential mental health patients receive their rights to full informed consent prior to psychiatric treatment and the right to refuse psychiatric treatment. We must do better in this critical area of service.
2. Another unmet need in the field of mental health is accountability. It is our recommendation and request to create a data bank at the States Medical Examiner's office, which would provide an independent clarification of statistics. These statistics would include the number of people taking psychiatric drugs and would aid in determining the amounts of deaths contributed to their use. A critical need is a Non-psychiatric support system at the time of death of a mental health patient.
3. Our third recommendation is to open the bidding process beyond psychiatric behavioral health vendors to encourage companies specializing in education, vision, hearing, and nutrition to offer services to children mandated into State Care. "The Right to Treatment" does not mean potential mental health clients are forced into psychiatric treatment. There should be many resources and options to choose from beyond the psychiatric ones for potential mental health clients.
4. Foster care has been the area of focus recently in many states. Mental health abuse occurring with the foster care system, without accountability is rampant in this country and needs to be addressed. Connecticut should focus on improving all abuses within its own foster care system. It is urgent that the State take the necessary steps to protect Foster care children from being over-drugged, and trafficked into clinical drug trials while in State care. We are urgently waiting to help and we requested and recommended a full investigation by the Attorney General Offices and still wait for a response and action to be taken.
5. Our fifth recommendation and request is to ensure that the budget does not use mental health grants to market selective research and pro-drug, pro-psychiatric materials to public schools. Grants must not be used to market bias information to promote the psychiatric industry. Parents and Advocates must realize via written informed consent they are participating in a grant and the grant-funding source disclosed. Parents and Advocates must always have the right not to participate in the grant. There must be mental health grants made available that do not require a parent to label their child with a mental illness in order to participate. The state must make information available to the public on alternative treatments, and non-psychiatric approaches to good mental health.
6. Our last recommendation is based upon the U.K.'s 2003 ban of 8 different antidepressants for children and this year's investigation by the FDA itself into the link of suicide and violence caused by these same antidepressants. This past Friday, October 15th, the FDA placed the strongest possible warnings, known as "black box warnings, on these drugs due to their propensity to cause suicide and violence in patients taking them. Immediate access to this information needs to be provided to ensure overall public safety. The State needs to take measure to disseminate this information to its residents. The State must do a public awareness campaign on the link to suicide and antidepressant use in children as well as the dangers of controlled substances. Non-psychiatric detoxification programs should be set-up to help mental health patients withdraw from the antidepressants to ensure proper oversight to prevent suicides. We also request the State comply with the 1965 Drug Abuse Control Amendment enacted to deal with problems caused by abuse of depressants, stimulants, and hallucinogens.
As an organization that works with families that have lost a love one to drug induced suicide, we plan to continue to reach out to all, to protect innocent children and adults from wrongful and senseless deaths.
There is plenty of room for all to work together to ensure that human rights and the right to treatment are achieved. Our Organization is standing by to help ensure our government provides basic constitutional sound science-based mental health services in the State of Connecticut.
