Wow - what experts they have at TeenScreen........
TeenScreen tacitly considers the pharmaceutical industry their sponsor, as indicated by the amount of money this industry gives NAMI, which is about 3 million dollars a year. Eli Lilly is the top briber of NAMI, as they are the top drug company with the most prescribed psychotropic drugs, unfortunately.
Front groups, they are, that wear the masks of advocacy groups. Over half of the revenue of such groups comes from the pharmaceutical industry. TeenScreen is no different.
Ironically and sadly, lawsuits have been filed against TeenScreen for misdiagnosing children who have been prescribed psychotropic drugs, and have committed suicide likely as a result of the drugs prescribed to them.
TeenScreen links students with those who can pharmacologically treat them for unlikely mental disorders - to further grow the number of kids already on psychotropic drugs - which exceeds 10 million children. If students are assessed by the TeenScreen staff and are found to require additional services, they are connected with a case manager to arrange for appropriate intervention.
Really?
Intervention, when discussing the practice of medicine, is generally a derogatory term used by critics of a medical model in which patients are viewed as passive recipients receiving external treatments provided by the physician that have the effect of prolonging life. Enough said.
TeenScreen has and does bribe students to take the questions they provide that are clinically worthless with such things as movie passes, gift certificates, and so forth. TeenScreen also instructs schools on how to circumvent the PPRA for students, or the Hatch Amendment. There are other legal liabilities that may be created in school districts that implement the TeenScreen program.
It was sold to others that TeenScreen primarily was preventing the incidences of suicide. This is baseless and without merit. First of all, the rare teen suicides have been declining over the years. Some children likely are void of a concept of suicide.
The screening is a 10 minute computer test with 14 questions that was developed in the psychiatric department of Columbia University. This is hardly enough information from a child to determine their mental status.
And TeenScreen is the perfect example of a flawed mental health screening organization. They ask about thoughts of suicide in their questions of students, but do not ask if the student has a plan for suicide. Nor do they ask if a student has a family history of suicide. Not asked is whether the student has physical illness that is out of control, a risk factor for suicide.
Not asked is if the student has any family and community support for their issues. Of the symptoms the student acknowledges experiencing while answering the questions of TeenScreen, not asked is the duration of these symptoms. TeenScreen does not ask if the student has access to firearms- which is the most common method of suicide.
TeenScreen is nothing more than a front group for their big pharma sponsors who market psychotropic drugs, as teenscreen wears the mask of a support group for the youth. The activities of TeenScreen not only potentially damage children, but also invade their privacy quite obviously, and it is allowed too often, I say with great sadness.
The staff of TeenScreen, as well as the employees of public schools, are in fact practicing medicine without a license, and are committing slander and libel by stating that a student has a mental problem in writing, or to anyone else.
So far, now likely to increase with the addition of primary care doctor offices as targets for TeenScreen, there are greater than 500 TeenScreen sites in most states in the U.S. This decision by TeenScreen to screen kids at these doctor offices will assure quicker prescriptions unneeded for the kids, likely.
TeenScreen's quick start guides for their primary care focus include tips for interpreting the screening questionnaire results, tips on making a referral for patients identified as being at possible risk, as well as tips for coding and reimbursement.
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