I am here in vigorous opposition to SF 2841 that would implement mental health screening for three-year-old children entering public school. Continue reading →
Presentations by AHRP/Board Members
A Multi-Headed Hydra Turned Medicine Into Snake Oil
Presentation by Vera Sharav. NARPA Conference, Baltimore, MD. Nov. 17, 2006. PowerPoint slides (2.8 MB file).
Screening for Mental Illness: The Merger of Eugenics and the Drug Industry
Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry Volume 7, Number 2, Summer 2005 pp. 111-124 Screening for Mental Illness: The Merger of Eugenics and the Drug Industry Vera Hassner Sharav, MLS New York, NY The implementation by the President’s New Freedom Commission (NFC) to . . . Continue reading →
National Plan for Universal Mental Health Screening:A Pharma Friendly Remedy for Societal Problems
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Text of power point presentation:
Slide 2: I’ll begin with the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health[1] recommendation to screen the US population for mental illness – 52 million children first. In no other democratic country has the government adopted a policy to screen the population for presumed, undetected, mental illness. The rationale behind this mind-boggling Orwellian nightmare is not improving mental health, but rather increasing life-long consumers of psychoactive drugs and to control behavior. Two NFC recommendations are designed to do just that. TeenScreen is promoted as a suicide prevention model when it in fact, increases the number of children labeled suicidal and depressed.
America’s Overmedicated Children, Presentation by Vera Sharav, Sweden
“Forgotten Children” is an investigative report by Carole Keeton Strayhorn,[1] the Texas Comptroller (2004) who uncovered evidence that 60% of children in the Texas foster care system are being drugged with powerful psychotropic drugs, most of which have not been tested in or approved for use by children. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledges that many of these drugs have serious adverse side effects, both physical and psychological. The Comptroller said she was alarmed that in her review of a single month (November 2003), two powerful antipsychotic drugs — Risperdal and Zyprexa — made up half of the drugs prescribed to foster children in Texas. These two drugs have been approved only for adults for the treatment of psychosis – primarily schizophrenia – yet, she found that children as young as four, were receiving these powerful, mind-altering drugs.
Conflicts of Interest in Clinical Trials
Presented by Vera Hassner Sharav
14th Tri-Service Clinical Investigation Symposium
Sponsored by The U.S. Army Medical Department and The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancment of Military Medicine
The cornerstone of public trust in medical research is the integrity of academic institutions and the expectation that universities, which rely on public funding, have a responsibility to serve the public good. Financial conflicts of interest affect millions of American people – those who are subjects of clinical trials testing new drugs and those who are prescribed drugs after their approval. Continue reading →
Evidence of Neuroleptic Drug-Induced Brain Damage in Patients
A partial, Annotated Bibliography by Vera Hassner Sharav
For distribution: January, 2000
Although patients, families and the public were not informed – some would argue they were deceived – clinical psychiatrists and researchers have long known about severe adverse drug reactions (ADR) and disabling changes in the central nervous system in a high percentage of patients taking standard neuroleptic drugs.