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Beware TeenScreen scare tactics

JUDY MEYERS, executive director

National Alliance on Mental Illness

CEDAR FALLS --- I'm concerned that Larry Hanus (Beware TeenScreen) is passing along, maybe inadvertently, some misinformation that has been circulating nationally since this spring by anti-psychiatry groups, including the Church of Scientology which counts actor Tom Cruise as a member. The Church of Scientology has a long history of aggressively publishing inflammatory, anti-psychiatry statements claiming that mental illnesses are not real brain diseases. This belief is refuted by such trusted scientific studies as the U.S. Surgeon General's report that found 1 in 10 children will develop a mental illness. First of all, TeenScreen, is not offered in the Waterloo or Cedar Falls schools. TeenScreen is offered as a voluntary program, in the other areas of the state such as the Des Moines schools, and has had its positive results reported in the Des Moines Register this spring. TeenScreen was developed by the Child & Adolescent Psychiatry division of Columbia University to address the high rate of mental illnesses in children and the alarming statistic that suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death in adolescents.

This screening is very similar to the voluntary program that Allen, Covenant, and the UNI Counseling department will be offering free to the public during Depression Screening Day, Thursday October 6th.

What you need to beware of are scare tactics. For the real truth about TeenScreen, you can go to www.teenscreen.org.

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