Four voices of sanity among the insane nutcases:

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/16/Opinion/Look_beyond_psychiatr.shtml

Published April 16, 2005

Don't take public health backward
Re: Florida House Bill 209.

The World Health Organization identifies mental illnesses as the leading cause of disability worldwide - surpassing all other disease groups. Untreated depression alone causes billions of dollars of lost productivity each year as well as untold human suffering. Suicide is the leading cause of violent death worldwide, surpassing homicide and war. Some would argue that mental illnesses are the major public health problem of our time.

Fortunately, our science base for preventing, diagnosing and treating mental health problems is strong. We now have identified biological and genetic markers for many of the common mental illnesses and increasingly recognize the complex interactions of genes and environments in promoting both mental health and illness. The reliability of mental health diagnoses and the effectiveness of treatments are on par with any area of medicine. Both the U.S. surgeon general and President Bush's Mental Health Commission have recognized the tragic gap between the strength of our science and the fact that most people with mental illnesses are not offered these effective treatments.

Florida House Bill 209 will widen this gap. It reinforces the myths that mental illnesses are not real medical conditions. It will make it more difficult for teachers to work with students who have mental health problems. It incorrectly suggests that mental illnesses cannot be reliably diagnosed. It reinforces stigma by inaccurately suggesting that a label of mental illness will become part of students' permanent records if they are referred for evaluation or treatment. It is a bill that looks to past eras when mental illnesses were considered moral failings or personal weaknesses rather than to the future where prevention, early diagnosis and effective treatment will dramatically reduce the disability associated with mental illness. HB 209 is bad public health law.

-- David L. Shern, Ph.D., dean and professor, Louis de la Parte
Florida Mental Health Institute, Tampa

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Creating a barrier to treatment
Re: Scientology in schools.

Thank you for sharing with your readers the campaign of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights to discredit psychiatry. The proposed legislation states that there are no medical tests that can be used for the diagnosis of mental illness. A more precise statement would be that there are no current lab tests that can diagnose mental illness. However, there are hundreds of psychological tests described in the Buros Tests of Mental Measurement which accurately differentiate mentally ill individuals from their normal counterparts.

Every day in my practice I meet with parents who agonize over their decision regarding the use of medication as one component of a multidisciplinary treatment plan to address the brain disorders of their children. Misinformed legislators who sponsor bills that are probably unconstitutional create another barrier to treatment for the citizens of Florida.

-- Michael T. Smith, Ph.D., Legislative and Public Policy representative, Pinellas Chapter of the Florida Psychological Association, Tarpon Springs

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Appropriate treatment works
Re: Actor lobbies against psychiatry for kids, April 13.

I am the parent of a person who suffered from a mental illness as a child, and I use the word suffer advisedly. The quote from actor Kelly Preston, "These psychiatric labelings are not actually medical disorders . . ." is not true. It is deeply offensive to me and the many parents of children with neurobiological brain disorders.

I do not wish to impose my religious beliefs on others, and I would never interfere with another person's attempts to get help for a suffering child. I would ask the same courtesy from Preston and the members of the Church of Scientology.

Science tells us that there are medical disorders that affect the brain. I know, personally, that early identification and treatment work. We are the lucky parents of a terrific person who got appropriate treatment and who thrives today.

Parents and teachers are uniquely positioned to sound the alarm when a child fails to thrive. Parents and doctors are in the best position to arrive at treatment plans to help that child.

Let us keep religion out of politics and allow parents to obtain appropriate help for their children.

-- Marcia Mathes, Orlando

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Stay away from the science fiction
Re: Scientologists push for mental health statute, April 9.

As a retired clinical social worker who provided psychotherapy for many years to individuals and families, I find it appalling that the Church of Scientology has helped formulate and is working toward the passage of two regressive bills in the Legislature affecting schoolchildren and their parents.

Decades of substantiated work by all mental health clinicians have demonstrated that the proper, careful identification of behavioral disorders (though systematic, objective criteria), and the implementing of appropriate treatment interventions have been life-saving or life-enhancing measures in most instances. For many children and adolescents, a combination of pharmacological and psychotherapeutic approaches is often the most effective, rather than one or the other.

Removing the stigma from mental illness can only be accomplished when it is recognized and dealt with by children and their parents, with the help of qualified, credentialed professionals, not practitioners from the Church of Scientology. Anything else is only science fiction!

-- Susan Darlington, LCSW, Dunedin

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"P.S. I was going to say that we have as fine a crop of nutters as you guys, then I remembered George Bush. You win." -- British correspondent

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