The "Mothers act" - A bad idea

Hello Again... I saw this great article on the Mothers act and so I decided to put it in my blog... By the way please look at this "new" drug that I have advertised here, look at the name as I think that its very apt.

The Mother's Act - A Bad Idea

By Steve Hayes,
All of us have heard that Congress' approval rating is falling and now hovers between 10% and 15%. We hear about the millions spent on building a bridge that only a few people will cross and wealthy farmers being paid to not grow food. We hear about $1,000 hammers and shoddy work done by government contractors with seemingly no repercussions to the culprits. However, our biggest problem with Congress is that their solutions seldom provide good results. They have "good intentions", but their solutions seem to reward the lobby that contributes the most to their campaigns or makes the most noise, and there is little attention paid to whether the legislation actually produced the intended product.

It is for these reasons that most of us agree with Will Rogers' observation about Congress, "This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."

Is there anyone who is not concerned that there are mothers who feel not joy but sadness or depression after the birth of their child? If the mother is not happy, what kind of life is in store for the child? We all want to help the mother and the child.

None of us would oppose legislation that would really help. The answer lies in the definition of the word "help." This proposed legislation in Congress has the stated intention of helping mothers and young children who are depressed, by providing grants to "public or nonprofit private entities for projects to establish, operate, and coordinate effective and cost-efficient systems for the delivery of essential services to individuals with postpartum depression or postpartum psychosis and their families."

Besides being invasive, this is the first step on the "slippery slope" to requiring all of our expectant mothers and new mothers and their children to submit to "evaluations" by people who will be making determinations that are based not on scientific studies but subjective opinion.

Then if these evaluators determine that treatment is needed, it will be a treatment not based on successful procedures but on failed treatment protocols. Like many of the acts of Congress, the real beneficiary of these laws will not be the mothers and their children but the "mental health" workers who will be handsomely paid and the drug companies that are behind this legislation. THE MOST IMMEDIATE PROBLEM

Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act has already passed the House of Representatives and is being considered, without the opportunity for debate, in the Senate. Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate majority leader, has tried to put the legislation to a vote without the usual process of allowing amendments and debate.

Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) criticized Reid's plan, stating, "What the staff members are saying is we want to bring a bill, but we don't want to debate it. We don't want to vote on it. We don't want to have it amended. We don't want the American people to know what we would rather do in secret."

In plain English, this legislation will insert government into the lives of our citizens and mandate the use of antidepressants by people that are determined by "professionals" to need "treatment."

Of course, this legislation ignores:

· The fact that the proposed "treatment" using antidepressant drugs on pregnant women can create dangerous side effects for these women and their unborn children;

· The fact that recent real scientific studies show that antidepressants are no more effective than sugar pills;

· The fact that almost all of the school shooters were taking antidepressants;

· The fact that Andrea Yates was taking antidepressants when she killed her children;

· The fact that in the past ten years, numerous scientific studies and international drug regulatory warnings have documented the dangers of antidepressant drugs, ranging from suicidal and homicidal ideation to premature births, spontaneous abortions and birth defects;

· The fact that Melanie Stokes was "treated" with these same drugs and given electroshock, and she is no longer depressed because she committed suicide and her child lost her mother to these ineffective treatments;

· The fact as expressed by Dr. Dan Fisher, a psychiatrist, that "A superficial screening by overworked pediatricians would likely result in many false positives with devastating consequences for the children and their families. These quick-fix screening tests invariably end up with quick fixes of kids by labeling them and placing them on medication, without a comprehensive psychosocial evaluation and assistance to the children and their interpersonal environment. As a psychiatrist who has evaluated children in schools, I know that myriad factors can cause what appear to be symptoms of mental illness";

· The fact pointed out by Dr. Karen Effrem that, "One commonly used screening instrument has a 73% false positive rating, meaning that for every 27 children supposedly correctly identified as having an emotional problem on this screening test that follow admittedly 'subjective' criteria that are 'value judgments based on culture' according to the Surgeon General, 73 other families are falsely told that something is wrong with their child and referred for further evaluation and treatment which more and more commonly involves ineffective and sometimes lethally dangerous drugs";

· The fact pointed out by Dr. Effrem that studies in 1999, 2004, and 2005 showed that home visiting programs did nothing to decrease child abuse rates but cost up to $47,000 per family in 1999 dollars and did nothing to improve the cognitive development of the children;

· The fact that many of the bill's strongest supporters have financial connections to Big Pharma;

· The fact that an estimated 2,900 babies died via spontaneous abortion because of SSRI antidepressants given to pregnant women;

· The fact that babies exposed to SSRIs in pregnancy have a six-fold increased risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN), a potentially fatal lung problem;

· The fact that nearly one-third of women who take SSRIs during pregnancy have a baby who dies, is premature or underweight, or who has seizures;

· The fact that women being screened are not guaranteed sufficient data to allow the women to give "informed consent." (This is because if they were given all the data about the side effects created for them and their babies, few women would ever take the drugs.)
CONCLUSION

Big Pharma has no conscience and could care less if people die or become more ill-if they can sell more drugs. At Novus Medical Detox Center, we could choose to view the Mother's Act and the other bills attempting to "treat" people by putting them on these dangerous drugs as guarantees of our beds being always full of people needing medical detox. In the same way, undertakers could choose to view these bills as good for business because more people will die before their time through suicide or mass murder.

The drug store chains will expand more because more people will be hooked on these dangerous drugs. Doctor's offices will be more crowded because we know that these dangerous drugs often lead to serious health side effects that will require medical treatment.

The real problem is that we could have legislation that makes available real and proven medical and nutritional tests to actually find the cause of the depression in most people. Others who are depressed because they have no way of effectively providing for their child and themselves because they are not trained in any skilled position could be helped through the provision of training to allow them to become more productive.

Instead, we ignore the likely causes for the great majority of depressed mothers and treat them with failed treatment options. This is not only cruel but unnecessary and will create far greater costs for society and far more problems for the mothers and their children.

This bill and the other bills pending in Congress seeking to "treat" mothers and their children are good examples of why more and more of us are agreeing with the American Indians saying that the biggest lie is, "I am from the government and I am here to help you."