I 

111TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 2218 

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental 

health screening program. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

APRIL 30, 2009 

Mr. PAUL (for himself, Mr. BARTLETT, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mrs. 

BLACKBURN, Mr. MCCOTTER, and Mr. HENSARLING) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means and Education and Labor, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 

Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within 

the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 

A BILL 

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or 

mandatory mental health screening program. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Parental Consent Act 

5 of 2009’’. 

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 

7 The Congress finds as follows: 


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1 (1) The United States Preventive Services Task 

2 Force (USPSTF) issued findings and recommenda3 tions against screening for suicide that corroborate 

4 those of the Canadian Preventive Services Task 

5 Force. ‘‘USPSTF found no evidence that screening 

6 for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mor7 tality. There is limited evidence on the accuracy of 

8 screening tools to identify suicide risk in the primary 

9 care setting, including tools to identify those at high 

10 risk.’’. 

11 (2) The 1999 Surgeon General’s report on men12 tal health admitted the serious conflicts in the med13 ical literature regarding the definitions of mental 

14 health and mental illness when it said, ‘‘In other 

15 words, what it means to be mentally healthy is sub16 ject to many different interpretations that are rooted 

17 in value judgments that may vary across cultures. 

18 The challenge of defining mental health has stalled 

19 the development of programs to foster mental health 

20 (Secker, 1998). . . .’’. 

21 (3) A 2005 report by the National Center for 

22 Infant and Early Childhood Health Policy admitted, 

23 with respect to the psychiatric screening of children 

24 from birth to age 5, the following: ‘‘We have men25 tioned a number of the problems for the new field 


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1 of IMH [Infant Mental Health] throughout this 

2 paper, and many of them complicate examining out3 comes.’’. Briefly, such problems include: 

4 (A) Lack of baseline. 

5 (B) Lack of agreement about diagnosis. 

6 (C) Criteria for referrals or acceptance 

7 into services are not always well defined. 

8 (D) Lack of longitudinal outcome studies. 

9 (E) Appropriate assessment and treatment 

10 requires multiple informants involved with the 

11 young child: parents, clinicians, child care staff, 

12 preschool staff, medical personnel, and other 

13 service providers. 

14 (F) Broad parameters for determining 

15 socioemotional outcomes are not clearly defined, 

16 although much attention is now being given to 

17 school readiness. 

18 (4) Authors of the bible of psychiatric diag19 nosis, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, admit 

20 that the diagnostic criteria for mental illness are 

21 vague, saying, ‘‘DSM–IV criteria remain a con22 sensus without clear empirical data supporting the 

23 number of items required for the diagnosis. . . . Fur24 thermore, the behavioral characteristics specified in 

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1 main subjective. . . .’’ (American Psychiatric Asso2 ciation Committee on the Diagnostic and Statistical 

3 Manual (DSM–IV 1994), pp. 1162–1163). 

4 (5) Because of the subjectivity of psychiatric di5 agnosis, it is all too easy for a psychiatrist to label 

6 a person’s disagreement with the psychiatrist’s polit7 ical beliefs a mental disorder. 

8 (6) Efforts are underway to add a diagnosis of 

9 ‘‘extreme intolerance’’ to the Diagnostic and Statis10 tical Manual. Prisoners in the California State penal 

11 system judged to have this extreme intolerance 

12 based on race or sexual orientation are considered to 

13 be delusional and are being medicated with anti-psy14 chotic drugs. (Washington Post 12/10/05) 

15 (7) At least one federally funded school violence 

16 prevention program has suggested that a child who 

17 shares his or her parent’s traditional values may be 

18 likely to instigate school violence. 

19 (8) Despite many statements in the popular 

20 press and by groups promoting the psychiatric label21 ing and medication of children, that ADD/ADHD is 

22 due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, the 1998 

23 National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference 

24 said, ‘‘. . . further research is necessary to firmly es25 tablish ADHD as a brain disorder. This is not 


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1 unique to ADHD, but applies as well to most psy2 chiatric disorders, including disabling diseases such 

3 as schizophrenia. . . . Although an independent diag4 nostic test for ADHD does not exist. . . . Finally, 

5 after years of clinical research and experience with 

6 ADHD, our knowledge about the cause or causes of 

7 ADHD remains speculative.’’. 

8 (9) There has been a precipitous increase in the 

9 prescription rates of psychiatric drugs in children: 

10 (A) The use of antipsychotic medication in 

11 children has increased nearly fivefold between 

12 1995 and 2002 with more than 2.5 million chil13 dren receiving these medications, the youngest 

14 being 18 months old. (Vanderbilt University, 

15 2006) 

16 (B) More than 2.2 million children are re17 ceiving more than one psychotropic drug at one 

18 time with no scientific evidence of safety or ef19 fectiveness. (Medco Health Solutions, 2006) 

20 (C) More money was spent on psychiatric 

21 drugs for children than on antibiotics or asthma 

22 medication in 2003. (Medco Trends, 2004) 

23 (10) A September 2004 Food and Drug Admin24 istration hearing found that more than two-thirds of 

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1 dren showed that they were no more effective than 

2 placebo, or sugar pills, and that only the positive 

3 trials were published by the pharmaceutical industry. 

4 The lack of effectiveness of antidepressants has been 

5 known by the Food and Drug Administration since 

6 at least 2000 when, according to the Food and Drug 

7 Administration Background Comments on Pediatric 

8 Depression, Robert Temple of the Food and Drug 

9 Administration Office of Drug Evaluation acknowl10 edged the ‘‘preponderance of negative studies of 

11 antidepressants in pediatric populations’’. The Sur12 geon General’s report said of stimulant medication 

13 like Ritalin, ‘‘However, psychostimulants do not ap14 pear to achieve long-term changes in outcomes such 

15 as peer relationships, social or academic skills, or 

16 school achievement.’’. 

17 (11) The Food and Drug Administration finally 

18 acknowledged by issuing its most severe Black Box 

19 Warnings in September 2004, that the newer 

20 antidepressants are related to suicidal thoughts and 

21 actions in children and that this data was hidden for 

22 years. A confirmatory review of that data published 

23 in 2006 by Columbia University’s department of 

24 psychiatry, which is also the originator of the 

25 TeenScreen instrument, found that ‘‘in children and 


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1 adolescents (aged 6–18 years), antidepressant drug 

2 treatment was significantly associated with suicide 

3 attempts . . . and suicide deaths.... ’’. The Food 

4 and Drug Administration had over 2,000 reports of 

5 completed suicides from 1987 to 1995 for the drug 

6 Prozac alone, which by the agency’s own calculations 

7 represent but a fraction of the suicides. Prozac is 

8 the only such drug approved by the Food and Drug 

9 Administration for use in children. 

10 (12) Other possible side effects of psychiatric 

11 medication used in children include mania, violence, 

12 dependence, weight gain, and insomnia from the 

13 newer antidepressants; cardiac toxicity including le14 thal arrhythmias from the older antidepressants; 

15 growth suppression, psychosis, and violence from 

16 stimulants; and diabetes from the newer anti-psy17 chotic medications. 

18 (13) Parents are already being coerced to put 

19 their children on psychiatric medications and some 

20 children are dying because of it. Universal or man21 datory mental health screening and the accom22 panying treatments recommended by the New Free23 dom Commission on Mental Health will only in24 crease that problem. Across the country, Patricia 

25 Weathers, the Carroll Family, the Johnston Family, 


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1 and the Salazar Family were all charged or threat2 ened with child abuse charges for refusing or taking 

3 their children off of psychiatric medications. 

4 (14) The United States Supreme Court in 

5 Pierce versus Society of Sisters (268 U.S. 510 

6 (1925)) held that parents have a right to direct the 

7 education and upbringing of their children. 

8 (15) Universal or mandatory mental health 

9 screening violates the right of parents to direct and 

10 control the upbringing of their children. 

11 (16) Federal funds should never be used to sup12 port programs that could lead to the increased over13 medication of children, the stigmatization of children 

14 and adults as mentally disturbed based on their po15 litical or other beliefs, or the violation of the liberty 

16 and privacy of Americans by subjecting them to 

17 invasive ‘‘mental health screening’’ (the results of 

18 which are placed in medical records which are avail19 able to government officials and special interests 

20 without the patient’s consent). 

21 SEC. 3. PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL FUNDING OF UNI22 VERSAL OR MANDATORY MENTAL HEALTH 

23 SCREENING. 

24 (a) UNIVERSAL OR MANDATORY MENTAL HEALTH

25 SCREENING PROGRAM.—No Federal funds may be used 


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1 to establish or implement any universal or mandatory 

2 mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening 

3 program. 

4 (b) REFUSAL TO CONSENT AS BASIS OF A CHARGE

5 OF CHILD ABUSE OR EDUCATION NEGLECT.—No Federal 

6 education funds may be paid to any local educational 

7 agency or other instrument of government that uses the 

8 refusal of a parent or legal guardian to provide express, 

9 written, voluntary, informed consent to mental health 

10 screening for his or her child as the basis of a charge of 

11 child abuse, child neglect, medical neglect, or education 

12 neglect until the agency or instrument demonstrates that 

13 it is no longer using such refusal as a basis of such a 

14 charge. 

15 (c) DEFINITION.—For purposes of this Act, the term 

16 ‘‘universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or 

17 socioemotional screening program’’— 

18 (1) means any mental health screening program 

19 in which a set of individuals (other than members of 

20 the Armed Forces or individuals serving a sentence 

21 resulting from conviction for a criminal offense) is 

22 automatically screened without regard to whether 

23 there was a prior indication of a need for mental 

24 health treatment; and 

25 (2) includes— 


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1 (A) any program of State incentive grants 

2 for transformation to implement recommenda3 tions in the July 2003 report of the New Free4 dom Commission on Mental Health, the State 

5 Early Childhood Comprehensive System, grants 

6 for TeenScreen, and the Foundations for 

7 Learning Grants; and 

8 (B) any student mental health screening 

9 program that allows mental health screening of 

10 individuals under 18 years of age without the 

11 express, written, voluntary, informed consent of 

12 the parent or legal guardian of the individual 

13 involved. 

Æ 


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