I 
109TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 181 
To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental 
health screening program. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 4, 2005 
Mr. PAUL (for himself and Mr. FEENEY) introduced the following bill; which 
was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition 
to the Committees on Education and the Workforce and Ways and 
Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in 
each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdic-
tion of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or 
mandatory mental health screening program. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Parental Consent Act 
of 2005’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds as follows:
(1) The United States Preventive Services Task 
Force (USPSTF) issued findings and recommenda-
tion against screening for suicide that corroborate 
those of the Canadian Preventive Services Task 
Force. ‘‘USPSTF found no evidence that screening 
for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mor-
tality. There is limited evidence on the accuracy of 
screening tools to identify suicide risk in the primary 
care setting, including tools to identify those at high 
risk.’’. 
(2) The 1999 Surgeon General’s report on men-
tal health admitted the serious conflicts in the med-
ical literature regarding the definitions of mental 
health and mental illness when it said, ‘‘In other 
words, what it means to be mentally healthy is sub-
ject to many different interpretations that are rooted 
in value judgments that may vary across cultures. 
The challenge of defining mental health has stalled 
the development of programs to foster mental health 
(Secker, 1998). . . .’’. 
(3) The Surgeon General’s report also says, 
‘‘The diagnosis of mental disorders is often believed 
to be more difficult than diagnosis of somatic or 
general medical disorders since there is no definitive
laboratory test or abnormality in brain tissue that 
can identify the illness.’’. 
(4) Accurate mental health diagnosis of chil-
dren is difficult as admitted by the Surgeon Gen-
eral’s report that says, ‘‘The science is challenging 
because of the ongoing process of development. The 
normally developing child hardly stays the same long 
enough to make stable measurements. Adult criteria 
for illness can be difficult to apply to children and 
adolescents, when the signs and symptoms of mental 
disorders are often also the characteristics of normal 
development.’’. 
(5) Authors of the bible of psychiatric diag-
nosis, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, admit 
that the diagnostic criteria for mental illness are 
vague, saying, ‘‘DSM–IV criteria remain a con-
sensus without clear empirical data supporting the 
number of items required for the diagnosis. . . . Fur-
thermore, the behavioral characteristics specified in 
DSM–IV, despite efforts to standardize them, re-
main subjective. . . .’’ (American Psychiatric Asso-
ciation Committee on the Diagnostic and Statistical 
Manual (DSM–IV 1994), pp. 1162–1163). 
(6) Because of the subjectivity of psychiatric di-
agnosis, it is all too easy for a psychiatrist to label
a person’s disagreement with the psychiatrist’s polit-
ical beliefs a mental disorder. 
(7) At least one federally-funded school violence 
prevention program has suggested that a child who 
shares his or her parent’s traditional values may be 
likely to instigate school violence. 
(8) Despite many statements in the popular 
press and by groups promoting the psychiatric label-
ing and medication of children, that ADD/ADHD is 
due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, the 1998 
National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference 
said, ‘‘. . . further research is necessary to firmly es-
tablish ADHD as a brain disorder. This is not 
unique to ADHD, but applies as well to most psy-
chiatric disorders, including disabling diseases such 
as schizophrenia. . . . Although an independent diag-
nostic test for ADHD does not exist. . . . Finally, 
after years of clinical research and experience with 
ADHD, our knowledge about the cause or causes of 
ADHD remains speculative.’’. 
(9) There has been a precipitous increase in the 
prescription rates of psychiatric drugs in children: 
(A) A 300-percent increase in psychotropic 
drug use in 2 to 4 year old children from 1991
to 1995 (Journal of the American Medical As-
sociation, 2000). 
(B) A 300-percent increase in psychotropic 
drug use in children from 1987 to 1996 (Ar-
chives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, 
2003). 
(C) More money was spent on psychiatric 
drugs for children than on antibiotics or asthma 
medication in 2003 (Medco Trends, 2004). 
(10) A September 2004 Food and Drug Admin-
istration hearing found that more than two-thirds of 
studies of antidepressants given to depressed chil-
dren showed that they were no more effective than 
placebo, or sugar pills, and that only the positive 
trials were published by the pharmaceutical industry. 
The lack of effectiveness of antidepressants has been 
known by the Food and Drug Administration since 
at least 2000 when, according to the Food and Drug 
Administration Background Comments on Pediatric 
Depression, Robert Temple of the Food and Drug 
Administration Office of Drug Evaluation acknowl-
edged the ‘‘preponderance of negative studies of 
antidepressants in pediatric populations’’. The Sur-
geon General’s report said of stimulant medication 
like Ritalin, ‘‘However, psychostimulants do not ap-
pear to achieve long-term changes in outcomes such 
as peer relationships, social or academic skills, or 
school achievement.’’. 
(11) The Food and Drug Administration finally 
acknowledged in September 2004, that the newer 
antidepressants are related to suicidal thoughts and 
actions in children and that this data was hidden for 
years. The Food and Drug Administration had over 
2000 reports of completed suicides from 1987 to 
1995 for the drug Prozac alone, which by the agen-
cy’s own calculations represent but a fraction of the 
suicides. Prozac is the only such drug approved by 
the Food and Drug Administration for use in chil-
dren. 
(12) Other possible side effects of psychiatric 
medication used in children include mania, violence, 
dependence, weight gain, and insomnia from the 
newer antidepressants; cardiac toxicity including le-
thal arrhythmias from the older antidepressants; 
growth suppression, psychosis, and violence from 
stimulants; and diabetes from the newer anti-psy-
chotic medications. 
(13) Parents are already being coerced to put 
their children on psychiatric medications and some 
children are dying because of it. Universal or man-
datory mental health screening and the accom-
panying treatments recommended by the President’s 
New Freedom Commission on Mental Health will 
only increase that problem. Across the country, Pa-
tricia Weathers, the Carroll Family, the Johnston 
Family, and the Salazar Family were all charged or 
threatened with child abuse charges for refusing or 
taking their children off of psychiatric medications. 
(14) The United States Supreme Court in 
Pierce versus Society of Sisters (268 U.S. 510 
(1925)) held that parents have a right to direct the 
education and upbringing of their children. 
(15) Universal or mandatory mental health 
screening violates the right of parents to direct and 
control the upbringing of their children. 
(16) Federal funds should never be used to sup-
port programs that could lead to the increased over- 
medication of children, the stigmatization of children 
and adults as mentally disturbed based on their po-
litical or other beliefs, or the violation of the liberty 
and privacy of Americans by subjecting them to 
invasive ‘‘mental health screening’’ (the results of 
which are placed in medical records which are avail-
able to government officials and special interests 
without the patient’s consent).
SEC. 3. PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL FUNDING OF UNI-
VERSAL OR MANDATORY MENTAL HEALTH 
SCREENING. 
(a) UNIVERSAL OR MANDATORY MENTAL HEALTH 
SCREENING PROGRAM.—No Federal funds may be used 
to establish or implement any universal or mandatory 
mental health screening program. 
(b) REFUSAL TO CONSENT AS BASIS OF A CHARGE 
OF CHILD ABUSE OR EDUCATION NEGLECT.—No Federal 
education funds may be paid to any local educational 
agency or other instrument of government that uses the 
refusal of a parent or legal guardian to provide express, 
written, voluntary, informed consent to mental health 
screening for his or her child as the basis of a charge of 
child abuse or education neglect until the agency or instru-
ment demonstrates that it is no longer using such refusal 
as a basis of a child abuse or education neglect charge. 
(c) DEFINITION.—For purposes of this Act, the term 
‘‘universal or mandatory mental health screening pro-
gram’’— 
(1) means any mental health screening program 
in which a set of individuals (other than members of 
the Armed Forces or individuals serving a sentence 
resulting from conviction for a criminal offense) is 
automatically screened without regard to whether
there was a prior indication of a need for mental 
health treatment; and 
(2) includes— 
(A) any program of State incentive grants 
for transformation to implement recommenda-
tions in the July 2003 report of the President’s 
New Freedom Commission on Mental Health; 
and 
(B) any student mental health screening 
program that allows mental health screening of 
individuals under 18 years of age without the 
express, written, voluntary, informed consent of 
the parent or legal guardian of the individual 
involved. 
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