Monthly Archives: December 2011

“No Mandatory Mental Health Screening For Children!” by Ron Paul

There has been a persistent lobbying effort, funded by pharmaceutical companies, to increase the number of these prescriptions to even more children. A universal screening program is the stated goal of these lobbyists. I would not be at all surprised to see the recent attention to the issue of schoolyard bullying used as a tool towards these ends.

Imagine the potential ramifications of a universal, mandatory psychiatric health screening program in a public school, considering how some bureaucrats are wont to behave! The diagnostic criteria for many mental illnesses remain vague and subjective. Therefore it is all too easy for a bureaucrat in a white coat to label a child with some sort of psychiatric syndrome simply because they were having a bad day, or behaving as a typical rambunctious child. That label could follow them around the rest of their school career and come with a number of prescriptions attached, which the state, as in the Godboldo case, may try to force the parents to administer, whether they want to or not.

Vindicated—Detroit Mom gets daughter back & all charges dropped following police stand off over refusing to drug daughter

Two courts gave Maryanne Godboldo early Christmas presents Monday — her child and dismissal of multiple felonies from an eight-hour standoff with police last spring.

“Thank you for just doing your job and following the law,” a weeping Godboldo said in the morning after Wayne County Circuit Judge Gregory Bill ruled that a lower court judge was correct in tossing out the criminal charges from the March incident.

Godboldo had held off child welfare workers and police who were try to remove her teenage daughter because Godboldo would not give the child Risperdal, a drug prescribed for an undisclosed psychiatric condition. Godboldo insisted that the drug, also used to stem aggressive behavior, was harming her daughter.

Judge refuses criminal charges against Detroit mother in police stand off over forced drugging of daughter

A judge refused to reinstate criminal charges Monday against a mother who resisted police forcing their way into her home last March to take her teenage daughter during a dispute with a Child Protective Services worker over medications.

Wayne County Circuit Judge Gregory Bill ruled against claims by the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office that 36th District Judge Ronald Giles committed judicial error in August when he threw out the charges against Maryanne Godboldo.

Bill said Giles was correct in concluding there was insufficient evidence presented by the prosecution to order Godboldo to trial on charges of illegally resisting and assaulting police for allegedly firing a shot at them.

“It is clear to me that he (Giles) doesn’t think the defendant shot at anybody,” Bill said, concluding that if a shot was fired inside the house, it was fired at the ceiling and perhaps not by the mother.

Can Prozac Cause Kids to Kill? A Canadian Judge Has Ruled it Can

A Winnipeg judge’s ruling that a teenage boy murdered his friend because of the effects of Prozac will not be appealed, confirming an apparent North American first and reviving debate around the widespread prescription of anti-depressants to young people. Justice Robert Heinrichs concluded the 15-year-old boy was under the influence of the medication when he thrust a nine-inch kitchen knife into the chest of Seth Ottenbreit, a close friend.

Justice Robert Heinrichs concluded the 15-year-old boy was under the influence of the medication when he thrust a nine-inch kitchen knife into the chest of Seth Ottenbreit, a close friend.