BRANDING PREGNANCY AS MENTAL ILLNESS

[Guest guest]

http://www.newswithviews.com:80/Richards/byron51.htm

 

 

 

By Byron J. Richards, CCN

 

March 13, 2008

 

NewsWithViews.com

 

The Mothers Act is pending legislation that will indoctrinate hundreds of

thousands of mothers into taking dangerous psych drugs. It is a great example of

how the Big Pharma lobby controls Congress to the detriment of health, as well

as needlessly and dramatically inflating the costs of our health care system for

everyone. Like any piece of legislation it purports to address a troubling issue

- in this case the mood distress of mothers following birth known as postpartum

depression. It is true that 10% - 15% of women need some assistance in dealing

with this topic - but the majority of them sure don't need it from Big Pharma.

That is the Big Lie.

 

The Mothers Act (S. 1375: Mom's Opportunity to Access Health, Education,

Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression Act) has the net affect of

reclassifying the natural process of pregnancy and birth as a mental disorder

that requires the use of unproven and extremely dangerous psychotropic

medications (which can also easily harm the child). Urgent consumer action (see

below) is needed to stop this atrocity, as the Senate could now vote any day.

 

It is my understanding that the process of birth, the intimate bonding of mother

and child, and the placing of significant responsibility on the father is all

part of a healthy culture and the backbone of the fabric that makes strong

families and consequently our great nation. I fail to see why we need laws that

force health care professionals to emphasize the idea that the process is some

type of mental illness affecting 80% of all women - what a bogus pile of crap.

 

The Mothers Act proposes sweeping and dramatic changes in the delivery of

pregnancy care by all health professionals. It demands that health professionals

indoctrinate pregnant women into mental health treatment options for mild

depression-like symptoms experienced during or following pregnancy, including

moderate symptoms they call " baby blues " which they say affects 80% of pregnant

women. In other words, this is a massive federate health mandate to get the

majority of pregnant and nursing mothers on psych drugs - a new target market

for Big Pharma.

 

The bill was obviously written by the Big Pharma lobby and its passage into law

would be considered laughable except that it is actually happening. The bill

seeks to require taxpayer-funded grants to treat postpartum mood and anxiety

disorders, as defined in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical

Manual of Mental Disorders. For those of you who don't know, this is the manual

of vaguely defined mental health issues used by Big Pharma to allow the sale of

their expensive psych drugs and get payment from Medicare and Medicaid at

taxpayer expense. While some people certainly need help, this system racks up

billions in fraudulent sales per year - including the sale of dangerous

antipsychotic medications to our children. The Big Pharma lobby last year spent

tens of millions to ensure the government would continue to cover vulnerable

children so they could capitalize on this blatant scam.

 

As far as the Mothers Act goes, how can taxpayers be expected to pay for drug

treatments when the problem that isn't even understood? As the bill freely

acknowledges " The causes of postpartum depression are complex and unknown. " In a

mysterious leap of faith the bill says that this condition requires medication

to treat it even though such medication has never been proven clinically

effective and carries serious side effect risks for the mother and baby,

including cardiovascular birth defects.

 

The bill goes on to set up a system of taxpayer-funded grants to pay for the

treatments. It even commits you the taxpayer to funding " clinical research for

the development and evaluation of new treatments for postpartum conditions,

including new biological agents. " This means taxpayers will now foot the bill of

Big Pharma drug development including the most dangerous new category of totally

unproven pie-in-the-sky biological drugs that cost hundreds of billions of

dollars to develop and can irreparably injure within minutes!

 

Yes, and once you have paid a fortune to develop these biological gene-altering

agents then you will pay the drug companies price so that they can be freely

dispensed to hundreds of thousands of pregnant and nursing mothers. Taxpayers

will be on the hook for tens of billions of wasted dollars.

 

Immediate Consumer Action is Needed

 

The Mothers Act has already passed the House (H.R. 20, the Melanie Blocker

Stokes Postpartum Depression, Research and Care Act). Word has it that it is

being snuck out of the HELP committee on Thursday or Friday of this week and may

be rammed through the Senate without any debate before the Easter break.

 

Rather unbelievably up to this point is that the cause of defeating this

legislation has fallen onto the shoulders of one young mother, Amy Philo. When

she struggled with postpartum stress she was placed on the very same psych drugs

advocated for use in the Mothers Act legislation. She began having violent

thoughts towards her child and suicidal thinking. Her not very bright doctor had

her double and then triple her dose, nearly killing her. She is lucky to be

alive today and wants to warn other mothers of the dangers inherent in the

Mothers Act. Click here if you would like to view her YouTube story.

 

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