Dead Man's Vitamin

Lawdy, lawdy…. what do we have heeyah!!  I was all set to write two completely separate posts but found, eerily enough, that the information  I had gathered was  in fact,  somehow connected.  So I thought I’d  just clump em’ both together.  You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

First of all, I had my attention half way around the world,  knickers all in a knot regarding  a Draft Mental Health Bill 2011 , written by The Western Australia Mental Health Commission (MHC) and having just been brought before the WA (Western Australia) Legislature.  Click here for the MHC Draft Mental Health Bill for Dummies.  One of the most alarming pieces of work I’ve ever come across.   This bill  was overseen by  the Mental Health Commissioner and clinical psychologist, Mr Eddie Bartnik.   Well, you’ll never guess (some of you will)  who  Mr. Bartnik is connected up with way over yonder?  None other than the renowned “Australian of the Year” awardee, Dr. Patrick McGorry.  See here.  Why doesn’t that surprise me?  Birds of a feather and all that.

If you’ve never heard of him, Patrick McGorry is the Psychiatrist who came up with the EARLY INTERVENTION idea, which premise is based on identifying and treating psychosis in its early stages to prevent patients developing full-blown psychotic illnesses – from the womb up no less.  I couldn’t make this stuff up.  Yeah Paddy, like there’s an actual scientific means to do that.  Don’t get me started.   (Even Allen Frances, who chaired the committee that produced the current diagnostic bible for psychiatry, the DSM-IV, has warned that Professor McGorry’s Early Psychosis Intervention Centres do not have a reliable early diagnosis tool).

Okay, so there’s this Bill in the works in Australia.  But there’s also something  I’ve stumbled upon that is eerily similar, something that’s happening right in our own back yard.

Take a look at this.  This was passed on to me from a concerned substitute teacher here in Toronto (my knickers were choking me now). It’s a flyer that the school is giving to kids that are having problems.  I’m concerned.

NOTICE THE “TREATMENT” BEING OFFERED (Top left of flyer):

Would you want this medical treatment offered to your 13-year-old son or daughter?  Would you even consider permitting your child to receive E.C.T.  – never mind the antidepressant medication? Just wanted to bring the point home.

Anyway, I received this “flyer” in the condition it’s in.  Sorry about that.  But do you see in the lower right hand corner?  I’ve tracked this flyer down.  It’s from the Centre for Clinical Intervention and it comes from the Government of Australia.  Go to Module 1, Page 7.

It appears that this was called “Back from the Blues”  but they changed it and added some innocuous doctor caricatures for the kids.  Makes recommending ECT to a teener more tame I guess.  Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.  Is it in all Toronto high schools?   Is it in that school?  You know the one, right around the corner.

How did this document from the Government of W. Australia’s Centre for Clinical Intervention end up in a high school in Toronto?  And if we are adopting their “Mental Health” initiatives, is it so far-fetched, so “out there” to believe that if that Bill is passed in Australia, that Canada won’t follow suit?  Is it that far a stretch really?