The MOTHERS Act Passed and Almost Law, Plus Susan Stone’s False Statement About Melanie Stokes

*UPDATE – The word is that there will be no Conference Committee, but each chamber will have to have another up or down vote on the bill after the negotiations are made before it can be sent to the President. I am trying to get confirmation and will update again later.

I have been meaning to blog on this since it happened, but between being out of town over New Year’s and not having time to read a hundred bazillion page health care bill to find all the objectionable parts, looks like the Postpartum drug advocates beat me to it. As I have posted before, the bill is filled with much more mental health garbage than just The MOTHERS Act, but since Harry Reid introduced a brand new substitute bill right before Christmas and had it voted on in a matter of days, I didn’t want to post about anything that wasn’t totally verified. (Not that I believe everything that’s written on a PSI related website.) The Health Care bill has a number of highly contentious issues on which the House and Senate versions differ, so it would ordinarily need to pass through the Conference Committee in order to be sent to the President. (More on that later, but word is that there will be no Conference Committee but rather just some negotiations between key players in the House and Senate.) Now, I don’t think they are lying when they say that The MOTHERS Act passed via the Health Care Bill… but that won’t stop Susan Stone from making a ridiculous and untrue statement about something…

Susan Stone, past President of “Postpartum Support International,” has claimed in her blog on the passage of Harry Reid’s Christmas Eve Substitute Health Care Bill that Melanie Stokes died as a result of “untreated postpartum illness.”

Melanie, a beautiful, intelligent mother of a young child with every reason to live, leapt to her death as a result of untreated postpartum illness.

[emphasis mine]

Susan may not be good at retelling Melanie’s story accurately, although she is good at rewriting history.

Untreated Postpartum Illness? Oh really? From Carol Blocker’s Website “Melanie’s Battle:”

Melanie’s was hospitalized three times in seven weeks. She was given four combinations of anti-psychotic, anti-anxiety, and anti-depressant medications. She also underwent electroconvulsive therapy. Her family rallied around her with all their strength, but in the end, Melanie jumped to her death from the twelfth floor of a Chicago hotel.

We have Stone and her buddies to thank for tireless advocacy of pharma-friendly legislation which would risk the lives of many vulnerable women in need and their unborn and newborn babies.

If you are interested in reading the bill’s specific language, you can go to this link and click on “Full Text of Bill as Passed”. The language referencing The MOTHERS Act initiatives can be found on pages 595-604, section 2952 “Support Education and Research for Postpartum Depression.”

Also from her website:

Also, the Mikulski Amendment, which includes SCREENING for postpartum depression also passed in another part of the healthcare reform bill. It was actually the FIRST Amendment included in healthcare reform. Finally, women and mothers are being heard.

This about sums up the passage of The MOTHERS Act via the Health Care Bill: this bill NEVER could have passed on its own thanks to the massive opposition against it, but it takes a Christmas Eve vote on a giant Health Care Bill which nobody has read (well at least until “Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 2:45 PM”) in order to get it through.

So much for Democracy.

The truth about psychiatric drugs & electroshock is summed up in these videos.

Melanie Stokes:

Indi:

Matthew Schultz:

Andrea, Michael, Micayla, & Dylan Roberts:

Filed under: suicide, Congress, mothers act, Melanie Stokes, antidepressants, PPD, mothers act, Susan Stone, Postpartum Support International, Melanie Stokes, screening, Health Care bill, Susan Stone's False Statement About Melanie Stokes, Mikulski Amendment, Carol Blocker

Marking 10 Years Since Columbine – Moments of Silence

While dozens of drug pushers and drugged mothers are busy blogging, twittering and calling Congress, and possibly hundreds more pharma grant recipeints or employees do the same to promote The Deadly MOTHERS Act, those who survived Columbine mark the 10 year anniversary of that drug-induced shooting. When you see this please take a moment of silence to honor those who died.

To see Michael Moore discuss Dr. Tracy’s book and the true cause of Columbine which he says he got completely wrong in Bowling For Columbine, go to http://www.drugawareness.org/ or see the full movie, The Drugging of Our Children by Gary Null, Ph.D. at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3609599239524875493&q=DRUGGING%2BOF%2BOUR%2BCHILDREN

Dr. Tracy and others are holding a press conference in Colorado regarding Columbine today. Stay tuned for updates. Given the frequency of school shootings, this is an urgent matter that our country needs to address.

The Colorado State Department of Education adopted the following resolution when learning about the dangers of drugs that Harris and Klebold were taking which drove them to commit the heinous massacre.

Colorado State Board of Education RESOLUTION Promoting The Use Of Academic Solutions To Resolve Problems With Behavior, Attention, And Learning

Whereas, the Colorado State Board of Education is constitutionally charged with the general supervision of K-12 public education; and,Whereas, the Colorado State Board of Education dedicates itself to increasing academic achievement levels for all students; and, Whereas, the responsibility of school personnel is to ensure student achievement; and, Whereas, only medical personnel can recommend the use of prescription medications; and, Whereas, the Colorado State Board of Education recognizes that there is much concern regarding the issue of appropriate and thorough diagnosis and medication and their impact on student achievement; and, Whereas, there are documented incidences of highly negative consequences in which psychiatric prescription drugs have been utilized for what are essentially problems of discipline which may be related to lack of academic success; Therefore Be It Resolved, that the Colorado State Board of Education encourage school personnel to use proven academic and/or classroom management solutions to resolve behavior, attention, and learning difficulties; and, Be It Further Resolved, that the Colorado State Board of Education encourage greater communication and education among parents, educators, and medical professionals about the effects of psychotropic drugs on student achievement and our ability to provide a safe and civil learning environment. November 11, 1999 On this date, the Colorado State Board of Education passed this resolution by a six-to-one vote.

Filed under: Columbine, drugging children, mothers act, #postpartum, advocate, Bowling for Columbine, Columbine 10 year anniversary, Columbine Massacre, Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, Gary Null, legislation, Melanie Blocker Stokes, Melanie Stokes, mothers act, perinatal, The Drugging of Our Children, twitter

Check out updates to the MOTHERS Act Campaign Center Links

http://uniteforlife.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/numbers-email-campaign-and-outreach/

Scroll down to the NEWS section.

Filed under: mothers act, antidepressants, Christian, Delahunty, Indiana, Katherine Stone, Melanie Stokes, mothers act, nursing, Postpartum Support International, Pregnancy, SSRIs

Petition Update

This photo was taken a few months ago when I went to Kinko’s to FedEx the petition to the Senate. To save paper and ink we shrunk the size of the text and expanded the margins. The petition was about 500 pages long at that point. 

Unfortunately I do not think the petition ever arrived. We have the antidepressant-crazed anthrax murderer (in case you haven’t heard, he had gone crazy on a cocktail of drugs too, and was taking them at the time he sent anthrax to our Senate) to thank for our new security measures with mail to the Senate. It was supposed to take about 3 weeks to get it through security but as of August, several months after I mailed this, the office I sent it to had not received it. I have to wonder what could be holding it up in the mail room.

Anyway, we have at least 8,812 signatures on our petition, and there have also been capwiz letters sent from Byron Richards’ site, which last time I checked a few months ago was close to 5,000 of those. And I also know that there are many people protesting by sending faxes and calling. Personally I have called all 100 Senate offices and faxed all 100 offices both locally and in D.C.

Yet Harry Reid calls the omnibus a package of bills that are all non-controversial and which have passed the Senate committee? Um, as a matter of fact – no. If they were all non-controversial then there would not be thousands of people petitioning the government to stop a certain bill in the package. And The MOTHERS Act has never even been discussed in the appropriate committee of the Senate. I presume this could be because the cosponsors do not want to allow amendments to the bill.

I find it absurd that Postpartum Support International has called their CapWiz link a petition. They send readers to a link from the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance to sign a ‘petition’ for The MOTHERS Act. The DBSA receives at least half of their funding from pHARMa. Actually what this capwiz letter is is many petitions – letters sent to the Senate from people who participate in pharmaceutical-sponsored drug promotions. None of their names are public. Our 8800 names are mostly people willing to put their name and their location and their story out there as a warning to others. We don’t cower in fear that someone might learn who we are. We don’t send our petition in secret. 

Last year someone started a pro-MOTHERS Act petition. I found it on a google search, and it had 27 signatures. Two of the names seemed fake – they were Bill Bill and Phil Phil if I am not mistaken. Or maybe the spelling on Phil was Fill Fill… anyway, clearly these people were counting on the bill passing and not working too hard. After all a few days after the petition was started the House passed the bill without debate.

Always without debate. The Senate and House would not like to pass this bill out in the open. It has to be in secret. The Senate is even worse because Reid not only wanted to not debate the bill but when that happens in the Senate, it’s called hotlining or passing a bill through unanimous consent. In this case no formal vote is taken, so people do not have to answer to their constituents for voting yes or no… it will simply look like the bill was considered non-controversial at the time. 

We who know the truth don’t engage in secretive gossip, we openly hold the drug pushers accountable. And we will not accept a secretive back room deal to pass this bill. It’s time for something to happen to hold these drug pushers responsible. The FDA requires warnings on the labels of drugs and on TV and print ads, yet PSI, New Jersey’s PPD website, and numerous others go around making statements that these drugs are safe and effective. You won’t see a black box warning on any of the posts on the Postpartum Progress blog… Since so many of these groups or members of groups get kickbacks, pledges, donations, awards, etc. from drug companies, where do we draw the line for fraudulent advertising speech? Is there a lawyer out there who knows? Someone needs to put a stop to this sort of behavior. 

I recently did a google search for an article I needed and I came across a thread written about me by people who were basically ticked off that I am doing what I am doing. I suppose that they think they can form some sort of coalition to challenge me and get me to stop what I am doing. Well here is a news flash, I am not going to stop. In fact, I am going to do more and more and more, whatever I have to do, wherever I have to go, I will do it. I will not stand idly by and watch as you put more women on drugs that could make them kill themselves and their children. (The FDA even warns of the increased suicide risk from antidepressants so it makes no sense why the drug pushers continue calling the drugs ‘effective.’ Permanent relief from depression in the form of suicide is not a very good outcome.)

This thread also stated that I am a child abuser / exploiter for making a youtube video about my crisis on Zoloft which included my children’s photos. I was called “crazy _______ crazy ______” and multiple instances of profanity were used against me. And a few others I have found lately have claimed that the writer had contacted me with a request for proof of pharmaceutical ties, or pieces of the bill that state anything about medication or screening, etc. and that I could not or did not give it to them. First of all, these authors have never contacted me. My home and cell phone numbers are on my website and almost every press release I have sent out. My email address is amy@uniteforlife.org. Secondly, all you have to do is conduct a quick google search and the documents will come up proving the ties and the language of the bill. These have been on my website for quite some time. UNITE also has a search function you can use. If you can’t find the information you want, look on my site. Or send me an email. I can’t promise to return every email I ever get for all time, but so far all the emails I have received from these types of people have been answered unless it was a personal attack.

This type of gossip is ridiculous. People promoting the MOTHERS Act have been spreading rumors about me and about their bill in order to convince others to support it. Melanie Stokes is probably rolling over in her grave right now.

If I had listened to my doctors, there would be no photos of Isaac as a 4 year old to put on YouTube, and Toby would not ever have been born. I would probably be dead or in jail right now. My story is simple and it proves how dangerous antidepressants are. So anyone who wants to call me names for telling my story to try and prevent the same thing from happening to someone else, please look at this picture of my son. Think about him being gone just like the children of Valeria Maxon and Andrea Yates. Or think of him having no mom like Sommer Stokes. Because whether you want to admit it or not, these are cases of drug-induced suicide and murder. Maybe you will realize that some day and maybe you won’t. 

Go take a look in the mirror and ask yourself how you feel deep down inside. If you are not at peace in your conscience then there might be a reason. 

The link to our petition (which has not had any money coming into its advertisement and has not had years to develop a drugged-base of support like pharma) is: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-the-dangerous-and-invasive-mothers-act

Please go sign it and then start calling the Senate in protest.

Filed under: antidepressants, Congress, mothers act, suicide, Andrea Yates, Anthrax killer, Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, Melanie Stokes, Postpartum Support International, Valeria Maxon