BMJ  2004;329:292 (31 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7460.292-b

Letter

Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness

Is road of initiative paved with good intentions?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The grandiose scale of George W Bush's mental health initiative makes it difficult to comment on the "road" he wishes to take, or to relate this American proposal to the recent British report on mental health and social exclusion.^{1 2} The devil is in the detail. Because of the longstanding mutual interests of the pharmaceutical industry and this presidency, the remorseless pressure of Big Pharma on doctors and patients spreads far beyond the United States to policy and planning across the world's health economies.^{3 4}

None the less, the United Kingdom can learn from the American population perspective that schools "are in a `key position' to screen the 52 million students."¹ Big Pharma has an interest in screening to label more mental illness that can introduce millions of new child "consumers" to maintenance psychotropic treatment. But schools can also provide promising opportunities for promoting mental health across . . . [Full text of this article]

Department of Public and Family Health, APU, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1SQ a.w.caan@apu.ac.uk

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