Government, Big Pharma Push Bill to Drug America’s Mothers

It’s called the Melanie Blocker Stokes MOTHERS Act and if passed it will turn countless women into lifelong customers for Big Pharma. It was killed in the Senate last year but it was reintroduced in January of this year. Democrat Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey, home to a large number of drug companies, and Democrat Richard Durbin are the main sponsors of the bill in the Senate (S. 1375).

	Former actress and supermodel Brooke Shields supports the government and Big Pharma effort to convince women they need to be on dangerous psychotropic drugs.

In a March 30, 2009 speech on the House floor, the original sponsor of the bill, Illinois Democrat Bobby Rush claimed that “60 to 80 percent of new mothers experience symptoms of postpartum depression while the more serious condition, postpartum psychosis, affects up to 20 percent of women who have recently given birth.” In response to a House vote to pass the legislation on the same day, Rush said: “H. R. 20 will finally put significant money and attention into research, screening, treatment and education for mothers suffering from this disease.”

The bill was moved to the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee on March 30 where it will be “marked up” in the near future. The legislation is backed by the U.S. Senate H.E.L.P. committee, chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy, and supported by president Obama.

Evelyn Pringle, a columnist for Scoop Independent News, writes that the “true goal of the promoters of this Act is to transform women of child bearing age into life-long consumers of psychiatric treatment by screening women for a whole list of ‘mood’ and ‘anxiety’ disorders and not simply postpartum depression.” In short, the medical industry and Big Pharma want to deem pregnancy a mental illness and prescribe dangerous psychotropic drugs.

“The Mothers 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). 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,” writes Byron Richards for NewsWithViews.

[efoods]The act would mandate health care professionals indoctrinate pregnant women into mental health treatment “options” (prescribe dangerous drugs) for mild depression-like symptoms experienced during or following pregnancy.

“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,” Richards wrote last month.

The following members of Congress are on Kennedy’s H.E.L.P. committee:

Lisa Murkowski, AK (R) 202-224-6665
John McCain, (AZ) (R) 202-224-2235
Christopher Dodd (CT) (D) 202-224-2823
Johnny Isakson (GA) (R) 202-224-3643
Tom Harkin (IA) (D) 202-224-3254
Pat Roberts (KS) (R) 202-224-4774
Edward Kennedy (MA) (D) 202-224-4543
Barbara Mikulski (MD) (D) 202-224-4654
Richard Burr (NC) (R) 202-224-3154
Kay Hagan (NC) (D) 202-224-6342
Gregg Judd (NH) (R) 202-224-3324
Jeff Bingaman (NM) (D) 202-224-5521
Sherrod Brown (OH) (D) 202-224-2315
Tom Coburn (OK) (R) 202-224-5754
Jeff Merkley (OR) (D) 202-224-3753
Bob Casey (PA) (D) 202-224 6324
Jack Reed (RI) (D) 202-224-4642
Alexander Lamar (TN) (R) 202-224-4944
Orrin Hatch (UT) (R) 202-224-5251
Bernard Sanders (VT) (I) 202-224-5141
Patty Murray (WA) (D) 202-224-2621
Michael Enzi (WY) (R) 202-224-3424

Call and let them know pregnancy is not a mental illness and America’s mothers are not to be considered lifelong “customers” for Big Pharma.

This article was posted: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 at 10:22 am

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