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How Many Children are POISONED and are not Mentally Ill

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I'd like to comment on Sue Carroll's question. From personal experience I can tell you that doctors and mental health clinics will and do give out anti-depressants as quickly as any medication I've ever seen, without first screening for physical problems that can lead to behavioral, anxiety, or depressive disorders. I had to beg for a comprehensive thyroid exam and for tests to determine lead or mercury toxicity. Our local health department refused to do a lead test for my daughter when we explained she was having symptoms similar to those of lead poisoning.

It is well known that lead and mercury in the system can cause personality disorders, anxiety, depression, and abnormal fear as well as problems with learning. Thyroid disorders can have an effect on serotonin levels and result in what are considered psychological disorders, and abnormal levels of thyroid hormone in the brain don't always show up in routine thyroid blood tests.

Many are exposed to lead and mercury through products used, through contamination of the environment, dental amalgams, and pesticide use. Mercury can adversely affect the thyroid gland, and some pesticides are known to particularly affect the thyroid in animals. Permethrin, which is widely used, is one pesticide now suspected of causing frog deformities by first affecting the thyroid gland. Pesticides also are all neurotoxins and so are the many so-called inert ingredients added to most pesticides.

So now we live in a society where exposure to heavy metals is almost inescapable, then on top of this insult, we continue to add the injury of pesticide use -- which is totally unnecessary. Then psychologists and psychiatrists add SSRI's (synthetic antidepressants) to this load we all struggle to detoxify, and further tie up our detoxification systems, with more man-made poison. And America wonders what's happening to the youth of today...WEll, Duh!

Susan Vaughan

In the State of Louisiana, should you become poisoned by pesticides and report it to the state department of health and agriculture department through EPA's pesticide programs, you may find yourself having your driver's license suspended because of medical reasons alleging mental illness. I should know as I'm one of those who is fighting to get my driver's license reinstated and desperately trying to obtain "just cause" from whoever gave the Office of Motor Vehicles instructions to do such.

One of the bizarre issues involved in suspending our driver's license is that the OMV holds the undisclosed report until our license expires. Then when it's time for renewal, the state insists on obtaining our authorization for release of our medical records on the pretense of finding out if we can drive safely or not, refusing at the same time to disclose whatever information they have to subtantiate the mental illness caused by pesticide or chemical poisoning.

On the flip side, the state's investigation into the pesticide poisoning will find no violations and therefore no enforcement action will be taken. In my case, I didn't even receive a health pesticide incident report from the state health department from several written complaints. However, the source of my poison is an adjoining golf course that uses heavy amounts of toxins.

I found out about the alleged report prior to my driver's license expiring and therefore did not renew. While I was making plans to leave the State of Louisiana, the OMV suspended my license anyway, an expired license. I've been trapped in the state ever since while the poisoning goes unmonitored. More than slightly scary!

Nancy Hirschfeld
Informed Choices
http://members.tripod.com/~infchoice/index.html

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