[PUBCIT_PRESS] Public Citizen press release

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Public Citizen issued the following two press releases, Nov. 19

1. Serious Mental Illnesses Fall Through Cracks at Federal Research
Agency, New Report Finds
2. Government Blackout Report Misses the Root Cause: Deregulation

Serious Mental Illnesses Fall Through Cracks at Federal Research
Agency, New Report Finds

National Institute of Mental Health Fails to Adequately Fund Research
Into Serious Mental Illnesses, Despite Severe Economic, Societal Costs

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
continues to underfund scientific research into serious mental
illnesses, in spite of the illnesses' enormous economic and societal
costs, according to a report released today by the Treatment Advocacy
Center and Public Citizen. NIMH has allocated funds to research
irrelevant to its core mission, leaving serious mental illnesses grossly
underfunded compared to other diseases.

>From 1997 to 2002, the period covered by the report, the NIMH budget
doubled from $661 million to $1.3 billion. However, the proportion of
money spent on research of serious mental illnesses - defined as
schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, and severe forms of depression,
panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder - fell by 11 percent,
to only 28.5 percent of its budget.

It is estimated that 11.6 million adults in the United States have
serious mental illnesses, imposing significant economic and social
costs. At any given time, there are approximately 250,000 people
homeless or incarcerated who suffer from a serious mental illness.
Individuals with a serious mental illness account for 58 percent of
total direct costs for all mental illnesses, an amount that includes $40
billion spent under federal programs such as Medicare. However, only 5.8
percent of the NIMH budget funds "clinically relevant" studies - those
that are reasonably likely to improve the treatment and quality of life
for individuals presently affected.

"By not funding research on serious mental illnesses, NIMH isn't simply
hurting scientists, it's blocking research that could improve the lives
of millions of the most vulnerable Americans," said E. Fuller Torrey,
M.D., report lead author and president of the Treatment Advocacy
Center's board. "NIMH's refusal to do an adequate amount of research on
serious mental illnesses is a federal disgrace and a personal tragedy
for individuals affected with these diseases."

NIMH has rejected many valid research proposals and funded others that
appear to have no relationship to serious mental illnesses. For
example:

- NIMH rejected funding for a trial to improve the treatment of
schizophrenia but funded a study to ascertain how people in Papua New
Guinea "think about their own relationships in the real world";
- NIMH rejected funding for a study of bipolar disorder in children but
funded a study of self-esteem in college students.
- NIMH rejected funding for a study to improve the treatment of major
depression but funded a study of "sources of friendship" in elementary
school students;
- NIMH rejected funding for a study of the causes of postpartum
depression but funded a study of the hearing mechanism of crickets;
- NIMH rejected funding for a study of medication noncompliance in
individuals with serious mental illnesses but funded a study of social
communication among electric fish;
- NIMH rejected funding for research on means of supporting patients
being released from psychiatric hospitals but funded a study of
preschool children's understanding of love;
- NIMH rejected funding for research on measuring lithium in the brain
but funded a study of how people in Czechoslovakia cope with social
change.

In each of the preceding examples, the projects that were rejected
would have cost approximately the same amount as those proposed.

Research projects that the Institute chose to fund may be necessary and
valid, the report's authors said, but they should not come at the
expense of NIMH's commitment to studying serious mental illnesses. Many
other federal institutions, ranging from the National Science Foundation
(NSF) and the National Cancer Institute to the U.S. Department of
Transportation should be funding research currently paid for by NIMH.

"The enormous increase in NIMH's budget could have been used to advance
research and improve the lives of millions of people who have serious
mental illnesses or whose family and friends do," said Sidney Wolfe,
M.D., report co-author and director of Public Citizen's Health Research
Group. "NIMH's failure to 'stick to its knitting' is unacceptable."

Added Mary Zdanowicz, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy
Center, "It is nothing less than a national tragedy to misallocate
public research dollars that should be used to offer hope of better
treatment and possibly a cure for severe mental illnesses like
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder."

The report's authors urged Congress to hold hearings and mandate the
percentage of the NIMH budget that is devoted to research on serious
mental illnesses. They also called for better coordination among the
various parts of the National Institutes of Health and the NSF so that
research is funded by the appropriate institutes and NIMH strengthens
its focus on serious psychiatric disorders.

This report is the third in a series of reports monitoring NIMH's
research. To view the report on the Web, go to www.psychlaws.org or
http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7292.

###

The Treatment Advocacy Center is a national nonprofit organization
working to eliminate barriers to timely treatment of severe mental
illness. For more information, please visit www.psychlaws.org. Public
Citizen is a national nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in
Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org.

*******************************************************************
Government Blackout Report Misses the Root Cause: Deregulation

Statement of Joan Claybrook, President of Public Citizen

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) report on the August blackout
identifies some of the events that led to the power failure but fails to
acknowledge the underlying cause: deregulation. Over the past decade,
partial repeals of the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA)
encouraged the construction of hundreds of unregulated power plants that
have no obligation to prioritize system reliability over profit. These
new unregulated power plants undermine the cooperative model of
localized, monopoly utilities that worked with one another to ensure
their legal obligation to serve all consumers affordably and reliably
 a model that existed for a century.

The August blackout was caused not by inadequate transmission line
capacity but by poor management of power across plentiful lines - a
problem associated with deregulation.  But the pending energy bill
endorsed by the White House ignores the failures of these deregulation
policies.  Instead, the bill accelerates deregulation by repealing PUHCA
(a consumer protection act that prohibits utility holding companies from
investing ratepayer money in areas that will not directly contribute to
low bills and reliable service); allows owners of transmission lines to
charge consumers more for the privilege of having a monopoly; overturns
a nearly century-old policy of leaving the siting of new transmission
lines up to state and local governments; and endorses the concept of
Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs), which will limit the ability
of states and local governments to ensure reliability.

Contrary to public statements made by the Bush administration and some
members of Congress, enactment of RTOs would worsen reliability
standards. Under RTOs, utilities would have to turn over all
transmission to an independent transmission corporation, and state
regulators would lose their ability to protect consumers. Utilities with
obligations to serve households would be forced to compete for access to
transmission lines with power marketers seeking to move electricity over
long distances in pursuit of higher profits.

The DOE report notes that areas affected by the blackout were connected
by transmission lines that had plenty of excess capacity.  But the Bush
administration and U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) claim that the energy
bill will be a great "jobs" program because it provides huge new
financial and regulatory incentives to build billions of dollars in new
transmission lines and power plants. Those incentives have nothing to do
with enhancing reliability but everything to do with subsidizing the
power marketer-driven model of deregulation.

Only one section of the 1,400-page energy bill effectively addresses
some of the root causes of the August power blackouts that affected the
Midwest and Northeast.  Section 1211 establishes electric reliability
organizations that enforce reliability standards that are overseen by
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. These standards would develop
the equivalent of improved communication standards between major
participants (operators of power plants, transmission lines, etc.).
These enforceable standards would go a long way to address the
communication breakdown that the DOE report identified between
FirstEnergy Corp. and the independent operators of the power grid.
However, this provision should be passed separately from the energy
bill, which is laden with corporate giveaways and does little to advance
the use of renewable energy or ensure energy conservation.

Much needs to be done to ensure another blackout of such a great
magnitude doesn't occur. However, the DOE's analysis is inadequate, and
the underlying cause of August's blackout deserves much more scrutiny.
###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization
based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit
www.citizen.org.

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