obstruction of justice. former federal prosecutors, havelicans and democrats signed a statement, myself included, about 10 days ago, saying that what is set out in the mueller report is a clear and convincing case that the president obstructed justice. now, the fact that bill barr does not want to say so does not mean it is not true. 750 prosecutors who said this is clearly the case, it is not even a close case, hard for me to believe that people are going to think they are wrong. >> watch the rest of the interview with former massachusetts governor william weld this sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on c-span. "washington journal" continues. host: during a at the table now is jayne o'donnell, health policy reporter for "usa today." guest: good morning. host: america's deadly costly

problems may have no end insight. what is the situation out there right now? thet: pretty much all of public health measures are going on the wrong direction, and teen suicide is one of the most troubling. the rate is going up even faster butafrican-american teens, they are at a lower level. teens are being diagnosed more. that is not necessarily mean that there is more, but there is more of a recognition that they issue, which often leads to suicide, and there is a lack of treatment. host: you write in a piece of research from federal regulators to medical, suicide rates for raisepeople aged 10 to 19 56% from 2007 to 2016. why such a big increase? most research shows come as you might imagine, all of those parents complaining about social media were not all wrong.

is blamed for a lot of it, but it is not the only problem. it is the pressure placed on kids. there is a lot of science now behind the trauma that affects children, whether in washington, d.c. where we are, or in a more affluent area like fairfax county, divorce, parents with alcoholism, with is very common. thed a story that d.c. have highest rates of alcoholism in the country. who threw colts row, professional, or economic reasons do not want to that their kids have a problem committed turns into addictions and problems later in life. are talking with jayne o'donnell about suicide and mental health services. we will have two lines for this segment. we will do this for about 22 minutes. teens and parents, we will have

a single line for you. (202) 748-8000. everyone else, (202) 748-8001. again, jayne o'donnell, health policy reporter for "usa today." you have been doing this for many years now. one of the other figures in your piece says that only 40% of young people with major depression got treatment. how does that 40% compared with years' past, and why is that number where it is? guest: i do not know that the person has changed, but that it is a much bigger problem. one of the psychologists i spoke to from rutgers university sai there has been improvement, but it cannot keep up with the increasing problem. there is just more suicide, more beds.or inpatient i was talking with a friend on the way over here, and she was dealing with a suicidal young person just yesterday. if you go to children's hospital around here, which has many terrific services, you might set

for seven hours and weight in a room with no jewelry, no electronics, in a very dismal situation. host: do you have a sense of how much money is being spent around the country but government and other entities? many tens of billions of dollars, and it is costing many tens of billions of dollars in lost productivity. but these people are not getting help, and then they become parents. look around us. so many of our friends had late in life addiction and ended up , or big bills at the psychologist or psychiatrist. these are problems that were not being recognized when they were young, but they are being recognized now. but there are no places to go or people to treat them. host: some more facts, mental health facts, children and scenes, one in five children aged 13 to 18 have a serious mental illness. 20% of them live with a mental health condition.

11% mood disorder. 10% of youth have a behavioral conduct disorder. and 8% of youth have anxiety disorder. mi.t is from an what is anmi.org? guest: the special alliance of mental illness. host: what needs to be done? you mentioned a lot of money being spent already. do more facilities need to be open? what is the role for students and parents in all of this? guest: that is a lot for one minute, but one thing being done is doctors and pediatricians are being trained to do psychological evaluation and mental wellness checks. that is really important. homes,s a need for group they face a lot of backlash from the community.

the community over here in fairfax county, there is a lot of resistance to the kinds of group homes that young people need somewhere, after they get out of a psychiatric bed, they need to go somewhere to learn coping skills, how to live and how to go to school without feeling suicidal or deeply depressed. there needs to be more psychiatrists. there needs to be more psychologists. but really, the most important thing is for all primary care doctors to be paying attention to mental health, because until you address these kinds of problems, you will not be able to get to the physical health problems that they're going to cause. host: of course we're talking about the people involved, but there is a lot of money, as our guest talked about, involved. suicide and zoos that intense the nation $70 billion a year. -- suicide and suicide attempts cost the nation $70 billion. serious mental illness cost $195

billion in lost earnings. and prescription opioid abuse cost $80 billion a year, not including other drugs and alcohol. that is a lot of money. guest: it really is. in a lot of areas, it is hard to find clean, silver workers. yesterday youned can become a state trooper as long as you do not have a drug conviction within three years. really changeg to their qualifications and standards, because so many people are self medicating. calls.et's get to our sam is calling from nashville, tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. i successfully failed three suicide attempts, so i have some history, age of 13 to 25, approximately. i would like to add that there is a mind-body connection, that it is not only alcohol, but seven or eight out of 10 people are on drugs that are prescribed, so let's look at our

diet, let's look at our drugs, let's look at alternative health. let's look at the mine-body connection. and returning to what you eat, if you have diseased soil, if you have drug dependent soil, which we have, thanks to fertilizers, you end up with drug-dependent people. thank you. host: sam, how old are you now? caller: fortunately, 55. host: what brought you to that point when you were in your teens and late teens there? caller: some chemistry, streams, b-.od type, a b/ factors, were cultural positive versus negative, adopted, overachiever. a lot go through the crack. we do not find out until it is too late because they are good

cover uppers. stay away from drugs, look at food, sleep. alternative medicine needs to be integrated. there are certainly alternatives, and by no means and not suggesting that everybody or even most people would need medication, but there is some really terrific new there these that are out there that are talked about a lot. we have aentioned facebook group called "i survived it" that is quite popular where people are talking about cbt, which is cognitive behavioral therapy. there is another therapy called emdr, witches on movement. a behavioral therapy. a large their fees with their trauma that do not necessarily require medications.

toe are young, but they tend be people who had promised him a suicide attempts, when they were young, and they were not addressed. ,ost: colleen from cleveland you are on with our guest, jayne o'donnell, from "usa today." caller: i do not understand why people cannot figure this out. family.e breakup of the you do not have families anymore. neighborhoods are going. this is where children learn self worth. there is nobody home. to die,hild is bullying at 17, 18, that the last thing you want to do is die. host: we understand the point. oest: i understan agree with ae her points, certainly the breakdown of the family. with a project, and young girls want to talk about a lack of a father in their life. that is the thing that bothers

them the most. i am personally not a religious person, but the churches lost a lot of this. it was bringing people together a lot more. we have friends on facebook, and friends do not hav in the neighborhood, and it is a problem. nbc news and from msnbc, they get a survey, which of the following contribute the most to mental health issues in children? social media at 29%, bullying close by at 25%. speak to those, if you could. guest: the loneliness aspect of social media, the fear of missing out, has been talked about, but it almost cannot be talked about enough. young people are staring at instagram all the time. it is what they look like, it is who has got more friends. they are also crying out about being depressed. there are a lot of young people and it was that are saying they

are suicidal, saying they are deeply depressed, they do not want to go on, but so many of them are saying it, that nobody is doing anything about it. you would not know where to begin, at least in these friends groups. but goodness knows, it is not solving the problem. but there are places like our facebook group and other facebook groups that can be a community support, particularly if you meet outside of the group as well. host: let's hear from joel in idaho. good morning. caller: good morning. a couple of points. we have raised a whole andration on ritalin, ritalin is one of the antidepressants that has certain negative effect on the brain, the amygdala. you had an offer on your marsh,, abigail whitemarsvan that wrote a book about brain

chemistry. these high schools, there is very little interaction. you can go and watch them, and there is no conversation. they are sitting on social media. the first thing i would do as a teacher is i would take away all of their iphones when they walk in the door and say ok, you can have them when you leave. the other point i would like to make is there seems to be very , and i ameement talking about the american psychiatric association, very little agreement on actually what constitutes mental illness. i mean, does depression? is bipolar? you know, there is little agreement on how to treat some of those areas. anyway. host: thank you, joel. guest: good points. i do know schools, certainly what i work with in washington,

d.c., they take away cell phones, and when my daughter goes to school, she is not supposed to be on her phone. certainly clinical digression is a diagnosis. that is treatable. being depressed, we all get depressed, but being depressed and certified is a diagnosis, as is bipolar, ptsd, anxiety. as far as ritalin being an and antidepres it speaks kids up as well. there are a lot of kids who are on it, and a lock me to be, but some probably do not. host: douglas from laramie, wyoming. caller: good morning. would like to ask what rule, influence, academic pressures have on suicide rates or mental health problems in teens. i was in high school and junior i had so much

homework i could never finish it. the academic pressures were almost unbearable to me. and i am wondering what influences such pressures might have on other people. host: thank you. academic pressure. guest: that came up in a survey of parents, it came up lower than i thought, but you are also that probably did not want to acknowledge the pressure they are putting on. i've seen that come up in areas, in an affluent area, there is the pressure to get into princeton. and some of the more urban communities, there's a lot of pressure on some of these magnet schools that are under a lot of pressure, they want to be the top school, and they are starting to put take a lot of the fun out of school. physical education coming out of the schools and the pressure to

pass all of these tests and do well on these tests i believe is a big part of it, and parents, the admissions scandal is a good example of how ridiculous it can get. host: so do schools understand that more than maybe that used to? and what else are schools doing to alleviate that? guest: one thing is called trauma-informed schools. in the suburbs around here, you have dogs coming in at finals time. times forifferent schools, kids that might have accommodations so that they can take an exam separately if they have anxiety, but you do see a lot more of that happening, but not nearly happening enough. the whole movement is not keeping up with the level of trauma. host: here is a picture of tj ss on the left here with sister mirandae. what is the story there?

guest: that was a young man that my colleague at the wall street journal sentinel, she withd on a pbs documentary a lot of young people, including tj, about a lot of challenges they and their friends are facing. he was a lucky one, because his parents were supportive. another came from foster care, another who was bullied and was autistic and may fun of at school, all had a difficult time. fortunately, they ended up in a good place. but he had a supportive home. a lot of people do not know. host: david, good morning. caller: good morning. loss of the nuclear family and the secularization of this country and the deviation from god defining a gender-specific species, our deviation from that

is confusing the minds of young people, and they do not know what to do with it. you are not going to a better place when you commit suicide. you are not availing yourself of a better situation, because you exponentially increase the amount of suffering. you will suffer for maternity if you do not have god in your life, and committing suicide will make the things that are afraid of nothing like a hangnail. guest: these are often not well thought out decisions. my opinioning to get on anything he said, but certainly as i mentioned earlier, the breakup of the family, and divorce is very dramatic. -- traumatic. when you look at someone who is arrested for serial killing or something like that, a lot is that often dates back to windows -- when a through a

child went through a divorce, and the role of the church has certainly declined a lot. potentials more about solutions. our guest, jayne o'donnell, earlier talked about treating pediatricians. we are also talking about remote psychiatric consultations and nonprofit serving. speak about those, too, remote psychiatric consultations. guest: those are helpful in rural communities. in washington, d.c., we have the most alcohol deaths, and we have issues in the country, but there is a shortage. to have a primary care doctor or a pediatrician be able to consult with a psychiatrist through video, with video typically, even if it was a phone consultation, that a young person's problem can really help. it is not like you have to necessarily see the throat, although that can become a telemedicine sometimes, too.

so that is often a solution, and many programs are popping up, training young people and others who jumped in and help if someone is having a crisis. the: have you noticed how federal government is handling this issue, or state governments? is there more legislation out there, more money, creativity? what is coming from government? guest: welcome of the federal government, they just had a big meeting a couple of weeks ago at hhs, the substance abuse and mental health services administration, they had a great meeting. they are very much behind the idea of training our pediatricians. one of the interesting things about state governments, it gets into scope of practice. that becomes interesting. medical lobbies are very powerful in many states, and they can keep other people, like nurse practitioners, for example, getting into mental health. so every different feel has their own lobby, and they might

resist having others get into their field, but certainly the more social workers, the more therapists, the more psychologists, the more psychiatrists we have, the better, but there is not much the government can do about making these people become those practices. host: all right, let's get some more calls and as we wrap up. judith in austin, texas, thank you for waiting. caller: oh, yes, she was talking earlier about group home spirit i am 1 72, so it was a whole different game. andother was an alcoholic, he sent me to an orphanage. it was the bonding with the other children, it was having the association with a fellow comrade. it is so important. and also, we played baseball every day. so it does help with the mental stress of being where we were. guest: you do not hear about orphanages much anymore.

i have spoken to the folks at the milton hershey school of in hershey, pennsylvania. two points on that, yes, the young people do develop more of a community, many of them are there throughout the year. and also on the note of mental health, so many of them are struggling because both of the parents are addictive, and they had issues early in life that were not addressed. that, and maybe there is a role for bringing back more of this kind of group home concept for young people that last for a well. host: let's go to randy in tallahassee, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i have worked in education and mental health for a longm, long time. school guidance counselor, and now i am a licensed mental health counselor. in a broader sense, what i have noticed over the years as kids, students do not have adults they feel comfortable talking to, so when we are talking about the frontlines, i am not talking

about there will never be enough aunselors, they may find teacher they can talk to, but by and large, in high school, for example, where the rubber hits the road, kids do not continually have adults that they feel comfortable they can share as a frontline. second of all, there are things that could be done at the school level that cannot even really cost that much, and then finally, on a prevention note, this was back in the 1970's, is peer counseling session where he trained high school students to listen to their peers. chance tonts got a talk and share, as the woman from the groupon was talking about, they are pretty resilient, and they can figure out that these opportunities are not given to them given the current situations that they are in. guest: that is important, it is becoming popular. i mentioned a group called strengthen our voices in my fees

that is going around and teaching young people to be peer supports in the schools in the washington, d.c. area. i believe it has lesions around the country. but yes, parents need to be better educated, better aware, and more open to hearing about their children's problems. and we have to get over this resistance to use or child is going to go t princeton, or-- mental health and addiction are diseases. legislation says that we are supposed to be treating them as diseases and we have to be willing to talk to her children. host: are gasset is jane o'donnell, a health policy reporter for usa today. here's a piece, journal,"washington with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up, we will discuss

campaign 2020's political dynamics in pennsylvania, ohio, florida, and wisconsin, and then the executive director of -- discussing the organizations mission, and why this year's rally will be the last in the washington, d.c. area. advisorormal trump discusses the president's trip to asia and u.s.-china trade policy. be sure to watch "washington journal" live sunday morning. join the discussion. announcer: join c-span sunday at noon for live coverage of the final rolling under: ride for freedom, where motorcyclists ride from the pentagon to the lincoln memorial. a live coverage of the keynote speech. rolling thunder is right for freedom, live sunday at noon eastern on c-span, online at

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