mental health side and the addiction. so not only do i work with the addiction side but also with nami, mental health association, etc. and we'll be talking a little bit more about the system's framework in some of the other panels, but thomasina i want to get back to the whole issue of really what are the costs to society for individuals that need treatment and don't get the help? i mean, it's huge. a large part of our homeless population either have mental illness or substance abuse or both, a huge part. and that is a very tragic thing. their health problems are greater. the financial costs are greater. the health problems of particularly like the people with co-occurring disorders, they live a shorter length of time; they have other kinds of chronic conditions. okay. on and on, the family, i mean, we could go on and on about the family consequences, the broken families that can be healed together by recovery. right. and keith, there's also some workplace issues, tremendous workplace issues, correct? oh absolutely. i mean it's one of the most common reasons for absenteeism on the job is substance use or mental healt

criminal justice advisory board of the penn valley community college in kansas city, the mental health association of the heartland. i believe his experience makes him a highly qualified judicial nominee and he will serve the american people well in this job, and i am supportive of him, mr. president. and, mr. president, i have a statement on another matter that i also mentioned to my friend from vermont that i would make while i was here, and i'd ask that it appear separately in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blunt: i want to talk just a few moments about chuck colson, who was a friend of mids and founder of prison fellowship. he died on saturday at 80. before he was 40, he was counselor to the president of the united states, richard nixon. at about that same time, about the time he was 40, he pled guilty to offenses related to the daniel elsberg break-in. and when he did that, i'm told that even though his lawyers advised him not to plead guilty, he said that pleading guilty wae price i had to pay to complete the shedding of my old life to be free to live the new life.

i think in general, the stigma associated with mental health is decreasing slowly in this country. >>are some of the quirks that parents should look for? some that people might think are just normal, but might be a reason for them to go get some help. >> so one would be if your child makes very poor eye contact. if they show very little empathy, they're not tuned into you as a person, you bang your knee, they don't seem to care that you're crying or really upset or hurt. they have a hard time carrying on a back-and-forth conversation. they get stuck on an idea and they talk about it over and over again. they have a hard time maybe a delay in language development. they're just really stuck on routines and rituals and any change in routine or ritual can throw them off. these are just some of the earl will i indicators. >> a lot of these kids can be very intelligent and show those signs of intelligence in other ways, isn't that right? >> so kids, some kids with autism are severely impaired and they have mental retardation and others can have superior intelligence. it runs the spectrum. t

mental health services administration, u.s. department of health and human services, rockville, maryland. john de miranda, executive director, national association on alcohol, drugs and disability inc. and president and chief executive officer, stepping stone of san diego, san diego, california. dr. barbara l. kornblau, j.d., disabilities attorney and professor, school of health professions and studies, university of michigan-flint, flint, michigan. ed hammett, consumer advocate, marbury, maryland. dr. clark, how many people in the united states have a disability? that number is not exactly clear, but we estimate roughly 53 million people have a disability, and it may be larger because, again, it turns on new classification schema. but at least 53 million. john, how do we define a disability? well, a disability is really kind of a legal and an administrative term. and in some quarters you might be considered disabled, but by another jurisdiction you might not be considered disabled. but i use the term, often, physical sensory, cognitive, and developmental disability to really clarify what we're talking about. so, barbara, in terms of a real sens

mental health integration into our primary care, in order to ensure in the primary care settings that we are assessing mental health needs of our nation's veterans and also be able to address the stigma that's often associated with this that can be discussed in a primary care setting. second point i would like to make as announced by secretary shinseke said last week, we are increasing staff to increase both the access of menl health care, by hiring 1,900 additional staff, more than 1,600 are actual clinicians. we have 25,000 mental health employees in our system. and it's also a design to increase our staffing of our crisis line, which is so integral to the identification and treatment of people who are in crisis, as ranking member brown spoke of so eloquently. and it's also an important aspect of increase in that we will be adding additional examiners for compensation and pension examinations. that's an important transition from active duty to veteran's status for those who are currently on active duty and for those who present with new conditions, we have a solemn responsibility to ensure that we increase our staff to ensure that we can handle this volume in a timely fashion and that we can do this in a

violence is to mental health what tobacco is to physical health and the children's exposure to violence is the single most preventable cause of mental illness. we know that there is an association between the number of dramatic stressors that children are exposed to, and the likelihood that the child will develop two or more psychiatric disorders, and the more types of violence and chronic exposure to violence, the more complicated these psychiatric pictures are, and the more difficult it is to treat these children, and the less equipped we are because often, these children are seen in different systems, and across the nation, the system still needs work in preschools, in substance abuse, in juvenile dependency, in the pediatrics system. the reason that violence is a virus is that it causes,, and, lives in the body, and it is a biological stamp that the child carries. we talk about the body remembering. this is a slide that has been disseminated by the center for disease control in atlanta showing a 3-year-old. these are two slides side-by- side. the slide on the right shows the brain of a three year-old who has been exposed to severe and repeated cumulative trauma. we find tha

mental health. we feel that the patient who actually has a traumatic event and has some sort of substance abuse associated with it, be it alcohol or some drugs, because they usually have a polysubstance abuse patient. we often find that they aren't just drugging because they want to, but they are usually drugging to a problem. and that problem may be a mental disorder as their underlying problem, whether it be depression or otherwise. so the mixture of the two, trauma, depression, mental health, are very intertwined. fran, i am going back to you. is there a difference between the level in the statistics between mental health and addiction issues? yeah, around mental health we have approximately 9.8 million adults-and we classify that as 18 years and older-that have a severe mental illness. and we have approximately... our studies are showing us that approximately 2 million young people between the ages of 12 and 17 have also been diagnosed with a major depressive episode. compare that to a statistic for substance abuse for instance; 5,000 deaths occur in substance abuse with young people, ages 12 to 25, w

mental health center, resident in psychiatrist, three years. u.s. army, pentagon major, two years. faculty appointments, harvard medical sister, assistant professor, four years. george washington medical school, associate medical professor, georgetown medical school psychiatry, 20 years and currently medical answers,medicy television program, host 8 years and currently. author, 36 articles, four monographs and 204 pfessional prestations on alt attenon deficit disorder, depression, post traumatic stress disorder, psychopharmacology. hobbies, acting, singing, power walking. brian bowls doyle. >> on the words psychopharmacology, you say, ariel, the psycho pharmacologist is the new drug dealer, like a park avenue drug dealer. is that how people look upon psychopharmacology? >> that's what one of my sources said to me. that'sow she views it. i think that's how some people -- they've taken their attitude that they would have had once towards street drugs and transferred it on to prescription pills. >> you mean, they were taking marijuana in high school and then graduated to coke in college, and now they're into park avenue drugs, and they have a psychiatrist so they have a psycho pharmacologist? >> the girl

mental health integration into our primary care to make sure that in primary care settings we are assessing the mental health needs of our nation's veterans and be able to address the statement often associated with this the can be discussed in a primary care setting. the second point would like to make it was announced by secretary sean secchi last week. we are increasing staff to enhance the access to and quality of mental health care by hiring 1900 additional staff, more than 1600 of those are mental health conditions. this will augment the current complement of mental health employees in our system. it is designed to provide additional staff in our facilities and also designed to increase the staffing of the crisis line, which it -- which is so integral to the identification and treatment of people in crisis, as the ranking member brown spoke of so eloquently. it is also an important aspect of increase in that we will be adding additional examiners for compensation and pension examinations, which is an important transition for those currently on active duty and those who present with new conditions. we have a solemn responsibility to make sure that we increase our staff to make sure that

mental health integration into our primary care in order to insure in the primary care settings that we are assessing mental health needs of our nation's veterans and also be able to address the stigma that's often associated with this. it can be discussed in a primary care setting. second point we'd like to make is announced by secretary shinseki last week. we are increasing staff to enhance both the access to and quality of mental health care by hiring 1900 additional staff, more than 1600 of those are mental health clinicians. as i mentioned, in this will augment the current complement of 20,500 mental health employees in our system and is designed to provide additional staff in our facilities, it's also designed to increase our staffing of our crisis line which is so integral to the identification and treatment of people who are in crisis as ranking member brown spoke of so eloquently. and it's also an important aspect of increase in that we will be adding additional examiners for compensation in pension examinations. that's an important transition from active duty to, um, veteran status for those who are currently on active duty and for those who present with new conditions. we have a solemn responsib