NAMI News

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) fully supports the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act of 2003. We are grateful for the leadership of Senators Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Representatives Jim Ramstad (R-MN) and Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) in seeking to end discriminatory health insurance coverage for children and adults with severe mental illnesses and their families.

As President Bush’s “New Freedom” Commission on Mental Health moves toward release of its final report in April 2003, the NLGA is seeking to rally public awareness of the need to improve the lives of people with mental illnesses.

Of the 24 states that have restricted access to medications in their Medicaid program, only ten have taken steps to protect psychotropic medications. Restrictions on access to psychotropic medications not only jeopardize consumer health, they also fail to reduce health care costs over the long run. 

Richard T. (Dick) Greer, 76, who in the 1980s helped spearhead the drive to refocus the federal government’s research efforts toward the biological basis for mental illnesses and to increase research funding and community services, died of acute leukemia on January 13, 2003 at his Arlington, Virginia home.

Today's interim report is an important first step. It defines critical problems in the nation's mental healthcare system-and confirms the fact that after three decades of broken promises, the system is worse than many people ever imagined.

It is a recurring problem that has to stop," said Rick Birkel, executive director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), which earlier this month launched a "Campaign for the Mind of America" to eliminate stigma and seek broad reforms in the nation's mental health system.

NAMI advocates throughout the nation are shocked and saddened to learn that the lives of Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN), his wife and daughter were tragically cut short today in the crash of a small plane in northern Minnesota.

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) today announced the launch of the "Campaign for the Mind of America," a multi-year effort on many fronts to promote investment in recovery-and to prevent the abandonment of yet another generation of Americans with mental illnesses to neglect and hopelessness.

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) criticized the House of Representatives' Committee on Government Reform for scheduling a hearing tomorrow on the "Overmedication of Hyperactive Children" -- late in the waning days of the legislative session -- that "will largely recycle bad science and trivializes the need for early identification and treatment of mental illnesses in children and adolescents."

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) is pleased to welcome the selection of Thomas Insel, M.D. of Emory University in Atlanta as the new Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).