Who funds Signs of Suicide? Many of the same drug companies who directly or indirectly fund TeenScreen.

A tremendous and continuing amount of research has been done regarding pharmaceutical company involvement in the funding of mental health screening programs. To make these connections simple and easy to see, a diagram has been created that shows how drug companies and other benefactors have been pumping money into these programs for years, and how the testing materials for both Signs of Suicide and TeenScreen originate with the Psychiatric Department of Columbia University. We are now currently investigating how Columbia University benefits from these materials, and what connections the university may have with the drug companies.

Drug companies have a vested interest in Signs of Suicide, TeenScreen and similar "mental health testing" groups. It's all in the marketing. Screening introduces a new market for the drug companies. The more people these groups test, the more customers become life-long users of their drug products, which means billions of dollars in profits for the drug companies. The basic purpose of drug companies is to formulate, create and sell drugs. People who are diagnosed with "mental problems" become customers when they are referred by the testing groups into the mental health system. That these drugs have so many adverse side-effects, including violence, suicidal ideation and death doesn't seem to be part of the equation in the eyes of the drug companies or their shareholders.