DEL.ICIO.USMENTAL HEALTH REPORT
Gov.'s commission copied others' materialThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/11/08
A "new vision" outlined for mental health care in Georgia last week isn't so new after all.
Large sections of a report by Gov. Sonny Perdue's mental health commission were lifted, often verbatim, from a Michigan study published in 2004 and from two other sources, a review by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found. The commission's report, released last week by the governor's office, credits none of the cloned material.
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The report presents as its own work entire sentences, paragraphs and longer passages from other sources, with no more than superficial editing. It duplicates, with only two minor changes in wording, the "values" listed in the Michigan study. Seven of Georgia's eight "key findings" mirror Michigan's. Even Georgia's vision statement is appropriated from the Michigan report.
Michigan's "new vision," 2004: "For our children and adults, from Northern to Southern Michigan, the mental health system needs to be reinvigorated and reinvested in."
Georgia's, 2008: "For our children and adults, within Georgia, the mental health system needs to be reinvigorated and reinvested."
Perdue created the Mental Health Service Delivery Commission last year after the Journal-Constitution revealed dangerous conditions in the state hospitals. The newspaper's investigation found at least 136 suspicious deaths and almost 200 confirmed cases of patient abuse since 2002.
The articles also prompted an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. That agency recently sent Perdue a letter demanding immediate reforms at the state hospital in Atlanta, where it said dangerous conditions have left patients vulnerable to injury, illness and death.
The governor's office received the Justice Department letter May 30. Perdue's aides didn't release the letter until June 2 — minutes after announcing the commission had issued its report.
The pilfered sections of the report diminish eight months of work by the commission, suggesting a study process that lacked sufficient rigor. Even much of what appears to be original work contains the vaguest of ideas. For example, the commission suggested more spending on community-based mental health services, but did not say how much money is needed or where it could come from.
The Journal-Constitution discovered the extensive copying after an unidentified e-mailer alerted reporters to possible plagiarism. The newspaper also found passages were taken from publications by the American Psychiatric Association and the University of Texas.
Officials said an employee of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, which operates the seven state psychiatric hospitals, wrote the copied sections. The woman recently left the agency for reasons unrelated to the report, spokeswoman Dena Smith said. The woman could not be reached Tuesday at her numbers published in telephone directories.
Commission members had no idea their report borrowed from other documents, said the panel's chairman, Abel Ortiz, a consultant who formerly was Perdue's chief health care adviser.
"The reason it didn't catch our eyes was this all generalizes from state to state," Ortiz said. "It's stuff we've heard of and we knew about.
"It's very unfortunate it happened," he added. "But I don't want it to detract from the fact that the commission did get into these issues."
The commission's 16 members included state legislators, a judge, a psychiatrist, a sheriff, advocates for people with mental illness and the state human resources commissioner. The group met eight times between October and May.
Several commission members declined to comment on the newspaper's findings or could not be reached Tuesday. One member, Dougherty County Superior Court Judge Stephen Goss, said a set of recommendations within the report accurately reflected work by a subcommittee he served on.
Another member, Dr. Charles Nemeroff, chairman of psychiatry at Emory University School of Medicine, said: "There is nothing wrong with using material another state has used. But certainly you should give credit for it. It should be cited."
The similarities between the Georgia and Michigan reports are rhetorical and substantive, as well as stylistic.
For instance, both documents assert: "Too often, people must be in crisis to receive mental health care." Both also say: "There is inappropriate use of the juvenile and criminal justice systems for people with mental illness and emotional disturbance."
A section summarizing public testimony to the Georgia commission varied only slightly from the Michigan text.
"Many people reported that there should be a broader array of supportive and hospital services in the community to serve people from early childhood through adulthood," the Georgia report says.
"Many people reported that there is not a continuum of supportive services in the community, continuing from early childhood through adulthood," Michigan's document says.
Other portions seem to have been copied and pasted from one document to the other. The list of values for Georgia's mental health system is presented in boldfaced italic type — exactly as it appeared in the Michigan report.
The copying was clumsier in some sections.
The Georgia document repeats language from Michigan saying the commission had provided "a detailed overview" of the mental health system "in Appendix E of this report." But unlike Michigan's, Georgia's report contains no Appendix E.
One complete section in the Georgia commission's report — an essay titled "What Is Mental Illness" — contained no original work, the Journal-Constitution found.
By typing phrases and passages from the essay into Google, the Internet search engine, the newspaper determined that every sentence of the essay was taken either from a psychiatric association document, published in 2005, or a 2006 report by the University of Texas' Houston-area psychiatric center.
The report owes its greatest debt, however, to Michigan. Officials there had no idea their work had been reconstructed in Georgia. Though not angry with Georgia, they weren't exactly flattered by the imitation, either.
Irene Kazieczko, Michigan's director of community mental health services, said she had never seen one state plagiarize another.
"Usually," she said, "a state report reflects the unique characteristics of the state."
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More on ajc.com
- An unhealthy spate of cribbing (06/17/2008)
- OUR OPINIONS: An unhealthy spate of cribbing (06/17/2008)
- MENTAL HEALTH REPORT: Findings copy others' material (06/11/2008)
- Ga. juries rarely buy insanity (09/28/2008)
- Georgia juries rarely buy insanity plean (09/27/2008)
- Privatizing mental care (09/21/2008)
- Unclear results of privatizing mental health (09/20/2008)
- Georgia health company buys SummitRidge (09/10/2008)
- Changes can't occur without cash (09/02/2008)
- Mental health services must get more money (09/02/2008)
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Comments
By alizia
Jul 17, 2008 2:56 AM | Link to this
While reading this wonderful article I faced many shocks on many levels. Just like Why Abel Ortiz involved with this?
_______________________________________
alizia
http://www.addictionrecovery.net/michigan
By alizia
Jul 17, 2008 2:54 AM | Link to this
While reading this wonderful article I faced many shocks on many levels. Just like Why Abel Ortiz involved with this?
________________________________________
alizia
Addiction Recovery Michigan
By Lois
Jun 30, 2008 11:13 PM | Link to this
It's not enough to ask for an apology. How about restitution, accountability and punishment for this blatant misinformation. When people try to take credit for anothers work i.e.(plagarism) it is a cronic act of ineptitude of major proportion. I only came across this information while investigating getting a degree in psychology to try to be of some help to someone. How can you make a difference in the lives of others if the very people we look to for information on how to make the state opperate more efficiently are just too lazy to research and inform without copying. Apathy is contagious, all the way up to the Governor. Shame on them all! This information is enough to make us all MENTALLY ILL! When will the abuse ever end?
By Georgia Nurse
Jun 15, 2008 11:38 AM | Link to this
Having worked in mental health in the metro area for the past decade, when I first heard of the commission, I was encouraged and looking forward to the report and recommendations.
How foolish of me.
This is so disheartening.
By Herrmann Wiggleschnortte
Jun 12, 2008 5:11 PM | Link to this
Dr. Nemeroff's statement, "There is nothing wrong with using material another state has used. But certainly you should give credit for it. It should be cited," is absolutely incredible.
As the leading academic officer of Emory University's School of Medicine Psychiatry Department, he certainly SHOULD be aware of basic academic standards.
Even most high school teachers have a better grasp of the issue than the good doctor appears to have.
This report is supposed to be record of a process and a work product. Since it has obviously been plagiarized, what work did this committee actually do?... READ the Michigan and University of Texas reports?
Who, exactly, vetted this team, this work process and who approved the work product? These people should be prosecuted for theft of intellectual property and for fraud perpetrated upon the people of Georgia.
Another very serious question that arises is if this is the work of Emory's psychiatry chairman, the supposed cream of the crop, what in thunderation will his student's produce besides more plagiarized book reports? I surely would not want to be holding a psychiatry degree from Emory and applying for a job right now...
By MM Dial
Jun 12, 2008 3:15 PM | Link to this
This is another embarrassment to all of us in the mental health field.We take our responsibilities seriously and work hard for Georgia's Children. Mr. Perdue and Ms. BJ Walker ,an apology needs to be made and appropriate corrections made. I thought we were "looking up" in helping the mentally ill.
By Valerie
Jun 12, 2008 11:49 AM | Link to this
I am deeply saddened that we are again being given the run around. We (the families & consumers and taxpaying citizens) deserve better. I feel the testimony I gave at the commission meeting meant nothing. This is a sad day for Georgia indeed.
By jJulie Spores
Jun 11, 2008 10:44 PM | Link to this
As s member of the Governor's Commission on Mental Health and a consumer on the commission I am disheartened by this very much. Copying soneone else's work is really unacceptable. An apology to the consumers of Georgia as well as tax payers seems only fit here.
I believe that the the work has true meaning for consumers and tax payers alike. The major issue is funding. We have created some excellant goals and outcome measures. However, implementing this depends on funding. You can look at this in a couple of ways.
1. Fund mental health to repair of the hospitals and community services.
2. If you don't, then tax payers will pay more for people who don't belong in prisons and placed in long term or repested hospitlizations situation because of inadequate community based services.
3. Children as well as adults are worth saving and can become productive members of society. One
example is the 400 plus adult
consumers that are recognized nationally with the Georgia Certified Peer Specialist program.
I don't know what has to happen to convince the powers that be to fix the system. I have been working in this field for 20 years and it is a disgrace to think that human beings are threating other human beings so inhumainly.
Bashing others or using fighting words is not my style. However, I can see how others are so angry they want to fight. After reading 32 pages of the Federal Government's report, I had to stop. I felt like the State has regressed to the 1940's and it's treatment of people with mental illness.
Recovery is possible with the right treatment and resources. I, along with thousand of others are living proof. I sincerely hope that funding mental health becomes a priority before the cost in lives of children and adults rises even further.
Respectfully,
Julie Spores, RN
President Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network
Currently serving on the Governor's Commission for Mental Health
By Annie Clarke
Jun 11, 2008 7:20 PM | Link to this
Recently I retired from DHR with 34 years of service. I did not work with the Division of MHDDAD, but I find it regrettable that the general public impression of state employees is that of "inept bureaucrat[s]" and those afflicted with "laziness and unwillingness to learn." Nothing could be further from the truth about my colleagues over the years.
Aside from the Governor's "commission" charged with studying the state's mental health services, and that commission's performance, perhaps it would be instructive to look into what has been happening over the last few years at DHR.
The tax-paying public would be interested to know of the major growth and expansion of the DHR Commissioner's staffing and rightfully should demand to know at whose expense new positions have been funded (and at considerably more generous levels of compensation that those who truly do the work of DHR are afforded.) The operating divisions, those adminstering programs that serve the public, are feeling the pinch...their budgets are being reduced to fund the Commissioner's empire building and self-aggrandizement. At the level of the DHR Commissioner's office, this is possibly the most bloated bureaucracy one will find in state government.
How has this expansion of staffing at the Commissioner's office benefited or improved services to people needing mental health, long term care, or child welfare services?
The bottom line is that the Governor apparently has no interest in the performance of, nor exercises any control over, the Commissioner of the Department of Human Resources.
So much for his 60 percent approval rating.
Congratulations for the great investigative journalism. Keep it up.
By Not Shocked
Jun 11, 2008 4:40 PM | Link to this
When I read this article, I was shocked on so many levels. Mainly, why is Abel Ortiz involved with this? Under Sonny and him, they allowed the HMO's to enter DCH. Is this a way to allow Sonny's cronies to rake in more money under DHR? Mr. Ortiz should not have any say so in the running of the healthcare or mental health system in Georgia. We do not need another puppet doing Sonny's bidding. Mr. Ortiz, head back to Baltimore and leave this mess to someone who really cares. Quit trying to make more money for the cronies.
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