FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 24, 2003
For More Information Contact:
Dawn Shurmaitis, Lichtenstein Creative Media, Inc.
212-967-1200 (voice) 201-757-5503 (cell) Publicity@LCMedia.com

"THE INFINITE MIND” PUBLIC RADIO PROGRAM PUTS FACE TO
NATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH FUNDING CRISIS

“State of Mind: America 2003” Broadcast Features Luminaries
from Rosalynn Carter to Oscar-Nominated Singer/Songwriter Aimee Mann

[New York and Atlanta] For Immediate Release -- An exceptional line-up of mental health experts and performers will explore critical mental health issues as part of the second annual “State of Mind” broadcast, to air on the award-winning public radio series The Infinite Mind. The one-hour program, taped in front of an audience of 400 people from around the country, will emanate from The Carter Center in Atlanta, GA. The program, produced by Peabody Award-winning Lichtenstein Creative Media, will air on public radio stations across the country beginning Wednesday, May 7, 2003, for national Mental Health Month (check local listings).

The program will focus on the burgeoning national crisis in community mental health care. This urgent situation in public care for mental illness has received scant attention by national media. Already, scores of mentally ill people are being dumped into jails, hospital emergency rooms and onto streets across the country in a manner eerily reminiscent of the mass deinstitutionalization of the 1970s and 1980s. Consider: Maine just slashed $14 million in mental health services for children; Oregon ran out of funding for psychiatric medications; and Connecticut, without notice, terminated health care for 30,000 people -- including 7,000 children. The public mental health system represents half of all dollars spent on treatment, and cares for some of the most vulnerable, psychologically and medically fragile Americans. Reporter Rebecca Roberts of public radio’s The World will offer a news-breaking report on this national crisis in care. State of Mind: America 2003 will also examine mental health care among minorities, and investigate the unprecedented number of people receiving psychiatric care from general practitioners and internists.

The program will feature numerous mental health experts, including former First Lady Mrs. Rosalynn Carter; Dr. David Satcher, the 16th U.S. Surgeon General; musical performance by Academy Award-nominee and three-time Grammy nominee Aimee Mann (including “Save Me” from the movie Magnolia); and a reading by acclaimed writer Meri Nana-Ama Danquah from her moving memoir about depression, Willow Weep for Me.

Mrs. Carter, a life-long advocate for people with mental illness, will introduce the program. The nation, she warns, “is facing a crisis where states across our country are cutting mental health budget and denying much needed services to some of their most vulnerable citizens. I’m especially concerned about the effects budget cuts will have on historically underserved populations, especially children and racial and ethnic minority groups.”

Host Dr. Fred Goodwin’s notable guests will include: Dr. Benjamin Druss, Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health; Dr. Quentin Ted Smith, clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Morehouse School of Medicine; Mrs. Doris Smith, co-founder of the National Organization of People of Color Against Suicide; Dr. Thomas Bornemann, director of the Mental Health Program at The Carter Center; and Dr. David Pollack, medical director for mental health services for the Oregon Department of Human Services.

According to Bill Lichtenstein, senior executive producer of the program and president of Lichtenstein Creative Media, which produces The Infinite Mind: “This program represents the first in-depth examination of severe cutbacks in public mental health coverage occurring throughout the country, from Maine to California. Experts tell us the effects will be devastating – as serious as the closing of the psychiatric hospitals 30 years ago. The end result? Dramatic increases of homeless people and overflowing emergency rooms and jails, where many untreated people with mental illness end up when they don’t have private insurance.”

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State of Mind: America 2003 is the second annual special live broadcast to examine the state of the nation’s mental health. Last year’s program featured an array of mental health experts, including Tipper Gore, author Dr. Peter Kramer (“Listening to Prozac”) and Marion Wright Edelman, of the Children’s’ Defense Fund, with performances by Al Franken, Jessye Norman and Judy Collins.

The Infinite Mind is a national, weekly, public radio series on the art and science of the human mind. The highly-acclaimed broadcast has been the recipient of 25 major broadcast honors since its premiere in 1998, including a National Headliner Award every year for the past five years. The Infinite Mind features weekly commentary by John Hockenberry. It is produced by the Peabody Award-winning Lichtenstein Creative Media, which also produced the PBS feature documentary, West 47th Street, to premiere nationally August 19.

The Infinite Mind is produced in association with WNYC/NY, and the New York Foundation for the Arts with major underwriting from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health, the Nonprofit Finance Fund, and unrestricted educational funding from Eli Lilly and Company and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Underwriting for State of Mind: America 2003 was provided by Tom Johnson, the JB Fuqua Foundation, the Turner Foundation, and in the form of an unrestricted educational grant from Solvay Pharmaceuticals.

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