CLINTON URGES FAIRNESS FOR MENTALLY ILL

WASHINGTON

- -- Darren knows exactly what President Clinton means when he speaks of
the stigma associated with mental illness.

The 38-year-old with mild retardation and an anxiety disorder realizes
some people are put off by his appearance, by his trembling hands, as
he makes his rounds delivering packages in New York City for Bullet
Messenger.

"It bothers me sometimes," Darren said. "I wish I was like others, you
know?"

A White House conference today seeks to dispel myths about the
mentally ill and encourage acceptance of people like Darren who often
are marginalized by society.

Playing host at the event are the president, Vice President Al Gore
and their wives.

"The hard truth is, in too many of our communities and in too many of
our hearts, mental illness is misunderstood and feared," Clinton said
in his weekly radio address. "Too many people with mental illness are
denied the opportunity to fully participate in American life."

At the conference, Clinton is announcing a $7.3 million study by the
National Institute of Mental Health to explore mental illness. He also
is notifying health plans that provide care to federal workers that
they must offer the same coverage for mental illness and substance
abuse as they do for physical disabilities.

Additionally, the administration is pressing Congress to pass a bill
to stop forcing the mentally disabled to give up Medicare or Medicaid
benefits if they go to work.

Darren gave up a few hundred dollars a month in federal benefits when
he went to work for Bullet Messenger. "Keep myself occupied," he said.

"That paradox is most unfortunate," said Hannah Achtenberg Kinn of the
League Treatment Center, which has treated Darren for 11 years and
helped place him with the messenger service. The center withholds
clients' last names to protect their privacy.

"Our goal for our people, and their most important goal for
themselves, is to live like everyone else -- which in our society is
defined as working," Kinn said.

Darren, who was not invited to today's conference, said he hoped it
might help dispel stereotypes.

Kinn welcomed the White House attention.

"It's important that people see each other as people with the same
goals and desires and frailties," she said. "It's sort of the last
area in our society where there is a terrible stigma."

More than changing policy, today's conference seeks to change
attitudes.

"One of the most widely believed and most damaging myths is that
mental illness is a personal failure, not a physical disease," said
Tipper Gore, the vice president's wife, who recently disclosed that
she was treated for depression. "Nothing could be further from the
truth."

Gore, a longtime advocate for the mentally ill, took the lead in
organizing the conference. It will be linked by satellite to more than
1,000 sites across the nation, with veteran newsman Mike Wallace, who
overcame depression, acting as host.

Five Cabinet secretaries and more than 20 members of Congress from
both parties are to participate in the daylong session at Howard University.

Clinton issued an executive order Friday to eliminate the government's
stricter hiring and promotion standards for mentally disabled people.