Ga. panel report reportedly plagiarized

ATLANTA, June 11 (UPI) -- Much of a report by a Georgia mental health commission was cribbed from a Michigan study and other sources, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue formed the Mental Health Service Delivery Commission last year after the newspaper published an investigation of patient abuse and suspicious deaths in state psychiatric hospitals. The commission was to report on conditions and suggest necessary changes.

The Journal-Constitution said that the vision statement of the Georgia report is almost identical to the one in the Michigan report of 2004.

Michigan's vision in 2004 was: "For our children and adults, from Northern to Southern Michigan, the mental health system needs to be reinvigorated and reinvested in."

The Georgia report changes the phrase on Michigan to "within Georgia" and removes the final "in."

Other parts of the report appear to be plagiarized from papers by the University of Texas and the American Psychiatric Association, the newspaper charged.

The parts of the report that seem to be original are vague, with few details on how to carry out and fund suggested changes, the Journal-Constitution said.