More opinion columns are appearing around the USA about the dangers of psychiatric drugs. As seen in the Ithaca Journal
The New York Times and The Ithaca Journal published the story of 4-year-old Rebecca Riley who died because her parents overmedicated her and professionals who should have protected her did not. Both stories express very pertinent concerns about the diagnosing and medicating of children. As a children's psychotherapist, I can shed some light on these concerns.
Collusion between members of the medical profession and pharmaceutical companies contributes to the misuse of medication; some psychiatrists collaborate in unscientific “research” funded and rigged by drug companies. Their names on publications imply those companies' products are safe when often they are not. In exchange, the doctors enjoy the companies' exorbitant financial rewards and luxury perks. Prestigious medical journals publish these studies, journals that are largely funded by drug advertising, compromising their veracity as well.
Rebecca's death is a worst-case scenario in a nation where chemical abuse of children has reached epic proportions. If the Associated Press stories about Rebecca are accurate, Rebecca's psychiatrist shares culpability for her death. It is reported that she diagnosed Rebecca with ADHD and bipolar illness at age 2, which is outrageous. Then, according to the report, she generously prescribed psychiatric medication off label, which means the medications are not approved for children.
Only stimulants are approved for children to treat ADHD. However, the Food and Drug Administration has now advised makers of stimulants to inform patients in writing of serious side effects like psychiatric and heart problems, including sudden death. Advising carries no weight with drug companies. They suppress negative information about their products. Independent studies indicate stimulants are ineffective and can worsen symptoms of children under 5. Few parents know that stimulants affect the brain just like cocaine. Often important information is withheld from parents, preventing them from making sound decisions about medicating their children.
After 1991 ADHD diagnoses exploded because they were added to the list of disabilities warranting special educational services, a boon for pharmaceutical companies. Children, their most lucrative growth industry, have been shamelessly exploited since then as companies put obscene profits ahead of pediatric health concerns. In 1996 a psychiatric group at Harvard, funded largely by pharmaceutical companies, claimed that many ADHD children also have bipolar disorder. Bipolar, or manic depression, had always been considered an adult malady. This group invented a new description for pediatric bipolar, claiming that children have a “rapid cycling” form of the disorder. Hundreds of thousands of children have been labeled with this diagnosis du jour, another boon for pharmaceutical companies, especially since bipolar portends lifelong illness and drug consumption. Labels become self-fulfilling prophecies; children identify with the label, especially when influential people in their lives convey expectations of “bipolar” behavior.
What a slippery slope from ADHD to bipolar. If stimulants fail to “work” for ADHD the doctor typically ups the diagnosis to bipolar. Standard treatment usually introduces two or three powerful chemicals into the developing brains of children, upsetting the natural chemical balance of the brain. This often creates illness in children who had none to begin with. This process often begins with school staff pressuring parents to use a “medical” approach (drugs) for their rambunctious child. Managed care companies promote the drugging of children to maximize profits.
Generally “mental illness” is considered neurobiological disease, despite failed efforts to prove it. Children who need to move are called “diseased”; throwing a tantrum is “mania.” Yet no medical test exists for any mental illness, except bona fide organic disabilities like heavy metal absorption. Brain expert Allan Jones states, “We know only 5 percent of what there is to know about the brain.”
Mind-altering drugs replace altering the psychosocial environment where the cause of children's distress usually resides. Often even then clinicians are applying first aid to distress rooted in the very infrastructure of our society: working and low-income parents often are unable to adequately care for their children; pollutants, much more readily absorbed by children than adults, permeate our environment; food additives can affect children's behavior; and violent video games and television pollute their minds.
Psychologist Daniel Burston writes, “Indeed, future generations may look back on the early twenty-first century as an era when the chemical colonization of childhood really began in earnest ...” Imagine a society of people whose brains are infiltrated with foreign chemicals. Some would be robotic. All, like many children today, would be deprived of their right to individuality and expression of their true selves.
No comments:
Post a Comment