Criticizing the Rise Of Bipolar Disorder In Adults and Children

Furious Seasons points us to an interesting new research paper, entitled

Pediatric bipolar disorder: An object of study in the creation of an illness:

David Healy and his colleague Joanna Le Noury have a new paper out, which examines the rise of bipolar disorder in both adults and children and puts it all in some kind of historical context. It's a lengthier examination of what Healy calls disease mongering than his PLoS paper of 2006. If you want to avoid my summary of this new piece, which I think is a withering attack on just about everyone in the mental health industry, then read their paper here (it's a .pdf file).

Among snippets he quotes in the lengthy report is this one:

"In 1996, a paper from an influential group, based at Massachusetts’ General Hospital, working primarily on ADHD, suggested there were patients who might appear to have ADHD who in fact had mania or bipolar disorder. This study had used lay raters, did not interview the children about themselves, did not use prepubertal age specific mania items, and used an instrument designed for studying the epidemiology of ADHD. Nevertheless the message stuck. Cases of bipolar disorder were being misdiagnosed as ADHD. Given the many children diagnosed with ADHD who do not respond to stimulants, and who are already in the treatment system, this was a potent message for clinicians casting round for some other option."

All of which sounds like some pretty awful research to me.
Both the Furious Seasons post, and the original research paper are worth looking at (link to PDF copy here). The article was published in the International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, which also has an interesting paper with the cheery title Exposure to SSRI antidepressants in utero causes birth defects, neonatal withdrawal symptoms and brain damage