From The New York Times: According to Dr. Andrew Weil, who is best known for popularizing the concept of integrative medicine, the problem of overmedication is steadily increasing. Both doctors and patients too often believe that medication is the only way to treat a disease, overlooking the potentially harmful effects of medications and failing to recognize safer alternatives.
“The biggest thing I’m concerned about is the incredible prescribing of psychiatric drugs to kids today, such as benzodiazepines like Ativan for anxiety, S.S.R.I.s like Zoloft for depression, antipsychotic drugs like Seroquel, along with drugs like Adderall and Ritalin for A.D.H.D., which is a diagnosis that is given way too freely. My main concern is that we really have no idea what the effects of these medications are on the developing brain, and we’re doing a vast experiment with our nation’s children in giving this amount of psychiatric medication to them.”
