Tag: children and psychiatric drugs

From Labeled to Healer: A Road Less Traveled

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We have let down our children (and ourselves) by losing touch with parental intuition and handing their care over to professionals at the first sign of a problem.

Save the Date! Kids in Crisis: The Overprescribing of Psychiatric...

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Mad in America presents a live Town Hall featuring a special, private screening of "Luna" followed by a panel discussion.

Interview: Abuse and Neglect at Private “Troubled Teen” Centers

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Parents, beware: Disability rights lawyer Diane Smith Howard shares disturbing findings on conditions at youth residential treatment facilities.

Withdrawing Kids from Psych Drugs: Why, How, and When

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Here are methods for reducing or eliminating a child's psychiatric medications that I have seen work well over years of supporting families through this process.

Tending Hearts and Minds: Changing the Mental Health Paradigm in Our...

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Our school professionals are under constant pressure to help funnel children into the mental health system and ultimately—and tragically for many—toward psychotropic drugs. So we designed a professional development symposium to address alternatives.

Peter Breggin and Michael Cornwall – Stop the Psychiatric Abuse of...

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An interview with Drs. Peter Breggin and Michael Cornwall who discuss their new initiative, Stop the Psychiatric Abuse of Children (SPAC!). SPAC! was formed in response to the introduction of the Monarch eTNS, an electrical stimulation device worn on a child’s forehead at night that was fast-tracked by FDA with little testing.

Talking About Psych Diagnoses and Drugs: A Primer for Parents &...

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It is important to tell parents the truth about what can and cannot be known about their child. In this way, people come to appreciate that labels and treatments offered by psychiatric professionals are far from being grounded in hard science.

Q&A: Is My Child Being Overdrugged?

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My eight-year-old daughter has diagnoses of ADHD, depression, anxiety, and ODD. She is taking four prescribed drugs, but she is still suffering and her behavior hasn’t changed much. Her doctor is suggesting adding yet another med. I’m wondering how many drugs are enough? I am starting to think she should go off some of them. I want to trust the psychiatrist, but I’m just not sure anymore.

Kick Big Pharma Out of the Classroom

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School-based strategies such as the “talk to your doctor” campaign about any childhood problem have been extremely effective in helping the pharmaceutical industry to marginalize traditional child-rearing practices and replace them with advice from mental health “experts” and the use of dangerous drugs. These campaigns are reminiscent of now-illegal vintage tobacco ads in which doctors endorsed cigarette smoking.

Xanax: Children As Young As 11 Taking Anxiety Drug

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From BBC: The abuse of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax is becoming widespread among children and adolescents as young as 11 years old. "To gain an idea of the...

After a Turbulent Childhood, on a Path to a Healthier Life

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In this piece for The New York Times, Emily Palmer describes the life journey thus far of Charles Louis, from being prescribed two psychiatric medications in...

Enough is Enough Series, #5 – The ADHD Fiction is Exposed....

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The time has come that the fictitious ADHD qualifies for my ‘Enough is Enough’ series. It’s time to stop addressing pharmaceutical psychiatry on its own terms: its fraudulent and corrupt 'science,' its spurious 'evidence base,' and its imaginary psychiatric ‘diseases.’ I’m done with this. The evidence is in. Let’s get real. Psychiatry has become a profession of drug pushers. As a psychiatrist I am beyond troubled. Let’s get real.

“Jury Smacks J&J with $70M in Damages in Latest Risperdal Breast...

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Fierce Pharma reports: "Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) is fighting more than 1,500 legal claims that its antipsychotic Risperdal triggered breast development in boys, and...

“The Overdiagnosis of ADHD”

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The general theme, that various "mental illnesses" are being "overdiagnosed" is gaining popularity in recent years among some psychiatrists, presumably in an effort to distance themselves from the trend of psychiatric-drugs-on-demand-for-every-conceivable-human-problem that has become an escalating and undeniable feature of American psychiatric practice. But the implicit assumptions – that there is a correct level of such labeling, and that the label has some valid ontological significance – are emphatically false.

Does Your Child Have ‘ADHD’? It Might Depend On Your Doctor

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A study published in the journal Pediatrics reveals large differences from one pediatrician to the next when it comes to diagnosing and prescribing drugs for ‘ADHD.’ The researchers found that the percentage of children being diagnosed with ‘ADHD’ varied from as high as 16% of patients at some offices to as little as 1% of patients at others. The data also revealed significant but lower variability in the pediatric diagnosis of anxiety and depression.

ADHD:  The Hoax Unravels

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At the risk of stating the obvious, ADHD is not an illness. Rather, it is an unreliable and disempowering label for a loose collection of arbitrarily chosen and vaguely defined behaviors. ADHD has been avidly promoted as an illness by pharma-psychiatry for the purpose of selling stimulant drugs. In which endeavor, they have been phenomenally successful, but, as in other areas of psychiatry, the hoax is unraveling.

“No Evidence Ritalin Makes a Difference Long Term for ADHD Kids”

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The Sydney Morning Herald reports that, three years into an Australian study that is following 178 children with ADHD and 212 children without ADHD, the...

Relatively Younger Age Leads to ADHD Diagnosis

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A study of 378,881 subjects aged 4-17 years by the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database found that the likelihood of receiving an ADHD diagnosis and treatment was...

“Is It Really A.D.H.D. or Just Immaturity?”

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The New York Times considers new research from Taiwan that suggests the possibility that the relative neurocognitive immaturity of younger children in a school cohort,...

“ADHD: Should We Be Medicalising Childhood?”

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London's Telegraph reports: "Despite the fact that Ritalin, which works by stimulating a part of the brain that modifies mental and behavioural reactions, is...

GSK to Face Class Action over Antidepressants for Children

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A Sydney, Australia law firm has launched a class action on behalf of people who as children and adolescents were prescribed Glaxosmithkline's drug Paroxetine. Despite...

The Future of Mental Health Interview Series: Marilyn Wedge on Reclaiming...

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The future of mental health interview series continued this past week with interviews with Peter Kinderman, president-elect of the British Psychological Society, on the efforts of the British Psychological Society, Jed Diamond on individual psychotherapy, Ruth Folit on healing through journaling, Shawn Rubin on gender diversity issues, and Marilyn Wedge on reclaiming childhood.

“Psychiatric Drugs Are Being Prescribed to Infants”

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The New York Times reports that a growing number of infants and toddlers are being prescribed dangerous psychiatric drugs. “Almost 20,000 prescriptions for risperidone (commonly known as Risperdal), quetiapine (Seroquel) and other antipsychotic medications were written in 2014 for children 2 and younger, a 50 percent jump from 13,000 just one year before.”