An American Phenomenon The Widespread Psychiatric Drugging of Infants and Toddlers Alternet.

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PERSONAL HEALTH

An American Phenomenon:
The Widespread Psychiatric
Drugging of Infants and
Toddlers
The United States has become the psychiatric drugging
capital of the world, medicating children at a younger and
younger age.
By Evelyn Pringle / CounterPunch April 20, 2010

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The United States has become the psychiatric drugging capital of the world for
kids with children being medicated at a younger and younger age. Medicaid
records in some states show infants less than a year old on drugs for mental
disorders.

The use of powerful antipsychotics with privately insured children, aged 2

through 5 in the US, doubled between 1999 and 2007, according to a study of
data on more than one million children with private health insurance in the
January, 2010, "Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent
Psychiatry."

The number of children in this age group diagnosed with bipolar disorder also
doubled over the last decade, Reuters reported.

Of antipsychotic-treated children in the

2007 study sample, the most common
diagnoses were pervasive
developmental disorder or mental
retardation (28.2%), ADHD (23.7%),
and disruptive behavior disorder
(12.9%).

The study reported that fewer than half

of drug treated children received a mental health assessment (40.8%), a
psychotherapy visit (41.4%), or a visit with a psychiatrist (42.6%) during the year
of antipsychotic use.

"Antipsychotics, which are being widely and irresponsibly prescribed for

American children--mostly as chemical restraints--are shown to be causing
irreparable harm," warned Vera Hassner Sharav, president of the Alliance for
Human Research Protection, in a February 26, 2010 InfoMail.

"These drugs have measurable severe hazardous effects on vital biological

systems, including: cardiovascular adverse effects that result in shortening lives;
metabolic adverse effects that induce diabetes and the metabolic syndrome," she
wrote. "Long-term use of antipsychotics has been shown to result in metabolic
syndrome in 40% to 50% of patients."

The lead researcher on the study above, Columbia University psychiatry

professor Mark Olfson, told Reuters that about 1.5% of all privately insured
children between the ages of 2 and 5, or one in 70, received some type of
psychiatric drug in 2007, be it an antipsychotic, a mood stabilizer, a stimulant or
an antidepressant.

Psychiatric drugs bathe the brains of growing children with agents that threaten
the normal development of the brain, according to Dr Peter Breggin, founder of
the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP), and
author of about 20 books, including "Medication Madness."

The drugs themselves are causing severe disorders in millions of children in the
US, he warns. "Substances like antidepressants, stimulants, mood stabilizers, and
antipsychotic drugs cause severe, and potentially permanent, biochemical
imbalances."

American Phenomenon

A number of presentations at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric

Association in May 2009, addressed the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, including
one titled, "Pediatric Bipolar Disorder: A Critical Look at an American
Phenomenon," at which Dr Peter Parry, a consultant child & adolescent
psychiatrist, and senior lecturer at Flinders University in Australia, presented a
survey on, "Australian and New Zealand's Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists'
Views on Bipolar Disorder Prevalence and on Rates of Pediatric Bipolar Disorder
in the USA."

Dr Parry and his colleagues conducted a survey of child and adolescent

psychiatrists in Australia and New Zealand. Of the 199 psychiatrists who
responded to the survey, 90.5% thought pediatric bipolar disorder was
overdiagnosed in the US.

In an October 1, 2009 article titled,

"Medicating Our Children," Dr Parry
reports that since "the mid-1990s in the
USA, some researchers have claimed
that Paediatric Bipolar Disorder (PBD)
frequently starts prior to puberty."

One of PBD's main proponents,

 Harvard University's Professor Joseph
Biederman, stating onset "is squarely in the preschooler age group," he notes.

Parry explains that "PBD has been created by moving the diagnostic goalposts
away from traditional concepts of bipolar disorder."

"In children," he says, "episodes were redefined to last hours instead of days or
weeks and, instead of manic elation, severe anger in children sufficed as mania."

"Unlike diagnoses like ADHD or depression, or simply accepting a child has

serious emotional and behavioural problems in reaction to various stressors,
PBD implies a lifelong severe mental illness requiring of strong psychiatric
medication," Parry warns.

"In the USA," he says, "the public is furthermore exposed to direct

pharmaceutical advertising that can feed the natural desire parents of distressed
and aggressive children have for a quick solution by suggesting a simple
medication fix."

"The medicating of America's children has become intensely controversial,

highlighted by the tragic case of Rebecca Riley, a four-year-old Boston girl
diagnosed at 28 months old with ADHD and PBD," he points out.

On April 7, 2009, the author of the book, "Shyness: How Normal Behavior
Became a Sickness," Christopher Lane, featured an interview on his Psychology
Today blog, "Side Effects," with journalist, Philip Dawdy, the creator of the
popular website, Furious Seasons, and discussed the rising number of children
being diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

"As for bipolar disorder in kids (meaning pre-teens and younger), it's simply not
an issue in the rest of the world," Dawdy told Lane. "The bipolar child is a purely
American phenomenon."
"The pharma companies and the Harvard crew worked hand-in-hand to bring
America a generation of ADHD kids and bipolar children, and their profound
influence can be seen in the millions of children and teens who now carry lifetime
diagnoses and take gobs of psychotropic drugs each day, often to their
detriment," he advised.

Lane asked for Dawdy's opinion on a recent report in the St Petersburg Times
that found 23 infants less than one-year-old had been prescribed antipsychotics
in Florida in 2007, as well as the drug overdose death of 4-year-old Rebecca
Riley in Massachusetts. "How is it possible for psychiatrists to continue
prescribing to infants in such numbers without more oversight?" Lane asked.

"What's gone on with antipsychotics prescribed to infants and toddlers is simply

inexplicable to me," Dawdy said. "The drugs are known to cause huge problems in
adults, so why the heck would a doctor give them to little kids, especially infants?
It boggles my small mind."

"I'm no fan of bans or restrictions," he told Lane, "but this does strike me as a
situation where there needs to be a serious rethinking of what we are doing—
and maybe there should be a ban on the use of these drugs in kids under, say, 6
years of age."

An October 2007 report by the

University of South Florida found the
most common diagnosis for
antipsychotic use with children in
Florida’s Medicaid program, between
July and December 2005, was ADHD.
Roughly 54%, or 1,372 cases, involved
prescriptions for children five and
under and the total number of
antipsychotic users in this young age group was 2,549, with all disorders
combined, according to the report.

Increased Prescribing to Poor Children

Federally funded research published online in December, 2009, revealed that

children covered by Medicaid were prescribed antipsychotics at a rate four time
higher than children with private insurance. The data showed that more than 4%
of children in Medicaid fee-for-service programs received antipsychotics,
compared to less than 1% of privately insured youth. The study found Medicaid
kids were more likely to receive antipsychotics for unapproved uses such as
ADHD and conduct disorders than privately insured children.

The researchers examined records for children in seven states for the years
2001 and 2004, chosen as representative of the US Medicaid population. But
more recent data through 2007 indicates that the disparity has remained, said
Stephen Crystal, a Rutgers professor who led the study, according to the
December 11, 2009, New York Times.

Antipsychotics were the top selling class of drugs in both 2008 and 2009. With
sales of $14.6 billion in 2009, they brought in more than the $13.6 billion earned
by both heart burn and cholesterol medications. Antidepressants ranked fourth
with sales of $9.9 billion, according to data by IMS Health. In 2008, the drug
makers took in $11.3 billion from antiseizure drugs and $4.8 billion from ADHD
drugs.

In a new book titled, "Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs,

and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America," Robert Whitaker reports
that the number of children on government disability rolls due to severe mental
illness has increased more than 35-fold since 1987.

The book explores the question of whether the epidemic rise in people disabled
by mental illness, among all age groups in the US over the past 20 years, could
have been fueled by a drug-based paradigm of care.
It also explores what is happening to children over the long-term who are placed
on psychiatric drugs. "Once again, science tells a very clear story, and, as you
might imagine, it is one that — when you think of the millions of children so
affected — makes you want to weep," Whitaker stated in a March 26, 2010,
notice for the book's release on the Beyond Meds Website.

Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an investigative journalist focused on exposing corruption in
government.

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