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Drugging America’s Children

August 10, 2012 by  

Drugging America’s Children
PHOTOS.COM
U.S. psychiatrists prescribe antipsychotic drugs to one out of every three children they treat.

America’s youth have a serious drug problem, but it doesn’t involve the teenage backstreet drug-deals you might expect; U.S. psychiatrists prescribe antipsychotic drugs to one out of every three children they treat.

During the 1990s, only about one out of 11 children received the same drugs. The increase, researchers contend, is due in part to doctors prescribing the drugs for disruptive behaviors like attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). No antipsychotics are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat those disorders in kids, however, the research published in the Archives of General Psychiatry says.

“They’re approved for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and irritability with autism. None of them are approved for use with ADHD,” said Dr. Mark Olfson, the study’s lead author and a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University in New York.

Olfson and his team found that for children and teens, around 90 percent of the antipsychotic prescriptions handed out during office visits between 2005 and 2009 were “off label,” where drugs are prescribed for something other than for what they’re intended.

Antipsychotics were originally intended to treat extreme personality disorders like schizophrenia, and many experts believe that using them to suppress milder more manageable emotional disorders can lead to a buildup of tension and violent outbursts in some patients. These drugs have in the past been linked to school shootings and other violent behaviors in adolescents.

In 2010, Americans spent $16.1 billion on antipsychotic drugs.

Filed Under: Alternative Medicine, Liberty News, Staff Reports, Traditional Medicine
Sam Rolley

Staff writer Sam Rolley began a career in journalism working for a small town newspaper while seeking a B.A. in English. After learning about many of the biases present in most modern newsrooms, Rolley became determined to find a position in journalism that would allow him to combat the unsavory image that the news industry has gained. He is dedicated to seeking the truth and exposing the lies disseminated by the mainstream media at the behest of their corporate masters, special interest groups and information gatekeepers.

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  • sarah

    I blame CPS. they are always trying to get children on medication and their parents as wll. It’s sad

  • guy

    More people died last year from legally prescribed drugs than in all auto accidents or from all illicit ,illegal drugs combined .I believe this is from the cdc itself. Please correct me if I’m wrong but these “practicing” physicians should stop practicing and take up a real job.Maybe the big pharma drug dealers should be included when these wanna be doctors face involuntary manslaughter charges for every victim they murder when they “practice” treating them.

    • http://Yahoo.com Bill

      Time to wake up buddy. While some doctors prescribe when not needed just to make some good cash, the majority of deaths are from the patient not following directions, like taking a handful when the presription calls for 1. I’ve been on morphine for the last 5 years, it took an additional 15 years of so many other drugs before this doctor gave me this one which gave me my life back. I do not abuse this drug and my doctor can call me in at any time for a drug test to make sure I am not abusing.

  • Lastwordinc.. 2012

    I would not give my child any drugs unless i proved they were safe!!!!!Last Word

  • Jeremy Leochner

    I would totally agree. Autism, ADHD and ADD are not forms of psychosis. They are emotional and mental disorders. Kids and teenagers with these disorders need cognitive assistance with whatever difficulties they have. Not just drugs to induce an intoxicated like state of calm.

  • PROZAC

    The chosen ones wage war on plants and force their poison on the goyim children.

  • http://twitter.com/ericbischoff Eric Bischoff (@ericbischoff)

    It’s time fro Americans to get off prescription drugs. There isn’t one out there without serious side effects.

    Hypnosis, conversational hypnosis, especially Milton Ericksonian techniques are far superior and cheaper and they get results quickly for changing and improving behavior.

    It seems a bit hypocritical to blame the schools or the doctors when the parents are the ones who allow this to continue.

    Big Pharma controls the airwaves and the propaganda. They are the big advertisers and you are the fools buying this crap.

  • TerriG

    am bi-polar, strongly, and have serious issues with PTSD. O, also, have physical disabilities. I had been suicdal from the age of seven until the age of fifty-one, two years ago. With the use of meds I am able to lead a life on my own and function on most days. I am working with a counselor for the PTSD. Bi-polar can be very serious and sometimes it takes awhile to find the right med, or meds. I make sure that when I have blood tests that the results go to both of my doctord, not just the one that ordered it.

    There are a lot of psych problems that are actually based on brain chemistry in natue amd that tends to run in family’s. I agree about over prescribing meds. It’s like prescribing Oxycontin for a mild infection. To put it bluntly, that is not what it is for, and should never be prescribed for it.

    • http://gravatar.com/bychoosing Jay

      The brain, mind, body, emotions and thought are interrelated. Exactly how is not currently known or understood. The psychiatrist and materialist would have us believe all causes lie in genetics, chemical imbalances, electrochemical phenomena, physiology and environmental factors. But this is very far from the truth. You drink a cup of coffee and “feel up”, improve mental clarity and are set to face the day. Obviously, there is a relationship between the physical and the mental and emotional aspects of man.

      Hallucinogenic drugs greatly alter perception and thought. But similarly, receiving good news can reversely suddenly shake a person out of despondency and give them an entirely new view on life. The successful use of a visualization technique can change a person’s view on life, and even has been known to affect physical conditions. Prayer has been documented to alleviate and even cure diseases in some instances. It’s a two-way street.

      There is an obvious relation between the physical and the mental. Physical situations effect mental and emotional things, and visa versa, mental and emotional can things affect the physical.

      Meditation techniques and biofeedback have been proven to alter brain functioning. Certain Yogis can slow down their heartbeat rate and even enter physical comatose states by thought alone. Obviously, the picture is much larger than they would have us believe. The large error with psychiatry is assuming the physical (physiology, genetics, biochemistry, and environment) is the complete and sole cause of everything mental and emotional. This is a huge error. They refuse to accept the possibility that it’s a two-way street. The mental realm can and does equally effect changes in the physical. Sadly, psychiatric methods act to inhibit and harm the functioning of a mind, thereby reducing its ability to do what it can and should do.

      Psychiatry will cite various tests as “proof” that thought is biochemically based. Tests have been done where various sections of the brain are electrostimulated with resulting experiences of joy, sadness, and vivid memory recall. Again, there is an obvious relation. But to assume a direct, one-way only, causal relation is absurd and simply intellectual dull. That’s not at all what the tests indicate. The mind and thought involve a unique realm that has its own properties and functions. It is ignored completely by psychiatry with disastrous results.

      Psychiatry is one promotional and sales arm of major drug companies. Major drug companies fund all the research. It should surprise no one that their studies consistently explain everything as biochemical in origin requiring drugs as the solution.

      You are living in the Land of Oz if you think for a second that a major drug company would ever fund, much less publish results, encouraging any approach to solving problems with the “mind” other than their own drugs. There is no money in meditation, visualization, biofeedback or any other alternative approach to dealing with the mind.

      Worse, using the FDA, the drug companies wage an unrelenting war against any practices that have the slightest chance of competing with them. Don’t think the current “scientific” and “psychiatric” views evolved out of total honest and sincere investigation into the cause of man’s ailments. They evolved out of millions of dollars of funding by profit-motivated groups and individuals.

  • Chester

    One out of every three children “seen by a psychiatrist” is on drugs. Okay, first, what part of ALL children are seen by psychiatrists in the first place. Second, what part of all children seen by a physician receive drugs? Seems like you are complaining because a doctor is DOING HIS JOB. He may not be doing what YOU want done, but he is handling a problem to the best of his ability. It seems the laws have taken away a lot of the methods formerly used to handle problem children, but in some cases, that was a GOOD thing. No kid is better off with the stuffings knocked out of him because he was incapable of comprehending a math or reading lesson. Like it or not, that was one of the more common ways of handling slow learners, regardless of why they couldn’t learn. Now people are crying their eyes out because some doctor is giving a kid a medicine “off label” because he has tried it on others and found that it does help with the problem the kid has. Will it work every time? Probably not, but neither does anything else in life. We do live by trial and error, like it or not, and that is as true for doctors, whether psychiatrists or medical doctors or osteopathic doctors. Even your neighborhood mechanic, regardless of the diagnostic tools he has at hand, has to do every job by trial and error, as what the machines say may be the problem isn’t always so.

  • http://gravatar.com/bychoosing Jay

    Psychiatry and its methods of torture, abuse, drugs and force, and behavioral psychology (i.e. people control) have been funded and used by every totalitarian, and non-totalitarian, regime on the planet. The United States is no exception. Why do you think that is? You can bet that it’s not because they want to see all their citizens happy, well and successful in life. They apparently don’t want intelligent individuals who think and decide for themselves.

    The Red Chinese took brain washing to an extreme level as an applied “art”. The CIA experimented on unknowing US citizens with LSD and other drugs (MK-Ultra) in an attempt to discover better ways to wipe out the memory of captured agents and create good political assassins.

    There is strong evidence that the Jonestown massacre was actually a CIA funded operation used to determine the capabilities and limitations of the intentional mass control of people by manipulating their religious beliefs. Getting sent to a “mental health facility” in Communist Russia largely meant that the person disagreed a little too strongly with the party line at the time. It was punishment and nothing else.

    Drugs, electric shock and brain surgery are the methods used to force dissidents into line. How can these same exact methods also be “therapeutic” and “heal mental illness”? The truth is they don’t. But they are sold to the public in that way. It’s all glitzy advertising.

    Psychiatric and psychological theories and methods, and of course, the psychiatrists and psychologists, were closely involved in each of these scenarios above. This is who they are and what they do.

    Psychiatry has aligned itself with medicine and the “health-care” field in a somewhat successful attempt to gain legitimacy.

    True, most of us know deep inside that they have always been a little “strange” and suspected they themselves entered the field because of their own major mental and
    emotional problems. But, don’t be fooled. Wherever they go they cause pain, failure, suffering and death. This is no exaggeration or dramatic over-stating of reality.

    Psychiatry is succeeding in their attempt to drug a larger and larger segment of the population. A drugged society is a quiet and easily controlled society. Who would have that as a goal? Who might want to create a docile, drugged society? Know for sure that the purpose of psychiatric drugs is definitely NOT to make happy, well, sane, intelligent, individualistic, responsible and effective thinkers and doers. They don’t even pretend to have this as a goal.

    Figuring out for yourself what the purpose of psychiatry actually is would answer many questions and clear many things up.

    They are a rotten bunch, and so are the people who fund them and pay their salaries. Without extensive government funding psychiatry couldn’t exist as a field. Very few people would choose to pay to be abused, incarcerated, sliced up, drugged or electric shocked.

    Psychiatry couldn’t exist in an unsubsidized free market situation. They couldn’t exist under a system of free competition of ideas, theories and methods. But they are subsidized, heavily, and they do exist. They enjoy a monopoly on the subject only because of immense funding by government, drug companies and educational institutions.

    Why do you think this is? Giving this question some serious thought would benefit us all.

    Stay away from them and their methods. Steer anyone you know away from their methods. Once you honestly look and see psychiatry for what it really is, this will be easy. Also, there is nothing good about psychiatry. Most generalities are not true, but this is the closest one can come to being all-inclusive and correct.

    There is NOTHING good about psychiatry.

    Say NO To Psychiatry!

    http://sntp.net/main.htm

    • TIME

      Dear Jay,

      Great post!

      Peace and Love

  • http://wildeyguns.com The Christian American

    People use to deal with their childrens behavior as a moral issue and treated them with biblical guide lines. Over 150 years ago, words like homosexual crept into our vocabulary. A scientific word that could replace morality. With it drugs came on the scene to cure moral issues. People need drugs, not the bible. With drugs came excuses. Moral behavior was a “scientific” problem to be treated with drugs. Murders, rapist, thieves and so on could turn to science for their actions. We’re living with this change of prospectus. How are doing?

  • R.Marcel Comtois

    To me it is a sin to drug up these kids………makes it easier on teachers and messes up the kids…….this is another excuse………..and “they” want to take more of our kids lives…….

  • Carol

    I worked in middle school four years and for about an hour or more each day I was around the kids who were on medicine. I noticed the up and down behavior …sometimes even lifelessness of the kids. Is a medicine good for ‘anyone ‘ especially the youth… when results can’t be regulated? I believe for many of these kids the parents are the problem.
    Shame on the medical profession for easy excess.

    • http://wildeyguns.com The Christian American

      Todays parents are yesterdays children. There has been a progession downward of people and for many they don’t know better than what they’ve been taught. If you want to blame parents you have look at their parents. The only answer is a lot of soul searching and learning what went wrong. In the 50′s the movie “Gone with the wind” came out. In it Brett closes with: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”. they held that movie up a year because of the language but it finally got out. The movie, The Gunfighter, starring Audie Murphy came out and the female star unbuttoned one button her blouse. They held that movie up a year to. Then came “ratings”. You know the story from there. We can’t live by todays rules, whatever they are, and expect to enjoy what we had.

      • Robert Smith

        Hmmm, you might want to get your facts straight. Gone with the Wind came out in 1939.

        See: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/

        The rest of your post isn’t connected to the facts very well either.

        Rob

  • Alan Eames

    Psychotropic drugs do kill and not just the people taking them. Do your own research. Don’t believe me. Look up how many of the shootings in the last 30 years have been done by people who were on or just quit taking psychotropic drugs. Psychotropics are insidious because withdrawal from them kills people too. Google getting off meds or withdrawing from psychotropics and look for yourself.

    • TIME

      Dear Alan,

      Your 100% correct also – people really do need to look deeply into this matter.
      Afterall we are talking about our children, and grandchildren not sick animals.
      Look into the DOE and their rules etc. but be aware its not pretty, they are in fact nothing more nor less than CRIMINALS.

      Peace and Love

  • dcjdavis

    Doped up kids (adults, too) are easier to dupe. It’s easier to get them to swallow the koolaid.

    • Robert Smith

      My observation is that “faith” does that for those from the extreme right.

      Rob

  • helpus

    I have been saying this for years. They told me my son was hyper and they wanted him on medicine. I refused because some children are more active than others. He is 19 and just fine. Teachers don’t want to deal with the kids so they want them medicated. Why become a teacher if you can’t deal with the kids. Teachers also threaten to call dss on you for neglecting your children so they can have there way. My opinion is the government is to involved with everything we do including our kids, If they want to dictate everything maybe they should pay to raise them……

    • http://wildeyguns.com The Christian American

      No. The NEA, national education association, wants drugged up dummies they can train like Pavlov’s dog and won’t give them any problems. Kid problems require drugs, not a good spanking or other discipline measures.

  • kategray

    Keep the children doped up so the teachers do not have to do their jobs that they were hired to do. Thr drug companies are using the children and adults for their tests

  • http://Yahoo.com Bill

    Here I go without reading the full article, only the headline part, but I’ll put my 2 cents in anyway. While there are kids that do need medical intervention (drugs), a high percentage of kids would “Get better” if the parents spent their time being parents.

    • FSP

      Totally agree with you Bill! Parents don’t spend enough time with their children, and when they are together, most kids are playing video games. Shouldn’t they be doing some sort of physical exercise? Excess energy, I would say.

      • Buster the Anatolian

        While I agree they should be out getting exercise instead of sitting on their butts playing video games at home they should also be getting exercise at school to burn off some of that energy. Schools have consistantly reduced physical activity so they have more time to teach their “everybody needs to feel good” programs.

  • susan miller

    When our son was 5 years old, his teacher suggested we put him on drugs because he wouldn’t “sit still” in class. Our doctor said, “he is a 5-year-old boy” nothing is wrong with him. the teacher is a college graduate. surely she knows how to deal with young boys. this happened in the late ’80s. Just more typical teacher union control and brainwashing of our youth.

    • http://wildeyguns.com The Christian American

      Remember, the teacher recieved a good indoctrination, not a good education. The founders knew any government is an opinion and when government is involved in education the students only learn why the government’s opinion is best. You might say the winners write history. Today we’re collateral or capital to be used by the government to further it’s goals. Hitler called his youth Brown shirts and look what they grew into.

      • TIME

        Dear Christian,

        To gain a TON of insight on the American schooling /educational system look for the Youtube feeds by; John Taylor Gatto Phd.

        This also applys to anyone who really wants to better understand what our kids face in the American educational system, and that would also include all of what you learned / brainwashed, this is not something new.
        The MEDS – yes thats new.

        As well as a lot of other really great topics he covers that will aid you in understanding the roots of many other problems this nation faces that all stem from the late 1800′s.

        Peace and Love

  • Ted Crawford

    I, strongly, believe that this problem is not, in any way, limited to just the children ! It’ seems to be the Mantra of the AMA ! Doctors seem far more inclined to ‘treat’ a problem with drugs, than work through all methods to CURE the problem ! It is the easier, softer way !

    • Jim S

      A big part of the problem is caused by medical doctors prescribing psychotropics instead of psychiatrists. Most medical doctors have no clue when it comes to psychotropics or even SSRIs for depression. Their oath says, “First, do no harm.” They are doing harm when they prescribe drugs they no nothing about. Many parents would also rather see their children on meds because it makes them easier to handle. I speak from experience as a mental health counselor and someone who has had ADHD my entire life (never used medications).

    • http://wildeyguns.com The Christian American

      Today, more and more doctors work for the state, not for their patients. The cure is dictated by the state, not by what he feels, if he feels, the patient might really need. As you turn on the idiot box, note how many prime time ads are from drug companies. I know doctors are rewarded for prescribing certain drugs. Are teachers rewarded in the same way?

      • http://ConservativeVictory2010 Exciledknight

        @ChristianAmerican; Teachers as a rule are not generally rewarded on an individual basis for “drugged” children, however, school districts do receive more federal aide for children diagnosed with behavioral disorders. As a pharmacist, owning my own pharmacy, I challenged the local school district on every family that brought me a prescription for one of “those” drugs! I became a pariah in the town I had my pharmacy in. It got so bad, that I began refusing to even fill these prescriptions, until I finally got one of the local physicians to agree to a placebo program. When he wrote one of these prescriptions for a child, who had been identified by the school (teacher, school nurse, school employed psychiatrist) and whose parents were convinced that this was the only remedy, he gave me authorization to substitute a placebo. After six months of this regiment, many of the children who had received placebo drugs were amazingly getting better grades, behaving in class and acting “normal”! When this documentation was presented to the school board, they were amazed, The practice of identifying, figuring a course of therapy (other than drugs) and then integrating better parenting, better and different classroom situations, diet changes, and leaving the treating of these children to the family doctor were implemented! I also pointed out that it was a conflict of interest to have a school or district psychiatrist evaluate these children and in many cases prescribe. It was easier for an elementary school teacher to have thirty “zombies” in a classroom and all she had to do was approach a school or district payrolled psychiatrist and her wish came true, plus the district got a financial windfall. I advocated a psychologist (can’t prescribe), a therapist (child and family therapy) and the family doctor to run point on children and families in these situations. Once you eliminated the psychiatrist, drug use diminshes and with the apparent conflict of interest exposed, the results were remarkable.

      • Robert Smith

        Posted: “The cure is dictated by the state, not by what he feels,”

        Actually it’s cororate insurance companies who dictate what doctors do.

        Rob

  • Illana Olsen

    I believe this article is incomplete. VERY incomplete. It makes an accusation and then does not really go into enough detail. Which drugs are we talking about, what exactly do they do, etc.

    • Robert Smith

      Dumb, dumb, dumb: “These drugs have in the past been linked to school shootings and other violent behaviors in adolescents.”

      It’s the old “causative / coincidental” situation. If a kid had breakfast at Micky D’s and went nuts are they gonna blame that too?

      We all know that Scientologists and extreme right wingers don’t like shrinks. The fact is that through education and experience they can and do help many. Don’t judge an entire effort on an occasional failure.

      A friend of mine had a glass of organge juice with his breakfast and got hit by a truck later that day. Should I give up orange juice?

      Rob

      • Joanne Long

        Robert I would invite you to do some research, because you have it wrong in all cases, plus your comparitive situtions do not even come close. My guess is you are on some of these drugs and many of your family members are to.

      • FreedomFighter

        Drugged children are easier to brainwash – control, indoctrinate, all part of the plan.

        Laus Deo
        Semper Fi

      • Sirian

        Well said FF, well said.

      • Bob

        Mr. Smith, In the 10 months I have been reading this site, I don’t think I have ever seen you agree with a single article written. Why do you read them? You are so wrong headed, no one even reads your responses anymore, Mr. Smith. You may as well go somewhere else to do your stupid commenting.

      • http://personallibertydigest gottaplenty

        Rob ,, drink orange juice ,,give up coolaid…

      • Robert Smith

        Hmmmmm, nobody has refuted what I posted. It would seem the best they can do is call me names, etc.

        No facts, just name calling.

        It’s what I EXPECT from the right and it’s so much fun proving it around here.

        Who knows, mabe as folks see what’s going on they will understand.

        Then again, I don’t expect anyone from the right to change anymore than I expect a gay person to change. They just seem to be born that way.

        Rob

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