“The Washington Post

A Rush to Medicate Young Minds
By Elizabeth J. Roberts
Sunday, October 8, 2006

I have been treating, educating and caring for children for more than 30 years, half of that time as a child psychiatrist, and the changes I have seen in the practice of child psychiatry are shocking. Psychiatrists are now misdiagnosing and overmedicating children for ordinary defiance and misbehavior. The temper tantrums of belligerent children are increasingly being characterized as psychiatric illnesses.

Using such diagnoses as bipolar disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Asperger’s, doctors are justifying the sedation of difficult kids with powerful psychiatric drugs that may have serious, permanent or even lethal side effects.

There has been a staggering jump in the percentage of children diagnosed with a mental illness and treated with psychiatric medications. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that in 2002 almost 20 percent of office visits to pediatricians were for psychosocial problems — eclipsing both asthma and heart disease. That same year the Food and Drug Administration reported that some 10.8 million prescriptions were dispensed for children — they are beginning to outpace the elderly in the consumption of pharmaceuticals. And this year the FDA reported that between 1999 and 2003, 19 children died after taking prescription amphetamines — the medications used to treat ADHD. These are the same drugs for which the number of prescriptions written rose 500 percent from 1991 to 2000.

Some psychiatrists speculate that this stunning increase in childhood psychiatric disease is entirely due to improved diagnostic techniques. But setting aside the children with legitimate mental illnesses who must have psychiatric medications to function normally, much of the increase in prescribing such medications to kids is due to the widespread use of psychiatric diagnoses to explain away the results of poor parenting practices. According to psychiatrist Jennifer Harris, quoted in the January/February issue of Psychotherapy Networker, “”Many clinicians find it easier to tell parents their child has a brain-based disorder than to suggest parenting changes.”"

Parents and teachers today seem to believe that any boy who wriggles in his seat and willfully defies his teacher’s rules has ADHD. Likewise, any child who has a temper tantrum is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. After all, an anger outburst is how most parents define a “”mood swing.”" Contributing to this widespread problem of misdiagnosis is the doctor’s willingness to accept, without question, the assessment offered by a parent or teacher.

What was once a somber, heart-wrenching decision for a parent and something children often resisted — medicating a child’s mind — has now become a widely used technique in parenting a belligerent child. As if they were debating parental locks on the home computer or whether to allow a co-ed sleepover, parents now share notes with each other about whose child is taking what pill for which diagnosis.

These days parents cruise the Internet, take self-administered surveys, diagnose their children and choose a medication before they ever set foot in the psychiatrist’s office. If the first doctor doesn’t prescribe what you want, the next one will.

There was a time in the profession of child psychiatry when doctors insisted on hours of evaluation of a child before making a diagnosis or prescribing a medication. Today some of my colleagues in psychiatry brag that they can make an initial assessment of a child and write a prescription in less than 20 minutes. Some parents tell me it took their pediatrician only five minutes. Who’s the winner in this race?

Unfortunately, when a child is diagnosed with a mental illness, almost everyone benefits. The schools get more state funding for the education of a mentally handicapped student. Teachers have more subdued students in their already overcrowded classrooms. Finally, parents are not forced to examine their poor parenting practices, because they have the perfect excuse: Their child has a chemical imbalance.

The only loser in this equation is the child. It is the child who must endure the side effects of these powerful drugs and be burdened unnecessarily with the label of a mental illness. Medicating a child, based on a misdiagnosis, is a tragic injustice for the child: His or her only advocate is the parent who lacked the courage to apply appropriate discipline.

Well-intentioned but misinformed teachers, parents using the Internet to diagnose their children, and hurried doctors are all a part of the complex system that drives the current practice of misdiagnosing and overmedicating children. The solution lies in the practice of good, conscientious medicine that is careful, thorough and patient-centered.

Parents need to be more careful with whom they entrust their child’s mental health care. Doctors need to take the time to understand their pediatric patients better and have the courage to deliver the bad news that sometimes a child’s disruptive, aggressive and defiant behavior is due to poor parenting, not to a chemical imbalance such as bipolar disorder or ADHD.

The writer is a child and adolescent psychiatrist in California and the author of “”Should You Medicate Your Child’s Mind?”"

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Letters to the editor: letters@washpost.com

Slow Down the Rush to Medicate Young Minds. Promote this: http://www.petitiononline.com/TScreen/petition.html

I noticed that a bottle of shampoo that I bought had the message, “THIS FINISHED PRODUCT NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS”. I found this message confusing. Is it a warning? Is it really saying that because it was not tested on animals that it is possible that the finished concoction could be hazardous to my health due to some random chemical reaction?

Or, is it proudly stating that their product is not tested on bunnies and monkeys, but that the individual ingredients had been tested on animals by some anti-bunny group. This makes me wonder whether I can buy reports on the Internet on each of the individual ingredients on the net.

Even if we were to ban animal testing today, I am guessing that we have pretty much tested each chemical on poor hapless bunnies and monkeys. At this point, I think people just do animal testing just for fun.

It is not even that I am necessarily opposed to animal testing. I do believe that testing products on humans, at least initially, is a pretty bad idea. Animals are a lower, although often more attractive, order of species. They pretty much breed rats and bunnies for the purpose of scientific research. It is not like they are gathering pet bunnies and rats for the purpose of animal testing. Further, these are not pets. They are not socialized in any meaningful way in which to make good pets.

That being said, I still think that we have probably exhausted any real research that may come out of animal testing.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a non-profit, public benefit organization dedicated to investigating and exposing psychiatric violations of human rights. It also ensures that criminal acts within the psychiatric industry are reported to the proper authorities and acted upon.

I went to the chiropractor this afternoon and he asked me what I taught.  When I told him that I mostly taught high school students he commented to me that it must be tough.  I replied to him that I don’t really find it hard and that I love teaching high school.  I find it odd, but I get this comment rather frequently.

I really do love my job and I enjoy the students that I work with.  I get to be there to see the looks on their faces when they suddenly “get it” and the whole subject hits home.  It is glorious and sometimes I have a bit of a hard time not getting all choked up about it.  (Don’t tell my students that, they think I am tougher than that!) 

I get to take a student that “sucks at math” or “hates writing” and turn that around and see the look of pride when those statements are no longer truths for that student.  I consider it a privilege that when my students see me at church or at Starbucks, they don’t avoid me or merely wave and go on their own way.  They actually sit down with me for a while and we have wonderful conversations about everything from religion to soccer.  (This, according to some of my students, is pretty much the same thing.) 

So I don’t think that teaching high school students is tough, I think it’s amazing.  I also think my Washburn students are amazing.

Washburn Academy can be reached at 727-647-1668.

I read an article yesterday in which an 18 year old girl came home to find her boyfriend smoking crack in her bathroom. Apparently he wouldn’t stop so she beat the crap out of him with a toilet seat. The police were called and he was charged with possession and she was charged with assault.

Seems to me that he had what was coming to him. Seems to me that they should be commending her for the fact that she wasn’t going to tolerate the crack smoking punk. Maybe if the penalty for smoking crack was being brained with a toilet seat, fewer people would do it. (Okay, I really doubt that, but it SOUNDS good, doesn’t it?) I hope like hell they gave her a standing ovation when they booked her.

About 5 years ago on a fall evening my dad and I were out on the back patio of our house in California when we heard a cat meowing. My dad grabbed a flashlight and we observed the skinniest cat that we had ever seen. He wasn’t afraid of us, nor our 50 pound German Shepherd mix. I thought for sure that my dad was going to just tell me to let the cat be, but amazingly he offered to get it some food.

The cat ate ravenously, drank some offered water and promptly hurled on the bricks and began eating again. This time we only let him have a little and drink as much water as he cared to. We decided to put him up in the garage for the night with a bit of food and some water. I said to my dad, “You know he’s here to stay.” To which he replied, “Yeah, I know.” We already had a cat and I didn’t figure that he would be too interested in having another one.

Of course he stayed. Now began the task of naming a nearly full grown cat. He was very affectionate and appreciative. In fact, within a very short time he began eliminating the rat population in our garage. (We figured that this was pretty good exchange for room and board.) We thought about naming him Damn Cat II. We thought about naming him Lucky Bastard. We thought about giving him a myriad of other names. He didn’t really seem to care what he was called so long as there was food and people. We finally settled on Killer as it soon became apparent that he was proficient in this area.

It should be noted that this cat probably DOES have nine lives and that by the time he adopted us, he had used at least one of them. Our backyard virtually opened into a vast wilderness called Angeles National Forest. Bobcat and coyotes frequented our yard, as well as racoons and owls. The fact that he avoided starvation and being eaten was pretty amazing, all things considered.

His next mishap was getting closed in the garage door. Face out, ass in. Yep, picture a yellow tabby cat protruding from the front of your garage. That would be him. Opening the garage door seemed the only logical way to get him out and as soon as he was free he sauntered off, unharmed. (Perhaps his dignity was bruised, but that was all.)

He also has a penchant for fighting. So each Spring that he has resided with us he gets carted off to the vet to stave off some infection that has left him lethargic, wounded and sick.

When we moved from L.A. to Florida he was no where to be found when it came time to put him in a crate and cart him off to LAX for the trip. At the last moment, literally as I am closing the car door, he saunters across the street. I pack him up and the next thing he knows he is on a plane to God knows where.

I have to give this cat a lot of credit for adjusting. I attempted to make him an indoor cat once we moved to Florida, but Chloe, my decidedly indoor cat, objected strongly and Killer is perhaps the whiniest beast I have ever encountered when he doesn’t get his way. He wanted OUT! Now he enjoys the best of both worlds, at his whim. And he thanked us for his freedom by decimating the rat population in our new garage. I had to ask him nicely not to bring us any cute animals such as squirrels and bunnies as token of his undying love and appreciation. He seems to have gotten the point, but not until after he had made a minor dent in these populations.

Perhaps the quirkiest thing about this cat is his habit of lying in the middle of the street or behind my car. Or worse yet, when he sees me coming down the street, he goes and lays in the middle of the driveway. He seems to know that all of this makes me crazy. You see a cat that I had previously was hit while crossing the street to greet me when I came home from work. So to ensure my peace of mind, I get out of the car and chase Killer out of my parking space, out of the middle of the street or out from behind my car. And sometimes, he promptly comes right back and plops down in the same spot, usually about the time that I have gotten back into my car. I am pretty sure that he knows exactly what he is doing.

I am happy that he chose us. I think he did well to do so. He seems pretty pleased with the arrangement. Did I mention that he drools? Well, I will save that for another time…

A guy walked into the local welfare office to pick up his check. He marched straight up to the counter and said, “Hi. You know, I just HATE drawing welfare. I’d really rather have a job.”

The social worker behind the counter said, “Your timing is excellent. We just got a job opening from a very wealthy old man who wants a chauffeur and bodyguard for his beautiful daughter.”

“You’ll have to drive around in his 2007 Mercedes-Benz CL, and he will supply all of your clothes. Because of the long hours, meals will be provided. You’ll also be expected to escort the daughter on her overseas holiday trips.”

“This is rather awkward to say but you will also have as part of your job assignment to satisfy her sexual urges as the daughter is in her mid-20’s and has a rather strong sex drive,” she added.

“A two-bedroom loft type apartment with plasma TV, stereo, bar, etc., located above the garage will be designated for your sole use and the salary is $200,000 a year,” she continued.

The guy, just plain wide-eyed said, “You’re bullshittin’ me!”

The social worker said, “Yeah, well, you started it.”

Laura Betterly, CEO of Yada Yada Marketing was recently interviewed for an article that appeared in TheStreet. The article covered ways to market to parents.

You can find the full article here:
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10417905/2/six-tips-for-marketing-to-parents.html

TEACHER ARRESTED - A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator. At a morning press conference, the Attorney General said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

“Al-gebra is a problem for us,” the Attorney General said. “They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like ‘x’ and ‘y’ and refer to themselves as ‘unknowns,’ but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. A s the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, ‘There are 3 sides to every triangle.’ When asked to comment on the arrest, Senator Ted Kennedy said, “If God had wanted us to have better Weapons of Math Instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes.”

White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the Senator.

As you may know one of the horses run in the Kentucky Derby broke down immediately following the race and had to be euthanized because of a catastrophic injury. Essentially, she fractured both of her front ankles. In horses this type of injury is rarely treatable in one leg, let alone two.

PETA is calling for the jockey to be suspended from the sport of horse racing. Hello? Officials have called it a clean race in which there was minimal bumping. The owner, the trainer and track officials have not made any accusations that the jockey did anything that would have led to this horse breaking down.

I am not a huge fan of horse racing. I happen to like horses very much, in fact much of my school time was spent drawing and daydreaming horses.

I think a bigger problem is handicapping. What is up with that? Why on God’s earth would you penalize an animal that has proven statistics on winning? Because a close race is more exciting? Bullshit. I want to see the animal that is the fastest and the best based on purely what the horse and the jockey can do. I don’t want a “”fair”" race. I want an actually fair race. So what if one horse is substantially faster than the rest? I want to see that champion! As adding weight increases the amount of stress on the leg bones (duh!), I believe that this contributes to more horses breaking down on the track.

I am sure that there are other innumerable factors to horses breaking down in races. But blaming the jockey seems ridiculous. Maybe if he had run his horse into the fence or into another horse intentionally, but why on earth would he risk his own neck?

I think we need to start a new group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Jockeys. Seriously. These guys practically starve themselves to keep the weight off so that they can maneuver a 1200 pound beast down a track for under two minutes. Is that not cruel and unusual?

I still hate PETA.

Sarcasm: Good or Evil? (Or is it just so much damn fun being evil that it doesn’t matter?)

I recently received an e-mail “ad” for a new (fake) drug that alleviates sarcasm. While I must admit that it was amusing, I found myself thinking what my life would be without sarcasm. Not pretty.

Firstly, I am sarcastic. A lot. (No really, I wasn’t being sarcastic there!) I love nothing more than hanging out with my friends and getting a good volley going between us. Part of that involves a good bit of this brand of humor. I can take it and I can dish it out. In fact, sarcasm directed at those that don’t get it is completely wasted. I would much prefer to play with a worthy opponent.

Sarcasm is humor. It is funny. Sarcasm is a rejection of a “reality” that is ludicrous. Ludicrous is defined as “Utterly ridiculous because of being absurd, incongruous, impractical or unsuitable”. (Encarta) Does this not call for a bit of justifiable sarcasm?

I must admit that mostly the things that my friends and I knock back and forth are not serious (or real situations) to begin with and therefore the sarcasm is not directed at anyone personally or with much basis in actuality.

Can sarcasm be used for evil? Sure. (But I have NEVER done that! Okay, that was pretty blatant sarcasm.) The really awful thing is that it is STILL kind of funny. However, the effect that it can create is pretty unfunny. I don’t relish creating bad effects in others. (Except that one guy. See, there I go again!)

Here’s an analogy. Both Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader had light sabers, right? One used his for good, and one used his for evil. Sarcasm is a bit like that, don’t ya think? I want to use sarcasm for good, specifically to have a good time with my friends. Sure, there are other things we could do, certainly more constructive things we could do. But I work hard and I willingly and happily donate my time and energy to benefit others on a very regular basis. I earn my loafing time. So sue me if I choose to spend it with my other like-minded friends in pursuit of a good laugh at the expense of the ludicrous, and occasionally that one guy.

This site contains a complete introduction to Scientology in video form. This site contains information on what Scientology is doing to improve education, assist in diaster relief, improve communities, fight drug addiction and forward the cause of human rights.

Best,
Jen Nickerson

http://www.scientology.org/index.html

This morning on myspace, I watched a video in which predictions from Nostradamus are linked to L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. This post is not to dispute whether or not Nostradamus was right or wrong in his predictions. The point of this post is a message to be careful about what you are posting on the internet.

Personally, when I looked at the video mentioned above from an objective viewpoint, I would be inclined to believe that Scientologists are at best, a bit nutty. It would be easy for any non-Scientologist to look at this video and believe that our core beliefs are based on space travel without the use of our bodies. This is completely out of context in our religion. As Scientologists, we understand the inference, but someone looking from the outside will not.

I am sure that Scientology has helped each and every one of you in numerous and meaningful ways. I urge you to be vigilant about the material, written or otherwise that is posted on the internet. Please do share your successful application of Scientology to yourself and others, please do include links to actual Scientology sites so that others may get the data for themselves.

Because of recent expansion in Scientology, we as a group are more open to attack by those few that oppose improving conditions. You can do something about it. Go on course, get the data for yourself and improve your personal ability to help yourself and others. Get your personal ethics in. Do not be tolerant of low morals and ethics in others. Help get others on study.

Find out what you can do to support pro-survival activities in your area, including the social betterment groups. I understand that each individual cannot possibly support each and every group through donations of time and effort. I recommend that you align yourself with a group that you are passionate about that can utilize your talents and abilities.

Set a good example as a Scientologist in your neighborhood and community. The public does watch us, perhaps more critically than the average person. We might not be quite real to them and they have been carefully fed by the media to believe that we are strange, alien and foreign. Demonstrate to every person that you meet that Scientologists are honest, ethical and compassionate.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly we all need to ensure that we are keeping Scientology working. This includes respecting the service marks, trademarks and copyrights. I know that the intention to help our groups is very high, please take a moment to ensure that what is being posted is truly representative of us as a group.

ML,
Jen Nickerson