OT? PBS airs The Medicated Child Tues. Jan 8

[Guest guest]

Since PBS has been somewhat " captured " by the current administration,

I can't imagine that the airing will be much of an expose, but you

never know.

VERACARE <veracare@...> wrote: From: " VERACARE "

<veracare@...>

" Infomail1ahrp (DOT) org " <Infomail1@...>

Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 17:04:45 -0500

CC:

Subject: PBS Frontline: The Medicated Child_Tuesday Jan 8

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION

Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability

http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com

FYI

On Tuesday, Jan. 8, at 9:00 PM (Eastern), 10:00 PM (Pacific), Public

Broadcasting System will examine the most controversial issue in

American

healthcare:

why are more than 6 million American children being forced to take

powerful,

toxic psychiatric drugs--some starting as young as two years old?

Is it good medicine? What's the evidence to support the practice?

The program promises to examine what many psychiatrists are beginning

to

acknowledge: American children are being subjected to an uncontrolled

high

risk experiment. Millions of American children are being prescribed

the most

toxic brain damaging drugs--with absolutely no scientific evidence of

a

therapeutic benefit to support the practice.

The increasing use of antipsychotic drugs for children is correlated

with an

inexplicable epidemic in American children being " diagnosed " as

bipolar, an

unprecedented diagnosis in children. Bipolar just happens to be an FDA

approved use for antipsychotic drugs.

So, the marked increased rates of bipolar diagnoses in children over

the

last five to seven years appears to be a case of the drugs prompting

the

diagnosis.

Indeed, as Dr. Hyman, a neuroscientist and former director of

the

National Institute of Mental Health, acknowledges, those diagnoses are

unsupported by scientific evidence.

Psychiatry's sling-shot prescribing practices rely on an irresponsible

dictum: shoot first, ask questions years after major harm has been

done.

Such a cowboy mentality has led to a market-driven chemical assault

on our

children.

Children's fears, cries, and anxieties, are being muffled with toxic

drugs

that undermine their mental and physical health.

Psychiatrists who are financially invested in expanding the market are

diverting parents' attention from the lack of science and the drugs'

harmful

effects.

Hopefully, viewers will wake up to the fact that America's children

are the

target of psychopharmacological abuse.

There is no credible scientific evidence demonstrating a therapeutic

benefit

from antipsychotics. These drugs' most prominent effect is somnolence.

How many children--like four-year old Riley-- will be

sacrificed

before this lethal paradigm of " treatment " in psychiatry is halted?

Is bad medicine any better just because it is promoted by influential

Harvard University child psychiatrists ?

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav

veracare@...

212-595-8974

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/medicatedchild/

FRONTLINE EXAMINES WHY MORE THAN 6 MILLION AMERICAN CHILDREN ARE

TAKING

POWERFUL PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS

FRONTLINE presents

THE MEDICATED CHILD

Tuesday, January 8, 2008, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS

Ten years ago, stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall were the drugs of

choice

to treat behavioral issues in children. Today, children as young as

four

years old are being prescribed more powerful anti-psychotic

medications that

are much less understood. The drugs can cause serious side effects and

virtually nothing is known about their long-term impact.

The increase in the use of anti-psychotics is directly tied to the

rising

incidence of one particular diagnosis - bipolar disorder. Experts

estimate

that the number of kids with the diagnosis is now over a million and

rising.

In recent years, there's been a dramatic increase in the number of

children

being diagnosed with serious psychiatric disorders and prescribed

medications that are just beginning to be tested in children. The

drugs can

cause serious side effects, and virtually nothing is known about their

long-term impact. " It's really to some extent an experiment, trying

medications in these children of this age, " child psychiatrist Dr.

Bacon tells FRONTLINE. " It's a gamble. And I tell parents there's no

way to

know what's going to work. "

In The Medicated Child, airing Tuesday, January 8, 2008, at 9 P.M. ET

on PBS

(check local listings), FRONTLINE producer Marcela Gaviria confronts

psychiatrists, researchers and government regulators about the risks

and

benefits of prescription drugs for troubled children. The biggest

current

controversy surrounds the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Formerly

called

manic depression, bipolar disorder was long believed to exist only in

adults, but, in the mid-1990s, bipolar in children began to be

diagnosed at

much higher rates, sometimes in kids as young as 4 years old. " The

rates of

bipolar diagnoses in children have increased markedly in many

communities

over the last five to seven years, " says Dr. Hyman, a former

director

of the National Institute of Mental Health. " I think the real

question is,

are those diagnoses right? And in truth, I don't think we yet know the

answer. "

Like many of the 1 million children now diagnosed with bipolar, 5-

year-old

was initially believed to suffer from an attention

deficit

disorder. His parents reluctantly started him on Ritalin, but over

the next

five years, would be put on one drug after another. " It all

started to

feel out of control, " 's father, Ron, told FRONTLINE. " Nobody

ever said

we can work with this through therapy and things like that.

Everywhere we

looked it was, 'Take meds, take meds, take meds.' "

Over the years, 's multiple medications have helped improve his

mood,

but they've also left him with a severe tic in his neck which doctors

are

having trouble fully explaining. " We're dealing with developing minds

and

brains, and medications have a whole different impact in the young

developing child than they do in an adult, " says Dr. nne

Wamboldt, the

chief of psychiatry at Denver Children's Hospital. " We don't

understand that

impact very well. That's where we're still in the Dark Ages. "

DJ Koontz was diagnosed with bipolar at 4 years old, after his temper

tantrums became more frequent and explosive. He was recently

prescribed

powerful antipsychotic drugs. " It is a little worrisome to me because

he is

so young, " says DJ's mother, . " If he didn't take it,

though, I

don't know if we could function as a family. It's almost a do-or-die

situation over here. " DJ's medicines seem to be helping him in the

short

run, but the longer-term outlook is still uncertain. " What's not

really

clear is whether many of the kids who are called bipolar have anything

that's related to this very well-studied disorder in adults, " says

Insel, the director of the National Institute for Mental

Health. " It's not

clear that people with that adult illness started with what we're now

calling bipolar in children. Nor is it clear that the kids who have

this

disorder are going to grow up to have what we used to call manic-

depressive

illness in adulthood. "

While some urge caution when it comes to bipolar in children,

FRONTLINE

talks with others who argue that we should intervene with drug

treatments at

even younger ages for children genetically predisposed to the

disorder. " The

theory is that if you get in early, before the first full mood

episode, then

perhaps we can delay the onset to full mania, " says Dr. Kiki Chang of

Stanford University. " And if that's the case, perhaps finding the

right

medication early on can protect a brain so that these children never

do

progress to full bipolar disorder. "

FRONTLINE's 2001 documentary Medicating Kids can be watched online at

www.pbs.org/frontline/shows/medicating

The Medicated Child is a FRONTLINE co-production with RAINMedia, Inc.

The

writer and producer is Marcela Gaviria. The co-producer is Will Cohen.

FRONTLINE is produced by WGBH Boston and is broadcast nationwide on

PBS.

Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers.

Major

funding for FRONTLINE is provided by The D. and T.

MacArthur

Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Park Foundation.

FRONTLINE

is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers and

described for

people who are blind or visually impaired by the Media Access Group

at WGBH.

FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation.

The

executive producer of FRONTLINE is Fanning.

pbs.org/pressroom

Promotional photography can be downloaded from the PBS pressroom.

Press contacts

Diane Buxton

(617) 300-5375

diane_buxton@...

Alissa Rooney

(617) 300-5314

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Phil Zimmerman

(617) 300-5366

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