Re: OT? PBS's Medicated Child kind of crappy- Beth

[Guest guest]

I'm encouraged that you felt that the message of the film, that drugs

were a big lab rat experiment, probably got accross to the

unintiated. That was my concern. If I hear the message being watered

down (like the failure to mention that the suicide spike occurred

prior to black box warnings on SSRIs) I imagine that a number of

people will slip through this information gap and remain uninformed,

at the cost of their children's welfare.

But if you say the gap wasn't that wide, that's good.

I get leery about half-truths because I'm dead sick of living in a

society in which most have drunk the koolade, believe the hype and

police each other and each other's children for signs of lack of

conformity. Not to mention the fact that kids are being maimed. They

may be other people's children but it's awful to know it goes on.

I've seen kids with ticks. Pop psych is becoming inquisitorial and

it's the death of activism, certainly. And broad acceptance means

mandating drug treatments could become more common, even against the

will of the family in question. So the issue of others getting the

information matters because that's another chicken we don't want

coming home to roost.

> >

> > I suspected it was going to be way too diplomatic when I didn't

> see

> > many of the main voices in the psychiatric reform featured as the

> > series of " experts " . Turned out to be true. Sure the show made

the

> > correlation between suicide and SSRIs, but the program itself

> > provided false information and did not offer dissent to these

> > assumptions. That dissent would have been so easy to find but

> those

> > people were all noticeably missing from the program. Instead

there

> > were a lot of NIMH and FDA folks just unquestioningly asserting

> the

> > bogus message that some kids " need " these drugs. Oh, " some need

> them

> > but for others they're not effective " .

> >

> > Mental illness isn't caused by pharmaceutical deprivation.

> >

> > For another thing, the suicide rate spiked among teens just prior

> to

> > the placement of the black box warnings on SSRIs, though the

voice-

> > over asserted the reverse. The show lied, in other words.

> Secondly,

> > the increased uptake of antipsychotics was due to multiple

> factors,

> > not just a matter of the poor shrinks having to give kids

> something

> > else because their poor parents were scared off of SSRIs by the

> mean

> > black boxes, which is how the PBS doc characterizes it.

> >

> > In fact, aside from fresh child market approvals (or the promise

> of

> > them) spurring on unprecedentedly aggressive marketing campaigns

> by

> > the drug companies for antipsychotics, the increase in

> antipsychotic

> > prescriptions for children is MOSTLY due to side effects of

> > antidepressants and stimulants, which both cause mania, which is

> then

> > diagnosed as bipolar disorder. And--tada-- you have polypharmacy

> in a

> > nutshell: give one drug then diagnose a " comorbid disorder "

> because

> > of the side effects of the first drug. Give another drug, dx

> > another " comorbid disorder " from the second drug's side effects>

> Then

> > never blame the drugs for any of it. In fact, thank the drugs

> > for " uncovering " the previously " invisible " disorders. Ugh.

> >

> > And then of course there's the use of antipsychotics to treat

> vaccine

> > side effects, including autism (all the big marketing guns are

> aimed

> > right at our kids), which in a sense is also polypharmacy. I

think

> > we're all more than aware that vaccine toxins like mercury cause

> > irritability and erratic behavior at the very least, which can

> easily

> > be diagnosed from a slew of meaningless DSM entries signifying

> > surface behavior: BP, ADHD, conduct disorder, reactive attachment

> > disorder, bla bla bla. This has been known about metals for

> > centuries. I didn't expect the show to mention this, but I didn't

> > expect it to undercut the important potential message with a lot

> of

> > the usual pharma disinformation.

> >

> > Diplomacy isn't always a good thing. I suppose that in film

> making,

> > like getting political candidacy, sometimes you've got to lick a

> few

> > of the wrong hands. Maybe the film maker had to make concessions

> just

> > to pound home the message that these drugs increase risk of

> suicide

> > and diabetes, etc.. I'm just tired of the luke warm half truth on

> all

> > counts.

> >

>