dagblog - Comments for "Antidepressants given to babies"

I don't think that is what is

Orion — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 23:43:41 +0000

In reply to Imagine yourself the parent

I don't think that is what is going on with children being put on Ritalin and antidepressants (A/d's wouldn't exactly treat whatever is troubling her - they're just drugs designed to make you feel better). The overmedication is being promoted as opposed to a genuine response to a need.

I got put in front of behavioral pathologists as early as 4 years old. I never got a chance to be normal. As a result of that, I went years thinking I had "Asperger's Syndrome" - a disorder that is not even in the DSM anymore. Even if there obviously is legitimate mental illness, there is also an obvious phenomenon of children being pathologized by adults because the adults see something beneficial in it.

The cure for this is really simple - pass regulations against advertising by pharmaceutical companies. If you do that, mental health treatment would be a more community-centered affair instead of big business.

I still think that the standard thinking on mental illness is something we need to get away from - medication, with all the dangers it provides, should really only be reached out for when there is a serious physical problem. Empathy, human bonding - this is what many of our most troubled people really need. No drug will ever provide that. Medicine is for curing diseases - drugs just disable people.

A mental disorder is what the girl in the New York Times article you posted allegedly has. The article evidences her having imaginary friends as a sign of schizophrenia - that would make most little kids schizophrenic - I knew alot of kids that did weird stuff like playing with toys of fictional characters and scary stuff like make noises of the fictional characters they were playing with. I thought they were just having fun but I guess I'm wrong - they all had a chemical imbalance that made them imagine things that weren't there, right? Maybe we should sell Seroquel at Toys R Us or have mental health screenings at FAO Schwartz!

Kids actually act up for many reasons. One's emotional responses could be the result of alot of factors going on in a child's social environment. It is very possible, with our current mentality, for a child who is responding to a toxic/bad social environment around them to get stigmatized with having an emotional disorder for what is really objectively normal behavior. Of course, it's alot easier for my parents' generation to blame their emotional problems on their children.

The whole mentality is totally from a parental and school point of view - maybe it would be good if we looked at the child's point of view, for once. They are human, you know, and we have no right to just have our way with them.

Arty, that was a good read.

trkingmomoe — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 06:36:30 +0000

In reply to Imagine yourself the parent

Arty, that was a good read. There are a couple of people that post over at Kos with children who have symptoms like these. I consider them saints because it is so hard on everyone.

Imagine yourself the parent

artappraiser — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 03:21:17 +0000

In reply to I don't understand it either

Imagine yourself the parent and not the child, and don't leave out the heartache part:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/health/22kids.html

I don't understand it either

Orion — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 02:54:23 +0000

In reply to I think I caught part of this

I don't understand it either but alot of people in this society look at small children and think "mental illness." I have wanted an explanation for this for a long time and never got it. This just keeps going on in our society and no one taking part in it explains themselves.

I think I caught part of this

Richard Day — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 01:23:15 +0000

In reply to Antidepressants given to babies

I think I caught part of this this morning.

I will tell you that I just thought: BULLSHITE!

I watch my son and his partner raising this little girl and I cannot imagine the thought would even enter their minds that this little angel needs drugs.

Viewing the pix of this little girl growing teeth and such, I know it is a painful time.

I held my son for 16 hours going threw this pain.

But coming to some psychological conclusion that the baby needs drugs?

I have read about rubbing rum on the gums as they say. And home remedies have abounded over the milennia.

But damn!

If they are perplexed, they

Orion — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 23:27:03 +0000

In reply to New Zealand is a very small

If they are perplexed, they are ignoring the obvious reasons. New Zealand is one of two countries in the developed world that allow direct advertising of pharmaceuticals. The other one is the United States. I have posted examples of direct advertising of psychiatric treatment to parents of very small children - that has everything to do with this story.

It's not really exactly hard to figure out what the problem is and what the cure (no pun intended) is. Bring back the old laws that banned advertising of pharmaceuticals. It won't mean that Diabetics can't get insulin, that epileptics (which I am) can't get Tegretol or that even people with genuine mental illness can't get meds. It just means that medication won't be pushed on to every single member of society like it is now.

The exact same thing is happening in Canada. I know it seems like I post here ALOT but I've actually read dozens of articles from all over the Western world about children who haven't even hit grade school getting fed medication designed for schizophrenics and seriously depressed adults. If this is occurring on this wide a scale, than I think it can fairly be called an epidemic.

New Zealand is a very small

artappraiser — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 19:28:24 +0000

In reply to Antidepressants given to babies

New Zealand is a very small country. And Pharmac is their government agency (I looked it up) charged with making sure medicines are being used properly for the health of its citizens, and it seems to have a considerable amount of power to influence what medicines are used.

The article clearly is meant to be the start of an expose, that no one the reporter found to talk to could explain why this problem exists. It's a "something is really wrong here, but we can't find the answer yet" article. You present it as if there's someone in the article supporting giving anti-depressants to babies in New Zealand (i.e why it is so problematic to see something wrong with this?) You're doing a straw man. No one in the article supports it. Rather, they all say they are against doing it. Either the numbers are mistakes, or the government is not doing its job and there are some doctors out there not being properly monitored and the reporter is trying to bring that up.

Actually, I read it as the reporter not being able to get to the bottom of it yet, just reporting on a mystery so far, hoping to get some answers about something that normally shouldn't be happening in a small country with rather strong prescription controls. It's a "developing," as Drudge says, a developing scandal story.