On a 35-fold Increase in Children with Severe Mental Illness: Why?
Robert Whitaker raises a provocative question, I see the evidence of medication solutions for children that have gone awry almost every day in my work. Psychopharmaological meds for kids I put in the same category as video gaming and marijuana clinics. Why do we view any of these as innocent and/or helpful? -gw
The number of children who receive a federal payment because of a severe mental illness rose from 16,200 in 1987 to 561,569 in 2007, a 35-fold increase.I wrote Anatomy of an Epidemic to investigate this epidemic, and this pursuit necessarily raises a very uncomfortable question. Although we, as a society, believe that psychiatric medications have "revolutionized" the treatment of mental illness, the disability numbers suggest a very different possibility. Could our drug-based paradigm of care, for some unforeseen reason, be fueling this epidemic?
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