On Dec. 13, 2006, 4-year-old Rebecca Riley died, drowning in her own
lung secretions. Her death was the direct result of psychiatric
medications which had been prescribed to her for a presumed diagnosis
of bipolar disorder -- a diagnosis first given to her when she was
only 2 years old.
In September 2007, researchers at Columbia University reported that
there had been a 40-fold increase in the number of children diagnosed
with bipolar disorder from 1994 to 2003 -- an increase which has shown
no signs of slowing.
Worse than the current frenzy to diagnose children with bipolar
disorder is the practice of medicating kids as young as 2 with the
kinds of psychiatric medications that were once prescribed only to
psychotic adults. The shocking reality is that the use of these potent
anti-psychotic drugs in children increased more than 500 percent
between 1993 and 2002.
This dramatic rise in childhood bipolar disorder has spurred a raging
debate in the mental health field. Some psychiatrists insist that this
incredible increase is entirely due to the identification of mentally
ill children who had been previously overlooked.
Yet a 4,000 percent increase in childhood mental illness, specifically
bipolar disorder, is simply implausible and difficult to justify based
solely on improved diagnostic techniques. To the contrary, in the
30-plus years that I have been treating, educating and caring for
children -- half of that time as a child psychiatrist -- I have found
that the approach to diagnostics in psychiatry clearly has
deteriorated over time, not improved.
There was a time when doctors insisted on hours of evaluation with a
child and his parents before venturing a psychiatric diagnosis or
prescribing a medication. Today many of my colleagues brag that they
can complete an initial assessment of a child and write a prescription
in less than 20 minutes. Many parents have told me it took a previous
doctor less than five minutes to diagnose and medicate their child.
How, then, is it possible that in 2007 doctors are now able to
identify hundreds of thousands of previously missed cases of bipolar
disorder in children by reducing the time they spend with patients
from multiple hours to just a few minutes?
On the other hand, there simply is no possible way that the number of
children who actually have bipolar disorder has increased from
approximately 20,000 to 800,000 in a nine-year period. Yet the
arguments of skeptics are being dismissed by academics in psychiatry.
Research psychiatrists appear to be more invested in defending their
research conclusions -- funded by pharmaceutical companies -- than
engaging in a meaningful discussion to examine these preposterous
demographics.
What I find more astounding than the claim that there are 800,000
American children with bipolar disorder is the fact that there are
that many children whose conduct is so aberrant that their parents are
seeking psychiatric treatment for them.
The symptoms, which are regarded as evidence of bipolar disorder,
usually are what most people recognize as ordinary belligerence.
Children who have anger outbursts, who refuse to go to bed, who are
moody and self-centered under the current standard of care in child
psychiatry are being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. To most rational
human beings, these behaviors describe an ill-mannered, immature and
poorly disciplined child. Nonetheless, the temper tantrums of
belligerent children are increasingly being characterized by doctors
as the mood swings of bipolar disorder.
The over-indulgent parenting practices of the past 20 years have
created a generation of dysfunctional children who are becoming
increasingly more entitled, defiant and oppositional. In a poll by
Associated Press-Ipsos, 93 percent of people surveyed said that
today's parents are not doing a good job when it comes to teaching
their kids to behave. According to Dan Kindlon, a Harvard
psychologist, 50 percent of the parents he interviewed described
themselves as more permissive than their parents had been.
The permissive parents of spoiled children seek refuge from blame by
using the excuse that their child's angry outbursts are the result of
a chemical imbalance. Since a psychiatric condition is completely
beyond a parent's control, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder is the
perfect alibi. Once a child has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder,
a parent feels absolved of guilt or responsibility for the child's
misbehavior and therefore, the parents' discipline practices cannot be
called into question.
Parents looking for a psychiatric explanation for their child's
misbehavior will find an abundance of support in the media and on the
Web for the conclusion that their child's temper tantrums are due to a
psychiatric disease rather than the result of bad parenting.
Psychiatrists, for their part, are more than willing to accept,
without question, the assessment offered by a parent. Doctors have
found it easier and less contentious to comply with a parent's wish to
have their child diagnosed with a psychiatric condition than to
confront the parent with the notion that their own weak parenting is
the root cause of the child's aberrant behavior.
Using the diagnosis of bipolar disorder, doctors then justify the
sedation of these children with powerful psychiatric drugs. Even
though some children treated with anti-psychotics may be temporarily
sedated, their belligerent attitude continues unchanged. Of the many
children I treat every year who had been previously diagnosed with
bipolar disorder, not one of them stopped throwing tantrums after
being treated with psychiatric medications. Yet doctors continue to
misdiagnose and overmedicate children to appease frustrated parents in
spite of the many serious, permanent or even lethal side effects.
Tragically, as in the death of Rebecca Riley, her parents administered
the multiple medications prescribed by their psychiatrist for
Rebecca's "bipolar disorder" until the meds killed her. A few weeks
ago, in an interview on 60 Minutes, Rebecca's mother told Katie Couric
that she now believes that her four-year-old daughter had been
misdiagnosed, had never been bipolar, and that Rebecca was simply
mischievous.
When it comes to misdiagnosing and overmedicating children, doctors
have an unwitting, though not unwilling, accomplice -- the parent.
Ultimately, it is the parent who is the gatekeeper for their child's
health-care delivery. It is the parent who pursues psychiatric
treatment for their child, fills the prescriptions and administers the
medications. Parents have a duty to protect their children from the
folly of this disastrous approach to childhood behavior problems.
Instead of grooming, feeding and educating the next generation of
Americans to be the fittest, brightest, most competent contributors on
the planet, we have indulged, placated and spoiled our children into
dysfunctional misfits. We are teaching our children to use a
psychiatric diagnosis to excuse their antisocial behaviors. This will
inevitably lead to a greater reliance on psychiatric medications,
which unfortunately do not endow an individual with improved
self-control or maturity.
Under the guise of treating childhood bipolar disorder, the spoiling
of American children not only undermines their healthy social
development, but it also puts them at great risk for the serious
medical complications inherent in the use of psychiatric medications,
including death.
No comments:
Post a Comment