http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2000/04/16/loc_drugging_our_kids.html
Sunday, April 16, 2000
Drugging our kids Are 'brain pills' to control behavior
cure or a curse?
Local experts speak out
What we're talking about
BY Linda Cagnetti
The Cincinnati Enquirer  Â
  It's been a year since Columbine High School jarred
us into a national panic over our children. We're frantic to figure out why
they're angry, violent and sad, and how to “fix†them, fast.
    Soon after the shootings, the Clinton White House convened a mental
health summit dominated by biopsychiatrists who informed us our children suffer
from biological brain disorders linked to mental distress, violence and worse,
and that psychiatric pills for the brain are the newest (and inevitable)
solution. The president then proposed a massive increase in psychiatric
interventions in schools to identify and treat the potentially violent and
troubled ones.
    We got another jolt in February. The Journal of the American
Medical Association reported a huge increase in the number of preschoolers
taking psychotropic drugs, particularly stimulants such as Ritalin and
antidepressants such as Prozac. It underscored the alarming rise in the use of
powerful psychiatric drugs to control behavior in kids of all ages — despite
the fact the drugs are largely untested for the young.
    Public anxiety went up a notch. So did the White House damage
control. The Clintons swiftly switched channels and announced “a major effort
to study and curb this alarming trend,†including new policy, more research
and another summit this summer.
    Meanwhile, an alarming number of kids are being diagnosed with
brain or behavior disorders and given a variety of brain-altering drugs that
are not sufficiently tested on young people and often have under-publicized,
serious side effects. Almost nothing is known about how the drugs affect a
child's developing brain. Much medication is haphazard.
    Incredibly, however, this psychiatric prescription for troubled
children is poised to become the official norm. The problem is that only one
side — the pro-medicators — have had the microphone. They're telling us our
children's problems aren't cultural, emotional or spiritual — they're
biological. Their dysfunction is brain chemistry. And we are backward,
misinformed or cruel to deny them drugs to fix it.
    Well, we're desperate to stop the violence, control the disorder,
save our kids. We will turn schools into fortresses or psychiatrically sort and
label kids if necessary. If half of them need psychoactive drugs, we'll
tolerate that, too — if the experts say they'll work.
    Already we have 4 million to 5 million children on stimulants such
as Ritalin and 2.5 million on antidepressants such as Prozac. Medicating is
quicker and cheaper than therapy and other approaches. Insurance companies
prefer Prozac at $20 a week to therapy at $100 an hour. Teachers recommend
medication for learning or behavior problems because schools don't have enough
counselors or psychologists to deal with them otherwise. Desperate parents try
everything.
    I know children who are helped dramatically with medication and
others who are not. I know the frustration of children with legitimate problems
and the pain they suffer from being different. I hate the cruel, self-righteous
criticism heaped by some parents on other parents who are doing their best in
difficult and confusing situations.
    Tragedies like Columbine exacerbate everybody's anxiety and the
rush toward hasty, ill-informed public policy. But why, in light of all we know
and don't know about these drugs, would we sanction them as the preferred and
only “enlightened†prescription for so many children's problems? “If
antidepressant and stimulant drugs sometimes cause excessively violent behavior
(there are many published anecdotal cases), why, in the aftermath of these
school shootings, are we promoting more of the drugs?†asks Dr. Peter
Breggin, psychiatrist and author of Reclaiming our Children.
    Why aren't we asking what's wrong with the society our kids live
in, or with adults' priorities? Why, in the world's richest country, won't we
pay for proper diagnoses and treatment for children who need it? Why won't we
create and support inspiring schools? Why do we abandon children literally and
emotionally? Why are we hell-bent on labeling and cubbyholing them by how they
act and perform or don't? Why is our discourse about them so desperate and
strident?
    Maybe the adults are more berserk than the children.
    We're learning some awesome things about the brain. But many
Cincinnati specialists point out that both nature and nurture matter with
children. And there's still plenty we can do to improve our efforts on the
nurture side.
    The next White House mental health summit should examine the flaws
in adult priorities, in families, schools and communities — not just the
flaws in the brains of our kids.
    Linda Cagnetti is deputy editor of the Enquirer's editorial pages:
312 Elm Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45202; 513-768-8527; e-mail to
[email hidden].