MFI NEWS ANALYSIS

23 November 2006 – MindFreedom International

The NY Times has published a significant investigation of the use of “polypharmacy” on children in the USA. That is, prescribers are sometimes giveing three, four, five or more psychiatric drugs to even toddlers. Of course, these combinations have never been tested even in adults, let alone children.

You may view the text of the article.

View the original NY Times article with photos and graphs (may require registration).

An excerpt:

“Fate Riske, 3, of Fond du Lac, Wis., takes two antipsychotics and a sleeping medicine to control what her mother, Elizabeth Klein-Riske, said were hours-long tantrums, a desire to watch the same movies repeatedly and an insistence on eating the meat, cheese and bread in her sandwiches separately.”

Unfortunately, the writer of the piece editorializes by making an absolute judgment call that psychiatric drugs are helpful in young people. MindFreedom views that as a personal health care decision by families for which there is no established scientific evidence.

However, all in all, the NY Times has done a great public service by exposing the massive, bizarre, unscientific :”chemical cocktails” being given to children even as young as three, when safer and more effective alternatives exist. Unfortunately, families with a young person in a crisis are often not offered a full range of humane alternatives, but are increasingly offered only one choice:

A mantra of drug, drug, drug, label, label, label.