More child abuse thanks to pharmapoliticial corruption: A generation of Australian children on psychotropic drugs.

http://seven.com.au/todaytonight/story/?id=20480

Kids controlled with drugs
REPORTER: Glenn Connley
BROADCAST DATE: May 4, 2005

Rebel doctors and a grief counsellor say too many children are on anti-depressants and ADHD drugs. Some think it could damage a generation of kids.

Australia's kids are on a drug binge. The evidence can be seen in most school playgrounds and the pushers are desperate parents, troubled teachers and doctors.

Grief counsellor Mal McKissock has seen children at their lowest ebb. He compared the use of prescription drugs to legalised child abuse.

"Prescribing anti-depressants to bereaved kids with no history of depression is actually abuse, it's doing harm," Mr McKissock said.

Mr McKissock found that by the time some children reached him they had been drugged to the eyeballs with anti depressants, by doctors treating grief like clinical depression.

"If you put the developing brain on anti-depressants, then when you withdraw them, as an adult they develop actual depression, social withdrawal behaviours," Mr McKissock said.

"So we're actually changing the brain structure by using those with kids."

In the US, some drugs have even been labelled with youth suicide warnings. But it's not just anti-depressants that have child health experts like Dr George Halasz worried.

Desperate to calm supposedly out-of-control kids, some doctors have prescribed dexamphetamines such as Ritalin in huge numbers, with seemingly little concern that these drugs only treat the symptoms while ignoring the cause.

"Australia are the gold, silver and bronze medal holders in the number of scripts for Ritalin, a drug for ADHD," Dr Halasz explained.

"Many of these drugs are in fact given almost as a first option rather than they should be, as a last option."

Ten years ago, 46,000 Australian children were on dexamphetamines such as Ritalin. The number has risen to a staggering 246,000 and there has been a similar rise in the use of anti-depressants.

The latest figures showed that in 2002, doctors issued 220,000 prescriptions for children. One year later that had jumped to a quarter of a million. Drugs which were once a last-resort are being handed out like lollies.

"In the last 10-15 years this sequence or cycle has been virtually turned on its head and the catchphrase of a 'quick fix' is much more the attitude in most western countries," Dr Halasz said.

When he was just seven years old, Joshua Head was prescribed Ritalin on the advice of his school and doctor. His mum Therese said that against her better judgment, she agreed to try treating him with the pill.

The drug was meant to suppress symptoms such as explosive, violent or defiant behaviour. Instead, it had the opposite effect.

"[He was] disruptive, like if you said black he'd say white," Therese said. "If he didn't want to do something he'd dig the heels in: 'No, I'm not doing it'."

The two even had physical struggles.

"[He was] abusive, like very colourful language, almost tendencies to be violent at some point as well," Therese said.

It was an easy decision to take her son off the drug, she said.

Dr Jacques Duff has begun a search for new treatments for ADHD, favouring neurotherapy and dietary alternatives to drugs.

"If our first line of treatment is to give the kids medication, that is probably in many cases unnecessary," Dr Duff said. "Then what you're saying is quite right – we are overmedicating."

Some children have even been force-fed drugs because parents and teachers can't cope. Rebel doctors say drugs are not only being misused, they are being given to children who need little more than a bit of discipline or understanding from parents or teachers.

"Many families are not prepared to look at their own dynamics and how they interact with the child for the benefit of the child," Dr Duff said.

"Instead, it's easier to blame it on the child and go to the doctor and get some medication for it."

Dr Halasz suggested an alternative way to tackle behavioural problems.

"They should look at their family situation, look at their child and the development of the child, look at themselves and the daily wear and tear, the stresses," Dr Halasz said. "And then they should listen to the child."

"Maybe the child's communicating something about what is actually going on, that mums and dads might be too busy to notice."

The other, more cynical fear is that the global business of medicine is controlled by the big drug companies, who profit from every pill swallowed by our kids.

"The mainstream pharmaceutical model is so heavily driven by pharmaceutical interests," Dr Duff said. "So a lot of the training is, and a lot of the research is sponsored by pharmaceutical interests."

Mr McKissock said drug companies spent $5 billion annually advertising their products and were determined to get their drugs into use.

"The money we could save in Pharmaceutical Benefits by not prescribing a lot of this stuff, we could actually [use to] improve our health care dramatically," he said.

The experts said they were taking a risk by speaking out, but had done so because they believed the culture of solving everything with a pill had to change, before we permanently damaged a generation of children.

"Once we look at the seriousness of the generational effects of prescribing drugs – mind-altering, mood-altering drugs – to ever-younger children and see the consequences … the first issue is to recognise that this is a problem," Dr Halasz said.

"This is not normal, this is a historical fashion statement. Fashion statements fortunately eventually change. Unfortunately perhaps, not before a lot of damage is done on the way."

Victoria's health department has compiled information on ADHD and therapies: www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au

Australian Psychological Society information sheet on ADHD: www.psychology.org.au/psych/consult/2.10_2.asp

The national depression initiative Beyond Blue at www.beyondblue.org.au offers resources on depression and its treatment for people of all ages. More on anti-depressants can be found at www.depressionet.com.au

The Therapeutic Goods Administration controls the approval of drugs sold in Australia: www.tga.gov.au

Drug companies are represented by Medicines Australia: www.medicinesaustralia.com.au

Research on ADHD, depression and treatment is published in the Medical Journal of Australia: www.mja.com.au"

END OF ARTICLE

And so the deadly net of pharma/political industry corruption, with its lies about the safety and effectiveness of toxic chemical concoctions, drapes itself over the children of the globe.