Psychotropic Medications for Children
Food Chain Radio Show #1023
Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist
Psychotropic Medications for Children
Guests: Columbia University Research Psychiatrist Dr. Mark Olfson
How should a culture that feeds its children psychotropic medications be judged?
We buy a lot of psychotropic drugs to correct our thinking. And we are buying more every year.
In 2003 we spent $2.8 billion on the psychotropic pills; by 2013 we were spending $18.2 billion, for a 10 year increase of 650 percent. The number of children being fed psychotropics increased by over 300% during this period.
Michael Olson Food Chain Radio: How should a culture that feeds its children psychotropic medications be judged?
According to Consumer Reports, the increase in psychotropic drug use by children is not the result of an epidemic of mental illness, but rather because medical doctors are increasingly using the drugs to treat behavior problems. And much of the increase in childhood usage is in the Medicaid population of the poor and dispossessed.
The increased usage of psychotropic drugs by medical doctors to treat the behavior problems of children comes with little official research as to treatment’s efficacy.
That so many psychotropic drugs are fed to so many children with no official research as to their efficacy leads us to ask…
Click to leave a comment: How should a culture that feeds its children psychotropic medications be judged?
Tune in here, for the syndicated Food Chain Radio Show #1023 August 1, 2015 Saturday 9AM Pacific
I would like to share this startling statistic, but not without a source. Please provide your source:
In 2003 we spent $2.8 billion on the psychotropic pills; by 2013 we were spending $18.2 billion, for a 10 year increase of 650 percent. The number of children being fed psychotropics increased by over 300% during this period.
Thank you.
Source: Antipsychotic Drug Use ConsumerReports.org
This constant drugging of children is creating people who will not be fully functioning and who can also become a shooter or killer. The bizarre violent crimes amongst school shooters, military shootings, etc are carried out by people on psychotropic drugs. Besides the danger being created for those around them, it also sets these people up for lives that cannot be fully lived as the effects of the drugs lead to the use of other drugs/meds because of the side effects created. My sister was on something or other and she never could get her life together – ever and I see it over and over again. The other side of it is that most of the drugging of children is to get them to sit still. Kids are not supposed to be sitting still. They’re supposed to be running around and playing. Now we’ve created a culture of kids who sit glued to computer screens and iPhones. When I was a kid I was out there, running, playing, helping in the house, sports, school. Action. I loved it and raised my own that way. Luckily in South Africa where I come from, we were not hit with this weird mental model although I think it has crept in there a lot now too.