The pharmaceutical companies have broadened their horizon. It is not enough that they have 30% of middle and upper income white women addicted to antidepressants and that 20% of adults take some form of psychiatric medication. They now want to hook as many children as possible on psychiatric medication as well.
The mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights announces the last in a four-part series by award-winning investigative journalist Kelly Patricia O’Meara exploring how the nation’s military forces have been used as guinea pigs for psychological and pharmaceutical experiments. This last installment looks at the long standing relationship between the military and psychiatry that has been in place since WWII and the psychiatric research being conducted on U.S. soldiers.
If lawmakers and authorities are truly concerned about stopping gun violence in schools, they need to take a close look at the prescription of psychotropic drugs for children and young people, says a leading psychiatrist.
GlaxoSmithKline, maker of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor Paxil, is mired in a class action lawsuit in Canada that alleges the antidepressant caused birth defects in children whose expectant mothers took the drug without the corporation’s adequate warning of the heightened risks. A British Columbia judge permitted the class action.
A “model” program that was part of a controversial plan to screen all US citizens for mental illness has announced that it is closing down.
On 15 November, TeenScreen, a program to detect depression in young people, announced on its website: “The National Center will be winding down its program at the end of this year.”