Are Children and Adolescents Overprescribed Psychiatric Medications?

“The psychiatric drugging of our children: A developing international crisis.”

This article by Dr. John Read has been published in Psychology Today. It begins:

“On August 13th [2021] several hundred people registered to take part in an online “town hall meeting,” and 1,600 watched live via streaming on Facebook. The topic was “The Psychiatric Drugging of Our Children: A Developing International Crisis.” The title seems a little melodramatic — until one looks at the data.

In the USA, 8.5 percent of children under 18 (1 in 12) are on “medication for ADD/ADHDautism/ASD, or difficulties with emotions, concentration, or behavior,” according to a national survey. This includes 1.2 percent of pre-schoolers and 12.9 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds (1 in 8).

The rate is highly variable, reaching 14.2 percent in West Virginia and 16.1 percent in Louisiana (1 in 6). The predictors of the variation are social as well as geographical. For example, only 5.4 percent of children who have experienced no adversities are on these drugs, compared to 16.3 percent of those with two or more childhood adversities (1 in 6). Overall, the figures are 6.3 percent for girls and 10.3 percent for boys (17.8 percent of Louisiana boys).

Some (0.2 percent) very young children(2 to 7 years)are even being forced to take powerful antipsychotic drugs in the USA, mostly for the particularly vague diagnosis of ‘pervasive developmental disorder’ and mostly in conjunction with one or more other psychiatric drugs …”

You can read more from here.

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