XPost: misc.health.alternative, alt.psychology, sci.psychology   
   XPost: soc.culture.usa   
   From: superstar@deadcelebrity.org   
      
   There was an article in yesterday's newspaper that described the huge increase   
   in diagnosed cases of bipolar disorder among children in the last decade.  The   
   number of cases has increased 40x, but fortunately most of those cases are   
   treatable with the latest and very expensive atypical antipsychotic drugs.   
      
   This sounds similar to the huge and rapid increase in ADHD cases around the   
   same time, another disorder treatable with expensive psychoactive medications.   
   Then I've been ranting on recently about the latest epidemic of autism that is   
   sweeping the country, though that disorder is typically treated with expensive   
   $500/hour psychological therapy than with $50 pills.   
      
   Anyway, the study the article refers to claims that heavy marketing is to blame   
   for the increase in antipsychotic treatment, and that up to half of all the   
   allegedly bipolar kids are misdiagnosed.  I personally believe that the doctors   
   are getting kickbacks for prescribing the pills and that ordinary children are   
   being abused with chemicals in exchange for the doctor's new Hummer.   
      
   BTW, I was reading a magazine in the dentist's office and it had a profile on   
   some interior decorator who had originally received a Ph.D. in psychology and   
   had even become a licensed clinical child psychologist for a short time before   
   quitting in disgust over seeing children who were perfectly normal but it was   
   their parents who were neurotic.  Every child who doesn't live up to his   
   parents' unrealistic and unreasonable expectations is diagnosed with a mental   
   disorder - whether it be ADD, bipolar, or autism - and then drugged into   
   submission.  And I expect that when we analyze the bipolar child epidemic,   
   we'll see that it predominately afflicts more affluent ethnic groups who have   
   generous insurance coverage.   
      
   http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20576306/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)