A thought-provoking article I just read in “The Washington Post National Weekly Edition,” states that the debate over the effectiveness of long-term drug treatment of children with hyperactivity or attention-deficit disorder has been reignited. For years, millions of parents have assumed these drug treatments were safe and okay to administer to their children over the long run. A recent study builds a case for an opposite conclusion.
The article stated, “In August 2007, the MTA (Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD), researchers reported the first follow-up data, which by then no longer showed differences in behavior between children who were medicated and those who were not. But the data did show that children who took the drugs for 36 months were about an inch shorter and six pounds lighter than those who did not.”
In light of this study that says that the drug treatment stunts the growth of children, I wonder what other aspects of the child’s experience is stunted? The study confirms short term benefits in child behavior modification, but over the long term the effects disappear and there is no difference between children who are medicated and those who are not, except that the medicated children are stunted.
Hmmm, this is not cool…
The article adds, “With the MTA having followed the children for eight years, the latest data have confirmed that there are no long-term differences between children who were continuously medicated and those who were never medicated.”
As I read this study, I grew increasingly grateful for the Christian Science approach to healing. People sometimes complain that Christian Science requires “too much work.” In other words, Christian Science demands reformation and spiritualization of thought for genuine healing. Some people don’t like to put in the work that spiritual healing asks. They want an easy way out. They don’t want to face their demons and conquer them. They turn to drugs. "Pop a pill and all your troubles go away," so some believe. But, as this study confirms, this is temporary illusion. There may be a short term effect, but the long term is not good, and can be quite the opposite.
Confirming many people’s tendency to dose with drugs rather than commit to character transformation and improvement, the article ended with this observation: “A yet-to-be-published study…found that 95 percent of parents who were told by clinicians to first try behavioral interventions for ADHD did so. When parents were given a prescription for a drug and then told to enroll their children in behavioral intervention programs, 75 percent did not seek out the behavioral approaches.”
It sounds like its time to get back to the “old-fashioned” approach and give the children what they really need. And that’s not more medicine, but more love, attention and care that enables them to feel closer to God, comforted by divine Love, and able to gain the resulting peace and calm that comes from being spiritually minded.
Showing posts with label medication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medication. Show all posts
Monday, April 6, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Overmedication of America
I read a book recently, titled, “Comfortably Numb: How psychiatry is medicating a nation,” by Charles Barber, a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine. Barber contends that Americans are horrendously overdosed in psychiatric medicines, and provides facts and stories to back up his case.
Some quotes from his book:
“In 2006, 227 million antidepressant prescriptions were dispensed to Americans—more than any other class of medication—and up by 30 million prescriptions since 2002.”
“Americans are responsible for almost half of the world’s prescription drug sales….In 2006, Americans—about 6 percent of the world’s population—bought about two-thirds of the world’s psychiatric and neurological drugs. In 2006, 66 percent of the global antidepressant market was accounted for by the United States.”
“To say that we are the most medicated nation on earth is an absurd understatement. To say that we are the most psychiatrically medicated nation on earth is a prodigiously absurd understatement.”
Barber is not arguing that the medicines should be done away with, but that Americans are putting too much faith in them. He gives examples of how advertising campaigns lull consumers into believing doses of these drugs are healthy for them, when quite the opposite is true. He also contends that Americans are sanitizing themselves with drugs to avoid dealing with the highs and lows of human experience. They are practicing a form of escapism rather than working life's problems out constructively.
He wrote:
“It has been widely observed that the SSRIs [form of antidepressant drug] put many people at a sort of remove from reality, a distance from the self. I’ve seen SSRIs block out both the good and the bad, numbing us to the pandemonium of life….The emotional highs and lows are excised from experience, and one exists in a slightly foggy middle ground….They function; they don’t get too excited or too upset. They get by. They come to inhabit an inauthentic and less challenging existence and embrace a uniquely American form of emotional sanitation.”
This last observation is what I have noted in people on antidepressant drugs. They are not themselves anymore. They are drugged into a state of semi-individuality that loses touch with reality.
Of course, there is a need to help people out of depressive states of mind that cause them to struggle, and healing is possible through prayer and spiritual treatment of thought. There is one Mind, and it’s a happy healthy Mind which everyone is divinely designed to express.
Heavy and dark states of mortal mind may seem to weigh that joy down for a spell in the human mind, but it cannot endure. Christ is ever-present in human consciousness helping each individual find the light that brings genuine joy back into their experience.
Barber still advocates medicine for severe depression, mostly because he knows no other way to cope with it. He’s willing to compromise on the tough cases. But for the most part, he encourages his readers to deal with life’s realities rather than trying to avoid them through drugging.
Amen!
Americans are way too overmedicated. Books like this help snap lulled consumers out of complacency and acquiescence to ever-increasing doses of medicine that do great harm and avoid dealing with the real issues of life through logic, reason and spirituality.
Everyone has a right to live an authentic life! But it won’t be found in a drugged-up state of mind. It’s found through spiritual growth, increased spirituality and consecrated prayer.
Some quotes from his book:
“In 2006, 227 million antidepressant prescriptions were dispensed to Americans—more than any other class of medication—and up by 30 million prescriptions since 2002.”
“Americans are responsible for almost half of the world’s prescription drug sales….In 2006, Americans—about 6 percent of the world’s population—bought about two-thirds of the world’s psychiatric and neurological drugs. In 2006, 66 percent of the global antidepressant market was accounted for by the United States.”
“To say that we are the most medicated nation on earth is an absurd understatement. To say that we are the most psychiatrically medicated nation on earth is a prodigiously absurd understatement.”
Barber is not arguing that the medicines should be done away with, but that Americans are putting too much faith in them. He gives examples of how advertising campaigns lull consumers into believing doses of these drugs are healthy for them, when quite the opposite is true. He also contends that Americans are sanitizing themselves with drugs to avoid dealing with the highs and lows of human experience. They are practicing a form of escapism rather than working life's problems out constructively.
He wrote:
“It has been widely observed that the SSRIs [form of antidepressant drug] put many people at a sort of remove from reality, a distance from the self. I’ve seen SSRIs block out both the good and the bad, numbing us to the pandemonium of life….The emotional highs and lows are excised from experience, and one exists in a slightly foggy middle ground….They function; they don’t get too excited or too upset. They get by. They come to inhabit an inauthentic and less challenging existence and embrace a uniquely American form of emotional sanitation.”
This last observation is what I have noted in people on antidepressant drugs. They are not themselves anymore. They are drugged into a state of semi-individuality that loses touch with reality.
Of course, there is a need to help people out of depressive states of mind that cause them to struggle, and healing is possible through prayer and spiritual treatment of thought. There is one Mind, and it’s a happy healthy Mind which everyone is divinely designed to express.
Heavy and dark states of mortal mind may seem to weigh that joy down for a spell in the human mind, but it cannot endure. Christ is ever-present in human consciousness helping each individual find the light that brings genuine joy back into their experience.
Barber still advocates medicine for severe depression, mostly because he knows no other way to cope with it. He’s willing to compromise on the tough cases. But for the most part, he encourages his readers to deal with life’s realities rather than trying to avoid them through drugging.
Amen!
Americans are way too overmedicated. Books like this help snap lulled consumers out of complacency and acquiescence to ever-increasing doses of medicine that do great harm and avoid dealing with the real issues of life through logic, reason and spirituality.
Everyone has a right to live an authentic life! But it won’t be found in a drugged-up state of mind. It’s found through spiritual growth, increased spirituality and consecrated prayer.
