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14.3% of Canadian children have a mental health diagnosis (Waddell 2007) and 30% are entering the school system developmentally delayed (Kershaw 2009).  Printing instruction at the primary level averages 14 minutes per day (Graham 2008) ensuring literacy failure.  Record levels of new child diagnoses have overwhelmed both the education and health care systems, burying professionals in a pile of referrals, wait lists, reports, and education plans.  Are Canadian children really “sick” and “learning disabled”, or have the education and health systems unwittingly created a self serving monster?   Is the prolific categorization of children actually helping the children, or is it instead serving an industry of health and education professionals, causing an eventual bankrupting of the governments and destruction of childhood as we once knew it?  What is wrong with the New Millennium Child, and how can society help get them back on track toward a more healthy and sustainable future?

A systematic review of evidenced based research is imperative in order for health and education systems to establish polices that will protect children, and answer some of the questionable child care practices performed by health and education professionals.

• When we know that Canadian children use 8 hours per day of combined technology impacting physical, mental, social and academic health (Active Healthy Kids Canada 2009, Nielsen 2009, Zone’in Fact Sheet www.zonein.ca), why are health and education professionals not teaching parents how to reduce the use?
• When we know that every hour of television and video game use by children per day increases ADHD risk by 10% (Christakis 2004), why are the education and health care professionals choosing ADHD diagnosis and use of stimulant medication as a first line intervention?
• When we know that child access to “green space” for 20 minutes a day eradicates ADHD (Kuo 2002), and 20 minutes of cardio exercise per day significantly increases attention (Ratey 2008), why are 15% of the elementary population in Canada and 32% of the elementary population in the US taking psychotropic medication (Zito 2002, Stein 2009)? Why not just recommend increased outdoor play?
• When current research shows psychotropic medications are no more effective than a placebo, disrupt growth hormone causing brain atrophy and a 10% reduction in height and weight, and result in cardiac sudden death in 1-2% of children (Breggin 2009), why are professionals increasing use of psychotropic medication with society’s most vulnerable children?
• When psychotropic medication has proven to be neurotoxic to children’s brains, causing serious side effects that are often misinterpreted, resulting in increasing the dosage, change the drug, or adding an additional medication, why is psychotropic medication use becoming the norm rather than the exception?
• When research also indicates 50% children on ADHD medication get depressed and are prescribed antidepressants (Ravenel 2009), and 50% develop obsessive compulsive disorder, which looks like a manic phase of bipolar disorder, and are often prescribed lithium (Breggin 2009), why are some schools telling parents their child needs to be on psychotropic medication at risk of expulsion or placement in special education (Foundation Series Workshop participants)?
• When “polymedication” is not approved for children by the Federal Drug Administration, or by Health Canada, and is extremely dangerous for children (Baughman 2009), why do education and health professionals participate in this practice that is highly unethical, unprofessional and ultimately could kill children?
• When there is no evidence that locking children in “safe rooms” improves behavior in the long term, and may actually be harmful to children, why are schools increasing their use?

When simply reducing technology use, teaching printing, and increasing outdoor play will improve child attention, behavior and ability to learn, why are the education and health professionals increasingly turning to mental heath diagnosis and use of dangerous psychotropic medication to manage child behavior?

I recently attended the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP) conference held in New York “Difficult Children and Their Families – Alternatives to Medication” which raised a number of interesting questions about the increasing role the medical profession now plays in the education system. As a medically trained occupational therapist working in the school system for over a decade, I observed first hand the increasing propensity to diagnose and medicate young children.  While initially this increasing diagnostic trend served the need of the child, as I could provide one to one treatment, soon my caseload began to swell allowing only a consultation service model.  I became a cog in the ever growing wheel of diagnostic categorization for the purpose of much needed educational funding to try to “manage” children.  One disastrous side effect of this “labeling” process was that the health and education professionals somehow became convinced that these children were actually ”sick”, and had a disease or a chemical imbalance that could only be “fixed” with drugs.  What was often a discipline or behavioral problem now became a medical condition best managed by chemical “restraints”.  With more children being diagnosed, the education system needed more specialist referrals, therapists, special educators, learning assistance personal, and specialized equipment.  When the educational lens for viewing childhood problems switched to a medical lens, the stage was set for how this problem would be interpreted and treated.  Diagnosis and medication of children became the norm.

When analyzing trends, it’s often informative to use a global lens to gain an accurate perspective.  Child mental and physical diagnoses, as well as prescriptions for a variety of medications, have sky rocketed in the past decade, but North America uses 95% of  the world’s Ritalin, and England recently banned the use of all psychotropic medication with children due to the health risk outweighed the benefits (Stein 2009).  Does North America really have an epidemic of “sick” children, or might there be another explanation?  One proposed theory receiving increasing publicity is that illegal practices of the pharmaceutical industry have misinformed the medical establishment, resulting in prolific sales of medication that instead of “curing” child behavior, are quite literally making children permanently mentally and physically disabled, thus ensuring life long use of psychotropic medication.  Pharmaceutical corporations have literally “cornered the market” so to speak in the treatment of child mental and physical disorders, effectively convincing health and education professionals that children need to be medicated to be managed effectively.  Even though drug research is rife with controversy, showing poor validity, reliability and failure to replicate studies, and is now being successfully sued for illegal off label marketing and failure to disclose negative research results, the medical profession continues to increase prescriptions of psychotropic medication (Joseph 2009).  As drug trials are generally only 4-8 weeks in duration, side effects are largely undocumented and when they occur, are often misinterpreted as the “need” for more or for a different type of medication (Breggin 2009).

“It’s really the medication side effects that are causing the surge in mental illness, not the other way around,” states Dr. Fred Baughman, neurologist and presenter at the ICSPP conference.  Dr. Baughman went on to report “Medication is causing irreversible mental illness in many children, and is prescribed for behaviors that have no known physical cause.” Dr. Baughman presented his correspondence with Health Canada and the Federal Drug Administration where these two regulatory organizations concurred on the following statement “For mental/psychiatric disorders in general, including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and ADHD, there are no confirmatory gross, microscopic or clinical abnormalities that have been validated for objective physical diagnosis.  Rather, diagnoses of possible mental conditions are described strictly in terms of patterns of symptoms that tend to cluster together; the symptoms can be observed by the clinician or reported by the patient or family members.”

When North American drug regulatory agencies concur that mental/psychiatric disorders are not “physical” in origin, but are rather “observed patterns of symptoms”, why do the health and education professionals insist on pursuing diagnosis and medication of what could simply be termed “child behavior?”

Dr. Joe Joseph, PhD psychologist and author of “The Gene Illusion” goes on to report there are no known genes for any mental illness (although researchers continue to look), and that previous genetic research is actually based on flawed twin studies which have never been reproduced.  How many parents are wrongly told by well meaning health and education professionals that their child’s behavior is genetic in origin and requires medication?  If lawyers in the US are successfully litigating against the pharmaceutical industry for fraudulent advertising and withholding negative research findings, how long will it be before the health and education professionals are implicated as well in this rapidly escalating fiasco?  Dr. Peter Breggin, author and child psychiatrist states that drugging children makes them apathetic and able to sustain attention for long periods on mundane tasks, both traits which continue to be wrongfully interpreted by the health and education establishments as “improvement”.

So how can the education and health care systems reverse this maelstrom of professionals convinced that children are “sick” or “learning disabled”, and need to be diagnosed and medicated?  First and foremost Canadian Health and Education governments need to step up to the plate to work with child health researchers to develop policies that protect Canadian children.  Prohibiting use of psychotropic medications and “safe” rooms would challenge the health and education professionals to adopt more humane methods of managing child behavior.  Implementing minimum standards for recess and playground structures would optimize socialization and development.  Adding printing back into the curriculum would ensure improved literacy.  In the meantime, health and education professionals in the school setting can recommend proven effective alternatives to medication (daily access to “green space”, treadmills or stationary bikes for exercise), prohibit personal electronic use, increase printing instruction, and divert funds from computer upgrades into building “sensational” playgrounds and supervision staff for organized sports.

Something can be done, but only if you decide to do it.

Cris Rowan, BScOT, BScBi, SIPT, Approved Provider AOTA, CAOT ACTBC

CEO Zone’in Programs Inc. and Sunshine Coast OT Inc.

6840 Seaview Rd. Sechelt, BC  V0N3A4

604-885-0986 (O), 604-885-0389 (F)

crowan@zonein.ca

websites: www.zonein.ca, www.suncoastot.com

Supporting Research

Research referenced in this article can be viewed on the Fact Sheet or in the Research section at www.zonein.ca. Copies of correspondence between Dr. Fred Baughman and the FDA and Health Canada can be obtained upon request from Cris Rowan, crowan@zonein.ca.

Additional Reading

Dr. Peter Breggin, child psychiatrist and consultant to National Institute of Mental Health, www.breggin.com.

• Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, electroshock and the psychopharmaceutical complex.
• Toxic Psychiatry: Why therapy, empathy, and love must replace the drugs, electroshock, and biochemical theories of the “new psychiatry.”
• The Ritalin Fact Book: What your doctor won’t tell you about ADHD and stimulant drugs.

Dr. Bose Ravenel, pediatrician and clinical professor of pediatrics at University of North Carolina, www.drbose.com.

• The Diseasing of America’s Children: Exposing the ADHD fiasco and empowering parents to take back control.

Dr. David Stein, PhD psychologist and professor of psychology at Virginia State University, www.drdavestein.com.

• Unraveling the ADD/ADHD Fiasco: Successful parenting without drugs.

Helpful Weblinks

www.ssristories.com This website is a collection of 3400 plus news stories, articles and FDA testimony regarding incidents involving either violence or suicide by children, youth and adults related to use of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, commonly referred to as anti-depressants.

www.generationrxfilm.com This website has an informative and provocative film trailer of the Generation Rx film showing the proliferation of use of psychotropic medication with children.

www.thewaronkids.com This website profiles a “must see” film that recently won the Best Educational Documentary by the New York Film Festival which reports on the propensity of the education system toward “zero tolerance” policies, pharmaceutical restraints, and use of police and surveillance camera’s in American schools.

www.cmch.tv The Center on Media and Child Health is a research organization based out of Harvard’s Children’s Hospital, and offers information to parents, education and health professionals on the impact of media on child health.

Further Information

Zone’in Programs Inc. www.zonein.ca offers products, workshops, training and consultation services to assist parents, education and health professionals in planning for sustainable futures for all children.  Monthly newsletters, webinars, articles, and free downloads help to create a team of informed professionals to address this growing child health concern.  Check out the slide show Balanced Technology Management to find out more what you can do to help ensure the safety of all children.