A questionnaire asking whether the psychiatrist would or did self-treat for depression was mailed to 830 members of the Michigan Psychiatric Society. In the past, 15.7% responders treated themselves for depression.
A review of the scientific literature reveals that it is our drug-based paradigm of care that is fueling this epidemic. The drugs increase the likelihood that a person will become chronically ill, and induce new and more severe psychiatric symptoms in a significant percentage of patients.
Researchers found that when given to infant rats, the drugs caused behavioral abnormalities later in life. What’s more, the abnormalities were not limited to the drugs known to cause neuronal cell death. “That is of particular concern because some of the drugs may predispose to psychiatric disorders later in life,” says lead author Patrick Forcelli.
On April 30, 2009, Congressman Ron Paul introduced H.R. 2218, known as the Parental Consent Act of 2009.
Members of Florida’s Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee from both parties said the state needed to toughen laws and rules for prescribing psychiatric drugs to children in the wake of the hanging death of Gabriel Myers and an ongoing examination by a Department of Children and Families task force.