Gwen Olsen spent more than a decade as a sales rep in the pharmaceutical industry, working for health care giants such as Johnson Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Abbott Laboratories. A well-known media resource, she has been in numerous print, radio, and television media reports, and testified before Congress and the FDA. A 2007 Human Rights... Continue Reading →
A book: Kids Caught in the Psychiatric Maelstrom: How Pathological Labels and "Therapeutic" Drugs Hurt Children and Families "Maelstrom" is an apt metaphor for the inexorable deterioration many children experience inside the mental health system. Kids Caught in the Psychiatric Maelstrom: How Pathological Labels and "Therapeutic" Drugs Hurt Children and Families challenges current treatment practices... Continue Reading →
I've had the honor lately of getting to know a wonderful activist and leader in the civil and human rights movement for people with psychiatric labels.The internet is a wonderful thing and allows us to know that we are not alone when we might otherwise feel that we are. This is the what brought Ted... Continue Reading →
Today on the Huffington Post Peter Breggin invites you to the conference being hosted by the group he founded. In an email group I'm part of he's asked that people spread the information any way they like. I hope some of you can attend. Millions of our children are being labeled with false and stigmatizing... Continue Reading →
This is an old video and post. Things have only gotten worse. If we don't want to create millions more people crippled by drugs we need to stop diagnosing and drugging children's behavioral problems as serious mental illness. There has been a massive surge of drugging children in the last couple of decades. It's extremely... Continue Reading →
Great academic article from 2008 that very credibly disputes the biomedical model of psychiatry. This is just a small excerpt: From Journal of Post Graduate Medicine: A recent review of the North American psychiatric literature over the past 40 years concluded that potential social causes of psychosis, including schizophrenia, have been neglected in favor of... Continue Reading →
This is the only thing I've read that really hit the mark. And we all stand to learn from the sick culture Andrew Sullivan is referring to. It marks us all. The first paragraph: There are two things to say about him. He was a musical genius; and he was an abused child. By abuse,... Continue Reading →
Really bad. But maybe it opened somebody's eyes. Campbell Brown opens by saying we're drugging kids with everything from Ritalin to Adderal. Brilliant thing to say, bringing up two drugs from the same class! The truth is kids are on stimulants, antipsychotics, SSRIs and moodstabilizers among all sorts of other stuff. These are drugs with... Continue Reading →
Not approval yet but getting there. I covered this story last week. For continued coverage click on through to Furious Seasons. Update: More commentary by Philip Dawdy added after this post went up.
Will Hall recently did a show on bullying and it's ramifications with Dawn Menken on Madness Radio. The shows excerpt is here: What are the lasting impacts of taunting, teasing, and physical harassment between children? Why are kids who are different singled out and picked on? What can parents do if their children are victims... Continue Reading →
Neuroleptic and other very serious adult psychiatric drugs have been being used "off-label" for children for a very long time. They're now considering officially approving them. From boston.com: Three blockbuster psychiatric drugs currently approved for adults also appear to work in adolescents, though federal health officials have concerns about their side effects. The Food and... Continue Reading →
