Tots Used as Human Guinea Pigs?

This is obsurd where are the law enforcement officals. Any parent who would FORCE there CHILD to participate is failing there duty to protect them. Booh to the rich drug company.

I am astonished that they are not warning the parents of those children. I will be even more astonished if any parents actually offer up their beloved children as sacrificial lambs for the sake of testing a drug that 3 and 4 year olds will never need.

This study being conducted on toddlers is unheard of. These children are too young to be diagnosed with being bipolar and using these children for the sake of a study on a drug that specifically states its negative effects is unethical. I wonder if these researchers conducting the study are educated in the APA policy on ethical policies and practices.

Since when are children of these ages diagnosed with Bipolar disorder? The administration of this drug to children of these ages is totally inappropriate.

“First do no harm.” This is the hypocratic oath that the physician takes when graduating from medical school. I do understand and appreciate the need for research; however, to conduct such research on young, vulnerable,developing brains; I feel that this is treading in dangerous territories. Seroquel is one of the newer anti-psychotic drugs, this drug has a very powerful effect on adults. I cannot begin to imagine what it is going to do to the minds of young children that are going into this study with a previously documented mental illness.

Parents who subject their children to this testing should be turned into child protective services!

So, what then do you all propose should happen to the hundreds of children already on other anti-psychotics that have the exact same risk profile? Secondly, when did spelling become a lost art?

you didn’t say that testing was actually being done.

Unfortunatley, most people have no idea what it’s like to be that parent of a young child with a mood disorder. Putting a child on an anti-psychotic drug is done as a last resort when all else fails.
Most parents struggle with this decision and don’t take it likely..

I agree with the comments above from Cindy, Kristina, and Rosa. You’ve written a sensationalized report, which fails to acknowledge the process involved in setting up clinical trials, the recognized protocol of using antipsychotics in children with certain severe behavioral disorders, and the reality faced by parents who have exhausted all other therapies.
Mass. General is an excellent hospital. Its IRB is interdisciplinary, including hospital administrators, physicians from various specialties, nurses, psychologists, social workers, chaplains, and legal staff. Ethics are paramount in making decisions about trials using human subjects. All clinical trials must be approved by the NIH, as this one was. You did, after all, link to the NIH page describing it.
Despite Ms. Sharav’s implication to the contrary, Dr. Biederman is not a rogue, Mengele-like figure performing horrific experiments on “tots”. His clinical trials have been thoroughly vetted by one of the best hospitals in the world and by the NIH, and the inclusion and exclusion criteria are stringent.
Further, Ms. Sharav is flat-out wrong in stating that the use of antipsychotics in children is “outside medically accepted standards”. On the NIH page at your link, one of the criteria for exclusion from the clinical trials is, “A non-responder or a history of intolerance to an adequate trial of Quetiapine (2 months or more at an adequate dose) as determined by the clinician.” Clearly, Dr. Biederman is not the first to use Quetiapine in children. His clinical trials are designed to collect adequate data to make its use safer.
You’ve worded your article so it sounds as if the so-called “recruitment video” is distributed to the general public, luring hapless parents whose children’s mood swings fall within the parameters of normal development, and that the video constitutes the full extent of information provided to them. If you believe that parents can blunder into these trials without adequate information, read the inclusion criteria more carefully.
Any child diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder is already in the system, has an IEP and a team of doctors and therapists. No decision to participate in the clinical trials for Quetiapine would be made without the consensus of the team and before all other therapies were exhausted.
I have friends whose ten-year-old son, R, has Fragile X Syndrome, Autism, and Bipolar Disorder. The additional diagnosis of BPD at age six was based on a family history and cyclical swings between manic and depressive states, rather than as responses to environmental stimuli. He has always been far larger and stronger than other children his age. At age four, he outweighed his eight-year-old sister by 35 pounds, and in one of his rages, he nearly killed her by pinning her to a sidewalk and slamming her head against the cement before their mother could pull him off. The family regularly had bruises, deep bites, and even fractures from trying to restrain R.
Years of multiple therapies and medications in accordance with his IEP failed to diminish his aggression. As a last resort, he was prescribed Seroquel (Quetiapine), which is in fact a recognized protocol for treating aggression in children with Fragile X Syndrome:
His aggression is now under control. As you’ll read at the page above, however, it’s precisely the kind of research being conducted by Dr. Biederman which is needed to determine its safety and efficacy over time.
Parents whose children are as profoundly disabled as R have nothing to lose by placing them in these clinical trials, and much to gain for their own children and others in similar situations. Thirty years ago, these children would have been warehoused in state institutions, where they’d have been subjected to far larger, unmonitored doses of antipsychotics, and probably kept in restraints for most of their (shortened) lives. IEPs now give parents the tools and support needed to care for their children at home, but additional resources are needed to make a semblance of normal life possible for these families. At some point, that goal necessarily involves clinical trials with human subjects.
If I were in Mass. General’s and Dr. Biederman’s position, I too would have refused to dignify the sensationalism of a report with the title, “Tots Used as Human Guinea Pigs?” — especially one fueled by Ms. Sharav, who has a fondness for Nazi comparisons. Her statement on her website is rife with them.
I suggest that you ask Dr. Tim Johnson to do a follow-up report, giving objective and accurate information. Since he’s from the Boston area, he is no doubt familiar with Mass. General’s record of ethical clinical trials. He might even get a response to a request for comment.

It is completely unethical to inflict psychiatric drugs on small children.
I maintain that if psychiatry ceased to be recognised as a valid branch of medicine and was completely abolished, the financial savings from that alone would save our U.K. National Health Service and so much pointless misery and physical and mental destruction would be prevented.
My autistic son was first given psychiatric drugs by a residential care home when he was in his twenties – not for medical reasons but as a form of social control to compensate for a shortage of skilled staff. As a result of the drugs his behaviour worsened suddenly, so the doses were increased. At that stage I wasn’t even aware that he’d been drugged. He is now drug-dependent and probably always will be, as there is no easy way of coming off the drugs, especially when people have learning disability and autism and have been taking them for more than a few weeks.
No wonder our National Health Service is on the point of collapse when it is causing patients to become needlessly dependent on drugs that were not essential in the first place.
My son will always need much more intensive input from paid carers than he used to before he was drugged, and I have been unable to work for years as his needs became incredibly complex thanks entirely to the negative effects of psychiatric drug-dependency.
Most of those poor children in the Massachusetts Hospital trials will gradually be abandoned by their parents and families because the effects of the drugs on top of their existing problems will make caring for them too distressing, wearing and hopeless. Most of the people in the psychiatric establishment where my son lives don’t have visitors.

The use of these drugs on children is unconscionable. There are many other options for helping psychiatrically disabled children besides using these highly potent drugs. I wish more federal research dollars were going into non-drug therapies for kids who need extra support.

I just wanted to say that drugging these babies is just the beginning. Once started on these poisons the receptors are damaged and for each receptor many sprout out in place of the damage receptor. These babies are captured in the system for life. These babies will be in and out of institutions/facilities/prison and the families involved will live a never ending nightmare like thousands of others I know. Vera is great to expose this atrocity to the world. I am sick of seeing deformed, damaged humans who were given cocktails of toxic chemicals and locked up (some for years, some forever as they died locked up). Twitching, drooling, loss of bladder and bowels. This will be called “mental illness” not IATROGENIC TREATMENT!

Some comments have argued that Mass. General Hospital is a great institution, so unethical research could not be going on there. I wish it were so. Check out the disastrous psychosurgical experiments of the team of William Sweet, chief neurosurgeon at Mass. General, Vernon Mark, and Frank Ervin, all three of whom were Harvard professors. Googoling “Mark Ervin Sweet” will take you to information on their infamous and sadistic experiments as Mass. General Hospital.
Prestige is no garantor of probity. Often those at the top of the heap feel they have the greatest latitude to do as they please.

Psychiatry has no insight into its own destructiveness. Tweaking brain chemicals in pursuit of behavior modification is like taking a soldering iron to a computer in order to reprogram it, based on the observation that computers run on electricity. It’s scientifically unsupportable, and often leads to permanent brain damage, as happens with young rats fed ritalin, who become depressed as adults.
Psychiatry and much of the rest of medicine seems to have adopted the EPA’s chemical standards with respect to its own ignorance: innocent until proven guilty.
This is not science. This is abuse. Children need protection from these people.

And here’$ why Niederman ain’t talking:
Joseph Biederman, M.D., Chair
Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
Dr. Biederman has received research support from Shire Richwood, Eli Lilly, Wyeth, Pfizer, Cephalon, Novartis, Janssen, Noven Pharmaceutical, Stanley Foundation, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA); is a member of the speakers bureaus for GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Novartis, Wyeth, Shire Richwood, ALZA, and Cephalon; and is a member of the advisory boards for Eli Lilly, Celltech, Shire Richwood, Novartis, Noven Pharmaceutical, ALZA, McNeil, and Cephalon.
http://www.psychiatrist.com/pcc/visuals/pccvis2003-2/indexc.htm

Yes that is correct Paul – the problem is (as you know) that state regulators have so far failed to demonstrate that they can deal with these companies or with science.
The corrupt, science-deprived and unscientific regulators (MHRA in your part of the world, FDA and others) are part of the problem. The solution has to lie with governments and the setting up of proper regulators. That will never happen without grass-roots action, or some very major drug disasters – the industry manipulation extends so far and the money in brown envelopes is pretty persuasive. Even when the procedures of science are completely corrupted (e.g the Blumsohn case here in the UK, the TGN trial disaster, VIOXX, SSRI trial cheating) the system just continues almost unscathed. No company executives are ever prosecuted, and the regulators are as slippery as eels.
Helen

Dangers of psychotropic drugs – Research site:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ssri-research

If you’ve never attempted to raise a child who suffers from bipolar disorder and have never been forced to witness the devastating effects of this mental illness on the self-esteem of your own child, I think you should keep your negative comments to yourself. Bipolar disorder is hereditary and does exist in children from birth. It doesn’t just appear out of the clear blue sky. The appropriate mood stabilizing medication, judiciously prescribed by a reputable child psychiatrist, has literally saved my child’s life.

On its face, I would have qualms about giving antipsychotic drugs to children so young. I’m disappointed in ABC News, though, for using Vera Hassner Sharav as its sole source for this report. Sharav has a reputation for aggressively condemning the entire field of psychiatry, all psychiatric drugs, all pharmaceutical companies, and clinical trials using human subjects. On this subject, her views and those of Scientology seem to be identical.
She even condemned voluntary screening in public schools for teens at risk of suicide:
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/
education/13825281.htm
A more responsible approach might be to present the views of a couple of people knowledgeable in the field and who don’t have a dog in this fight, rather than only the views of someone whose opinion is part of a broader agenda aimed at discrediting the entire psychiatric profession. If Tom Cruise had sent you the video and the same information, would you have run with the report based on his “expertise” alone, or would you have taken the information to objective experts, instead? Where are the voices of your excellent science and health reporters?
The following might be reasonable analogies: Fred Phelps sending the results of a study showing male-to-male transmission of HIV through kissing alone; Phyllis Schaffly raising an alarm about a high risk of death from abortifacient birth control pills; Warren Jeffs presenting data showing that women in monogamous marriages are at higher risk of uterine cancer than women in polygamous marriages. Wouldn’t the obvious, larger agendas of these individuals lead you to investigate their claims through independent researchers?
Finally, on an unrelated note, it’s disturbing to see Sharav’s proponents stigmatizing the parents of special needs kids for the agonizing decision to medicate them when needed. Their lives are difficult enough without giving a forum to people who call them abusers. We should all be better than that.

I feel it necessary to write in support of Ms Sharav, she is doing an excellent job for the public in raising essential awareness the practices of drug research, the need for more warnings by drug manufactureres, etc. and more general awareness amongst the public of these important issues.
We need more campaigners just like her and in all sorts of fields which affect the public at large.
An earlier poster began to refer to Scientology, a particular neurosis of the psychiatry profession.
If critical and so concerning statements are backed up, it can come from the man in the moon, or Scientology, or Ms Sharav … from here, they seem to be doing an excellent job for which thanks are due.
I hope the children are spared from the sort of research this topic is about.

The saddest aspect of all of this charade of mental illness,is when challenged to produce viable,factual proof of chemical imbalances….They can’t! Why.? I understand that the American Psychiatric (Pharmacuetical..?)Association,was recently challenged to open public debate by the American Academy of Science,and to bring with their conclusive proof of their claims to pumping kids full of pills due to all the undiagnosed mental illness our nation suffers from…
Believe the only mental illness we are suffering from is,”Gullibility” Because we keep buying into all this “Theorized” trash thats gets passed off as bonafide science.
If they want lab rats,let them take their own pills first..They after all should be the experts in the field of adverse side effects,and would know them first hand when they themselves would experience them….

I can’t say this truly shocks me, with all the other unethical things going on in the world of psychiatry. I have even heard of people trying to administer Ritalin to pregnant women whose babies “kick too much,” assuming it will prevent the baby from getting ADHD.
This type of experimentation has to be stopped. If adults want to subject themselves to dangerous antipsychotic drugs, let them volunteer for the studies. These drugs are so toxic that they should NEVER be administered to someone who is too young to make their own decisions.
I cannot imagine a situation where I would subject my child (or anyone else) to this sort of abuse. The health consequences of these drugs are tremendous. The emotional consequences of being labelled, drugged, confused & identity and self-worth lost through the whole process are too great to force upon a baby, toddler, older child, or even an overly-trusting adult.

Psychiatry is only the tip off the iceberg. There is no science behind DSMIV. JAMA’s editor published that 20% of all diagnosis at death were wrong. This statistic goes back to the 1930s. Medical schools need to be teaching about the 63 metals on the Periodic Table of Elements. That is about 2/3s of the known matter in the universe. If one were to look at western diagnostic panels you will see that over 2/3 do not assay metals. Do you think anybody in the $32 Trillion a year in total global medical burden wants to shrink that number? Hell no it is bad for business.

I think there isn’t enough pychotropics and pharamaeucticals given to children. They are too noisy and have too many mood swings. The younger the better and the drugs make them much more docile. If we get them early enough they are more suggestable later in age and are easier to manipulate. Also I need to make more money in my drug stocks. That is why teenscreen is important to make mandatory.

Fascinating commentary! I have a particular affinity with the comments by Catherine Creel (5/13 –9:15:16). My belief is that the economic disaster resulting from placing responsibility for increases in autism, cancer and diabetes on the companies which have polluted our air, water and food supply with toxics is so massive that our leaders would never even broach the subject. Far easier to manipulate the population’s energy into the latest headline news and into voting for the most monied candidates than bringing up such unpleasant responsibilities of national interest. Besides, big money has brought protection to the guilty.
Driven by bottom line/shareholder interests, many American corporations have bought their way into our political system and manipulated legislation to their own protection and best interest. How many toxic waste sites – including the vaunted “superfund sites” – have not been cleaned up as mandated by law due to “the expense”?? How many people have alzheimer-like symptoms or learning disabilities or autism from the use of aluminum cooking pots, coated baking and cooking utensils, “acceptable” levels of heavy metals in the air and water and mother’s milk, pesticide and insecticide residues in food, chemical additives in packaged foods, free-floating chemical particles in everyday household environments, fumes from pesticide treatments in homes and schools?
How many times have you heard that a dangerous chemical will be “phased out” over the next ten years because it would pose a hardship on the manufacturer to stop production or sales before current inventory is sold? Your best interests are being traded for someone’s profit!!! GET MAD!!
Dow Chemical makes BILLIONS of dollars annually all over the world…..their products are in every home…..would they acknowledge any negative effects on humans or animals??
Just look at the warnings on their labels.
What about the oil companies and car manufacturers who have allowed (and been allowed) the spewing of toxic emissions into our air for the last 90 years?? They make BILLIONS., too! Do children or joggers or the elderly have “ozone days” as a part of their lives today?? What happened to the clean technologies developed in the 50′s and 60′s which got bought and buried by companies not wanting to spend money on changing technology because they had a profitable and highly marketable thing going — and retooling costs too much??
After all, by the time the customers are affected by our products, it will be years down the road and who could ever find out it was us who did it anyway? Meanwhile, bonuses are paid.
In the meantime, the drug industry is making BILLIONS treating the sick symptoms generated by human bodies trying desperately to adapt to a chemical-laden environment. And they need bodies as test subjects to see how their new concoctions can be tweeked so that minimum thresholds of acceptability are met – thresholds they have manipulated by their political connections.
Have you ever really read the insert in any of your prescriptions?? They tell you quite clearly that this drug is dangerous……but the drug manufacturers’ highly paid legal staff has helped them create a legal cover so that YOU become the responsible party for choosing to take their drug . (And if you mention concerns such as this to your doctor you are likely to hear — “Well, if you read the information on aspirin you probably would never take one of those either.”)
Meanwhile, huge marketing budgets are devoted to ads and infomercials touting new drugs and suggesting you ask your physician for a prescription.
Everybody makes out — except for a few people here or there….but after all, the world population is getting too large anyway……..and some companies have actually calculated and determined that legal expenses required to satisfy potential lawsuits for damage are at levels which will not destroy the organization.
The operating principle in our country has become rooted in an “I’m gonna get mine” philosophy…and that supposes that “I really don’t care if you get yours or what happens to you when I get mine”.
Until and unless we all seriously care enough to DO SOMETHING – make time in our busy lives for HARD WORK in areas that do not bring immediate reward- show our children something of ETHICAL BEHAVIOR in the face of frustrating indifference — AND DEMAND ethical, responsive and responsible governance, then the monied interests will pull us around by their marketing budgets and we will happily imbibe, ingest and tolerate the muck that results from our compliance. And our grandchildren will have a life greatly substandard to the one we inherited from our parents.
It was said years ago — if you are not a part of the solution , you are a part of the problem.
In the 60′s we had the luxury of time — in the 2000′s we are reaching critical mass in many areas. Cleaning up has become all but impossible due to the cost….why did we get it dirty in the first place?? Regardless of our ‘go along’ – we have a mess on our hands and we need to fix it.
We can choose to be placated and sedated into a ‘feel good’, tension-less existance — or realize that LIFE is just that: the opportunity to be fully human for a brief span in the history of the universe. Only you can determine if your time counts for something…..something like protecting the least of us from the clutches of modern-day Mengeles in search of gold.
A media and politically-driven campaign may diminish the ugliness ot this drug-testing scenario, but there is truth in there somewhere. And my Grandaddy always said, where there is smoke, something is burning.
It would be great if we could start putting out fires wherever we find them.

This is the work of deathly psychiatry. Their intention to help others is actually a criminal activity yet they are supported with millions from governments. How does this go on and continue. People are afraid I guess to do anything because it has nothing to do with them. Ithink something HAS TO BE DONE. I am helping. How about you!

What happens when psychiatry has drugged every
man,women,child,teenager& baby on this planet? That is the goal of psychiatry and it’s all for profit & power. The psychiatric & pharmaceutical industry feed each other. This diabolical,unethical, “research” in the name of help is nothing more than a drug marketing scam to drug more people, to get more funding & grants for research & pump billions more into the drug companies. They are experimenting on helpless little babies who can’t stand up for themselves & exert their human rights. This is child abuse and just because the abuser is wearing a lab coat doesn’t make it ok to abuse a child. Feeding a baby these highly dangerous drugs is unconscionable. It’s inhumane, but that’s what the psychiatrict industry is.

There you go again, ABC, for sensationalizing a situation that’s already bad enough, regarding these atrocities (drug experiments) on toddlers.
And how DARE these madmen/madwomen (the psychiatrists) destroy the future of this planet (the children)!!!!
I’m mad as HELL, & neither I or any right-minded, sane individual are going to take this anymore!!!!

Using these little ones as guinea pigs is abhorrent. I’m also sick of hearing the old refrain suggesting that anyone opposed to psychiatric drugs is a member of Scientology. I’m a Mormon from Utah, and I know people from every religion who are appalled at the callous lack of regard towards human life that has been evidenced over and over by the pharmaceutical firms and their partners in crime.
It is most unfortunate that even those ethical, caring psychiatrists have been brought to shame by the actions of those who regard their wallets as being more important than a child’s welfare.
It’s time to stop this insanity.
Kudos to Vera Sharav of AHRP and others who will not back down from protecting our children who cannot speak for themselves.

This is another attempt by psychiatrists and drug companies to make money off helpless children and cause harm in the name of help. There are no medical or scientific tests that determine “bipolar disorder”. The President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has admitted there are no such tests.

Experimenting with harmful chemicals on humans is cruel. Period. Doing it on children? That’s plain vicious!!!
We must EXPOSE this. Most people are not aware, yet, how vicious and how big is the operation. Let’s expose it to as many as possible. Those behind the action will hate exposure more than anything, and once driven to a corner with their back to the wall they’ll stop!

This reply is to Elizabeth who posted earlier, saying:-
(Quote) To the person who said the drugs had been shown to cause permanent damage in adults (CAT scans), please elaborate. I can get no information from the doctors prescribing risperdal.
Thanks.
Posted by: eLIZABETH | May 14, 2006 9:13:41 AM
(Unquote)
Please look at this Comments Column from time to time, because I’m e-mailing someone who might be able to give me information on what can be seen about Risperdal in CAT scans and other types of scans in humans. Meanwhile if anyone else, such as Cassandra (above), has more detailed info. about this, I’d be grateful for references to articles, websites, etc.. My son, unfortunately, is being given Risperdal.

It’s highly inhumane to use kids or anyone for use of Guinea Pigs to test Psyche drugs.That is definitely not help! The testers should test the drugs on themselves first and see how they like the side effects from it.
It’s all about money and not caring for humanity. Stop this inhumane activitiy now!!!!!!

zines and pines are anti psychotics to give them to tots is not only wrong it is not needed to know about how they affect normal tots.

As a person who has experience taking these prescription drugs for several years, I can tell you that they absolutely should not be used on children 18 or younger. These drugs can cause permanent neurological damage, stunt growth, cause serious side effects and even death, not to mention suicidal ideation. This is not something to be toyed with. If there is to be any hope for the future of the children in America, then psychiatric drugs should be strictly prohibited for any infants, toddlers, children or young adults. Thank you for your report. Sincerely, Denise

This is absolutely criminal. I cannot believe that any decent parent would allow their child to be put on brain- and mind-altering substances. I feel like I’m watching a horror movie. STOP this insanity NOW!

It’s hard to believe that human beings would cause such atrocities on others much less defenseless children. We have seen it done in other countries in other times as part of “human experiments” or “ethnic cleansing” or under other such ridiculous labels. One would not expect it to be done here in any type of official or sancitioned capacity, yet here it is. This practice needs to be stopped.

It is a crime to have 4-6 year olds being given psych drugs and used as human guinea pigs. Soon every kid will be diagnosed with some disorder for the reason of commercial profits. What about a healthy diet and a loving environment?
S.M.

Stop, stop, stop, stop!!!!!! This is totally outrageous.

We’re putting this story back on line because of the many fascinating reactions.
My question: Is this an organized campaign or true grass roots reaction?

Hello everyone, I am fifteen years old and I think this is not right for a person to use babies that have a higher risk to worse conditions in later years of their lives. I would suggest you do all you can to try to stop this from happening. Thanks for listening.

There are many wicked opportunists using innocent children and adults for so called “experiments”. The World Bank has been behind much of the funding for “mental health programs” for children/adults in order to improve their financial statements on the Asset side. When countries borrow money from the IMF/World Bank and cannot pay it back, the World Bank needs new “social programs” etc to lend to, in order to offset their losses. The mental health fiasco involving primarily children and women is one of these programs. Your Government helped to contruct and implement these programs. Members of the occult are obviously trying to destroy children and families, and they are doing so by deceptively using government and private sector industries, who in turn have their own motives and agendas…primarily money.

This makes me particularly sick, and particularly sad, because my child was killed by one of these drugs, and I have spent and will spend as much time as I can trying to warn other parents. Losing a child is the very worst thing that can happen to a human being.

It looks like the liberal media’s at it again. The Pharmaceutical companies are here to help us. Sure they’ve more then quadrupled their lobbying dollar spend since Bush took office, but it’s so they can further their research.
Stop questioning are corporate and political leaders, they know best!

To Brian Ross – this is not an orchestrated campaign as far as I’m concerned. However, I have been “campaigning” in a random unorchestrated way for years to make people aware of the really terrible suffering that psychiatric drugs cause to so many people who were prescribed them recklessly in the first place; who then suffer severe adverse reactions to the drugs – only to be told that their mental illness has got worse and have their drugs increased.
That is what happened to my son more than 10 years ago. His pre-existing autism and learning- disability were made much worse by the psychiatric drugs – absolutely nothing was improved by them even temporarily – and he is now drug-dependent and much more dependent on me than he ever was before.
I maintain that the psychiatric drugs he was originally given, and the ones that he is being prescribed nowadays, are directly responsible for his admission to a state-run psychiatric assessment centre for learning disabled adults where he now lives.
At this Centre, most of the patients’ families seem to have disappeared from their lives, or died, and people in these situations are very vulnerable to all types of exploitation; the worst of which -to my mind – is exploitation practised by pharmaceutical companies who are constantly looking for ways of increasing their profits by creating and testing new drugs, either for psychiatric conditions or for the myriad of conditions caused by psychiatric drugs – such as high cholesterol and severe osteoporosis. (Severe osteoporosis, in my son’s case, because the psychiatric drugs caused him to want to spend most of the daylight hours asleep in bed in the dark because the powerful drugs caused complete inertia, loss of appetite, double incontinence and random panic attacks. When I took him off all the drugs these problems remained – for years. Before he was ever given drugs he was perfectly physically fit. Of course, this is all lumped together under the heading of “Depression” by the medical profession who put him back on their drugs but the problems remain.
If my son had had a serious car accident I would probably be campaigning for road safety. I would never have understood the extent to which these prescribed drugs can ruin a life so quickly if it hadn’t happened so close to home, so I HAVE to do whatever I can to channel my disgust, fear and loathing of “Big Pharma” as constructively as possible.

Where are the adults in charge of protecting these children??? The parents,the government officials,teachers,ministers,even decent strangers. How about the FDA, the organization that was created to protect the people in this country.
My husband and my mother are victims of SSRI’s as are the families that they left behind. There are so many families that are victims of the negligent behavior of the FDA, as well as, the lies and hidden truths of the Pharmaceutical Industry. Where is the medical community that swore to “Do No Harm”, Why are they not stepping in to protect the innocent children and the unknowing adults. Is it in the best interest of a child to be given a drug that alters their developing brains.
I can’t understand why the authorities have not marched into Mass. General and escorted those responsible for the atrocities out in handcuffs.
I salute Vera Sharav and AHRP for exposing Big Pharma and warning the people to ” BEWARE” and to become aware. We must become participants in our own well-being and question the medical community instead of just following blindly.

What kind of a world are we designing for future generations to inhabit?? Intravenous drugs from cradle to grave for all (except the elite) keeps the gravy train on the tracks. Life in the machine of commercial enterprise.

I can’t speak for anyone else here about whether this is an “orchestrated” response but, really, what does it matter. The truth is the truth. The industry has one goal, and that is to find new customers and make money for the stock market. If people are killed along the way by the drugs, like my child was, they don’t care. Only rarely (Vioxx) does a drug company get caught with its hands in the cookie jar and have to pay a very large sum of money to the families of harmed or dead people. It is a very secretive industry and one seldome sees trials like the Vioxx trials in the paper. People are quietly paid off – no jury trials – and are made to sign confidentiality agreements that they will never, never talk about what happened.
So, maybe some of these replies are orchestrated and maybe not. But the truth is being told here.

Parents normally want to protect their children. If you offer up your child for this testing and it has an adverse affect, how are you going to feel in later years if your child blames you for it? They would have a right to do that you know.

Thank you ABC for exposing these atrocities. Hopefully, this story will not be the end of ABC’s exposure of what psychiatrists do for money – money from the pharmaceutical companies.
Expose what the FDA and the pharmaceuticals do to all of us.
I truly hope other stations pick up the many atrocities taking place in hospitals, involuntary commitments of people who are neither dangerous to themselves or others. This used to be the reasons for commitments to psychiatric hospitals. Now many states have added that the person is mentally ill, and or that at some time in the future he or she will be dangerous to themselves or others.
Expose George Bush’s plan to screen all Americans. Now many states are screening children for mental illness, using a computer algorithm. Drugs are prescribed and in many cases the child cannot go to school without being medicated.
Please continue ABC, to allow the public discover, what most media has not been writing or talking about. By continuing exposing these stories, ABC, you will help save many lives, and prevent many people from being diagnosed as mentally by pseudo doctors, psychiatrists.
Thank you,
Ayala Karsh

I am a lay person and am an advocate to many families and individuals who have ended up in the UK psychiatric “care”. If vets were to treat animals in the same way that psychiatrists treat their patients there would be public out cry. It is strange that there is a higher recovery rate from “mental illnesses” in Third World countries than in the Western Hemisphere. The only difference that I can see is that Third World Countries do not have access for financial reasons to antipsychotic drugs. Those who have and continue to fight modern psychiatric medicine are heavily criticised and some brought almost to bankruptcy. Such action is taken against campaigners who are lay people as well as fully trained medical professionals. Anybody wanting professional evidence on the effects of antipsychotic drugs, especially in relation to the drugging of children for so called anti social behavioural problems would be well advised to read the books by the American psychiatrists Dr Peter Breggin and Dr Grace Jackson. There are many other well published papers and data by professionals who acknowledge that modern psychiatry is based on theory only, treating symptoms only and ignoring the cure. In 2003 I was chairman of an Edinburgh, UK, based Charity that dealt with children with behavioural problems. That year we had 73 kids through our clinics (which were run by medical professionals), all of whom had been diagnosed as having ADD/ADHD and were on Ritalin. Simple urine tests showed that these kids had nutritional problems most of which were identified as being Pyroluria. Within 8 weeks of diagnoses and change of diet aided with some cheap nutritional supplements, all of the kids had changed behaviour and all were able to come of Ritalin. Unfortunately some of the kids had become addicted to the Ritalin and a withdrawal program had to be put in place for them.
Lobotomy (the surgical removal of part of the brain) and ECT (the passing of 400 volts of electricity through the brain) are still practiced today in modern psychiatry. These are barbaric treatments that would not be given to animals so why are governments still allowing psychiatrists the right to “torture” patients in this way. Those wishing to get more information on the side effects of antipsychotic drugs should go to
Most politicians know nothing about psychiatric medicine and worst still do not want to know about it. The more the media expose the disgrace of psychiatry the better.

I’m encouraged that my fourth attempt to post here was finally successful. With the hope that this post will find its way to the board as well I’d like to thank you, Vera Hassner Sharav, for your courage, persistence, and infinite love for children and mankind. Evil isn’t easy to confront but you’re confronting it every day. You’ve saved many lives. I look forward to your e-mails every day, and use them to educate others.

Just by chance I came across info. about trials of Cerebrolysin, an Alzheimer’s disease drug, which took place in Russia in 2003 on young children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome.
http://www.lookingupautism.org/Articles/Cerebrolysin.html
19 children with autism and 8 with Asperger’s syndrome, aged 2 – 8 yrs., were given 10 daily injections intramuscularly and perinervously in an in-patient clinic. The results showed only positive and nothing negative in all the patients with Asperger’s syndrome (surprise! surprise!) and in 89% of those with autism.
I wonder what happened next. Was a larger follow-up study carried out, as is likely to happen after the Quetiapine trial mentioned above?
How many more of these psychiatric drug trials on small children are taking place all over the world?
I fail to understand why any children aged between 2 and 8, suspected of having Asperger’s syndrome, need to have any sort of mood altering drugs. At that age I doubt if anyone can be be certain that a child has Asperger’s syndrome which can often be very subtle and difficult to diagnose even in adults – and even if they definitely have A.S. – they are often extremely bright and their brains are not deteriorating, so why would they need a drug for Alzheimer’s disease?

Dear Brian: I’ve read with interest other people’s experiences with meds, something similar devastating happened in our family with our beloved autistic son. I believe the use of these drugs on the non-verbal autistic is cruel and criminal, the same goes for children. Both can’t tell the doctors what are feeling on meds and they have only their ‘behaviours’ to communicate and their interpretation is up to professionals who usually do not know the child and parents are not aware of the meds’ adverse effects.
What I would like to know is what are YOU going to make of all these responses? Are you going to do in-depth research or ignore them?
Please, email me. I am very interested. Thank you!

Personally, I think this is sick, twisted and typical of the Medical & Science field. Anyone who believes that a child of 6 years or under could be bipolar or ADHD is nutz. Children of that age haven’t even finished developing a personality yet then our dear doctors dope them up cause they act a little wierd or a better word would be ‘act like CHILDREN’. Two reasons for this. 1.) no respect for the life of our children (as proven by NARAL).
2.) Could be population control and could be mind control. or both. Anyone who thinks this is ok treatment of our children, should be the subjects themselves.

Every family has a unique situation and every child’s diagnosis is an individual one. Being a clinician, and a parent of a child with bipolar disorder plus other disorders, I welcome the opportunity to be part of clinical trials by Mass general and NIMH. Our children have chemical brain imbalances. Only so much can be done with therapy that doesn’t include medication. In order for my child to be able to use therapies, he has to be stable enough to even know what is happening. It is through the clinical trials that he has found meds that allow his brilliance to come forward. I’ve been part of the clinical trials at both the NIMH and Mass General. The researchers are VERY responsible. They are not gold diggers, nor do they use children as guinea pigs. I’ve been nothing short of truly impressed with all of these doctors and my son has been treated with respect, dignity and profound care and concern by these professionals. I realize that many people who have children that are not suffering from mental illness may not understand the lives of those of us who have mentally ill children. I hope you never have to walk in our shoes. But if you do, I assure you that one place to find a glimpse of hope is through Mass General, drs Biederman and Wozniak, and all the other professionals who put endless hours into finding ways that our children can lead the most inclusive life possible and experience a feeling of happiness and control over their emotions, thoughts and actions. Please, before you judge something, experience it first hand.

Anyone who loves their children knows that a parent will do anything to keep their child healthy. I have had my rights taken away and watched my son’s health spiral downward…while his father and the judge look away and will not even talk to him about how he feels.