Now, before we wrap what I really want to get into is there are parents out there who have kids on medication, but if you read this book it's a horror story. It's like I'm putting my kid on a medication that's going to shrink his brain, that's going to make her have chronic illness, shorten her life by 15 to 25 years, yet they're being told by their doctor your child needs this like insulin for a diabetic -- and they may even be seeing some short term positive results. How do you address those people?
RW: Well first of all you did sum up...that's one of the, sort of, ways people can become deluded because they may get some short term positive results, that's true, some short term changes in behavior that are good in school and that sort of thing, and there's no way to anticipate this long term harm that's coming....or even really to see it until it's upon you. I think, you know, I have given this....I talked about the medicating of children to a big provider of childhood services recently in western...you know, in New York, and I've also talked to parent groups and all; and at some point people just can't process this information -- it's just too threatening I think because if you really looked at the long term data with the children, you do see a story of extraordinary harm done and I think sometimes parents...I've had parents come up afterwards just crying, I mean, just saying -- I don't know how to go on because I thought my child needed this drug like insulin for diabetes...and then when they were on 4 or 5 drugs, I was understanding this was all the disease -- that you really will have this sense of this extraordinary betrayal; and I've had people who were providers come up and say like -- I don't even know how to go to work tomorrow.
And really quickly on the ADD and ADHD thing, in terms of this whole betrayal, when the NIMH did a long term trial of stimulants, what...they did find some benefit with being on the medication in terms of behavior at the end of 14 months, and that was heralded, that positive result; but by end of 3 years they found that being on medication was a marker for deterioration rather than benefit, and that's even on the ADHD symptoms -- they also saw some growth suppression, etcetera; 6 years was the same thing -- you saw sort of greater juvenile delinquency, and those on the medications, some growth suppression; you saw no benefit anywhere in school; and so as one of the lead investigators said is -- we found no benefit...none to being on the medication. And if you want to enumerate the risk, something like...somewhere between 10 and 25 percent of kids placed on stimulant medications eventually end up in the bipolar camp -- in other words, they convert to bipolar, and that means now they're really...they're on this, sort of lifelong course to chronic illness, and so you really have this pathway to creating a bipolar kid that starts with the stimulants. So I don't really know how parents and people who don't know this literature...I think the sense of betrayal is so great...it's just extraordinary, and sometimes I feel like I'm the deliverer of horrific news.
Rob: Now when you say between 10 and 20 percent of children put on ADD stimulants...
RW: 10 and 25 percent.
Rob: 25 percent...are put on ADD stimulant medications, you're talking about Ritalin and Adderall and those kinds of medications, right?
RW: Exactly, so they will be put on that medication for, you know, in essence fidgeting in class, not behaving quite right in class; and as you follow those kids forward, at some point...roughly one quarter...somewhere between 10 and 25 percent will get diagnosed as bipolar. And once they're diagnosed as bipolar, then they'll often be put on an atypical antipsychotic or even multiple drugs, and now they are very much on a lifelong path to being a career mental patient. That's now the life path set out for them. And we go back to that starting moment -- they were a healthy kid who was somehow behaving no right in class at age 5 or 6, and now they've been converted into a lifelong user of psychiatric medications and really this lifelong chronic path...and that is a tale of extraordinary harm done. And by the way, you're seeing these kids who are getting in the bipolar camp as kids -- at age 18 they're going right on...so many of them are going right onto disability payments as adults.
Rob: This is the Rob Kall Future Health OpEdNews Bottom Up Radio Show, sponsored by opednews.com and futurehealth.org. If you want to hear the next part of this, come back next week to opednews.com or futurehealth.org/podcasts and we're going to have a continuation of this conversation. This is WNJC 1360 AM Washington Township. Thank you for listening, and Robert hang on a second. We're going to discontinue the recording of this now but we're going to keep talking for a minute.
RW: Okay, great.
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