The nation’s citizens do not need more psychiatric drugs. They do not need pervasive medical intervention from birth to death. The nation’s children need more responsible parenting, more classroom productivity with unencumbered teachers, and less intrusive, in-your-face federal government programs that cave to the demands of a multitude of parasitical profit-seeking corporations.

Prozac hit the market in January 1988 with a lot of media fanfare. The pharmaceutical companies wanted to sell their psychotropic products to the untapped pediatric market. In the 1980s, doctors began prescribing stimulants to “hyperactive” children. In the early 1990s, psychiatrists started prescribing SSRIs to teenagers. In 1997, the Wall Street Journal said the SSRI drug makers viewed younger children as potential consumers and were designing palatable easy-to-swallow medications. Eli Lilly created “minty liquid” Prozac for young children. The New York Times reported that the adult market for SSRIs had become saturated and that the companies wanted to increase their markets. The Wall Street Journal reported that the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry claimed that five percent of the nation’s children had clinical depression and when “inadequately treated,” it could lead to “long-term emotional and behavioral problems, drug abuse, or even suicide.” [1]

Between 1991 and 1996, the number of children and adolescents taking psychiatric drugs tripled. By 1996, six percent of the nation’s children and teenagers were taking these medications, a third of which were antidepressants. The DSM made it acceptable to apply biological solutions to behavioral problems. Organized psychiatry promoted the idea that genetics and biochemistry influence behavior. The drug industry has been catering to American psychiatry with a drug solution for every conceivable behavioral characteristic as well as the disorders that the American Psychiatric Association has devised, such as chemical imbalances. [2]

Children and adolescents began experiencing manic episodes after taking prescription stimulants and antidepressants which resulted in more patients who were suffering with “bipolar” symptoms. Janssen and Eli Lilly sought a way to market their antipsychotics to children. In 1996, Joseph Biederman and his associates invented new criteria for children who had been diagnosed with ADHD. Then they introduced the idea of juvenile bipolar disorder and claimed it occurred in children who demonstrated “severe irritability,” and claimed that the “disease” was more common than anyone previously thought. He stated that it was evident in children as young as four or five years old. Parents, based on what they had read in the newspapers, rushed to purchase The Bipolar Child (2000) while psychiatrists began prescribing antipsychotics. Because antidepressants often caused a mania episode, doctors found it necessary to prescribe a second drug, an atypical antipsychotic to address the mania. Seeing a financial opportunity, Eli Lilly introduced Zyprexa, a mood stabilizer, in 1996, to counter the manic episodes that Prozac and other SSRIs generated. [3]

Because of Joseph Biederman’s creation of bipolar illness and the collaboration of various agencies, innocent children are conditioned as “lifelong consumers of psychiatric medications.” By the end of March 2009, Eli Lilly gave $551,000 to NAMI and its local chapters, $465,000 to the National Mental Health Association, $130,000 to CHADD and $69,250 to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Eli Lilly donated $279,533 to the Antidote Education Company. The other drug makers donate similar amounts to patient advocacy groups and educational organizations. [4]

Express Scripts Inc., in its report, Trends in the Use of Antidepressants in a National Sample of Commercially Insured Pediatric Patients, 1998 to 2002, stated that the “overall prevalence of antidepressant use among children increased from 160 per 10,000 (1.6 percent) in 1998 to 240 per 10,000 (2.4 percent) in 2003,” with the largest increase among the youngest age group—5 years old and younger. [5] From 1987 to 2000, Eli Lilly’s success with their Prozac and later with Zyprexa resulted in Lilly employees collecting $3.1 billion from stock options in addition to salaries or bonuses. [6] In 1994, medical “professionals” wrote over 3,000 prescriptions for Prozac for children under the age of twelve months old. How could a doctor determine that an infant is depressed and needs Prozac? [7] How indeed – it is the money. Apparently, some people will do anything in the world for money.

[1] Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, Broadway Books, New York, Kindle, 2010, pp. 318-320

[2] Rob Waters, a Suicide Side Effect? What parents aren’t being told about their kids’ antidepressants, San Francisco Chronicle, January 4, 2004, http://psychrights.org/Research/Digest/AntiDepressants/SuicideSideEffect.htm, viewed 8/8/2014

[3] Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, Broadway Books, New York, Kindle, 2010, pp. 318-320

[4] Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America, Broadway Books, New York, Kindle, 2010, pp. 325-328

[5] Kelly Patricia O’Meara Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Sells Mental Illness and Pushes Pills That Kill, AuthorHouse, Bloomington, Indiana, Kindle, 2006, Locations 314-317

[6] David Healy, Pharmageddon, University of California Press, Berkeley, California, Kindle, 2012, p. 117

[7] Colin Gunn; Joaquin Fernandez, IndoctriNation, Master Books, Green Forest, Arkansas, Kindle, 2012, Location 963-966