Book Description

The Children's Mental Health Industry, like any other industry, is built on stakeholders, products, and consumers'and the institutional reach of drug makers is far deeper and wider than commonly understood. The past twenty years in particular have seen tremendous distortion of the health care system's ultimate and intended mission to reduce suffering, promote health and improve healthcares outcomes via carefully considered, scientifically based treatment. While having made wonderful advances, the pharmaceutical industry is guilty of rampant abuse in encouraging overmedication. Between 2009 and 2014, major pharmaceutical manufacturers were fined more than $11 billion for illegal trade practices, many involving the illegal promotion of ?off-label? drug use, which is what killed my son. I was surprised to learn that atypical antipsychotics as a drug class, at $16 billion in annual sales, are now second in sales only to cancer drugs. Also, many of the recipients are under eighteen years old, a population for which many of these drugs have never received explicit FDA approval, but they are prescribed at a doctor's discretion under a loosely structured methodology called off-label prescribing.During that same time, due to the increasing dependence on medication, there has been a dramatic reduction in other forms of therapy -- especially psychotherapy and counseling. In fact there is an inverse relationship -- the more medication, the less non-medication approaches. You would expect, then, that this trend would be supported by results indicating that our children are getting healthier. The unfortunate fact, however, is just the opposite -- and will continue to worsen as long as the unjustified drug-orientation continues to be eagerly supported by psychiatrists, insurance companies, drug companies as well as school systems.I hope in writing Overmedicated and Undertreated and sharing my son's story there will be the emotional hook to help galvanize minds around this increasingly issue of over-medication and under-treatment. This is a cautionary tale that serves as a powerful illustration of the damaging and deeply institutionalized conflicts of interest begging for reform in our toxic Children's Mental Health Industry. Please go to OvermedicatedandUndertreated.com for more information