Pediatrics Journal Gets it Wrong About “Facebook Depression”

You know it’s not good when one of the most prestigious pediatric journals, Pediatrics, can’t differentiate between correlation and causation. And yet this is exactly what the authors of a “clinical report” did in reporting on the impact of social media on children and teens. Especially in their discussion of “Facebook depression,” a term that the authors simply made up to describe the phenomenon observed when depressed people use social media. Shoddy research? You bet. That’s why Pediatrics calls it a “clinical report” — because it’s at the level of a bad blog post written by people with a clear agenda.

The Illegitimacy of the “Psychiatric Bible” by Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry

“Mental health experts ask: Will anyone be normal?” So read the title of a July 27 Reuters report. The “experts” warned that the fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), scheduled for publication in 2013, “could mean that soon no-one will be classed as normal. . . . [M]any people previously seen as perfectly healthy could in future be told they are ill.”

This is not news. More than 200 hundred years ago Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) warned: “I believe that in the end humanitarianism will triumph, but I fear that, at the same time, the world will become a big hospital, each person acting as the other’s humane nurse.”

Doctors’ Conflicting Interests Can Cost Money and Lives, and Hinder Medical Discoveries

The fact that doctors take money from pharmaceutical companies happens to be old news. But this time around, the docs in question come from Stanford University. Previous news stories reported that doctors receiving pharmaceutical funding hailed from Harvard, the University of Miami, the Medical College of Georgia and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

More than a few of these doctors are psychiatrists who have received tax-supported, public National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Mental Health funding for clinical research, have participated in U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panels or have appeared on, or on behalf of, various not-for-profit psychiatric advocacy boards — some of which are heavily supported by the manufacturers of psychiatric medications.

FDA’s Continual Responsibility for Making Our Children Into a Nation of Drug Addicts

In 1997, 5 million children were listed as using psychotropic drugs, Ritalin being among the most common. Ritalin use has increased by 700% since 1990. By the year 2000, it was prescribed for approximately 7 million children.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed eight times more often in boys than in girls.

All Classes of Psychiatric Drugs Found Equally Dangerous for Nursing Home Residents

Conventional antipsychotics, antidepressants and benzodiazepines often administered to nursing home residents are no safer than atypical antipsychotics and may carry increased risks, according to an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Psychotropic medications are often used to manage behavioral symptoms in seniors, particularly people with dementing illnesses, with up to two-thirds of dementia patients in nursing homes prescribed these medications. However, the effectiveness of these drugs in this indication is unclear and important safety concerns exist, especially related to antipsychotics.

CCHR International

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