Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon News

Will Taiwan's president-elect defuse tension with China?
Chinese leaders say no to a proposal for peace talks as equals.
By Brent Hannon
[03/21/00]

Templegate
Al Gore is benefiting from the most massive and dangerous coverup of a fund-raising scandal in the history of our republic.
By David Horowitz
[03/20/00]

Dead man talking
A death row inmate in Tennessee could be the last to die in Ol' Sparky, unless new evidence can get him a retrial.
By Ashley Fantz
[03/20/00]

Indictments issued in Sacramento synagogue arsons
Two months after one of the suspects admitted to the crimes, the Justice Department finally acts in a high-profile hate case.
By Sam Stanton and Gary Delsohn
[03/18/00]

Angels of justice
Barry Scheck and Jim Dwyer talk about the Innocence Project, which has helped overturn eight wrongful convictions of death-row inmates.
By Alicia Montgomery
[03/17/00]

Complete archives for News

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found a dramatic increase in the number of 2- to 4-year-olds on Prozac, Ritalin and other mood-altering drugs. But the same legislators who talk tough about their commitment to fighting illegal drugs seem oblivious to the dangers of pushing powerful prescription drugs on preschoolers. Even though Prozac hasn't been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for children under 18, and methylphenidate -- the generic name for Ritalin -- carries a warning against its use by children younger than 6, doctors everywhere are prescribing these drugs to children.

In a particularly stunning development, the drug industry has even enlisted the cuddly characters from Sesame Street as unwitting, but no doubt highly effective, soldiers in the fight for our children's hearts and minds. By purchasing 15-second "enhanced underwriter acknowledgments" -- PBS-speak for commercials -- Pfizer has linked its antibiotic Zithromax with Elmo, Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. How long before Eli Lilly decides to get in on the act and change Sesame Street's traditional sign-off: "Today's show was brought to you by the letter 'P,' which stands for Prozac, and the number '2,' which is how many of the little green pills you should take each morning to make sure you have another 'sunny day, chasing the clouds away!'"

And if you think that time will never come, you probably also thought that there would never come a time when the chairman of the House's health subcommittee, engaged in drafting legislation affecting prescription-drug costs, would be holding a $2,000-per-person fund-raiser hosted by Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers. But that's precisely what Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., did just last week -- as well, of course, as failing to exercise any oversight while the drug industry pushes its chemical crutches to our nation's children.

It was the U.N.-sponsored International Narcotics Control Board that recently lambasted the United States for overprescribing stimulants such as Ritalin -- pointing out that America consumes more than 90 percent of all the methylphenidate taken worldwide.

The official psychiatric diagnostic manual describes as symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder "squirms in seat," "interrupts or intrudes on others" and "is often on the go." Sounds a lot like childhood, a condition that -- when left untreated -- tends to cure itself over time. As Dr. Julie Magno Zito, the lead author of the journal study, put it: "It is not really clear that children this young could meet the diagnostic criteria for either attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or depression."

Next page | Kip Kinkel and Eric Harris' meds of choice