Sorry, I can't post a comment for 24 hrs -- I had not registered to comment before.

Those little fucks. Try telling liberals they have a lot to learn and watch the heads explode. You're handling it with aplomb over there, and I hope you still see how important it is for the thick-skinned among us to infiltrate these high-traffic spaces and interrupt the groupthink. You, the Candid Psychiatrist and Bruce Levine are doing it, and it's very much a pre-school stage right now, with these ridiculous ad hom attacks and retreat into scientism.

It's to be expected. A major liberal conceit is membership in the "reality-based community". What you're doing is questioning a belief system held by people who deny they are vulnerable to being taken in by unfounded beliefs. They have no idea that they've been propagandized, but liberals are the critical, educated class and once they get over the humiliation I expect they'll hop aboard the critical thinking train, which is where they say they live isn't it? So, yeah, it's about facing their own hypocrisy, gullibility, anti-intellectualism, difficult stuff, more so when you've built an image on identifying and denouncing same.

Kids. They're just throwing rocks now, but eventually this too will pass.

Philip, you said "Someone is implying that I am Tom Cruise."

Really?? I didn't know you were rich and good looking! I just thought you were damned smart and a good writer.

I'm going to have to start sucking up to you much more seriously. {;>)

Sherry (who's really old, married and joking)

Propaganda, -- that's the word I've been looking for all day to describe the self-appointed thought leader/pharma dx called Childhood Bipolar Disorder, especially when discussing toddlers! The children are products of a very good marketing plan that has a billion dollar price tag on the child's head. The commentary attaching itself to scientology shows how completely ignorant of scientific fact those people are: for example death as a side effect, or not approved for use in children on the package insert, clearly doesn't mean a thing.

How about Rebecca Riley? 4 years old in a coffin from psych meds.

I've posted a little "pattern disrupter" under the title "The Witchfinder Pursuivant Returneth." Just so's you know, Phil, I suggested that you were actually Priscilla Presley!

Matt

Well, I'm old enough to remember when ALL progressives thought ALL mental disorders were totally explained by the environment and social conditions. We thought anything else smacked of Big Brother, or eugenics, or something fascist. That was an error, but total blind allegiance to a chemical-imbalance theory is a worse one.

It's not a matter of being anti-science, anti-modern medicine or even anti-drug. Health care in the USA is a profit-driven industry. That means it can deliver great benefits, or do great harm. And as an industry, it does not much care WHICH it does, as long as the money is green.

Technologies are seldom good or evil, and it is generally foolish to look for the "true" conservative, liberal, capitalist, or socialist position on any scientific question. Just look at the facts, and ask yourself who benefits from what is going on. As a card-carrying leftist I have taken many pills and fought for the insurance to cover them. Childlike trust in the pharmaceutical industry, however, is at odds with my politics, personal experience and common sense.

(phil, i can't figure out how to post on daily kos either, but if you wish to post this as a rant from one of your lefty friends feel free (g))

Nobody ever heard of the "bipolar" child until the introduction of Prozac in Dec., 1987.

Probably what happened is this: the docs didn't know what to do with all the children who were going insane on the SSRIs so they decided they were "bipolar" and should therefore also be taking a mood stabilizer and an antipsychotic. The docs couldn't really take these kids off their SSRIs because then the kids were in withdrawal and in worse shape then ever so the docs had to do something. Pharma convinced them too.

Nothing like making people ill with meds so you can then continue to sell them additional meds. A very profitable endeavor.

So tragic.

"Probably what happened is this: the docs didn't know what to do with all the children who were going insane on the SSRIs so they decided they were "bipolar" and should therefore also be taking a mood stabilizer and an antipsychotic."

I think this happens way more often than most people would guess. There are docs who still prescribe SSRIs for children and teens despite all of the warnings. A few years back, I watched the children of a friend (a single mother with five kids living in poverty and dealing with her own MH issues) get sucked into lives as little chronic psych patients. Those kids were living in hell and responding to it the way any normal child would, but the two oldest, an 8 year old girl and a 9 year old boy, were prescribed Zoloft by their pediatrician. Within days, the little girl was found in her room with a knife to her chest and shipped into a children's facility where she got a dx of childhood bipolar and a whole lot more medication. The boy began to act out violently, often attacking younger siblings and ended up with the same dx and 8 mgs of Risperdal a day. I'm sure by now the three younger ones have been labeled and medicated too. It's very unlikely they will ever escape the system. It is tragic.

I was put on Prozac in 1989 as a teen for depression, and that began my "bipolar" career. Yes, these drugs do often create the disorders.