Dear Philip:

I believe Mary Jensen from the article said it in such a gentle, articulate, and persuasive way; that I really don’t have to comment any further {laughing}

Quoting from article as written: "Still others question the validity of the diagnosis itself. Mary Jensen, spokesperson for Ohio Advocates for Mental Health Care Reform, believes there is little basis for diagnosing fetuses with psychiatric disease. “Are you fucking kidding? Seriously. Are you fucking kidding me?”

Yours truly
Stan

Thanks for the link!

I wish everyone was laughing... but sometimes it's hard for satirists to keep up with reality. This is from the recent paper by David Healy and Joanna LeNoury:

"… Papolos and Papolos in The Bipolar Child indicate that many of the mothers they interviewed for their book remembered their baby's excessive activity in utero, and the authors seem happy to draw continuities between this and later bipolar disorder. The excessive activity amounts to hard kicking, rolling and tumbling and then later keeping the ward awake with screaming when born.

Or in some instances being told by the sonographer and obstetrician that it was difficult to get a picture of the baby's face or to sample the amniotic fluid because of constant, unpredictable activity [35]. It is not unusual to meet clinicians who take such reports seriously."

That selfish little fetus! I fear she'll be so inconsiderate as to be born naked and pre verbal.

Too bad little Piper can't do the things that born "bipolars" do - shop, have tantrums, ...um. Wait, let me check my Papalos and Papalos book.

Dear Stan,

I’m a little late to comment but thanks for quoting Mary Jensen as I think Philip was trying to be polite in not quoting her directly. As I read the article, damn if that wasn’t exactly what I was thinking at that very moment, “Are you fucking kidding? Seriously. Are you fucking kidding me?”

Warmly,
Herb
VNSdepression.com

This isn't funny. The Bipolar Child book authors and Biederman make it too real for me. It's hardly satire, it's painfully the truth.

OMG! You know this is starting to get scary. I could see diagnosing a fetus with the possibility of becoming Bipoalr IF there were any conclusive genetic tests, but to diagnose because the baby is "too active" in the womb...what is wrong with these doctors? What can they possibly think they are doing to help anyone with an assinine diagnosis like this? I mean the medications we do have for BP are so toxic and mind destroying that they really shouldn't be being given to kids, but after hearing that doctors are diagnosing fetuses I am worried we're gonna start dosing expectant mothers with Seroquel... you know to "prevent" the onset of Bipolar.

I am disgusted.

I thought about this Orwellian "joke" last night. I guess you might say it haunted me. A fetus really can't "do" much but lie still, kick its mother in the ribs or otherwise be active. So this is the only metaphor there is to work with in order to make this obscene analogy. The Papalos and that psychiatrist bipolar child guru are so into the fantasy that they would naturally grab onto the analogy of lying still - depressed, or active - manic having to do with a fetus.

This whole thing is actually very frightening. I mean who is left once the above "gurus" get their pharma claws into a fetus?

This satire is delicious but the reality is scary. The horse is already out of the barn on genetic testing for bipolar disorder. A company called Psynomics associated with UC San Diego offers testing for the bargain price of $399. When I contacted them they failed to respond with evidence of their test's performance or utility. The published data are underwhelming. These are the new snake oil salesmen. Look for amniotic fliud testing for bipolar disorder in utero coming soon to a clinic near you! Check out this link http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2008/03/gene-for-bipolar-disorder-we-wish.html#links
and also this one
http://clinpsyc.blogspot.com/2008/03/genetic-testing-for-bipolar-are-you.html#links
and this one
http://brodyhooked.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-deja-vu-and-genetic-tests-for-fun.html

Wow-- this story was so insane that I had to stop everyone in my house and read it out loud. I pitty that poor little baby for having to grow up with parents that would buy into something like that.