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Multiple, concurrent psychotropics prescribed for children increasing in the USA

    Children being prescribed more than one psychotropic drug to take at the same time

    A recent study of almost 127,000 youths who were subject to Medicaid from a single US state found from 2015 to 2020 the rate of psychotropic polypharmacy had increased to 4.6%, affecting more than 5,800 individuals: Chiang Y, Amill-Rosario A, Tran P, dosReis S. Psychotropic Polypharmacy Among Youths Enrolled in Medicaid. JAMA Netw Open. 2024 1

    This covered such things as medications for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), antipsychotics, mood-stabilizing anticonvulsants, and antidepressants.

    This latest study continues to highlight a long-term situation occurring over more than 25 years and concerning all states.

    “Psychotropic concomitant medication use for the treatment of youth with emotional and behavioral disorders has grown significantly in the U.S. over the past 25 years.”

    Zito JM, Zhu Y, Safer DJ. Psychotropic Polypharmacy in the US Pediatric Population: A Methodologic Critique and Commentary. Front Psychiatry. 2021 2

    Based on a faulty Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)

    The trend is based on a very faulty diagnostic system enforced by the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of multiple possible diagnoses, merely trying to hide symptoms rather than establishing what is actually wrong with the person.

    “Re: DSM V ‘Steven E. Hyman, the former director of NIMH condemned the whole enterprise. It was, he pronounced, ‘totally wrong in a way [its authors] couldn’t have imagined. So in fact what they produced was an absolute scientific nightmare. Many people who get one diagnosis get five diagnoses, but they don’t have five diseases – they have one underlying condition.’ “

    S E Hyman. Director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Director of the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) 1996 – 2001. From A Scully. Mad Science: The Treatment of Mental Illness Fails to Progress [Excerpt] Scientific American. 2015. 3

    The effects and safety of this type of drug use have not been researched and yet we already know of appalling side effects from these types of drugs when used singularly.

    Another example of a subject devoid of science and out of control in psychiatry.

    Antipsychotic drugs

    3. Psychiatry’s lack of science masked by pharmaceuticals

    The chance ‘discovery’ of psychotropic drugs saved psychiatry from oblivion by masking the subject’s lack of scientific foundation …
    Social unrest and rioting

    5. No psychiatry, you can’t take over the world

    All through psychiatry’s history there have been attempts to manipulate and control aspects of society way beyond any clinical address and based solely on the opinions of psychiatrists and others …
    1. Chiang Y, Amill-Rosario A, Tran P, dosReis S. Psychotropic Polypharmacy Among Youths Enrolled in Medicaid. JAMA Netw Open. 2024 ↩︎
    2. Zito JM, Zhu Y, Safer DJ. Psychotropic Polypharmacy in the US Pediatric Population: A Methodologic Critique and Commentary. Front Psychiatry. 2021 ↩︎
    3. A Scully. From: Mad Science: The Treatment of Mental Illness Fails to Progress [Excerpt] Scientific American. 2015. ↩︎
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