The glowing review of Judith Warner’s new book, We’ve Got Issues, in The New York Times this week didn’t exactly catch me by surprise — anyone who has read Warner’s guest columns in recent years knows her take on psychiatric drugs — but it did bewilder me.
Why, I wondered, did the Times choose that particular book to review so prominently in its science section; was it because Warner has such a cozy relationship with the paper, having been a guest columnist for many years?
The reviewer says that Warner “sallied forth to interview all the pushy parents, irresponsible doctors and over-medicated children she could find - and lo, she could barely find any.” And that made me wonder just who did Warner actually interview for the book (which, let me admit right off, I have not read). Did she only talk to the parents of children with “issues” and the doctors who prescribed meds for them, as the review makes it sound? If so, she seems to have missed half the story. After all, parents who put their kids on psychoactive drugs and the doctors who prescribed them are probably quite earnest in believing they did the right thing. As a parent myself, I know: it’s very hard to admit publicly that you may have done the wrong thing; ditto for the medical profession.
What I want to know is: did Warner bother to interview any of the folks who were forced to take powerful psychoactive drugs as children and grew up to be psychiatric survivors who have since turned to more effective, alternative methods of healing? Did she interview any of the foster children in Florida and other states where these drugs have been used for years as chemical straitjackets to control behavior caused by abuse and neglect? Did she interview the mother of four-year-old Rebecca Riley who was recently convicted of pumping her daughter full of the anti-psychotic drugs that killed her?
Did Warner interview any of the teachers or professors who deal with the detritus of inappropriately medicated children and teenagers every single day?
And where the heck did she get the information that psychiatric drugs help change the structure of the developing brain for the better? I’d like to see the evidence backing up that wild claim.
Finally, I’d like to know who orchestrated Warner’s book publicity because it was a stroke of genius to postulate that this woman ever initially believed that children were being over-medicated and then changed her mind after doing the research for her book. Judging from what Warner herself has written over the years, I seriously doubt that claim. But I have to acknowledge: it’s a brilliant piece of marketing.
mattheww says:
How did a histrionic dingbat like you get a column that concerns itself with science in a not-completely-fringe publication?
momof3kids says:
You've really embarrassed yourself by writing about this book without actually reading it (and why did the editors actually post it?) She discusses in detail in the book the ways in which children have been abused by psychiatrists and inappropriately medicated. She answers all the questions you ask (reading the book would answer them as well). Its a very carefully crafted book as opposed to this senseless rant of yours. Ah, but you wouldn't know that.
I've done nothing "wrong." I am a parent of a child with a serious developmental disability. I know from family members who were untreated for this disability what happens and it isn't pretty. I will not stand by and throw my son's life away. Yes, he is taking medication and as a result he is a happy kid with a bright future (I don't mean that blah blah blah he'll go to Harvard because I'm drugging him, I mean he'll go to college, something that would not have happened if he was born a generation earlier).
You have a serious lack of compassion, understanding and heart. Your fixed ideas make you full of prejudice.
Hank Matthews says:
Don't take offense at the above posters, Alison. You wouldn't be getting this kind of a reaction if deep down they didn't suspect that you were right.
Keep up the good work. Warner is a fraud.
mattheww says:
Don't take offense at the above poster, Alison. You wouldn't be getting this kind of a reaction if deep down he didn't suspect he was your peer.
Elaine says:
Coming from a person who has seen the seriousness of what can come from these very serious medications young children are taking. Everyone should be concerned over the damage that can come from an adverse reaction or the unseen damage that happens. This damage WILL interfere with what a child could have done with their future, a future now affected and changed because of medication. I did not further my education by going to collage. This was not because I didn't take medication for A.D.H.D....I didn’t go because that is the brain I was born with, and my parents just excepted who I was…I except me for who I am and how smart I’m not. No one tried to play GOD with my brain...I thank GOD for that.
Knitting Clio says:
I agree with Momof3Kids. I'm a person with bipolar disorder and have found psychotropic drugs to be essential to my mental health. I wish the SSRIs like Paxil had been available when I was a teenager and more importantly that there was less shame associated with going to a psychiatrist. I would have avoided a lot of emotional pain and several major depressive episodes had I received medication that worked at an earlier age.