Drugging our kids/ The likes of Ritalin, Prozac draw fire - from

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Mar 27, 2000

It's not that Hillary Clinton was out of line when she raised concerns last week at the White House about the increasing use of psychotropic drugs like Ritalin and Prozac by children as young as 2. That concern is certainly warranted. It's just that it's a little surprising coming from the first lady.

It was only last June, after all, that she, along with Vice President Al Gore's wife Tipper, hosted a highly publicized conference on mental health. That conference struck some like an infomercial for drugs. There was no mention of the potential risks.

At the June 1999 conference Hillary Clinton introduced Dr. Harold Koplewicz of New York University's Child Studies Center and stood by beaming as he traced all mental and emotional problems to brain biochemistry.

Koplewicz derided explanations like "inadequate parenting and bad childhood traumas" as an "antiquated way of thinking" about depression and other childhood problems. He blamed school violence on untreated mental problems and suggested that, if anything, too few young children were being treated with psychiatric drugs.

Better living through chemistry, in other words?

Nobody at the conference was so impolite as to point out that three of the youths implicated in recent school shootings had been treated with psychiatric drugs.

Peter R. Breggin, M.D., a psychiatrist and author in Bethesda, MD, said in a recent media account he thinks Hillary Clinton's remarkable turnaround was little more than "saving face, covering her tracks and engaging in political damage control."

Breggin (www.breggin.com), author of "Talking Back to Prozac," "Talking Back to Ritalin," and the just-released "Reclaiming Our Children," is a longtime critic of the use of powerful psychotropic drugs on children.

He believes that a recent study and editorial in JAMA, the American Medical Association journal, showing that use of psychotropic drugs by children ages 2 to 4 had tripled (http:// jama.ama-assn,org/issues/v283n8full/jed90109.html), got the first lady's attention.

Dr. Joseph T. Coyle of the Harvard Medical School wrote in JAMA:

"Given that there is no empirical evidence to support psychotropic drug treatment in very young children and that there are valid concerns that such treatment could have deleterious effects on the developing brain, the reasons for these troubling changes in practice need to be identified."

One of the reasons, of course, is that the government and many school systems have been cheerleaders for using behavior-altering drugs on children.

Breggin argues, for example, that Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is far from a scientifically established biological disorder at all, but, as he put it, "a list of behaviors that teachers would like to expunge from their classrooms, like talking out of turn and not sitting still. These stimulant drugs crush the vitality and the spirit of young children and that is why they are popular. But we know enough from animal research and clinical studies to be confident that it is scientifically unsound to experiment with psychoactive agents on small children."

He notes that Hillary Clinton did not criticize the widespread medicating of school-age children, but expressed concern only about medicating the very young. For whatever reason, she has identified and publicized a phenomenon that deserves attention and concern as the finer distinctions are made regarding in what circumstances and at what age these types of drugs might have some use. But she hasn't come close to getting to the bottom of the matter, or even urging action that would begin the process.

Another park?

Dunes proposal poses a challenge

Rep. Scott McInnis and Sen. Wayne Allard, both Republicans, apparently remain firm in their intention to pursue national park designation for Great Sand Dunes National Monument, though the 18- page bill has yet to be introduced in either house of Congress.

So, it is worth repeating once again the importance in public deliberations of exploring the proposal's full costs as well as its anticipated benefits. It is equally important to acknowledge the time has come to find out what it really would take for a national park to become essentially self-sufficient, should this proposal proceed to fruition.

It appears the proposal would include not only the existing 39,000-acre monument - two hours southwest of Colorado Springs in the San Luis Valley - but also the adjacent 100,000-acre Baca Ranch, a portion of which would be designated as a national wildlife refuge. The ranch includes Kit Carson Mountain, which rises to 14,165 feet, and it apparently would be acquired by the government through an intermediary, The Nature Conservancy, which raises private capital to preserve important natural resources.

Most - but not all - residents of the San Luis Valley appear to embrace the plan as the best way to preserve the area's natural attributes as well as its underground water resources from further commercial development. And only one member of the Colorado congressional delegation, Rep. Joel Hefley, whose district encompasses Colorado Springs, has expressed opposition. A great deal of discussion must ensue before the full merits and implications of this proposal are known. But given the fact so much of the existing National Park Service inventory is in a declining state of repair, it makes little sense to add more unless a way can be found to bring this park as well as the system as a whole closer to the point of self-sufficiency. It can be done.