Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America

by Robert Whitaker

These children have been told that they have something wrong with their brains and that they may have to take psychiatric medications the rest of their lives, just like a “diabetic takes insulin.” That medical dictum teaches all of the children on the playground a lesson about the nature of human kind, and that lesson differs in a radical way from what children used to be taught.

That same year, Russell Barkley at the Medical College of Wisconsin reviewed the relevant scientific literature and concluded “the major effect of stimulants appears to be an improvement in classroom manageability rather than academic performance.”

discussing ritalin

“When it comes to dead bodies in current psychotropic trials, there are a greater number of them in the active treatment groups than in the placebo groups. This is quite different from what happens in penicillin trials or trials of drugs that really work.” —DAVID HEALY, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHIATRY AT CARDIFF UNIVERSITY, WALES (2008)1

Naturally, pharmaceutical companies want to sell their drugs to people of all ages, and they built the pediatric market for psychotropics step by step. First, in the 1980s, the prescribing of stimulants to “hyperactive” children took off. Next, in the early 1990s, psychiatrists began regularly prescribing SSRIs to teenagers.

Today—and this shows how crowded the drugstore has become—one in every eight Americans takes a psychiatric drug on a regular basis.

In the early 1800s, Americans regularly turned to a book written by Scottish physician William Buchan for medical advice. In Domestic Medicine, Buchan prescribed this pithy remedy for melancholy: The patient ought to take as much exercise in the open air as he can bear … A plan of this kind, with a strict attention to diet, is a much more rational method of cure, than confining the patient within doors, and plying him with medicines.17 Two centuries later, British medical authorities rediscovered the wisdom of Buchan’s advice.

The prescribing of stimulants to ADHD youth began to take off in the 1980s, and today, thirty years later, studies have failed to show that this treatment helps children grow up and thrive. In a 2012 op-ed published in the New York Times, Alan Sroufe, a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, told of this bottom-line finding: “To date, no study has found any long-term benefit of attention-deficit medication on academic performance, peer relationships, or behavior problems, the very things we want to improve…. The drugs can also have serious side effects, including stunting growth.”