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Today we "treat" children with drugs to 'correct' their depression, their ADD, and so on. How can we be sure that a generation from now, we won't look back and

Today we "treat" children with drugs to 'correct' their depression, their ADD, and so on. How can we be sure that a generation from now, we won't look back and realize that we were damaging their brains during a crucial learning window? How can we be sure that a generation from now, we won't look back and realize that we were playing God with people's personalities? I'm not against pharmapsychiatry, but at the same time I would stop well short of saying that everything we do with it is unassailably beneficial for the patients. Perhaps in a generation we will realize that trying to 'cure' ADD isn't very different from trying to 'cure' homosexuality.

JonnieCache 16y ago
Forcing a person who is past the age of legal responsibility to take massive doses of sex/gender hormones against their will is not the same as giving kids ritalin, and it is mildly offensive to say so. We do not put ADD kids in "insane asylums." Have you ever seen the inside of a mental hospital? Most modern ones are nicer places than the average school. Psychiatry before the 60s/70s was basically a different thing altogether to modern psychiatry. One flew over the cuckoos nest has a lot to answer for. It wasn't even an accurate portrayal of practices at the time the book was written, let alone when the film was made. I broadly agree with the ADHD thing though. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. (The US healthcare system and the incentives around drug proscriptions don't help a lot.)
- raganwald 16y ago
  Forcing a person who is past the age of legal responsibility to take massive doses of sex/gender hormones against their will is not the same as giving kids ritalin, and it is mildly offensive to say so. Maybe, but that's not what I said. What I did was ask the question whether a generation from now we might say that. It's perfectly ok to think that no, we will always think it's ok. It's useful to wonder about it. And I do believe it's useful to question things like this and ask whether we might be doing a similar thing. You never know.
- danssig 16y ago
  >Forcing a person who is past the age of legal responsibility to take massive doses of sex/gender hormones against their will is not the same as giving kids ritalin, and it is mildly offensive to say so. You're speaking from the moral outrage position of today. At the time, this was thought of as a way to "correct" the issue just as various drugs we force on kids is now. Personally I find it at least as bad that these drugs are forced on kids who have no way to defend themselves or even know what's being done to them. The last time I was in the US I ended up having lunch with a friend and that friend's grown up daughter. The daughter, sadly, had a 4 year old son. During the coarse of lunch the loud, obnoxious daughter explained about all the disorders her kid had (ADD, OCD, etc.) and all the drugs she gave him to deal with it. My wife asked what would happen if she just skipped giving him all this medication. "Oh, you just can't deal with him if he's not on it.". She then went on to talk about her life. It was pretty clear that she had no time for the kid; he had to either be with baby sitters or sitting in front of the TV nearly 24/7. I can't help but think/hope that in 50 years this kind of lazy, inconsiderate behavior will be considered criminal (since it's the child who bears the long term affects of it, not the decision maker). That kid sounded like a normal 4 year old boy to me but he's being drugged into shape so he can serve a role closer to that of a cat than of a child. It's been speculated that if Mozart, Beethoven, etc. were born in the US today they would probably never amount to anything because their parents would probably drug away their creativity.

JonnieCache 16y ago

Forcing a person who is past the age of legal responsibility to take massive doses of sex/gender hormones against their will is not the same as giving kids ritalin, and it is mildly offensive to say so. We do not put ADD kids in "insane asylums." Have you ever seen the inside of a mental hospital? Most modern ones are nicer places than the average school. Psychiatry before the 60s/70s was basically a different thing altogether to modern psychiatry. One flew over the cuckoos nest has a lot to answer for. It wasn't even an accurate portrayal of practices at the time the book was written, let alone when the film was made. I broadly agree with the ADHD thing though. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. (The US healthcare system and the incentives around drug proscriptions don't help a lot.)

raganwald 16y ago
Forcing a person who is past the age of legal responsibility to take massive doses of sex/gender hormones against their will is not the same as giving kids ritalin, and it is mildly offensive to say so. Maybe, but that's not what I said. What I did was ask the question whether a generation from now we might say that. It's perfectly ok to think that no, we will always think it's ok. It's useful to wonder about it. And I do believe it's useful to question things like this and ask whether we might be doing a similar thing. You never know.
danssig 16y ago
>Forcing a person who is past the age of legal responsibility to take massive doses of sex/gender hormones against their will is not the same as giving kids ritalin, and it is mildly offensive to say so. You're speaking from the moral outrage position of today. At the time, this was thought of as a way to "correct" the issue just as various drugs we force on kids is now. Personally I find it at least as bad that these drugs are forced on kids who have no way to defend themselves or even know what's being done to them. The last time I was in the US I ended up having lunch with a friend and that friend's grown up daughter. The daughter, sadly, had a 4 year old son. During the coarse of lunch the loud, obnoxious daughter explained about all the disorders her kid had (ADD, OCD, etc.) and all the drugs she gave him to deal with it. My wife asked what would happen if she just skipped giving him all this medication. "Oh, you just can't deal with him if he's not on it.". She then went on to talk about her life. It was pretty clear that she had no time for the kid; he had to either be with baby sitters or sitting in front of the TV nearly 24/7. I can't help but think/hope that in 50 years this kind of lazy, inconsiderate behavior will be considered criminal (since it's the child who bears the long term affects of it, not the decision maker). That kid sounded like a normal 4 year old boy to me but he's being drugged into shape so he can serve a role closer to that of a cat than of a child. It's been speculated that if Mozart, Beethoven, etc. were born in the US today they would probably never amount to anything because their parents would probably drug away their creativity.