A view from the street

A two year old girl is moaning, pulling her hair, scratching her  face and tugging at her ear. The facility that she is in, a group home,  takes her to a psychiatrist to determine what is wrong. The child is  then put on Ritalin, a psychotropic drug, and sent back to the group  home.
Later, a volunteer at the facility noticed that the little  girls condition had only improved slightly, took the child to a medical  doctor, who discovered that the little girl was suffering from head  lice and a severe ear infection. She is 1 of 8.5 million youth in  America, and 17-20 million world-wide, that have been placed on  stimulants and antidepressants at the hands of psychiatrists.
It is  just one example in what seems to be a never ending collage of stories  dealing with the mishandling, misdiagnosing and administering of mind  altering drugs to children by some in the field of psychiatry.
A  recent article in the Los Angeles Times revealed that Chris Kaman, the  center for the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, was misdiagnosed  with a disorder as a child and placed on psychotropic drugs.
These  medications are so dangerous that the FDA was forced to place warning  labels on prescription bottles stating that the use of the drugs could  cause suicidal tendencies in children. However, this only came after  years of congressional hearings and overwhelming evidence presented to  the FDA as to the harm caused by these drugs, like Prozac, Paxil and  others. Side affects can include heart problems, brain shrinkage, memory  loss and suicide.
One little boy said that his mother believed that  he had ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and had him  placed on medication. He said that the drugs made him feel like killing  himself, but that he loved his mother more than he wanted to die, so he  did not do it.
There is another side-effect that is far more  overlooked. It is that these drugs not only can cause suicidal  inclinations, but homicidal tendencies as well.
We have seen a sudden  increase in school shootings in the last several years across this  country. Fox News special investigation reporter Douglas Kennedy, gave a  chilling account of the connection between psychotropic drugs and  school shootings. His account showed that in nearly every major school  shooting the gunman had been on mind altering medication.
Bruce  Wiseman of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights said that one of the  reported side-effects of these drugs is that, If a person stops taking  the medication on their own, without the assistance of a competent  medical doctor, there exists the possibility that that person could  suffer a psychotic breakdown. The response of psychiatrists after one of  these shootings is that the person had stopped taking their  medication.
The Reverend Alfreddie Johnson of True Faith Christian  Center says its all being done in the name of profits. We see this in  the financial incentives given to group homes, parents and school  districts for the drugging of our children. These entities all profit by  receiving extra money for the labeling and drugging of children.
Juvenile  residential care facilities, housing a minimum of 16 children, labeled  with mental disorders, could receive as much as $64,000 a month extra in  revenue. Welfare mothers can receive more money if their children are  diagnosed with a mental disability, says Reverend Johnson.
To date,  the United States National Institute of Mental Health spends 40 million  dollars a year in tax payer money for behavioral psychology research,  and $19 billion have been spent since 1948 subsidizing an industry that  drugs our children, uses inhumane techniques on them, and yet fails to  provide any real solutions to their problems.
– Reverend Frederick D.  Shaw Jr., is a former Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff and co-founder  and president of Basic Life Institute. He served two terms as president  of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People  (NAACP), Compton Branch. He is an international speaker having lectured  in South Africa, Germany, England, China, Mexico and throughout the  United States. He can be reached by e-mail: fshawjr@yahoo.com.