I just watched a documentary called The Medicated Child, produced by PBS. There were no epiphanies or revelations, just a blatant reminder of how truly disturbed our society is. The documentary followed the lives of three families who chose to medicate their young children all under the advise of "medical professionals." The documentary successfully addressed the wrong doings of the pharmaceutical companies and Bill Clinton's role in injecting monetary gain into the slippery hands of individual drug companies, which has resulted in a plethora of faulty research at the expense of children. One of the biggest problems with the medical industry is that it has become so compartmentalized (like so many aspects of our society) with only efficacy in mind it reduces morality. In other words, there is no one to blame.
The sickening, dehumanizing ladder of degradation often goes from teacher, to parent, to psychologist, to psychiatrist, to drug company, to research lab, to the FDA. Ultimately, it is the parents decision and therefore responsibility when it comes to the well-being and decision making process. Yet, the aforementioned can not be void of responsibility either. Ultimately, we have unfortunately created a society that is both infinite and dead-end.
It's obvious that medicating children, and people in general, poses monstrous dilemmas: side-effects, dependency, severe risk-factors etc...but what about the philosophical implications of a society which condones the use of pills to alter the natural states of children. What does the faith that the average person holds to financially-driven companies, say about our strength as a human force?
As I watched these brain-dead parents, bleating with ignorance, I felt sick. We know that pharmaceutical companies have a "no-face, no blame" reputation, but what about these parents? They are robotically filling prescriptions, feeding their children genetically modified foods, and bowing to the altar of pfizer. When their kids die, pfizer doesn't cry.
Imagine some honky school psychologist tells you that your three year old has "no impulse control" My guess is that the honky school psychologist has never had a three year old. Let's say, for arguments sake, that child x truly does have emotional or behavioral problems. Why is the child the one who is scrutinized and analyzed and not the foundations of the child's life (ex: parents, nutrition etc...) Have we actually created a society where the adults are so incompetent that we have to crucify children as a result of our own ignorance.
Bipolar Disorder is the new trend. It's being handed out as freely and frequently as the morning tabloids. Yet, there is no concrete research on childhood bipolar disorder. Psychiatrists are handing out medications, as strong as lithium, as a reflex to certain key words. All you have to do is say "mood swings, racing thoughts" and you too can have your very own bottle of psychosomatic drugs. The one company that thought that performing brain scans would produce validity (Brain Matters) to parents who were desperate for answers, recently went bankrupt. Parents were showed these medical-looking scans and told by some social worker that the "pink area" wasn't "pink enough." That, they say, is why your child is unhappy, so take this pill, then develop risks and more side effects, then take more pills to reduce and suffocate the side effects, but don't call us when your child stops breathing in the middle of the night.
The popularity of medication is just another insight into our absurd society. It's ironic that we didn't have these problems fifty years ago. Could it be the hormones? the food dye? the sterile and intrusive nature of technologies? The immorality of corporations? greed? the obsession with instant gratification? the efficacy of labeling and the loss of individual containment? the obsession with branding and labeling? It's ironic- advanced as we are as a society, we have lost all sense of what it means to be human. In my opinion, it's not a trade-off that is at all worthwhile.
