The bipolar boom continues. Once upon a time, children were taught religious parables and national myths that placed their lives in a larger context of meaning, as well as stories that taught the value of hard work (The Little Red Hen), foresight (The Three Little Pigs) and perseverance (The Little Engine That Could). They learned about the young Teddy Roosevelt overcoming his childhood asthma through strenuous exercise, and the young Abe Lincoln reading by the firelight and then walking miles to return books he had borrowed. Today tomes such as Brandon and the Bipolar Bear, Turbo Max, and My Bipolar Roller Coaster Feelings Book teach the little ones the importance of psychotropic medication compliance.
Just over a year ago, the New York Times Magazine ran a cover story titled "I don't believe in God, but I believe in lithium," which chronicles author Jamie Lowe's experiences as a client of the psychopharmaceutical industry. At the age of 17 she was hospitalized for bipolar disorder and held down and forcibly injected with some kind of psychiatric medication (she doesn't tell us which kind) and then prescribed lithium. Now, after 20 years of taking lithium, she suffers from irreversible kidney damage and sky-high blood pressure.
The author doesn't mention any factors which may have precipitated the initial episode of mania. She doesn't mention that juvenile bipolar disorder was virtually unheard of before we began dosing children with stimulants and antidepressants. She doesn't mention that before the psych meds era, mania was a rare and usually self-limiting condition. She doesn't mention whether the doctor who prescribed lithium in the first place ever gave any thought to tapering her off the lithium once her condition was stabilized. She doesn't discuss any of this, but in a 4000 word piece, she devotes 880 words to the mining and processing of lithium and her "pilgrimage" to a lithium deposit in Bolivia.
Last December, Pfizer received FDA approval for QuilliChew, a new chewable cherry-flavored form of methylphenidate, one of a class of drugs whose use has been linked to skyrocketing rates of pediatric bipolar disorder, for treatment of ADHD in children as young as six. Not to be outdone, just one month later Neos Therapeutics received FDA approval for a candy-coated orange-flavored amphetamine tablet called Adzenys, for children the same age.
And, much as the pharmaceutical industry has used slick marketing techniques to sell psychiatric diagnostic categories (like ADHD) to the public, now the marketing industry is returning the compliment, using psychiatric diagnostic categories to move merchandise. A quick Google search will reveal coffee mugs, T-shirts, handbags, shot glasses, and other assorted gimcracks for sale, all emblazoned with clever slogans such as "I hate being bipolar/It's awesome," "Heavily medicated for your protection," and "I'm bipolar--what's your excuse?"
Peter Gotzsche is the leader of the Nordic Cochrane Collaboration Center at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen and the author of Deadly Psychiatry and Organized Denial. In an email he wrote "This is mainly an iatrogenic epidemic. The diagnostic criteria are vague, particularly for bipolar II, and treatment with antidepressants and ADHD drugs may cause side effects that are similar to the symptoms that define bipolar. Doctors therefore cannot know whether what they see are side effects or something else. It should be forbidden to come up with new diagnoses in people whose brains are under chemical influence, whether it be alcohol, street drugs, marijuana, or prescription drugs. This is terribly harmful for America's children."
On the first of July of this year, a Philadelphia jury ordered Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson, to pay $70 million dollars to a boy who grew breasts after taking Risperdal. In a statement, the company expressed sympathy for the boy but vowed to appeal the verdict.
Meanwhile, the Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation, founded by Demetri Papolos (whose book The Bipolar Child convinced Anne that her son William was bipolar) continues its work. The foundation's website bills it as "the first and only non-profit foundation dedicated solely to promoting research to identify the source of early-onset bipolar disorder," and features the Child Bipolar Questionnaire (CBQ), "a reliable and sensitive diagnostic indicator" to help parents determine if their child has bipolar disorder. Sample items in the questionnaire include "attempts to avoid homework assignments," "complains of being bored," and "craves sweet-tasting foods." The website does not feature a comprehensive list of sponsors, and repeated emails to the organization asking for their source of funding went unanswered.
As for Anne's son William: about a year after stopping the ADHD medications and beginning Depakote, his condition finally seemed to be stabilizing. For the first time in years, he was genuinely smiling and laughing. But tests revealed the boy had elevated levels of liver enzymes. The Depakote was stopped abruptly, and a few months later he scribbled out a suicide note and shot himself dead.
There is a bizarre postscript to this story. Seven years later, Anne's younger son Warren was in middle school and doing beautifully. "He had lots of friends," Anne recalls. "The girls loved him." He was a rock climber, the SGA president, and the emcee for the school television show. He was not taking any psychotropic medication, although he was taking Claritin for his allergies.
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One day Warren suffered abdominal pains and was rushed to the hospital, where he was prescribed an over-the-counter laxative, Miralax.
Claritin is a dibenzazepine, a chemical cousin to Elavil, which Warren's late brother William had been taking. Miralax consists of polyethylene glycol, also used by the chemical industry as a plasticizer, a sealant, a dispersant, an anti-foaming agent, and a wood preservative. In 2011, the FDA warned of a potential risk of neuropsychiatric effects associated with the use of polyethylene glycol, although it later decided that no further action was necessary.
Six days after Warren started taking Miralax, his mother left to go to the PTA meeting. Warren and his father were watching television together when the boy left the room and then came back with a gun and shot his father dead. Before this he had never shown any sign of violent behavior. The following year, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to twenty years and six months in state prison.
"Losing a child is a devastation beyond belief," Anne says. She goes on to relate an incident that occurred almost seven years after her oldest son committed suicide. "I remember putting my hands on my husband's face. I looked at my husband with great love and I said 'We are going to make it. We're going to be okay.'
"As I said that to my husband, our little boy--I'll never forget--he came down the hall and said 'Hey Dad, my favorite program is beginning to start. Would you fix me some ice cream?'"
Three weeks later her husband was dead.
List of Sources
Lowe, J. 2015. I don't believe in God but I believe in lithium. New York Times Magazine 28 June 2015.
