Patrick D Hahn

"I was absolutely distraught"

Lyam David-Kilker was born on 24 October 2005, the second son of Michelle David and Miles Kilker of Bensalem, Pennsylvania. At birth he seemed like a normal, happy, healthy infant, but all that soon changed.

A gigantic uncontrolled experiment

Since the beginning of the modern psychopharmaceutical era, the proportion of the population diagnosed with depression has skyrocketed. A condition that once affected fewer than one person out of a thousand now afflicts more than one out of twenty. Today major depression is the leading cause of disability for adults between the ages of 15 and 43.

“Please don’t forget about me”: Antidepressants and birth defects

“Life was amazing.” That is how Amery Schultz recalls life with his wife Christiane – before she began taking Wyeth’s blockbuster drug Effexor while pregnant. Since then, their lives have changed in ways they never could have imagined.

Part 2: "The task of childhood"

In an attempt to ensure psychotropic medications are being appropriately prescribed to children, the Maryland Medicaid Pharmacy Program has established the Peer Review Program for Mental Health, in collaboration with the Behavioral Health Administration, the University of Maryland Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and School of Pharmacy, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Any prescription for antipsychotic medication to any child under 18 is automatically referred to the program.

"An evil drug"

“It’s an evil drug.” So says Dam Le, who as a boy was prescribed Johnson & Johnson's blockbuster drug Risperdal while in the custody of the Maryland foster care system.

Feasting on the dead

“Hammerhead sharks feasting on the dead make a unique sound.” So says William, a disabled Navy veteran and survivor of a horrifying incident that occurred in the Persian Gulf. At the age of twenty, William enlisted in the Navy and served for six years, working on radar and weapons systems. On 18 November 2001, he was part of a team from the destroyer USS Peterson that boarded the Samra, a suspected oil smuggler sailing under the UAE flag. The Samra capsized on the port side, and William spent the night clinging to debris, waiting to be rescued, and listening to the sounds of sharks devouring those who hadn’t made it.

20 suicides a day

On 3 August of this year the US Department of Veterans Affairs released its long-awaited report, Suicide Among Veterans and Other Americans 2001-2014. This report was the most comprehensive analysis of veteran suicide in our nation's history, examining more than 55 million veteran records from 1979 through 2014, from all 50 states as well as four territories.

A devastation beyond belief

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.

A tale of two psychiatrists

In the field of juvenile bipolar disorder research, one name towers above all others--Joseph Biederman.

The bipolar brain is miswired

In the year following the death of Rebecca Riley, Newsweek magazine, which had already published not one but two laudatory cover stories on Prozac as well as a puff piece on childhood depression, weighed in with yet another cover story, "Growing up bipolar: Max's world," which told the story of Max Blake, a boy who suffered from temper tantrums, attacking teachers and playmates without warning, biting and kicking and spitting at them.

Rebecca Riley

The short, unhappy life of Rebecca Riley is a parable for our times. Her diagnosis with bipolar disorder at the age of 28 months was followed by a downward spiral which parents, doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, and everybody else around her seemed powerless to halt.

Major therapeutic advances

Between 1994 and 2003, the rate of outpatient visits for juvenile bipolar disorder rose a staggering forty-fold. Meanwhile, the experts continued to maintain that treating children with antidepressants and stimulants was not causing bipolar disorder, but was merely revealing a pre-existing condition. A 2004 paper in the Journal of Affective Disorders suggested " In children genetically determined to develop bipolar disorder, the use of antidepressants and stimulants may advance the onset of bipolar disorder even before puberty."

A healthy productive life

In December 1999, Demitri Papolos, M.D., and Janice Papolos published The Bipolar Child, the book that convinced Anne that her son William was bipolar. In the preface, the authors lay it on the line for us: "Many of these children were initially diagnosed as having attention-deficit disorder with hyperactivity and put on stimulant medications; or they were first seen in the throes of depression with little or no consideration of the opposite pole of a mood disorder.

Accident prone

A paper published in the April 1976 issue of the Journal of Diseases in Childhood described five cases of childhood mania. All the children described came from obviously troubled families. In three of the five cases the authors explicitly state that the mania did not develop until after the children had begun taking stimulants or antidepressants.

Periodic and circular insanity

An epidemic is sweeping the nation, a crippling, perhaps lifelong, sometimes fatal condition known as juvenile bipolar disorder.

“He was a beautiful child”

That’s how Anne, a nurse by trade, remembers her eldest son, William. “He laughed a lot,” she recalls. “He liked to have fun. He played the piano beautifully.” He was fascinated by fire engines, and Anne used to take the boy to the local fire house for visits. The fire captain told Anne “Your son can roll up the fire hose better than some of my firemen.”

Fat? Maybe you can't blame your genes after all

--"Fat? Blame your genes, say doctors" --"Overweight? Maybe you really can blame your genes" --"Blame your genes for obesity"

Are statin news stories hazardous to your health?

Are negative news stories about statins hazardous to your health? Some Danish researchers wanted to find an answer to that questions.

Rages that make no sense at all

The headline proclaimed "Anti-smoking drug Champix does not raise risk of suicide or depression." This was a reference to a study published last September by Daniel Kotz and his colleagues in Lancet Respiratory Medicine, which compared the cardiovascular and neuropsychiatric risks of Chantix with two other stop smoking drugs: bupropion (trade name Zyban) and nicotine replacement therapy, or NRT.

Unnecessary public alarm

In July of 2011, the FDA issued a warning linking Chantix to an increase in the rate of heart attacks in patients with stable cardiovascular disease. That same month a meta-analysis published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal by Doctor Sonal Singh and his colleagues revealed that in smokers without a history of cardiovascular disease, Chantix was associated with a 72% increase in the relative risk of serious cardiovascular events, including ischemia, arrhythmia, congestive heart failure, sudden death, and cardiovascular-related death. Cardiovascular disease is an important cause of morbidity and mortality among smokers, and quitting smoking is widely supposed to reduce this risk, but in this case the data were going the other way.