Front Page of NY Times

Today the times reported that there was a forty percent increase in children being treated for bipolar disorder. That is astounding--and disturbing--I worry that many of those kids have emotional problems, not pyschiatric ones, problems for which the the solution lies in better parenting, schooling, communities, and family therapy, not medication. I was a kid with bipolar disorder, so of course I believe they exist. But not in these numbers. What also bothered me about the report is that 100 percent of these kids were treated with medication, and only forty percent of them with therapy. What I would really like to see is how many of those kids are still on those meds---because the only checks and balances in this situation is that those meds are so expensive and have so many side effects that I doubt a kid without bp with stay on them for very long. I hate blaming parents---especially since I'm not a parent---but many of them are colluding with myopic child psychiatrists and greedy pharmaceutical companies.