Has anyone watched Generation Rx? It's on netflix. Pretty scary stuff.. and almost begs the question: are we creating a society of psychopaths (by interrupting their natural brain chemistry while they are still growing)? I know some kids probably need meds.. and I'm certainly not arguing that. But this film certainly raises some scary questions. More frightening, on another forum I was lurking. I've got a few.. questions for families of 5 kids and ALL of them have been diagnosed with something like Aspergers or bi-polar. EVERY child. Now... maybe there is a genetic component, I'm no doctor and don't pretend to be. But.. EVERY child drew the black dot in the bad luck lottery??
I have not seen it...but I was already concerned with what you are saying. I could go on and on...but I digress..lol. I will have to put that in my queue though.
My Uncle has Asbergers, my brother has severe autism, and one of my boys has Mild Autism and ADHD (Doc said older boy, Bo, may have a very mild form of autism as well). We're hoping our youngest boy (5 months), ends up being ok. When my oldest boy was very young, I think a year, he got some vaccines and COMPLETELY changed. I mean he stopped talking, didn't look at you, went floppy and refused to eat and started banging his head. When we took him to teh doctor he said that we were over reacting, and we couldn't help but cry in there holding our boy up to him saying, "How could you call this NORMAL?!" Anyway, after a few months he went back to normal, but keeps some sensory issues that are minor. I think I read that there might be some genetic component. Look at autism: 1 in 110 kids I think I read, have soem form of autism. I watched a documentary not long ago abotu a family that had 6 kids and all of them had some form of autism, all over the spectrum.
I think autism, ADHD, and other things as well are on the rise due to vaccines perhaps, but maybe also genetics we don't understand. Pollution can effect the offspring of other animals why not ours? And yes we should be concerned whenever a doctor is quick to flash the medication at our kids.
Yes- and it certainly can happen. I'm definitely not advocating NOT getting health problems taken care of.
Ya know... I asked this same question the other day. When my boys were much younger ADHD was the diagnosis "du jour" it seemed that every child was being diagnosed with it (or it sure seemed that way), now it seems like autism is on the rise. I know they're both very legitimate health issues, it just struck me odd the other day. I'm not a fan of medications... never have been and I never will be. I prefer natural remedies (good old ice pack, etc) when ever possible. So heart breaking that something that is supposed to protect a child actually does more damage than good (ADHD/autism if they have been linked to vaccines)
I am prone to think it is more our diet that is causing the rise in almost every disease, disorder and health issue across the board. 100 years ago there were never children with these problems, and hardly even adults. But now, every other person has something serious wrong. I also can't help but notice that the processing, the hormones, the preservatives, etc are also all newer. 100 years ago we ate off the land, directly from the land. We didn't use chemicals in everything back then. The old saying 'you are what you eat' rings oh so true to me.
I definately agree with Peacangrove, as far as what is put into our food. Between that and the vaccines, and the numerous medications pushed on us, I'm not surprised by the rise of any number of disorders and or illnesses.
I agree with you about the damage done to our health by processed food. And I definitely agree that many illnesses can be prevented or even cured by a healthy diet. However... A hundred years ago these problems didn't have names, so we could hardly diagnose them. But I can tell you, more than one elderly relative said to my autistic cousin's mom, "Why he's just like your grand-uncle so-and-so!" Grand-uncle, who ended up institutionalized. There were lots of institutions for the "insane" and "feeble minded" in those days. And with lots of kids, most families seem to have managed to produce at least one kid who wasn't quite right. But you didn't talk about them to outsiders. You just looked after them until you couldn't any more, and then you had them put away. Now about the food... In Pakistan, my mother managed to contract a horrible case of dysentery that kept her hospitalized for almost a month. She got it after eating from a salad bar at a local restaurant. After that she pretty much stuck to pre-packaged food, and she stayed healthy for the rest of her time there. When she was in Romania during the Reconstruction period, she would carefully inspect all her eggs (sold at the side of the road) for cracks, before washing off all the chicken poop. One of her friends got sick from eating eggs, because she didn't notice a tiny fracture, which allowed bacteria into the egg. None of them drank the milk, because it wasn't pasteurized and people regularly got sick from that, too. We were hardly living in a paradise a hundred years ago. In fact, a lot of our country resembled Pakistan and Romania today. At the turn of the 20th century New Orleans (where my family is from) was suffering almost yearly outbreaks of Yellow Fever. Native born folks took pride in the fact that their children (mostly) survived, while the immigrants died by the boatload every summer. The rich simply moved out of the city every summer. It wasn't until they started on an anti-mosquito campaign in 1905, that people finally stopped dying. We've made mistakes (chemical food colouring, anyone?), but at least we no longer allow bakers to mix chalk in with the flour to make the bread whiter. There's no cocaine in our Cola, either. Which is either a plus or a minus, depending on where you stand. And we don't sell poo-covered cracked eggs or try to wrap rotten meat in the fresher stuff, so unwary consumers will buy it. Fresh veggies are available all year around for purchase. And we even get to refrigerate our food! How awesome is that?
It's my understanding that it's 1 in every 110 children now yes, but the scary part, it changes to 1 in 70 if you're only talking about boys. Vaccines, gah! A real sore spot with me. With my oldest daughter, we were able to get the MMR components separate. We spaced the measles, mumps, and rubella shots out with the rest so that she only had two or three immunizations at a time. Some extra office visit co-pays, no big deal. Now? They stopped making individual components. Why?! Now that more people want them, they stop making it. That is completely nonsensical. When I talked to our pediatrician, she said the company makes these immunizations as some sort of public service or something, they make zero profit on it. So the work that went into making three separate inoculations was out of pocket. So WHAT? They did it before. We pay through the nose for medical care, insurance or no, and now someone is going to tell me they're doing me a favor? Please. I can not and will not ignore so many agonized accounts from parents who are sure their babies were harmed by shots. I mean for my children to have them all, but on an alternate and hopefully safer schedule. We now have to wait until our youngest is four, and get the MMR then. Hopefully separate components will appear again before then. There was a measles outbreak recently...where...was it the UK? That scares me. On the medication of kids over all, I read once that they think now that more than what, 75%? Of the children prescribed meds for behavioral problems may have been misdiagnosed. And they wonder what the long term effects of that might be. I agree that some children benefit from it certainly. That so many had been drugged with little or no cause didn't surprise me though.
My oldest son refused to take his meds... didn't like the way they made him feel and I respected his choice. My middle son could have come off his meds until he was assaulted and now more than ever he needs one of them until he can regain some control of his emotions. The other one, he doesn't like taking. He actually will drink a cup of coffee and fights it more effective WITHOUT the side effects that the meds. My youngest son, we've had a really hard type getting him on something that works with him because he's sensitive to everything we've tried. He's back to the eye rolling that eh had (when they blamed it on a second med he was on... umm, he's been off it for a couple years now, so what's the excsude now). Never an easy answer I'm afraid. You hit the nail on the head !! Sadly, the healthy diets cost a fortune more so than trash in your diet <sigh> BUT that's no excuse
Its also interesting to note that diagnosis's of ADHD is more prevalant on the east coast of the US then on the west and south. Is that diet or something else?
Interesting northernmomma... I didn't know that. Maybe it's in the water? Not being funny, but really... there are all kinds of things that leak into the water supply... IDK.
We were hardly living in paradise a 100 years ago and I am certain things were misdiagnosed. However, I do think our processed foods, dyes and so forth are causing us serious issues. I read that many diseases were not seen until the addition of partially hydrogenated oils in food. Now, i read that in some article...how true is it? I really don't know. However, I think there is truth to the fact that we have poisoned our food supply so to speak. I also think that behavioral drugs can do more harm than good on a growing and developing mind. However, I am not experienced in that area so I do not judge anyone who uses medication for their child. I have not been faced with that decision. I think money has become more important than people in our society and that is reflected how business is conducted and how food is being processed.
I agree as well, but I also think things are way over diagnosed (like ADHD) because professionals seem to think children should be robots. Everything has a label these days and it has gotten way out of control. Did you know that now there is an 'eating disorder' known as Orthorexic? Those 'affected' may start by eliminating processed foods, anything with artificial colorings or flavorings as well as foods that have come into contact with pesticides. :roll: No, I am NOT kidding. They are labeling it as an eating disorder. I'm truly tired of labels these days.
Orthorexic isn't a medically recognized term. But if it was, it'd probably be a sub-category of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Competent doctors and psychologists know that the most important part of labeling any behaviour "disordered" is that it has to be interfering with the individuals' normal functioning. It's one thing to avoid processed foods and only eat organic, in order to improve your health. It's another thing when your paranoia around food takes over your life to the point where you are actually physically harming yourself. If you're starving yourself to death because you can't find food that's pure and untainted enough to eat... you've got a real problem.
While I agree with all that's been said, I think you're really overlooking something, especially in regards to ADHD. I think a lot of "normal" kids actually develop ADHD as a result of their environment. They actually "learn" to not pay attention. TV/Video games have a lot to do with that. Everything we do with kids, we try to keep super-short. Even a lot of non-fiction books now are geared to short attention spans. Like the DK books that, instead of having a text running throughout, has fifteen little pictures on a page, a caption for each picture, and maybe a paragraph or two of text.
You know I agree here. I believe that these disorders really do exist and for the small percentage of children who genuinely NEED the medications I'm glad they are around, but I also feel that medication is over prescribed, and that there are natural things parents can try first before filling a child's body with chemicals and drugs. When I was in school I was bored. As a result of the bordom, I acted out not to be disrespectful to my teacher but because I was bored with sitting still and quiet at my desk when my work was already done. I did very little homework because "why should I do something I already know and understand". My school told my mother I had to be medicated because I was a disruption to the class, she took me to the dr and I was diagnosed ADD, given Ritalin, and took it for about a month. After that I quit taking it. The school didn't like it, but my mother fought for me once she saw the effects of the medication. The point is that we need to look at each child as individuals, some children have more energy than others, some are just bored and need a challenge to settle down, others may just need a little extra patience, not every child who can't sit still in his seat and disrupts the teacher has ADHD. My son's Sunday School teacher suggested I have him "checked out" because he fidgets all through class, and doesn't pay attention. He doesn't pay attention because she's teaching the same "stories" that he's known for years, which is why we don't use a "young" bible curriculum.
I read that the % of kids diagnosed rose quite a bit right around the introduction of cable television. Like, a LOT. Kids under two are not supposed to watch it at all, I confess my youngest daughter probably watches 30-60 minutes a day, while I cook and shower. My oldest, at her age they are supposed to watch an hour or two, and she is in that range now. This was not always the case however, I'm ashamed to say. I've got a better handle on it now though, and I'm doing what I can. Sometimes I swear I'd just as soon let cable and internet go altogether. I wonder if we wouldn't be better off. The one thing I would not feel able to do without is the research capability. Now if only I could get myself to cut any and all other applications out. :roll:
Oma, how many of us, myself included, said we had our children on computers before age 3? It works the same as TV. Read the book, "The Plugged In Drug".
