Why Are So Many Kids On Antidepressants? This Will Make You Sick!

Raena Morgan: Doctor Scott, surely children aren't more depressed today than they used to be in yesteryear.  I mean, is that a modern phenomenon?

Dr. Timothy Scott:  Well, it's true that every era has some different stressers.  The Great Depression, surely, was one of the greatest stressers, and yet kids got through that just fine.  We do have more divorce today.  We do have more problems of other kinds today that are not so much economic.  But I think that kids basically have always been the same all around the world.  But, in the past, no one was given an anti-depressant.  They didn't exist!  And today, huge numbers are given antidepressants.  We have literally millions upon millions of people given these drugs.  Including millions of children.  And it is in part because we live in a society that has been convinced that this is the answer.  Again, if you go to other countries, you don't see this.  You don't see a lot of kids in Great Britain given these drugs.  A teenager in our country is right at five times more likely to be given an antidepressant.  Why?  Because it's not promoted so heavily there.  GSK, a British firm, sells Paxil to our kids.  They advertise on our television, they put ads in our drug... um, in our medical journals.  And yet, in their country, it's illegal for them to do some of that same work.  They can not go on television promoting Paxil.  They can do it here, they can't do it there.  And so they do it here.   And so they sell a whole lot more to our kids than they sell to their kids.  

And of course, you go to some other countries, Taiwan, Korea, Switzerland, Germany... the numbers compared to the United States are just tiny.  You're 30 and 40 times less likely to be given these drugs in many of these countries.  In South Korea and Taiwan, very similar to our country.  And yet, hugely less likely and in fact their kids have less reported depression than our kids have.

Morgan:  They do?

Scott: They do.  They have less, actually its appreciably less, than our kids have.  So they have less depression, they're have far, far, far less likely to be given these drugs.  Why is it American kids need these drugs?  Again, it's promotion.  It's marketing.