The Last Normal Child

Helping parents help kids navigate today's perilous path of childhood.

by Lawrence Diller

100 Years Later - The Flexner Report Still Relevant

100 years ago doctors had little credibility. A education reformer's report remarkably reformed medical education and physicians' professionalism. In the last thirty years this credibility has been eroded by financial ties between doctors and the drug companies. Is it time for another Flexner Report. Read More

Wholesale Sedation of Young Children: Medically, Morally Indefensible

The decision by the Massachusett's Board of Registration in Medicine to allow the psychiatrist in the Rebecca Riley murder case to practice again without any restrictions makes no sense in light of the specific facts that emerged in testimony during the trials. However, punishing the doctor would have also challenged Harvard's Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic which promotes the bipolar diagnosis and aggressive use of psychiatric medication in children. Read More

Mother Guilty of Murder--Pediatric Bipolar Disorder Innocent

Apparently, the closer you are to Harvard the more legitimate Pediatric Bipolar Disorder becomes. Carolyn Riley, the mother of Rebecca Riley who was killed, four years ago was convicted on February 9th of second degree murder. The doctor who prescribed the girl three psychiatric drugs was granted immunity from prosecution and continues to practice. Read More

Little Helpers in 2024

This past December the prestigious British journal, Nature, published a commentary entitled "Cognitive Enhancers," in which the authors proposed reevaluating the ethics of using drugs that ostensibly improve the brain's performance. Read More

Public Funding of Private Schools for the Learning Disabled -- The Snake Eats Its Tail

When do the rights of the individually learning disabled student compromise the right to learn for the average child? Read More

The Supreme Court Judgment Against Wyeth Is HUGE!

People 1/Corporate Power 0 in the Supreme Court yesterday. The Court maintains the rights of plaintiffs to sue drug companies over FDA approved drugs. Read More

FALLING FROM MT. OLYMPUS FOLLOW UP

Joseph Biederman, America's foremost child psychiatrist, and in the midst of a serious conflict of interest scandal, has agreed to temporary limitations in his role as director of Harvard's Massachusetts General Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic. Dr. Read More

Fallen Heroes of Children's Mental Health

About two weeks ago, new developments were reported nationally on separate ongoing scandals involving two of America’s top experts in children’s mental health -- making their situations appear worse. Read More

Palin Promises a Chicken in Every Pot -- The Slow Cooked Death of American Schools

Let me start by offending somebody right away when I say I'm a liberal from the Bill Clinton school of pragmatism -- like when Clinton decided to take on long overdue welfare reform. Some may argue otherwise, but there were definite perverse incentives meant to help people, but fostered generational dependency. Read More

Closing Arguments

Nassir Ghaemi and I have gone three rounds on "The Truth." I appreciate his concerns about the dangers of relativism though, I remained worried about "the truth" when employed by fanatics. Read More

The Swimming Cure for ADHD?

Michael Phelps’ amazing Olympic triumph belies the notion of a chronic disorder.

There Are No Heroes

Are there no heroes? Can you count on anyone these days without the distinct possibility that they will let you down in the future? The twin revelations this past week of John Edwards' acknowledgement of his affair and the frontpage New York Times story on child sexual abuse charges against America's preemminent pediatrician, Melvin Levine, devastated me. Read More

Say It Ain't So Joe

Joe Biederman Most parents have never heard of him but Joseph Biederman, head of Harvard's Massachusetts General Child Psychopharmacology Clinic, may be the most influential doctor when it comes to determining whether or not children are normal or mentally ill in America. Read More

Thoughts About Quitting the Field Again

I only read Newsweek’s cover story from last week (May 26, 2008), “Growing Up Bipolar: Max’s World,” yesterday. The piece by Mary Carmichael relates in great detail the travails of a boy named Max who was diagnosed “bipolar” at age eighteen months by a Tufts University child psychiatrist. He is now ten and a half and by his parents’ reckoning he has been on 28 different psychiatric drugs. The article left me feeling profoundly depressed about my profession and what we are offering as help to children and their families today. Read More

ECGs, ADHD, Ritalin...Oh My!

On April 21st, the American Heart Association (AHA) shocked families and professionals alike when it recommended that all kids that take or may take Ritalin should have an electrocardiogram (ECG). Stimulant drugs like Ritalin, Concerta and Adderall have been used in children for ADHD for 70 years. Why this recommendation now—and should you get one for your child if he/she takes one of these drugs? Read More

Mr. Rogers Was Wrong

In today's New York Times Education Life section, Charles Mcgrath's review, "Growing Up for Dummies" reviews two books, The Dumbest Generation and 20 Something Manifesto. Both implicate the boomer generation's failure to raise competent children. Read More