On October 30 th the Child Mind Institute held its annual On the Shoulders of Giants Symposium. The theme of the virtual event was promoted as “a celebration of scientific achievement in child and adolescent psychiatry” and two “breakthrough” treatments for childhood mental disorders were touted as next generation innovative therapies.

     The two treatments?

     Deep brain stimulation and an LSD derivative medication.

     Just what your kid needs, eh?

     Deep brain stimulation is a sort of street legal  variation of electroconvulsive shock. It’s used to fend off the legal restrictions looming on the horizon for banning the use of ECT’s horrific voltage being applied to youngsters. Four states have already passed legislation against its use on minors and more state legislatures will probably follow suit.

     To treat a child with deep brain stimulation, a small electrode is surgically and permanently placed in the brain to deliver an electrical impulse that is supposed to regulate a child’s moods. The shocks are emitted twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

     The FDA has only  approved deep brain  stimulation for such  physical disorders as  Parkinson’s Disease and dystonia, both chronic diseases of the brain. The National Institute of Health notes that “it is not  understood precisely how DBS affects the  dopaminergic networks within the brain” and that “DBS is not entirely without risk, and complications such as infection, hemorrhage, and even mortality have been noted.”

     Nice, huh?
 
     The other “breakthrough” treatment of the Child Mind Institute symposium is the proposal for an LSD derivative medication to treat child anxiety.

     LSD was classified as an illegal Schedule 1 drug in the 1960s because it has a "high potential for abuse" and is without any "currently accepted medical use in treatment." In fact, in the 1950s psychiatrists used LSD research to try to replicate the effects of mental illness, and their infamous MKUltra  experiments used LSD on often unsuspecting subjects to help develop workable mind control techniques.

     The United States Drug Enforcement Administration has reported that the use of LSD in psychotherapy largely has been debunked” and “drug studies have confirmed that the powerful hallucinogenic effects of this drug can produce profound adverse reactions, such as acute panic reactions, psychotic crises, and ‘flashbacks’ especially in users ill-equipped to deal with such trauma.”

     Like young children.

     Although the symposium literature lists these two treatments as  “breakthrough,” that term is actually only a designation used by the FDA – “breakthrough therapy” — to expedite the development and review of drugs that might demonstrate improvement over available therapy. It’s a fast track to clinical trials so that potentially more dangerous medications can be brought to market more quickly through clinical trials.

    Go, Big Pharma. Their funding of seventy-five percent of the FDA’s pharmaceutical department budget will have been a small price to pay for the profits possible when these two “breakthrough” therapies are FDA approved for public consumption.
     
     With approval, Big Pharma’s huge marketing budget can then be directed toward convincing you that a little LSD and a little electroshock really is just what your kid needs.

(A thank you to Barbie Rivera of Hollywood Education and Literacy Project, Miami for alerting us about this in her recent newsletter).