Slashdot Mirror
The New School Nurse Is Nurse Ratched
theodp writes "In Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Nurse Ratched maintained order in the mental institution by dispensing antipsychotic and anticonvulsant drugs to the patients. Fifty years later, the NY Times reports that some physicians are prescribing stimulants to struggling students in schools starved of extra money, not to treat ADHD, necessarily, but to boost their academic performance. 'We as a society have been unwilling to invest in very effective nonpharmaceutical interventions for these children and their families,' said Dr. Ramesh Raghavan, an expert in prescription drug use among low-income children. 'We are effectively forcing local community psychiatrists to use the only tool at their disposal, which is psychotropic medications.'"
We've gotten to a sick point as a society. We know what works when it comes to education, it is no great mystery. Smaller classes, highly qualified and motivated teachers, involved parents. Instruction that imparts a love of learning and cultivates the desire to investigate the world around us.
Instead of providing this, we drain schools of funding and treat teachers with hatred and distrust. Students in low income schools are subjected to draconian learning environments where their future is ruled by testable metrics and a discipline fetish.
So doctors - despite knowing the significant risks of drugs that alter brain chemistry (especially with children) - are using their own tools to step in and help. Either they are way out of line, or they have hit the nail on the head by classifying academic performance as central to a child's long term health. Either way: they wouldn't be in this mess if we just invested in schools with a fraction of the enthusiasm with which we invest in bailing out banks and fighting wars.
Ever notice the drug commercials? None of them address the underlying cause -- they address only the symptoms.
* Your dick doesn't work: Don't get exercise that could actually improve your blood flow. Don't eat right. Take this ridiculously expensive pill. Notice the age of the men on these commercials has dropped from what once was older mean, now the guys could be in their late 30s. WTF?
* Your cholesterol is thru the roof: Don't cut out fatty foods and fried goodies. Don't get exercise. Take this pill that has more side effects that the black plague.
It's all about the money -- and it should be illegal. America hates drugs? Start with big pharma. They kill more people every year than illegal drugs.
If I had my way, I would dictate all pharm companies become non-profit. All money goes to R&D and moderate salaries. Then and only then would the research perhaps be about people and not profit.
These commercials now about one kid in 110 being autistic. No fracking way is this possible. ADHD? Same thing. When I was a kid back in the 70s, kids were hyper. It's normal. Now? Drug the poor things until they comply. People think a pill can solve anything. Want to lose weight? Take in fewer calories than you burn. Make sure those calories are good calories like fruits, veggies, lean meats like fish, turkey. Actually exercise. Almost no one was fat when I was a kid. Fat people were rare. Now? Almost 40% of Americans are considered fat. Why? The crap that passes for our food should be illegal. We need to become like Europe and ban all the junk. When it's about profit, the people get screwed. What's next? Soylent Green?
While I'd be hard pressed to say nice things about the cheap seats of US educational policy, isn't it a trifle hyperbolic to equate ritalin and friends with the genuinely hardcore pharmaceuticals you'd find in a '60s psych ward(or even a present-day one, antipsychotics are not a pleasant bunch, on the whole)?
It certainly seems like a bad plan to make psychiatrists(or GPs and nurses forced to fill in because real psychiatrists are expensive) the first-line people for problems that often have social fixes; but are the common psychostimulants really serious enough to fill the role of terrifying bogey-man here?
The problem is that "society" never can and never will replace the nuclear family. Until we realize this and start supporting the traditional family children don't have a chance.
Really! They made a movie about this.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I have mod points, but since you are well on your way to +5 insightful, I just want to add some data to this. I am interested in this topic, and I have noticed a series of articles in influential venues, like the Economist, the New York Times, etc. beginning a couple of years ago. They all have a common point: they are reporting some kind of controversial news, like here "doctors are prescribing drugs to poor kids to help them, is this good or bad", while the underlying message is unquestioned, that is, whether those drugs work at all. The underlying message is that they do and that would go without saying.
In the case of the Economist article, unfortunately for the drug companies and the PR firms probably doing this work for them, the reader comments were devastating for this underlying assumption. This article was asking whether it was fair that some students could have recourse to "brain enhancing drugs" bought illegally (like the one used in the treatment of ADHD). Dozens of people having taken drugs as students in the hope of helping at exam times reported their horror stories, and shredded every point of the article.
Big pharrna is financing PhD students in prestigious universities around the world, for work on the use of drugs, not for therapeutic purposes, but for enhancing the brain. This is something that I have myself confirmed meeting one of them.
Now it is the Slashdot crowd being targeted. According to the comments I am reading already, I would say this is another mistake of theirs...
On the parent at home thing, I would argue this is already possible, though it does not happen because there is limited economic value. We no longer mend clothes, cook all meals from scratch, wash clothes by hand, or plant gardens to provide our families fresh nutrition. When I was a kid these things were mostly done, and were done with parents working. But even so, in this free market society people still want to stay home and take care of the house that takes care of itself, to watch soap operas and sports. But they need an excuse to do so. Home schooling is that excuse. And I have no problem with this. I just don't know how much the taxpayer should pay. If parent choose to keep the kids home, then cut expenses of the school proportionately and give back the money to the people who pay the taxes. To those that say we should pay parents to teach the kids, i say what is next, home nursing and pay a parent for putting on band aid, or giving an aspirin.
That said, I think we as a society can afford to make it possible for a parent to stay home. i know families where only one person works, the other parent uses the time to bring production in the house, or does work from home, in order to make ends meet. It can be done if one is willing to sacrifice. We have programs, such as the child tax credit, which makes it possible. Universal free health care for children will also make this more possible. I know parents who pay $500 a month for health insurance. So there are things we can do, that will help all families, not just those that want special treatment.
Second is the perceived immorality of public school. There is nothing that can be done about that. You either buy into the belief that it is ok for people you know to have differing beliefs or you don't. You either buy into the belief that a child is responsible for his or her actions, and if they get into a fight or do drugs that is a reflection on you and your child, or you believe that you have no control and have to do what everyone else is doing. You either believe that conflict resolution is best developed in a hotbed, or you don't. In any case alternatives already exists. One can home school, but, as stated, tax payers can't really pay for your private education. One can go to a private school, and most families can afford it if they want. A neighbor sent all three kids to private school a a very limited budget. Or a family can move elsewhere. Government cannot pander to every special interest, and families have to take some responsibility.
Third is the quality of education. Passing an SAT does not mean quality education. Not passing a state test does not mean a bad education. Again, this is mostly buy in. For instance, many high schools have an international staff which I think we all agree can help in college and work where top employers are now looking for the best employees, not the best americans. many high schools have advanced technological resources, above what many families can afford, and knowing how to use a computer to work, not just play games, is useful. Most parents are not going to have advance study in all subjects, so are not to be able to expose the children to specific questions that come from such study, i.e. teach instead of just show some movies. And I am not talking about the best schools. I am talking about even the well funded below average high schools. This again is buy in. Either deep learning and critical thinking is valuable or it is not. What I will say is that there are not very many manufacturing jobs, sales jobs do not pay as much as they used to, and paper pushing
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
There is an interesting misconception that all psychotropic drugs have sedative effects or make the user more submissive. That's not true. Antipsychotics are sedating, the older typical antipsychotics more so than the newer ones. However, stimulants are the opposite of sedatives. Antidepressants aren't sedatives. Most psychotropic drugs aren't sedatives.
most Asian parents work. A lot. 6, 13 hour days is standard fare. I always here Asian parents trotted out as the example, but fact is there's no way to work those kind of hours and raise a kid. How do the majority do it? They let the government, specifically school teachers, who take a MUCH more active role in the students' life.
As for Asians valuing eduction, that's because in most places it's a dog eat dog hell hole due to their surplus population (that's surplus, no over, population. Over pop means there's not enough, surplus means there's enough to abuse). Americans value those things not because of a weak culture but because we're wealthy enough we can.
Put another way, I'm sick and tired of this weird cult of frantic, desperate, dog-eat dog work. The puritan work ethic is a scam that the Romney's of the world use to make excuses for their grotesque wealth.
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Except the stimulants they give kids are bad for them, personality changes, repetitive behavior, loss of creativity, abnormal development of normal executive function skills.
We can make the kids parents pay for pills to almost fix the problem.
Instead of actually fixing the problems which might be expensive and take a long time.
Cheap easy short term gains are awesome! Lets build an entire country like that!
I think you missed the description: "....said Dr. Ramesh Raghavan, an expert in prescription drug use among low-income children."
low-income probably meaning welfare section 8 food stamps. The parents can't afford a roof for themselves or their children, much less pills.
I say, whatever works. If pills make these kids stay in school and out of jail off welfare and section 8 there's nothing wrong with that, and the pills are probably cheaper.
Positives:
1) More productive life for individual
2) Tax pay less
Negatives:
1) Possible pill addict for life
Positives outweigh negatives. If there is a magic be-more-successful pill, sign me up too.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone