Interview: Peter Breggin

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by Frontline
        
Psychiatrist and author of Talking Back to Ritalin, Breggin founded the nonprofit Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology. He has been a vocal opponent of the ADHD diagnosis and he strongly opposes prescribing psychiatric medications to children.

FRONTLINE interviewed Breggin on May 3, 2000.
    
There are many, many reasons why we’re giving more and more psychiatric drugs to children. Probably the most important reason is simple marketing. The drug companies, like the tobacco industry, like the alcohol industry, are highly competitive, and are always searching out new markets. The adult market has been saturated for antidepressant drugs. How many millions and millions of people can take Prozac and Zoloft and all the other drugs? We have more adults taking antidepressants than the National Institute of Mental Health estimates there are depressed people in the United States. The market is saturated, so the pressures move automatically to other markets. And the biggest next market is children. So you have drug company representatives, you have drug company-sponsored conferences examining this issue, or encouraging this issue of marketing to children.

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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/interviews/breggin.html