Lawrence H. Diller

About the author: Lawrence H. Diller is a behavioral pediatrician and the author of Running on Ritalin: A Physician Reflects on Children, Society, and Performance in a Pill.

Doctors are prescribing psychiatric drugs to children in unprecedented numbers for conditions ranging from attention deficit disorder (ADD) to depression and anxiety. Approximately 5 million American children, some as young as two, are being given potentially dangerous psychiatric drugs alone and in combination, including Ritalin, Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, and Dexadrine. One of the disturbing aspects of this development is that only two of the most frequently prescribed medications, Luvox and Zoloft, have been approved by the FDA for psychiatric use in children. The studies of the newer medications have only looked at the efficacy and side effects of the drugs over the course of...