Thursday, February 16

Lecture on the ethical implications of psychiatric medications for children.  Josephine Johnston of the Hastings Center spoke.  She is an attorney who trained in New Zealand where she also received her Masters in bioethics.  The Hastings Center in Hastings-on-the-Hudson, New York is the nation’s premier bioethical think tank.

One of her main points was that one needs to be aware that:

Drugs locate the problem in the child when the problem could also be the environment.  Her analogy was the child given a drug for diarrhea from drinking in a polluted river.  One should then work to clean the river.