Overmedicated and Undertreated:
How I Lost My Only Son to Today’s Toxic Children’s Mental Health Industry
This is an important book, wonderfully done. Steven Francesco brings a unique and valuable hybrid perspective to the topic. He weaves a story with a powerful message for all involved in today’s U.S. children’s mental health world. His recommendations are well thought-out and merit serious consideration by parents and mental health professionals.
- Elisabeth Rosenthal, Senior Writer, New York Times
Recipient of the 2014 Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting
Overmedicated and Undertreated is absorbing and deeply saddening. Steven Francesco’s writing vividly captures the tragic consequences of an overly medicalized approach to treating young people with psychiatric problems and highlights the urgency of moving the mental health care of our children and adolescents in a new direction.
- Mark Olfson, M.D, Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center
Are You Worried That Your Child’s Drug Therapy Could Be Dangerous? Are our doctors, drug and insurance companies and schools working together to give our children the care they need? Each week millions of parents struggle with these questions.
Would you like help with the many decisions needed to protect your child?
Overmedicated and Undertreated is the powerful story of one family’s struggle with today’s toxic Children’s Mental Health Industry, which was lethal to their son.
What Steven Francesco learned - and you should know - is shocking:
Over 4 million children are prescribed psychiatric drugs in the U.S. today, mostly by prescribers with little or no training in children’s mental health.
Over $20 billion of powerful, untested psychiatric drugs are prescribed to children annually.
The vast majority of these drugs do not have FDA approval for prescribing to children due to the lack of safety and efficacy data. So, the prescribers are exploring the effects of the drugs, one child at a time, based on the FDA acceptance of off-label prescribing.
Atypical antipsychotics prescriptions written for children and adolescents have exploded by over 600% since 1998. It’s now the 3rd largest drug category in the U.S. This is the type of drug that caused his son’s sudden death.
Although Steven Francesco has over 30 years of experience as a healthcare consultant and former pharmaceutical executive, he discovered - too late - how unscientific and self-serving the children’s mental health industry has become when his 15-year-old son became a victim of the overmedication epidemic.
Overmedicated and Undertreated is a cautionary tale that serves as a powerful illustration of the damaging and deeply institutionalized conflicts of interest begging for reform in our current toxic Children’s Mental Health Industry and provides important guidance on how to protect your children.
www.OvermedicatedandUndertreated.com; www.DoNoHarmNetwork.org
