Wednesday Assignment

It seems evident today that generation X, largely referred to as generation RX now, has become increasingly dependent on prescription medications for problems ranging from attention deficit disorder to social anxiety.  With the modern breakthroughs in medications, we now have to option to treat almost every psychological medical condition such as depression, anxiety, and inability to stay focused for extended periods of time.  However, is using medication as the primary solution to these problems the safest and most effective method, and what, if any, are the long term effects of using so many prescription drugs as the primary solution to different psychological problems.

I have found many sources relating to this topic that I believe will provide me with reliable statistics and empirical data that will be very beneficial in determining my position on whether we are indeed overmedicating the American youth.  The most relevant source I have found so far is an article from the Journal Psychotherapy Network titled, “The Myth of Overmedication.”  This article provides me with an abundance of sound empirical data relevant in conducting my study.  It has many statistics about the history of medication to American youth, and its new recent trends, as well as statistics about different psychological issues such as depression, attention deficit disorder, and anxiety, and the recent increase in diagnoses for them.  Another article I have found that I believe relevant to my research is an article from the St. Petersburg Times, titles “The economics of overmedication.”  This article relates to any potential economic incentives in overmedication the youth.  It provides me with large amounts of data about the enormous profits the corporations that manufacture these drugs are obtaining with the recent trends of increased medication as the primary solution to psychological disorders.  The last article I have read that I believe will be useful in conducting research for this paper is from, Kluwer Academic Publishers, titled, “Assessing Overmedication: Biology, Philosophy, and Common Sense.”  This article provides me with plenty of data about the potential long term implications and dangers of the overmedication of our youth. 

I believe to have a pretty solid grasp on my research paper so far but I definitely believe I will run in to some potential road blocks.  First of all, interpreting all the data from all the my sources.  Clearly there are many Journals, newspapers, and other articles available that have plenty of data on the subject, however, finding the most reliable sources is going to be an issue.  I have already found multiple articles with different perspectives on the topic with contradicting data, or data interpreted in different ways.  So it may be difficult for me to find purely unbiased sources that have interpreted the data fairly.  In order to deal with this problem, I will probably just read as many articles as possible, although not cite everyone in my paper, to find the general consensus on what people truly think about the topic.