I would like to make it clear that we will not promote in any way the use of Prozac for children and adolescents should it receive a European approval later in the summer. However, you express concern that Lilly will market the medicine “without restraint”. DR RICHARD HOUSE
RESEARCH CENTRE FOR THERAPEUTIC EDUCATION ROEHAMPTON UNIVERSITYSir: I welcome your editorial on Prozac (fluoxetine) for depression in children and adolescents. Child depression and anxiety are symptoms of what modern technological culture and a crassly arid educational system are doing to our children, and what we urgently need is wise and intelligent research and enlightened policy-making in these areas, rather than some medical “quick-fix” which not only completely fails to address the real causes of these “mental health” problems, but constitutes an unforgiveably unethical experiment on children’s developing brains, the long-term negative consequences of which are quite unresearched and totally unpredictable. Sir: It is most disappointing to see your leader approving of the decision to expose children as young as eight to the administration of Prozac (8 June).

Of course no one would seriously dispute that children’s (dubiously termed) “mental illness” needs to be addressed at the earliest possible opportunity, but to assume that psychotropic medication is the most effective or appropriate “treatment of choice” speaks volumes about the way in which multinational pharmaceutical interests and the crass ideology that medicalises emotional distress have “captured” the policy-making machinery in western culture. Thou really dost have to know thine enemy’s enemy.Two more tales for our time tomorrow

More from Miles Kington. Why don’t we put it about that we were enabled to locate and destroy al-Zarqawi because Osama bin Laden gave us the intelligence about his whereabouts?”"Can’t do that,” said Dick Jnr.”Why not?” said the man known as the President.”Because it’s true,” said Dick Jnr “And we have to protect our sources Even Osama bin Laden.”MORAL: Wow. “But just for a moment it makes us look good.”"There must be ways of using it to make us look better,” said a man with moustache called Fred.”Like how?” said a man called the President.”Well,” said Fred, “it’s well-known that although Osama bin Laden and al-Zarqawi were against us, they were also deadly rivals and were dead jealous of each other.

So when the notable terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in an air strike, the guys in Washington DC were cheered up.”Of course, it’s not going to mean the end of the bombing and killing in Iraq,” said a man called Dick Jnr at the big White House meeting. Their plans to get their hands on all that lovely oil were going badly Even the trial of Saddam Hussein was being ignored. The Al-Zarqawi EffectThe Americans had not been doing well in Iraq Their plans for peace were misfiring. He bought two, took them home, stuck small golden circles on both of them, and hey presto – in a moment he had the only Paraguayan flags on any car in Britain!”Nobody is going to recognise the flag, so I am quite safe,” he thought as he drove home, the flag of Paraguay flying proudly on his car.In which he was quite wrong, because the next morning he found his car windows broken, and a scrawled message on the bonnet: “Death to Paraguay”.”English football supporters are more knowledgeable than I imagined,” thought Desmond bitterly.In which he was also wrong, as his windows had not been attacked by a football supporter at all, but by a passing Bolivian, in memory of the Chaco War (1932-1935), in which Bolivia had been humiliatingly defeated by Paraguay.MORAL: Knowing thine enemy is all very well, but know thine enemy’s enemy as well.II.