Are too many kids taking antipsychotic drugs?
Use is climbing despite questions about how safe the drugs are and how well they work
Excerpts:
The number of children taking powerful antipsychotic drugs has nearly tripled over the last 10 to 15 years, according to recent research. The increase comes not because of an epidemic of schizophrenia or other forms of serious mental illness in children, but because doctors are increasingly prescribing the drugs to treat behavior problems, a use not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And a disproportionate number of those prescriptions are written for poor and minority children, some as young as age 2.
Doctors are prescribing antipsychotics even though there’s minimal evidence that the drugs help kids for approved uses, much less the unapproved ones, such as behavioral problems. And to make matters worse, the little research there is suggests the drugs can cause troubling side effects, including weight gain, high cholesterol, and an increased risk of type-2 diabetes.
Over the last decade or so, doctors have increasingly prescribed the drugs for “off-label” uses, particularly in ADHD and disruptive behavior disorder, a broad diagnosis that encompasses a range of behaviors from attacking other children to temper tantrums and defying authority.
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See Also:
New FDA approved “brain test” for ADHD—is bogus
ADHD Drugs: New Study Reveals the Fraud of “Kiddie Cocaine”
More Teens ‘Abusing’ Adderall/Ritalin—drugs in the same highly addictive class as cocaine, morphine & opium
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