Antipsychotic drugs were given to Kyle Warren of Opelousas, La., when he was 18 months old. This was designed to help with the outbursts he was having. The New York Times reports that he then had autism, bipolar disorder, hyperactivity, sleeping disorders and oppositional defiant disorder before he was 3. The medicine transformed him into “a drooling, sedated, overweight zombie.” His mom said this about him. This has been happening often and that’s why experts have gotten involved. The question is whether or not small children should be receiving antipsychotics at all.
Without assessment, antipsychotic prescriptions are doubled
According to a September 2009 study by the FDA, more than 500,000 kids and adolescents are on antipsychotic drugs. Many assume the greatest growth is among teenagers dealing with schizophrenia (as that is the age when the disease is believed to manifest), but the study indicates that “tens of thousands” of preschoolers are becoming customers of large pharmaceutical businesses.
A Columbia University study was shown within the Times to have surprising results about kids, privately insured, ages 2 to 5. It showed that from 2000 to 2007, the amount of small children getting antipsychotics doubled. The survey showed that only 40 percent of children on the drugs got a correct mental health assessment. This is considered correct by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
How to stop Americans from giving their toddlers antipsychotic medication
There is a major concern that kids are getting antipsychotics too early in their lives. Dr. Mark Olfson thinks this is horrible. He is a professor of clinical psychology that works for a Lane University program that is intended to help families with little money that have mental health problems in their children.
“There are too many children getting on too many of these drugs too soon,” he told the Times.
Olfson is just one of many doctors that suggest these heavy medications shouldn’t be written for kids or infants as often as they’re. It is hard to choose if kids really have mental illnesses. There isn’t a science to it. This makes the FDA’s acceptance of certain AstraZeneca- and Bristol-Myers Squibb-branded antipsychotics for use on toddlers all the more disturbing, thinking about the wide range of disagreement within the clinical community as to whether brains at such an early stage of development should be exposed to such potent mind-altering products.
There isn’t the right research there to prove the drugs safe. Besides that in mind, doctors can legally give antipsychotics to small children for off-label use. Pharmaceutical businesses are getting lots of profit off this.
No longer can it be said that
My peers and I care about this earth
It will be evident that
My generation is apathetic and lethargic
It is foolish to presume that
There is hope.
And all of this will come true unless we choose to reverse it.
-From “Lost Generation” by Jonathan Reed
Discover more details on this subject
NCBI
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20215922
NY Times
nytimes.com/2010/09/02/business/02kids.html?_r=1 and partner=rss and emc=rss and pagewanted=all
Bio Med Central
biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/9/80
Actupny
actupny.org/reports/durban-licensing.html
Generations lost
youtube.com/watch?v=MR4EWSbXLWA
Alternatives to toxic psychiatric drugs
youtube.com/watch?v=sBN2Zjz4W-
