At 18 months of age, Kyle Warren of Opelousas, La. was presented with antipsychotic drugs to help with temper tantrums he was having. By the time he was 3, reports the brand new York Times, Kyle had been diagnosed with autism, BPD, hyperactivity, and oppositional defiant disorder. The treatments he was prescribed transformed the boy into “a drooling, sedated, overweight zombie,” says his mother. Because of cases for instance this, experts have been looking more into whether or not toddlers should be receiving antipsychotics.
Doubling antipsychotic prescriptions
A study was done by the Food and drug administration in 2009. This study showed that antipsychotic drugs are being prescribed to more than 500,000 adolescents and children. The greatest amount comes from teenagers dealing with schizophrenia, since many believe that is the age when the disease comes out, although “tens of thousands” of preschoolers are getting drugs from pharmaceutical corporations.
The Times cites a troubling Columbia University study that shows that the rate of antipsychotics prescribed for small children (privately insured, ages 2 to 5) doubled from 2000 to 2007. Of those children included within the survey, only 40 percent actually received what is considered a correct mental health assessment as defined by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Antipsychotic medication stopped from being given to toddlers
Many worry about young children getting antipsychotics. They’re concerned that it is too early to give this medication. Dr. Mark Olfson thinks this is horrible. He is a professor of clinical psychology that works for a Lane University program that is designed to help families with little money that have mental health difficulties in their children.
“There are too many children getting on too many of these drugs too soon,” he told the Times.
Many doctors feel like these heave medications are being prescribed to kids and infants way too often. Olfson is one of those doctors. Diagnosis of mental conditions in young kids is a highly inexact science, to put it mildly. Since there is such a debate to whether children’s brains are even developed enough to get these drugs, the FDA’s acceptance of AstraZeneca and Bristol-Myers Squibb-branded antipsychotics for use on kids is surprising to numerous.
Thus, doctors can legally prescribe antipsychotics for toddlers for off-label use, despite a lack of safety research. Pharmaceutical corporations 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
Further reading
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-
