At 18 months old, Kyle Warren of Opelousas, La. was given antipsychotic drugs to help with outbursts he was having. When he was 3, he was then clinically determined to have autism, bipolar disorder, hyperactivity, insomnia and oppositional defiant disorder, says the New York Times. His mother explains the medicine turned him into “a drooling, sedated, overweight zombie”. Because of cases such as this, experts have been looking more into whether kids should be receiving antipsychotics.
Doubling antipsychotic prescriptions
A study was done by the FDA in 2009. This study showed that antipsychotic drugs are being prescribed to more than 500,000 adolescents and children. Many assume the greatest growth is among teenagers dealing with schizophrenia (as that is the age when the disease is believed to manifest), however the study suggests that “tens of thousands” of preschoolers are becoming customers of big pharmaceutical corporations.
The Times cites a troubling Columbia University study that shows that the rate of antipsychotics prescribed for toddlers (privately insured, ages 2 to 5) doubled from 2000 to 2007. Of those kids incorporated in the survey, only 40 percent really received what is considered a proper mental health assessment as defined by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Antipsychotic medication stopped from being given to toddlers
There is a major concern that children are getting antipsychotics too early in their lives. Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychology that works with a Lane University program there to help families with kids that have mental health issues, is really upset.
“There are too many children getting on too many of these drugs too soon,” he told the Times.
Olfson is just one of numerous doctors that suggest these heavy medications shouldn’t be written for children or infants as often as they are. It is hard to determine 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, considering 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 companies are getting a lot 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
Additional 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-
