Toddlers Dosed With Speed? How Big Pharma Hooks America's Kids on Dangerous Meds

[madokie]

Children with ADHD are easy targets because they will be lifelong patients and repeat customers.

A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week confirmed what many have suspected: more than 10,000 2- and 3-year-olds in the U.S. are being dosed with drugs like Ritalin and Adderall for "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder." You read that right.

There is no medical basis to the dosing. American Academy of Pediatrics' guidelines for ADHD "do not even address the diagnosis in children 3 and younger—let alone the use of such stimulant medications," reported the New York Times, especially because "hyperactivity and impulsivity are developmentally appropriate for toddlers."

Toddlers on Medicaid are especially targeted for ADHD meds, commensurate with Big Pharma's heisting of government funds as its main source of revenue, a marketing plan also seen with Medicare, TRICARE and the VA prescriptions.

Why does the richest nation in the world have so many children afflicted with ADHD, conduct disorders, depression, "spectrum" disorders, oppositional defiant disorder, mixed manias, social phobia and bipolar disorder?

http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/toddlers-dosed-speed-how-big-pharma-hooks-americas-kids-dangerous-meds

[morningfog]

1. This is one of the most disturbing stories of late.

It is just horrendous. At that age (and for many years after) the brain is still physically developing. The way the brain develops is effected by the environment. We are learning more about this every year. Stress in very young children physically changes the brain, with permanent effects. Child abuse, poverty, war, violence, etc, all cause physical and lasting changes in the brain.

Psychotropics at this age likewise alter and physically change the brain as it develops. It is essentially intentional brain damage. The harm can probably never be completely undone.

[madokie]

2. One of my old friends

His son was given Ritalin starting at about 3 maybe 4 years old and now at 34 his life is difficult. Has to have help in everything he does. Can't make his own decisions because his brain is what some of us old hippies would say is burn out.

[Tsiyu]

4. That is so sad to hear

These drugs also cause kids to not want to eat - as speed does to adults -and that cannot be good for proper development in a toddler.

Toddlers are supposed to be impulsive, noisy and bouncy, but we want them to be zombies for profit. They wanted my kids to take that crap and I refused.

We are all mined for dollars. It's so damned sad, really.

Even our babies. Think about it: Their little bodies are chemically altered just so some fuckface Pharma CEO can get a nice bonus. HOW sick is that? THIS is capitalism at its finest.

I wish the people in Big Pharma who decide to addict everyone for profit, while fighting the use of a non-addictive plant, would be imprisoned for life for all the death and destruction they cause in the pursuit of the almighty $$$$$$$

[canuckledragger]

9. I've always said

That while drugs like Ritalin are given to the children (like my cousin, where his parents were putting it into his cereal without his knowledge) they are really for the adults.

[madokie]

10. Sure they are

Parents who don't want to be parents

[laundry_queen]

19. Or sometimes

teachers who don't want to deal with certain kids.

My brother was a very active kid, and super smart. He would finish his work early, well before anyone else, then he would start disrupting...because he was bored. After several meetings with the teacher and principal, it was recommended my brother go on Ritalin. So my parents tried it...this was when it had just come out too (30 years or so ago). My brother was on it for awhile. He WAS calmer, but then my mom asked him how he was feeling, because he seemed like a zombie to her, and he said something like, "oh, I don't know. I just don't know if I feel like I want to even be here. On earth I mean. I don't really feel like I want to be alive anymore." My mom took the meds and flushed them instantly. Soon, he was back to his old self. My parents told the teacher and principal to figure something else out. The following year, he had a different teacher and he had zero problems. My parents met with her and she said, "oh, it's easy to keep him out of trouble. I just ask him to help me out when he's done his work by handing out papers, or cleaning the blackboard. Or, I give him extra work. I've also asked him to help out his classmates if he is done and they are stuck on a question. He's a pretty good teacher himself." All it took was a teacher who knew how to deal with him. That 'disruptive, problem child' is now an engineer. He didn't need Ritalin, he just needed a teacher who knew how to deal with kids.

[CanSocDem]

21. Right On!!

Even with a B.ED. gathering dust with other personal relics of the 70's, I still believe that schools are one of the worst institutions in regards to feeding the industrial socialization process.

Two of my best friends, both teachers, with bright creative kids ignored my arguments against Ritalin, saying that the benefits of a well managed classroom outweighed the risks of "drug" abuse...my POV. Ten plus years later, the oldest is still highly creative and well adjusted while the youngest is dependent on the pharmaceutical industry for a comfortable life.

.

[CrispyQ]

23. To the corporate overlords, we are commodities, no different than pork bellies & silver.

It is disgusting what the everything-for-profit model has turned this country into.

[malaise]

3. NYT had an article about this on Sunday

Frightening

[azurnoir]

5. I'm glad to hear someone is paying attention to this because speaking from experience

what is called ADHD is the natural state of being for a toddler to drug these kids into complacency is criminal

and when working in pediatrics I've heard MD's refer to oppositional defiant disorder and social phobia as the pharmaceutical names for adolescence and shyness

[dipsydoodle]

6. What was prescribed in the 1960's ?

[KurtNYC]

14. a Teddy bear and a nap

[HockeyMom]

15. Playground as I said on another topic

Let these mostly boys RUN and play. I did this as a TA only 5 years ago, not back in the Stoneage before the invention of all these meds. You don't drug children, or adults, into submission. However, it seems to take too effort to find another solution. Medication is the solution to everyone's problems. You only need to watch commericals on TV to see that.

Maybe we need a different War on Drugs.

[dipsydoodle]

17. Exactly

[nationalize the fed]

7. Actual solutions

will not be discussed on US major media.
A look at the commercials will provide clues to why that is.

Here's a start

[CanSocDem]

22. Absolutely!! (eom)

[Trust Buster]

8. Politicians ignore the over-prescription problem in this country including our children.

Yet, they react in purely political terms when a parent begs them for access to cannibas extract to treat their children's uncontrollable seizures. I guess their isn't as much money to be made there.

[maindawg]

11. The pharmasuitical corporations are criminals

The murder over 100,000 people in the US every year. No one cares.
They send out their drug pushers [attractive young women] to do whatever they have to do, in order make doctors prescribe as much of their poison as possible.
Just another example of for profit health care that kills.

[LynneSin]

12. I'd like to see what the diet is for those 2-3 year old kids diagnosed with ADHD

I'm no medical expert but I think there is a large group of kids out there being treated with ADHD meds when the real issue is the foods they are eating.

Processed foods loaded with extra sugar and ESPECIALLY High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) can take a perfectly fine child and push them off the edge of insanity just after eating such food.

Parents too lazy to cook healthy nutritious foods just find it easier to medicate their kids instead of giving them a healthy diet.

I'm not saying all ADHD kids are a product of poor diets. But when I was a kid ADHD was pretty darn rare but then again HFCS was not used that much in making foods. I didn't know any kids with ADHD.

[BrotherIvan]

24. ^^This!^^

Some kids improve REMARKABLY when their diet is changed. They may be sensitive to sugar or have an unknown allergy and when the offending food is removed their behavior changes. Also, many children are very sleep deprived now as they can't sleep through the night due to overstimulation or lack of sleep training. Hyper children used to regularly checked for hypothyroid as that can lead to hyperactivity. Yet doctors are really failing to be anything but pill pushers, not interested in finding the cause or too greedy to spend the time to look.

As a former teacher, it's very very difficult to deal with a hyper student. Not only does he disrupt learning for all the other students, he often is violent or aggressive. If the parents can't or won't do anything, then what can a teacher with 35-50+ students do? A great first step has been to limit sugary foods on campus and improve school lunches. I can't tell you how many students just eat chips and a soda for lunch with maybe so candy. No wonder they're hyper!

[yellowwoodII]

13. Like Tobacco Industry

Pushing their product without a sense of ethics.
Doctors are complicit in prescribing meds when they should be insisting on changes of diet or other non-chemical answers.
Pharmaceuticals should not be allowed to advertise on television.

[HockeyMom]

16. Meds bring repeat customers to doctors

Once on a certain/multiple meds (for life) the patient has to keep seeing that doctor for follow ups.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

18. I'm pretty sure the licensed provider with a decade-plus of schooling and residency is a factor.

Probably a significant factor. For all the advertisements with their stomach churning list of possible side effects I could run to the doctor's office and a demand Dumbisol with a side of anal leakage and suicidal ideation but in spite of my pestering I will never succeed unless the doctor pulls out the pad.

[TheBlackAdder]

20. Next up: Toddlers with drug induced psychosis. nt

Well, I guess it's a new income stream for the mental health profession.