Psychiatric Drugs Are Being Prescribed to Infants

[Purveyor]

By ALAN SCHWARZDEC. 10, 2015

Andrew Rios’s seizures began when he was 5 months old and only got worse. At 18 months, when an epilepsy medication resulted in violent behavior, a neurologist prescribed him the antipsychotic Risperdal, a drug typically used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in adults, and rarely used for children as young as 5 years.

When Andrew screamed in his sleep and seemed to interact with people and objects that were not there, his frightened mother researched Risperdal and discovered that the drug was not approved, and had never even been studied, in children anywhere near as young as Andrew.

“It was just ‘Take this, no big deal,’ like they were Tic Tacs,” said Genesis Rios, a mother of five in Rancho Dominguez, Calif. “He was just a baby.”

Cases like that of Andrew Rios, in which children age 2 or younger are prescribed psychiatric medications to address alarmingly violent or withdrawn behavior, are rising rapidly, data shows. Many doctors worry that these drugs, designed for adults and only warily accepted for certain school-aged youngsters, are being used to treat children still in cribs despite no published research into their effectiveness and potential health risks for children so young.

Almost 20,000 prescriptions for risperidone (commonly known as Risperdal), quetiapine (Seroquel) and other antipsychotic medications were written in 2014 for children 2 and younger, a 50 percent jump from 13,000 just one year before, according to the prescription data company IMS Health. Prescriptions for the antidepressant fluoxetine (Prozac) rose 23 percent in one year, to about 83,000.

MORE...

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/us/psychiatric-drugs-are-being-prescribed-to-infants.html?_r=0

[villager]

1. Hey, a company's gotta make a buck! Plus think of the cool trips & goodies the prescribing doctors..

...all get!

It's "win-win!"

Too bad there's no third "win" in there for any of the patients...

[olddots]

2. depression has been manufactured

[Warmongers]

3. Textbook capitalism at work

Step 1: Create a need.
Step 2: Sell junk product.
Step 3: Repeat process ad infinitum.

[pnwmom]

4. Yeah, but it's a product of Big Pharma, so it can't possibly be WOO, can it?

It's never been studied in small children, but who cares? As long as some company can increase their market share and profits.

The use of Risperdal for children has been hotly debated among child psychiatrists, with some experts — many financially backed by the pharmaceutical industry — citing positive effects among suffering young people, and others criticizing their use as shortsighted responses to complex problems.

[proverbialwisdom]

5. More.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016116011