Skyrocketing numbers of kids are prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs. Is it safe? Nobody knows.
By ROBERT FARLEY, Times Staff Writer
Published July 29, 2007
More and more, parents at wit's end are begging doctors to help them calm their aggressive children or control their kids with ADHD. More and more, doctors are prescribing powerful antipsychotic drugs.
In the past seven years, the number of Florida children prescribed such drugs has increased some 250 percent. Last year, more than 18,000 state kids on Medicaid were given prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs.
Even children as young as 3 years old. Last year, 1,100 Medicaid children under 6 were prescribed antipsychotics, a practice so risky that state regulators say it should be used only in extreme cases.
Medicaid and insurance companies have fed the problem, encouraging the use of psychiatric drugs as they reimburse less and less for labor-intensive psychotherapy and occupational therapy.
Another factor: Doctors have been influenced by pharmaceutical companies, which have aggressively marketed atypicals.
A whole lot more, here
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/07/29/Worldandnation/The__atypical__dilemm.shtmlMore on atypical antipsychotics, here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atypical_antipsychotic______________________________________
I just read this article this morning, and to be honest, it scares the *hit out of me. What are we doing to our future generation(s)?
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