More antipsychotics prescribed for children

Am I the only one that thinks the FDA has gone mad with antipsychotics? Now they're aiming at children. This is pathetic, kids can't even be kids anymore or they're going to end up on meds. Sad. news.yahoo.com...

Early addiction means lifelong income for big Pharma. Lifelong may be relative in the case of addicts, but even then, they can still import a few million immigrants to replace any prematurely deceased customers...

like i always said, do not ever bring children into this world.

Thought Id add a BBC article on the same vein.

Eight-year-olds 'can use Prozac'

Prozac can be prescribed for children as young as eight, the European Medicines Agency has said.

It decided the benefits outweighed the risks in children with moderate to severe depression who failed to respond to psychological therapy.

And yet in contrast we have this article from a few months ago...

Too many drugs 'not child tested'

The House of Lords said 90% of medicines for new born babies and 50% of those aimed at children are untested after collating evidence from doctors.

The warning comes after the EU proposed a law requiring firms producing adult drugs to test if they can also be used to treat children.

I also hear that the majority of these tests with medication are, for the most part, tested on males and only body mass is taken into consideration...

But campaigners have been warning that children are not merely small adults and that therapeutic and side effects can vary widely with age.

The paragraphs that caught my attention were:

Interest in this issue followed "earlier studies that reported significant increases in the use of antipsychotics by young people within the Medicaid population," the researcher added. "We wanted to find out if this was a general trend that more broadly affects the mental health care of youths in the US."

and

The researchers note that these drugs were prescribed primarily for disruptive behavior disorders (37.8 percent), mood disorders (31.8 percent), or pervasive developmental disorders or mental retardation (17.3 percent). Only 14.2 percent were prescribed for psychotic disorders.

Doctors appear to be targeting children with behavior and mood disorders. Medicaid is a program usually for low income and single parent families. The mass control of theses youths from disadvantaged families is abhorrent. Is this practice truly about stuffing the coffers of the pharmaceutical companies or is it more of a government control issue?