80% of American Children With Sleep Problems Given Unapproved Drugs

More than 80 percent of American children who visit a doctor for help combating sleep problems are given some form of prescription medication, new research has found, despite the fact that no sleeping pills are currently approved for use in kids.

"The concern with sleep medications is that we don't know how much to use and how long to use these drugs for children," explained study co-author Milap C. Nahata.

That survey found that 60 percent of American boys and girls under the age of 11 experience some kind of trouble getting shut-eye at least a few nights a week, while nearly three-quarters of parents indicated that they would like to alter something about their child's sleep behavior.

Nahata and his colleagues noted that, in the United States, about 75 percent of all prescription drugs are not labeled for pediatric use, and not a single insomnia drug is indicated for use among young patients.


SOURCE:
Live Science

Emphasis mine.

I am both surprised and not surprised by this, surprised that so many have trouble
sleeping and that so many are prescribed drugs but not surprised by the latter as well.

I have to say I am slowly losing the little faith I had in the American Medical system,
I mean really are'nt doctors supposed to KNOW what is not approved for use in kids?

I suppose though it's not all the doctors fault, since parents seem to be pressuring them
to do something about it, it is a very sad situation.


Comments, Opinions?

[edit on 8/5/2007 by iori_komei]

the reason why no studies are done is imho quite obvious. where are you going to get the guinea pigs required for testing? who's going to decide? their parents or the kids themselves, both maybe?

things get especially hairy when a drug trial fails, so it's simply not done, period, which says nothing about the drugs' effectiveness, though.

[edit on 5.8.2007 by Long Lance]

The fundemental problems are that almost NOTHING is FDA approved for children.

We recently had a battle with the adult side of the hospital. They wanted us to use ONLY FDA approved drugs and treatments / equipment when we used the chopter 9Which is run from the adult side).

As our medical director put it: If we limit ourselves to FDA approval on pediatric equpiment, drugs, etc, we may as well shut down and send these kids home to die".

Very little is approved for pediatrics. Be it sleeping aids, chemo, etc etc etc. Its all adpated for the use.

The issue isn't what they're used, it's how they're using it. It seems to me that we're becoming a drug nation - beyond what we need to be well and comfortable.
Depressed? Pop a pill. Can't focus? Another pill. Can't sleep? Pill.
It treats the symptom, not the problem, as does pretty much all of modern psychiatry. We're getting our kids hooked.