4000 Australian children under 10 prescribed antidepressants

UNPUBLISHED figures show nearly 4000 children under 10 were prescribed antidepressants last financial year, including 553 children under five and 48 babies, The Australian reports.

The Commonwealth Department of Health statistics give an alarming, although most likely conservative, age-by-age breakdown of the national use of antidepressants.

Leading pediatricians and psychiatrists can offer no reason why infants would be given the drugs.

Depression expert Gordon Parker said the numbers were "beyond comprehension" and urged the federal Government to ask doctors responsible for supplying scripts for young children to justify their actions...continueswww.news.com.au...

This is outrageous in my opinion.

An evolving brain is a 'blank canvas'. For the doctors that prescribed these drugs to these kids, what happened to communication with their parents before just taking the "easy way out".

Also, how many parents take the "easy way out" and ask for these drugs?

I have a contacts in medicine and will be making a phone call or two later today.

I'm appalled.

sanc'

That is absoloutely disgraceful in my opinion giving antidepressants to children children under 5 that is i hoope someone gets fired for this although i doubt it.

i actually really hate antideepressants because i have seen what they can really do to people and it is a terrible drug and stuff like sleeping pills can seriously damage a person

i know someone really close to me i wont name who though after having a baby got depressed really bad and ended up hooked on those godawful pills for about 17 years and it doesnt really help her anymore because she still wakes up in the morning wanting to kill herself and it hurts me soo much its a serious pill everyone and i urge everyone not to have it because the effects can be absoloutely disastrous

yes because kids these days are so depressed...

its the #ing parents. the parents don't want to deal with it so they just feed there kids drugs until they calm down.

Infants receiving antidepressants ?!?!?!?!

I've been going over this line for a good 20 minutes now and can't make sense out of it. How on earth does one make the determination that an Infants requires antidepressants ?? Could it maybe be a scam for the parents to get the drugs? Could it be ANYTHING else? How on earth do parents go along with this? For that matter, how do you get an infant to swallow a pill? It reminds me of the story that came out a while ago advising children as young as 8 take cholesterol drugs.

I never wanted to believe it, and in fact I overlooked what was in front of me for years. Now I firmly believe there is an active effort to get people hooked on so many drugs that our bodies will ultimately lose the ability to function without them.

The blame here is entirely on the parents and doctors.

Parents these days want their kids to come out acting like little adults. When they don't do that, they assume there must be something wrong with them. Whether it be depression or ADD or ADHD; it's far too easy to get drugs for kids these days.

The doctors go right along with it too, never saying a word.

Any parent can bring their kid to a doctor and tell them that sometimes they act sad, and they'll have a prescription for anti-depressants before they can finish their sentence. They tell them they are to "hyper", and the doctor fills out a script for Riddilin or something.

It's beyond disgusting, and there is nothing these poor kids can do about it.

I have spent the good part of my life fighting with my parents, doctors, and teachers from Elementry to Post Secondary. Evey single one of them has tried to get me on one batch of pills or another, and it sickns me to think that they are now doing this to people younger then I ever was when that started. I guess I could be considered a depressed person, but in a society where people are more concerned with Paris Hilton's dog's name then serious issues that actually affect society, who wouldn't be?

reply to post by Joe Canadian


Mercifully I was in grade school a little before the "drug everyone" trend, otherwise I may not be on this board today. I will say that my entire adult life has been the same struggle. Anti Depressants, GI drugs, drugs for things no one would explain what they were or why I needed them. Why give me a prescription to control pain for an ulcer I don't have (and since managed to cure naturally)? Someone? Anyone?

When leaving the university, most doctors and therapists dont have a clue how to allow their patients to process emotions naturally, nor do they know that depression is an appropriate reaction to inappropriate things. So they prescribe suppressants which ultimately solve nothing.

But prescribing anti-depressants to minors displays yet unseen heights of ignorance.

That is really terrible. I can't imagine why someone would prescribe antidepressants for a baby, or even for a child.

How do you diagnose an infant with depression? Depression isn't sadness or hurt, it's a soul-sickness. The only possible symptoms I think a baby could display would be profound apathy and lack of responsiveness to surroundings. But those could be any number of other things as well.

I happen to believe that anti-depressants have saved my life and are responsible for keeping me out of institutions, so I'm usually pretty pro-antidepressants. But they're useless on their own without some form of ongoing psychotherapy, and they are really potent medications that you build a tolerance to and that have major side effects in adults, let alone children.

Unbelievable. Maybe they should make antidepressants controlled substances like narcotics. Maybe that would get it through people's heads that they are not one-size-fits-all happy pills

reply to post by sanctum

The infant issue is so out of left field I cannot wait to see an explanation of this one.

At this point there is not enough information as of yet for this story however, I would be interested to see the rationale for this.

Anti depressants have thier place as does other drugs like ritalin etc. HOWEVER, they are way over prescribed and they really should only be issued by someone trained and specialized in that area. I would never accept a depression diagnosis from A family practice MD should who had a psych rotation 10 years ago as a resident.

SOmetimes drugs are used as "off lable" uses that have not been invoestigates. Drugs like Botox are used for migraines etc. But I cannot think of ANY reason an infant would need these medications:

Some such uses

Bupropion (Wellbutrin) approved for depression, commonly used off-label for bipolar diaorder.
Sertraline (Zoloft) approved for depression, commonly used off-label for bipolar disorder.
Venlafaxine (Effexor) approved for depression, commonly used off-label for bipolar disorder.
Celecoxib (Celebrex) approved for joint sprain/strain, used off-label for fibromatosis — soft tissue tumors.
Lisinopril (Prinivil, Zestril) approved to treat high blood pressure, used off-label for coronary artery disease.
Duloxetine (Cymbalta) approved to treat depression, used off-label for anxiety.
Trazodone (Desyrel) approved to treat depression, used off-label for sleep disturbance.
Olanzapine (Zyprexa) approved to treat schizophrenia, used off-label for depression.
Epoetin alfa (Procrit, Epogen) approved to treat chronic renal failure, used off-label for anemia from chronic disease. patientadvocate.wordpress.com...

reply to post by FredT


I do not know about the rest on that list but welbutrin is also used for smoking cessation and trazodone is also used to combat psychosis such as hearing voices. Maybe these are little psychotic, chain smoking babies. Did you even consider that possibility?

[edit on 4-12-2008 by angel of lightangelo]

I am also trying to digest how in the heck doctors are giving this drugs to infants.

Heck any child under 12 is still beyond me.

Most of this drug affect development on young children I can not imagine babies.

Originally posted by FredT
The infant issue is so out of left field I cannot wait to see an explanation of this one.

I'm going to float the one conceivable explanation that's occurred to me since I've been thinking of this article: I know that people who are trying to overcome coc aine addictions are sometimes given Wellbutrin because it's supposed to help with the cravings. Is it at all possible that infants born to addicted mothers would be treated the same way? Maybe I'll go to pubmed and see if I can turn anything up.

And I totally agree with you that a general practitioner should not be diagnosing and prescribing for psychiatric conditions. They have no problem referring patients to other specialists – psychiatry should be the same.

EDIT: well, I've turned up nothing in either pubmed.gov or clinicaltrials.gov about using bupriopion or any other antidepressant to alleviate neonatal withdrawal syndrome. So there goes that idea.

[edit on 12/4/08 by americandingbat]

Yeah get ready for the next wave of suicides. These morons prescribing this can't/won't provide any short term or long term data of these type of drugs. there is a child on my wife's side that was recently admitted to hospital and put on 6 prescriptions for throwing a fit. He has been on riddlin and other drugs for depression. He is a good smart kid. Many bad or trusting hypochondriac parents will regret putting kids on these. Anyone heard of any lawsuits on this for children/teens that commit suicide?

I still wonder if maybe the parents aren't getting some of the drugs that were prescribed for the infants. I still find it inconceivable that it would be happening any other way.

Originally posted by CeltAngel
I still wonder if maybe the parents aren't getting some of the drugs that were prescribed for the infants. I still find it inconceivable that it would be happening any other way.

What do you mean exactly? Parents are getting doctors to prescribe anti-depressants for their baby so that they can steal them? I am a little confused.

[edit on 4-12-2008 by angel of lightangelo]

unbelivable the next genaration will be
so dump, we have to educated our kid
to stand up for justice

reply to post by angel of lightangelo


Hey AngelOfLight! Sorry for the delay......real life sucks some times!

My mom is a nurse and I have been exposed the gamut of the medical profession for some time now. I hear stories all the time about how a parent will come into a doctors office sometime complaining about an ailment. The doctor will provide a prescription and......come to find out! the parent is actually taking the medication for themselves. Statistically (from studies conducted by Georgetown U., the most of the drugs "misappropriated" by the parents are anti-depressants.

I would love to see the U.S. numbers!

A couple of years ago, my wife talked to the 4th grade teacher about our child needing this crap because he was having trouble concentrating (he didn't like doing school work in class when he could screw off with his buddies was more like it). She had no problem telling my wife that OVER 50% of the children in that 4th grade class were on one of these drugs. Guess it makes the job easier for teachers with inadequate teaching ability / lack of authority over students.





[edit on 14-12-2008 by infolurker]