Consumer Reports: Antipsychotics in Children Rises Despite Questions of Safety & Efficacy

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Consumer Reports writes that the number of children prescribed antipsychotics has tripled over the last 10 to 15 years, despite a lack of evidence that the drugs are either effective or safe for either approved or unapproved (“off-label”) uses, such as behavioral problems. “What’s not known about the long-term effects is very troubling,” said an assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. “The younger you go, the more you can affect the developing brain.”

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Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole, MFT, founding editor of Mad in America, works in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a couples and family therapist. Inspired by Open Dialogue, he works as part of a team and consults with couples and families that have members identified as patients. His work in residential treatment — largely with severely traumatized and/or "psychotic" clients — led to an appreciation of the power and beauty of systemic philosophy and practice, as the alternative to the prevailing focus on individual pathology. A former film-maker, he has undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology from Harvard University, as well as an MFT degree from the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia. He is a doctoral candidate with the Taos Institute and the Free University of Brussels. You can reach him at [email protected].

9 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah, they did kind of give the doctors a pass, didn’t they? The reason we have to have prescriptions for these drugs is because the doctors are presumed to know more about them than we do and are able to filter the truth from the marketing and give us good advice. The abdication of this responsibility is central to the current scene developing. No amount of marketing can force a doctor to prescribe something. Only professional laziness or unethical acceptance of kickbacks can lead to this level of bad prescribing. The doctors as a group could change all this more easily than any other group. But they don’t, do they?

    — Steve

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  2. I think someone should sue NAMI “National Alliance On mental Illness” for promoting the use of neuroleptics in children and youth. See “Risperidone for Adolescent Aggression” Medical Focus, Winter 1996 http://web.archive.org/web/19961221104126/http://www.nami.org/

    They are still pushing/advertizing the use of anti psychotics off label in children today in 2013 !

    THEY ARE NOT FDA APPROVED for oppositional defiant disorder, NAMI you pharma front !

    “Antipsychotic medications and mood stabilizers have been proven to be effective in treating oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder.”

    Read it here http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Mental_Illnesses/ADHD/ADHD_and_Coexisting_Conditions.htm

    And a copy is here

    http://web.archive.org/web/20131130202902/http://www.nami.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Mental_Illnesses/ADHD/ADHD_and_Coexisting_Conditions.htm

    NAMI marketing machine, stop pushing drugs for off label use in children for your pharma funders !!!

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  3. Personally, I find it difficult to believe that the so-called “antipsychotics” should be used on children for any reason, period.

    In all of my childhood and all through my teaching experience I never ran into any child who could have been called “mentally ill.” I never saw “mentally ill children” until the advent of the toxic drugs and then all of a sudden everything skyrocketed.

    Why is it that parents and teachers do not want to deal with behavior problems these days? Why are we so quick to reach for a pill to “fix” so-called “problems” that we don’t like in people? I think we are quickly approaching the time when everyone will be zombies because everyone will be on the toxic drugs because we believed the hype and bull feces of the drug companies. When are Americans going to wake up and see that they’ve had the biggest hoax in history pulled on them by the drug companies and psychiatry?

    Children should not be taking “antipsychotics!”

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  4. Not more of this garbage. Still in the year 2013, people are pulling the “We don’t know how these drugs work, we don’t know what their long term dangers may be, it’s all one big mystery!” bullshit.

    It’s not a mystery. Science knows what these drugs do to the brain and what is happening to the children. It’s not some mystery yet to be discovered, it’s not just a curious possibility that maybe one day it will turn out that children were being harm. No, it’s already known. I cant stand this “The problem is that WE DON’T KNOW (how the drugs work, if they are safe or not, etc.)”

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  5. Parents of Bipolar Children Online Support Group – MDJunction
    http://www.mdjunction.com/parents-of-bipolar-children‎

    Goto the section “personal stories” , these kids just get worse as the drugs are piled on and when they get worse more and more drugs are then piled on. These parents are so obsessed with this “bipolar” its sick.

    A better name for this support group would be “Parents with Münchausen syndrome by proxy”.

    The worst thing is when new people join the group and ask and take advice from the old ones who have done nothing but ruin there own kids lives with pills and there obsession with so called bipolar disorder.

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  6. http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/discovery-of-teen-gene-could-help-combat-severe-mental-illness-later-in-life-1.1597520

    Don’t worry people – you are all saved – they have discovered the “teen gene”
    This abhorrent piece of propaganda was on the MSM news , TV tonight, – Canadian CTV.
    They actually tired to pretend they had discovered the “mental illness gene” but they never fully owned this statement – they didn’t dare go that far yet..

    They were studying brains in jars (brains of people who had committed suicide who had “donated” their organs to science. They had rows of these brains in jars labelled with numbers ( people tear up your organ donor cards right now!) They are figuring out how to control these brains with science – make sure they straighten up and fly right.

    The MSM played it hook, line and sinker – they were soooo sympathetic. And they had a series of snippets form Psychiatrists pushing this wonderful new advance…

    Bottom line of course was make sure your children get “treatment” – they actually said “drug treatment ” and//maybe some “counseling” .. yeah we all know that “counseling” – did you take your meds today?

    Bottom line for our civilization is that the a medical-pharmaceutical-political alliance has dominated and is in control of the public mind with absolute lies. It doesn’t end here of course – it gets worse and is getting worse.

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