Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2006 > June > 09 > Entry
Psychiatric drugs for kids exploding
I saw this at Education Week’s website:
The use of antipsychotic drugs to treat children and adolescents increased by more than five times from 1993 to 2002, a study found.
The study, published in the June 2006 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, estimates that the number of youths in the United States under age 20 who were treated with antipsychotic drugs for problems such as aggression and mood swings jumped from about 201,000 in 1993 to 1,224,000 in 2002.
There’s a lot of ways to look at this. Are doctors and parents too quick to medicate overly energetic or unfocused kids? Or is medicine getting better at targeting drugs that can make a difference for kids?
We’ve all heard horror stories of psychiatric drugs that harmed kids or of psychiatric evaluation gone awry. But I also know a few kids who were dramatically helped by these sorts of drugs with better classroom behavior and more learning at school.
Still, the increase in drug use is quite dramatic. It seems too big to be a good thing overall. What’s your take?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Student Health and Safety
Comments
By Oldprof
June 9, 2006 8:35 PM | Link to this
And for those kids whose lives do improve after administration of ritalin etc., could we say “placebo effect”?By Lea
June 9, 2006 12:42 PM | Link to this
By all means, let’s medicate our children until they turn into zombies and are unable to function. My kids are both “hyper” - in other words, very active - and I refuse to have them put on Ritalin or anything like it. Sure they can be annoying, but they are KIDS! Even the antipsychotics aren’t necessarily a good idea. If you start early and teach your children right from wrong they develop their own conscience. Parental involvement can help depression, keep kids off drugs, keep them sane - my parents did it, and although I’m not perfect, I don’t need prescriptions to function. Go figure!By Mary
June 9, 2006 11:37 AM | Link to this
My take is the psychotic drugs are hit and miss on outcome and risky, shaky science. Patients and parents have to cross their fingers. In recent months, some of the antidepressants used with children have been linked to suicides. As the Dayton Daily News health writer (Lamb?)pointed out in one of his columns a few years ago, the pharmeuceutical industry apparently recognizes prescription drugs in general will only work for roughly 30% of the patients receiving prescription drugs. Supposedly, the drug companies spend three times more on marketing than the scientific research, including safety and side effects. I would use nutrition, supplements, herbs or a change in education environment long before I would give my child psychotic prescription drugs. In fact, I generally avoid all prescription drugs. A blood pressure drug was in the news yesterday or today regarding adverse effects on the fetus. The cholesterol drug Lipitor is in the news today because of some serious side effects.