WSJ: Why Are So Many Toddlers Taking Psychiatric Drugs?

[proverbialwisdom]

http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2015/02/19/why-are-so-many-toddlers-taking-psychiatric-drugs/

Feb 19, 2015

HEALTH
Why Are So Many Toddlers Taking Psychiatric Drugs?


iStock

MURALI DORAISWAMY: Prozac for babies?

Psychiatric drugs are now being given to infants and toddlers in unprecedented numbers.

An analysis of 2013 IMS Data, found that over 274,000 infants (0-1 year olds) and some 370,000 toddlers (1-3 years age) in the U.S. were on antianxiety (e.g. Xanax) and antidepressant (e.g. Prozac) drugs. This report also found over 1,400 infants were on ADHD drugs.

A 2014 Georgia Medicaid analyses led by Susanna Visser at the CDC (see a video of her fascinating talk) when extrapolated nationwide by the New York Times found that over 10,000 toddlers were put on ADHD treatments. (Dr. Visser is currently working on national estimates but believes that the estimate from the Georgia data is conservative.)

Prescriptions of powerful antipsychotics such as Risperdal for infants and very young children have also sharply risen. Office visits for childhood bipolar disorder have risen 40-fold over the past decade in the U.S.

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Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy is professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke University Medical Center, where he also serves as a member of the Duke Institute of Brain Sciences and as a senior fellow at the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development.

Robyn O'Brien @foodawakenings · Feb 23
WSJ: A new analysis found over 274,000 U.S. infants & 370,000 toddlers were on antianxiety & antidepressant drugs http://on.wsj.com/17sJi3Q

[proverbialwisdom]

1. Recent LA Times series: Different demographic with different causes but the same outcome.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82836909/

Rampant medication use found among L.A. County foster, delinquent kids

BY GARRETT THEROLF
February 16, 2015, 6:33 p.m.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82906810/

State Senate questions why so many foster kids are being drugged

BY GARRETT THEROLF
February 24, 2015, 4:38 p.m.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-82909629/

Legislators delve into why many foster children are on psych drugs

BY GARRETT THEROLF
February 24, 2015, 10:11 p.m.

[proverbialwisdom]

17. Update.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/10/08/446619645/calfornia-approves-laws-to-cut-use-of-antipsychotics-in-foster-care

California Approves Laws To Cut Use Of Antipsychotics In Foster Care

October 08, 2015 4:23 PM ET
Elaine Korry

Efforts to protect children in foster care from being inappropriately medicated with powerful antipsychotic drugs got a big boost forward on Tuesday, when California Gov. Jerry Brown signed three bills into law designed to reform prescribing.

Overprescribing of psychiatric meds for foster youth is a persistent problem nationwide, with children given the drugs at double or triple the rate of those not in foster care.

In 2011, the federal Government Accounting Office found nearly 1 in 4 children in foster care was taking psychotropic medications, which include antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers and stimulants.

Hundreds of children were found to be taking five or more psychotropic medications at a time, and thousands were prescribed doses that exceeded FDA-approved guidelines. According to the report, monitoring programs fell short of guidelines established by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Many of the medications have side effects that include lethargy, weight gain, diabetes and tremors.

The California legislation, which covers 63,000 children and teens in foster care, will allow public health nurses access to medical records to monitor the foster children who are prescribed psychotropic drugs; identify the group homes that rely most on these medications and potentially require them to take corrective action; and provide child welfare workers with better training and oversight tools to spot dangerous prescribing practices.

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The Oakland-based National Center for Youth Law, which was among the legislation's sponsors, called it the most comprehensive effort in the U.S. to date to curb the misuse of psychotropics in foster care. However, a bill that would have required a prior medical examination and ongoing monitoring before a juvenile court could authorize psychotropic drugs was pulled from the legislative package following intensive lobbying by associations representing physicians and group homes.

The bill's author said he would reintroduce the measure in January.

Elaine Korry writes about health care and social policy from the San Francisco Bay Area. She recently wrote about antipsychotic medications and foster care for NPR and Youth Today.

[proverbialwisdom]

18. September 2016: Our foster kids may be over-medicated, but under-supervised medically, report says

http://www.ocregister.com/taxdollars/medications-727645-children-foster.html

Our foster kids may be over-medicated, but under-supervised medically, report says

Sept. 1, 2016
Updated Sept. 3, 2016 1:56 p.m.

By TERI SFORZA / STAFF WRITER

Thousands of California's foster care kids may be over-drugged with psychotropic medications, often without medical follow-up or a legally required approval from a judge or parent, according to a stinging report by the California State Auditor.

“The state and counties have failed to adequately oversee the prescribing of these medications,” wrote auditor Elaine M. Howle.

The problems partly are a result of a division of labor when it comes to oversight. Two departments oversee foster kids and their medications, but neither could completely identify which foster children are prescribed psychotropic medications or even which medications they are taking.

“California’s oversight approach for its administration of foster care and monitoring of psychotropic medications appears to be piecemeal,” Howle said, adding that there isn’t strong “system-level oversight.”

Psychotropic medications include antidepressants, mood stabilizers and antipsychotics. Typically, such drugs can provide big benefits for people with psychiatric illnesses, but they often come with serious adverse side effects.

<>

BY THE NUMBERS

79,166
Children in foster care in California.

11.8%
Foster kids in California prescribed to take psychotropic drugs.

4%-10%
Estimated rate of psychotropic use among children not in foster care.

1 in 3
Foster children who take psychotropic drugs but weren't seen for follow-up care in a timely manner.

The full report is here: https://www.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2015-131.pdf
Summaries and fact sheets are here: https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/recent

[Mnemosyne]

2. No words can convey how sick this makes me feel. Catastrophic mistake to do this to kids.

Is there any sanity or common sense left?

And I would bet that this is not an exception, but the rule, around the country.

Hope this story blows the cover off it all.

[dirtydickcheney]

3. Why? Because they are customers, not patients.

And in a 'for-profit' healhcare country, why not start 'em young!?!??

I was reading a prosepectus on investing - this guy thought that anti-psychotic/anti-depressant drugs should be thought of like an annuity when valuing the firm. To me that pretty much said a ton about the USA.

[cui bono]

6. +1

The only thing we're supposed to grow up and be in America these days are good consumers. That's why they don't want to teach critical thinking and creativity any more.

Welcome to DU!

[Doctor_J]

4. They need them to live with parents who read the wsj

Jk. As someone said above, it's just business

[2naSalit]

5. Big revenue generator.

Kids aren't acting like the overly disciplined statues of the Victorian age so those who have to shuffle them through the indoctrination process in assembly line fashion have to turn them into zombies so they can do their jobs. The 21st century version of "children should be seen and not heard" and, of course, slave labor for working families, you know like in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

[midnight]

9. I think so too. Just posted on someone who stated parents are getting accused of abuse for letting

them walk home from a park by themselves.

[2naSalit]

11. I saw that one.

I grew up in the middle of the last century and I was a victim of the "...seen and not heard" pardigm and it sucked because one of my parents was terribly abusive, the other one escaped with her life but couldn't do it while accompanied by any of us. It was a horrible time for children, there were CPAs but those weren't really functional and they only took kids away from parents when there was prolonged evidence of abuse that somebody else alerted on... we were considered "possessions" of our parents where we were. You can do what you want with your possessions except outright murder or obvious starvation... anything else was A-okay.

It hasn't improved for a major proportion of the children of today, now they are suppressed by the drug companies and those who insist that they take these drugs. I know of a certain I used to live in where every child in the entire school district had to take that very popular suppression drug or they would be expelled. I recall a few of my friends complaining about it. In a very religious community.

So I could see where this was going a long time ago, but I don't have children and those I did raise - siblings and their children - never had to take any of those nor were they requested/required to do so like in the town where all kids had to or else their parents/entire family would suffer. Of course the members of the dominant religion made their kids take the drugs because the church told them to... the church owns/operates the town and the state governments. So there's that too.

I think our entire society needs a serious and complete do-over since we are so messed up on so many levels.

[ananda]

7. Geez!

This is a bad business... so fucking harmful and
just pure evil.

Our mental health system is SO broken and corrupt,
in collusion with big pharma and doing so much harm.

Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath????

[2naSalit]

12. Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath????

It's now the Hypocritic oath.

[blkmusclmachine]

8. ,

,

[Skittles]

10. because parents are having to work too much and don't have the time to deal with them

[2naSalit]

13. Well, on second thought...

just how are we supposed to be controlled and manipulated unless we are drugged out of our minds? This program needs to be started early in order to keep us from figuring out what's happening. We can't revolt if we can't maintain the attention span of a fruit fly after all.

[Left coast liberal]

14. This is disgusting!

Hey, don't get me wrong; meds can help but why in the name of heaven would you ever give this stuff to an infant!?

That seems malpractice worthy.

Just sayin'

[nilesobek]

15. There's money to be made. They apply

the same formula they use to sell pills to adults. Its a racket.