The
Pharmaceutical Business is just that: A business
Am
I the only one who sees what's going on here? Prescriptions
are up 300% NOT because of an "increase
in awareness"
of these drugs. It's because the pharmaceutical business
is exactly that - a business. There are constantly
commercials on TV advertising the next drug and why
you and/or your child NEED it. This crap really sickens
me. I'm all for drugs that can help a legitimate physical
condition, but throwing drugs at an emotional problem
instead of getting to the root of the problem is just
plain lazy. My kid is "violently acting
out, he needs a 'mood stabilizer'" Bullshit. He
needs a good smack! My kid is depressed, he needs
an antidepressant. NO, he needs you to maybe spend
5 minutes a day talking to him and letting him/her
know that despite what all the jerks at school think,
you think he's a good kid. Be a parent for crying
out loud. The world got along just fine for thousands
of years and no kids ever suffered from depression
or ADD. Nobody every had "chronic heartburn".
It's all about $$$$$$$. Eat right and 99% of these
so-called "disorders" disappear. Chronic
heartburn? Well stop eating SHIT!! They label it a
disorder and suddenly you've got a disorder and now
you need a pill for it. What a bunch of crap. It's
not Attention Defecit Disorder, it's called being a
kid! Kids don't have long attention spans. That's normal!
This stuff makes me sick. And the worst part is even
if you don't buy into to it we ALL pay for it through
outrageous health-care premiums and the higher taxes
for the govt to pick up the rest of the tab. Even if
I spend $0 / month on pills I have to help pay for
the guy who's taking $1500/month in pills through my
higher health-care premium. And
who decided that kids (of all people) are supposed
to be even-keeled all the time? You throw a temper-tantrum
and mommy puts you on Prozac?? That's just being a
kid! Heck, I'm about to throw a temper-tantrum right
now! Think it's NOT all about money? Look at the drug
company Wyeth for
example. As of this writing (August 2005) they have
51,000 employees and their CEO takes home 4 million
a year!
Reuters
Article - January 2003
NEW
YORK (Reuters Health) - About 6% of US children are taking
drugs to
treat depression, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD) and a
host of other behavioral and emotional problems, researchers
said
Monday.
Their
study of data on nearly 900,000 individuals younger than
20 years
who were enrolled in an HMO or received Medicaid revealed
a 200% to
300% increase in the use of psychotropic drugs between
1987 and 1996, with
the greatest increase occurring after 1991.
Alpha-agonists such as clonidine, which is used to treat
behavior
problems, saw the greatest increase. Prescriptions for
neuroleptics,
antidepressants and "mood stabilizer" anticonvulsants,
which are used to
control acting out and violent behavior in kids, also
rose during the study.
In general children on Medicaid, the federal health insurance
program
for the poor, were more likely to be prescribed these
drugs than were
kids whose families were enrolled in an HMO, and children
on Medicaid
receiving the drugs tended to be younger than their HMO-enrolled
counterparts. For instance, children aged 10-14 years
were the largest users of
psychotropic drugs among Medicaid recipients, compared
with children
aged 15-19 years in the HMO group.
Males were more likely than females to be prescribed psychotropic
drugs
overall, particularly if they received Medicaid, according
to the
report in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatric
and Adolescent
Medicine.
It is not clear from the study why the use of psychotropic
drugs rose
so dramatically among children, or why there are different
patterns of
use among children insured through an HMO and through
Medicaid.
In an interview with Reuters Health, Dr. Julie Magno Zito,
the study's
lead author, said that changes in diagnosis, access to
medical
treatment and a greater awareness of the mental health
treatment needs of
youths may explain the results. Greater visibility of
drug promotion may
also play a role, according to Zito, of the University
of Maryland,
Baltimore.
In an accompanying editorial a doctor from Massachusetts
General
Hospital in Boston said that the data may reflect higher
rates of mental
illness among Medicaid users, who are generally less well-off
than those
who use employer-based insurance. Alternatively, a greater
awareness of
psychiatric disorders and better drugs may have led to
more
prescriptions, suggests Dr. Michael S. Jellinek.
However, he notes that usage of many drugs increased in
youngsters
despite little research on their effectiveness in children.
"Given the scale of current psychotropic medication
utilization, we
have a responsibility to know what we are doing and the
quality of our
efforts," Jellinek writes. "We need to ask the
mirror on the wall this
question: Are we prescribing the right psychotropic medications
to the
right children using the right treatment plan?"
The study authors conclude that more research is needed
to update the
current report and to examine trends for specific drugs.
A more
nationally representative group of children might also
better reflect trends,
they suggest.
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