In the news: ADHD

Danger drugs designed for schizophrenics used to calm children

Thousands of children with behavioural problems are being prescribed anti-psychotic drugs with dangerous side effects, doctors warn.

The powerful tranquillisers, designed to treat psychosis and schizophrenia in adults, are being used to calm children who are simply hyperactive.

Translation: Normal child behavior is now being medicated.

The warnings come amid growing concern that ADHD is being diagnosed in children suffering from nothing more than natural boisterousness.

In March this year Dr Robert Spitzer, the U.S. psychiatrist who first identified the ADHD, admitted that up to a third of cases could have been misdiagnosed.

I'm glad to hear Doctors finally admitting how absurd the diagnosis has become.

Tonight's Panorama also reveals disturbing evidence that other drugs, much more commonly used to treat ADHD, do not work in the long term.

A study in the U.S. suggests that while medication such as Ritalin and Concerta is effective initially, the effects wear off after three years of treatment.

The drugs, taken by around 55,000 British children at the cost to the NHS of £28million a year, stunt growth, the researchers discovered.

Many children take the controversial drugs for years at a time though they have also been linked to heart problems, dizziness and insomnia, and blamed for a string of deaths in the UK and abroad.

This is my favorite part:

"In the short-run [medication] will help the child behave better, in the long-run, it won't. And that information should be made very clear to parents."

It is very sad the parents and doctors are willing to risk the long-term health of children for short term convenience.

Here's another article on the same issue.


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Related Tags: ADHD, school, parenting, antipsychotic drugs, Medicaid, atypicals, bipolar disorder, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel