> Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
<snip>
> Spending Reflects Popularity of Children's
> Behavior-Disorder Drugs
>
> For the first time, spending on drugs for behavior
> disorders in children
> has eclipsed that for asthma medications and
> antibiotics.
> The last three years have seen a 49 percent increase
> in the use of drugs to
> treat attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder in
> children under age 5,
> yielding a 369 percent increase in spending for
> those drugs. Over the same
> period, spending rose 21 percent for antidepressants
> and 71 percent for
> drugs to treat autism and other conduct disorders.
> Spending for antibiotics
> rose 4.3 percent.
> "Behavioral medicines have eclipsed the other
> categories this year," said
> Robert Epstein, chief medical officer of Medco
> Health Solutions. "It
> certainly reflects the concern of parents that their
> children do as well as they can."
> Overall, 5.3 percent of children took some
> behavioral medicine in 2003,
> leading some to fear it was overprescribed.
> Psychiatrist James McGough of
> the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute said children on
> attention-deficit
> drugs tend to do better in school and avoid
> substance abuse, but warned
> that antidepressants can increase suicide risk in
> children.
I find this scary; while I do not doubt that some
children need such medication, I think that using
psychoactive drugs in very young children (I've read
of 3-year-olds on some) has a real chance of
distorting brain architecture and chemistry, with
unknown consequences. I personally would want at
least two psychiatrist's/neuropsychologist's
concurrence before considering such drugs in a
preschooler, and possibly for an older child as well.
Debbi
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