When Should Children be Given Antipsychotic Medications?

There has been a large increase in the use of antipsychotic medications for children over the past 20 years. In the US, doctor visits for antipsychotic treatment increased from 201,000 in 1993 to 1,224,000 in 2002. Eighteen percent of youth visits to psychiatrists involved antipsychotic treatment; 92% of antipsychotics prescribed were second generation from 1993 to 2002. Antipsychotic drugs are approved by the FDA for use in children with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and Tourette's syndrome, however the only approved antipsychotic for children are Haldol (haloperidol), generic thioridazine, and Orap (pimozide, for Tourette's), which are first generation antipsychotic drugs. Doctors do have the discretion to prescribe drugs for indications other than those approved by the FDA. Doctors treating children with mental disorders often do just that, prescribing psychotropic drugs in children for uses not approved by the FDA, in many cases cheered on by representatives of the companies that make the drugs that they are prescribing.

A study of children in Tennessee's Managed Care program for Medicare showed that the number of prescriptions for antipsychotics doubled in a five-year period ending in 2001. During this time, 1 out of every 100 children became a new user of an antipsychotic. The proportion of atypical (newer and more expensive) antipsychotics went from 7% to 96% of antipsychotic prescriptions. The number of children treated for psychotic disorders or Tourette's did not change, while the increase was accounted for by children treated with attention deficit, conduct disorder, and affective disorders.

A lot of these children suffer from abuse, neglect, and other family disruptions and traumas, and not psychotic disorders that need antipsychotic medications. Antipsychotics should be used for what they are approved for-psychosis and Tourette's. And there is no reason to use the newer atypical antipsychotics which are not approved for use in children by the FDA, and which (as I describe in chapter X), can cause obesity and diabetes, certainly something you do not want to stimulate in children. Many of the symptoms that children are medicated for are more appropriately dealt with by dealing with the root causes, such as childhood abuse and other traumas, the lack of appropriate two family parenting, lack of supervision, the lack of role models, exposure to violence in the schools, and the failure of social service agencies to appropriately provide for these children.

Learn more about alternatives to medications and hidden risks of prescription medications in 'Before You Take That Pill: Why the Drug Industry May be Bad for Your Health: Risks and Side Effects You Won't Find on the Label of Commonly Prescribed Drugs, Vitamins and Supplements' by researcher and physician J. Douglas Bremner, MD.