Number of toddlers being prescribed dangerous antipsychotic drugs increases 50% in one year

Children as young as two years old and below are increasingly being given powerful antipsychotic drugs meant for adults, according to Alan Schwarz of The New York Times.

In 2014, nearly 20,000 prescriptions for several different antipsychotic medications, including Risperdal and Seroquel, were written for toddlers aged two and below. That’s a 50 percent increase over the year before.

Prescriptions for the antidepressant Prozac jumped 23 percent in one year for the same age group.

Schwarz wrote:

“Many doctors worry that these drugs, designed for adults and only warily accepted for certain school-aged youngsters are being used to treat children still in cribs despite no published research into their potential health risks for children so young.”

Out of a dozen experts interviewed on the subject, none had ever “heard of a child under 3 receiving such medication,” and all had a hard time explaining it.

So why is it happening?

Schwarz himself suggests that perhaps it’s because many of those who do advocate the use of these drugs for young children are “financially backed by the pharmaceutical industry.”

And there you have it. Why else would anyone be in favor of prescribing dangerous drugs for toddlers unless there were some obscene profit motive behind it?

Source:

http://www.nytimes.com