Why Are So Many Kids Taking Multiple Psychiatric Medications?
A recent New York Times article highlighted what has become a growing trend over the last few years: giving multiple psychiatric medications to children:
[A] growing number of children and teenagers in the United States are taking not just a single drug for discrete psychiatric difficulties but combinations of powerful and even life-threatening medications to treat a dizzying array of problems.
Last year in the United States, about 1.6 million children and teenagers — 280,000 of them under age 10 — were given at least two psychiatric drugs in combination, according to an analysis performed by Medco Health Solutions at the request of The New York Times. More than 500,000 were prescribed at least three psychiatric drugs. More than 160,000 got at least four medications together, the analysis found.
The numbers are amazing, aren’t they?
The article notes that there is evidence that suggests individual medications may be useful for certain conditions, but that there is “virtually no scientific evidence to justify this multiplication of pills.”
The majority of the child prescriptions are for ADD/ADHD and depression (click image to expand):
What’s going on here? Stimulants, antidepressants, antipsychotics and anticonvulsants in young children? Why the greater use of these serious drugs (many with significant risk for side effects)? Most importantly, why the increasing prevalence of conditions in children requiring their use?
I think dietary factors and toxin exposure likely play significant roles in the greater prevalence of these conditions and the use of these drugs in children. Taking multiple prescription drugs without a closer look at potential root causes doesn’t seem to make much sense.
The behavior of many children (and adults) with attention deficit disorders often significantly improves with a shift to a whole foods diet that eliminates chemical additives. For others, exposure to toxins, such as those found in some vaccines and in the environment at large, may be an underlying cause. Safely reducing a child’s toxic body burden may help to improve the situation.
You can read more about a better approach to ADD/ADHD that attempts to identify and address underlying root causes here.
May 14th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
[…] Perhaps, though, the increased need is real? As noted in this post from earlier this year, prescription drug use in children has increased dramatically for all pyschiatric conditions in recent years, with the largest increase in ADD/ADHD cases. […]