Drugging Kids

Combination of antidepressants or other mood-altering drugs and sleep agents are now routinely prescribed to kids– with little regard for how the meds will interact–according to a study published in the august 2005 issue of Psychiatry. Researchers found that American children were five times (or 20 percent) more likely to receive more than one medication to treat psychiatric symptoms in 1997-1998 than they were just four years before. “We don’t know how these drugs may interact with each other, and we don’t even have safety studies in children for many of these drugs,” says lead researcher Joseph Penn, M.D., of Brown University medical school. Nor has the U.S. Food and Drug Administration necessarily approved these medications as treatments for the childhood conditions for which they are prescribed. Talk about disturbing trends…..