Note from CCHR:  While the FDA and its Pediatric advisory panel sit around pondering if one antipsychotic drug is more likely to cause diabetes in children than another while continuing their stall tactic of  “let’s study it some more ” routine, we’d like to point out the simple solution:  Considering that  antipsychotic drugs are already documented by international drug regulatory agencies to cause not only diabetes but obesity, psychosis, blood clots, heart problems, cardiac events, seizures, toxicity, confusion, coma and stroke (and that’s just in kids) as well as brain atrophy (meaning they actually shrink brains); considering there is no medical test to prove any child has a brain malfunction, chemical imbalance or any physical condition requiring the administration of these lethal drugs—and considering these drugs are literally killing kids that have nothing medically wrong with them in the first place— Do the job you are paid by U.S. Taxpayers to do and BAN their use on children.   Period.

GAITHERSBURG, Maryland (Reuters) – U.S. pediatric health advisers on Thursday urged drug regulators to continue studying weight gain and other side-effects of antipsychotic drugs as they are increasingly taken by children.

Significant numbers of U.S. children are receiving drugs to tame aggression, attention deficit disorder and other mental problems, even though there is little conclusive data to show exactly how the medications work or whether they damage kids’ health.

Similar to the recommendations the panel has made in previous years, it voted 16-1 to support the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s routine safety monitoring of the new generation of antipsychotics.

But the panel did so with a caveat that the agency specifically look at how to clarify the drugs’ labels to highlight concerns about their impact on children, namely the risks of weight gain and diabetes.

“There is serious concern that children may be at a higher risk for serious adverse effects and we just don’t have sufficient data to answer that question,” said Dr. Jonathan Mink, a child neurology expert from the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Dr. Jeffrey Wagener, a pediatric pulmonologist from the University of Colorado Medical School, was the one adviser to vote “no” out of concern that wouldn’t get regulators closer to dealing with the risks of using antipsychotics in children.

“I don’t see how the FDA is responding to the December 8, 2009 request by this committee in a thorough fashion,” he said. “It’s taken them two years to not respond to that that we need to be more than in the observational role.”

The FDA in the next month to six weeks will release a revised label for Abilify, a drug sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and Otsuka Pharmaceutical and approved to treat schizophrenia in adolescents, bipolar disorder in children 10 to 17 years old and irritability associated with autism in those as young as six.

“We ask that with this upcoming revision that you carefully consider the language around pediatric use and adverse events,” said Dr. Geoffrey Rosenthal, the committee’s chair and director of Pediatric and Congenital Heart Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Abilify’s new label will detail the drug’s latest clinical trials, warn of metabolic concerns and remind doctors to monitor weight and symptoms of diabetes in all patients, said Dr. Thomas Laughren, FDA’s psychiatry products chief. The pediatric section of the label would contain a reference to those warnings, he said..

Such revisions, which are already incorporated into Johnson & Johnson’s antipsychotic medication Invega Sustenna, are being considered for other similar drugs on a case by case basis, Laughren said.

The new generation of antipsychotic medications has raised a wave of concerns as they are increasingly being prescribed for a host of uses and for younger and younger patients, with little conclusive research addressing their impact on children and sometimes with little evidence they work.

Newer antipsychotics include J&J’s Risperdal, known generically as risperidone; Eli Lilly & Co’s Zyprexa or olanzapine; AstraZeneca’s Seroquel or quetiapine; and Abilify, known generically as aripiprazole.

U.S. researchers have found that the drugs’ use in children increased by 65 percent from 2002 to 2009, primarily through prescriptions for teenagers.

From fall 2009 to spring of this year, 1.9 million prescriptions of Abilify alone were dispensed to patients under 18, including even 875 prescriptions for toddlers younger than 2, according to FDA research.

Most commonly, the prescriptions were for bipolar disorder in teenagers and preschoolers, and for affective psychoses in children between the ages of seven and 12.

Advisers also voted unanimously to require the FDA to show them label revisions and report back in the next year or 18 months on progress in designing more studies of the drugs in children.

http://www.fox43.com/lifestyle/sns-rt-us-usa-fda-antipsychotictre78l77l-20110922,0,216106.story

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By CCHR Int
June 23, 2011

At just 6 years of age, still grieving over the death of the only mother he’d ever known, his foster mother, Giovan Bazan received the first of many psychiatric “diagnoses” and drugs that would plague him for the next twelve years of his life. Moved from foster home to  foster home, orphanages and other modes of state care, Giovan was stigmatized with a plethora of psychiatric diagnoses and drugs until the age of 18, when he could finally make his own medical decisions and quit. Now a child advocate working part time at the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) in Georgia, Giovan is on a mission: To get a full-time job with DFCS and help enact laws to combat the wholesale labeling and drugging of foster children. In the video below, Giovan tells his story and why he decided to fight back against the abuse of kids in foster care.

(Story continues below)

Foster kids—often removed from family homes because of abuse—are further abused when they are prescribed psychotropic drugs under state care. Many of these children are on cocktails of prescribed drugs, including antipsychotics and antidepressants with documented side effects of diabetes, stroke, mania, psychosis, tumors, coma, suicide and death.

Yet, the rates with which these children are being given drugs has been increasing. The antipsychotic use rate among foster kids increased by 5.6% between 2004 and 2007 (from 11.7 percent to 12.4 percent). Another study in Pediatrics, revealed that youth in foster care covered by Medicaid insurance receive psychotropic medication at a rate more than 3 times that of Medicaid-insured youth who qualify by low family income.

Only half of state child welfare systems have a policy to review usage of these drugs, and those are weak policies at that.

The psychiatric drugging of foster kids has caused so much concern nationally that in July 2010, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) started an investigation into the use of these drugs in foster care, as they are widely used in dangerous combinations, and for so-called “off-label” uses to treat symptoms for which they have not been medically approved. The GAO is looking into the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud arising from this and is collecting and analyzing data from Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon and Texas.

For more information on the psychiatric drugging of children, watch these videos:

Psychiatry—Labeling Kids with Bogus ‘Mental Disorders’

Drugging Our Children—Side Effects

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Note from CCHR: There are a lot more serious documented side effects to antipsychotics  than simply weight gain for kids—such as, diabetes,  stroke, tumors,  seizures, coma and heart problems to name a few.  These warnings/studies are summarized in our psychiatric drug database – simply search antipsychotics in under 18-year-olds – here: http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/drug_warnings.php

Parent Dish – June 21, 2011

Children can experience dramatic weight gain and insulin resistance just weeks after taking the drugs for the first time. Credit: Getty Images

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Common Health—May 2, 2011

by Carey Goldberg

As we all know, three of anything makes a trend in journalism, and my trend alarm has just gone off concerning scary news about antidepressants. First, there was this review three weeks ago finding a “modest link” between antidepressants and cancer — though not in studies funded by the drug companies.

Then, author and former Globe staffer Alison Bass reported a week ago on her blog here that a researcher has found that serious flaws tended to skew the biggest study ever of antidepressants toward making the drugs appear more effective than they really are.

And now, Dr. Adam C. Urato, assistant professor of medicine at Tufts, has just sent over the latest: a paper in the current American Journal of Psychiatry that suggests that antidepressants increase the risk of stroke. He emailed:

This is an important study with real public health implications. We have so many patients on these drugs and use seems to be ever-increasing. If they are associated with stroke, as they seem to be, that’s information that patients and the public need to know.
When you combine this type of study showing a risk of stroke like this with the other studies that now show that antidepressants don’t appear to have a clinically significant benefit for most patients with mild to moderate depression (i.e. most users) then you really have to question why so many patients are on these drugs.

I leave it to others to defend antidepressants, but here are the basics on the latest study: It appears in the May edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry. It uses a “case-crossover” design, which aims to identify triggers for events. In this case, the event is a stroke. It included more than 24,000 patients who’d had strokes in Taiwan. The findings:

We found that antidepressant use was associated with a 48% greater risk of stroke, after taking confounding factors into account, and that the magnitude of associations was greater in high-potency inhibitors of the serotonin transporter than in low- and intermediate-potency inhibitors. Our findings are in agreement with those of previous studies showing that antidepressant use was associated with an increased risk of stroke, both ischemic (21) and hemorrhagic (22) types.

The authors note that depression itself is considered an independent risk factor for stroke. But their conclusions suggest that fending off stroke is not a good reason for prescribing antidepressants…

http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2011/05/antidepressant-stroke-risk/

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Ventura County Star, March 24, 2011
by Tom Kisken

Antipsychotics are given in nursing homes or other facilities without the informed consent of residents or surrogates and are used as chemical restraints

Nearly 25 percent of the residents in California’s nursing homes are placed on antipsychotic drugs, often used as sort of a chemical leash to control behavior in a trend a watchdog called an epidemic Thursday at a symposium.

The drugs can double the risk of death for seniors with dementia and cause side effects ranging from stroke to delirium, according to speakers at an Oxnard conference called “Toxic Medicine.” Often the drugs are given in nursing homes or other facilities for dementia without the informed consent of residents or surrogates and are used as a restraint rather than to treat psychiatric conditions.

Over the past decade the use of the drugs has evolved from a sniffle to a flu to something much worse, said Sylvia Taylor Stein, of the Long Term Care Services of Ventura County ombudsman program.

“By 2010 we had an epidemic,” she said in a symposium organized by her group and the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. It was attended by a packed house of nursing home leaders, assisted-living administrators, elder abuse lawyers and state licensing agencies.

Some at the conference linked the use of antipsychotics to staff shortages that make it impossible for employees to properly care for patients, state cuts in mental health programs that have brought more patients with psychiatric problems to long-term care facilities and doctors who have a drug-first mentality when it comes to long-term care residents.

Read the rest of the article here:  http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/mar/24/use-of-chemical-restraints-in-nursing-homes-an/#ixzz1Hd9VUKAg

For More on Antipsychotic Drug Side Effects :

To read summaries of international studies and warnings on antipsychotic drugs, simply type in Antipsychotic in the Search box or use the drop down menus here: http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/drug_warnings.php

To read side effects reported to the US FDA on antipsychotics,  visit CCHR’s FDA Medwatch reports and choose Antipsychotics at the very bottom of the Drug Name/Drug Class drop down menu and choose age  65 to 99 in the Age Range menu here http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/medwatch_psych_drug_adverse_reactions.php

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Note from CCHR:  We added the “yeah, ya think?” to the title because of the word “may” in the headline.   Children are being prescribed Ritalin and Ritalin-like drugs which are categorized as schedule ll by the U.S.  Drug Enforcement Administration as “highly addictive” in the same class as cocaine, opium and morphine.  The US FDA warns  ADHD drugs cause hallucinations, stroke, heart attack and sudden death to name a few (watch Drugging Our Children: Side Effects http://3.ly/atyH.)   Studies also prove that ADHD drugs do not improve children’s academic performance, they simply make the kid sit still and “behave.”   So which is better, diet or drugs? Is there really any question?  Given the fact that ADHD is not a disease, and the fact ADHD drugs are deadly,  we think the the may help kids more than drugs is a bit ridiculous.   Not to mention the fact that just because a kid acts like a kid, (ADHD ‘criteria,’ also known as childhood) they do not deserve to be labeled with a mental disorder and stigmatized mentally ill for the rest of their life.

NPR March 12, 2011

Hyperactivity. Fidgeting. Inattention. Impulsivity. If your child has one or more of these qualities on a regular basis, you may be told that he or she has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. If so, they’d be among about 10 percent of children in the United States.

Kids with ADHD can be restless and difficult to handle. Many of them are treated with drugs, but a new study says food may be the key. Published in The Lancet journal, the study suggests that with a very restrictive diet, kids with ADHD could experience a significant reduction in symptoms.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Lidy Pelsser of the ADHD Research Centre in the Netherlands, writes in The Lancet that the disorder is triggered in many cases by external factors — and those can be treated through changes to one’s environment.

“ADHD, it’s just a couple of symptoms — it’s not a disease,” the Dutch researcher tells All Things Considered weekend host Guy Raz.

The way we think about — and treat — these behaviors is wrong, Pelsser says. “There is a paradigm shift needed. If a child is diagnosed ADHD, we should say, ‘OK, we have got those symptoms, now let’s start looking for a cause.’ ”

Pelsser compares ADHD to eczema. “The skin is affected, but a lot of people get eczema because of a latex allergy or because they are eating a pineapple or strawberries.”

According to Pelsser, 64 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD are actually experiencing a hypersensitivity to food. Researchers determined that by starting kids on a very elaborate diet, then restricting it over a few weeks’ time.

“It’s only five weeks,” Pelsser says. “If it is the diet, then we start to find out which foods are causing the problems.”

Teachers and doctors who worked with children in the study reported marked changes in behavior. “In fact, they were flabbergasted,” Pelsser says.

“After the diet, they were just normal children with normal behavior,” she says. No longer were they easily distracted or forgetful, and the temper tantrums subsided.

Some teachers said they never thought it would work, Pelsser says. “It was so strange,” she says, “that a diet would change the behavior of a child as thoroughly as they saw it. It was a miracle, a teacher said.”

But diet is not the solution for all children with ADHD, Pelsser cautions.

“In all children, we should start with diet research,” she says. If a child’s behavior doesn’t change, then drugs may still be necessary. “But now we are giving them all drugs, and I think that’s a huge mistake,” she says.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/12/134456594/study-diet-may-help-adhd-kids-more-than-drugs?sc=emaf

For more information on psychiatric labeling of kids, watch Psychiatry: Labeling Kids with Bogus Mental Disorders http://www.cchrint.org/videos/

For more information on documented side effects of drugs, watch Drugging Our Children – Side Effects :http://www.cchrint.org/videos/drugs/drugging-our-children-side-effects/

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20 million kids are being prescribed dangerous mind-altering drugs

By CCHR

Today’s Huffington Post features an article from psychiatrist Harold Koplewicz, frequently seen in the press leading the cheer for more psychiatric diagnosing and drugging of children.   In today’s article, Koplewicz makes a plea to ‘Stop the Stigma’ which is preventing children from being diagnosed mentally ill.   Pretty catchy slogan isn’t it? “Stop the Stigma.”  It ought to be, it’s a brilliant marketing campaign, brought to you by Big Pharma, via the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a group that  masquerades as a “patient’s rights group for the mentally ill”  but receives tens of millions in Pharma funding.

But here’s the real rub—What entity is most responsible for stigmatizing millions of children? What group has pathologized childhood behavior and repackaged a list of behaviors into a “disease” called ADHD?  Psychiatry and Pharma.   You can’t be a kid anymore.  If you display child-like behaviors you can be  branded mentally ill for life. And its not just us saying this.  Consider that the former Chairman of the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM task force,  psychiatrist Allen Frances, stated “Our country is in the midst of a fifteen year ‘epidemic’ of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). There are six potential causes for the skyrocketing rates of ADD—but only five have been real contributors. The most obvious explanation is by far the least likely – that the prevalence of attention deficit problems in the general population has actually increased in the last 15 years. Human nature is remarkably constant and slow to change, while diagnostic fads come and go with great rapidity. We don’t have more attention deficit than ever before-we just label more attentional problems as mental disorder.”

He  also talked about “stigma,” but sourced the industry creating it—psychiatry: “The ‘epidemic’ of childhood Bipolar Disorder has created a public health dilemma” and that it is  “based on much hype and very little scientific evidence. The label Bipolar Disorder also carries considerable stigma, implying that the child will have a lifelong illness requiring lifetime treatment.”

Exactly.

The title of Dr. Koplewicz’s article is “Why Are People So Divided When It Comes to Children’s Mental Health?” so we’d like to answer that question, as it’s pretty simple —Some of us are for children’s rights and putting their best interests above all else, while others are for Psycho/Pharma and putting their best interests above all else.

That’s the short version.  Here is a bit more detailed answer;

Point 1) Millions of children have been stigmatized with bogus psychiatric “labels” that are based solely on opinion, and not one shred of medical evidence that there’s anything physically wrong with them.  No blood tests, brain scans, X-rays, MRIs or any proof whatsoever they are “mentally ill” and require drugs euphemistically being called “medicine.”    Unlike real medical diseases which are discovered in labs, psychiatric diagnoses are invented by psychiatrists in committee, by  the following “scientific” process;  Cluster a number of behaviors into a nice little package, give it a name and add “disorder” on the tail end of it,  then take a vote.  Majority wins.   That’s about it. And that’s why mental disorders can be here one day and gone the next, because of majority opinion — namely, psychiatry’s.   So while psychiatrists talk about the “amazing progress” they’ve made, and how “close” they’ve come to proving mental disorders are “real medical conditions,” we’d like to point out the obvious—they haven’t.   They couldn’t prove mental disorders were physical/medical conditions 50 years ago, and can’t prove it today despite billions in government funding.    No progress.  Whatsoever.   Zippo.  Nada.    So understandably, Dr. Koplewicz,, as people become more educated about this ludicrous subjective process of disorders made to order, they are concerned about the lack of real science to psychiatric “diagnoses” particularly where their children are concerned.

Point 2) The majority of psychiatrists within the American Psychiatric Association that “decide” on what will and will not be a mental “disorder” are funded by Pharma.  That’s called a Conflict of Interest.  A serious, egregious conflict of interest.  No “conspiracy” here Dr. Kopelwicz, just some facts about your colleagues and their incentives for developing more mental disorders.

Point 3) Due to these subjective, invented mental disorders,  20 million children are currently taking mind-altering, life-threatening drugs, acknowledged by international drug regulatory agencies to cause future drug dependence, stunted growth, mania, psychosis, violence, aggression, hallucinations, heart attack, stroke, sudden death and suicidal ideation.  All international studies and warnings on psychiatric drugs along with all the reports filed with the U.S. FDA’s Medwatch by doctors, pharmacists and healthcare providers reporting suicidal ideation and death from psychiatric drugs given to toddlers, young children and teenagers can be found here:  http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/

Point 4) While Koplewicz has the audacity to call the “over-drugging” of children “a myth”,  consider that the Government Accountability Office has launched a federal investigation into the massive increase of drugging children in foster care.  “The investigators will attempt to account for estimates in the hundreds of millions of dollars of possible fraud arising from prescriptions for drugs explicitly barred from Medicaid coverage.  The GAO is collecting data from six states to search for patterns of abuse.  According to a number of foster care experts who spoke with Politics Daily, children in foster care, who are typically concurrently enrolled in Medicaid, are three or four more times as likely to be on psychotropic medications than other children on Medicaid. Alarmingly, many of these drugs are medically prohibited for minors and dangerous to the children taking them.”

Point 5) Senate investigations this past year revealed that some of the “leading” psychiatrists touting the wonders of diagnosing and drugging kids, and largely responsible for massive increases in kids unnecessarily placed on dangerous psychiatric drugs, were on Pharma’s payroll, and failed to disclose this.  Psychiatrists such as Joseph Biederman, who was being paid millions of dollars by the Pharmaceutical companies while skewing the results of drug trials to show false benefits for kids, in order the launch a nationwide campaign to get children diagnosed as “bi-polar.”

And he’s not the only one: Here are some of the “leading” psychiatrists exposed by Senate investigations:

Melissa DelBello, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati, was exposed in 2007 by the Senate Finance Committee for concealing $180,000 she received from AstraZeneca in 2003 and 2004.  DelBello’s studies of the antipsychotic Seroquel, made by AstraZeneca, in children helped to fuel the widespread pediatric use of antipsychotic drugs.

In 2008, Joseph Biederman, a leading Harvard child psychiatrist whose work helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic drugs in children, was exposed for withholding earning at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers between 2000 and 2007.

Alan Schatzberg, president-elect of the APA, and Professor and Department of Psychiatry Chair of Stanford University was also investigated in 2008 by the Senate Finance Committee.  Schatzberg was forced to step down as principal investigator in an NIH funded research project into a drug called Mifeprestone, to treat “psychotic depression.” Senate investigators found that Schatzberg failed to report $4.8 million worth of stock in Corcept Therapeutics, a drug company which he co-founded and acted as lead researcher on a drug development project for until he was forced to surrender that role after being exposed.

A Senate investigation found Charles Nemeroff, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Chairman of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine had concealed $2.8 million he earned from drug companies. He was forced to step down as Chairman of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory due to being exposed for his hidden pharmaceutical pay and attempted cover up.

In December 2009, Sen. Charles Grassley filed a complaint about Fernando Mendez-Villamil to federal authorities for his excessive prescribing of antipsychotics to children that were not approved by the FDA.  This cost taxpayers $43 million over six years.  Mendez-Villamil is apparently also currently under investigation by the Medicaid program.  Mid 2009, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration reported that that Mendez Villamil is the top Medicaid prescriber of mental health drugs in the state—for all ages.  It was calculated that he wrote more than 150 prescriptions a day, seven days a week for six years

So to summarize, we don’t have an epidemic of mentally ill children, we have an epidemic of psychiatry stigmatizing children with mental disorders that cannot be medically/scientifically proven to exist.  We have an epidemic of children prescribed dangerous and potentially lethal psychiatric drugs, including infants and toddlers.  And we have the real source of stigmatization—the Psychiatric/Pharmaceutical industry.

To read Koplewicz’s article, click here

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-harold-koplewicz/mental-health-being-openminded_b_791706.html

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Note from CCHR: The wholesale psychiatric drugging of the elderly in both private and public nursing homes has reached epidemic levels, with the use of antipsychotics, antianxiety drugs (tranquilizers) and antidepressants  skyrocketing and patients being harmed and killed as a direct result.  These drugs are highly dangerous when prescribed to anyone, but when prescribed to the elderly the risks for diabetes, stroke and sudden death are greatly increased.    As stated in the article below, ” Instead of looking for causes of disruptive behavior among dementia patients, doctors typically prescribe drugs to mask the symptoms… because it’s the easy thing to do. … That’s true in hospitals, in clinics and in nursing homes.” It is for this reason we feel the more humane non-drug approach being undertaken by this particular chain of nursing homes in treating elderly patients  suffering from dementia should not only be commended, but employed by all nursing homes caring for the elderly.

The Star Tribune – Dec 4, 2010

by Warren Wolfe

Instead of treating behavioral problems with antipsychotic drugs, the Ecumen chain of 15 homes is using strategies including aromatherapy, massage, music, games, exercise and good talk. The state is helping out.

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by CCHR

THE WEEK posted a pretty good article called “ADHD’s Rapid Rise: 5 Theories”—   pretty good because though several of their theories may play some part  in why so many kids are diagnosed ADHD,  they never quite nail the answer.  So we did.

Adding to their 5 points of various theories,  we present you with point number 6: The actual answer:

Psychiatrists got together and decided to pathologize normal childhood behavior into a mental disorder and call it ADHD.  They created a checklist of behaviors, took a vote on it, and voilà! A whole new client base was born – kids. With the help of billions in Pharma funds spent on shrinks to promote ADHD in journals, on TV and in press, glossy ads in magazines, slick lobbyists to “educate” members of Congress about it,  and the creation of Pharma front groups such as Children and Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder (CHADD) to infiltrate schools endorsing the so-called disease —an epidemic of “mentally ill” children was born.    And that’s the real reason for the “rapid rise” in kids diagnosed ADHD and put on drugs.  Drugs the U.S.  Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) categorizes in the same class of highly addictive substances as cocaine and morphine—drugs such as Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta — documented by the US FDA to cause hallucinations, mania, heart attack, stroke, sudden death to name but a few.    And it all starts with one simple thing: The Diagnosis. (We challenge anyone to find a kid that would not fit some, if not all of psychiatry’s criteria for a “mentally ill” child they call ADHD.

Psychiatry’s exact list of “ADHD” criteria (and it does not require all of them to result in an ADHD label):

• Fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities.

• Has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play.
  

• Does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.

• Does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behavior or failure to understand instructions).

• Has difficulty organizing tasks and activities.

• Avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort (such as schoolwork or homework).

• Loses things necessary for tasks or activities (e.g., toys, school assignments, pencils, books, or tools).

• Easily distracted by extraneous stimuli.

• Forgetful in daily activities.

• Fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat.

• Leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected.

• Runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate (in adolescents or adults, may be limited to subjective feelings of restlessness).

• Has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly.

• Appears “on the go” or acts as if “driven by a motor.”

• Talks excessively.

And there you have it.  The Answer:  Psychiatry plus Big Pharma plus Billions in Marketing = Epidemic of “ADHD” Kids.

THE WEEK

One in 10 U.S. kids has been diagnosed with ADHD, a significant increase. Are “hypochondriac” parents jumping to conclusions — or are other factors at play?

Best Opinion: NPR, Strollerderby, ParentDish…

Almost 10 percent of U.S. kids have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to a survey of parents conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a shocking 22 percent jump over 2003 figures — representing an additional 1 million children — and the increase was seen in all races, income levels, and areas of the U.S., with the exception of the West. What’s behind the rise? Here are 5 theories:

1. Doctors are doing a better job of diagnosing ADHD
Improvements in screening programs and greater awareness of the disorder among parents and doctors have helped identify more cases, says CDC epidemiologist Susanna Visser,  , the report’s lead author. “We have become much more sensitive to behavioral differences,” agrees Dr. Jeffrey Brosco,  an ADHD expert at the University of Miami. But that doesn’t mean doctors can say “whether kids in the 1970s are really different from kids in the ’90s or the 2000s.”

2. Demographics
The increases were more significant in certain demographic groups, note Scott Hensley at NPR. “The biggest jumps were seen in children between 15 and 17 and among Hispanic or multiracial children.” The jump in Hispanic ADHD cases likely reflects “greater cultural acceptance of the disorder.” Mysteriously, increases were particularly significant in 12 states, says Ray Hainer at CNN. North Carolina, for example saw a 63 percent spike in cases, with 15.6 percent of its kids diagnosed with ADHD.

3. Big Pharma is pushing the cure
Of the 5.4 million kids diagnosed with ADHD, the CDC reports, 2.7 million are taking medication for the condition. You have to question “the role of pharmacological companies in all of this,” says University of Kentucky psychiatrist John D. Ranseen. “It is very much in their interest to increase the diagnosis and treatment of this condition.” That alone should “give the mental health field pause.”

4. Blame our lousy diet
Nobody really knows what causes ADHD, says David Knowles in AOL News, but “one recent study suggested a correlation with a diet high in processed and fried foods.” Intriguingly, new research also ties ADHD to obesity in adulthood, says Healther Turgeon in Strollerderby. There’s no proof — yet — that one causes the other, but “the two are correlated.”

5. The real spike is in “paranoid” parents
“Are kids really that messed up?” asks Tom Henderson in ParentDish. “Or are parents becoming a bunch of second-party psychological hypochondriacs?” Remember, these million extra ADHD cases are “parent-reported diagnoses,” and today’s parents have been known to be “all too eager to control normal childhood restlessness and general weirdness by bombing kids with Ritalin.” Because, after all, “children often have the attention spans of, uh, children.”

http://theweek.com/article/index/209282/adhds-rapid-rise-5-theories

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The Advertiser

Lawsuit Award May Set  Record

by William Johnson

$257 million verdict in a product liability lawsuit.

The award came late Thursday evening in a case involving the drug

Risperdal, a popular antipsychotic administered for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder manufactured by Janssen, a division of Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is part of Johnson & Johnson.

The jury, which has been hearing the case for almost two months, found the firm misled Louisiana doctors about the possible side effects of the drug.

State Attorney General Buddy Caldwell’s office had argued the New Brunswick, N.J.-based company had violated a state law against misrepresentation and fraud.

Caldwell’s office argued the company sent letters to more than 7,500 doctors and made more than 27,000 phone calls that improperly claimed the drug was safer than other competing medications and minimized Risperdal’s link to diabetes.

The drug has been prescribed to more than

10 million people worldwide and generates about $2.1 billion in annual sales for Janssen.

“This verdict sends a loud message to those who knowingly try to defraud the system. Those who deceive the state must pay,” Caldwell said in a statement Friday.

Michael Heinley, a spokesman for Janssen, said the company is disappointed with the jury’s decision and will appeal.

“We believe the jury was not appropriately instructed on applicable legal standards and that critical and highly relevant evidence was excluded,” Heinley said Friday.

The St. Landry Parish jury’s judgement, which has yet to be formally filed, is expected to set a nationwide precedent.

The drug is also the subject of more than 26 lawsuits throughout the nation that allege it causes strokes, diabetes and other potentially fatal complications in adults.

The state, represented by the Opelousas law firm of Morrow, Morrow, Ryan and Bassett, had originally asked for $440 million in direct damages with other factors that could have pushed the total award to more than $2 billion.

While the state did not get all it asked for, St. Landry Parish Clerk of Courts Charles Jagneaux said the verdict still amounts to the largest judgement ever assessed in the parish and one of the largest in the history of the state.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

http://www.theadvertiser.com/article/20101016/NEWS01/10160309/1002/Lawsuit-award-may-set-record

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