Saving Children | ADHD Information

ADD Exists.

ADHD is a REALITY.

atheiADHDism is BOGUS.

BALANCED society accepts truth.

Nonsense is often spouted by the unbalanced.

Ritalin, ADDerall, Strattera, and their a.i.'s are effective

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Glen wrote:

Millions take it worldwide. A handfull have troubles - usually because the MDs don't know how to dispense it and monitor it - let me emphasize that MONITOR IT!! They are let go with a prescription and a pat on the back. Don't blame the meds because your doctor wants to get rich 10 minutes faster and little timmy has to suffer because of it!!

I think too that monitoring and making sure you have a good dr are important. Like my first neuro - no eval but here I'll give you meds anyway. No follow up or anything. That's not good.

Too quick to diagnose kids with it because the parents can't control their kids - also not good.

Giving people something they don't need will set you up for the disaster that this balanced person claims will happen to everyone. But it is not dangerous for all.

Please note that anything can be abused. I abuse sugar foods - does that mean we need to ban cookies? there's no doubt the pharmaceutical companies, like tobacco is big business, but good things do come from medications. Everytime I get the flu, I thank god that I have medication prescribed to me to help alleviate the pain.

Balanced, Thanks for your concern for us. We'll file that away for a rainy day. (note, that was sarcasm).

valzap38637.389062520% Drop in Psych Drugs Prescribed for US Children_WashPostFYI:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10 /07/AR2005100701795.html

Washington Post -- Saturday, October 8, 2005; A01

Psychiatric Drugs' Use Drops for Children
Suicide Warnings Raise Bigger Fears On Testing Process
By Shankar Vedantam

Warnings that drugs such as Prozac, Paxil and Effexor can increase
suicidal
behavior in some children have resulted in a nearly 20 percent drop in
U.S.
pediatric prescriptions of the widely used antidepressants and have
triggered
deep concerns about the quality of current data on psychiatric drugs,
doctors
and regulators said.

The unprecedented fall of what were once considered wonder drugs comes
as a
series of taxpayer-funded analyses have systematically undermined the
claims
of
industry-funded drug trials, raising thorny questions about the ways in
which
psychiatric drugs are being tested, marketed and used.

No one knows the consequences of such a steep decline in children's
drug
prescriptions: Critics of the drugs say regulators ought to crack down
further,
as British health authorities did last month, but many American
psychiatrists
are worried that reduced access to medications could cause an increase
in
suicide as a result of untreated depression.

As with many disputes over these and other psychiatric drugs, opinions
are
more
readily available than definitive data. The fundamental problem, many
experts
said, is that there are not enough systematic long-term studies about
psychiatric drugs. "The problem is we don't have enough good data,"
said
Thomas Laughren,
director of the division of psychiatry products at the Food and Drug
Administration.
"All of our data are focused on the short term."

As a result, he and others said, a consensus is growing that the system
of
approving psychiatric drugs based on industry-run trials that sometimes
last
just 12 weeks is not providing doctors with the information they need
--
many
physicians place patients on the drugs for years. Senior FDA officials
say
they
are weighing whether companies should be required to conduct longer
trials
to
reveal the true risks and benefits of the drugs.

Pharmaceutical makers say that profound change would increase the time
and
expense of bringing new medications to market.

Although the agency does ask that companies pursue long-term trials
after
drugs
are approved, few do. At a meeting this month, Laughren said,
regulators
will
debate whether long-term trials "should be asked for at initial
approval."
Alan Goldhammer, associate vice president for regulatory affairs at the
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said long-term
studies
should be conducted by public health agencies at taxpayer expense.
"I don't think they fall within the province of the pharmaceutical
industry
because they are so costly and time-consuming that it would probably
bring
drug
development to a halt," he said. "There would not be the funds to
develop
new
drugs if one focused on one drug and tried to know everything about
it."

In the absence of long-term data, however, doctors, parents and
patients
have been confused
by a steady stream of concerns that have recently emerged:

· An FDA review last year found that newer antidepressants increase
suicidal
behavior among some children, and the agency ordered that a "black box"
warning be placed on them.

· British authorities last month went even further, telling doctors
there
never
to prescribe medications to depressed children without first trying
multiple
alternatives, and never to prescribe drugs without also providing
psychotherapy.
Doctors were also warned not to prescribe the antidepressants Paxil and
Effexor
to depressed children under any circumstances.

· On Sept. 28, the FDA announced that the drug Strattera, prescribed
widely
to
children with attention deficit disorder, had also been found to
increase
the
risk of suicidal behavior in some, and told manufacturer Eli Lilly and
Co.
to
add a black-box warning.

· Also last month, a major government analysis of antipsychotic
medications
found newer, expensive drugs were neither safer nor more effective than
an
older
generic medication that doctors rarely use.

The drugs had never been systematically compared in a long-term trial.
Another study
in older patients, paid for by Canadian health authorities, found the
newer
drugs "are not
necessarily safer" when it came to causing uncontrolled movements; for
years,
doctors have believed the newer drugs were significantly less likely to
cause
that side effect.

Reflecting the confusion caused by the lack of good data, FDA
regulators
have
drawn the ire both of critics who say the agency has not gone far
enough to
protect patients who take the drugs and of many psychiatrists who say
the
agency is going too far.

Antidepressant prescriptions for children fell nearly 20 percent in the
last
year, according to a recent report by the American Psychiatric
Association
and
data from NDCHealth, a health care information company. Experts at the
association worry that patients have been scared into thinking the
drugs are
dangerous, when the bigger danger of suicide lies in untreated
depression.

Again, the FDA's Laughren said there is little data on whether the drop
in
prescriptions is a good thing or a bad thing.
"It could mean that physicians are prescribing more rationally and that
explains
the drop, or it could mean there is a decreased access of medications,"
he
said.
"Ultimately, systematic controlled trials are the best way to figure
out the
risks and benefits."

Many experts said without long-term studies, doctors are left to rely
on
trial
and error -- and drug company marketing. Millions of dollars have been
spent
to
boost the profile of newer antipsychotic drugs, for example. Although
some
patients clearly benefit, the study paid for by the federal government
suggests
doctors have embraced the new products without clear evidence that they
are
superior.

Many psychiatrists, in fact, were so certain the new drugs were better
that
they
questioned the need to pit the new medications against an older drug,
said
Yale
psychiatrist Robert Rosenheck, who helped conduct the study that found
all
of
them did about as well.

Such misjudgments cannot be corrected when doctors are so dependent on
short industry-sponsored trials, said Columbia University psychiatrist
Jeffrey
Lieberman, who led the antipsychotics study. Short-term studies do not
tell
clinicians which drug to try first or which is more cost-effective.

Many industry trials also carefully select the patients being studied
in
order
not to muddy the results, whereas doctors routinely deal with patients
with
multiple conditions and complex problems. And companies have been
legally
allowed to keep short-term trials with inconvenient results out of
public
view.

Studies that showed antidepressants were ineffective in children, for
example,
were systematically excluded from the medical literature. The result
was
that
the data available to doctors painted a rosy picture of the drugs.
"If we only had the public evidence, we would have recommended the use
of
all
the [drugs]," said Tim Kendall, a British psychiatrist who led a
two-year
analysis of both the public and secret data.

When the unpublished trials were taken into account, the evidence, he
said,
led
them to rule out the use of Paxil and Effexor for children and to
severely
curtail the use of the other antidepressants.

Children with milder forms of major depression -- who are persistently
teary,
emotionally flat, or uninterested in activities for several weeks --
ought
not
to be candidates for the drugs at all, he said. Instead, the new
British
guidelines call for watchful waiting.

Children with severe forms of major depression -- losing weight, not
sleeping,
and showing suicidal behavior -- should get talk therapy for at least
three
months, Kendall said, before doctors consider adding a medication.

But Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health
in
Bethesda, said requiring three months of talk therapy before giving
medication
is unrealistic, because talk therapy is not widely available.
"It is not clear to me that most 16-year-olds would get any treatments
at
all,"
he said. "It is hard to imagine that is an improvement."

Depriving doctors of antidepressants could also prompt clinicians to
venture
into uncharted territory with even less data, Insel said. He is
concerned
that
physicians are already switching children from antidepressants to
antipsychotic
drugs, none of which have been approved for children. The federal
government's
top mental health researcher said it "was amazing" that nearly a
quarter of
all
antipsychotic prescriptions for children are going to those younger
than 9,
the
vast majority of them boys.
"I am concerned we are going to see an increase in . . . antipsychotics
in
this
population," said Insel. "Have we gone from one set of medications of
known
benefit and of questionable risks to a group of medications with
unknown
benefits and well-known risks?"

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

If the history of stimulants is so "successful", why has there been such a sharp rise in the abuse of these meds ?

These common stimulants are addictive !!! Even the manufacturers ads claim that.

Here's a good book for you.... The Corporation" by Joel Bakan.

Most people don't realize that corporations don't have to play by the rules. Their only objective is to increase the wealth of their shareholders and if doing it illegally is more profitable, then why not ?

That article presents all sides well. Again, the biggest concerns lie in the questionable ethics (well, maybe not so questionable)of the pharmaceutical industry...Child psychiatry is more about art than science because there are very few objective controlled studies in the pediatric population. As far as I know, stimulants are the only class of drugs with extensive research and a long, successful history of use in children. Prescriptions for other classes of drugs need to be undertaken with extreme care when clearly needed, and all parties involved need to be aware of potential benefits and risks.

BALANCED, if we are going to argue the perpetration of misinformation and trivializing of potential risks at the hands of the pharm industry, for once I am completely on your side...

I have recently posted on a new drug called NRP104 which is in phase 3 trials. It is a lysine molecule bonded to an amphetamine molecule and is inactive. In the intestinal tract the lysine is chopped off through hydrolysis and the amphetamine is released. It can't be injected or snorted because it must pass through the intestinal tract. There is a limited amount of the enzyme availabe to chop off the lysine, so only a limited blood concentration can be achieved regardless of the number of pills taken. In clinical trials, they never reached the LD50. It should be marketed next year and appears to be as therapeutic as Adderall. The abuse of these drugs is being acknowledged, and we will soon see more non-abusable drugs on the market.BTW, the abuse of stimulants is largely at the hands of those for whom they were not prescribed. The safety and efficacy of stimulants are well established when used in patients who need them.That's nice...

[QUOTE=shakespeare]That's nice...[/QUOTE]

U CRACK ME UP......BUT GLAD U DONT GIVE UP.....KEEP IT UP..

that is right glen

DONT FEED THE TROLL!!!

Yeah Baby!!! Yeah!!!

ROFLMAO!!!

I love the arguments that the endangered forum troll have to use. "oh, the stimulants are being abused." "my my the stimulants are as dangerous as cocaine".

These "studies" are on small samples of children already considered high risk of addiction. Of COURSE you're going to find troubled californian kids more likely to get hooked on cocaine!!! If I go to any middle school in california - find the kids getting councilling for ADHD - or dyslexia whatever.. and do a study on them - I think I can prove right now that they are 300 percent more likely to use cocaine than the average kid. Anyone want in on that bet?

Stimulants are FAR more safe than alcohol or tobacco. Both are taxed by the government - and I bet your government representatives are all for their three martini medication during lunch. It causes cirrhosis, ulcers, addiction, family violence, job loss, obesity - shall I go on? Tobacco - come on do I have to list it?

These stims given to kids who genuinely have troubles focusing and staying stable in an environment filled with other people's kids is greatly beneficial. All meds - even aspirin must have a benefit to risk ratio attached. When the benefits greatly outweigh the risk - it's a good thing. Other way around - then start looking elsewhere!

Damn you mr. Troll - are cut off - no more soup for you!!!

First off, the post was way to long. I couldn't finish it. Perhaps I should snort some cocaine? Us ADHD types are just drug fiends anyway. You do know this forum is for those seeking stimulants don't you BALANCED?

BTW, would a balanced person hang out in this forum for no reason except to get a rise out of out people. Sound more like a needly looser to me. Then again, I'm just someone seeking out a legal high from a drug company. Oh, wait, strattera isn't a stimulant. Hold on, let me rethink a new argument.

[QUOTE=shakespeare]BTW, the abuse of stimulants is largely at the hands of those for whom they were not prescribed. The safety and efficacy of stimulants are well established when used in patients who need them.[/QUOTE]

Not so sure that's correct.

There's a long list of studies about the efficacy or otherwise of stimulants here

http://www.stopcallingusmentallyill.com/pages/48/page48.html ?refresh=1123727579494

In amongst them there's things like this:

"A 1998 study of Californian adolescents diagnosed with ADHD found that, as adults, those treated with the stimulant were three times more likely to use cocaine."

And this:

"In 1990, an eight-year prospective study of hyperactive children was instituted. More than 80% of the children studied had been treated with medications. Sixty- three percent of the group had received the benefit of psychological services and 35% had special educational accommodations.

At the end of the eight years, 80% continued to have the ADD symptoms, while 60% had advanced to Opposition Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Conduct Disorder (CD) diagnoses. (Barkley R., Fischer M, et al:The adolescent outcome of hyperactive children diagnosed by research criteria: J Am Acad Child Adoles Psychiatry 29 (4):546-556 July 1990.) These two diagnoses are considered to be much worse than the ADD diagnosis."

There's a lot of study summaries there.