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I happened across this interesting video that explores the situation in Texas foster care where something like 60% of the children were on psychotropic meds, even as young as 2 and 3 years old.
I do not know when this report came out, and I did check out the web site that put together this video and that looks mighty weird, but the information in the video certainly gives me concerns.
Monday, May 05, 2008
How does this make you feel about Texas foster care?
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This, of course is an outrage. As a pediatric nurse I can say that I have seen very young children that are not in foster care and not in Texas placed on the medications discussed here. The last time I checked, I believe that South Carolina had the highest rate of children on medications for ADD, ADHD, Bipolar disorder etc. The average time spent by a pediatrician in the state before prescribing these medications was less than 10 minutes. Much of it is pushed by parents who can't understand why Johnny can't sit still. In many circles parents feel left out if their kids aren't diagnosed with a "learning disability" of some sort. Teachers and school counselors also push medicating kids - it makes their jobs alot easier. Since they aren't able to discipline them in school- drug them instead. Parents don't want to deal with it either and since so many of them are on such medications they don't realize the long term effects. Studies have shown that kids that take Ritalin are far more likely (don't have the statistics on hand) to use illegal drugs. There are certainly situations that call for some sort of chemical intervention but not on the scale that we currently see. I think some of these physicians should be brought up on charges. The hypocratic oath - first of all do no harm - is blatently ignored in the prescribing of these medications - in my opinion of course.
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