http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=869
Playground Prozac
Sometimes I feel I’d be better off just whapping myself upside the head with
the daily newspaper, rather than reading it. I sure felt that way when I read a
New York Times story about Babies on Drugs. These are not the infamous "crack
babies," whose mothers took illegal crack cocaine while pregnant, passing the
addiction to their children. Instead, these are mothers and fathers who even
more deliberately drug their children, going to supposedly reputable doctors to
get technically legal prescriptions for psychiatric drugs used for dosing their
young ones. The Times reports that a new study has found that the use of
antidepressants and stimulants such as Ritalin has increased dramatically in
the past few years, not merely among hyperactive pre-teens and teens, but now
among preschoolers. We’re talking about two-, three-, and four-year-olds.
Babies! Prozac is also being prescribed to these tiny tykes!
What kind of "doctors" are doing this? What about the "do no harm" dictum of
the Hippocratic Oath? At this age, children’s brains are undergoing critical
development, and almost nothing is known about the consequences of pouring
psychiatric drugs into them. By the way, these drugs have not been approved by
the Food and Drug Administration for treating pre-schoolers. Indeed, the
package insert for Ritalin specifically warns against prescribing the drug to
children under six. Plus, most of these children are not even sick – as the
head of psychiatry at Harvard University put it: "The normal behavior of many
two-year-olds and three-year-olds looks a lot like hyperactivity disorder."
That’s right – normal children who are going through nothing more serious
than the "terrible twos" are getting zonked with these powerhouse
prescriptions.
Where’s the federal "Drug War" when we really need it? They’ll throw you in
jail for smoking a joint, but you can get Ritalin for a two-year-old from a
doctor. What a horrible joke!