These antipsychotics have been given to kids and teenagers with anxiety disorders and mood disorders and behavior disorders and emotional issues and addictions and everything for the last decade. They've also been most commonly used as add ons in SSRIs, even if you've only been on one. If a teenager who has anxiety or depression or ADD or OCD or generalized anxiety is not responding to an antidepressant, they put them on an antipsychotic like Risperdal or Seroquel or Abilify before trying any other antidepressants. I still don't know why I was put on antipsychotics as a teen, although for a short time, I was taken off them whenever there was a bad side effect. Kids and teenagers are more often given antipsychotics for off label uses then adults. Adults wouldn't want to take something like an antipsychotic, but they have no problem giving it to their kids. It's because of the whole image thing, a lot of parents are fine talking about how their kid has issues and needs these antipsychotics, but they wouldn't take them. Thing is, teens are never told what they were on antipsychotics. I didn't know I had been on antipsychotics until I had been off it for seven years. Luckily, my time on antipsychotics was short. My cocktails of meds were changed so often it was impossible to keep track of it. It won't really make a difference whether or not it's been approved by the FDA, kids are still being given antipsychotics even before SSRIs. Doctors love prescribing them to teens who have emotional issues. There are also more off label uses for this stuff, too. I didn't even know it wasn't approved yet it's so common. A lot of people think that the antipsychotic they were taking is an antidepressant or anti anxiety pill. Almost any teen who is taking an antipsychotic does not know that it's an antipsychotic, doctors never tell teens anything.

I'm still pissed, especially after the little Destiny incident.

Pediatric bipolar disorder my ass. In fact, any of these things, my ass! The only valid psychiatric diagnosis, in my opinion, is post-traumatic stress disorder-- these other things are just different manifestations of that.

I wonder how much, if any, open public testimony there was. I sure would like to know. It sounds like the powers that be (the groups that prepared the joint statement) were out in force to disempower the voices of any victims. I suspect that it may have been more difficult to round up relevant victims to testify in this case because these children are so desperately ill -- they can't testify themselves and the parents are too beaten down or brainwashed or medicated themselves to make the effort and of course a lot of the victims are in the custody of states in foster care programs etc. What a shame!

My main concern with this approval is not that it might lead to DTC advertising -- that's the last thing on my mind. No, I'm concerned that it puts the good housekeeping seal of approval on current clinical practices and accelerates and facilitates the trend towards blaming a kid's brain instead of familial, cultural and societal dysfunction and/or environmental and nutritional toxins etc. etc. No one is really asking why kids are exhibiting these symptoms to a degree never seen before and certainly no one is warning parents that ever trying to stop these drugs once started is a very daunting and formidable task for which there is no proper professional support anywhere. I am currently advising a mother whose daughter has been on Seroquel and Lamictal for about 4 months. If left up to the doctor he would stop her cold turkey from Seroquel once he got down to 50mg. Of course this is simply not going to work and before you know it she would be on even more Seroquel than she was before (150mg). They'd all be under the illusion that her symptoms are her disease coming back and on and on. I asked the mother to ask her doctor if he'd ever successfully gotten a child off antipsychotics once he'd started them. I have yet to get a reply. Can you imagine that I am the only resource this family has? And I am a complete lone voice in the wilderness. It would be a joke if it weren't so deadly serious. And of course there was never any hint that in the long term the drugs might lead to more psychological and physical harm, not less.

Joint Statement [MHA, NAMI, etc.] on Atypical Antipsychotic Use in Children, June 8, 2009.

And P.S. let's remember the important point that the advisory committee was basing its approval on evidence gathered in trials that were short term, probably no more than 8-12 weeks, and of course did NOT include what happened to the kids after that time. Withdrawal and how it affects symptoms that mimic the "diseases" that are supposedly being treated is probably the most serious issue related to these drugs and none of the trials or any trial anywhere addresses that at all.

Face it pharma won

Sara,
Re: "I am a complete lone voice in the wilderness".

Thanks for being at least one. I'm too choked up to say more.

Thanks for a good post. I agree with what you have to say about the drug companies, and the disastrous effects of the meds carelessly applied, especially to kids.

We have one of those unclassifiable but episodically desperately ill kids, 16, variously labelled by a string of shrinks, schools and hospitals as: ADHD, autistic, Asperger's, bipolar, psychotic, oppositional, depressed, etc. Being dutiful parents, we have taken him to psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and he has been prescribed just about every medicatiion under the sun since he was 6. He was hospitalized three times aged 8, psychotic and suicidal, and attends a therapeutic day program that has helped him more than any of the meds.

This post describes some of our efforts to help him and the disastrous effects of the wrong meds, http://dianaretriever.blogspot.com/2009/02/stimulant-use-and-psychosis.html

This one describes the degree to which a good doctor and therapeutic relationship have helped him http://dianaretriever.blogspot.com/2009/06/final-meeting.html

that is a very sad timeline, retriever. i hope the best for your son.

i'm late in the talk about that joint statement those organizations wrote lobbying the FDA, and I am just disgusted too.

kids have NO chance with all of those public organizations pushing the (already conflicted) FDA for these drugs to be approved because they all are highly influential.

UGH!

Thanks, Stephany. I think I could cope with imperfect medicines better if I believed that the doctors and academics were independent of the drug companies.

Obviously, Philip does not understand how the things work. The advisory committee consists mostly of the expert psychiatrists and is independent from the FDA officials. Thomas Laughren does not even chair the meetings, he and other FDA people only present their side. Please also remember that he was in favor of including suicidality warnings on antidepressants in 2004-2006. It is not forbidden for the FDA officials to attend conferences because they have to explain to the industry the details of what and how they intend to regulate.

I recently reviewed a study publish in 2008 on the neurodevelopmental effects of antipsychotics. While the subject was a model organism (a nematode) rather than human, there was clearly abnormal development of neurons. This study indicates that the effects of antipsychotics on children and teens may be permanent and profound. Although I am not familiar with how commonly such drugs are prescribed to young people, it surely seems that caution must be encouraged.