How is the weekend going????

Philip: fyi: today's nyt has the item below.
You might want to write a blog post about it.
If so, my comment would of course belong over
there and not here. I am just sticking this
here for convenience.

This NYT item reminds me of something I read
recently about poorer kids being more likely
to be diagnosed with "conduct disorder", while
richer kids with the same symptoms get
diagnosed with ADHD. The ADHD kids then get
treated with cognition-enhancers (amphetamines,
ritalin), while the poor kids get (according
to this story) crappy anti-psychotics. Yes,
I know you could say that the stimulants are
"crappy" as well; I'm not so sure about that,
at least relative to the anti-psychotics, which
IMO are clearly worse. The bottom line in any
case is that the richer kids get drugs with which
they are more likely to perform well academically,
get better higher ed, etc., (leaving aside the
issue of side effects), while the poor kids
get defined as "defiant", "conduct disordered",
"personality disordered", etc. -- like
criminals -- and are given the zombie drugs.
That is, before they are sent to jail, a few
years later.

How sweet. Not.

Interesting that the two drug classes in question
are in one important neurochemical respect polar
opposites. The anti-psychotics damp/depress
dopaminergic neurotransmission (hence the
"zombie" effects, flattened affect, etc.),
while the stimulants promote dopaminergy,
resulting usually in heightened affect, improved
intellectual acuity, etc. These effects of
stimulants are of course why they are so popular
with college kids or with anyone who wants/needs
a performance boost for intellectually challenging
work.

Here's the NYT item:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/health/12medicaid.html
Poor Children Likelier to Get Antipsychotics

By DUFF WILSON
Published: December 11, 2009

New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.

Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?

The questions go beyond the psychological impact on Medicaid children, serious as that may be. Antipsychotic drugs can also have severe physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes resulting in lifelong physical problems.

On Tuesday, a pediatric advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration met to discuss the health risks for all children who take antipsychotics. The panel will consider recommending new label warnings for the drugs, which are now used by an estimated 300,000 people under age 18 in this country, counting both Medicaid patients and those with private insurance.

snip

And Carlson is quoted in the NYTimes 2 years ago stating she agreed the bipolar dx in kids was over-dx; now she thinks Medicaid kids are having an advantage to "early treatment".

She is also heavily into pharma-funded lifestyle as a doctor and researcher; and on the advisory board with Joseph Biederman at CABF of the 4000% increase in Childhood Bipolar Mafia Harvard fame.

I wonder if Carlson remembers being interviewed about the DEATH OF REBECCA RILEY, dead at age 4 with psych meds in her system (cause of death)?

She seems to be interested in children and psych drugs, and I wonder why? $$$$$$$$$$$$