Speaking of antipsychotics, this is disturbing...

Kids With ADHD Getting Wrong Drugs, Study Finds

Too many kids with ADHD may be getting strong antipsychotic medications meant to treat diseases such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, a new study finds.

And many are getting these drugs without any kind of diagnosis indicating they have a psychiatric disorder, the survey found.

Not only do these kids risk serious side-effects from the drugs, but they may be missing out on more effective treatments for their conditions, the research team writes in the Journal of the American Medical Association publication JAMA Psychiatry.

"What's especially important is the finding that around 1.5 percent of boys aged 10 to 18 are on antipsychotics, and then this rate abruptly falls by half as adolescents become young adults," said Michael Schoenbaum of the National Institute for Mental health, who worked on the study.

Schoenbaum, with colleagues at Columbia University, Yale University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, looked at prescription data from across the United States. They found a troubling pattern of use of antipsychotics.

"What we see is patterns of use, particularly in boys, that suggest that antipsychotics are largely not being used for the disorders the Food and Drug Administration has approved them for," Schoenbaum told NBC News. "Rather, among boys, particularly teenage boys, uses are much more consistent with prescribing to manage behavioral problems."

A very thoughtful essay

What can we do to foster the love of reading in boys? What's wrong with what we've been doing? Author Robert Lipsyte has some ideas...

Boys and Reading: Is There Any Hope?

Thanks to Vanessa Irvin Morris for the link. She is the author of the blog Street Literature, as well as a book, The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Street Literature (2011, ALA Editions).

Not surprising, but sad

Math is for boys? Children absorb stereotypes by second grade

By the time she hits second grade, your daughter has picked up plenty of subliminal messages. Just count the number of pink items she owns or how many of her movie and book choices focus on princesses.

A little less obvious are messages that detail what girls can and cannot do. A worrisome new study shows that second grade girls and boys have already absorbed stereotypes about math and reading -- and the girls have come to believe that math is not for them.

“We still don’t know from where the children are getting this,” says Dario Cvencek, the study’s lead author and researcher at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington. “I don’t think anybody is explicitly telling them that. I think it’s a very subtle message.”

The question is how to adequately counteract those messages. It seems parents can try all they want, and they still get through. I'm not a parent, and I don't deal with children on a regular basis, so I don't even know where to begin. But I wish parents well, because we really do need to counteract this. If the advertising folks and the media would get on board, it would certainly help.

Troubling

Teen Suicides Up Sharply for First Time in Years

The suicide rates for these age groups had been trending downward, falling 28 percent from 1990 to 2003. However, between 2003 and 2004, there was a 75.9 percent increase in the suicide rate among 10- to 14-year-old girls, a 32.3 percent increase among 15- to 19-year-old girls, and a 9 percent increase among 15- to 19-year-old boys

For girls, especially, the rates have skyrocketed. There is much speculation on whether the black box warnings that were put into place in 2004 warning about SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors), a class of antidepressants that were thought to potentially increase suicidal thoughts in teens--which led to a drastic reduction of prescriptions for those drugs--might be related. After all, if fewer people get treatment that in most cases does work, then the rates would be expected to rise. This new information comes as the FDA considers expanding the black box warnings to the mid-twenties age group.

In a December 2006 study, The American Journal of Psychiatry said that a decrease in antidepressant prescriptions to minors of just a few percentage points coincided with a 14 percent increase in suicides in the United States; in the Netherlands, the suicide rate was 50% up, upon prescription drop.

Another disturbing statistic was that girls 10-14 had a 119% increase in the use of hanging/suffocation as a means of committing suicide. Guns remain the most popular form for boys (which is one reason why there are more boys who die of suicide even though more girls try it).

Sad. I have to admit, if my child were severely depressed, I'd opt for the antidepressant. Doubling a small chance of suicide compared to placebo seems scary till you see these rates. On the other hand, statistics fail to capture the true story--every child counts, every death matters. But when looking at the greater good vs a possibility, well, maybe it's best to err on the side of the greater good. More studies will no doubt tackle the question of causation and whether this is an aberration or the beginning of a trend. In the meantime, I find it troubling.