patrick.net

This is criminally irresponsible, and I'm not sure who is more to blame: the doctors who prescribe this for toddlers who won't sit still and drool or the "can't be bothered" parents who give it to them.

Some have also been prescribing anti-psychotics to children as young as three, and some of those drugs can cause lifelong side effects (including permanent diabetes) by the teenage years. Many schoolteachers have complained that they are required to dose schoolchildren, or administer the children's dosing schedules, even when the teachers believe the drugs are injuring the children. I have posted about this on PatNet several times. I am sadly dismayed by the widespread complacency, but a tsunami of money (including mandatory subsidized insurance) is pushing these pills and few dare to stand athwart its path. If you watch commercial news on TV, then try counting the advertisements to see who is paying those pipers and calling their tune; I count an outright majority from PhRMA, and half of those are for drugs the audience isn't even allowed to buy without an Rx.

Time: "Antipsychotic Prescriptions in Children Have Skyrocketed"

NY Times: "Powerful antipsychotic medicines are being used far too cavalierly in children, and federal drug regulators must do more to warn doctors of their substantial risks, a panel of federal drug experts said Tuesday.

More than 389,000 children and teenagers were treated...with Risperdal, one of five popular medicines known as atypical antipsychotics. Of those patients, 240,000 were 12 or younger, according to data presented to the committee. In many cases, the drug was prescribed to treat attention deficit disorders.

But Risperdal is not approved for attention deficit problems, and its risks — which include substantial weight gain, metabolic disorders and muscular tics that can be permanent — are too profound to justify its use in treating such disorders, panel members said."

The whole situation reminds me of the Milgram Obedience Experiment. We see an industry that is abusing children, but as long as the authority figures on TV approve, all most people can say is "more". I cannot claim that contrary voices are permanently suppressed; they are merely marginalized and buried amid an avalanche of sales patter.

Better Living Through Chemistry. Gotta love it!

I saw a 3 year old crushing up her adderral and snorting it. What a bad ass baby

Country's turning into a looney bin.

A new sporting event for the adventurous bettors. Toddlers in diapers and straight jackets, amped on ritalin, racing for pieces of chocolate dangled on strings. It could be called "Infant Gladiators".

It's so sweet, they haven't learned how to sell their meds on the playground, yet.

Beats dummass frog jumping, dwarf tossing and turtle races they have at bars now.

Instead of stepping in to curb the drug-pushing pediatricians, notice how the American Medical Association - AMA - is allowing pediatricians to create drug addicts younger and younger. This ensure a lifetime of pharmaceutical dependency. More money for big pharmaceutics, M.D.'s, & psychiatrists -- more money for the AMA.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/frozen-tuesday-april-15-2025-c-and

It has been 25 years since the ADHD industry took off like a SpaceX Dragon rocket with an all-male crew. The now-common diagnosis and its even more common drug treatment enjoyed no bigger cheerleader and ardent defender than the New York Times itself. But after twenty-five years of federally subsidized pediatric speed, an eye-watering 23% of boys —nearly 1 in 4— are now taking Ritalin or Adderall for the “condition.”

They’ve cured nothing.

Unsurprisingly, by 2022, 18 million 30+-year-olds were also hooked. Presumably, it’s even more now.

Ritalin and Adderall are pharmaceutical-grade stimulants from the amphetamine family. Researchers have known since the early 2000’s that both drugs have a horrifying side-effect: they stunt kids’ growth. “Children who took Ritalin for an extended period,” the Times reported, perhaps for the first time, “grew less quickly than the nonmedicated children did.” At the end of a 36-month study, patients who had consistently taken stimulant medications were, on average, more than an inch shorter than ones who had never received medication.

In just 36 months.

I will bet a week’s salary that most parents were never told about this Sophie’s Choice of a trade-off when doctors pushed poppers for classroom boredom and mild behavioral issues. But it was right there in the fine print! Nestled between a cartoon and a coupon for more!

That’s not all. Last year, a study in The American Journal of Psychiatry found that even a medium-strength daily dose of Adderall more than tripled a patient’s chance of developing psychosis or mania. A higher dose rocketed the risk to an astonishing 500%.

Prepare to be enraged. The Times blandly reported that, despite decades of study and mountains of prescription amphetamines, the experts still have no theory for how it supposedly works. The only consistent observation seems to be that kids (mostly boys) behavior “improves” once they start warming to the golden glow of chemical stimulus.

Despite the risks and the lack of any discoverable mechanism of effect, WebMD recently advised parents to “problematize” their children’s ADHD to encourage them to take their medicine. “To accept treatment, teens need to feel ADHD as problematic, as a pain in their life that limits and controls them,” the medical website sagely advised. In other words, fear.

Another WebMD article penned by a Harvard researcher advised parents to tolerate horrible side-effects from the treatment. “Parents should know that not all personality changes sparked by medication are negative,” the Harvard professor advised. “If a child known for his sense of humor seems ‘less funny’ on medication, it could be that the medication is properly inhibiting them.”

Or it could be that Harvard is a black hole of failure that should be immediately shut down. Just saying.

Patrick says

But after twenty-five years of federally subsidized pediatric speed, an eye-watering 23% of boys —nearly 1 in 4— are now taking Ritalin or Adderall for the “condition.”

The only thing I'd agree to give a child is something for breathing, as in asthma or allergies that complicate it. NEVER give a kid anything for ADHD. That's just lazy/poor parenting. It's a parents responsabilty to their failure to lead and discipline a kid. 100%. It's not some disease or affliction that needs medicine.

This is just docs getting free boat rides, dinners, travel, etc. for the pharmaceutical sales rep asking them to sell it and pumping out prescriptions on lazy parents. Just numbing a kid they had no business raising. As a current parent, I witness the bull shit daily. Guess what? They still act out because mom and dad are weak, but now toss pills at a problem they let happen.

There used to be web sites where chronically medicated from youth individuals share recipes for drug cocktails, not just speed, but various anti psychotics.

It isn't just youth. A friend in Santa Cruz whose daughter came back from Germany was prescribed as a fifty something adult, and he fears she is addicted. When she's on it, she's a hypomanic whirlwind. She showed me her bottle of pills in German.

The cynicism of Pharmakeia and Rockefeller medicine is that it doesn't matter what happens to them as long as they are on the chronic medications, basically, pushers and customers.

These drugs have already shown to shorten a child's hight by an inch or so, who knows what other long term side effects they cause.

RC2006 says

These drugs have already shown to shorten a child's hight by an inch or so, who knows what other long term side effects they cause.

Haven't heard of that, not saying you're wrong. That's F'd up if true. For a man height is kind of a big deal as long as you're not 6'10" and then your life become miserable due to the height. 6'-6'3" is the sweet spot. Clothes and shoes are all sold in stores that you should fit in.

If you're 6' or less I'm sorry, chicks don't dig that.

WookieMan says

If you're 6' or less I'm sorry, chicks don't dig that.

I'm half an inch short of 6' lol.

Never had a problem getting attention from women though.

Patrick says

Never had a problem getting attention from women though.

We are not talking about Capp St.

Had to look it up. Where the vertically challenged go to score?
HeadSet says

We are not talking about Capp St.