Monopoly--Allopathic Archives

ADD/ADHD drugs -side effects/hospitalizations/DEATHS

Follow Ups:

• This Should Be Criminal Helene [6.2445] 22:38:33 6/21/06 (0)
• ADD/ADHD drugs -side effects/hospitalizations/DEATHS Archive Walt Stoll [93.1889] 07:00:46 6/21/06 (0)
• PART 2-ADD/ADHD drugs -side effects/hospitalizations/DEATHS ANN [1003.516] 11:26:23 6/20/06 (0)

In Reply to: ADD/ADHD drugs -side effects/hospitalizations/DEATHS posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 20, 2006 at 11:21:16:

The FDA's ADHDilemma

In the last Daily Dose, I relayed to you the sobering picture of the side effects of treating the made-by-medicine "disease" of ADHD, as painted by the first-ever national analysis of these treatments by the CDC.

In a nutshell, they found that ADHD drugs spurred over 3,000 ER visits per year, over 600 hospital admissions, over 600 stomach-pumpings, over 400 heart-related hospitalizations -- plus a whole raft of other symptoms ranging from stroke and cardiac problems to rashes, abdominal pain, and muscle weakness...

Which all begs the question: What's the FDA going to do about it?

The short answer: Not enough.

According to the Associated Press article part 1 of this essay was based on, despite the urging of some doctors to require a stringent "black box" warning on ADHD drugs (like Ritalin and Aderall), the FDA is hedging toward other "solutions" to the problem...

This, despite the fact that its own Safety Advisory Panel voted 8-7 in favor of this most-stringent warning when it convened this past February to hash out the matter. Remember, this was BEFORE the CDC report came out. But judging from things I've read recently, the publication of this report seems unlikely to change the agency's stance on what safety procedures are warranted for these drugs.

Currently, the approach they're talking about most (details on this below) would be to add a more complete mention of the drug's risks to the top of the printed insert that comes with the drug -- you know, that little folded-up piece of paper with all the legalese and medical jargon on it. The one with the print so fine it makes a prenuptial agreement seem like a billboard.

In other words, the one NOBODY READS.

This approach would be a clean win for Big Pharma -- and a major blow to the youth of our nation, the main targets of the drug-marketing campaign that nowadays passes for medicine. It seems the FDA has conveniently forgotten about how Canada's equivalent to the FDA yanked Aderall from the market for 6 months last year following a rash of 20 sudden fatalities and a dozen or more strokes among both kids and adults on the drug. Keep reading...

In late March of this year, before the CDC issued its frightening report on the effects of ADHD drugs, a second FDA concluded that the prior panel's recommendation to include the "black box" warning was an excessive measure relative to the drugs' risks.

Now there's a shocker.

I just got finished proving to you a few days ago ("Buying the Pharma") that these panels are greatly influenced by a river of pharmaceutical industry lucre. Beyond this, it appears as though the FDA simply convenes advisory panel after advisory panel until it gets the recommendation it wants from the "experts" it assembles (read: Big Pharma ringers).

According to an AP story from March 23 -- the day after this latest panel rendered its limp-wristed recommendations -- the FDA's Director of Medical Policy went on record saying the organization would likely follow them. Of course it will, now that it and its drug-maker cronies got the answer they want...

But it'll be VERY interesting to see if the FDA changes its tune in the aftermath of this CDC report. So far, even the most outspoken mouthpieces have been mum. If doesn't get its act together and force the black-box warning on ADHD drugs, it'll be just one more example of how the FDA is nothing more than the handmaiden of Big Pharma.

I'll keep you posted.

Watch-dogging the ringers and dishing out the zingers,

William Campbell Douglass II, M.D.

Copyright (c)1997-2006 by www.realhealthnews.com, L.L.C. The Daily Dose

In Reply to: ADD/ADHD drugs -side effects/hospitalizations/DEATHS posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 20, 2006 at 11:21:16:

Thanks, Ann.

Just an example of the ultimate absurdity of the allopathic monopoly trying to "force the health system through the eye of the allpathic needle"!

Walt

In Reply to: ADD/ADHD drugs -side effects/hospitalizations/DEATHS posted by ANN [1003.516] on June 20, 2006 at 11:21:16:

Hi Ann & Dr. Stoll

I read this Long Island Newsday article just a few days ago. Dosing children with "speed" should be criminal. One section of this article really got to me--the statement that the medicine was controlling his behavior so that the fun loving part of this young man was surpressed. Do we control human beings like automatons? What about placing an emphasis on creativity and thinking outside the box rather than just test scores. Alfred Einstein and Thomas Edison would have been dosed with Ritalin in today's education environment. Mrs. Edison knew even then, that young Thomas would fare much better homeschooled.

Helene

A pill vacation for kids?
Experts and parents debate value of letting hyperactive children chuck medicine along with their schoolbooks
BY SOPHIA CHANG
Newsday Staff Writer

June 20, 2006
Joseph Sweeney goofs off more during the summer, and not just because he's out of school. The 12-year-old from Woodside, Queens, also takes a "medication vacation" from his pills for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

"When I'm hanging out with my friends in the summer, I don't take my medicine because then I'm more of an outgoing, funny person," he said. "I like it when I don't take medicine."

His mother, Karin Sweeney, has taken her son off of his Dexedrine every summer for the past four years because she wants him to have a carefree vacation.

The medication "controls his personality so that he would be more serious in school, but there wouldn't be the fun-loving part of him. We wanted the other side of him to develop, too," Karin Sweeney said.

The question of when to take kids off these drugs is one that many parents of the estimated 2.5 million children on ADHD medication face, according to a 2003 report by the federal Centers for Disease Control. Most families choose to stick with the same medicine schedule year-round because they want their kids to be able to learn and focus even when not in class, doctors say.

But some parents see summer as a time to assess how their children fare without medication.

"The only way to really find that out is to have an opportunity to really take them off the medicine and evaluate their functioning," said Dr. Howard Abikoff, director of New York University's Institute for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity and Behavior Disorders. "The summer can be a good time to do that."

Many parents first gave their kids summer breaks because they thought that ADHD medications, such as Ritalin and Concerta, were primarily to help students focus at school, said Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at Stony Brook University.

"Parents had felt guilty about keeping kids on medication that was only seen as a school aid. So if a child wasn't in school, there was no point in giving him or her medication," she said. "But there's been an increasing emphasis on the fact that ADHD is a chronic disorder that doesn't go away in the summer or on weekends."

Doctors caution that children who are more hyperactive when they are off their medicine might not benefit from taking a break.

"Children who tend to be impulsive and intrusive - some of those behaviors will re-emerge if they are not on the medication," Abikoff said.

It's easiest for children on the most common ADHD medicines, stimulants like Ritalin, to try a vacation, doctors say. Those medicines don't linger in children, and doctors liken the effect of taking a break from them to taking off a pair of glasses.

And though there is still debate over the possibility of growth suppression in a small percentage of ADHD children due to drug-related loss of appetite, Abikoff said a summer break "can provide a potential for growth rebound or acceleration in growth trajectory."

But some parents fear more harm than help comes from taking a break. Jeanne Neville of Great River, a mother of two ADHD-diagnosed children, feels that her teenagers benefit socially from staying on their medication.

"There are social skills, everyday things that continue after the school bell rings," she said. "If you have a deficit that's interfering with you learning in all those areas, then you are missing out."

Doctors say any family considering a medication vacation should consult the child's pediatrician and coordinators of programs outside the home.

Eileen Turner, health director at Hofstra University's summer camps in Hempstead, estimates that each summer there are at least a hundred children enrolled whose medical forms indicate that they have been diagnosed with ADHD.

Turner trains camp counselors to be on the lookout for kids off their medication. "I tell the counselors to look for irritability, difficulty listening, she said. "Some of the kids cry and get emotional."