Risperdal and Children
The dangers of many newer medications are that
the safety of that drug has not yet been established for use in children.
Risperdal was first approved as an antipsychotic drug and has only been
approved to treat symptoms of adult schizophrenia. These days, psychiatric
drug prescriptions for children have become an increasingly controversial
trend. Many people feel that the introduction of newer psychiatric
drugs has further extended the gap for drug treatment in place of counseling.
In particular, prescribing antipsychotic drugs, such
as Risperdal to children, is a source of debate. Risperdal children
have reported severe and often permanent effects from use of the antipsychotic
drug. Risperdal is considered a newer type of antipsychotic drug and
the use of newer and more powerful drugs may be permanently disabling
the country’s youth instead of helping them cope with behavioral problems.
It is important for Risperdal children to acknowledge
that the FDA has warned that the safety has never been established.
Despite this warning, Risperdal appears to be a more favored drug choice
of psychiatrists that continue prescribing Risperdal children. Some
doctors claim that Risperdal children helps keep otherwise troubled
kids safer, but child advocates think otherwise.
The child advocates view the Risperdal children as
part of a national epidemic of legal drug abuse. Risperdal children
are examples of people that are not mentally ill but are given very
powerful medications that have only been tested on adults. Instead
of dealing with the underlying problems of children’s bad behaviors,
doctors may be prescribing Risperdal children instead because it is
cheaper and perhaps a lot easier to place a band-aid on the wound instead
of healing it.
In January 2003, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent
Medicine, a medical journal, reported on the large increase in children
being given psychiatric drugs across the nation. According to the report,
children taking psychiatric drugs in the past decade have at least doubled
to more than 6%. The study’s lead author Julie Magno Zito was disturbed
at the types of drugs that were included in the large increase, including
Risperdal children, drugs created for psychotic adults and not children.
Zito thinks that with drugs like Risperdal children, there is not an
extensive amount of research on how the Risperdal compounds affect the
young drug users.
Perhaps the most affected Risperdal children appear
to be the youth in foster homes. Foster homes that promote Risperdal
children use claim that although the drugs have not been studied on
kids, many times the only medications that can be used for a particular
diagnosis have not yet been studied on kids. This view may be true
in some instances, however many Risperdal children are not schizophrenic
and do not suffer from other severe mental illness. Instead, the Risperdal
children have been given the strong psychotropic medicine for conduct
disorders and to ease symptoms of brain dysfunction like attention deficit
disorder.
Zito believes, “We need a serious research agenda to
reassure use that the medications are being used ‘appropriately’ when
the patient is a child.” Parents that have had Risperdal children that
are now suffering serious side effects agree. If you have had Risperdal
children suffer serious side effects and would like more information
contact us to confer with a Risperdal children attorney.
