PRLog (Press Release) –
Nov 05, 2007 – The national parent's rights organization, Ablechild, says that despite the U.S. FDA issuing a black box warning on antidepressants causing suicides, the mental health industry continues to downplay the real risks of the drugs widely prescribed to millions. In fact, based on information posted on the FDA's public drug reporting system, Medwatch, an estimated 63,000 suicides have been committed by people under the influence of antidepressants, documented to cause worsening depression and suicidal ideation. With 1.5 million children currently on antidepressants in the United States alone, Ablechild is deeply concerned about the number of children being prescribed the powerful and potentially lethal drugs.
Ablechild has been instrumental in helping to garner the recent FDA reform legislation that now requires all pharmaceutical ads to include information for the public on where to report their own adverse side effects (Medwatch). According to Ablechild, this new legislation is an important step in consumer protection but does not go far enough to warn parents about risks of the drugs before they make the decision to administer them to their children.
For example, most parents are not aware that at least eight recent school shooters, including Eric Harris at Columbine, Colorado and Kip Kinkel in Springfield, Oregon, were under the influence of antidepressants documented to cause not only suicidal ideation but also mania, psychosis, hostility, hallucinations and even “homicidal behavior.” Ablechild, along with other organizations, has requested a Congressional investigation into the link between psychiatric drugs and school shootings, but no such investigation has yet taken place.
Parents are also not warned that the so-called “disorders”
for which psychiatric drugs are prescribed are not backed up by scientific diagnoses. “ADHD,” “depression,” “Oppositional Defiant Disorder,” and other psychiatric labels are given to children without any physical tests that can validate their medical validity. Moreover, real medical issues (i.e. trouble with vision, nutrition, sleep, exercise, etc.) or educational issues are often found behind behavioral and attention problems, which are at best merely masked by powerful antidepressants and stimulants.
Ablechild emphasizes that this lack of information available to parents is a violation of their right to be fully informed about the so-called “treatment” recommended for their children. For more information, please visit our website at www.ablechild.org.
