Are Children being Over Medicated?

 Millions of kids are taking prescription medications...and the drug industry loves it!

Since 2001, high blood pressure meds for kids have risen 17 percent, respiratory meds 42 percent, diabetes meds 150 percent and heartburn/GERD meds 147 %. Fifty percent of pediatricians also prescribe kids insomnia drugs according to an article in the journal Pediatrics.

In fact, 25 percent of children and 30 percent of adolescents now take at least one prescription for a chronic condition says Medco, the nation's largest pharmacy benefit manager, making the kid prescription market four times as strong as the adult in 2009.

Consider statins like Lipitor, the world's top selling medication, which was approved for U.S. children in 2008 and recently in a chewable form in Europe. In addition to known risks of liver dysfunction, acute kidney failure, cataracts and muscle damage, they can enable bad eating.
"Plenty of adults down statins regularly and shine off healthy eating because they know a cheeseburger and steak can't fool a statin," writes Dr. Michael Brus of the Huntington Post. "Imagine a 10-year-old who loves his fast food and who knows he can get away with it if he pops his pills."

And then there's GERD in babies.

Even though the approximately 71 times a day that babies spit-up is considered perfectly normal and does not damage the esophagus, the number of GERD prescriptions for babies has recently quadrupled writes pediatrician Darshak Sanghavi. The drugs don't treat baby reflux but they "may increase brain bleeds and gut damage in preterm infants as well as the risk of food allergies in older infants," says Dr. Sanghavi, author of the bestselling book "A Map of the Child" Oops.

Why are so many meds targeted to the child patient?

"Children are known to be compliant patients and that makes them a highly desirable market for drugs," says former Pharma rep Gwen Olsen author of "Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher." "Children are forced by school personnel to take their drugs, they are forced by their parents to take their drugs, and they are forced by their doctors to take their drugs. So, children are the ideal patient-type because they represent refilled prescription compliance and 'longevity.' In other words, they will be lifelong patients and repeat customers for Pharma."

(This information was taken from Martha Rosenberg of the Huntington Press. 3-2-11)

Deborah Mumm, The Allergy Queen
Healthy Environments

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