A new study highlighted by The New York Times on Monday showed that many children in foster care are being prescribed heavy antipsychosis drugs with startling frequency.
The study found that about 2 percent of those in foster care had taken at least one of these antipsychosis drugs, among which are Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa – drugs created and normally prescribed for cases of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Cases of these disorders and those similar are incredibly rare in children, but even so, many doctors in foster homes administer the drug to children not suffering from any of these symptoms as a general treatment for any psychiatric symptom.
Needless to say, prescribing tranquilizers to children is not an adequate solution or even a quick fix for issues lingering from their past of family issues and other hardships. Turning a child moderately comatose to avoid dealing with their actual problems seems to contradict the entire point of foster care, which is to ultimately set these children up for a better life in the future. Feeding them drugs to placate them now will have an unquestionably negative effect on them in the future, especially considering their age.
Granted, it can sometimes be difficult for foster homes to muster the funds or the resources to get these children the treatment and attention that they need, but prescribing children inappropriate medication is not the solution for this problem.
Additionally, this trend of over-medication is not just unique to foster homes. Doctors everywhere are taking advantage of their patients by feeding them medicine that does nothing to help their condition. Some psychological medicines are warranted for certain disorders and do wonders to help those that need it, but doctors need to start taking extra precautions to make sure that the medication has the desired effect on the patients and that the benefits are outweighing the potential risks.
This story also speaks to the fact that the scientific community still does not know that much about drugs. While we have made strides in recent years in exploring the effects of different medications, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of the implications, especially when it comes to children. Perhaps doctors should do more to actually explore the nuances of their patients’ conditions instead of providing a blanket prescription that could ultimately harm them.
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I’m sorry but its not just kids in foster care. I was never in foster care but was doped up on these meds since I was 10. I wasnt diagnosed until 17 with something that the meds didnt even treat! What those meds did to me was horrible. Years of bad reactions all because I didn’t have any problem that the medications treated!