Poor Children Likelier to Get Antipsychotics

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Poor Children Likelier to Get Antipsychotics

By DUFF WILSON

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/health/12medicaid.html

New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children

covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate

four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance.

And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less

severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.

Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain

to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor

families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually

need them --- but because it is deemed the most efficient and

cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much

differently for middle-class children?

The questions go beyond the psychological impact on Medicaid children,

serious as that may be. Antipsychotic drugs can also have severe

physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes

resulting in lifelong physical problems.

On Tuesday, a pediatric advisory committee to the Food and Drug

Administration met to discuss the health risks for all children who take

antipsychotics...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/health/12medicaid.html

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