NEWS: Paxil Might Not Be Good For Kids

POLITICS: Paxil Might Not Be Good For Kids

...Or anyone for that matter. It seems GlaxoSmithKline suppressed data which showed that one of its biggest sellers, "Paxil," is dangerous. These studies showed that there are increases in suicidal tendencies amongst young people who take Paxil. New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer and many others will be going after one of our biggest drug dealers. There will be several lawsuits, one of which is a class-action.

It has always seemed odd to me that marijuana is illegal but pharmaceutical companies can push drugs with MUCH worse side effects. It's even worse that many parents want to medicate their children, instead of actually parenting. When did puberty become ADD?

Most anti depressants are not advised for use with children.

It's well known that the risk of suicide and self-harm increases when someone starts taking an anti-depressant. Most of the doctor's notes for these meds say that the patient should be watched for signs of self harm or suicidal ideation.

Here's an important bit:

What the fuck are those doctors doing?

Also, the world would be a better place if the US taxed caffiene

Plus: There are complicated links between cannabis and psychosis. You need to be careful about pushing cannabis as safe in articles about mental health.


Schizophrenia and cannabis

I remember being hospitalized once as a kid where there was a guy who would go completely nuts. I never saw so many security personnel and nurses going back and forth with restraints and shots of sedative. On one of the few times he was lucid and calm I asked him what was up with him. His reply was, "My Prozac is fucking with my weed."

I personally was put on several of the medications that are now deemed "unsafe for children", and they definitely had me screwed up. I'll be watching for that class action suit.

This topic sickens me. . . .

These parents who allow their kids to be medicated should be tossed into the ocean. They destroy the minds and bodies of their children by letting them eat sugar (pure evil), watch television, consume fast food by the bucket. . . and then medicate them after the ill-effects start to crop up.

Parents who allow their children to be medicated should be forced to first take the drugs themselves.

An IQ test should be administered before anyone is allowed to breed.

Any child seen in public with a waistline larger than a hula hoop should be removed from his or her home, and the parents should be tossed into an ocean, any ocean . . . far from shore.

Nary a soul under the age of 18 should be allowed into a McDonalds. Or a Burger King. Or a Starbucks. Or a Wal-Mart. Parents who allow for the violation of this law should be tossed into an ocean, any ocean. . .with fifty gallons of chum.

Definitely great points about the reality of medicating those with psychological disorders but I would apply cannabis to more than just psychological issues. Especially because much of our medicine has terrible side effects as well. In the US we have a constant barrage of pharmaceutical advertising aimed at many things. It's gotten to he point of a national drug addiction...but these drugs are ok, as long as Glaxo or Pfizer are stamped on it. For example there's a drug for Social Anxiety Disorder that causes nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating, and possibly death...I think I left out a few side effects, tell me, if you have problems in a social setting how will any of those symptoms help you? "I feel great but I shit myself"...

Anyway there is a huge trend in the US of giving questionable medicine to children for questionable symptoms. I don't suggest marijuana as a way to treat children...but the same goes for most other legal medications. I do think that adults should be able to freely buy marijuana for medical AND recreational purposes. Shit, lets tax it and help this economy...tobacco is just as bad if not worse and it's a huge US cash crop.

This is interesting to me because I grew up on the borderline of two differant ways of parenting. My parents refused to get cable and only allowed my sister and I to watch cartoons on saturday morning and movies under thier supervision. Not that they were the greatest but they wern't like the parents that are rampant today. My sister had a learning disability, and was very hyper... as most kids can be. They didn't throw pills down her throat, they got her special reading classes (with teachers who could understand her speed) and sent us out to play. Neither of us ever had weight problems, or anything like that. I am now in counseling and going to start meds this week.... but on my own accord, from things I can not handle. I would have regretted doing this growing up... many children change rapidly, and allowing a medicine for the brain just isn't safe. My sis and I are every thing but perfect, but I will always be glad that they chose to let us ride things out... not choosing psychosis (correct phrase?) to limit our childhood.

I believe our mental health system over medicates people. Some people do benefit greatly from the use of medication. I suspect you might be one of them.

Amazing the bullshit people go through because they are too dumb to hug their own children when they are... Children...

Yeah, it is that simple. America's "give me a pill to fix this" obsessed culture is nauseating.

I mean, how many of us personally have said they felt ill and IMMEDIATELY someone recommens a stupid pill or drug as the solution. Fucking hell. People have no clue.

heh heh

There are a lot of things wrong with our children's mental health system. Patient's Rights is said tongue-in-cheek. They don't warn you of side effects. You typically don't hear about Tardive Dyskinesia until it's permanent; that happened to a friend. Looking back on a lot of trauma, the largest thought in my mind is that for more than half my life and most of my developing years, my mind and body weren't my own. From about age 8-19, my biology was meddled with. Kids are able to grow out of a lot of things, but who knows what happens when you drug them. Too many people played god, and that sucks.

I heard a scary number about the amount of money companies spent advertising drugs in the UK. I'll Google it and post it if I find it.

I agree that society is over medicallised. BUT: Social anxiety can be fucking nasty and meds do help many people start to live a normal life. Combine meds with good quality therapy and many people can have remarkable changes.

That's something I don't understand about the US; a gajillion dollars gets spent on health care but there are people dying because they can't afford stuff, and there are very many people who could become productive members of society but don't because they can't afford a bit of therapy.

Yes, I agree. I'd pretty much decriminalise/legalise most drugs. But I like people to have some information too.

Regards, demetrius_z.

Cutting to close to home, eh Jonesy? Surprising, it is, to see such a self-professed "revolutionary" getting miffed at my fun. Every good revolutionary knows that every good revolution starts with tossing every bad parent into an ocean, every ocean.

I'm one of the few people who has had a tremendously positive experience with Paxil. Why? Because I was well beyond puberty when I started taking it, I had a fantastic doctor who listened to me, observed my symptoms, asked me about my family history and had several therapy sessions with me BEFORE reccomending Paxil. It's all about the doctor. No one should be put on any anti-depressent before 18 without a major effort to diagnose and treat alternatively. Same goes for over 18 really. Every single doctor out there should look at drugs as a last resort, and only for people who clearly suffer from some sort of physical symptom that is actually treatable by a drug. 9 times out of 10 they're prescribing this stuff to people who just needed more hugs or attention or less crazy family bullshit in their lives and not people with actual brain chemistry issues. IMO it really comes down to the doctors and not the drug companies. They can certainly be guilty of acting in their own best interests just like any other corporate entity, but anyone going on a med *should* have been told by their doctor about the potential side effects and the risks involved. That's the doctor's responsibility, not the drug company's.

"If you can't heal your bones yourself, what makes you think a plaster cast will help you?"

"If you can't cure an ear-infection yourself, what makes you think an anti-biotic will help you?"

I agree, some people are given meds and they don't need it. Especially young people. But mny people would benefit from taking meds and they've been scared off them.

Never been on Paxil but Prozac changed my life for the better. Of course I was 31 when I was put on it. There is no way I can condone giving this kind of medication to a child who is still growing though. You've got to give nature a chance before you start tinkering.

One of the problems is that doctors who aren't psychiatrists and don't really understand everything about how the drugs work and when they're needed are prescribing them. It's absurd - you wouldn't go to your psychiatrist if your arm is broken, what makes a GP think they should be consulted for a potential psychiatric disorder?

I think the reason is kind of complex. It's not that GPs automatically think they know everything and are qualified to diagnose all illnesses. A lot of the problem stems from the fact that pharmaceutical companies are now allowed to directly target consumers in advertising. They can now convince people that they have a psychiatric disorder when they might not - those people then go to their doctors and demand Paxil, Zoloft or whatever the med-du-jour happens to be. The GP is afraid to lose their patient, so they prescribe ritalin or an anti-depressant or some other psychiatric med just to shut them up. These are serious medications, not to be taken lightly as their side effects can be equally severe, as we're starting to learn.

Hell I dont think Paxil is good for adults....all those I have known to be on it at one time got even crazier....Hmmmm....Bad shit..

I TOTALLY agree. I am convinced that my ex going off Paxil when he was in Nepal pushed him over the edge from which he never returned. I assume he went back on it after he got back, but the decisions he made while he was ON Paxil weren't much better then when he went OFF. I klnow you're supposed to weane yourself off that crap, and he just stopped taking it, so I imagine that was part of the problem. But he was seriously f'ed up for awhile.

I've been fighting depression my entire life, and not once have I been medicated. Maybe I should have been, but I didn't want to spend the rest of my life on pills. Some of that stuff just scares me. I'd rather be depressed and *feel* something than to be a zombie like some of my friends were on anti-depressants.

There is a major problem with safety for all drugs for children.

It is well known that drugs can affect children in different ways to adults. However, drug tests on humans are done on adults for legal and ethical reasons. This means that the dosage response of drugs and side effects on children are unkown.

The dosage problem is controlled by giving a smaller dose based on the body mass of the child. This method does not necessarily predict the correct dosage and it may mean that the drug is given at too low a does to be effective.

Since it is just not acceptable to test drugs on babies and children, drugs will either be issued untested or denied on principle, even when they may save lives. It is a hard choice for the doctors, especially as the decision can only be subjective and yet people expect doctors to be perfect.

[Edited on Sep 06, 2004 3:52PM]

I was on Paxil CR and it was hell. It worked for a little while, then I started to go downhill. It caused me to total my car. (Two weeks later, the company issued a "use extreme caution when operating heavy machinery" type notice.) I felt like I was high most of the time, got general spacial distortions, began hallucinating, etc. Withdrawls made it almost impossible to quit. I even took a gun to my head at one point. I have never felt (and probably will never again feel) such internal agony.

This shit is awful. No one, adult or child, should ever take it. -For my entire, detailed story, reply on my profile & I'll send it to you.

Nobody is addressing the key issue: Why is everyone depressed? Why do people need these drugs? We treat the symptoms, and sometimes it helps, but getting at the heart of the matter doesn't seem to interest too many people.

Exactly. I don't think everyone should enter therapy, but perhaps if more people slowed down and and were less stressed, the need to miedcate everyone woul wane.

The demand for these drugs is spurred by the same demand that creates breakfast bars that people substitute for real meals. People are overstressed and overworked and can't slow down for whatever reason.

You're the who went on the moralistic tirade about "evil" sugar and executing "bad parents" and I'm the one who is "miffed"? I will admit to having a low tolerance for leftists like you who have fundamental contempt for the vast majority of people.

i was on god knows what in over a gram worth
for at least 5-10 year span of my life.
one i cant sue because i show no OBVIOUS harm yet
and if it shows up later in life i cant get my share hmph.
now i find this shit out.
ugh
can we say... oh well.
im with earth freak and that other dude talking about curing the PROBLEM rather than its SYMPTOMS
its not neurochemistry
400million + people
have frucked up brains...
when did insanity become so commonplace yet "metnal illness"
gotta love the term especially in a HARD science... where immaterial things like the MIND arent supposed to be judged ie EXIST.
anyways off that rant...
these things cause more harm than they could possibly prevent
gee thanks mom
thanks quackdocs
you were actually trying to keep me from killing myself by fucking up my body worse in some cases depressing me worse or totally zonking me out
and now actualy increasing the risk of suicide.
fuck no wonder all i did was crave a bottle or a razorblade in high school.