Study: American Kids take Anti-Psychotic Medicines at Six Times the Rate of U.K. Children

Associated Press May 5, 2008

CHICAGO — American children take anti-psychotic medicines at about six times the rate of children in the United Kingdom, according to a comparison based on a new U.K. study.

Does it mean U.S. kids are being over-treated? Or that U.K. children are being under-treated?

Experts say that's almost beside the point, because use is rising on both sides of the Atlantic. And with scant long-term safety data, it's likely the drugs are being over-prescribed for both U.S. and U.K. children, research suggests.

Dr. Hawk’s comments appear in RED and are not part of the original article.

Scant! How about virtually NO DATA! There is no evidence to suggest that these drugs are safe for children.

Among the most commonly used drugs were those to treat autism and hyperactivity.

In the U.K. study, anti-psychotics were prescribed for 595 children at a rate of less than four per 10,000 children in 1992. By 2005, 2,917 children were prescribed the drugs at a rate of seven per 10,000 — a near-doubling, said lead author Fariz Rani, a researcher at the University of London's pharmacy school.

The study is being released Monday in the May edition of the journal Pediatrics.

By contrast, an earlier U.S. study found that nearly 45 American children out of 10,000 used the drugs in 2001 versus more than 23 per 10,000 in 1996.

Based on sales, a more accurate way to track what is purchased, the incident is much higher. One study found the rate to be nearly 150 children per 10,000. If you ask a teacher, you will find the rate even higher. It is now uncommon to have less than 3 children out 20 on Anti-Psychotic meds!!!

There are big differences that could help explain the vastly higher U.S. rate.

A recent report in The Lancet suggested that the U.K.'s universal health care system limits prescribing practices there. The report also said direct-to-consumer ads are more common in the United States. These ads raise consumer awareness and demand for medication.

While drug company ties with doctors are common in both the U.S. and U.K., Vanderbilt University researcher Wayne Ray said U.K. physicians generally are more conservative about prescribing psychiatric drugs. Ray co-authored the U.S. study, published in 2004.

The new U.K. study, involving 1992-2005 health records of more than 16,000 children, is the first large examination of these drugs in U.K. children. It found the increase was mostly in medicines that haven't been officially approved for kids. They were most commonly prescribed for behavior and conduct disorders, which include attention deficit disorder.

Side effects including weight gain, nervous-system problems and heart trouble have been reported in children using these drugs and there's little long-term evidence about whether they're safe for them, the study authors said.

"This highlights the need for long-term safety investigations and ongoing clinical monitoring," they said, "particularly if the prescribing rate of these medicines continues to rise."

And the number will continue to rise until we address the lifestyle behind the cause.

One of the most commonly used anti-psychotics in the U.K. study was Risperdal, a schizophrenia drug that is sometimes used to treat irritability and aggression in autism. Its side effects include drowsiness and weight gain.

Thioridazine, sometimes used to treat hyperactivity in attention deficit disorder, was frequently used early on. Its use decreased after 2000 when a U.K. safety committee warned of heart-related side effects, the authors said.

Reasons for the increases are uncertain but may be similar to those in the United States, such as an increase in autism cases and drug industry influence.

“…Drug industry influence.” Folks… that is what I call deplorable. The doctor is suppose to make the decision if a psycho-tropic medication is right for your or not, not the company making the potion. The drug companies now advertise regulated substances directly to the consumer. Tragic.

In both countries, the issue isn't simply how many children are getting these drugs, said Dr. David Fassler, a University of Vermont psychiatry professor. "The more important question is whether or not the right kids are getting the most appropriate and effective treatment possible," he said. Fassler wasn't involved in the study.

Dr. William Cooper, a Vanderbilt pediatrician, said the study shows the drugs are being used "without full understanding about the risks."

Correct. The doctor has the drug rep show up on a Thursday for lunch and the doc is writing prescription for the medication in the afternoon!

"I find it really interesting that we're now seeing increases in other countries besides the U.S., which suggests that the magnitude of this issue is global," said Cooper, also an author of the 2004 U.S. study.

So much for a drug free society

Down goes Vytorin!

Da da dum dum dump. “Another one bites the dust…”

The rock band Queen may have been predicting the future of prescription drugs. As Big Phama tries to create the latest and greatest magic bullet, one thing stands true. They keep falling on their faces. The latest to fall is Vytorin or one of its components, Zetia.

The AP headline reads “Doctors wary after cholesterol drug flop.” I would be wary too. Zetia and Vytorin have sold over $5,000,000,000 worth of product with no benefit. Five billion dollars spent on nothing. At least the government gets a box of over-priced toilet lids or hammers for five billion! We can use that stuff and a properly functioning hammer can be used for thousands of nails.

With the Congressional hearings on Big Pharma and their “delay” in releasing the findings in a responsible time frame, they waited over two years, something will eventually have to happen.

It’s not a bad idea to know if a drug works before released or what the real side-effects are. My hope is that the government uses one of its high dollar hammers to put a nail in the coffin of unnecessary and absurd drug fast-tracking through the FDA and bring this nonsense to an end.

To learn the truth about “good” and “bad” cholesterol please watch this great informative video. Please click the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awA2fsa94MI

NEWSFLASH!

This Friday we need your blood!!! Virginia Blood Services need AT LEAST 50 units of blood that day. I have been able to get some great gifts for all who donate. Please give and bring friends and family along who are at least 17 years old and over 110 pounds. I am expecting you to step up big and help our community. All the blood collected stays here in our community. Let’s make it happen together.

Give Blood – get an adjustment on me or a certificate for a new patient.

• Bella Boutique - free shampoo and conditioner to first 24 people
• Arch’s Frozen Yogurt - gift certificates for the yummy stuff
• Chick-fil-A - Free chicken sandwich
• Salad Creations - free salads for a select few
• Eppie’s - lunch at Eppie’s, what could be better?
• And so much more!

Symptoms

What are symptoms? What is health? Simple and scientific answers.

Let’s see what the dictionary has to say about symptoms:

A sign or an indication of disorder or disease, especially when experienced by an individual as a change from normal function, sensation, or appearance.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006

Scientific: Symptoms are the body’s means of communicating or expressing an alteration of normal function to a state of compensation or adaptation to stressors. It is important to note that symptoms are not the causal agent for manifesting the adaptive physiology expressed by the individual. Rather, the symptoms are the innate expression of the body’s intelligence as it adapts to endogenous or exogenous stimuli.

Simple: Symptoms are the body’s normal response. They are simply telling you that you are doing something wrong. Symptoms are not a mistake. The body is working perfectly when you have symptoms.

Scientific: Symptoms are a necessary and required response for the full expression of health in a person experiencing dis-ease. Dis-ease is the natural response to the internal environment of the body adapting to an external stress; bacteria, virus, sedentary lifestyle, poor quality food, etc.

Simple: Symptoms are the response of the body to physical, chemical, and emotional stress.

Scientific: All nociceptors are free nerve endings that have their cell bodies outside the spinal column in the dorsal root gangliaand are named based upon their appearance at their sensory ends. Nociceptors can detect mechanical, thermal, and chemical stimuli, and are found in the skin and on internal surfaces such as the periosteum or joint surfaces. Deep internal surfaces are only weakly supplied with pain receptors and will propagate sensations of chronic, aching pain if tissue damage in these areas occurs.

Nociceptors do not adapt to stimuli. In some conditions, excitation of pain fibers becomes greater as the pain stimulus continues, leading to a condition called hyperalgesia.

Simple: Nociceptors are cells that detect negative stress. If you numb your nociceptors with drugs, herbs, potions, or lotions, while continuing with the stresses causing nociceptive activity, the body will react more strongly to these stimuli. Hyperalgesia means that normal pain stimuli are causing a greater than normal pain response.

What all this means is that symptoms are good. They are one of the ways that the body communicates to your aware conscious mind. Symptoms spur us on to take action.

However, waiting for symptoms before taking action is living a mechanistic lifestyle. The “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” mentality that sets the stage for degenerative or chronic problems that rear their heads up later in life just isn’t working. Living a life where one embraces change and improvement on a daily basis empowers the individual to express health and vitality. Just “getting by” day-to-day is irresponsible and has a lasting impact on the person and their family.

Chiropractic adjustments address the presence of subluxations in the nervous system. Nothing else does. Everyone should be checked on a regular basis to ensure they are not subluxated. Get checked today and live a life free of subluxations.

Don't drink the water. There are...drugs in the water?

Drugs in our water! The following is from AP news dated March 10, 2008.


A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:
_Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.
_Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.
_Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.
_A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water.
_The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.
_Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz.

How much more blatant can it be?

What is going on! The two big headlines today are that antidepressant drugs are not effective for most people:

The researchers found that compared with placebo, these new-generation antidepressant medications did not yield clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially had moderate or even very severe depression. The study found that significant benefits occurred only in the most severely depressed patients.

And that Pfizer’s drug ads for Lipitor lead to “to misimpressions.” Will this have any effect on the drug companies? I doubt it. If a 4 billion dollar settlement against Vioxx, where the drug company was never found guilty of anything, did not ruffle the feathers or hurt the bottom-line, what will?

I can just hear the mantra, “Pill for every ill. Pill for every ill. Pill for every ill,” being chanted over and over again by people who do not wish to confront their own lifestyle issues and take control of their life.

The headlines are everywhere. Two weeks ago, the above-the-fold full color headline on USA Today was screaming of the dangers of medications.

We all know that drugs have side effects. Most of us are willing to live with them. The pain of changing our life is not worth the cost of possibly loosing it to a drug reaction.

That is tragic.

Chicken Pox

My daughter, Allie, woke up this morning with those irritating pustules prodtuding from her skin. Chicken Pox. The summer between my third and fourth grade years, (almost the same same as Allie) I got chicken pox. One of my friends mother's called and told my mom that her son had chicken pox. The call was not of warning. "Oh no! Stay 5 miles away from my house. Were are infected!!!!!" Rather, it was the rally call for all moms to bring their kids over for a day of playing so that we all could get chicken pox. Practical wisdom. Get it now rather than later, infect your siblings and neighborhood and everyone will be immune. Two weeks of being rather uncomfortable (we had no A/C) and I was back to my old self.

This new chicken pox vaccine seems so odd to me. The complications from chicken pox are very rarely severe and you have to get the shot every two years because it does not create lifelong immunity. I prefer my body's immunity and wherewithall to something from a vial. If this makes sence, come on over and infect your kids. My son should have it in 5-10 days and be especially capable of spreading this NORMAL Childhood disease to your kids.