If your child is 13 in Washington State he or she can be prescribed drugs without your knowledge or permission

Washington State has some very strange ideas on what a minor can and cannot consent to. How many parents are aware of the risk these Laws and current standard practices pose to their children?

Washington State Law on Providing Health Care to Minors
Your child can get an abortion, be prescribed psychiatric drugs that can potentially disable them; that have fatal risks. Your consent is not required; you won't even be notified so you can watch for adverse effects...

via Alliance for Human Research Protection (links disabled)

Antipsychotics pose "Ominous long-term health implications" for children_JAMA

Wednesday, 28 October 2009

Prominent psychotropic drug investigators acknowledge that the rapid onset of cardiometabolic risks" is "alarming." They recommend that consideration be given for lower-risk alternatives. A study published in the current issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association [1], confirms that children and adolescents who are prescribed second generation neuroleptics are put at high risk of severe harm: prominent psychotropic drug investigators acknowledge that the rapid onset of "cardiometabolic risks" is "alarming." They recommend that consideration be given for lower-risk alternatives. This government-sponsored study is the largest ever conducted on first-time users of neuroleptics (a.k.a. antipsychotics). It sought to document the association of second-generation neuroleptics (antipsychotics) with body composition and metabolic parameters in patients not previously exposed to antipsychotic drugs. The four drugs in the study—Zyprexa (olanzapine), Risperdal (risperidone) Seroquel (quetiapine) and Abilify (aripiprazole)—are the most popular antipsychotic medications. They are industry blockbusters, with combined sales of $12.7 billion last year. Two hundred and fifty seven young children and adolescents, aged 4 to 19, in the New York study added 8% to 15% to their weight after taking one of four neuroleptics for only 11 weeks. Will the indisputable evidence of “ominous long-term health implications” from use of antipsychotics prompt the FDA to ban their use in children??? read the entire article at ahrp.org here.

Evelyn Pringle in OpEd news in 2006:
"A recent USA Today sponsored review of the FDA database from 2000 to 2004 found at least 45 deaths in children under 18 with atypical antipsychotics listed as the "primary suspect," and 1,328 reports of other serious side effects, some life-threatening.

The FDA's adverse event reporting system is known to capture only between 1% to 10% of side effects and deaths, which means the true numbers are actually much higher.

Among the 45 deaths, discussed in the May 2, 2006, USA article, at least six were related to diabetes, and other causes ranged from heart and pulmonary problems to choking, liver failure and suicide.

An 8-year-old boy died of cardiac arrest. A 15-year-old boy died of an overdose and a 13-year-old girl experienced diabetic ketoacidosis, a deficiency of insulin. The youngest child was 4, with symptoms that indicated diabetes complications." read here.

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY 
PRACTICE PARAMETER FOR THE ASSESSMENT AND TREATMENT OF 
CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA
This parameter was developed by Jon McClellan, M.D., and John Werry, M.D. and the Work 
Group on Quality Issues: William Bernet, M.D., Chair, Valerie Arnold, M.D., Joseph 
Beitchman, M.D., R. Scott Benson, M.D., Oscar Bukstein, M.D., Joan Kinlan, M.D., Jon 
McClellan, M.D., David Rue, M.D., and Jon A. Shaw, M.D. AACAP Staff: Kristin Kroeger.  
"Tardive Dyskinesia:  Tardive dyskinesia  (TD) is an involuntary movement disorder 
usually consisting of athetoid or choreic movements in the oro-facial region, but may 
affect any part of the body (Ernst et al., 1998). TD is a major public health concern in 
the treatment of schizophrenia, with both clinical and medicolegal implications. TD is 
typically associated with the long-term  use of neuroleptics (Ernst et al., 1998).  
Withdrawal dyskinesia may occur with  either gradual or sudden cessation of 
neuroleptic agents.  As many as 50 percent of youth on neuroleptics may experience 
some form of tardive or withdrawal dyskinesia (Ernst et al., 1998, Kumra et al., 
1998).  Withdrawal dyskinesias almost always resolve over time, whereas tardive 
dyskinesia may persist even if the antipsychotic agent is discontinued. 
Because there is no specific treatment for tardive dyskinesia other than 
discontinuing the medication, strategies for prevention and early detection need to be 
followed (APA, 1997)."  Practice Parameters

via Psychiatric Times May 6, 2011:
CLINICAL & RESEARCH NEWS Brain Volume Shrinkage Parallels Rise in Antipsychotic Drug Dosage  Aaron Levin
A magnetic imaging study of people with schizophrenia indicates that their brain volume decreases with use of antipsychotic medication. But what does that mean?

Magnetic resonance imaging of the brains of patients with schizophrenia suggests that while treatment with an antipsychotic drug may alleviate symptoms, it may also contribute to reductions in brain volume.

“It is possible that, although antipsychotics relieve psychosis and its attendant suffering, these drugs may not arrest the pathophysiological processes underlying schizophrenia and may even aggravate progressive brain tissue volume reductions,” said Beng-Choon Ho, M.D., an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, and colleagues in the February Archives of General Psychiatry.

The reduction in brain volume in schizophrenia occurs not because brain cells die off but rather because dendrites shrink and dendritic spines shrink, causing shrinkage in the synaptic connections in the cortex, explained Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D., another schizophrenia researcher not affiliated with the Iowa study.(emphasis mine)

“That's why in people with schizophrenia, thinking becomes more stereotyped, routinized, and concrete,” said Lieberman, a professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

“They don't have the elaborate richness of synaptic connections to allow for the cognitive and intellectual processes to occur,” he said in an interview with Psychiatric News. read here.

It is definitive: The drugs cause brain damage, among other physiological neurological damaging effects.  How many parents or children thirteen and over are told this fact?  I sure wasn't.  There has been ample evidence in the professional literature of the deleterious effects of these drugs for decades---however, the drug industry denied the iatrogenic illnesses and the deaths caused to clinical trial participants and in the general population in real world use of these drugs; and the FDA claims it has NO duty to inform the public, of these facts.  The deaths and disabilities caused to patients who take the drugs are "Trade Secrets" according to the FDA.