Alternative Health Blog

This is the sort of news that will not surprise most people, but it is likely to knock us off balance. A new report shows that American kids are prescribed with antidepressants and stimulants three times as often as European children (as represented by Germany and the Netherlands). For the class of antipsychotic medications, the ratio is 2-to-1 toward the American kids.

The researchers of this sobering report speculated the significant margin can be attributed  to differences in government regulatory practices,  cultural beliefs and the way children are diagnosed and treatments. For example, the governments of Germany and the Netherlands put cost restrictions on how much can be spent on children’s medications.

Another differential is what the researchers called “the U.S. trend of increasing bipolar [disorder] diagnosis is children and teens not reflected in European practice.” What’s more, there is a larger number of child psychiatrists in the U.S. compared to Germany and the Netherlands. In terms of treatment, American physicians are willing to prescribe two or more different psychotropic drugs in the same year for kids, not at all common in European nations.

No doubt the most controversial issue is the use of Ritalin in children diagnosed with ADD ADHD. The diagnosis itself has been open to criticism, both in terms of doctors labeling a child as needing medications to modify behavior and parents eager to try drugs to “solve” or “cure” emotional problems, even before trying a full run of cognitive therapy. European doctors and parents, along with public health officials, are significantly less willing to turn to drugs for attention-deficit tendencies.

Diagnosing depression in U.S. kids and teens, then practically going straight to medications, runs a close second in the debate whether this country’s kids are overmedicated. There is no researcher or doctor who is about to say that all children prescribed drugs for ADD ADHD or depression have been wrongly prescribed. But there are plenty of informed observers who contend that kids are receiving prescriptions too soon, before behavioral therapy can take its natural course.

It’s up to parents and even children, not just the docs, to make the decision of how early too early. It is clear from anecdotal case studies that children themselves, especially preteens and teens, can identify when they want to stop taking a drug that doesn’t leave them feeling quite right. Prime example: America’s gold-medalist superstar swimmer Michael Phelps, approached his single-parent mom as a middle schooler to convince her that he needed to quit his ADD ADHD meds. She agreed, but only if the two of them partnered to monitor his behavior without the drugs.

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.