And quite a number of these children are similarly far too young for the 'rod.' Pharmac records suggest thousands of prescriptions a year are being written for children under 10 ... For children and adolescents, it said, the risk of suicidal ideas and behaviour from newer antidepressants called selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) generally outweighed their benefits.
Older "tricyclic" antidepressants were not generally recommended for those under 18 because of the risk of heart problems.Causing most alarm are the figures for babies, even though they dropped sharply during the three years.
For one-year-olds, 768 prescriptions were written in 2004-05, down to 24 by last year. For those under one, there were 453 prescriptions in 2004-05 but only nine last year.
The numbers also declined for every other age group under 10, but each group remained in the hundreds last year.
The reduction in such prescriptions is good .. that they still occurr in the hundreds for most age groups uder ten is a cause of grave concern.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
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1 comment:
Might I also suggest the label 'madness' to accompany 'absurd'?
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