Over-medication: a growing crisis

[Guest guest]

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/news/opinion/6908288.htm?template=conten\

tModules/printstory.jsp

 

Posted on Thu, Oct. 02, 2003

 

Over-medication: a growing crisis

Aggressive marketing a major culprit

By Lou Dobbs

TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES

 

 

The federal government spends nearly $1 billion a month to fight the war on

drugs. But while we focus on eradicating illicit drugs, we ignore the worsening

problem of over-medication.

 

From 1998 to 2002, sales of antidepressants increased 73 percent to more than

$12 billion, and sales of analeptics (drugs that stimulate the central nervous

system, such as Ritalin and Adderall) increased 167 percent, according to IMS

Health, a pharmaceutical information and consulting firm. Even more distressing,

physicians wrote more than 1 million prescriptions for Strattera, a nonstimulant

treatment for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, in its first six months

on the market.

 

Something is very wrong here. These dramatic increases in the sales of these

pharmaceuticals not only suggest that Americans are well on their way to

becoming depressed, anxiety-ridden and incapable of the focus necessary to

understand the world in which we live, but also that we are on our way to

becoming a drug-dependent nation.

 

No one would deny that ADHD, depression and anxiety disorders afflict millions

of Americans. But to what degree? Through a combination of pharmaceutical

companies' increased marketing, quick diagnoses from physicians and lack of

proper referrals from doctors, we are simply inundating incredible numbers of

people with unprecedented medication.

 

The issue is all the more sensitive and heartrending when it comes to our

children. According to the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, a

study of 900,000 youths showed that the number of children taking psychiatric

drugs more than doubled in one group and tripled in the two others over a

10-year period ending in 1996.

 

" Any time a child reads a little more slowly, we're talking learning disability

and administering Ritalin, " says Dr. Arthur Caplan, chair of the department of

medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. " Or any

time a kid acts up a bit, instead of giving him detention, we're drugging him.

These are definitely problems in that it's expensive, it may not address the

cause of the problem, and I've never met a drug yet, including aspirin, that

didn't have some side effects. "

 

In other words, some pharmaceuticals create greater problems than they treat. In

June, British drug officials, later backed by the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration, warned physicians and consumers that GlaxoSmithKline's

antidepressant Paxil carries a substantial risk of prompting teenagers and

children to consider suicide. Two months later, Wyeth warned doctors of the same

risks in its Effexor. U.S. sales of both drugs totaled nearly $4 billion last

year.

 

The driving force behind the surge is aggressive direct-to-consumer advertising,

Caplan says. Following the relaxation of a 30-year drug marketing agreement in

1997, pharmaceutical companies have tripled their annual advertising to

consumers, resulting in a 37-percent increase in sales of prescription

stimulants for children. Also, roughly one-third of adults have asked their

doctor about a drug they saw advertised, according to the Kaiser Family

Foundation.

 

And those doctors are quick to dole out prescriptions. According to the American

Psychiatric Association, primary-care physicians now write upwards of 60 percent

of all antidepressant prescriptions.

 

" I think (doctors are) just overwhelmed now with too much marketing, " Caplan

says, " and it drives them toward too much prescribing, "

 

In fact, American consumers, mostly children, account for more than 90 percent

of global consumption of such stimulants.

 

" If we have four or five times the learning disability or depression or other

neurotic illnesses that the Europeans do, " Caplan says, " then either we got a

really bad gene pool through immigration, or we're over-medicating. "

 

A crisis looms. The pharmaceutical companies, the FDA and Congress must confront

this issue now, and the physicians' credo is an appropriate starting point:

First, do no harm. That concept simply must take precedence over profit motives

and casual prescriptions.

 

 

Lou Dobbs is the anchor and managing editor of CNN's " Lou Dobbs Tonight. "

E-mail: lou.

 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2003 Tallahassee Democrat and wire service sources. .

http://www.tallahassee.com

 

 

NEW WEB MESSAGE BOARDS - JOIN HERE.

Alternative Medicine Message Boards.Info

http://alternative-medicine-message-boards.info

 

 

 

The New with improved product search