View Full Version : Prozac for children
European drug watchdog backs Prozac for children
LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's medicine watchdog said on Tuesday that Prozac could be used to treat children aged eight years and over.
Despite controversy over giving antidepressants to adolescents, the European Medicines Agency said the benefits outweighed the risks in children with moderate to severe depression who failed to respond to psychological therapy.
Prozac, or fluoxetine, was originally developed by Eli Lilly and Co but is now widely available in generic versions since Lilly's patent has expired.
© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-06-06T104603Z_01_L06286095_RTRUKOC_0_US-EUROPE-PROZAC.xml
How bloody stupid can this be, that’s it get the kids hooked on legal drugs before they give illegal drugs a spin.:mad:
Skybird
06-06-06, 05:36 PM
Illustrates how industrial interests tend to form the dogma on which communal and political acting and thinking is basing on. And Prozac is a product that really has two faces. Don't want to demonize psychic drugs in general, sometimes they can be a relief or the precondtion before non-chemical therpautical measures even could be started and realized by the patient. but Prozac to children - :nope: A step towards designer-children.
bradclark1
06-06-06, 07:02 PM
From what I remember in the news Prozac + Children are a bad combination. High suicide rates if I remember correct. I wonder how many death's they figure on are worth the risks?
kiwi_2005
06-06-06, 07:18 PM
Prozac for kids! :o Hmm i was on prozac for 5wks one time there and i must say i spent alot of time staring at the monitor, eating alot and staying up all hours of the night. But i got no bad drawbacks or bad thoughts from it, in fact the prozac worked all i needed was a chemical kick in the brain ( more like wake my brain up lol). Prozac does work, in fact i call it the "silent running" drug, because you dont notice a thing, yet its in your system working for you. I have heard alot of horror stories about prozac but luckierly i never experienced them. There is no dependency, i never went into a cold turkey when i went off them.
In fact coffee is a worse drug than prozac. I go nuts when i haven't had my daily coffee intake :D
Prozac for adults yes, for children no.
Skybird
06-06-06, 07:57 PM
Prozac for kids! :o Hmm i was on prozac for 5wks one time there and i must say i spent alot of time staring at the monitor, eating alot and staying up all hours of the night. But i got no bad drawbacks or bad thoughts from it, in fact the prozac worked all i needed was a chemical kick in the brain ( more like wake my brain up lol). Prozac does work, in fact i call it the "silent running" drug, because you dont notice a thing, yet its in your system working for you. I have heard alot of horror stories about prozac but luckierly i never experienced them. There is no dependency, i never went into a cold turkey when i went off them.
In fact coffee is a worse drug than prozac. I go nuts when i haven't had my daily coffee intake :D
Prozac for adults yes, for children no.
Nice that it worked for you. Noone denies that it could work- with some people. with others it does not, and could cause severe harm. It is like with any other highly potent medical drug: you should not use it inflationary, but only in situations (diagnosis-wise) that are strictly defined, and then only with caution and under observation. It is no drug you want to see becoming a new kind of Aspirin. It also is relatively cheap, compared to some other medications of that kind with lower risks of side-effects. This is what raises my suspicion. I think they try to turn it into a "Volksdroge" like Aspirin, Valium, and the like. Lower price, but high profits due to high sales numbers.
Yahoshua
06-06-06, 09:58 PM
This is the reason why I'm liking a combinatio of Eastern/Western medicine better.
Western medicine has it's greatest flaw in the fact that the focus is to eliminate the symptoms of sickness (which is literally the Western definition of health, is the absence of symptoms of sickness). So Western medicine never actually cures anything, but practically gives you a bandaid and covinves you that you're ok. This leads to an overdependence on drugs, and eventually the body resists those drugs and new ones have to be developed. The cycle continues.
Eastern Medicine on the other hand, defines health as the absence of sickness. If you're not sick, you don't show symptoms, and the sickness doessn't continue to recur. Eastern medicine addresses the core of the problem and not the results of it. A great deal of Eastern medicine is the focus on preventing sickness. Which, by and far, is always going to be cheaper than the cure.
However, Western medicine has advanced surgical procedure to resolve complicated health problems, whereas Eastern medicine does not depend on this radical recourse as much. Yet Western medicine has (generally) failed to assist the general population in both preventing, curing, and assisting recovery of the patient. This is where Eastern medicine rules the playing field.
Unfortunately I'm running out of time to write this post so if I can I'll write a follow-up later.
Western medicine has it's greatest flaw in the fact that the focus is to eliminate the symptoms of sickness (which is literally the Western definition of health, is the absence of symptoms of sickness). So Western medicine never actually cures anything, but practically gives you a bandaid and covinves you that you're ok. This leads to an overdependence on drugs, and eventually the body resists those drugs and new ones have to be developed. The cycle continues.
That's because the big money isn't in the cure, it's in the treatment.
caspofungin
06-07-06, 12:22 AM
Western medicine never actually cures anything
depends on your definition of cure. if you mean eradicate the disease, try appendicitis, cholecystitis, early colon cancer, early breast cancer, early testicular cancer, various thyroid cancers, lymphoma, leukaemia...
if you mean keep you alive 'til your body eradicates the disease -- meningitis, cholera, various dysenteries, gastroenteritis, adult chicken pox, measles...
all of which have significant mortality rates in areas which don't have ready access to "Western" medicine. Not saying it's better than other treatments, but it does work for plenty of conditions.
Konovalov
06-07-06, 04:21 AM
depends on your definition of cure. if you mean eradicate the disease, try appendicitis, cholecystitis, early colon cancer, early breast cancer, early testicular cancer, various thyroid cancers, lymphoma, leukaemia...
if you mean keep you alive 'til your body eradicates the disease -- meningitis, cholera, various dysenteries, gastroenteritis, adult chicken pox, measles...
all of which have significant mortality rates in areas which don't have ready access to "Western" medicine. Not saying it's better than other treatments, but it does work for plenty of conditions.
That sounds like talk from someone who practices medicine to me or at bare minimum who works in that health/medical industry. :yep:
caspofungin
06-07-06, 08:42 AM
nothing like a little over-defensiveness to give the game away...
DeepSix
06-07-06, 03:48 PM
Part of depression is a lack of motivation. The risk with a "low-power" anti-depressant drug (Prozac, Zoloft, etc.) is that as it raises the patient's motivation, they find they have enough of it to consider suicide (among other things). That doesn't mean the drug is inherently bad; the problem is putting a child (or anybody, for that matter) on something without carefully monitoring it. The right dosage has to be achieved and it has to be taken on a fairly regular schedule. Anti-depressants can't be taken like aspirin. Lastly, the drug can't do it all; it's just there to assist the patient in doing what they have to do.
Prozac screws up the brains chemistry and to give a drug like that to a child, you are asking for trouble.
DeepSix
06-07-06, 03:55 PM
"Alters" brain chemistry, not "screws up.":D Again, that's why I say monitoring is important. You can't "fire and forget" with anti-depressants.
"Alters" brain chemistry, not "screws up.":D Again, that's why I say monitoring is important. You can't "fire and forget" with anti-depressants.
I have witness the results of these drugs from two friends I used to have both of them took stronger and stronger drugs. Both committed suicide
DeepSix
06-07-06, 04:01 PM
I have witness the results of these drugs from two friends I used to have both of them took stronger and stronger drugs. Both committed suicide
I am sorry.
What a horribly bad idea.
"Chemically, escitalopram is very similar to citalopram (http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?ArticleKey=8143). Both are in the class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class that also includes fluoxetine (http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?ArticleKey=818) (Prozac)..."
BUGGER!!
Skybird
06-07-06, 04:23 PM
I have witness the results of these drugs from two friends I used to have both of them took stronger and stronger drugs. Both committed suicide
Have you perceived changes in their personality? This is a symptom that often got descroibed by consuments, saiyng they felt as if a new, artificial persoanlity had been laid over their original, depressive one, making them sometimes feel like a prisoner in their own mind. In the psychiatry were I did my first "Praktikum" they used this - then relatively new - drug only with extreme hesitation and regular scanning exactly for this. I don'T know how they see it today, but back then (roughly mid-90s) Prozac had a very bad reputation amongst professionals.
Have you perceived changes in their personality?
Yes from the feel good factor to black moods.
Skybird
06-07-06, 05:05 PM
I do not mean extreme swings in mood. But have they felt like being another person, or a person that has no more control over themselves, or is controlled by someone/something else - how ever they described it or how ever you perceived it. That would be an indication that Prozac maybe was not the best choice for them.Anyhow, it's to late now.
GP's in the UK are a bit to fond of handing out drugs most likely due to their time limit seeing their patients, 10 minutes and that's your lot. :nope:
but back then (roughly mid-90s) Prozac had a very bad reputation amongst professionals.
Probably from cases like that of the Massachusetts man who, right about that time frame, murdered his entire family in a prozac induced psycosis. IIRC the jury was not impressed with that defense.
Yahoshua
06-07-06, 07:54 PM
This is the dictionary definition of cure (courtesy of dictionary.com):
cure http://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/AHD4/JPG/pron.jpg (https://secure.reference.com/premium/login.html?rd=2&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdictionary.reference.com%2Fsearch%3 Fq%3Dcure) ( P ) Pronunciation Key (http://dictionary.reference.com/help/ahd4/pronkey.html) (kyhttp://cache.lexico.com/dictionary/graphics/AHD4/GIF/oobreve.gifr)
n.
Restoration of health; recovery from disease.
A method or course of medical treatment used to restore health.
An agent, such as a drug, that restores health; a remedy.
Something that corrects or relieves a harmful or disturbing situation: The cats proved to be a good cure for our mouse problem.
Ecclesiastical. Spiritual charge or care, as of a priest for a congregation.
The office or duties of a curate.
The act or process of preserving a product.
v. cured, cur·ing, cures
v. tr.
To restore to health.
To effect a recovery from: cure a cold.
To remove or remedy (something harmful or disturbing): cure an evil.
To preserve (meat, for example), as by salting, smoking, or aging.
To prepare, preserve, or finish (a substance) by a chemical or physical process.
To vulcanize (rubber).My definition of cure would agree with the first paragrapgh, line 1, but also the prevention of future occurences.
For example, the flu/cold season. A good part of the U.S. population will purchase drugs and vaccines for the flu/cold season. Yet the flu/cold season still takes a huge toll on the economy every year due to the overall number of employees who aren't working. Why is that? And isn't the flu preventable with good health habits?
I'm willing to bet than in that part of the population few exercise regularly, eat healthy, or go in for regular checkups. If these kinds of living habits were normal among these people, the flu/cold wouldn't hit them so hard because their immune system would be able to cope with the flu/cold on its own without outside interference (other than a days' rest?).
Our family may be unique, but I have not been sick (with either cold or flu or anything) for over 9 years. I exercise regularly, eat healthy, but I have never gone in for checkups since graduating HS, and I've never had any vaccines other than what the school required.
Granted, one cannot make a blanket cure or sure-fire procedure to never get sick, but this isn't all that difficult to do and greatly boosts your health.
vBulletin® v3.8.11, Copyright ©2000-2025, vBulletin Solutions Inc.