Shadow Health Minister Anne Milton said doctors should be opting for non-drug treatments rather than reaching for the prescription pad. ‘This data shows that increasingly health professionals are prescribing drugs to treat child mental health problems, when evidence suggests that talking therapies can have an equal, if not better effect.
Australia’s Daily Telegraph has obtained the adverse reaction reports from the Therapeutic Goods Administration, which showed at least 30 children have had severe psychotic episodes and wanted to kill themselves while on the controversial drugs to treat ADHD.
Because of my medical training, my goal as a physician is to look for and treat the underlying conditions causing the patient’s problem, rather than just covering up those symptoms with drugs.
While most people who take prescription medications use them responsibly, when abused—that is, taken by someone other than the patient for whom the medication was prescribed, or taken in a manner or dosage other than what was prescribed—prescription medications can produce serious adverse health effects and can lead to drug addiction.
The researchers looked for cases of intentional abuse or misuse of ADHD medications in youths 13 to 19 years old from 1998 through 2005.
They found that over the eight-year study period, the number of calls to poison control centers regarding ADHD medication use went up 76 percent, from 330 calls during the first year to 581 calls the last year.