Study: ADHD Drugs Send Thousands to ERs

[Celebration]

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=2000936

May 24, 2006 (AP)— Accidental overdoses and side effects from attention deficit drugs likely send thousands of children and adults to emergency rooms, according to the first national estimates of the problem.

Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated problems with the stimulant drugs drive nearly 3,100 people to ERs each year. Nearly two-thirds overdoses and accidental use could be prevented by parents locking the pills away, the researchers say.

Other patients had side effects, including potential cardiac problems such as chest pain, stroke, high blood pressure and fast heart rate.

Concerns over those effects have led some doctors to urge the Food and Drug Administration to require a "black box," its most serious warning, on package inserts for drugs such as Ritalin, Concerta and Adderall. Yet even doctors advising the FDA don't agree on whether that's warranted.

[Gman]

1. This article just goes in circles

I think the author is against using these drugs but does a really poor job doing it. It's like someone told the author they needed a story real fast. So she opened up a PDA, did a couple of Google searches and started writing. It's almost nonsense and offers nothing new.

[Celebration]

2. Here's another article

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/05/25/adhd_drugs_sent_2500_to_hospital/

About 1 in 4 children who took the drugs and went to emergency rooms had serious heart or blood pressure events including palpitations, chest pain, or fainting, said the report by the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many other cases involved children who accidentally took someone else's medication, the report found.

....................

The survey was prompted by reports of side effects among the estimated 3.3 million children and nearly 1.5 million adults who take the drugs. Twenty-five deaths linked to ADHD drugs, 19 involving children, were reported to the Food and Drug Administration from 1999 through 2003. Fifty-four other cases of serious heart problems, including heart attacks and strokes, were also reported. Some of the patients had prior heart problems.

In February, an advisory committee to the FDA narrowly recommended that ADHD drugs -- such as Adderall and Adderall XR, which are made by Shire Plc ; Strattera by Eli Lilly and Co. ; and Ritalin and Focalin by Novartis AG -- include a ``black box" warning about the heart risks .

But in March, a different panel of advisers concluded that such a strong warning was not necessary and might dissuade doctors and patients from prescribing or using the drugs. FDA spokeswoman Kimberly Rawlings said she could not say when the FDA would make a decision on the warning.

[trotsky]

4. Important quote from that article:

``Clinicians should recognize that unintentional overdoses of stimulant medications are an important cause of injury to patients," said the CDC's Adam Cohen who, with colleagues, wrote a research letter on the report published today in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Like just about any substance - too much of it can kill you. As the parent of a child who has been GREATLY helped by one of these drugs, I really hate the fearmongering.

[Celebration]

5. I understand

I wonder if one of the problems is that parents give kids the responsibiilty of medicating themselves before they are ready for that responsibility. Even children that *seem* responsible are still children, and will try things when adults do not expect it.

[Snow]

8. A bigger problem may be

that there's a lot of abuse of ritalin and the like. Kids will share it, sell it, and so on. Many of the youngsters who go to the er with overdoses were not actually supposed to be taking it at all.

[Sticky]

3. My son has Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

and severe learning disabilities. He needs Concerta on school days so he will be able to concentrate. I honestly don't know how my child could OD or take someone else's medication by accident in the events of his normal daily life.

The article reads like gibberish.

[Orrex]

6. Sample size?

It seems to me that 3,100 is a pretty small number, actually. How many kids are on these drugs? And how many of the 3,100 are repeat visitors? I think that the article would benefit from greater detail.

I know of a number of cases in my geographic area in which medication was the first and/or only solution offered by a school to "control" an "unruly" child. Mine is a very anecdotal sampling, of course, but it gives me pause. I have no doubt that many children truly benefit from these medications, but I have a nagging suspicion that not every child who receives the drug actually needs it.

"Needs it," in this case, means that the drug is administered to off-set or reduce a chemical imbalance in the brain. That is, the drug is not treating a functional behavior but an organic neurological condition.

[sam sarrha]

7. DON'T GIVE YOUR KIDS STRATTERA.. it is a failed recycled drug,,LINK>>

http://www.laleva.org/eng/2006/01/eli_lillys_and_christopher_gillbergs_failed_experiment_with_strattera.html

just google: strattera failed dangerous drug

i have a lot of links but i am short of time here,

http://www.ritalindeath.com/strattera.htm

i took it without being tested for ADD etc, i can verify that Strattera is 'NOT' a Non Amphetamine like drug, it is hellatiouslly speedy and i found myself hallucinating a world of death, where every body was going to be dead, was dead, i couldn't move the Corpses of my family out od the house co i would have to just leave and go somewhere else, but everybody would be dead or dying there too, so i make plans to just go sit under a tree somewhere and die when the death came
to all i knew..

i am 57 years old

lots of kids are misdiagnosed with ADD etc and actually have Aspergers syndrome, see http://wrongplanet.net

i am a high functioning autistic.. and i perceive everything in visual images, that could be a variable in my suicidally symptoms.. there were 150 cases of suicidally reported on strattera in one month..

the new testing regulations of the FDA under the wet brain alcoholic drug addict emperor have reduced the tests to sometimes just 4 months.. before a lot of the symptoms show up.

people are just dropping dead on strattera, from sudden death heart attacks, i was given no liver tests and experienced SERIOUS heart arythemia, bad enougth to wear a monitor.

i have been reduced to tears telling people not subject their children to this shit.. i can just 'see' people wanting their children to better so baddly they force this dangerious drug on children, it failed the FDA tests as an anti depresent, and i doubt it was ever tested as an ADD drug..

they just got a Nigerian mathmatician to juggle the stats and make it an ADD drug.