Apparently, this took so long because the FDA wasn�t sure if the children were committing suicide from taking prescription drugs or from having to talk to FDA investigators. Apparently, children who are treated as guinea pigs by U.S. drug companies and drug regulators tend to think far more violent thoughts. I�m not sure why that is, but it could be that the drugs are interfering with their Ritalin.
The FDA has been accused of delaying this obvious decision on announcing the dangers of antidepressant drugs. In its defense, the FDA says it wasn�t an intentional delay. The agency was just too busy rubber-stamping the approval of other drugs by pharmaceutical companies. The agency also explained it is trying to move more quickly on the approval of drugs so that children who show suicidal tendencies can be put on a third drug: anti-suicide drugs that alter their brain chemistry and counteract the negative side effects of antidepressant drugs.
So at first the kid is hyper and you put him on Ritalin. Then, he feels down all the time and gets depressed, so you put him on antidepressants. When he attempts to commit suicide, you put him on anti-suicide drugs and end up writing three checks to your local pharmacy instead of one. That�s good business, according to the FDA, because now the children are being taken care of by the very best high-tech medicine available anywhere in the world.
Are there really depressed, bummed out kids running around our country who need prescription drugs? Buy those kids an X-Box and hook them up to some interactive video games. Get them some cool science projects or some construction kits where they can build their own robots. It seems to me that these drugs for children are really marketed and purchased for the benefit of the parents who are probably more drugged out than the children ever deserved to be in the first place.
By the way, ever wonder what�s stupid about all of this? Even though the FDA finally admits that these drugs cause children to have suicidal tendencies, the drug remains perfectly legal and can be prescribed to children by physicians right now without any repercussions from the FDA.
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