4-Year-Old Girl Dies of Psychiatric Drug Overdose

Submitted by stephanie on Sat, 03/24/2007 - 10:16am.

I can't even begin to tell you how angry and sick I was to read this story this morning, about a 4-year-old girl who died from her ADHD medication. This isn't just a case of the girl having a bad reaction to the drugs; her parents are being investigated for possibly overmedicating her on purpose.

But there are two culprits here: One, the parents, and two, the doctor who was in charge of the little girl. The parents, it seems, were dishing out the drugs like candy to keep their kids quiet, while the doctor was encouraging this by telling them it was OK to give the kids extra pills to help them sleep at night.

The kids, apparently, were being put to bed around 5 p.m. and would spend most of the day sleeping as well. Teachers describe the girl as being as weak as a rag doll.

Despite an investigation by social workers, the doctor had assured them that the medications were within "medical guidelines."

A few big questions come up with this story:

1. Why are little children as young as 2 being diagnosed with ADHD?
Have you interacted with normal 2-year-olds? They have lots of energy - that's because they are children.

2. Why are small children being prescribed drugs that are really meant for adults and have only been tested on adults?
We've got children's cough syrup, but when it comes to psychiatric medicine, we're giving children adult medications? Does this make any sense at all?

3. Why aren't psychiatrists required to monitor their patients on drugs more closely?
For example, I have a friend on anxiety medication. She has diabetes as well. The meetings she has with her shrink about her anxiety last about 10 minutes, from what I'm told. This is what her insurance pays for. Is this enough to monitor potential adverse reactions in a person, especially one suffering from diabetes?

The whole psychiatric/big pharma machine has gotten out of control. My urging is for any parents reading this to be very cautious and skeptical of the "need" to put your little children on drugs. It could literally be fatal.