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Poorer Children More Likely To Get Antipsychotics
krou writes "A new study by a team from Rutgers and Columbia has discovered that poorer children are more likely to be given powerful antipsychotic drugs. According to the NY Times (login required), 'children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts.' It raises the question: 'Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?' Two possible explanations are offered: 'insurance reimbursements, as Medicaid often pays much less for counseling and therapy than private insurers do,' and because of 'the challenges that families in poverty may have in consistently attending counseling or therapy sessions, even when such help is available.' The study is due to be published next year in the journal Health Affairs." The full article is available behind a paywall from the first link. The lead author of the study said he "did not have clear evidence to form an opinion on whether or not children on Medicaid were being overtreated."
...yes.
But how do I back up such a horrifying claim? By analyzing the current state of affairs in our world today, and I can only draw conclusions from our countrys actions lately. A while ago, we had the news investigators claim that poor & unemployed people get showed back in the queue when it comes to medical attention, medicines and treatment. Incredibly enough - our government admitted that it was a problem, and further investigations showed that the doctors "general" reasons for doing so - wasn't motivated by the government - but by the fact that these people held a job, a position in the society - and thus were a better "investment" for the future.
Also - the doctors pointed out that "people with a position in society" were less likely to complain about mistreatments and other complaints, as the poor were more prone to lawsuits and false claims for monetary reasons, rather than real facts. This were all the rage on Danish TV a while ago.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Take your soma and like it, kids.
Deeply troubling, but not unexpected.
--
Toro
Poor parents are using their children as an excuse for getting drugs. They bribe or beg the doctor for the prescription, then they sell the drugs on the street.
Could it be because middle class parents are more likely to push back against drug recommendations?
Does this also happen with other public health care systems or is this mostly limited to Medicare in the US?
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Unless things have changed, the NYTimes links are not actually behind a "paywall", just behind a login (which is free as far as I remember).
In other words, feel "free" to RTFA.
Non of the above.
These people are beta-testing the atypical antipsychotics.
Poor people can't litigate. It makes the drug companies look good by 'helping the poor', and gives them lots of people to test their new drugs on. /I've taken these medications //as a class, after 6 months only 30% of people prescribed atypical antipsychotics can remain on them, because the side-effects are so unbearable.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Before y'all get on your high horses, note that antipsychotics aren't exclusively used for psychosis. Abilify, one of the most popular, is used for mood swings, psychosis, bipolar in general, and as an adjunct to antidepressants. Abilify is an amazingly effective method of relieving intense psychological suffering quickly. The middle class alternative is a year or two on therapy and a couple other antidepressants, which is probably a nicer way of doing things for the patient, but is much slower and less cost effective. Once a patient is on a drug like Abilify, it is much easier to deal with their psychological trauma quickly. It might not be the best solution, but it is a very good one. And, truth be told, poor people aren't going to get the same care as middle-class people.
I'm simply outraged, I don't know what to write. Dr., it's not your place to play with minds of children. Do your job well and fair, or quit it.
Mental illness runs in the family and affects economic status. So poor parents pass on their mentally ill genes to their kids thus their kids are more likely to be mentally ill and on some kind of treatment. My own personal experience registers this is as true. I see a lot of emotional problems, especially mood instability, with poorer people. I wouldnt be surprised if this was a chicken and egg problem explained without the "OMG BIG GOVERNMENT/CAPITALIST CONSPIRACY" angle slashdot tends to sell.
"They say it's impossible to stop now," Evelyn Torres, 48, of the Bronx, said of her son's use of antipsychotics since he received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder at age 3.
Okay, I understand that it's possible for three-year-olds to be bipolar, but how on Earth do you reliably test for that?
I deeply despise these kinds of articles for the joke they make of statistical correlation.
I think they could all come with a giant "Correlation!=Causation" red box warning.
On one hand, maybe the poor kids are getting over-medicated by a government/drug company/new world order rich person conspiracy.
On the other, maybe it just so happens that more of the poor tend to have psychological problems, which would explain their (and their children's) difficulties in progressing up within the society.
Or the environment endured by the children of the poor would tend to be more damaging than the safe and comfortable environment that the children of the wealthy enjoy.
Without much more data, and without very careful prospective analysis, these "correlation" articles are little more than curiously interesting FUD.
However, since they tend to be part of the outrage machine, I think we ought to hold the writers personally responsible for the reactions that ensue.
Doctor, Timmy is getting in trouble in school.
How does he get in trouble?
The teacher says he is too active and might have ADHD.
Have you seen a counselor about this?
No, we can't afford one!
Well, let's try a round of Adderall...
This might seem oversimplistic, but I teach a high school 'behavior intervention' classroom and deal with parents all the time who have the same concerns/issues. More often than anyone will admit, many of the issues related to behavior have to do with cost/consequences...and parents who will not/can not engage the reality of their children's behavior (It's not their fault! They are just picking on Timmy!).
Often, the teachers are just as guilty making these recommendations as the doctors--it is illegal for a teacher to recommend/suggest that a child has to be medicated to attend school, but it happens. And many 'poor' parents do not have the background/education to question the recommendation. So, they go to the doctor and tell them that Timmy has to have medicine to attend school.
The fun part in all this is watching the merry-go-round of meds that a child will/will not take to modify their behavior. For some kids, it is necessary to function. For most, it is not.
By the time they get to high school, many are dependent on the meds to function.
I think the shoddy private insurance plans aren't dishing out enough antipsychotics compared to the better-managed state-run plans. Someone needs to put together a panel to look at ways to get private plans to step up to the plate and start dishing out antipsychotics on par with the state run plan!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I agree. Several years ago I saw a child who had some emotional problems come around relatively quickly with psychotropic drugs. Pumping an 11 year old full of these medications isn't the best solution but this kid was going to end up hurting someone or himself and his mother didn't have the money for the best therapists. It took about a year to get the combination of medicines and counseling right but it caused an amazing turn around in this little boy.
If they weren't so quick to medicate poor children, we'd be asking why so many poor kids are going without adequate treatment for mental illness.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
if you are rich and mad you are classed as an excentric, and if your poor and mad well you just plain mad
Without the "writers" reactions - we'd have a society that quietly accepts anything
But that's the problem. We DO have a society that quietly accepts everything... everything that appeals to their basest drives, or reinforces past prejudices, with little to no application of logic or reason.
In this case, as well as when considering Anthropogenic Global Warming, Evolution, or vaccinations, the most paranoid conclusions are the most satisfying, in that they reinforce a foregone conclusion, as well as relieve the bearer of further responsibility.
Glaciers melt = not my fault, it's the sun.
Child has autism = not my fault, it's the vaccines
Child has problems = not my fault, it's the drug conspiracy
Too stupid = fluoride in the water
School shooting = gun manufacturers and video games
Poor = Conspiracy of the rich
These are just a few of a myriad of memes that have been further reinforced by the advent of the Internet and the ensuing ability to find supporters of the most wildly wrong ideas.
And that's scary.
Isn't this just an indicator of how broken the US health care system is.
I have a hard time imagining this to be a problem in this way in the countries which have good public health systems. I've never had to think about the cost of healthcare, that's what I pay taxes for. My neighbour doesn't have to worry about the cost of healthcare, that's what I pay taxes for.
We pay damn high taxes. The benefits are pretty big, though and completely worth it.
I decided to go to University after having worked for over ten years.
Fees for school?
Free (for a good university, well, any university).
That's what I've been paying taxes for.
The youngsters studying with me. I paid for their tuition too (or took part in that).
And it pleases me.
Two possible explanations are offered: 'insurance reimbursements, as Medicaid often pays much less for counseling and therapy than private insurers do', and because of 'the challenges that families in poverty may have in consistently attending counseling or therapy sessions, even when such help is available'.
Interesting explanations, but they ignore the economics and politics of the issue. Medicaid is heavily influenced by politicians. Politicians are heavily influenced by lobbies. Lobbying money flows very heavily from drug companies.
Run it backwards: Lobbying money flows heavily from drug companies. Politicians are heavily influenced by drug companies. Medicaid is heavily influenced by drug companies.
There are almost certainly other significant factors at play, but to ignore the influence of drug pushers on our government is stunningly short-sighted.
Also consider the health care bill: They've removed the public option and kept the new law requiring people to buy health insurance. Who are they working for? I want everyone to have access to health care. This story, however, is a stark example of the risks of channeling public funds to corporations, and of channeling corporate profits to policy-makers. That is a self-reinforcing system that will destroy us.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
The subtext of this story is that medication is bad, that treatment of a disease state with chemicals is sub-optimal. What if the real story here is that middle-class children have a higher probability of being under-medicated and under-treated? They are already under-vaccinated because of bizarre anti-preservative delusions that tend to be associated with higher economic status parents. I've actually met middle-class parents who tried to treat their diabetic children homeopathically. That's a stupidity reserved for those with sufficient income, inappropriate self-esteem and just enough self-regard and personal "knowledge" to be dangerous.
Da Blog
I know this from firsthand experience, being an adult in that same system. It's even worse now, because beginning months ago psychological services are no longer covered by my state's Medicaid program, only psychiatric services. The authors of the study weren't keeping up with the ongoing consequences of the recession (no doubt because they're personally insulated from them).
In other words, pills are still covered by Medicaid, but seeing a shrink isn't. That affects children and adults alike, the the effect is more pronounced for adults: they're likely to have even less of a support system than the children.
It's hard not to perceive social Darwinism as evil when one is on the losing end of the process.
everything that appeals to their basest drives, or reinforces past prejudices, with little to no application of logic or reason.
Sure, the internet is a "fast food / take-away" smorgasboard of "what would you like to believe today?".
But we can't expect the layman to understand everything it takes several years of medicin and a degree to even comprehend, but the human nature alone - sometimes provide all the starting points you need for further investigation.
Just the case from Denmark alone, proved that there really were something to it, not just FUD.
As it turns out, it wasn't the government that was to blame, but simple human judgment. So for what it's worth - this might have saved some lives.
I'm sure we haven't even seen the beginning of the end yet, as I'm equally sure there's lots of tinfoil-hat people out there as well ;)
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
However, could it be that people with psychotic traits and their parents tend to be less likely to get an appropriate source of wealth?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I wonder how many people using that quote realize that it is a paraphrasing of chapter 2, verses 44 and 45 of "Acts of the Apostles".
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Is there any allowance for children with mental problems eg.ADHD in the US?
In the UK it is not unknown for jobless families to seek to get their children diagnosed with ADHD in order to get a Disability Living Allowance. A bonus benifit designed to help pay for the extra care a disabled child would need.
Of course there is nothing wrong with little Timmy and the parents know this too so they don't give them the pills.
They do still pick up the prescriptions (to keep the diagnosis going) and drugs but end up dumping them. Occasionally get a bagfull of around a years supply of the stuff left in to the Pharmacy to be disposed of anonymously or worse dumped in the street.
Sounds cynical of me I know but people aren't beyond pushing their kids to do this when they themselves are very keen to be classed as sick because allowances are higher than those for the well jobless.
Now if we could only put it in the water so everyone got them equally
The article mentions the 'poor' children and the 'middle class' children. What defines these classes? Is it a disservice, and perhaps bad analysis, to treat them as a class instead of individuals?
No duh GGP was based more on Karl Marx than the Acts of the Apostles. But I need to know: Did you actually go and check Acts 2:44-45 before you told GP to check his sources?
New American Bible, Saint Joseph Edition, from around 2003 or so, Acts 2:44-45 -
All who believed were together and had all things in common, they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one's need.
Marx was a philosopher, as we all know, so why shouldn't he have read up on his early Christianity? Acts 2:44-45 came before Marx, and Marx should have known his Christian stuff as a philosopher, and all this I would call evidence, though not proof, that Marx could have has his line inspired by the Acts verses.
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
I hadn't realized there were so many advantages to having money. Next they'll be telling us that rich people get all the best houses too.
Poor people are more likely to have mental illness than average-income people. Mental illness runs in families. Are poor children more likely to need antipsychotic meds than children in average-income? Yeah, probably.
Next up: Poorer Children More Likely to Get Free School Lunches. Film at 11!
Actually, you're both wrong. calidoscope because that isn't even hinted at anywhere near verses 44 and 45, and AC because "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" means something different than "From each according to his ability, to each according to how valuable he is to others".
(What is in verses 44 and 45, however, does look more like Karl Marx's oft-quoted phrase)
Most of the dealings I've had with "poor people" come from the fact they are in a ONE parent house. Perhaps if we went back to the nuclear family, and we had parents that actually gave a rats a** about their kids, we wouldn't have problems like this.
My opinion on /. as a system (from a nerds perspective) isn't that great. A CMS which can't even delete an entry in its back-side database? Come on!
But being a EU citizen I cannot help wonder if /. maybe isn't aware of its impact on the Net. More and more do I see stories which solely impact the US and absolutely don't qualify in the common statement "news for nerds".
WTF?
So what gives guys? News for nerds or News for US nerds? Being a nerd I say you can't have it both ways you know; "the Net is vast and infinite" and it will certainly cross common Earth like borders.
Or is such a criticized comment "too nerdy" all of a sudden ?
A study done around 10+ years ago by Eastern Virginia Medical School looked at diagnosis and misdiagnosis of ADD in communities near them (Norfolk VA). They found the richer the community the more kids were diagnosed with ADD. they also found that while there is underdiagnosis equal to about 10% of the current number of those so diagnosed, there is about 20% overdiagnosed.
The most disturbing fact they uncovered, one that helps make sense of the overdiagnosis part, comes from looking at grade level and age. They classified kids as to grade, and then age within that grade. One group, kids who were more than 1 years younger than average for that grade (ie. had been bumped foward, skipping one or more grades at some time) were particularly troublesome. Kids more than a year young form their grade were prescribed meds for a diagnosis of ADD 67% of the time. These are the smart kids. No way they could that many have ADD and be set forward one opr more grades.
The only possible explanation for this is their parents were dosing them with speed in order to improve their scores, grades, abilities, etc. And doctors and schools were going along with it.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
and Marx got it from Mosses Hess, who taught both Marx and Engles, and who actually came up with most of the ideas and slogans that were later attributed to Marx. Of course, he didn't exist in a vacuum either.
I didn't want to create an account/login so I google-news'd the title and voila !
Was that 11 year old ever able to stop taking the drugs?
I've watched many kids in public and the true answer seems clear;
Most dam kids are not getting enough of those drugs!
Perhaps the parents of middle and rich classes are just not giving kids enough.
Before y'all get on your high horses, note that antipsychotics aren't exclusively used for psychosis. Abilify, one of the most popular, is used for mood swings, psychosis, bipolar in general, and as an adjunct to antidepressants. Abilify is an amazingly effective method of relieving intense psychological suffering quickly. The middle class alternative is a year or two on therapy and a couple other antidepressants, which is probably a nicer way of doing things for the patient, but is much slower and less cost effective. Once a patient is on a drug like Abilify, it is much easier to deal with their psychological trauma quickly. It might not be the best solution, but it is a very good one. And, truth be told, poor people aren't going to get the same care as middle-class people.
Nice Slashvert. Seriously.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I've not read all of the comments and imagine concurring opinions to mine are above; I just thought I'd add my personal story to the mix.
In my experience pills are much faster and much cheaper in the short run than therapy. Issues re. causation aside, it makes a great deal of sense that those lacking the funds and/or the time for full-blown therapy would instead be given pills. Note that I said in the "short run"; at some point a lifetime of pills that is managing symptoms rather than underlying causes becomes more expensive. I realize that I'm over-simplifying and so will deal with my specific issue re. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Three years ago my daughter was murdered.
Without question, my quickest path to any type of "relief" came from pills. Equally without question, my only hope for long-term "relief" is from therapy. But relief via therapy didn't come quickly and it certainly hasn't come easily. I've had to interview literally dozens of therapists and psychologists to find a good fit; even after the initial phone interview I've gone to several in-person over the span of the past 3 1/2 years. It's not been an easy process; certainly not as easy as opening a pill bottle (not even the tricky kind with child-proof lids).
Fortunately I eventually found a psychologist that is working wonders for me (baby steps) and I've successfully ended one med and am very slowly weaning myself from the other. Understand though, we're talking about hundreds of hours of therapy - not an easy proposition by any means - especially for those lacking not just insurance but also the flexibility to take time from work or school in the middle of the day to go to appointments.
Again, I recognize my oversimplification by speaking only to PTSD and only in my specific case. I realize that in different situations that this may not apply, but in general feel that pills are considerably faster and more effective in the short-term. The downside, at least in my case, is that the underlying issues would never be resolved.
JAGga.me ----> Producing video games addressing emotional health and wellness issues affecting teens.
I wouldn't get too strong into claims about what it's "amazingly effective" for. As you point out, Abilify is prescribed for a lot of things, and the vast majority of them are "off-label" uses for which there has been no real demonstration of effectiveness.
Getting a drug approved in the first place requires a fairly rigorous process of double-blind, peer-reviewed studies. But once it's approved for a particular use, there is no similar level of rigorous screening before it can be prescribed off-label for other, unapproved uses.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
+1
Sorry. My subjective experience isn't very scientific, especially when applied to something of this scope.
(btw: I wrote the parent post)
He's 15 now. He's still medicated. It'll probably be for life, bi-polar disorder runs in his family.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Tagged correlationisnotcausation? And here I was, thinking that there was a Medicaid bureaucrat whose job was to run through a list of people with low income and schedule them all for antipsychotics.
I went through a mental psychosis episode after mixing music for a windows 7 party i was preparing to hosting & smoking some super strong weed. I peeked and It looked as though I broke enlightenment my room glowed a bright yellow I - then blacked out a few times and had realistic hallucinations even thought a Jay'z and Kayne was having a party out side my door, I told my dad I found jesus and I had him by the balls (was holding two silver zen balls) then eventually woke up on my bed to find my mom sitting on my coach with a bible in her hand. Anyway my mom and dad where very concerned I guess and for some reason or another they took me to the local hospital (Swedish American) then after-wards a cop drove me to the mental institution called H Douglas Singer Mental Health Center (Rockford IL) I was there 9 days but it felt like less I held against my will (its basically a huge prison) Anyway on the day of my release I was prescribed Risperidone 2mil 1in morning 3mil at night for sleep since I have trouble sleeping anyway that drug is not cheap! if your uninsured at walgreens 30pills cost $190. I stopped using cause it was making me feel worse and I was recently prescribed Seroquel 200mg in the morning and 200mg at night it slows my thoughts down so I don't think as fast (racing thoughts that usually focus and 1 2 or 3 words over and over again) anyway I also noticed a minor side effect...I noticed after taking it for a the first week I stopped dreaming it seems I never get to REM. Anyway I really don't know why im sharing this but I read slashdot everyday and never comment and since this was was kind of relevant to some events in my life i thought I would share. There is a lot more to the story I fail to mention only because it would seem to over the top for anyone to believe - "conspiracyish"
Most children are unrepentant sociopaths.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Your description of Abilify reads like an advertisement and makes me suspicious of whether you work for the manufacturer. My experience with anti-psychotics is not nearly as glowing. Fortunately, I've never needed to take anti-psychotics, but a family member did. It was a nightmare dealing with someone who was having strange side effects, yet the doctor kept saying they shouldn't be happening. Well they were.
Any psychiatrist who's being honest with you will admit that prescribing these drugs is at best an educated guess. For some people they work, for others they can go horribly wrong. After these experiences, anti-pyschotics would be my last resort for anyone I cared about. What's more, I wouldn't even consider starting any of these drugs without in-patient hospital observation.
My last gripe about these drugs is their expense. Around $400 a month for Abilify depending upon the dosage. And usually Abilify is prescribed along with one or more other drugs. Maybe add in some Seroquel plus Wellbutrin and now you're looking at about $600 per month. Plus the cost of counseling and/or in-patient treatment. It's no wonder the US healthcare system is screwed if poor kids are getting prescribed this 4x more than wealthier kids.
The primary concern is the possibility of purely emotional problems being papered over with antipsychotics alone.
Bipolar is quite another matter.
Why are we assuming that the kids on medicaid are getting over-medicated rather than that the kids on private insurance have paranoid parents who assign such a stigma to anti-psychotics that they'll do anything to avoid giving them to their kids, even if it means a longer/worse/more costly treatment?
Also, why on earth is it such a bad thing for a taxpayer funded healthcare program which is constantly complaining about lacking funds to cover everyone to worry about the cost effectiveness of the treatments it pays for. If medicaid finds that paying for drugs is more cost effective in the patient population it serves, it SHOULD be incentivizing providers to go that route. Medicaid isn't private insurance, its what you get when you can't afford anything else. It shouldn't be trying to replace private insurance, but rather getting the most bang for its (limited) buck.
http://www.freemoviescinema.com/movies/documentary/2598-fall-of-the-republic-the-presidency-of-barack-h-obama-2009.html
I think it's our way of life that breeds all these mental and emotional problems. Less contact with extended family. Pushing kids off on their own at age 0 so the parents and work double and scrap by. That alone probably accounts for half of it. A huge part of the other half is probably having no role models as kids or especially teenagers other than commercials... and what does that stuff teach? Buy this and that for happiness, but you have to be married and perfect to really be happy. Eat fast food, but be skinny. Be cool, but don't do anything the cool kids do. Don't do drugs, but drink beer. Etc.
And I think lazy ass parents just let people talk them into drugging up their kids so they can cope. Really disgusts me from every angle.
The drugs are being sold by "patients" or used recreationally. Prescription drug abuse is the prevalent type of drug use. This is easy money for the poor kids.
I'm sorry, but medication does nothing for mental illness. The idea that using a drug like Alprazolam to control the symptoms of a phobia is better then using therapy to permanently eliminate the phobia with no chemical dependency is simply wrong. Xanax has a place: controlling an occasional phobia that probably isn't worth the cost of psychotherapy to eliminate. But use it regularly and you are physically dependent on it. The whole idea of mental disease processes is in many cases also fundamentally questionable, given the way that mental diseases are by definition deviations from accepted behavior. Psychologists should be solving what the patient thinks are problems, not what the people around them are thinking are problems. (within boundaries: clearly a suicidal individual should be helped, and if that takes Prozac to accomplish as a bridge, then that's fine) The difficult case is schizophrenia: easy to find, but the patient doesn't think they have a problem. Solution: deal with the issues that they have, like being unable to work. But then you look at things like bogus diagnoses of bipolar disorder in normal teenagers and wonder who the hell forgot that unless the patient says they have a problem, they probably don't.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
So you are saying that if the US healthcare system kicked the poor out onto the streets if they had mental illness, it would be better? Ignoring that this usually happens anyways in the case of schizophrenics...
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
So you are suggesting that there exists a sub class of humans which are more likely to be mentally ill? Seems like a straight path towards eugenics to me.
Wouldn't it be nice if future generations were smarter, more mentally stable, and less disabled?
Any dog breeder can trivially show you what happens when the defective ones breed. It's downright idiotic to suggest that things are any different with humans.
Right now we're doing the exact opposite of what any breeder would do. The results are entirely predictable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33METcDj398
"You do want Ghetto children to be happy, don't you chris?
Prescription drug abuse is across the country.
Just wait until we're all on Government healthcare
Anti-psychotics for all, rich and poor.
Well, that isn't true, the ultra-rich a politically connected will be able to afford proper medical care.
The rest of us will get what the bureaucrats order and we'll learn to be thankful for it.
Maybe they were all okay with sharing.
it's also possible that middle class families can't afford drugs as well as poor folks who receive government assistance to buy the drugs.
or another option is that kids from poor backgrounds may have either a genetic disposition towards needing psychotropics, or their physical environment has stressors and other components (lead paint?) that make poor kids more susceptible to being psychotic.
i don't believe that there's one answer or a binary choice. there are a combination of variables, so more tests should be done with different sets of controls.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Getting a drug approved in the first place requires a fairly rigorous process of double-blind, peer-reviewed studies. But once it's approved for a particular use, there is no similar level of rigorous screening before it can be prescribed off-label for other, unapproved uses.
This is only true in theory. The data is often not as rigorous as we would like it to be (e.g. ezetimibe, which was approved without any mortality data, whose efficacy is now being questioned). Meanwhile, many "off-label" uses are actually backed by very strong evidence, but no one [not even the FDA] bothers getting the "label" for the indication because the drug is already on the market. The various professional organizations that publish treatment guidelines tend to do a much better job of reviewing the evidence than the FDA does.
I'm sorry, but medication does nothing for mental illness.
Either you're drinking the Tom Cruise Kool-Aid or you've never known anyone who has taken psych meds. I have witnessed, first hand, how someone can be helped with medication.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
http://slashdot.org/faq/editorial.shtml#ed850
It's a pity the mods seem to have missed your genuinely insightfull post.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
There's no more "factory jobs" out there that will feed a family like even 15 years ago. All kids are pushed to perform in ways I'm not asked to, and I'm attending college both on campus and/or online and work full time. Frankly I think that's overkill but "education" seems to think that everybody should be trying to go to Harvard rather than state school.
We currently have little use for the people who are unfit for advanced education. We eliminated their jobs via protective measures that made them uncompetitive on the world market: environmental protection, worker safety, short work weeks, disability protection, minimum wage, etc. Other parts of the world have been happy to take the jobs, and they even ship us back much of the pollution via global winds and ocean currents!
Idle poor people tend to end up in jail. One can argue if that's worse than a dangerous job or not.
We're also ignoring biological reality. People naturally start families as they complete puberty, but we fail to prepare them for supporting families at that time. School drags on for years, offering neither vocational training nor more advanced studies. Tracking is schools is very inflexible, with a student who falls behind becoming permanently stuck in a slower (not merely later) track. For this reason, and because we are hesitant to face the anger and political power of parents with dumb/violent/lazy kids, we don't track kids early. Accepting biological reality would mean adjusting our educational system to ensure that most people would be fully capable of supporting a family around age 16, give or take a couple years. The dumber ones would have useful vocational skills, the brighter ones would have the equivalent of a non-joke 4-year college degree, and very few would be left needing either additional education or prison. We made everything all generic and watered-down though, resulting in near-worthless high school diplomas that merely mean you mostly showed up for class. Neither the bright nor the dim are well-served by this waste of time.
BTW, providing **social** rewards for academic success would go a long way toward motivating students. (money, the right to wander out for fresh air, more in-game time, parking rights, etc.)
For those that do go to college, we mislead and abuse them. We give loans for degrees that offer little hope of providing an income to pay off the loan, then we don't provide a reasonable way to escape the responsibility for repayment. Sure, you can get that interpretive dance degree! It's little wonder that so many people can point to an unemployed college graduate they personally know as an example of why education is worthless. Even the people who make wise choices get stuck spending too much time listening to non-technical professors pushing personal political agendas.
Ever wonder why so many people get communications degrees now? It's because they need to prove that they have the writing skills that used to be expected of those graduating from 5th grade or 6th grade. Ouch. Without some sort of college degree, nobody will believe that you have the basic literacy required for simple office work.
(within boundaries: clearly a suicidal individual should be helped, and if that takes Prozac to accomplish as a bridge, then that's fine)
Prozac makes a crummy bridge. It tends to collapse, and it's damn expensive to get the many tons of it that you'd need. Even with low-dose generic equivalents, you're looking at $0.20 per "pill" (and I'll get to that in a moment), which comes to about a million dollars per cubic meter. A respectible bridge is going to need at least 1000 cubic meters of material, so that comes to about a billion dollars minimum. Worse yet, it seems that Prozac is only available in capsule form. Capsules are too slipery to build even an arch bridge. You may be able to get the capsules sticky enough to bond if you moisten them, but why take risks with such a non-standard construction material? You'd be paying an arm and a leg. Admittedly it's artistic and it could make a statement of some kind, but I really don't think this is the way to go. You may even encounter difficulty getting a large enough prescription.
If you really want to help a suicidal individual, take them to any normal concrete or steel bridge. It's way faster, cheaper, reliable, etc.
We used to commit people to mental institutions. About 50 years ago, court decisions put an end to that. They go out on the streets by choice and we can't stop them.
Today we wait until they commit a serious crime. We then get a court order to force them to take medication, allowing us to claim that they are mentally competant to stand trial. Of course they resist this, both in times of sanity (not wanting punishment) and insanity (the pills are mind control devices from the CIA). The jurors know that an innocent-by-insanity decision puts a dangerous person back on the street the moment he temporarily starts taking pills, so the jurors don't give a damn and just convict the nutjob like any other criminal.
You are quite correct. Marx Was born into a Christian society as were his teachers. Ideas coming from the Bible in such a context, loose their sources once the wording changes. They become "common sense". The same is true for other holly books and the lands they dominate.
Now to the main point of the article. Poor parents also tend to be less in touch with the schools and less informed about medical and disciplinary matters. Most importantly they are less likely to assert their authority.
In short. The Middle class parents are going to pray to google about "Ritalin" and then respond: "You can prescribe all the methylphenidate you like but not for my child". In most cases, the poor single mom doesn't know and hasn't the confidence to assert her own authority against teachers and Doctors who are far more educated than she is.
It will be harder to track how many middle class parents were instructed to drug their kids and simply refused, often with the backing of a private doctor.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
I'm having a very heavy form of ADHD which I control myself, without medication.
It's not always as easy because solutions often just don't fall into your hands, so, repetitive thinking is sometimes healthy.
I think like a tree forms it's branches; Start with the roots (problem) and start to see every possibility as a branch (solution) which has each it's negative and positive sides. When I reach the point to take the most neutral solution of all branches; I choose...
I've tried Relatine and Concerta .. The relatine was the worst of them kinds; disabling me from any artistic functions like drawing, creating music, writing and even programming. It took me about 9 months, AFTER stopping taking the medication to recover; because my brain seemed to be rewired to see mostly only one straight path, one option, solution or direction to watch & live to. Basically, all branches to alternative thinking where gone, destroyed, erased ... for a long moment even after stopping these darn pills.
Variety gets killed in high numbers; where kids mistreated in ADHD often get such medication where their brain doesn't think about alternative options anymore. Sounds, almost they want to create mindless thinkers.
Basically .. I felt "more stupid" when under three different medications.
mods: I think the parent post is not rendundant at all...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
The kids are just acting nuts like their parents. After all, you have to be nuts to have kids if you're poor.
pills are effective, and counselling is not [...]. Psychoanalysis has been practiced for 100 years and going
Well, psychoanalysis is just wrong. Not a good model of the world. Doesn't work. Bunk.
I take it you know enough about the subject and are smart enough to realise that !(counselling == psychoanalysis).
Other kinds of counselling may work. I don't have any evidence to point you at (I leave that to other /.ers), I just present an idea for the open mind to ingest, chew on, and then either spit or swallow according to taste in evidence :)
What the fuck do you think Medicaid is you dimwitted moron. Yeah, I'm sure that giving everyone cheap easy access to medical help will really make the poor worse off. Dickhead.
Marxism: An attempt to create Christianity without Christ
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
Anti-psychotics have been around a long time, the major ones are all out of patent and generic versions exist, the more targeted medications for psychological conditions came later and tend to still be under patent. A doctor at a clinic is not going to prescribe trileptal and ambien, even though they are actually the best for the patient if they know they can't pay the $300/month needed for the drug. They are going to prescribe risperdal and temazepam because at least the patient will at least be able to get them and something is better than nothing.
Keanu Reeves: You're crazy! You're fuckin' crazy!
Dennis Hopper: NO! Poor people are crazy, Jack. I'm eccentric.
Maybe the rich kids are undermedicated. Maybe if Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan had gotten the powerful anti-psychotics they needed, they'd not have had as much trouble.
still medicated. It'll probably be for life
In my opinion, this is creating a disability for the child - disability to function without a constant stream of medication, it will be a lifelong burden in expense, compliance taking the pills, etc. If it's the only workable solution, then it's clearly the best one, but if there were another solution that didn't create a drug dependency - you need to weigh the cost of lifelong dependency vs the difficulty of making the extra effort during childhood. And, if the extra effort fails, the drugs will still be an option.
KJV: "And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need."
Not exactly the same; MY public domain bible doesn't say what your copyrighted bible says. I wouldn't trust a bible with a copyright any more than I'd trust a Christian preacher who wears five thousand dollar suits.
Luke 18:22-23: "Now when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me. And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich."
Free Martian Whores!
New American Bible, Saint Joseph Edition, from around 2003 or so
Wow, that sounds reliable and not at all revisionist!
With the first link, the chain is forged.
In Acts, God commands Christians to take care of the poor out of love for Him and His children. Karl Marx took love out of the equation and used brute government force instead. That's why Christians can be on two different sides of the welfare issue - the conservative Christians are (or should be) for giving, just not forced giving; the liberal Christians think that helping the poor is the only thing that matters (the end justifies the means), and support the government taking your money at gunpoint to give to the poor.*
I know of no place in the Bible where God supports forced giving. Many of the Jews were angry with Jesus, actually, because He didn't solve their political problems. If God wanted the government to take care of welfare, you'd think He would have mentioned a few more things about a proper government while He was on earth.
*You may say, the government isn't taking my money at gunpoint -- but then you have to ask, what would happen if you refused to pay your taxes? They'd arrest you. What would happen if you resisted arrest? They'd point a gun at you. So really, you are being forced to help the poor at gunpoint.
SymbolNOBODY, first? See subject-line above, & what you said below (& my reply to it):
You said what's quoted below from you, here -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1476008&cid=30428430
"It's tolerated (perhaps encouraged) in part because these annoying actors are otherwised engaged in improving Linux. Major Debian and BSD contributors, for example, use slashdot as a workspace for their human-machine interaction side experiments, of which APK is probably one. In addition many of these trolls post links which, if you follow them, will completely hose a Windows machine. This is part of the game. - by symbolset (646467) on Monday December 14, @01:15AM (#30428430) Journal
I took offense to the BOLDED part... & ALL you EVER seem to have is "ad hominem" based attacks on people, not the points they make. So, my reply in the URL below was simple (and logical):
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1476008&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=30428430#30430244
Additionally, "symbolNOBODY"? Well - the day you can make something like this (& that got you PAID for it, & that has done as well for others online):
http://www.tcmagazine.com/forums/index.php?s=b861a743aa23c4568b7d73e07ef7ecec&showtopic=2662
That's also gone over 250.000 views worldwide in 1++ yrs.' time online, & across 15 forums where that guide for Windows Security has been made either an:
1.) "Sticky/Pinned" thread
2.) An "Essential Guide"
3.) Rates 5/5 stars (etc.)
AND, gets "feedback" like this from users that have applied it:
----
http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28430
PERTINENT QUOTE/EXCERPT:
"...recently, months ago when you finally got this guide done, had authorization to try this on simple work station for kids. My client, who paid me an ungodly amount of money to do this, has been PROBLEM FREE FOR MONTHS! I haven't even had a follow up call which is unusual. Now I don't recommend this for the average joe, but it if can work for a kids PC it can work for anything! Now, i substituted OpenDNS and activated the Adult Content filter with them for this kids computer. I know its not perfect, but will catch over 99.5% of said sites."
and
http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=10f9ba9ad5ff990aaae1e7ec91f593a2&t=28430&page=3
"Its 2009 - still trouble free! I was told last week by a co worker who does active directory administration, and he said I was doing overkill. I told him yes, but I just eliminated the half life in windows that you usually get. He said good point. So from 2008 till 2009. No speed decreases, its been to a lan party, moved around in a move, and it still NEVER has had the OS reinstalled besides the fact I imaged the drive over in 2008. Great stuff! My client STILL Hasn't called me back in regards to that one machine to get it locked down for the kid. I am glad it worked and I am sure her wallet is appreciated too now that it works. Speaking of which, I need to call her to see if I can get some leads. APK - I will say it again, the guide is FANTASTIC! Its made my PC experience much easier. Sandboxing was great. Getting my host file updated, setting services to system service, rather than system local. (except AVG updater, needed system local)"
Thronka - forums member @ xtremepccentral.com
----
THEN, when you have done so, on THAT account? THEN, you can talk!
A
Everyone conveniently forgets the passage in the Bible that instructs believers to kill the Czar and his family.
Dark Reflection
For good reading about causality check out http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/home.htm, in particular the slides from a lecture on the subject as it relates to robotics. Read down to the part about smoking and cancer. I think he has a pretty good handle on Causation vs Correlation.
...
Accuracy has nothing to do with copyright law. It has everything to do with archaeological discoveries and increasing knowledge of the past.
I think many mainline Christian denominations view the original manuscripts as infallible, meaning that copies of manuscripts are not. Of course, no one has possession of the original manuscripts, but archaeology in the last 200 years has unearthed manuscripts that are much more ancient than the ones used for the KJV. Most famously, the Dead Sea Scrolls produced a scroll of Isaiah that is 800 years older than the oldest Isaiah scroll know to exist.
Translation between languages is not an exact science, even between modern languages. Words have shades of meaning that don't translate well, and some words simply don't exist in other languages. The work of translating is therefore somewhat subjective, and the translator generally has to strike a balance between a dynamic translation (trying to convey the meaning of a passage, regardless of how many words are required) and a literal translation (trying to match the passage word-for-word). The New Living Translation is the most dynamic translation on the market; the New American Standard is the most literal. The rest fall somewhere in between.
The languages used in the Bible are "dead languages"; they stopped being used for the common vernacular a long, long time ago. The Greek and Yiddish used today are descendants, but have significant differences. When you are dealing with a dead language, and translating an old manuscript (which was copied by hand thousands of times over the centuries), sometimes the scribes introduced errors (like spelling mistakes), and there may have even been some instances where overzealous scribes inserted verses that weren't previously there.
The KJV represented the best of biblical scholarship for its day. However, since the KJV was written, we've unearthed many much more ancient manuscripts, and archaeology has revealed to us many things about these dead languages that we didn't know before. The best translation on the market today that takes into account the most amount of research, and strikes a good balance between dynamic and literal is probably the NIV.
dopamine receptor inhibitors, which is what these antipsychotics being discussed are, such as haloperidol, can permanently decrease libido and certainly decrease the likelyhood of reproducing. they also have severe and permanent side effects. i think its obvious and terrible that much of mental illness is due to problems (many social) that can be ameliorated or avoided with more money.
consider the impact of not being able to have peace. having all your neighbors constantly assault you with noise, because of their "right" to be constantly entertained and depend on the social surrogate of television. there are so many of these callous people that if you live in low cost housing such as a boarding house you are very likely out of luck when it comes to your need for peace and quiet. forget about being able to sleep early and wakeup early having had enough rest. this has an obvious effect on sleep and so mental health. when you are chronically deficient in sleep because of the constraints of some people making noise until late. I think that if someone is more wealthy or is simply more able to afford housing where they are not constantly tormented, even chronically at a low level, then they will completely avoid a whole spectrum of mental health issues, which can eventually become very serious and cause a person to become quite psychotic. i think should be class action suits against many landlords of boarding houses that are basically unsafe because of the negligence of the owners. often if someone is being particularly disturbing they will eventually be removed but a constant level of stress and disturbance by almost everyone, in some cases created defensively to block out others disturbances, is still harmful.