Should drugs that cause suicidal tendency be allowed to teens and children?

[Marshalscienceguy]

Should drugs which cause people to become suicidal be allowed to be prescribed to teen or Children? ADD and many depression medication is said to have side effects of suicidal thoughts and behavior as well as worsening depression. Now teen and children are going to be more depressed naturally. If a child has to go through stuff like divorce or just neglectful parents they are not going to be very happy. Teens are often depressed since they are hitting puberty and don't always know how to handle it and often this results in them picking on other innocent teens who never did anything. Now instead of dealing with kids social problems and teaching everyone HOW to handle stress they simply drug them. However when these type of drugs cause suicidal thoughts, behavior and depression should we really risk it? OR should it be reserved for adults who have a choice to determine to risk their sanity and health? Some people have gone to the mental ward for suicide issues. Now if someone takes medication that makes them suicidal and is than drugged with medication that turns them into a zombie is it really fair to put them their when they were forced to take medication that made them that way? A lot of times ADD is misdiagnosed or mistaken for things like OCD. So there is also the added result of giving it to a child that doesn't even have that disorder and so you are just giving the child unnecessary medication.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Marshalscienceguy

[John Cuthber]

"Should drugs which cause people to become suicidal be allowed to be prescribed to teen or Children?"

Yes.

[Arete]

Your liberal use of sweeping generalizations, unsupported assertions and leading questions suggests that you might not be approaching discussion in good faith. In addition, all drugs have side effects and virtually any condition can be misdiagnosed. You could pretty much use you logic to argue against the use of any treatment for any condition.

 

A meta analysis of over 400 studies evaluating elevated suicide risk associated with SSRI use found no elevated risk of suicide, and only a slight increase in the risk of non-suicidal self harm. http://www.bmj.com/content/330/7488/385

 

So the risk of suicide is negligible. Let's examine efficacy - SSRI's significantly reduce the symptoms of moderate and severe depression, with less side effects in most patients than TCA's. http://cat.inist.fr/aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1835031

 

 

According to the evidence, the limited risk and high efficacy of SSRIs most likely make their prescription for the conditions they are designed to treat worth it.

[Phi for All]

This is a great example of how uneducated assumptions spreading to an equally uneducated public results in complete disregard for professional medical advice.

[Marshalscienceguy]

Your liberal use of sweeping generalizations, unsupported assertions and leading questions suggests that you might not be approaching discussion in good faith. In addition, all drugs have side effects and virtually any condition can be misdiagnosed. You could pretty much use you logic to argue against the use of any treatment for any condition.

 

A meta analysis of over 400 studies evaluating elevated suicide risk associated with SSRI use found no elevated risk of suicide, and only a slight increase in the risk of non-suicidal self harm. http://www.bmj.com/content/330/7488/385

 

So the risk of suicide is negligible. Let's examine efficacy - SSRI's significantly reduce the symptoms of moderate and severe depression, with less side effects in most patients than TCA's. http://cat.inist.fr/aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1835031

 

 

According to the evidence, the limited risk and high efficacy of SSRIs most likely make their prescription for the conditions they are designed to treat worth it.

Yes they do all have side effect but if a drug has side effects of something as serious suicide or depression should we allow it to be prescribed to teenagers and children?

[John Cuthber]

"Yes they do all have side effect but if a drug has side effects of something as serious suicide or depression should we allow it to be prescribed to teenagers and children?"

 

Still yes.

 

You seem to have forgotten that the people who do the prescription are well aware of the balance between side effects and benefits.

You wouldn't prescribe such a medication for a cold, but you might do so for an inoperable cancer.

 

All drugs include death as a potential side effect, so your view would seem to exclude prescription of any drug- on the basis that it might kill the patient.

You are not looking at the other side of the equation and by doing so you are not seeing the whole picture.

[Phi for All]

Yes they do all have side effect but if a drug has side effects of something as serious suicide or depression should we allow it to be prescribed to teenagers and children?

 

It's clear you have a misunderstanding of how adverse effects are reported. But I'm not sure why you're ignoring what everyone else has been saying, that these medications do MUCH more good than harm, the dangers are well known, and when prescribed by a medical professional, the lives they save far outweighs any known risks.

 

Rather than remove them from everyone's hands, it's more rational if we simply watch those with higher risk more carefully. Driving a car is more dangerous for teenagers than adults, but we just monitor them more rigorously, rather than removing their driving privileges altogether. Does that make sense?

[Arete]

Yes they do all have side effect but if a drug has side effects of something as serious suicide or depression should we allow it to be prescribed to teenagers and children?

 

 

To put it in context - a relatively small overdose of acteominophen will cause irreversible liver damage and potentially lead to an un-treatable, horrible death from liver failure. In fact, acteominophen is the major cause of acute liver failure in the western world. Yet, you can buy a bottle of 1000 pills of it off the shelf in the supermarket.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol#Adverse_effects

http://www.staples.com/Acetaminophen-Extra-Strength-Caplets-1000-Caplets-Bottle/product_114896

 

On the other hand, as previously shown, the risk of suicide due to SSRI side effects is statistically non-significant, or at least is unclear and difficult to detect. Unlike acteominophen, SSRI's are prescription drugs only obtainable from a doctor.

 

You're substantially overplaying the risks of SSRI medications and not acknowledging the substantial benefits they can have for sufferers of depression, anxiety, OCD and eating disorders.