Britain: Number of Children Prescribed Anti-Depressants Increases by 50% in Seven Years
March 9th, 2016Fill children with metals, feed them GMO food, sit them in classrooms for most of the day, make them do lots of homework at night, which does nothing except make them hate school…
And then, when little Johnny is feeling a bit down…
Via: Independent:
The number of children in the UK prescribed anti-depressants increased by more than 50 per cent between 2005 and 2012, according to a new study.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the use of the drugs to treat young people was a concern, the BBC said.
After fears that anti-depressants could lead to suicidal behaviour in young people, usage in Britain fell, but the study suggests there has been a resurgence in the UK as well as in other Western countries.
Commenting on the results, WHO director of mental health Dr Shekhar Saxena said: “Anti-depressant use amongst young people is and has been a matter of concern because of two reasons.
”One, are more people being prescribed anti-depressants without sufficient reason? And second, can anti-depressants do any major harm?“
He also said that the organisation was worried that young people were being given drugs not licensed for under-18s.
The study, ”Trends and patterns of antidepressant use in children and adolescents from five western countries, 2005-2012“, is published in the European Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology.
In the period examined, there was a 54% increase in the number of young people prescribed anti-depressants in the UK.
This is compared with rises of 60% in Denmark, 49 per cent in Germany and just 26 per cent in the US and 17 per cent in the Netherlands, the BBC said.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines say the drugs should not be used to treat mild depression in children.
