Psychiatric drugs: Australia, what are they doing to your children?

Psychiatric drug prescribing for children is markedly increasing

An Australian study regarding psychiatric drug prescribing for children found significant increases in all classes of psychotropic drugs.

Julie Klau, an author of the study, points out the rising prescriptions are being done without regulatory approvals for the drugs being used with children.

“Very few psychiatric drugs are approved for children or teenagers in Australia, and none for depression. However, we found that 1 in 10 teenagers 15 to 18 years were prescribed antidepressants in 2018’’

University of Adelaide. E Black. Prescribing of psychiatric drugs to Australian kids on the rise. 2022. ³

At the same time, there are several indications that there are wild variations in prescribing practices such as the rate of prescribing for antipsychotics in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales being 22.5 times higher than areas that had the lowest rate, with no possible clinical explanation for the differences. ⁴

Professor Jon Jureidini, study author and Research Leader of the Critical and Ethical Mental Health group, said:

“Antipsychotics are associated with weight gain and metabolic problems, including diabetes. And antidepressants are associated with suicidal behaviour, especially in vulnerable teens. In America, the FDA – America’s equivalent of the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration– has included a strong ‘black box’ warning about this risk on all antidepressants since 2004.”  

University of Adelaide. E Black. Prescribing of psychiatric drugs to Australian kids on the rise. 2022. ⁵

This study from Adelaide University also found that children from disadvantaged families were 3 times more likely to be prescribed antipsychotic medications.

This data confirmed figures from an earlier 2018 study which also found significant bias in prescriptions towards children from disadvantaged families:

As suggested in 2017 by Dr Paul Robertson, the chairman of the child and adolescent psychiatry faculty at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists:

“One of the concerns is that prescribing medication is easier to do than delivering evidence-based, high quality psychosocial interventions. Where there is a shortage of resources, you worry that medications are relied on too much.”

Sydney Morning Herald. 2017. Over 16,000 Australian children prescribed antipsychotics, PBS data shows ⁹

All this leaves us with for 2020/21 is 247,884 children on psychiatric drugs. And 2,522 between the ages of 0 to 4 years. ^{10 11}

Indeed, that medications are being relied on too much seems a considerable understatement and yet what will it take to stop it?

At the same time, suicide rates for Australian children are steadily rising and the use of psychotropic drugs is doing absolutely nothing to improve that. ^{12 13}