This blog is based on a series of 6 articles published recently in The Denver Post about the overprescription of powerful psychotropic medication to foster children. The jourrnalists found that while it’s a national epidemic, in Colorado, efforts to curb the problem are lagging other states.
The article excerpted below, Drug Firms Have Used Dangerous Tactics to Drive Sales to Treat Kids, focuses on the way that, over decades, the pharmaceutical industry has pushed aggressively to market psychotropics to children and tap into the lucrative Medicaid system.
By Christopher N. Osher and Jennifer Brown
Posted 4/14/14
Pharmaceutical companies wooed academic leaders, ghostwrote articles, suppressed damaging health data and lavished doctors with gifts to make prescribing powerful psychotropic drugs to children a blockbuster profit center, a trail of lawsuits over the past two decades shows.
The push succeeded in reaching a particularly vulnerable group: foster children, who experts say often struggle to cope with trauma that psychotropic drugs don’t heal.
A Denver Post investigation into antipsychotic use found that foster children were prescribed the potent mood-altering drugs at a rate 12 times higher than that of other children on Medicaid in Colorado in 2012. Dosages and rates of multidrug prescriptions also were high among foster children in this state.
In Colorado, nine of the top 10 most prescribed drugs for foster children in the Medicaid program are psychotropics, according to the most recently available data. In contrast, for non-foster children, only one psychotropic is among the top 10 most prescribed drugs in Medicaid.
Pharmaceutical firms say the explosive growth has filled an important need and deny that the growth was driven by inappropriate marketing. Officials with those companies say many more people whose symptoms haven’t yet been addressed and aren’t taking the drugs could benefit from taking antidepressants and anti-psychotics.
But many child health experts warn that the increase comes at a tremendous cost to public health programs and at great risk to children. Antipsychotics have been linked to weight gain and diabetes in children and growth of breasts in boys. The FDA has warned that antidepressants increase suicidal behavior and thinking in children and adolescents.
“We really don’t know enough about the safety and effectiveness of these drugs,” said Dr. Tobias Gerhard, an assistant professor at Rutgers University who has studied the growth in prescribing antipsychotics to children and adolescents.
At least three-quarters of the children prescribed antipsychotics through Medicaid took them for issues beyond FDA-approved uses for the drugs, a Rutgers University study [co-authored by Dr. Gerhard] found. The drugs often are prescribed for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, anxiety or depression, none of which is a condition the FDA has approved for treatment by antipsychotics in children, the study found.
Since 2008, pharmaceutical companies have agreed to pay more than $13 billion to resolve U.S. Department of Justice allegations of fraudulent marketing practices.
While the court settlements seem big, they don’t compare to the profits the sales of the drugs generate, said Stephen Sheller, a Philadelphia lawyer who worked with the justice department on a whistle-blower lawsuit involving Risperdal.
Meanwhile, lawsuits against pharmaceutical firms alleging violations of the federal false-claims act continue to be filed at a rapid pace. The justice department says 500 health care fraud act lawsuits were filed last year, the most ever in a year.
“Nothing is going to change significantly until a few top people go to jail,” Sheller said. “There is too much money to gain by marketing the drugs illegally.”
About the overprescription drugs
Psychotropics: A broad class of medications made of chemicals that alter brain function, including mood and behavior; these include antidepressants, anti-anxiety drugs and attention-deficit-disorder drugs.
Antipsychotics: The most powerful drugs in the broader class of psychotropics; have been linked to diabetes and weight gain in children, and growth of breasts in boys.
Atypicals: The latest generation of antipsychotic medications, with brand names such as Abilify, Zyprexa and Risperdal.
About the series of overprescription
This investigation by The Denver Post into psychotropic drug use by foster children stems from The Post’s “Failed to Death” series on Colorado’s child-welfare system that ran in 2012.
The overprescription of powerful psychotropic medication to foster children is a national epidemic — yet in Colorado, efforts to curb the problem lag some states.
The Post obtained unpublished state data and reports, interviewed foster families and children, reviewed other states’ efforts and examined promising new therapies.
Other stories in the series include:
- Meds, lack of oversight put emphasis on survival
- Colorado’s monitoring of psychotropics trails other states’ efforts
- New thinking on brain-science therapies could help foster kids
- Mother wishes she had restricted flow of prescription drugs to her son
- Colorado responds slowly to psychotropic drug use among foster kids
(Excerpted with permission from The Denver Post. Read the full article.)
