The AP reports:
American children take anti-psychotic medicines at about six times the rate of children in the United Kingdom, according to a comparison based on a new U.K. study . . .
And with scant long-term safety data, it’s likely the drugs are being over-prescribed for both U.S. and U.K. children, research suggests . . .
In the U.K. study, anti-psychotics were prescribed for 595 children at a rate of less than four per 10,000 children in 1992. By 2005, 2,917 children were prescribed the drugs at a rate of seven per 10,000 — a near-doubling, said lead author Fariz Rani, a researcher at the University of London’s pharmacy school.
The study is being released Monday in the May edition of the journal Pediatrics.
By contrast, an earlier U.S. study found that nearly 45 American children out of 10,000 used the drugs in 2001 versus more than 23 per 10,000 in 1996.
