More Ways to Abuse Kentucky's Most Vulnerable

Kentucky's minority, poor and disabled children are also assigned to special ed classes and condemned to juvenile detention at a far higher rate than their white and richer counterparts, so why not drug the living fuck out of them while you're at it?

Beth Musgrave at the Herald:

The amount of powerful antipsychotic drugs distributed to poor and disabled children on Medicaid in Kentucky jumped 270 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Kentucky.

The largest growth was for minority children, who took medications to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression at three times the rate of white children in 2010.

In addition, the report found unexplained geographical differences in how minority children are treated for mental illnesses. For example, minority children in Bath County in Eastern Kentucky are taking antipsychotic medications at a rate nearly 26 times higher than minority children in Christian County in Western Kentucky. Yet the report found little difference in white children in those two counties.

SNIP

Michael Childress, who authored the study, said it does not make any conclusions about why there are such variances in prescriptions for ADHD or why so many minority children are prescribed antipsychotic medications.

"This report provides data that should cause people to ask questions and to seek out answers," Childress said. "Health providers and people in these communities need to look at this data and start asking questions about what some of this data shows."

Part of the increase may be due to a increased willingness to treat mental illness in poor and minority children, who have been neglected in this area. But as with adult drugs, commercial advertising drives demand for quick-fix pills rather than long-term non-drug treatment.

And as with everything needed by poor, disabled and minority Kentuckians, there aren't enough mental-health professionals to go around. 

UPDATE: Via Firedoglake: 

It’s come to this? Prescribing Adderall for children, not because they have ADHD, but to stimulate them “to boost their academic performance” is being reported. Why? The approaches schools take don’t fit these children and “their families can rarely afford behavior-based therapies like tutoring and family counseling”, but their grades improve after administering the medication.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/10/09/2365969/use-of-antipsychotic-drugs-up.html#storylink=cpy