Poor Children Liklier to Get Antipsychotics (posted 12/23)

The New York Times reports that children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance.  A team from Rutgers and Columbia in a federally financed drug research initiative found that chlidren from poor families not only receive powerful psychiatric drugs more than their peers covered under private insurance, but that they also receive the drugs for less severe conditions.  These findings which are not yet published but are available on the internet are fueling a long-running debate framed by the question, "Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?"  The Rutgers-Columbia study will be pulished next year in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs.  To read the New York Times Article click here.  To view the study's initial findings on the internet click here.

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