2008 Woodie Awards
Prescription-o-mania
Amanda Pressley
Issue date: 4/20/07 Section: Forum
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I live in a pharmacy.
Among myself and my seven hall-mates, there are 45 prescriptions floating around. Doesn't anyone find it odd that eight people under 21 and in the prime of their lives are pumped full of antidepressants, antipsychotics, sedatives, muscle relaxers and medications for ADD and hypertension?
To the contrary, as the fastest growing medical expenditure, overmedicating is the most chivalrous capitalistic action. After all, what would America be without its title of "Largest Consumer of Psychotropic Drugs?"
To defend this medicinal honor we swallow countless pills, involve patriotic youth in the over-consumption and even sacrifice our lives to maintain our nation's prescription pride.
"For the past three years, prescription volume has grown by 25 percent in the United States, and there doesn't appear to be a slowdown in sight," said medical magazine The Pharmacy Times.
As reported to The St. Petersburg Times in 2004, more than 40 percent of the American population takes at least one prescription drug; the U.S. Health and Human Services Department claims that this number has grown by 13 percent since a 1994 survey.
Furthermore, the total number of Americans who take three or more prescriptions has increased to 16 percent.
The latest in the laundry list of illnesses is perhaps the most disturbing. It doesn't satisfy the complaints of "I'm too fat" or "my left toe hurts" but rather, "My baby, it cries, something must be wrong."
New Jersey Medicare records show that mood-altering, psychotropic drugs are prescribed to 39,000 children less than age 18 in the state. This goes beyond giving a couple of rambunctious fifth-graders Ritalin. Toddlers are being drugged too.
In December 2006, the independent online publication, News Target, reported that two-year-olds are being given the antipsychotic, Seroquel. Kiss the "terrible twos" goodbye and welcome to the "dulcet dos."
Additionally, the antidepressant, Effexor, and yet another antipsychotic, Risperdal, are being given to children under age one; neither has been approved for use on children.
Among myself and my seven hall-mates, there are 45 prescriptions floating around. Doesn't anyone find it odd that eight people under 21 and in the prime of their lives are pumped full of antidepressants, antipsychotics, sedatives, muscle relaxers and medications for ADD and hypertension?
To the contrary, as the fastest growing medical expenditure, overmedicating is the most chivalrous capitalistic action. After all, what would America be without its title of "Largest Consumer of Psychotropic Drugs?"
To defend this medicinal honor we swallow countless pills, involve patriotic youth in the over-consumption and even sacrifice our lives to maintain our nation's prescription pride.
"For the past three years, prescription volume has grown by 25 percent in the United States, and there doesn't appear to be a slowdown in sight," said medical magazine The Pharmacy Times.
As reported to The St. Petersburg Times in 2004, more than 40 percent of the American population takes at least one prescription drug; the U.S. Health and Human Services Department claims that this number has grown by 13 percent since a 1994 survey.
Furthermore, the total number of Americans who take three or more prescriptions has increased to 16 percent.
The latest in the laundry list of illnesses is perhaps the most disturbing. It doesn't satisfy the complaints of "I'm too fat" or "my left toe hurts" but rather, "My baby, it cries, something must be wrong."
New Jersey Medicare records show that mood-altering, psychotropic drugs are prescribed to 39,000 children less than age 18 in the state. This goes beyond giving a couple of rambunctious fifth-graders Ritalin. Toddlers are being drugged too.
In December 2006, the independent online publication, News Target, reported that two-year-olds are being given the antipsychotic, Seroquel. Kiss the "terrible twos" goodbye and welcome to the "dulcet dos."
Additionally, the antidepressant, Effexor, and yet another antipsychotic, Risperdal, are being given to children under age one; neither has been approved for use on children.
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