Deaths reported in children prescribed ‘ newer generation’ antipsychotics

Health Canada is receiving growing numbers of reports of serious complications in children taking powerful antipsychotics, including deaths.

Once reserved for schizophrenia and mania in adults, the drugs are increasingly

being prescribed to children as young as preschoolers. As of Dec. 31, 2012, Health Canada had received 17 fatal reports in children related to so- called “second- generation antipsychotics,” or SGAs, Postmedia News has learned.

Four of the reports concerned deaths in babies who were exposed to antipsychotics in the womb.

The government has also received 73 reports of “cardiometabolic” reactions in children taking the drugs, including dramatic weight gain, high blood pressure and blood sugar abnormalities.

Use of the drugs in children has increased substantially in the last decade. Overall, from 2005 to 2009, antipsychotic drug prescriptions for children

and youth in Canada increased by 114 per cent, despite limited evidence about their safety in children.

The drugs are being used for attention- deficit/ hyperactivity disorder, “conduct” disorders, mood disorders, aggression and other behavioural problems.

Only one — aripiprazole, or Abilify — has been officially approved for use in children,

and only then for the treatment of schizophrenia in teenagers 15 to 17.

The reports involving deaths do not prove cause and effect. The drugs are listed as playing a “suspect” role. In addition, most of the children were on multiple different medications at the time. Some died from completed suicides.

“It may just be that the

severity of the mental- health concern resulted in suicide,” said Dr. Dina Panagiotopoulos, an associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia and an endocrinologist at BC Children’s Hospital. There is no evidence in the literature to date that the drugs carry an increased risk of death in children, she said.