"I would never have given my son a drug that causes depression for a simple allergy who would?-- but my choice was taken away by a company that buried the risks in 'post marketing adverse events' while it makes billions," says Miller.
Cody's death galvanized the community-- and Miller met with FDA representatives in New York Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand's Washington, D.C., office. Miller also began hearing from other parents, including those in whose children Singulair was producing bipolar and ADHD symptoms.
The tsunami of ask-your-doctor drug advertising that began in 1997 is only one reason branded children's drugs are selling like breakfast cereal. Another is the desirability to the pharmaceutical industry of the child "customer"--easily administered drugs by parents, doctors and teachers --and likely to stay on them for life, if started young.
But the biggest reason for the rush to medicate children, say health policy analysts, even with drugs known to be dangerous, is private funding for expensive, possibly unnecessary drugs is evaporating and the pharmaceutical industry has turned to public funds to satisfy stockholders. A practice Kitchens and other irate moms says has gone on long enough.
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