Black Youth, Over-Medicated and Underserved - Part 1

As seen in this report by Charlene Muhammad of FinalCall.Com. While we acknowledge that some news reports from the Black Muslim community can be controversial, there are also many items that are woefully underreported. We are breaking this up into three sections, with the first one posted below today:

The Rev. Fred Shaw, Jr., of the Basic Life Institute in Compton, Calif., has been working with troubled youth and gang-bangers for over a decade. But as he tries to help them turn their lives around, the specter of drugs has surfaced. Not illegal drugs, like crack cocaine or meth, but legal drugs that the activist is concerned with.

He believes psychotropic drugs, like Ritalin, are over-prescribed, and hastily dispensed to control young people, instead of helping them deal with serious emotional and social problems. “We don’t even know the full scope of the impact of these drugs on our youth and people don’t care enough to test whether or not it’s the stimulants that are causing them to shoot and violently kill one another,” he said.

Before working with the Basic Life Institute, the Rev. Shaw co-owned a group home and was stunned by the number of Black youth that were medicated. “African Americans are 16 percent of the nation’s student population but we’re 32 percent of students being drugged, but it’s so entrenched into the system that people have bought into the process wholesale,” he said.

He believes authorities stopped referring clients because he opposed drugging of youth in his group home. The activist also believes mental health drug campaigns are well orchestrated and pushed by pharmaceutical companies. “They fund the psychiatric research, then the psychiatrists develop diagnoses which allows the companies to sell their drugs through them. One hand is washing the other, and they have studied normal adolescent behaviors and made them mental disorders,” Rev. Shaw charged.

Psychotropic drugs are prescribed to treat mental disorders and diseases. That means the same drugs may be used to calm youngsters who are hyper and to stimulate young people who may be depressed.

The most common diagnosis that results in drug treatments is Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). According to the FDA, ADHD accounts for up to 50 percent of mental health referrals for children and at least 7.5 percent of all school-aged children are affected by ADHD. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that 4.7 million children between 3-17 years of age were diagnosed with ADHD. The percentage of boys was 9.5 percent while girls comprised 5.9 percent.

The fears voiced by Rev. Shaw aren’t new and Black psychologists have raised questions about the impact and long-term effects of drugging Black children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. Some federal warnings boost their worries.

Last year, the Food and Drug Administration ordered manufacturers of psychotropic drugs to develop patient medication guides to warn of possible cardiovascular risks associated with the drugs. Such drugs, which include Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall and Strattera, are usually given to children diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. Side affects include anxiety or nervousness; headache or dizziness; insomnia; headache, stomach pain, sleeplessness and decreased appetite.

Early last year, the FDA also indicated that ADHD medicines showed a slight risk (about 1 per 1,000) for drug-related psychiatric adverse events, including hearing voices, becoming suspicious for no reason, or becoming manic, even in patients who did not have previous psychiatric problems.

The Centers for Disease Control lists symptoms of ADHD as often fidgeting with hands or feet; squirming in seat; running or climbing when inappropriate; feeling restless; often on the go and talks excessively; and often acting as if driven by a motor.

According to Dr. Ronald Beavers, a psychologist with the Positive Imagery Foundation in South Los Angeles, Black children are disproportionately represented because their needs are greater.

“Our children are locked more into the system and when you look at the statistics and those in foster care and up for adoption, and see what ethnic group is overrepresented, question marks should be coming up because it’s African Americans. Eighty percent of adoptions and 80 percent of foster care are Black children,” Dr. Beavers told The Final Call.

Alternatives to drugs, like group counseling, life skills and culturally competent parenting education, are usually counted out because they cost time and money, he added.

“The ultimate alternative for Blacks is learning how to live,” Dr. Beavers said.

An employee with the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services told The Final Call, the department tracks foster care children who are taking psychotropic drugs, but the numbers are not easy to get. Even high-ranking employees find it difficult to get the actual facts about the drugging of children because the numbers are an embarrassment to the department, said the employee, who has a background in social work. The employee asked to remain anonymous.