FDA panel backs antipsychotic drugs for kids

An FDA advisory panel has concluded that three antipsychotic drugs already widely used in children--Zyprexa, Seroquel, and Geodon--are safe and effective in treating children with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, according to news reports.

The FDA is late to the game here--combined sales of the three drugs reached $10 billion last year, according to Reuters.

The drugs are approved only for adults, not for children. But doctors can legally prescribe them for children.

The advisory panel, made up of experts outside the FDA, cautioned that the long-term effects of the drugs on children is unknown. No long-term studies have been done.

That's of particular concern in children, who might have to take the drugs for a lifetime.

The FDA can now consider whether to approve the drugs for children, which would allow the drugs' makers to begin actively marketing them for children--something the companies cannot do now.

More bad news for the children of older fathers

I've written about this here before, and at length in an article in the current issue of Scientific American Mind.

A new study adds more weight to what should be a national concern: The children of older fathers face risks comparable to the children of older mothers. Although the issue of older fathers has received far less attention.

The new study finds subtle deficits in intelligence and other mental abilities in the children of older fathers.

Dolores Malaspina, a psychiatrist at New York University, and the focus of my Scientific American article, provided a couple of interesting quotes to the New York Times this week.

"I think there has been a bit of a cultural bias against even looking at this issue," Malaspina told the Times. "It turns out that the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the optimal age for being a father," she told the New York Times.

For more on this, see my post for Psychology Today. And the Scientific American article.