Give more autistic children Prozac' says expert

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Give more autistic children Prozac' says expert
rofessor Eric Hollander said a class of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) had been shown to reduce anxiety and disruptive behaviours.

SSRIs are a class of drugs that treat depression but can also be prescribed for other conditions such panic attacks, obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety. view article

I'm a bit leery of this - while many people with ASDs are depressed, certainly not all of them are, and I don't think prescribing drugs is a good thing unless there is a need.

They haven't been able to show SSRI's to have an effect at all on adolescent depression, but it really jacks up the suicide rate and means more possible Columbine/Virginia tech kind of acts. I feel that there's not much point trying to drug away autistic symptoms in children either, because they're going to have to learn to deal with their natural reactions at some point anyway, and whatever benefit drugs have had in keeping reactions like these away is gone when medication is halted anyway.

So, we should really try to stop psychiatry from drugging children.