Dr. Fuad Ziai, a pediatric endocrinologist in Oak Lawn, Illinois, prescribed Adderall, a drug typically prescribed to treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD to an 11-year-old patient who was 30 pounds overweight. Adderall is in the amphetamine family and are well-known appetite suppressants.
"Ziai's approach to treating obesity - he says he has prescribed Adderall for weight loss to about 800 children and teens - raises an important ethical question: Has the obesity epidemic among children become so severe that it's OK to prescribe a drug not approved for weight loss when the drug can have serious, sometimes life-threatening side effects?"
The child's parents say they'd do again – they say that their son avoided developing diabetes because of the Adderall.
But, the Food and Drug Administration warns that some who take Adderall develop psychiatric problems and pediatricians say it's wrong to prescribe Adderall for weight loss. Read more at
CNN.com.
Labels: diabetes, ethics, medications