Overmedicated 4-year-old dies

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Here's the Wikipedia article for Clonidine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonidine

It's a really potent blood pressure medication. I don't understand how the risks could possibly be worth it for giving it to any children. If that lady had brought it to anywhere I worked at, I wouldn't have filled the prescription - I would have crumpled up the paper and stuck it so far up her butt that it would have hit the back of her teeth.

Ugh, what filthy, disgusting people! Two-year-olds shouldn't even be taken in to get checked for these sort of things, none the less get medications for them! The parents and the doctor should all be thrown in jail and charged with death penalty!

Shrinks should have to have their prescriptions reviewed by pharmacists or medical doctors to make sure they are safe doses and be monitored to make sure no harmful side effects occur.

Psychiatrists actually are medical doctors.

The problem with pharmacists is that they can't decide to change the prescription; they can either make recommendations about dosages/medication safety to the prescribers, or they can refuse to fill it.

The pharmacist in this story claims to have questioned the physician about the overprescribing and the mom's constant requesting of early refills. The psychiatrist claimed there was not a problem. BUT, the pharmacist could still apply professional judgement and refuse to fill the prescription.

oh, this is just so sad.

Yes, that behaviour beforehand is normal for a two-year old.
But umm...do you know what makes this even worse? There's actually a formula for working out safe children's doses. I believe it's called 'Cowling's rule' although I could be wrong.

Sure there's ways to work out childrens' doses. It may not even be so bad to give a kid Depakote - the stuff was originally intended to treat epileptic seizures, so if a kid's got epilepsy it is better to be medicated than to be having seizures all the time.