Drug corporations spend billions a year promoting their pills to children.

Drug giants spend billions a year promoting their pills to children. Johnson & Johnson even advertises its latest anti-psychotic on Legos, ignoring evidence that the drug causes early diabetes, wild weight gain and breast milk in both boys and girls.

In the past decade, America's pharmaceutical industry has knowingly marketed dozens of dangerous drugs to millions of children, a group that executives apparently view as a lucrative, untapped market for their products. Most kids have no one to look out for their interests except anxious parents who put their trust in doctors. But that trust is often misplaced. Big Pharma spends massive amounts to entertain physicians, send them on luxury vacations, and ply them with an endless supply of free products. As a result, hundreds of thousands of American kids—some as young as three years old—have become dependent on amphetamines like Adderall and a pharmacopeia of other drugs that are meant to treat depression, insomnia, aggression and other mental health disorders.

The fact that none of these powerful mood-altering medications have been approved by the FDA to treat children under 10 has posed no obstacle to the industry's marketing masterminds. They've waved off objections by some some doctors who wonder how these complex drugs will affect the vulnerable brains and bodies of their young patients. Other experts have warned that children exposed to this multi-molecular barrage on their central nervous systems could potentially be at much higher risk of becoming adults who are addicted to chemicals, prescription and otherwise. But thanks to a billion-dollar advertising campaign, millions of kids across the nation are now taking pills to control a long litany of "behavioral problems."

In fact this code of misconduct is what we have come to expect from the pharmaceutical industry: Always put profits first, break the law now, pay the fine years later. Given the high-risk nature of drug development—a novel compound costs close to $1 billion and a decade to get to market—Big Pharma has tried all manner of dark arts to increase its odds. Criminal activity, once largely limited to the sales divisions, has overtaken the entire endeavor. Clinical trials that produce negative data—including health risks—are hidden from the FDA. Early signals of serious side effects are covered up, as are promised follow-up studies upon which approval is conditioned. Like other industries, pharma and its lobbyists have regulators and Congress by the balls.

Link: http://www.thefix.com/content/jj-sued-illegal-promotion-drugs-kids