When Groups Are Forgotten

I sit on the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee for an insurance company in my area. I am the only child and adolescent psychiatrist and the only pediatrician on the Committee, so really, the only primary representative for children and adolescents. It is amazing how many medications we go through and how few have FDA-approved indications for kids. Some of the medications are for a diagnosis that would not have an impact on kids, but there are ones that should, and yet they are being presented to the Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee only for adults. It is clear that there are more conditions affecting adults, so it isn't surprising to have more medications coming out for them, but sometimes it feels like kids are forgotten when it comes to the decision of developing the next medication to treat a different condition. During Committee meetings, I will ask why a medication is being considered only for adults, and the response is that they didn't do the trials for children. Although bringing a drug to market inevitably involves significant cost and effort, it still seems that when decisions were made about testing and approval, children were largely overlooked. This is why, as child and adolescent psychiatrists, we are advocates to make sure our patients aren't forgotten. It is also why we need to make sure that other groups who are often overlooked in medicine are not forgotten.