Belviq For Kids: Safe and Effective or Harmful and Ineffective? In 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Belviq (lorcaserin hydrochloride) as a drug to treat obesity. Is it safe and effective for children? Or should it not be used on kids because it could be harmful and dangerous for them?
To date, the safety and effectiveness of Belviq has only been tested for adults 18 years old and above. This means that since it has not been tested on children you should NOT USE THE DRUG TO TREAT CHILDHOOD OBESITY.
Never ever ever? Well, maybe not ever ever. According to the Daily Mail, the company behind the drug is planning to come up with a Belviq version for children aged 6 to 18 years old.
From the Daily Mail:
In recent years, companies seeking a license for a new drug, have been required to also do tests on children.
Medicines for diseases that do not affect youngsters, such as Alzheimer’s, and treatments that would obviously be dangerous, are exempt but most others have to go through the process.
Trials of Belviq children will not begin until the drug has been on sale for at least a year and wide-scale use on youngsters is still at least five years away.
Craig Audet, Arena’s senior vice president, stressed the drug would be for obese children and teenagers, not those who are merely overweight.
He said: ‘When obese children go through puberty, it is almost impossible for them to lose weight. That’s why treating children at a younger age may make sense if diet and exercise alone don’t work.’
More from Diet Pills Watchdog:
Arena will probably have to modify Belviq before Lorcaserin is approved for children in the USA, and the drug will have to adhere to stringent testing before it goes on sale in the UK. Regulations in the EU require that a number of specific tests must be carried out on a new drug before it can be classified as being safe for children.
The company have not given any details about their new child friendly product and it seems likely that they may run into problems even marketing the adult version outside the USA.
Now, until trials have been done which confirms that Belviq is safe and effective for kids and until government authorities approve its use for children YOU SHOULD NOT, we repeat, SHOULD NOT administer the anti-obesity drug on kids.
For an anti-obesity drug for children that has gained the approval of regulatory bodies such as the FDA, you might want to check out our earlier post, Xenical: Diet Pill for Kids.
But, as we mentioned in said post, it is far far better if kids lose weight through healthy means such as good diet and exercise rather than simply popping pills even if said pills, like Xenical, are approved by health authorities.