The Ministry of Health has changed its mind about treating people with ASD with haloperidol

The Russian Ministry of Health has decided not to accept clinical guidelines for the treatment of people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), according to which patients were recommended to be treated with haloperidol. This was reported by psychiatrist Stepan Krasnoshchekov on his Telegram channel.

"We held our positions, we became one step closer to building an adequate system of assistance to children with ASD. And for the second time we defeated those who are trying to drag us into the past instead of the future. And we defeated them openly, publicly, in the legal and scientific-practical field," Krasnoshchekov wrote.

The agency approved the recommendations prepared by the Association of Psychiatrists and Psychologists for Scientifically Based Practice and the Union of Pediatricians of Russia. The Anton Tut Ryadom Foundation notes that clinical recommendations are a mandatory document that all doctors in the country must follow.

In March of this year, the Ministry of Health began considering another draft of recommendations from the Russian Society of Psychiatrists. According to Anton Tut Ryadom, it ignored the achievements of modern science in the field of ASD and the experience accumulated by doctors in this field in Russia.

In particular, the document denied the benefits of applied behavior analysis, one of the methods of treating children with autism. For children from two years of age, haloperidol, a neuroleptic developed back in 1958, was recommended for correction of the disease.

As The Insider notes , the adoption of clinical recommendations of the Russian Society of Psychiatrists would mean a return to the methods of treating ASD from thirty years ago. In turn, this became possible due to Russia's refusal to accept the new international classification of diseases (ICD).

The new classification was not adopted in Russia on the initiative of the State Duma deputies, who stated that “it is necessary to abandon the implementation of those ICD norms that concern the issue of human gender and the LGBT topic.” In the new ICD, some manifestations of human sexuality are no longer considered pathological.

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