Antipsychotic Drugs - The Chemical Straight Jacket - In the News

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Antipsychotic Drugs - The Chemical Straight Jacket - In the News

Dallas Morning NewsKnee-deep in quick fixesDec 21, 2008Re: "Suit: Drug firm defrauded state -- Company denies false claims to get Risperdal on state's preferred list," Wednesday news story.As a mental health clinician I have been appalled by the indiscriminate use of Risperdal, a powerful anti-psychotic medication, in the treatment of non-psychotic symptoms in children and adults.Your article about the conspiracy of fraud perpetrated by Janssen Pharmaceuticals and certain state officials upon the state of Texas and its citizens is no surprise. Greed has no conscience.The willingness of drug companies to jeopardize the mental and physical health of children in order to increase their bottom line is just another example of the depths to which businesses have sunk in the endless pursuit of the almighty dollar. However, we have become co-conspirators in this fraud in the sense that we are endlessly in search of the quick fix -- a pill for every problem.Steve Long, Dallas

Source: http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/12/knee-deep-in-qu.html

Comments here: http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20081221/NEWS/812210347

Poughkeepsie Journal Calmer child comes with a price: side effects By Beth PfeifferDecember 21, 2008When 11-year-old , a City of Poughkeepsie youth, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he was a skinny, 65-pound 7-year-old who had been physically aggressive to his mother and was, in her words, "tearing the house apart." He calmed down after being placed on Abilify, an antipsychotic medication dispensed 1,816 times last year to Medicaid children in Ulster and Dutchess counties.There was a price to pay however. Within six weeks, put on an astonishing 40 pounds - 60 percent of his body mass - and four years later, he still struggles with his weight.He is not alone. , a City of Poughkeepsie 17-year-old who credits her medication with saving her, gained 100 pounds on a 150-pound frame when she was 14 and first put on Zoloft and Abilify. "It felt like I was starving," she said of the round-the-clock drive to eat, which led to a diabetes medication to control her blood sugar level. (Pseudonyms have been used because of the stigma associated with mental illness.)Weight gain is just one of the many and serious side effects of psychiatric medications prescribed for children.Kids exhibit muscle tremors and tics, potentially irreversible. They become light-headed. One local parent said her son developed a life-threatening rash while on an antiseizure medication called Lamactil, dispensed 410 times locally last year. Another parent said her son's school average dropped from 80 to 17 because he kept falling asleep in class from his high dose of Seroquel, among the most popular antipsychotics locally with 1,617 unique prescriptions written last year.According to a recent study in the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, children on atypical antipsychotics had twice the odds of becoming obese, three times of developing diabetes and nearly three times of exhibiting cardiovascular conditions. The study further found children on multiple antipsychotics had five times the odds of developing problems with their blood lipid counts, which are sometimes associated with elevated cholesterol.These are risks parents reluctantly accept along with drugs that for the most part have not been studied in children because of the high cost and ethical implications of conducting research on children."We kind of are the research, unofficially," said the northern Dutchess mother of a boy with bipolar disorder. "While we're waiting (for the research) the kids are tearing down the house and committing suicide and things like that."The potential side effects of Zyprexa and Risperdal, which were dispensed 1,832 times to Medicaid children in Ulster and Dutchess last year, became an issue at an FDA hearing last month at which a panel of expert consultants criticized the drugs' overuse in children.Zyprexa was associated with 42 serious side effects in U.S. children 16 and under in a recent 13-month period, including three deaths, according to an FDA review given to the committee. These are among 44 pediatric deaths worldwide since the drug's approval in the 1996. Zyprexa is one of four common atypical antipsychotics used "off label" for children, meaning it has not been FDA approved for use in children.Risperdal, meantime, was associated with 42 serious side effects and eight deaths in U.S. children in the 13-month period, among 31 pediatric deaths since the drug's introduction in 1993. In both cases, the agency said the review of deaths "did not reveal any new safety concerns" about the drugs; panel members said they wanted to know more about potential side effects of the drugs in children."Research around psychotropic medication usage in children and adolescents lags far behind what it should," said Dr. Gabel, medical director for children and family services for the state Office of Mental Health, who is concerned about the long-term effects of such drugs. "We use the medications without the backup knowledge had we done the larger scale true experiments."