Tag Archives: antipsychotic

In Indiana, Psychiatrists Once Again Top the List of Top Drug Prescribers Under Medicaid/Medicare

The agency compiled a list of top prescribers overall in 2008 and top prescribers for certain psychiatric medications in 2008 and 2009, including Zyprexa, Geodon, Risperdal and Abilify. According to the list, the top overall prescriber in Indiana is Dr. Daniel Kinsey, a psychiatrist in Goshen. He wrote 2,894 prescriptions in 2008, which resulted in $791,289 in medication charges to the state. The next highest was Dr. Melinda Weekly, a psychiatrist in Bloomington, who wrote 2,456 prescriptions in 2008, resulting in charges to Indiana of $1.16 million. Other states have also compiled lists. In Texas, one doctor authorized 13,596 prescriptions for anxiety drug Xanax in 2008, and increased it to 14,170, according to a letter Grassley recently sent to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In Connecticut, one doctor ranked consistently as the top prescription writer across a full range of pharmaceuticals, Grassley said, writing 5,945 prescriptions in 2008 and 7,459 in 2009 for seven medications.

Death of Canadian Teen Under Investigation- Following Unwarranted Forced Antipsychotic Injections

A New Brunswick teen who asphyxiated in an Ontario prison cell while guards watched was restrained and forcibly injected with unnecessary tranquilizers and antipsychotic drugs at another institution three months earlier. Julian Falconer, the Smith family’s lawyer, filed Beaudry’s report with a coroner’s court in Toronto on Monday in an effort to expand the scope of an upcoming inquest into Smith’s death. “A psychiatrist prescribed medication without ever seeing her,” Falconer said. “Another health professional force administered, through forced injections, chemical restraints on Ashley.”

Another Psychiatric Drug, Another Potential Criminal Investigation—J&J’s Antipsychotic Risperdal

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) said it’s in discussions with the government to resolve a long-running investigation of whether it improperly marketed the antipsychotic Risperdal. In 2004, the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued a subpoena seeking documents regarding sales and marketing of Risperdal, as well as payments to physicians and clinical trials for the drug, from 1997 to 2002. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia sent an additional subpoena in 2005, seeking information about Risperdal marketing and adverse reactions associated with the drug. Grand jury subpoenas have been issued seeking testimony from various witnesses.

Psychiatric Hospital staff ‘puzzled’ by teenager’s fatal overdose—maybe they should brush up on their drug warnings

A teenager who was under psychiatric “care” was found dead with two antipsychotic drugs in his system. The consulting psychiatrist says he is “puzzled” about his death and that they have “no explanation at all.” Really. Perhaps the good doctor should brush up on the international drug regulatory warnings for the drugs they are prescribing. CCHR’s psychiatric drug database contains 24 international drug regulatory warnings on Antipsychotic drugs, and 49 international studies citing side effects including diabetes, obesity, blood clots, heart problems, cardiac events, cancer, tumors, death/sudden death.

US Soldiers’ Suicides Caused by Prescription Drugs?

Over 4,000 published reports of violent and bizarre behavior of people affected by antidepressants on the Web archive ssristories.com reveal the same out-of-character violence and self-harm in civilians that is currently seen in the military. Twenty people set themselves on fire. Ten bit their victims (including a biter who was sleepwalking and a woman, on Prozac, who bit her 87-year-old mother into a critical condition.) Three men in the 70s and 80s attacked their wives with hammers. Many stabbed their victims obsessively—one even stabbed furniture after killing his wife—and 14 parents drowned their children, a crime seldom heard of before the 2001 Andrea Yates case. Yates, who drowned her five children, was on the antidepressant Effexor, which manufacturer Wyeth (now Pfizer) “issued no public warning” about [the possibility of violent behavior], says the Associated Press.