At least 10 families have filed lawsuits against the makers of Risperdal and Invega, alleging that the antipsychotic medications, often used to treat attention deficit disorder and autism, caused teen boys to grow breasts measuring as large as a 38D cup size in some cases.
Drugmakers encouraged doctors to prescribe these drugs for children before the FDA sanctioned their use for youngsters. This was particularly troubling, given that the drugs can cause diabetes and weight gain, side effects that prompted thousands of lawsuits claiming that drugmakers tried to hide evidence of these problems.
A federal lawsuit has been filed against pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca for its role in paying Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Michael Reinstein nearly $500,000 over the course of a decade to conduct research and to promote its anti-psychotic drug, Seroquel. Cited in the lawsuit was the fact that Reinstein would continually prescribe roughly double the amount of drugs other psychiatrists would prescribe for the same conditions.
A Chicago Tribune investigation recently showed how many frail and vulnerable Illinois nursing home residents have been unnecessarily dosed with anti-psychotics, leading to harm and an increased risk of death. One psychiatrist, the Tribune found in a joint investigation with ProPublica, provided assembly-line care to thousands of mentally ill patients.
Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased 50 percent with children in the US, and 73 percent among adults, from 1996 to 2006, according to a study in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs. The CIA “World Factbook” estimate the world population to be about 6.8 billion and the US population to be a mere 307 million. In an April 2008 report, the market research firm Datamonitor reported that the “US dominates the ADHD market with a 94 percent market share.”