According to a review ordered by the UK’s Department of Health, excessive use of the medication causes an estimated 1,800 deaths and almost as many strokes among older people every year. As many as many as 144,000 people suffering from dementia are being given anti-psychotic drugs unnecessarily.
Ironically, the FDA is approving these drugs for use in children at the same time that the Justice Department has been fining drug companies for illegally marketing these drugs to children. The illegal marketing corrupted and contaminated medical practice, encouraging physicians to prescribe off label, eventually leading the FDA to then approve off label prescribing. The studies used to justify this approval have been wholly developed and supervised by these same drugs companies using handpicked doctors who have often been involved in encouraging off label use. Drug companies commonly ghostwrite the research publications that appear under the names of these doctors.
The lawsuit, filed by Dr. Stefan Kruszewski of Harrisburg, Pa., alleges that three of the researchers who helped conduct Geodon clinical trials – Dr. Richard Borison, Dr. Bruce Diamond and Dr. Louis Fabre – have been sanctioned by regulatory authorities. Borison and Diamond were debarred by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and received prison time, according to the suit, and Fabre earned sanctions in Texas for research misconduct.
As newly approved drugs harm and even kill children, more parents are fighting back. The most dramatic moment for the 70 doctors and 200 spectators attending June FDA hearings about approving new psychiatric drugs for children came when two bereaved mothers approached the open mike.
Twelve state Zyprexa lawsuits remain outstanding, a spokesman told the Health Blog, and this latest settlement effort would wrap up a “subset” of that number.