Posts Tagged ‘antipsychotics’

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Pharma-Funded Psychiatrists Behind Bogus Child ‘Bi-Polar’ Epidemic- Disciplined for Conflicts of Interest

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

Harvard Psychiatrists Disciplined for Conflicts of Interest

Alliance for Human Research Protection – July 21, 2011

by Vera Sherav

Psychiatrist Joseph Biederman was funded millions by Pharma while promoting child "bipolar" disorder

The primary promoters–inventors, one might say– of diagnosing children with “bipolar” disorder, who for over a decade, aggressively promoted the biopolar diagnosis and use of antipsychotics in children, were disciplined by Harvard University and its affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

An investigation, prompted by Sen. Charles Grassely, was conducted by Harvard University-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital. It concluded (earlier this month) that psychiatrist Joseph Biederman and two of his proteges, Thomas Spencer and Timothy Wilens -each of who failed to disclose millions of dollars they had each received from the makers of antipsychotics, the drugs they promoted for the treatment of bipolar in children–had indeed violated the University’s/ and hospital’s conflict of interest reporting  standards.

The three wrote a mea culpa letter stating “we want to offer our sincere apologies…” acknowledging “our mistakes…”

However, no mention was made anywhere about the profound consequences of these psychiatritsts’ commercially-driven clinical recommendations. No mention about the corruption of the scientific literature, about clinical practice that deviated from the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm,” nor was any mention made about the harm suffered by children whose doctors were misled about the safety and efficacy of highly toxic drugs.

Child psychiatrists and pediatricians throughout the US were guided by these exceedingly influential Harvard psychiatrists.

As Sen. Chuck Grassley noted in 2008 in the Congressional Record, “they are some of the top psychiatrists in the country, and their research is some of the most important in the field. {But] They have also taken millions of dollars from the drug companies.”

The companies that paid them millions include: Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

The Senator brought public attention–and to Harvard University administrators’ attention–the financial conflicts of interest, “Out of concern about the relationship between this money and their research.”

Indeed, documents uncovered during litigation confirmed that the research was scientifically corrupt and commercially-driven. The New York Times reported that Dr. Biederman promised Johnson a& Johnson that a study (yet to be conducted) in preschool children who would be given the company’s antipsychotic, Risperdal (risperidone) “will support the safety and effectiveness of Risperdal in this age group.”

“The psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, outlined plans to test Johnson & Johnson’s drugs in presentations to company executives. One slide referred to a proposed trial in preschool children of risperidone, an antipsychotic drug made by the drug company. The trial, the slide stated, “will support the safety and effectiveness of risperidone in this age group.”

Dr. Biederman was the lead author of a trial published last year concluding that treatment with risperidone improved symptoms of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder in bipolar children.”

Another of Biederman’s Harvard ignoble disciples was Jeff Bostic, who is also at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was named in a 2009 lawsuit joined by the US Department of Justice alleging Forest Laboratories promoted its antidepressants for pediatric use without FDA approval and paid kickbacks to docs to encourage prescriptions. He received $750,000 in payments for giving talks on using these drugs in children.

Strangely, the National Institute for Mental Health, which had awarded thse psychiatrists millions of dollars at taxpayers expense. It appears that NIMH officials did not see fit to even conduct an investigation into the corruption of science and violation of federal regulations. This demonstrates a lack of professional and moral integrity at the NIMH whose administrators think nothing about the misappropriation of public money for commercially-driven, junk research.

http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/828/9/

Backstory from Pharmalot:

Pharmalot

Harvard Docs Disciplined For Conflicts Of Interest

By Ed Silverman // July 2nd, 2011 // 9:03 am

Three years after they were fingered in a US Senate probe into the interplay between academics who receive grant money from both pharma and the National Institutes of Health, three prominent psychiatrists from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital have been sanctioned for violating conflict of interest rules and failing to report the extent of their payments.

In a mea culpa addressed to their colleagues, Joseph Biederman, Thomas Spencer and Timothy Wilens wrote that “we want to offer our sincere apologies to HMS and MGH communities…We always believed we were complying in good faith with the institutional polices and our mistakes were honest ones. We now recognize that we should have devoted more time and attention to the detailed requirements of these policies and to their underlying objectives.”

And what is their punishment? They must refrain from “all industry-sponsored outside activities” for one year; for two years after the ban ends, they must obtain permission from the med school and the hospital before engaging in any of these activities and they must report back afterward; they must undergo certain training and they face delays before being considered for promotion or advancement (you can read their letter here).

The hospital had this to say: “A committee at Massachusetts General Hospital that has been looking into conflict-of-interest questions involving three MGH child psychiatrists has completed its review. Appropriate remedial actions have been taken by the hospital to address specific issues (read the statement). And a Harvard Med School spokesman sent us this: “We confirm that the review of their compliance with the Harvard Medical School Policy on Conflicts of Interest and Commitment has concluded, and appropriate actions have been taken.” He added that the conflicts policy was revised last year.

The sanctions result from a long-standing controversy over the explosive use of antipsychotics in children. Biederman, in particular (see photo), had been one of the most influential researchers in child psychiatry. Although his studies were small and often financed by drugmakers, his work helped fuel a 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder.

For more than a decade, Biederman and his colleagues aggressively promoted the diagnosis and use of antipsychotics to treat childhood bipolar disorder, a problem that once was largely believed to be confined to adults. But the docs maintained this was underdiagnosed in kids and the meds could be used for treatment, even though they had not been approved for most pediatric use at the time. Meanwhile, the relationships with drugmakers were never properly disclosed (back story).

And for years, payments they received from drugmakers were not thoroughly reported to university officials. Yet, millions of dollars in NIH grants, which were administered by the hospital, were awarded to the docs at the same time they were receiving money from various drugmakers that make and sell antipsychotics and antidepressants. Which ones? Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

At one point, Biederman pushed J&J to fund a research center at MassGen that would focus on the use of its Risperdal antipsychotic in children, well before the med was approved for pediatric use. He was then placed in charge of the institute and began a study of 40 children between 4 and 6 years old who were given Risperdal and Lilly’s Zyprexa, another antipsychotic. At the time, Harvard and MGH rules forbid researchers from running trials with drugmakers if they receive more than $10,000 from a company that makes the drug (back story).

But in June 2008, US Senator Chuck Grassley made a far-reaching statement before Congress that pulled the curtain back on the money involved. The statement is memorialized in the Congressional Record. Referring to the three docs, he said “they are some of the top psychiatrists in the country, and their research is some of the most important in the field. They have also taken millions of dollars from the drug companies.”

“Out of concern about the relationship between this money and their research, I asked Harvard and Mass General Hospital last October to send me the conflict of interest forms that these doctors had submitted to their institutions. Universities often require faculty to fill these forms out so that we can know if the doctors have a conflict of interest. The forms I received were from the year 2000 to the present. Basically, these forms were a mess. My staff had a hard time figuring out which companies the doctors were consulting for and how much money they were making.”

How much were they making? At first, maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars combined. But at his behest, the med school and hospital asked the docs to take a second look. “And this is when things got interesting. Dr. Biederman suddenly admitted to over $1.6 million dollars from the drug companies. And Dr. Spencer also admitted to over $1 million. Meanwhile, Dr. Wilens also reported over $1.6 million in payments from the drug companies.

“The question you might ask is: Why weren’t Harvard and Mass General watching over these doctors? The answer is simple: They trusted these physicians to honestly report this money.” And as Grassley then noted, there was still more money that went unreported (to read the Congressional record, click here and then check the box for 2008 and type in the name ‘Biederman’ in the search box. Then click on ‘payments to physicians’ to read the complete statement and the chart showing payments to each doc).

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1 out of every 7 Elderly Nursing Home Residents on Antipsychotics—Despite Risk of Death

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Modern Medicine – July 16, 2011

Long-term-care (LTC) facilities are overusing antipsychotic drugs. One of every 7 elderly nursing home residents is receiving at least 1 atypical antipsychotic; in 83% of these cases, the drug is associated with a dementia diagnosis, yet the use of atypical antipsychotics in dementia increases the risk of death and is not approved by FDA, according to a report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG).

Erroneous claims

“Government, taxpayers, nursing home residents, as well as their families and caregivers, should be outraged — and seek solutions,” said Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in a statement. “Despite the fact that it is potentially lethal to prescribe antipsychotics to patients with dementia, there’s ample evidence that some drug companies aggressively marketed their products toward such populations, putting profits before safety.”

OIG analyzed atypical antipsychotic use in LTC at the request of Sen Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). The report, issued in May, evaluated Part B and Part D claims data from January to June 2007. Analysts concluded that 51% of Medicare claims for atypical antipsychotics were erroneous. The claimed drugs were not used for medically accepted indications, not used off label as supported by recognized compendia, or not documented as having been administered to the elderly nursing home resident. The erroneous payments totaled $116 million for the 6 months studied.

Unmet standards

OIG also found that 22% of atypical antipsychotics used in LTC were not administered according to Medicare standards regarding unnecessary drug use in nursing homes. The standards are designed to reduce excessive dosage, excessive duration of therapy, inappropriate use, and lack of appropriate monitoring. Noting that violation of unnecessary drug-use rules may affect nursing homes’ participation in Medicare, OIG recommended that HHS act to reduce unnecessary drug use in LTC.

The report included aripiprazole (Abilify, Bristol-Myers Squibb), clozapine (Clozaril, Novartis), olanzapine (Zyprexa, Eli Lilly), olanzapine/fluoxetine (Symbyax, Eli Lilly), paliperidone (Invega, Janssen), quetiapine (Seroquel, AstraZeneca), risperidone (Risperdal, Janssen), and ziprasidone HCl (Geodon, Pfizer).

http://drugtopics.modernmedicine.com/drugtopics/Modern+Medicine+Now/Antipsychotics-overused-in-LTC-setting-OIG-says/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/730695

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Mass psychosis in the US—How Big Pharma got Americans hooked on anti-psychotic drugs

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

ALJAZEERA – July 12, 2011

by James Ridgeway

Drug companies like Pfizer are accused of pressuring doctors into over-prescribing medications to patients in order to increase profits - GALLO/GETTY

Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux.

Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses – primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told that their unruly kids are in fact bipolar, and in need of anti-psychotics, while old people with dementia are dosed, in large numbers, with drugs once reserved largely for schizophrenics. Americans with symptoms ranging from chronic depression to anxiety to insomnia are now being prescribed anti-psychotics at rates that seem to indicate a national mass psychosis.

It is anything but a coincidence that the explosion in antipsychotic use coincides with the pharmaceutical industry’s development of a new class of medications known as “atypical antipsychotics.” Beginning with Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Seroquel in the 1990s, followed by Abilify in the early 2000s, these drugs were touted as being more effective than older antipsychotics like Haldol and Thorazine. More importantly, they lacked the most noxious side effects of the older drugs – in particular, the tremors and other motor control problems.

The atypical anti-psychotics were the bright new stars in the pharmaceutical industry’s roster of psychotropic drugs – costly, patented medications that made people feel and behave better without any shaking or drooling. Sales grew steadily, until by 2009 Seroquel and Abilify numbered fifth and sixth in annual drug sales, and prescriptions written for the top three atypical antipsychotics totaled more than 20 million.  Suddenly, antipsychotics weren’t just for psychotics any more.

Not just for psychotics anymore

By now, just about everyone knows how the drug industry works to influence the minds of American doctors, plying them with gifts, junkets, ego-tripping awards, and research funding in exchange for endorsing or prescribing the latest and most lucrative drugs. “Psychiatrists are particularly targeted by Big Pharma because psychiatric diagnoses are very subjective,” says Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, whose PharmedOut project tracks the industry’s influence on American medicine, and who last month hosted a conference on the subject at Georgetown. A shrink can’t give you a blood test or an MRI to figure out precisely what’s wrong with you. So it’s often a case of diagnosis by prescription. (If you feel better after you take an anti-depressant, it’s assumed that you were depressed.) As the researchers in one study of the drug industry’s influence put it, “the lack of biological tests for mental disorders renders psychiatry especially vulnerable to industry influence.” For this reason, they argue, it’s particularly important that the guidelines for diagnosing and treating mental illness be compiled “on the basis of an objective review of the scientific evidence” – and not on whether the doctors writing them got a big grant from Merck or own stock in AstraZeneca.

Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine and a leading critic of the Big Pharma, puts it more bluntly: “Psychiatrists are in the pocket of industry.” Angell has pointed out that most of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the bible of mental health clinicians, have ties to the drug industry. Likewise, a 2009 study showed that 18 out of 20 of the shrinks who wrote the American Psychiatric Association’s most recent clinical guidelines for treating depression, bipolar disorders, and schizophrenia had financial ties to drug companies.

In a recent article in The New York Review of Books, Angell deconstructs what she calls an apparent “raging epidemic of mental illness” among Americans. The use of psychoactive drugs—including both antidepressants and antipsychotics—has exploded, and if the new drugs are so effective, Angell points out, we should “expect the prevalence of mental illness to be declining, not rising.” Instead, “the tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders that they qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007 – from one in 184 Americans to one in seventy-six. For children, the rise is even more startling – a thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades. Mental illness is now the leading cause of disability in children.” Under the tutelage of Big Pharma, we are “simply expanding the criteria for mental illness so that nearly everyone has one.” Fugh-Berman agrees: In the age of aggressive drug marketing, she says, “Psychiatric diagnoses have expanded to include many perfectly normal people.”

Cost benefit analysis

What’s especially troubling about the over-prescription of the new antipsychotics is its prevalence among the very young and the very old – vulnerable groups who often do not make their own choices when it comes to what medications they take. Investigations into antipsychotic use suggests that their purpose, in these cases, may be to subdue and tranquilize rather than to treat any genuine psychosis.

Carl Elliott reports in Mother Jones magazine: “Once bipolar disorder could be treated with atypicals, rates of diagnoses rose dramatically, especially in children. According to a recent Columbia University study, the number of children and adolescents treated for bipolar disorder rose 40-fold between 1994 and 2003.” And according to another study, “one in five children who visited a psychiatrist came away with a prescription for an antipsychotic drug.”

A remarkable series published in the Palm Beach Post in May true revealed that the state of  Florida’s juvenile justice department has literally been pouring these drugs into juvenile facilities, “routinely” doling them out “for reasons that never were approved by federal regulators.” The numbers are staggering: “In 2007, for example, the Department of Juvenile Justice bought more than twice as much Seroquel as ibuprofen. Overall, in 24 months, the department bought 326,081 tablets of Seroquel, Abilify, Risperdal and other antipsychotic drugs for use in state-operated jails and homes for children…That’s enough to hand out 446 pills a day, seven days a week, for two years in a row, to kids in jails and programs that can hold no more than 2,300 boys and girls on a given day.” Further, the paper discovered that “One in three of the psychiatrists who have contracted with the state Department of Juvenile Justice in the past five years has taken speaker fees or gifts from companies that make antipsychotic medications.”

In addition to expanding the diagnoses of serious mental illness, drug companies have encouraged doctors to prescribe atypical anti-psychotics for a host of off-label uses. In one particularly notorious episode, the drugmaker Eli Lilly pushed Zyprexa on the caregivers of old people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, as well as agitation, anxiety, and insomnia. In selling to nursing home doctors, sales reps reportedly used the slogan “five at five”—meaning that five milligrams of Zyprexa at 5 pm would sedate their more difficult charges. The practice persisted even after FDA had warned Lilly that the drug was not approved for such uses, and that it could lead to obesity and even diabetes in elderly patients.

In a video interview conducted in 2006, Sharham Ahari, who sold Zyprexa for two years at the beginning of the decade, described to me how the sales people would wangle the doctors into prescribing it. At the time, he recalled, his doctor clients were giving him a lot of grief over patients who were “flipping out” over the weight gain associated with the drug, along with the diabetes. “We were instructed to downplay side effects and focus on the efficacy of drug…to recommend the patient drink a glass a water before taking a pill before the  meal and then after the meal in hopes the stomach would expand” and provide an easy way out of this obstacle to increased sales. When docs complained, he recalled, “I told them, ‘Our drug is state of the art. What’s more important? You want them to get better or do you want them to stay the same–a thin psychotic patient or a fat stable patient.’”

For the drug companies, Shahrman says, the decision to continue pushing the drug despite side effects is matter of cost benefit analysis: Whether you will make more money by continuing to market the drug for off-label use, and perhaps defending against lawsuits, than you would otherwise. In the case of Zyprexa, in January 2009, Lilly settled a lawsuit brought by with the US Justice Department, agreeing to pay $1.4 billion, including “a criminal fine of $515 million, the largest ever in a health care case, and the largest criminal fine for an individual corporation ever imposed in a United States criminal prosecution of any kind,”the Department of Justice said in announcing the settlement.” But Lilly’s sale of Zyprexa in that year alone were over $1.8 billion.

Turning people into zombies

As it turns out, the atypical antipsychotics may not even be the best choice for people with genuine, undisputed psychosis.

Read the rest of the article here: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/20117313948379987.html

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Psychiatrists with corrupt pasts found working in juvenile justice facilities and doping children

Saturday, June 25th, 2011

NaturalNews- June 27, 2011

by Monica G Young

Investigations found doctors labeling & drugging kids had taken huge speaker fees or gifts from drug companies that make antipsychotics.

An investigation into the massive drugging of kids in Florida juvenile jails has uncovered psychiatric doctors with deplorable records working for the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). Their histories include not only grand theft and medical malpractice, but overmedicating patients to the point of death.

In a series of outstanding articles in the Palm Beach Post, reporter Michael Laforgia lays out the heinous trail of a still unfolding investigation. It began with an expose that children in state custody were receiving heavy dosages of powerful antipsychotics; in two years, Florida bought hundreds of thousands of these tablets with no DJJ tracking system in place to detect practitioner abuse. This led to a finding that doctors giving the diagnoses had taken huge speaker fees or gifts from drug companies that make antipsychotics.

The Post’s newest article reveals psychiatrists working in the juvenile justice system whose records should have barred them. “Some psychiatrists took DJJ jobs after they were cited for breaking the law, making grave medical missteps or violating state rules,” writes Laforgia. “Others were hired after they were accused of overmedicating patients, sometimes fatally. All were empowered to prescribe drugs to jailed kids as powerful antipsychotic pills flowed freely into Florida’s homes for wayward children.”

The full details should be seen at (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/s…)

To summarize examples cited:

Dr. Gold Smith Dorval pleaded no contest in 2004 to a grand theft charge after a probe found he billed Medicaid for more than $350,000 in fraudulent claims – under the pretense of providing therapy to juvenile delinquents and foster children. No one screened Dorval’s background in 2007 before a state-contracted agency, Compass Health Systems, sent him to work at a juvenile detention center that year. He states he was “not aware of any wrongdoing” in accepting the job.

Dr. Charles D. Jack prescribed such powerful cocktails of antidepressants and painkillers to a patient over a two and a half year period that she died in 2002, at age 42. Facing charges, Dack denied wrongdoing but agreed to pay a $7000 fine and take a course on misprescribing. None of this prevented him from working until April of this year at three privately-run juvenile treatment  facilities used by the DJJ.

Dr. Samuel McClure diagnosed an 11-year-old with ADD and although the boy was quite small for his age, he gave him high concentrations of antidepressants which had never been approved for children. The mother woke one morning to find her son dead on the floor. Despite being sued in 2004 for medical malpractice – a case settled for $500,000 – McClure worked in juvenile treatment homes from January 2006 until June 2009.

Dr. Sohail Punjwani, another psychiatrist, conducted a drug trial on seven children in 2006, six of whom overdosed. One slashed her wrists while hallucinating, per a later FDA warning letter to Punjwani. He went on to work at a juvenile detention center and then for the foster care system. In 2009 he prescribed a very potent combo of psychoactive drugs to a 7-year old who subsequently locked himself in the bathroom of his foster home and hanged himself. Punjwani blames his medication errors with the boy on the nurse.

Per the Palm Beach Post, records show “roughly one in eight of the psychiatrists who have worked for DJJ in the past five years has settled a malpractice lawsuit in Florida.”

Florida’s DJJ Secretary now has a probe underway into this matter and the abuse of antipsychotics by the department. No long term studies have ever proven these drugs safe for kids. But plenty of evidence shows they can create heavy weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, involuntary facial and body movements, suicidal thoughts and a life of drug dependency.

Prominent California psychiatrist under trial for molesting boys in juvenile justice system

Another example of exploiting the most vulnerable is the once highly regarded child psychiatrist, Dr. William Ayres.

Ayres is undergoing legal proceedings in San Mateo California for accusations of molesting boys in state care, under the guise of giving medical exams. Prosecutors say he knew these youths would hesitate to come forward and probably wouldn’t be believed if they did.

During his forty years in practice, Ayres saw hundreds of adolescents referred by the juvenile justice system, court-appointed attorneys and social workers. Several of these victims have testified against him.

Ayres was a former president of the American Academy of Adolescent and Child Psychiatry, the leading professional medical association for child psychiatrists. In 2002 he was honored with a lifetime achievement award for “his tireless effort to improve the lives of children and adolescents.”

Now 79, Ayres says he has no memory of the victims who have accused him.

State Mental Hospital Director sentenced to 248 years in prison for molesting foster kids

Yet another high profile figure in the mental health world – Claude Edward Foulk – was sentenced in February 2011 to 248 years in prison for molesting foster sons and other boys over a period of four decades. Reportedly, he would threaten to return them to foster care if they didn’t comply. But some of those victims, now grown men, went to the police.

Prior to his arrest in 2010, Foulk was the executive director of the Napa State Hospital, California’s largest mental health facility which includes sex offenders in its patient population. Faulk was selected to run the hospital by the Director of the Department of Mental Health in California.

“Hey, I didn’t do anything wrong”

What’s disturbing is the diabolical lack of accountability reflected in these psychiatrists’ statements and actions. Denying accusations, shifting blame, justifying atrocities. Equally disturbing is how many government agencies, schools and parents blindly place children in the hands of these pseudo-doctors. Yet they do not use blood tests, brain scans or any other medical tests in diagnosing mental disorders and putting millions of kids worldwide on powerful drugs.

The sordid history of psychiatry’s vigorous and deceptive campaign to medicalize itself and put it on stature with other MDs is covered in Robert Whitaker’s book released in 2010: “Anatomy of an Epidemic.”

Sources include:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/s…

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/d…

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/s…

http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-04-…

http://www.sfexaminer.com/blogs/law…

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl…

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U.S. Troops Reportedly Taking More Medication Than Ever

Friday, June 24th, 2011

“Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Salem News

by Marianne Skolek

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.) – Fox News reports that U.S. military troops are taking more prescription medication than ever. US troops Heavily Medicated on Prescription Drugs, the report warns.

The bottom line is that the men and women of the US armed forces are taking more addictive medication than they ever have in the past.

The Daily reported Wednesday, that the US Department of Defense doesn’t keep track of those medical prescriptions doled out to service members in combat. This, despite ongoing pleas from federal officials to record the data. The military’s 2012 budget report from the House Appropriations Committee, cited how the prescription of pain management drugs is not handled consistently, particularly in battle. According to The Daily, the report includes an ultimatum. The committee expects concrete information within two months of the budget’s approval, detailing “the required steps and potential obstacles toward electronic transmission of prescription drug data.”

In 2010 a US Army study revealed how 14 percent of soldiers have been prescribed an opiate painkiller. 95 percent of those prescriptions were for oxycodone, a notoriously-addictive pharmaceutical best known by the brand name OxyContin. And since 2001, military spending on prescription medication has skyrocketed. Orders for antipsychotics like Seroquel are up 200 percent, and demand for anti-anxiety drugs like Valium has increased by 170 percent, according to Defense Logistics Agency records. Many of the antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs and anti-anxiety drugs prescribed are highly addictive. Potential side effects include dulled reaction times, irritability and a heightened risk of suicide. “The medications they use shouldn’t be so heavily prescribed in combat,” said Dr. Judith Broder, a psychiatrist and founder of the Soldiers Project, a nonprofit counseling service.

“But they can’t afford to send anyone home. They need the bodies — health and welfare are secondary,” she said.

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june232011/drugged-soldiers-ms.php

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52% of foster kids are prescribed psych drugs—One of them is fighting back

Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

By CCHR Int
June 23, 2011

At just 6 years of age, still grieving over the death of the only mother he’d ever known, his foster mother, Giovan Bazan received the first of many psychiatric “diagnoses” and drugs that would plague him for the next twelve years of his life. Moved from foster home to  foster home, orphanages and other modes of state care, Giovan was stigmatized with a plethora of psychiatric diagnoses and drugs until the age of 18, when he could finally make his own medical decisions and quit. Now a child advocate working part time at the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) in Georgia, Giovan is on a mission: To get a full-time job with DFCS and help enact laws to combat the wholesale labeling and drugging of foster children. In the video below, Giovan tells his story and why he decided to fight back against the abuse of kids in foster care.

(Story continues below)

Foster kids—often removed from family homes because of abuse—are further abused when they are prescribed psychotropic drugs under state care. Many of these children are on cocktails of prescribed drugs, including antipsychotics and antidepressants with documented side effects of diabetes, stroke, mania, psychosis, tumors, coma, suicide and death.

Yet, the rates with which these children are being given drugs has been increasing. The antipsychotic use rate among foster kids increased by 5.6% between 2004 and 2007 (from 11.7 percent to 12.4 percent). Another study in Pediatrics, revealed that youth in foster care covered by Medicaid insurance receive psychotropic medication at a rate more than 3 times that of Medicaid-insured youth who qualify by low family income.

Only half of state child welfare systems have a policy to review usage of these drugs, and those are weak policies at that.

The psychiatric drugging of foster kids has caused so much concern nationally that in July 2010, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) started an investigation into the use of these drugs in foster care, as they are widely used in dangerous combinations, and for so-called “off-label” uses to treat symptoms for which they have not been medically approved. The GAO is looking into the estimated hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud arising from this and is collecting and analyzing data from Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon and Texas.

For more information on the psychiatric drugging of children, watch these videos:

Psychiatry—Labeling Kids with Bogus ‘Mental Disorders’


Drugging Our Children—Side Effects

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US Troops Heavily Medicated on Prescription Drugs, Report Warns

Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011

MyFoxDetroit.com
June 22, 2011

Men and women in the US military are more medicated than ever — and their doctors do not even know who takes what, The Daily reported Wednesday.

The Department of Defense does not keep track of medical prescriptions doled out to service members in combat, despite ongoing pleas from federal officials to do just that.

Last week, a report on the military’s 2012 budget from the House Appropriations Committee remarked that the prescription of pain management drugs is handled inconsistently, especially in battle.

The report also handed down an ultimatum: within two months of the budget’s approval, the committee wants concrete information on “the required steps and potential obstacles toward electronic transmission of prescription drug data.”

A 2010 US Army study found that 14 percent of soldiers had been prescribed an opiate painkiller, with 95 percent of those prescriptions for oxycodone, a notoriously-addictive pharmaceutical best known by the brand name OxyContin.

And since 2001, military spending on prescription medication has skyrocketed. Orders for antipsychotics like Seroquel are up 200 percent, and demand for anti-anxiety drugs like Valium has increased by 170 percent, according to Defense Logistics Agency records.

Many of the antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs and anti-anxiety drugs prescribed are highly addictive. Potential side effects include dulled reaction times, irritability and a heightened risk of suicide.

“The medications they use shouldn’t be so heavily prescribed in combat,” said Dr. Judith Broder, a psychiatrist and founder of the Soldiers Project, a nonprofit counseling service.

“But they can’t afford to send anyone home. They need the bodies — health and welfare are secondary,” she said.

Read article here:  http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpps/news/us-troops-heavily-medicated-on-prescription-drugs,-report-warns-dpgonc-20110622-to—_13806740

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Antipsychotics Have Dramatic Consequences in Kids, Study Shows

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Note from CCHR: There are a lot more serious documented side effects to antipsychotics  than simply weight gain for kids—such as, diabetes,  stroke, tumors,  seizures, coma and heart problems to name a few.  These warnings/studies are summarized in our psychiatric drug database – simply search antipsychotics in under 18-year-olds – here: http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/drug_warnings.php

Parent Dish – June 21, 2011

Children can experience dramatic weight gain and insulin resistance just weeks after taking the drugs for the first time. Credit: Getty Images

Careful with the crazy pills.

Doling out antipsychotic to kids for the first time can be a case of the cure being worse than the disease.

Researchers found children can experience dramatic weight gain and insulin resistance just weeks after taking the drugs for the first time, Medscape.com reports.

Lead researcher, John W. Newcomer, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Miami, tells Medscape that prescribing antipsychotics has become trendy in the past 15 years or so — even though there is no sudden epidemic of schizophrenia in children.

“The increase was due to the rising use of antipsychotics for disruptive behavior disorders,” he says.

In other words, your kid acting a little hyper? Bomb him with meds.

Newcomer led the study while he was at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo. Researchers studied 125 kids who were prescribed Aripiprazole, Risperidone or Olanzapine for behavior problem. Newcomer admitted kids were less aggressive and irritable on the drugs.

“They got a lot better,” Newcomer tells Medscape. “I was actually stunned at how much better they got. It gave me some margin of sympathy that I didn’t have before for why the child psychiatrists and the pediatricians are using so much of these drugs.”

But at what cost?

Kids who participated in the study showed significant weight gain and their bodies became less receptive to insulin. Their body fat shot up an average of 8.98 percent while their sensitivity to insulin decreased by an average of 3 percent.

Read the rest of the article here:

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Australia’s Reckless Experiment In Early Intervention

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Note from CCHR: The article below was written by Allen Frances, a psychiatrist, and former Chairman of the DSM IV task force.  The subject of the article is Australian psychiatrist Patrick McGorry and his agenda to pre- diagnose kids with mental ‘illness’ before they develop it, which  Frances calls  a dangerous and risky proposition.    It is.  Yet Frances seems to be making excuses for the fact that McGorry’s plan is not only dangerous – its criminal.    He calls McGorry a charismatic psychiatrist, which may be true, but this is exactly what makes him so dangerous.  Because the Australian government has just funded a program so controversial and dangerous to children that even other psychiatrists, leaders in the field, are speaking out against it.  And why did they fund it?   Because “charistmatic” Patrick McGorry sold them  a $400 million bill of goods.

“Charisma is a tricky thing.  Jack Kennedy oozed it–but so did Hitler and Charles Manson. Con artists, charlatans, and megalomaniacs can make it their instrument as effectively as the best CEOs, entertainers, and presidents.” Patricia Sellers, FORTUNE Magazine


prevention that will do more harm than good

Psychology Today
By Allen Frances
May 31, 2011

Patrick McGorry is a charismatic psychiatrist who has recently gained heroic status. First he was chosen to be Australia’s Man Of The Year. Now, he has convinced the Australian government to spend more than $400 million over five years to fund his plan for a nationwide system of Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centres. McGorry is the visionary prophet and pied piper of preventive psychiatry. His goal is to diagnose mental disorders early and treat them expectantly- before they can do their worst damage.

McGorry’s goal is certainly great. But its current achievement is simply impossible and Australia’s plans are patently premature. Early intervention to prevent psychosis requires first that there be an accurate tool to identify who will later become psychotic and who will not. Unfortunately, no such accurate tool exists. The false positive rate in selecting prepsychosis is at least about 60-70% in the very best of hands and may be as high as 90% in general practice. That’s right, folks, nine misidentified non patients for one accurately identified truly prepsychotic patient. Those are totally unacceptable odds.

What are the costs? McGorry does not recommend antipsychotic medications as a routine part of his prevention regimen. But experience teaches us that they will be overused despite having no proven efficacy and posing the risk of massive weight gain (and its consequent array of serious complications). The false positives will also suffer unnecessary stigma and worry and will undergo unnecessary and misdirected treatment. And surely there are many more productive ways to spend $400 million doing a better job of managing the mental health needs of those who have real and treatable psychiatric disorders.

Unfortunately, Mcgorry is a false prophet who’s visions are offered at least a few decades before their time. Australia, led astray by his impractical hopes, is about to embark on a vast and untried public health experiment that will almost surely cause more harm to its children than it prevents. Before embarking on this headlong and reckless rush, the following research steps need to be accomplished:

1)Developing a proven and reliable definition of “Psychosis Risk”

2)Learning how to use it in a way that reduces current outrageously high false positive rates to levels that are tolerable.

3)Demonstrating that the interventions chosen are indeed effective in preventing psychosis.

4)Determining the likely rate of antipsychotic use and how this influences the overall risk/benefit balance sheet of early intervention.

5)Studying the beneficial and harmful impacts of early diagnosis on stigma and self perception.

6)Comparing the marginal utility of a dollar spent trying to prevent an alleged future disorder vs a dollar spent treating an already clearly established one.

This is a research enterprise that will take many groups around the world many decades to complete. But it is an absolutely necessary precondition before spending $400 million on what is likely to be a failure. The Australian experiment will be flying blind on an airplane that is not at all ready to leave the ground. Doing prevention prematurely and poorly will give a good idea an unnecessary bad name.

McGorry’s intentions are clearly noble, but so were Don Quixote’s. The kindly knight’s delusional good intentions and misguided interventions wreaked havoc and confusion at every turn. Sad to say, Australia’s well intended impulse to protect its children will paradoxically put them at greater risk. Let’s applaud McGorry’s vision but not blindly follow him down an unknown path fraught with dangers.

Read article here:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201105/australias-reckless-experiment-in-early-intervention

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Grassley Investigates Drugging of Elderly with Antipsychotics

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

DesMoines Register
May 31, 2011

Sen. Charles Grassley recently sent a letter to the administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He wants some answers after a federal report Grassley requested found many nursing home residents with dementia are given antipsychotic drugs. These drugs are not approved to treat dementia. They can be lethal for those afflicted with it, and Medicare has been paying for them.

Grassley is right to ask questions of the agency. But keeping seniors safe is a responsibility that extends far beyond CMS — from the halls of Congress to state legislatures to nursing home workers in rural Iowa.

Washington

Politicians talk out of both sides of their mouths. They say they want to cut federal spending. They say there should be less government regulation. Then when something goes wrong, they demand federal agencies solve the problems or they take them to task for not doing what they were supposed to do.

Drug safety, nursing home oversight, and ferreting out problems in government programs like Medicare requires staff and resources. That takes money – some of the same money lawmakers propose cutting from the federal budget.

State legislatures

The “cut government but still expect it to keep everyone safe” attitude is prevalent at the state level, too. Shortly after Gov. Terry Branstad took office, one of his appointees cut positions for nursing home inspectors. It underscored a lack of understanding about the important and complicated work of making sure homes meet more than 150 regulatory standards.

In addition to observing care, talking to staff, interviewing residents and other tasks, an inspection team reviews medical records. It is frequently a registered nurse employed by the state who finds problems with medications. Having too few state inspectors puts seniors at risk.

Nursing homes and staff

Improving the quality of life for patients with dementia is difficult — and there are too few drugs approved specifically to do so. Even if doctors are aware of the risks, they may prescribe specific drugs to make patients more comfortable or less agitated. Also, drug companies benefit when more people take their drugs, and they want doctors to prescribe their drugs to, well, as many people as possible. In fact, several drug companies have faced criminal charges for promoting antipsychotic drugs for unapproved uses.

It’s up to nursing home staff and physicians to ensure that drugs prescribed are safe for specific patients.

* * *

Every day about 10,000 Americans become eligible for Medicare. An aging population means more people will be diagnosed with dementia. More will need care in facilities. Everyone — from doctors prescribing drugs to the government paying for them — must do more to keep older people safe.

Read article here:  http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20110601/OPINION03/106010328/-1/GETPUBLISHED03wp-rss2.php/More-need-help-protect-our-elderly

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