Market Watch
November 7, 2011

Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD & Stan White (Father of Deceased Veteran, Andrew White) disclose the following:

EL CAJON, Calif., Nov. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — As a neurologist who has discovered and described medical diseases, I (Fred A. Baughman) read the May 24, 2008, Charleston (WV) Gazette article “Vets taking Post Traumatic Stress Disorder drugs die in sleep,” and opened and financed my own investigation into these unexplained deaths.

Andrew White, Eric Layne, Nicholas Endicott and Derek Johnson, all in their twenties, were four West Virginia veterans who died in their sleep in early 2008. There were no signs of suicide or of a multi-drug “overdose” leading to coma, as claimed by the Inspector General of the VA. All had been diagnosed “PTSD”–a psychological diagnosis, not a disease (physical abnormality) of the brain. All were on the same prescribed drug cocktail, Seroquel (antipsychotic), Paxil (antidepressant) and Klonopin (benzodiazepine) and all appeared “normal” when they went to sleep.

On February 7, 2008, Surgeon General Eric B. Schoomaker, had announced there had been “a series, a sequence of deaths” in the military suggesting this was “often a consequence of the use of multiple prescription and nonprescription medicines and alcohol.”

However, the deaths of the ‘Charleston Four’ were probable sudden cardiac deaths (SCD), a sudden, pulseless condition leading to brain death in 4-5 minutes, a survival rate or 3-4%, and not allowing time for transfer to a hospital. Conversely, drug-overdose coma is protracted, allowing time for discovery, diagnosis, transport, treatment, and frequently–survival.

Antipsychotics and antidepressants alone or in combination, are known to cause SCD. Sicouri and Antzelevitch (2008) concluded: (1) “A number of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs can increase the risk of ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death,” (2)”Antipsychotics can increase cardiac risk even at low doses whereas antidepressants do it generally at high doses or in the setting of drug combinations.”

On April 13, 2009, Baughman wrote the Office of the Surgeon General (OTSGWebPublisher@amedd.army.mil): “On February 7, 2008 the Surgeon General said there had been ‘a series, a sequence of deaths.’ Has the study of these deaths been published?”

On April 17, 2009 the Office of the Surgeon General responded, “The assessment is still pending and has not been released yet.” More than a year later and still no explanation, nor further acknowledgement that these deaths even took place.

In a press release, (PRNewswire, May 19, 2009) Baughman wrote: “I call upon the military for an immediate embargo of all antipsychotics and antidepressants until there has been a complete, wholly public, clarification of the extent and causes of this epidemic of probable sudden cardiac deaths.”

Googling “dead in bed,” “dead in barracks,” by April 16, 2009, veteran’s wife, Diane Vande Burgt, had Googled 74 probable sudden cardiac deaths. By May 2010: 128, and, by November 2, 2011: 247. Two-hundred-forty-seven!

In April 2010 I was in anonymous receipt of an Army National Guard Serious Incident Report for the 5 months 10/03/09 to 3/7/10. In it were 93 “incidents” including 4 “heart attacks,” 6 “cardiac arrests” and 3 “found dead”; 13 of 93 (14%) probable SCDs.

Pfc. Ryan Alderman, was on a cocktail of psych drugs when found unresponsive, dying in his barracks at Ft. Carson, Colo. Sudden cardiac death was confirmed by an ECG done at the scene. Inexplicably, military officials de-classified his death and reversed the cause, calling it instead, a “suicide.”

Again I challenge the military to produce the evidence.

In June 2011, a DoD Health Advisory Group backed a highly questionable policy of “polypharmacy” asserting: “…multiple psychotropic meds may be appropriate in select individuals.” The fact of the matter is that psychotropic drug polypharmacy is never safe, scientific, or medically justifiable. What it is a means of (1) maximizing profit, and (2) making it difficult to impossible to blame adverse effects on any one drug.

From 2001 to the present, US Central Command has given deploying troops 180 day supplies of prescription psychotropic drugs–Seroquel included. In a May 2010 report of its Pain Management Task Force, the Army endorsed Seroquel in 25- or 50-milligram doses as a ‘sleep aid.’

Over the past decade, $717 million was spent for Risperdal and $846 million for Seroquel, for a mind-blowing total of $1.5 billion when neither Risperdal nor Seroquel have been proven safe or effective for PTSD or sleep disorders.

Ironically, yet not surprisingly, pay-to-play in Washington becomes more egregious every day. Heather Bresch, daughter of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, (D-WV) was recently named CEO of WV drug-maker Mylan Inc., that recently contracted with the DoD for over 20 million doses of Seroquel.

Defense Department Health Advisory Group chair, Charles Fogelman, warned: “DoD currently lacks a unified pharmacy database that reflects medication use across pre-deployment, deployment and post-deployment settings.” In essence, through a premeditated lack of record keeping, mandated by law at any other pharmacy or medical office to track potential fatal reactions to mixing prescription drugs, the military is willfully preempting all investigations into the injuries and deaths due to psychiatric drugs.

I call on the DoD, VA, House and Senate Armed Services and House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees to tell concerned Americans and the families of fallen heroes what psychiatric drugs each of the deceased, both combat and non-combat, soldiers and veterans were on?

It is time for the military and government to come clean.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hundreds-of-soldiers-vets-dying-from-antipsychotic-seroquel-2011-11-07

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Today the New York Times has reported, “AstraZeneca is adding a new heart warning to the labels of Seroquel, its blockbuster antipsychotic drug, at the request of the Food and Drug Administration, company and agency officials said on Monday.”   And that  “Seroquel is one of the top-selling drugs in the world, at $5.3 billion last year, including $3.7 billion in the United States. Introduced in 1997, it has been approved for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression. Seroquel has caused legal problems for AstraZeneca, including a $520 million payment in 2009 to settle government charges of illegal marketing. Thousands of lawsuits are pending over side effects like diabetes.” (read the full article here http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/health/19drug.html )

While this is seemingly good news, look a little deeper—today’s article from Paul Thacker, an investigator for Project on Government Oversight:

Paging Dr. Woodcock…Dr. Janet Woodcock….Do You Have Any Clue What’s Happening Inside the FDA?

There is confusion and then there is confused confusion–a level of incomprehensibility that defies sound, sober attempt at explanation. After confused confusion comes…the FDA.

Case in point: the FDA’s dithering over changes to the label of an antipsychotic drug now widely prescribed to veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Last October, POGO sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg asking her to look into a potentially dangerous interaction of the drugs Seroquel (quetiapine) and methadone that may be putting veterans at risk.

Prescriptions of Seroquel and methadone are at an all-time high for veterans who are suffering extremely high rates of PTSD after combat. An investigation by the Military Times found that military spending on Seroquel almost quadrupled between 2001 and 2009. Many of these veterans are also taking methadone for pain relief and to control anxiety caused by PTSD. The Military Times found that methadone overdose has caused at least 60 deaths in the military—more than any other drug, legal or illegal.

A separate investigation by the Associated Press noted that military expenditures on Seroquel have jumped sevenfold since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. The military spent $8.6 million on Seroquel in 2009. Physicians said that they are prescribing it to provide relief from nightmares and anxiety caused by PTSD.

The Associated Press also discovered that Seroquel has become the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) second biggest drug expenditure since 2007. In 2009, the VA spent $125 million on Seroquel compared to $14.4 million in 2001.

Alerting the FDA to this problem, we also sent a study published in 2007 in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. This study found that Seroquel significantly increases blood plasma levels of methadone.

How did FDA respond? In April, we received a letter signed by Dr. Janet Woodcock, Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) at the FDA. According to Dr. Woodcock, there was nothing to worry about:

After assessment of our evaluations, we believe that a potentially dangerous interaction involving quetiapine and methadone is unlikely, and, therefore, no further Agency action is indicated regarding either a revision in labeling that would include new warnings or cautions, or targeted public and professional communications efforts.

To make sure we got the point, she added:

At this point, there is agreement within CDER that an interaction between quetiapine and methadone that confers unreasonable risks to patients is exceedingly unlikely and, therefore, no further action is indicated regarding the labeling for these products or for related communication initiatives.

Less than two months later, in June, the FDA approved changes to the label for Seroquel to note that the drug “should be avoided in combination with other drugs” such as methadone.

What the hell? This is exactly what we asked them to do. Exactly what Dr. Woodcock said didn’t need to be done.

Can somebody please explain this to me? Please!

Anyways, we are now sending a second letter to the FDA asking them, as we did in October, to please issue an action alert to inform patients and prescribers. There is a potential for people to die if they are on Seroquel and methadone, and it seems highly improbable that a military doctor treating veterans with PTSD has the time to read the entire 73 pages of the Seroquel label.

That’s right. It’s 73 fricking pages!!!

That’s not a label, that’s a novella.

We hope the FDA agrees to send out an action alert. But maybe we’ll get a letter from Dr. Woodcock saying that everything is okay, and no further action is indicated…and there’s no need to alarm people by sending out an action alert….

And then they’ll send it anyways.

Paul Thacker is a POGO Investigator.

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/07/paging-dr-woodcockdr-janet-woodcockdo-you-have-any-clue-whats-happening-inside-the-fda.html

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“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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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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NaturalNews.com – June 3, 2011

by Neev M. Arnell

Prior to the Iraq war, American soldiers in combat zones did not take psychiatric drugs - by 2007, more than 20,000 troops were taking antidepressants & sleeping pills

“If mentally incapacitated troops are being drugged with dangerous, mind-altering drugs and deployed to battle against their will, how can we say that we have a volunteer army?” asked Alliance for Human Research Protection, the national network dedicated to advancing responsible and ethical medical research practices.

This is just one of the many criticisms being levied against the U.S. military in light of its liberal use of prescription medication, which is now being linked to rising suicide rates among soldiers.

A study released by the Army in June 2009 indicated that nearly as many American troops at home and abroad committed suicide in the first six months of 2006 as the number who had been killed in combat in Afghanistan during the same time period (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/…).

An average of 18 American veterans commit suicide every day (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMo…). Now, the increasingly high number of deaths among both veterans and active duty soldiers–including suicides, accidental overdose, and lethal drug interactions–have now been linked to the exponential increase in the prescribing of drugs for post traumatic stress disorder, depression and other psychological illnesses.(http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/vie…)

Prior to the  Iraq war, American soldiers in combat zones did not take psychiatric medications, according to PBS Frontline documentary The Wounded Platoon, which aired in May 2010. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/front…) But by the time of the 2007 surge more than 20,000 of our deployed troops were taking antidepressants and sleeping pills.

These drugs allowed soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder to remain in combat when they otherwise could not.

“What I use medications for is to treat very specific side effects,” said Army psychiatrist Col. George Brandt. “I don’t want somebody in a helpless mode in a combat environment. I want to make sure I don’t have someone with suicidal thoughts where everyone is armed.”

Well over 300,000 troops have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan with P.T.S.D., depression, traumatic brain injury or some combination of those, according to The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/u…). Following the lead of civilian medicine, the military has relied heavily on medications to treat those problems, resulting in more widespread use of drugs in the military than in any previous war.

The aforementioned Army report on suicide recognized that one-third of the troops were taking at least one prescription medication and stated that prescription drug use was on the rise. The report also noted that one-third of the 162 active-duty soldiers who committed suicide in 2009 were taking medication.

Frontline’s The Wounded Platoon looked at the problem of PTSD, depression and prescription medication in the military from the perspective of one platoon from Fort Carson, CO. 18 soldiers from Fort Carson have been charged with or convicted of murder, manslaughter or attempted murder committed in the United States, since the beginning of the “War on Terror,” and 36 have committed suicide.

Jose Barco, who was once known as the hero who saved his fellow soldiers during a suicide-bombing, is now serving a 52-year prison sentence for attempted murder. Barco suffered traumatic brain injury as a result of his heroics and was also diagnosed with PTSD for which he was prescribed nine different medications.

“We have someone who’s been emotionally traumatized, and they’ve got PTSD,” said retired military psychiatrist Stephen Xenakis. “They’re anxious, and they’re depressed, and they’ve got TBI, which means that they’ve got problems in decision making. They can’t think as clearly. They are really vulnerable to just overreacting.”

The rate of PTSD diagnosis at Fort Carson rose 4,000 percent between 2002 and 2010, and the increase in medications being prescribed for both veterans and those in combat rose to meet the demand.

Kenny Eastridge, another platoon member that Frontline spoke with who is in jail for murder and other crimes, was prescribed a cocktail of medications while in combat.

“I was having a total mental breakdown. Every day we were getting in battles and never having a break. It seemed like, it was just crazy,” he said. “They put me on all kinds of meds, and I was still going out on missions. They had me on Ambien, Remeron, Lexapro, Celexa, all kind of different stuff.”

Eastridge was sent to a remote combat outpost for weeks at a time with no medical supervision or mental health provision, despite the recommendation that patients on this medication should be monitored. Frontline footage showed Eastridge’s unstable behavior, which included wandering into Iraqi homes, lying in the people’s beds, and trying to hug local people.

As more soldiers return home to Fort Carson, concern abounds.”We’re all wondering what’s going to happen,” says Colorado Springs psychotherapist Robert Alvarez. “It’s a scary thought, you know, what’s going to happen in this community. Are we going to have more murders? Are we going to have more suicides, or are we going to have more crime? I think the answer to that is probably yes.”

http://www.naturalnews.com/z032598_veterans_suicide.html

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FOX News – Jan 19, 2011

AP — U.S. Marines and Afghan Army soldiers run with a wounded Afghan man to a waiting medevac helicopter near Marjah in southern Afghanistan Jan. 18

As U.S. military leaders gathered Wednesday to give their latest update on the rash of Army suicides, new questions are being raised about a U.S. Central Command policy that allows troops to go to Iraq and Afghanistan with up to a six-month supply of psychotropic drugs.

“There’s no way on earth that these boys and girls are getting monitored on the field,” said Dr. Peter Breggin, a New York-based psychiatrist who has extensively studied the side effects of psychiatric drugs. “The drugs simply shouldn’t be given to soldiers.”

Anxiety, violent behavior and “impulsivity” are all side effects of some of these medications, he said, the latter symptom being particularly dangerous in a war zone. Breggin said that if patients were given these medications in the civilian world and not monitored, it would amount to “malpractice.”

But Nextgov.com reported that Army leaders and doctors are increasingly concerned that the policy continues to allow combat troops to use everything from antidepressants to antipsychotics to hypnotics, medications they say could impair a soldier’s judgment. The swath of active-duty troops on these kinds of medications, according to a June 2010 Defense Department report, was about 20 percent.

The article highlighted one particular drug — the antipsychotic Seroquel — which the Army has sanctioned as a sleep aid, even though it can’t be used to treat troops for the mental disorders it was originally designed to address. A May 2010 military report recommended 25-50 milligram doses of the drug for “sleep disorders” including nightmares. It happens to be the same drug that two Marines back from Iraq were taking before they died in their sleep.

Military officials have pledged to rein in the use of prescription drugs. An Army Suicide Prevention Task Force report last year warned about the dangers posed by prolonged and open-ended use of these prescription medications. Following that, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli suggested the duration of prescriptions be limited or at least reviewed periodically to avoid abuse.

He reiterated that concern Wednesday during a press conference on Army suicides. He said the Army is working to educate soldiers and members of the public “about the overuse and abuse of prescription drugs.”

Chiarelli credited military intervention with helping to reduce the number of suicides among the Army’s active-duty soldiers in 2010. That number dropped from 162 to 156 last year. He said, though, that suicides among those not on active duty went up significantly. Officials attributed the suicides to a combination of factors, not necessarily stemming from the stress of deploying. In a July report, the military said prescription drugs were involved in one-third of all active-duty suicides.

“It’s the relationship issues. It may be an individual who comes back and relies on alcohol to a level that he had not or she had not relied on it before. And maybe the person who has — has a rough time handling the prescription drugs that in some instances are all we know to prescribe for some of these things,” Chiarelli said Wednesday. He said the military is doing its “best” to “lower the incidence of prescribing a lot of drugs.”

The U.S. Army Medical Department and U.S. Central Command could not be reached for comment. Central Command told Nextgov.com that the reason the military allows up to a six-month supply of certain medications is to make sure troops have an “adequate supply.” Troops are deploying to regions where well-stocked pharmacies may be in short supply.

But Breggin said that when these troops are being prescribed psychotropic drugs, they should either have to deploy without them or stay home. He said the practice only started during the Iraq war and could still be stopped, adding that the suicides are clearly linked.

“It’s that new, so it isn’t necessary,” he said. Breggin testified last year before the House Veterans Affairs Committee about the risks associated with the use of antidepressants in the military. His latest book is “Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime.”

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NextGov
By Bob Brewin
January 18, 2011

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The Navy Times

by Andrew Tilghman and Brendan McGarry
Friday Sep 3, 2010

Use of psychiatric medications among people ages 18 to 34 — mostly active-duty troops and their spouses — is rising at a significantly higher rate than other age groups in the military health care system, according to data newly released to Military Times.

Overall, the number of prescriptions filled for psychiatric medications rose 42 percent from 2005 to 2009 among Tricare beneficiaries in that age group, according to data provided by Tricare Management Activity in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

That compares to an increase of 24 percent among Tricare beneficiaries ages 45 to 64, mostly retirees. For children 17 and younger, the increase was 18 percent.

All the increases outpace overall growth in the Tricare population over the same period.

Anti-depressants like Zoloft, Wellbutrin and Celexa account for slightly more than half of the prescriptions in this age group. But increasingly, young adults in the military and their spouses are turning to other types of psych meds to treat their mental health problems.

Prescriptions for stimulants, including amphetamines and drugs to treat attention-deficit disorders, more than doubled. And claims for anti-psychotics like Seroquel and Abilify nearly doubled from 2005 to 2009 among beneficiaries ages 18 to 34, the Tricare data show. Seroquel is often used to treat nightmares and sleeping problems related to post-traumatic stress disorder.

The rise — and potential dangers — of psychiatric drug use is a growing concern for many military officials and doctors.

The Army also should “conduct comprehensive research and analysis of the impact of increased use of antidepressant, psychiatric and narcotic pain management medications on the force,” the report said.

Last year, the Army issued a series of policies designed to reduce the risks linked to multi-drug use. Another policy is expected out later this year.

Military death records obtained by Military Times show that at least 68 accidental drug deaths in 2009, up from 24 in 2001. In total, at least 430 troops have died from drug use — or, in a small number of cases, alcohol use — in the past decade.

Read the rest of this article here:  http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/09/military-psych-meds-080910/

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Associated Press reports:

Andrew White returned from a nine-month tour in Iraq beset with signs of post-traumatic stress disorder: insomnia, nightmares, constant restlessness. Doctors tried to ease his symptoms using three psychiatric drugs, including a potent anti-psychotic called Seroquel.

Thousands of soldiers suffering from PTSD have received the same medication over the last nine years, helping to make Seroquel one of the Veteran Affairs Department’s top drug expenditures and the No. 5 best-selling drug in the nation.

Several soldiers and veterans have died while taking the pills, raising concerns among some military families that the government is not being up front about the drug’s risks. They want Congress to investigate.

In White’s case, the nightmares persisted. So doctors recommended progressively larger doses of Seroquel. At one point, the 23-year-old Marine corporal was prescribed more than 1,600 milligrams per day — more than double the maximum dose recommended for schizophrenia patients.

A short time later, White died in his sleep.

“He was told if he had trouble sleeping he could take another (Seroquel) pill,” said his father, Stan White, a retired high school principal.

Activist, Vince Boehm, communicated with the Whites and told Beyond Meds:

Stan and Shirley White lost two sons to war. Robert White, a staff sergeant, was killed in Afghanistan in 2005, when his Humvee was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. But the death of Robert’s younger brother Andrew, who survived Iraq only to succumb to a different battle, is in some ways “harder to accept” says his father.

Struggling with PTSD compounded by grief over the death of his brother, Andrew sought help from VA doctors. Their first line of defense was to prescribe him 20 mg of Paxil, 4 mg of Klonopin and 50 mg of Seroquel. These medications helped at first, but later proved ineffective. Instead of changing the course of treatment, the doctors responded by continually increasing his dosage until the Seroquel alone reached a whopping 1600 mg per day. Within weeks of Andrew’s death, three more young West Virginia veterans died while being treated for PTSD with the same drugs, prompting Stan and Shirley White to begin a mission to find out what the deaths have in common.

Earlier this year, Martha Rosenberg reported on the same deadly cocktail being used to treat PTSD:

Sgt. Eric Layne’s death was not pretty.

A few months after starting a drug regimen combining the antidepressant Paxil, the mood stabilizer Klonopin and a controversial anti-psychotic drug manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, Seroquel, the Iraq war veteran was “suffering from incontinence, severe depression [and] continuous headaches,” according to his widow, Janette Layne.

Soon he had tremors. ” … [H]is breathing was labored [and] he had developed sleep apnea,” Layne said.

Janette Layne, who served in the National Guard during Operation Iraqi Freedom along with her husband, told the story of his decline last year, at official FDA hearings on new approvals for Seroquel. On the last day of his life, she testified, Eric stayed in the bathroom nearly all night battling acute urinary retention (an inability to urinate). He died while his family slept.

Sgt. Layne had just returned from a seven-week inpatient program at the VA Medical Center in Cincinnati where he was being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A video shot during that time, played by his wife at the FDA hearings, shows a dangerously sedated figure barely able to talk.

Sgt. Layne was not the first veteran to die after being prescribed medical cocktails including Seroquel for PTSD.

Read the rest of this article here: http://warincontext.org/2010/08/31/treatment-for-ptsd-may-be-killing-veterans/

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• “When 6 people die from peanut butter we shut factories down…at least 87 military men died on Seroquel… & no alarm sounds” (0)
• Memorial Day 2010: Psychiatric drugs triggering deaths of U.S. soldiers treated for PTSD (0)
• Earth Times: Neurologist Fred Baughman—Vets Sudden Deaths Due to Antidepressant & Antipsychotic Drugs (3)
• Hundreds of Soldiers & Vets Dying From Antipsychotic–Seroquel (1)
• The US Military’s Drugged Troops: Survey finds at least 1 in 6 service members is on some form of psychiatric drug (0)

Read the rest of this article here: http://wvgazette.com/News/201008120975

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