Posts Tagged ‘over-prescribing’

Psychiatrist Stefan Kruszewski blows the whistle on antipsychotic drug maker resulting in half billion dollars in fines

Friday, April 30th, 2010

ABC News 27
WHTM.com
By Myles Snyder
April 29, 2010

Harrisburg psychiatrist Stefan Kruszewski offers no pain relief for pharmaceutical companies. He testifies against them when they make false claims about their drugs, and he’s good at it.

The AstraZeneca drug Seroquel is for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but the company marketed it to seniors and kids for other things and wooed doctors into over-prescribing it. Kruszewski blew the whistle on AstraZeneca and it was ordered to pay a half-billion dollars in fines to the government.

As a scientist, Kruszewski was angry that the company exaggerated the benefits and suppressed evidence about the drug’s negative side effects in the name of profit.

“Doctors need to be more aware and need to make decisions, not based upon what pharmaceutical companies are telling them, but based upon unbiased information,” he said.

As a whistle blower, Kruszewski gets a piece of that half billion dollar settlement worth tens of millions of dollars. It’s not the first big money case he’s won, but there’s also a cost.

Read entire article:  http://www.whtm.com/news/stories/0410/731076.html

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Lawyer who took on drug giant Eli Lilly & won has a new target—the psychiatric industry & drugging of foster kids

Friday, February 12th, 2010

KTUU.com
By Rhonda McBride
February 11, 2010

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An Alaska attorney who has gone up against a drug giant and won has a new target.

Jim Gottstein is taking on psychiatry in Alaska for over-prescribing medicine to children.

Gottstein was the attorney who forced Eli Lilly to pay more than $1 billion in settlements over the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa.

He also heads up a group called the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, which filed the lawsuit. The group claims over-prescribing is disabling children for life.

A growing number of children are prescribed psychiatric drugs, and a growing number of mental health advocates say we should be alarmed, because those drugs are often unnecessary

“They’re really a chemical lobotomy, because that’s what they do to the brain,” Gottstein said.

The list of those named in Gottstein’s lawsuit is long: More than a dozen child psychiatrists, health agencies, state officials, and pharmacies that include Walmart, Fred Meyer and Safeway.

“Eighteen-year-olds are having heart attacks from these drugs,” Gottstein said.

He says he’s tried to get the state and Alaska psychiatrists to use more restraint.

He says they are using powerful drugs on children that are intended for adults.

“People put on these drugs have a life expectancy of 25 years shorter than the general population. These drugs are so harmful, that they literally kill people,” Gottstein said.

Read entire article:  http://www.ktuu.com/Global/story.asp?S=11974882

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