Posts Tagged ‘prescribed’

USA Today: Researchers say nearly 1 million kids diagnosed “ADHD” simply because they’re youngest in their class

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

USA Today
By Liz Szabo
August 17, 2010

Nearly 1 million children may have been misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, not because they have real behavior problems, but because they’re the youngest kids in their kindergarten class, researchers say.

Kids who are the youngest in their grades are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than the oldest children, according to a study out today from Michigan State University, given exclusively to USA TODAY. A second study, by researchers at North Carolina State University and elsewhere, came to similar conclusions. Both are scheduled for publication in the Journal of Health Economics.

TEENS: 1/3 with ADHD drop out or delay graduation

About 4.5 million children have been diagnosed with ADHD, according to the studies.

Misdiagnosing children can have long-lasting effects, says assistant professor of economics Todd Elder, author of the Michigan State study. In fifth and eighth grade, the youngest kids in a class were more than twice as likely to use Ritalin, a stimulant commonly prescribed for ADHD, compared with the oldest students, his study says.

While many parents say Ritalin has helped their kids, it also can have significant side effects, causing headaches, dizziness and even high blood pressure, according to the paper from North Carolina State.

The findings could influence the way that teachers evaluate children with ADHD symptoms — as well as complicate parents’ decisions about when to start children in kindergarten, Elder says.

Read entire article here:  http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-08-17-1Aadhd17_ST_N.htm

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Drug maker to settle 200 lawsuits for failing to warn patients of diabetes risks caused by its antipsychotic drug

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

AboutLawsuits.com
July 23, 2010

AstraZeneca has agreed to settle Seroquel lawsuits filed by about 200 people who claim that the drug maker failed to adequately warn about the risk of diabetes and other side effects of their antipsychotic drug. The Seroquel settlements are reportedly the first payments AstraZeneca has made out of an estimated 26,000 claims that have been presented against the company.

Bloomberg News reports that AstraZeneca has agreed to pay $2 million as a settlement for the Seroquel lawsuits, which comes out to an average of about $10,000 per claim. It is not clear what injuries were involved in these claims, or what the circumstances are for the cases. All of the settled lawsuits involved plaintiffs represented by one attorney, and Bloomberg News reports that the agreement came as a result of court-ordered mediation.

Although AstraZeneca has previously indicated that they would fight all Seroquel cases at trial, company officials now indicate that they will continue to negotiate with plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate) is an atypical-antipsychotic that is a top selling drug for AstraZeneca, generating nearly $5 billion a year in sales. Originally approved by the FDA in 1997 for the treatment of schizophrenia, it has been frequently prescribed off-label for uses that were not approved as safe and effective at the time, such as anxiety, obsessive dementia, compulsive disorders and autism.

In July 2006, all Seroquel lawsuits filed in federal courts throughout the United States were consolidated for pretrial litigation before U.S. District Judge Anne Conway in the Middle District of Florida as part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL). In May of this year, Judge Conway determined that the majority of the work in the Seroquel litigation was complete, and began remanding cases back to the original jurisdiction where they were filed for trial.

Read entire article:  http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/settlement-for-seroquel-lawsuits-reached-in-some-cases-11647/

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GlaxoSmithKline settles case with woman who linked her use of antidepressant Paxil to the death of her infant son

Monday, July 19th, 2010

The Associated Press
By Wayne Ortman
July 19, 2010

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit filed against a pharmaceutical company by a Watertown woman who linked her prescribed use of Paxil to the death of her infant son, according to court files.

Jennifer Berg of Watertown sued SmithKline Beecham, doing business as GlaxoSmithKline, in October 2007. The complaint said Nathan Berg died in 2004 because of a heart disorder caused by her use of the antidepressant Paxil while she was pregnant.

The federal court lawsuit sought unspecified damages from the company for failing to warn of a link between the two. Letters from her attorneys to the presiding judge indicate there’s a settlement. No settlement documents have been filed in court.

Lawyers at a California firm handling the case for Berg did not immediately return a phone call Monday for comment.

GlaxoSmithKline said last week that it expects to take a $2.36 billion charge against second-quarter earnings for settlements, agreements to settle and other provisions for long-standing legal cases over Paxil, the diabetes drug Avandia and other issues. The company said settlement details would be confidential.

According to the lawsuit, Nathan Berg was born Aug. 20, 2004 at Watertown and was immediately transferred to a Minneapolis hospital where he died 58 days later of Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension of the Newborn (PPHN), a disorder which prevents proper oxygenation of the blood.

“At the time Paxil was prescribed to Ms. Berg, GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) knew or should have known through pre-market studies and post-market studies and reports that Paxil was associated with an increased risk of PPHN in babies whose mothers ingested Paxil during pregnancy,” according to the lawsuit.

Read entire article:  http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j7UU4otrHhelqaJFcC3ttvwj4bYgD9H29RK00

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Toronto Sun—“The girl with every reason to live” Parents blame daughter’s suicide on antidepressant Paxil

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Toronto Sun
By Michelle Mandel
June 12, 2010

Sara Carlin had everything to live for: She was smart, athletic, beautiful and pursuing her dream of becoming a doctor.

But on May 6, 2007, that bright future ended abruptly with a piece of electrical wire.

The promising 18-year-old had hung herself in her family’s Oakville basement and her grieving parents blame her suicide on the Paxil antidepressant she’d been prescribed more than a year before.

In emotional testimony that left many fighting back tears, Sara’s mother Rhonda told a coroner’s inquest that her daughter earned 90’s in school, played baseball and women’s hockey, held a part-time job at an optometrist’s office and tutored other kids in math.

“She was a pretty exceptional girl, she was absolutely loving and she was beautiful,” her mom proudly recalled Wednesday before the presiding coroner, Dr. Bert Lauwers. “She really was an exceptional daughter.”

But in the early part of 2006, Sara began to change. During the family’s March break vacation to Palm Springs, she wouldn’t get out of bed most days and got drunk at dinner. “It was so unlike her,” her mom said.

It was only later that she learned Sara had complained of anxiety and depression to her family doctor and had recently been prescribed Paxil, one of the antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

“I said, ‘Why on earth, Sara would you be on antidepressants?’ I was astounded,” she recalled for the five-member jury. “Why, why would he be giving these to her? This was a wonderful, happy girl.”

While Sara lost her much older brother to a drug overdose in 2000, her mother believed her daughter had coped well with his death and never wanted the counselling she’d been offered.

So this need for antidepressants, she said, came out of the blue.

“She was very troubled, much more troubled than any of us knew,” her mother acknowledged.

While her parents repeatedly voiced their reservations about Paxil, Sara brushed them off, saying her doctor told her it would make her feel better. “I didn’t even know the horrific side effects of Paxil at that time,” her mom said. “I certainly didn’t know what I know now.”

Health Canada issued warnings in 2003 and 2004 that prescribing antidepressants to teens could lead to behavioural or emotional changes that might put them at increased risk of suicidal behaviour.

Read entire article:  http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/michele_mandel/2010/06/10/14340951.html

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Science Daily: Almost 1/3 of U.S. nursing home residents received antipsychotic drugs as chemical restraints

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog
By Levin & Perconti

Science Daily is reporting that a study shows that newly admitted elderly patients to nursing homes have a higher rate of being prescribed antipsychotic drugs than in previous years. This study found that in 2007, almost one-third of U.S. nursing home residents received antipsychotic drugs. The FDA has issued a warning that there is a great risk of death among older adults with dementia who are taking these agents to control behavioral symptoms. A recent clinical trial has concluded that the adverse effects of atypical antipsychotic drugs have outweighed the benefits of those with Alzheimer’s. This shows that many doctors are over prescribing these drugs, and it is having an adverse effect on patients.

The nursing home study found that about 30 percent of the residents in the study received at least one antipsychotic medication in 2006 and 32 percent of those did not have dementia or another indication that they needed to be on this medication. Some experts believe that the organizational culture of the nursing homes may encourage the prescribing of antipsychotic. Hopefully, the FDA warning and other studies will move the prescription statistics in the opposite direction. If not policies may have to target those nursing homes that have a high antipsychotic prescription rate so as to improve patient care. To read more about the nursing home study, please click the link.

Read entire article:  http://blog.levinperconti.com/2010/05/antipsychotic_medications_are.html

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The Independent: How an antidepressant prescription spun a young mother’s life out of control

Monday, July 27th, 2009

The Independent
July 27, 2009

“Results in two to five minutes,” the instructions on the test read. Two lines, pregnant. One line, not. One pink line materialised in the control window, partnered very rapidly by another in the test window. I was pregnant.

Like many new mothers, I was not prepared for the emotional and physical toll of having a child, though few experience the excesses I had to endure. When I gave birth to Jemima in June 1999 I was wrongly diagnosed with post-natal depression and was immediately prescribed anti-depressants. Soon, my life had spiralled out of control. But while I ended up being treated for everything from anxiety to depression with a host of strong, prescription medicines, it is likely that all I was suffering from in the first place were the normal difficulties associated with coping with a fractious child.

But it was not until I managed to wean myself off the medication that I realised that the drugs were not a cure for the hell I was going through – they were the cause of it.

Read entire article:  http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/ssris-when-antidepressants-go-wrong-1763108.html

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Drugging Foster Kids

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

Brent Kallestad
Associated Press
July 22, 2009

Although there were a record number of adoptions in Florida last year, there are still problems.

Gov. Charlie Crist met with a handful of adoptive parents Wednesday at the governor’s mansion where a Wakulla County couple outlined their concerns about the number of children in foster care who are overmedicated.

Mirko and Regina Ceska from Crawfordville praised the governor for his enthusiastic backing of giving more children homes but asked for his help in keeping them safe in the foster care process.

“The foster people that are taking care of these kids, many of them that we have seen don’t want these kids to have too much to do,” Mirko Ceska said. “So they really put them asleep. They really do.”

Regina Ceska, a nurse, said the 12-year-old twin girls they adopted a year ago were on 11 separate medications, some she considered highly unsafe. She said one of the pills prescribed by a psychiatrist for the girls was a psychotropic drug called Seroquel, which is used for the treatment of schizophrenia.

“When we saw them the first time and they were on all those medications,” she said. “Their behavior was absolutely terrible and you could almost not control them.”

Read entire article: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1152626.html

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