Posts Tagged ‘prescriptions’
Monday, June 14th, 2010
The Vancouver Sun
By Sharon Kirkey
June 14, 2010
The risk of coronary heart disease and a cluster of conditions known as metabolic syndrome increases soon after otherwise healthy, but depressed people are started on psychiatric drugs, putting them at risk for an early death, Canadian researchers are reporting.
Antidepressants, antipsychotics and other psychoactive drugs are the second most-prescribed drug class in the country, second only to cardiovasculars, according to prescription drug-tracking firm IMS Health Canada.
Across Canada, retail pharmacies last year dispensed 61.2 million prescriptions for psychotherapeutics, worth nearly $2.4 billion.
“Usually five of the top 10 prescribed medications worldwide are psychiatric drugs. We need to start looking at the impact of these medications on other systems,” says Dr. Valerie Taylor, an assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at St. Joseph’s health care and McMaster University in Hamilton.
In a study published this week in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Taylor and her colleagues followed 52 patients, age 16 to 40, newly diagnosed with bipolar disorder or major depressive disorder.
Many were university students who had become ill for the first time. All were “treatment naive” — they had never before been treated for a psychiatric illness.
At the start of the study, researchers measured waist circumference, blood pressure, blood fats and other markers of metabolic syndrome — the name for a grab-bag of health problems that increase the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
People with metabolic syndrome are twice as likely to die from, and three times as likely to have a heart attack or stroke compared to people without the disorder. They also have up to a nine-fold greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Read entire article: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Psychiatric+drugs+carry+serious+physical+health+risks/3153278/story.html
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Tags: antidepressants, antipsychotics, at risk, behavioral neurosciences, bipolar disorder, Canada, Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, Canadian researchers, coronary heart disease, depressed, early death, healthy, IMS Health, Major Depressive Disorder, McMaster University, metabolic syndrome, prescription drug, prescriptions, psychiatric drugs, psychiatric illness, psychiatry, psychoactive drugs, psychotherapeutics, retail pharmacies, treatment naive
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Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a list that can be abused to the detriment of patients and benefit of drug companies.
Miller-McCune
By Arnie Cooper
June 8, 2010
“My dear Sir, take any road, you can’t go amiss. The whole state is one vast insane asylum.” — James L. Petigru
Spend just a few minutes watching prime time television with its endless pageant of commercials for antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds and you start to wonder if USA really means the United States of Affliction.
Such “direct to consumer” drug advertising ties into one of the most far-reaching criticisms in revising the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: the potential to transform normal human behavior into a mental disorder.
This issue didn’t arise with the ongoing revision of the DMS-V. It’s long been a concern for psychiatry, which must exist uneasily alongside pharmaceutical companies’ hopes of expanding their markets and Americans’ desire for take-a-pill quick fixes. But past experiences suggest new diagnoses will reap a harvest of not fully intended consequences of patients larded with labels — and prescriptions.
Christopher Lane, an intellectual historian who has written extensively on psychiatry and culture, detailed the inclusion of “social anxiety disorder” in the DSM-III in his 2007 book, Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness.
Lane revealed how the 15-member DSM-III task force, in its quest to establish psychiatry as a legitimate science (and riding the wave of drug companies looking to expand their markets for anti-psychotics and tranquilizers), spit out “almost over night” various new disorders, including one for those uncomfortable with social situations.
No longer need shyness be a variant of normal. Now it can be a neurochemical disorder addressable with GlaxoSmithKline’s multibillion-dollar marvel Paxil. Before safety concerns and patent expirations raised their ugly heads, antidepressants had become the second-largest selling class of drugs in the United States.
“In this desire to biologize and medicalize, with the idea that every personal crisis or problem is due to a disorder of the brain, we’ve lost sight of the vast complexity of behavioral responses to external stresses,” Lane says. Add to that some possibly dangerous side effects. Along with Prozac and Zoloft, Paxil was found to increase thoughts of suicide, especially among teens, prompting an FDA warning in 2004.
Read entire article: http://www.miller-mccune.com/health/are-you-normal-or-finally-diagnosed-17073/
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Tags: anti-anxiety meds, antidepressants, biologize, Christopher Lane, diagnoses, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders, Direct to Consumer, disorder of the brain, drug advertising, dsm, DSM-III, DSM-IV, DSM-V, DSM5, FDA, labels, medicalize, mental disorder, normal human behavior, Paxil, pharmaceutical companies, pills, prescriptions, prozac, psychiatric diagnoses, psychiatry, Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness, side effects, social anxiety disorder, Suicide, United States of Affliction, warning, Zoloft
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Monday, June 7th, 2010
NewsTimes.com
By Eileen FitzGerald
June 7, 2010
Here’s just one statistic that Danbury school psychologist Charles Manos worries about: 42 percent of all kids in foster care are taking three or more mood-altering drugs.
“All kids in foster care have some story of trauma, like abuse or neglect, so we need to ask the question `How are we dealing with trauma?’” Manos asked.
Overall, children are receiving more prescriptions than ever before to treat medical, emotional and psychological problems, according to a May report from Medco Health Solutions.
More than one in four children with health insurance in the U.S., and nearly 30 percent of all children from 10 to 19, take at least one prescription to treat a chronic condition. The most substantial increases over the past nine years have been in antipsychotic, diabetes and asthma drugs, according to the Medco report.
In some cases, students take medications at home. In many cases, school nurses dispense it.
For instance, Danbury schools health coordinator Sue Levasseur said 80 middle school students receive asthma medication each day at school and another 14 to 15 children receive a psychotropic drug at school.
Part of the school system’s job is to educate parents, said Manos, who has worked in local schools for more than 30 years and also has a private practice.
“I think we have become a society that says it’s OK to medicate the symptoms of kids. Medication is easier. I think as a society we are quick to change behavior rather than understand it,” Manos said.
Behavior medications can be destructive if used improperly, he said.
“Say there is abuse or trauma, and we don’t do an adequate analysis. Then we silence the symptoms through the medications,” Manos said.
“The fact is that medication does not treat a disorder, it treats the symptoms of the manifestation, and people don’t understand that. I think there is a myth that medication treats the disorder.”
Read entire article: http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/Growing-numbers-of-children-on-medication-514614.php
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Tags: antipsychotic, Behavior, Behavior medications, Charles Manos, child drugging, diabetes, foster care, Foster children, foster kids, Medco Health Solutions, Medicaid, medications, mood-altering drugs, prescriptions, psychological problems, psychotropic drugs, symptoms
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Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
Lawyers & Settlements
By LucyC
June 2, 2010
A new study out yesterday—June 1, 2010—has revealed a higher rate of miscarriages in women who were taking antidepressants during pregnancy. How much higher? Sixty-eight percent—yes —that’s 68%—higher. Frankly, that is nothing short of shocking.
Published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the study was done in Canada through the University of Montreal. FYI—This was no small study either—the investigators used data from 5,124 women who are part of a large, population-based study of pregnant women who had clinically verified miscarriages, and a large sample of women from the same registry who did not have a miscarriage. Among the women who miscarried, 284 or 5.5 percent, had taken antidepressants during their pregnancy.
In fact the findings are so robust that the physicians who did the study are suggesting that this is a class effect—in other words the effect could be attributed to all selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—or SSRIs. Here’s what’s being reported in the press:
“These results, which suggest an overall class effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, are highly robust given the large number of users studied,” the study’s senior author, Dr. Anick Berard, said in a statement. (UPI.com)
The antidepressants that showed a particular association with miscarriage in the study were paroxetine (trade names: Seroxat and Paxil) and venlafaxine (trade names: Effexor, Efexor, Alventa, Argofan, Trevilor). The investigators also found that the risk of miscarriage doubled with a combination of different antidepressants.
Just for the record, the antidepressants “investigated” in the University of Montreal study are serotonin reuptake inhibitors (citalopram, fluoxetine, fluvoxa-mine, paroxetine and sertraline); tricyclic antidepressants (ami-triptyline, clomipramine, desipramine, doxepin, imipramine, nortriptyline, trimipramine), serotonin– norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (venlafaxine) and “other antidepressants” (serotonin modulators, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, tetracyclic piperazino-azepines, and dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors).
This study is just the latest to show an association between, well, for lack of a better term let’s say “serious adverse events” and SSRIs and SNRIs in particular.
Read entire article: http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/blog/mom-alert-would-you-want-a-68-higher-risk-of-miscarriage-03819.html
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Tags: Alventa, ami-triptyline, antidepressants, Argofan, Canadian Medical Association Journal, citalopram, clomipramine, depression, desipramine, dopamine, doxepin, effexor, expectant mothers, Fetus, fluoxetine, fluvoxa-mine, imipramine, increased risk, miscarriage, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, mothers, norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, nortriptyline, paroxetine, Paxil, Pregnancy, pregnant women, prescriptions, psychiatric drugs, risks, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, serious adverse events, serotonin modulators, Seroxat, sertraline, SSRIs, tetracyclic piperazino-azepines, Trevilor, tricyclic antidepressants, trimipramine, University of Montreal, venlafaxine
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Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
Los Angeles Times
By Thomas H. Maugh II
May 31, 2010
Taking antidepressants during pregnancy increases the risk of spontaneous abortions by about two-thirds, Canadian researchers reported Monday. The increased risk was greatest with the family of drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), especially paroxetine and venlafaxine, and when more than one family of drugs were used.
Depression in women is most common during the child-bearing years, and estimates suggest that as many as 15% of pregnant women suffer from it. Because of fears about the effects of drugs, particularly psychiatric drugs, during pregnancy, only about 3.7% of women use them during the first trimester. Most studies looking at the use of antidepressants during pregnancy have focused on their effects on the fetus. Small studies of their effects on abortion have produced inconsistent results. Expecting mothers cannot routinely stop using the drugs, however, because that also presents risks to both the mother and the fetus.
Producing a controlled clinical trial examining the effects of the drugs is virtually impossible because few women would be willing to participate, experts said. The only way to get at the data is to examine it retrospectively.
In the new study, Dr. Anick Berard, director of the University of Montreal’s Research Unit on Medications and Pregnancy at University Hospital Center Sainte-Justine used information from the Quebec Pregnancy Registry to identify 5,124 women who had a spontaneous abortions between 1998 and 2003 — before warnings about the risks of the drugs became more common — and compared them with about 10 times that many carefully matched women who did not have abortions. A separate database provided information about prescriptions the women had filled.
Read entire article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/05/antidepressants-during-pregnancy-increase-risk-of-sponaneous-abortion-study-finds.html
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Tags: abortion, antidepressants, child-bearing years, depression, Doubles Risk of Miscarriage, Dr. Anick Berard, expectant mothers, Expecting mothers, Fetus, first trimester, increased risk, miscarriage, mothers, paroxetine, Pregnancy, pregnant women, prescriptions, psychiatric drugs, Research Unit on Medications and Pregnancy, risks, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, spontaneous abortions, SSRIs, University of Montreal, venlafaxine
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Monday, May 31st, 2010
True/Slant
By David DiSalvo
May 29, 2010
I came across the graphic below in Good Magazine online. Each pill represents one million psychiatric drug prescriptions. Of the 10 drugs shown, three are benzodiazepines prescribed for anxiety (Xanax, Ativan and Valium), and by far the most prescribed drug of the group is Xanax with 44 million prescriptions in 2009.
What surprises me about this is that of all the benzos, Xanax is the one most often criticized by the psychiatric community for its addictive potential and severe withdrawal effects.
The half life for Xanax is extremely short (6-20 hours) compared to all of the other drugs in its class, and it’s rapidly absorbed by the brain. On the face of it, this seems like a great combination–you get a quick hit of anxiety relief and the drug leaves your system within a 24-hour period. But in practice what often happens is that because the drug acts so quickly and dissipates quickly, the patient begins taking more of it to maintain the effect. Two pills a day turns into four, which turns into six and on and on.
That’s bad news, but it gets worse. As more of the drug is absorbed by the brain, the brain reacts by decreasing its production of GABA–the naturally occurring chemical that slows down brain activity when your cerebral gaskets start overheating. With so much of the sedative (Xanax) available, the brain’s efficiency process kicks in and turns down the GABA tap.
Read entire article: http://trueslant.com/daviddisalvo/2010/05/29/despite-its-infamous-reputation-xanax-is-still-the-most-prescribed-psychiatric-drug/
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Tags: addictive, anxiety, Ativan, benzodiazepines, benzos, brain activity, pills, prescriptions, psychiatric drugs, psychiatry, sedative, side effects, Valium, withdrawal effects, Xanax
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Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
The Daily Mail
By Rowenna Davis
May 12, 2010
Leon Perry is in trouble for insulting his teacher. Fidgeting on a chair in the assistant head’s office of Queen’s Park Community School in North London, the 13-year-old admits he’d skipped his medication.
‘I can get a bit hyperactive when I come off,’ he says. ‘I’ll be honest, I can be violent. When I’m on my tablet, I think before I act; when I’m off, I think after. If teachers get on my nerves, I’ll say what I want. When I’m on my tablet, I can’t be bothered.’
Leon has been taking Ritalin - known as the ‘chemical cosh’ - since he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) when he was six.
He’s not alone. According to data obtained under Freedom of Information legislation, there has been a 65 per cent increase in spending on drugs to treat ADHD over the past four years. Such treatments now cost the taxpayer more than £31million a year.
The figures do not include private prescriptions, and may include some sufferers of narcolepsy as well as adult ADHD sufferers, but these are only a tiny minority.
With such a huge increase in figures, a growing number of academics are raising concerns that some teachers are either recommending these drugs as an easy alternative to dealing with bad behaviour, or simply turning a blind eye to those on medication when they should be investigating the root cause of their problems. In the worst cases, schools have been known to put significant pressure on students or their parents to seek the medication.
Take Leon. He insists he didn’t want to start taking Ritalin. His mum didn’t want him to, either. It was his junior school that gave him an ultimatum: go on the drug or leave the school. Seven years later, he relies on Concerta Exel - a slow-release form of Ritalin - to control his moods.
‘I know it helps me in some ways, but I hate taking it,’ he says, ‘There are days when I deliberately avoid it. You just don’t feel yourself, you feel so drained out. It makes you feel disgusted and down. Like you’ve got no soul or something. My mum doesn’t want me to take it, but what can she do? She wants me to get an education.’
The drugs most frequently prescribed for ADHD patients are atomoxetine, dexamfetamine and methylphenidate 3 - the last most commonly known by the brand name Ritalin.
Read entire article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1277674/Ritalin-used-control-unruly-pupils.html
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Tags: ADHD, atomoxetine, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, chemical cosh drugs, child drugging, Concerta, dexamfetamine, methylphenidate, prescriptions, Ritalin, schools
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Friday, April 30th, 2010
The Gazette
By Sharon Kirkey
April 26, 2010
As Dr. Allen Frances read through the list of proposed changes to psychiatry’s bible of mental sickness, alarms started ringing in his own mind.
“I was surprised,” the renowned U.S. psychiatrist says, “that the proposals managed to be much worse than my most pessimistic expectations.”
By the time he was finished reading, Frances had calculated that the recommendations contained within the first draft for the fifth and latest revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – a hugely influential book used daily by doctors worldwide, psychiatry’s official classification of all the ways humanity can go “mad” – could unnecessarily trigger wholesale “epidemics” of mental illness and expose millions more adults and children to potentially harmful psychiatric drugs.
Frances, more than most, knows the kind of surprises that may be lurking.
He chaired the task force that wrote the current edition of the manual – referred to as DSM-IV – which Frances says is a book that unintentionally contributed to vast and sudden increases in the diagnosis of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism and childhood bipolar disorder (manic depression), after it made changes in those definitions.
Rates of bipolar disorder alone jumped 40-fold in the U.S. after the definition was broadened to suggest that children don’t have to experience the typical manic symptoms seen in adults to be diagnosed bipolar – and that depression in kids can be a persistent irritable mood.
Read entire article: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/canada/Psychiatry+bible+could+roll+whole+list+disorders/2951855/story.html#ixzz0mbCzBKaU
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Tags: Allen Frances, bipolar, depression, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders, dsm, DSM-IV, Major Depressive Disorder, mental disorders, mental illness, pharmaceutical companies, prescriptions, psychiatric drugs, psychiatry, psychiatry's bible, psychoactive drugs
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Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
Daily Mail
John Naish
march 30, 2010
Ten years ago, if you described shyness or restless legs as a bona fide illness, people would have laughed.
But these conditions are just part of an epidemic of newly-invented illnesses sweeping Britain.
And we take them so seriously we’re prepared to swallow handfuls of strong and sometimes harmful pills.
As the Mail reported yesterday, we have become a nation of pill poppers, picking up more than 16 prescriptions a year on average, twice as many as 20 years ago.
This is despite the fact that we live longer and healthier lives than ever before.
The figures are a tribute to the power of drug company public-relations teams, who have convinced doctors and patients alike that there are new illnesses emerging that can be treated by their drugs.
This has been labelled ‘ disease-mongering’ by the respected journal, Public Library of Science Medicine.
Read entire article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1262136/Can-pill-cure-Bashful-As-Britons-pop-tablets-drugs-companies-turning-personality-traits-ailments.html
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Tags: bashful, drug company, dsm, invented illness, pill poppers, pills, prescriptions, shyness
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Friday, March 26th, 2010
Arizona Daily Star
March 26, 2010
A group of U.S. senators has raised concern that the use of antidepressants and other prescription drugs for treatment of mental disorders is on the rise in the military, particularly among troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who led the Senate Armed Services Committee’s personnel subcommittee hearing in Washington this week, said the apparent increase in prescriptions is “on its face, pretty astounding and troubling.”
Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., who has been speaking out for months about the rise in prescribed drugs and how they may be harmful to younger soldiers, said at the hearing that the military needs to examine whether increased use of medicines has any link to an increase in military suicides.
Department of Defense statistics show that from 2005 to 2008, “there was a 400 percent increase in the prescription of antidepressants and other drugs used to treat anxiety,” Cardin said. And a 2007 Army report showed that about 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent of those in Afghanistan were taking antidepressants or sleeping pills.
In 2009, 160 active-duty Army suicides were reported – a 15 percent increase from the previous year, Cardin said.
“We need the Department of Defense’s help in trying to understand what is happening,” he said. “We have a lot of dots, but we haven’t connected the dots.”
Top medical officers who testified at the hearing took issue with some of Cardin’s statistics but acknowledged that there has been an increase in the use of psychotropic drugs prescribed to treat mental disorders.
“The use of psychotropic medication in the nation as a whole has increased,” said Charles Rice, the acting assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.
“It’s difficult to turn on the television without being convinced that you’re bipolar or have some other problem for which there is a drug ready-made for you.”
Read entire article: http://www.azstarnet.com/news/national/article_5c54a003-41a2-510a-a07a-35c893cd1c76.html
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Tags: Afghanistan, antidepressants, anxiety, army, Iraq, Maryland, military suicides, post-traumatic stress disorder, prescriptions, PTSD, Sen. Ben Cardin, suicides
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