Posts Tagged ‘PTSD’

Earth Times: Neurologist Fred Baughman—Vets Sudden Deaths Due to Antidepressant & Antipsychotic Drugs

Monday, May 24th, 2010

EarthTimes.org
By Fred A. Baughman, Jr.
May 24, 2010

Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD today announced the results of his research into the “series” of veterans’ deaths acknowledged by the Surgeon General of the Army.

Upon reading the May 24, 2008, Charleston (WV) Gazette article “Vets Taking Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Drugs Die in Sleep,” Baughman began to investigate why these reported deaths were “different.”  And, why they were likely, the “tip of an iceberg.”

Andrew White, Eric Layne, Nicholas Endicott and Derek Johnson were four West Virginia veterans who died in their sleep in early 2008. Baughman’s research suggests that they did not commit suicide and did not “overdose” leading to coma as suggested by the military.  All were diagnosed with PTSD.  All seemed “normal” when they went to bed.  And, all were on Seroquel (an antipsychotic) Paxil (an antidepressant) and Klonopin (a benzodiazepine).

They were not comatose and unarousable ? with pulse and respirations or pulse intact, responsive to CPR, surviving transport to a hospital, frequently surviving.  These were sudden cardiac deaths.

At the time, Stan White, father of Andrew White knew of eight such cases in Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.

In a February 7, 2008 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, the Army’s surgeon general, said there has been “a series, a sequence of deaths” in the new “warrior transition units.”

In April 2005, the FDA warned that Seroquel put elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis at increased risk of death.

On January 15, 2009, Ray et al, reported that antipsychotics double the risk of sudden cardiac death.  On March 17, 2009, Whang et al reported that antidepressants, as well, increase the rate of sudden cardiac deaths.

And yet, in an August 14, 2008 analysis of two of the four Charleston-area deaths, the Inspector General for Veterans Affairs concluded (Report No. 08-01377-185): “Although antipsychotic medications have been identified as possible causes of cardiac rhythm disturbances, a 2001 review…found no association with olanzapine (Zyprexa), quetiapine (Seroquel), or risperidone (Risperdal) and Torsades de Pointes (a fatal heart rhythm) or sudden death… we are unaware of any clinical practice guidelines recommending baseline or periodic electrocardiogram monitoring in young, healthy patients on quetiapine (Seroquel).”

However, in a literature review covering the years 2000-2007, entitled Sudden Cardiac Death Secondary to Antidepressant and Antipsychotic Drugs: [Expert Opinion on Drug Safety; 2008, Number 2, March 2008 , pp. 181-194(14)] Sicouri and Antzelevitch conclude: (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,” and (3) “These observations call for?an ECG at baseline and after drug administration.”

Read entire article:  http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/fred-a-baughman-jr-md,1312839.shtml

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AstraZeneca Fined $520 Million Over Illegal Marketing of its Antipsychotic Drug Seroquel

Thursday, April 29th, 2010

InjuryBoard.com
By Jane Akre
April 28, 2010

Pharmaceutical Giant, AstraZeneca LP and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP will pay $520 million after being fined by the federal government for illegally marketing the anti-psychotic drug, Seroquel.

Seroquel, also known as quetiapine fumarate, was approved by the FDA in 1997 to treat psychotic disorders. By October 2006, its use had expanded for use for bipolar depression and mania.

The Department of Justice alleges AstraZeneca illegally marketed Seroquel for uses other than those approved by the FDA such as Alzheimer’s disease, anger management, anxiety, ADD, dementia, depression, PTSD, mood disorders, among other uses considered “off-label.”

In 2008, Bloomberg reported that teenagers and the elderly were increasingly being given a class of anti-psychotic drugs not cleared by regulators. In adolescents, the medications are given for depression, autism and hyperactivity, and in the elderly for dementia and insomnia.

Half of Seroquel sales in 2006 were reportedly for off-label use.

In doing so, the company submitted false claims for payments from federal insurance programs including Medicaid, Medicare and TRICARE programs, Veterans Affairs, the Bureau of Prisons, and the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program.

Read entire article:  http://www.injuryboard.com/national-news/astrazeneca-fined-520-million-over-illegal-seroquel-marketing.aspx?googleid=280742

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“Drugged Warriors: Sharp Rise in U.S. Military Psychiatric Drug Use and Suicides” by Psychologist Bruce Levine

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Sharp Rise in U. S. Military Psychiatric Drug Use and Suicides

CounterPunch
By Bruce E. Levine
April 2, 2010

One in six service members is now taking at least one psychiatric drug, according to the Navy Times, with many soldiers taking “drug cocktail” combinations. Soldiers and military healthcare providers told the Military Times that psychiatric drugs are “being prescribed, consumed, shared and traded in combat zones.”

The Navy Times reporters Andrew Tilghman and Brendan McGarry also noted that there has been a large increase in military suicides. From 2001 to 2009, the Army’s official suicide rate increased from 9 per 100,000 soldiers to 23 per 100,000. During that same period, the Marine Corps suicide rate increased from 16.7 per 100,000 soldiers to 24 per 100,000.

A Military Times investigation of records obtained from the Defense Logistics Agency revealed that the DLA spent $1.1 billion on psychiatric and pain medications from 2001 to 2009, and that there was a 76 percent increase in psychiatric drugs. DLA records show:

• Antipsychotic drugs spiked most dramatically — orders jumping by more than 200 percent.

• Orders for anti-anxiety drugs and sleeping pills such as Valium and Ambien increased 170 percent.

• Orders for antiepileptic drugs (also known as anticonvulsants) such as Depakote, routinely used as psychiatric medications, increased 70 percent.

• Antidepressants showed a 40 percent increase.

Investigators found that antipsychotic and antiepileptic drugs, approved for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, are now commonly used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms such as nightmares, nervousness, and anger outbursts. The use of antipsychotic drugs for non-psychotic conditions such as PTSD is called “off-label” prescribing. The general public is also subject to off-label prescribing, which is considered legal.

Read entire article:  http://www.counterpunch.org/levine04022010.html

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Our U.S. Military: Betrayed and Drugged

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

“Psychiatrists under contract with the Veteran Affairs—in my opinion—are legal drug dealers who almost took my life.”
- Former Marine Scout Sniper


By Shane Ellison
Award-winning scientist, Masters Degree in Organic Chemistry

Chad was a Marine Scout Sniper who served two tours in Iraq. Upon being honorably discharged as a Sgt. in 2007, he summoned the courage to ask for help in dealing with the images and emotions that gnawed on him from being dropped into combat. Like so many of his peers, the help he was given was  “meds.” Although Chad was used to putting his life at risk, he never expected that his life would be more directly threatened by the “treatment” he was offered—psychiatric drugs.

After a single day of “following doctor’s orders,” Chad felt things were starting to look up.  He seemed to be more cognizant, and the weight of daily struggles was lifted. But, as he describes it, things “quickly flip-flopped.”

“As time passed, I began changing into someone I wasn’t. Once a focused, motivated sniper, my reaction time became stagnant. My thought process became dry and lethargic, while my independence drifted. I became unable to make decisions on my own and reluctantly found myself relying on others in ways I had never done before. I had become a sort of medicated drone. All emotion turned into apathy and I found myself lackadaisical and eventually felt meaningless. That’s where it got really bad for me, and it’s hard to talk about now…. It was as if my brain chemistry went whack.”

This bleak scenario is becoming all too common for today’s military. The psychiatric death threat is becoming riskier than combat.  In 2010, Time magazine reported that, “During the month of January, more soldiers committed suicide than were killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.” Mystified by the death toll among troops, Army Chief of Staff George Casey said that, “The fact of the matter is, we just don’t know why suicides have increased.”

A group of U.S. Senators have finally raised concern that the use of antidepressants and other prescription drugs are on the rise in the military, particularly among troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.   The U.S. FDA has warned these drugs can cause worsening depression, mania, psychosis, suicidal and homicidal ideation.   Senator Jim Webb, D-Va., who led the recent Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearing in Washington, said the apparent increase in prescription drugs is “on its face, pretty astounding and troubling.”  In fact, 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.  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.

The suicide trend is not inexplicable, and must be highlighted if troops like Chad are to be saved from the psychiatric death threat. Like the loss of power to a car that results from a broken fuse, mental circuitry is shut off with each and every dose of psychiatric medication. The latest cloning techniques and laboratory methods show this to be the result of “neurotransmitter hijacking,” which scrambles brain circuitry, leaving users like Chad feeling “dry and lethargic,” in times of deep emotional turmoil.

Once neurotransmitter hijacking takes place, users become fully under the spell of psychiatry. The brain can become so scrambled that all normal reality and reason are overwritten by a new confusing and violent agenda. A new personality arises—one with homicidal and suicidal tendencies. Commenting on the biochemical fiasco, CNN publicized that, “Antidepressant drugs actually create a perilous brain imbalance.” Chad barely escaped.

“Rebounding on and off the drugs, I reached the darkest point in my life, strangely enough at home. I packed up my ghillie suit—the same thing I used to camouflage myself as a sniper in enemy territory—and hiked into the wilderness late at night, where no one would find me.  I held my .45 cal pistol while attempting the unspeakable…many things raced through my mind, and at the forefront were feelings of worthlessness and my inability to relate to anyone, even myself. As a combat decorated Marine, it’s not something I’m proud of. But it’s a reality that seems to be more common among my peers, and it’s scary as hell.… To this day, I’m not sure what stopped me, probably an act of God. I walked backed vowing to reclaim my life – with everything I had.  And, since my mental health declined so drastically since getting on the meds, I felt that getting off them was the first place to start.”

No doubt, combat leads to emotional stress beyond what the rest of us can concede.  Listening to the combat experience of Chad paints painful images in my own mind. It’s no wonder indelible scars are left on the minds of our troops. And rather than help them cope, they are literally being drugged to death in a large-scale experiment that goes ignored. Former military psychiatrist, Dr. Grace Jackson, substantiated this stating that, “It’s really a large-scale experiment. We are experimenting with changing people’s cognition and behavior.”

Once off the drugs, Chad’s escape came from getting back to basics—really basic. He starts each day with rigorous exercise and ends it with a deep sleep, induced by L-tryptophan and valerian. His diet is fortified with whey isolate twice per day with meals that consist of unprocessed foods. Sugar and alcohol have been reduced to an absolute minimum. Sauna treatments are regular, and real therapy comes from writing and talking to others who share his experience, as well as giving back in the form of support. He knows his story is only “one of thousands” and that other veterans need help.

Today, Chad has earned his bachelor’s degree—with honors—in a record 2.5 years. At the same time, he founded a Veterans center, which serves as a hub at his Alma Mater to offer support in all matters that relate to being a vet. And when he can, he helps others heed his warning about the military death threat: “Psychiatrists under contract with the Veteran Affairs—in my opinion—are legal drug dealers who almost took my life.”

Shane Ellison is the bestselling author of Over-The-Counter Natural Cures and holds a masters degree in drug design (organic chemistry). He is a two-time recipient of the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Grant for his studies in biochemistry and physiology.

For international drug regulatory warnings about psychiatric drugs causing violence and suicide go to:

http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/

For more by Shane Ellison, go to:

http://www.cchrint.org/videos/experts/shane-ellison/

For more information on the current U.S. Senate investigation into this topic see related posts below.

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More U.S. Senators voice alarm over 400% increase in psychiatric drugging of troops & increased military suicides

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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Senator Calls for Probe of Military Suicides & Antidepressant Use citing 400% increase in psych drug prescriptions

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

The Baltimore Sun
March 24, 2010

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland called Wednesday for a government-funded investigation into possible links between the growing use of anti-depressants by members of the military and high rates of suicide among men and women in uniform.

The Democratic senator, in remarks to a Senate Armed Services subcommittee, said that only “a proper scientific study” can determine whether “DOD is prescribing anti-depressants to its service members appropriately.”

Cardin quoted from the most recent Defense department statistics, covering 2005 to 2008, which showed a 400 percent increase in prescriptions for antidepressants and other drugs used to combat anxiety. The senator called those numbers “disturbing.”

At the same time, other government figures have reflected a significant increase in suicides among those in uniform. For example, in 2009, there were 160 suicides among active-duty members of the U.S. Army, a 15 percent increase over 2008.

Cardin called the number of suicides “unprecedented” and asked whether there was a relationship between the use of antidepressants and “the alarming rate of suicides” in the military.

He said the Food and Drug Administration has expressed concerns about many of the same drugs prescribed routinely for troops battling anxiety and depression. The FDA’s interest has led drug manufacturers to revise warning labels on their products to indicate that young adults, ages 18 to 24, may be at “elevated risk of suicidal thought and behavior while using these medications,” said Cardin.

Roughly two in five U.S. servicemen and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq fall into the 18-24 age bracket, the senator said. About two in five Army suicide victims in 2006 and 2007 were believed to have taken anti-depressants, Cardin added.

Read entire article:  http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/2010/03/cardin_calls_for_probe_of_mili.html

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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”

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

OpEdNews
By Martha Rosenberg
March 24, 2010

Sgt. Eric Layne’s death was not pretty.

A few months after being prescribed a drug cocktail with the antidepressant Paxil, the mood stabilizer Klonopin and AstraZeneca’s controversial antipsychotic drug Seroquel, the Iraq war veteran was “suffering from incontinence, severe depression [and] continuous headaches,” according to his widow, Janette Layne, at FDA hearings for new Seroquel approvals last year.

Soon he had tremors. ” ” [H]is breathing was labored [and] he had developed sleep apnea,” said Janette Layne, who served in the National Guard during Operation Iraqi Freedom along with her husband. On the last day of his life, she testified, Eric stayed in the bathroom nearly all night battling acute urinary retention. 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 healthy veteran to die after being prescribed medical cocktails including Seroquel for PTSD.

In the last two years, Pfc. Derek Johnson, 22, of Hurricane, West Virginia; Cpl. Andrew White, 23, of Cross Lanes, West Virginia; Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger, 21, of Roundrock, Texas; Cpl. Nicholas Endicott, 24, of Pecks Mill, West Virginia; and Spc. Ken Jacobs, 21, of Walworth, New York have all died suddenly while taking Seroquel cocktails.

Death certificates and other records collected by veteran family members suggest more than 100 similar deaths among Iraq and Afghanistan combat vets and other military personnel, many on PTSD cocktails with Seroquel and other antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, sleep inducers and pain and seizure medications.

Read entire article:  http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Are-Veterans-Being-Given-D-by-Martha-Rosenberg-100324-925.html

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Drugged to Death: Soldiers returning from war are being given deadly cocktails of psychiatric drugs

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

AlterNet
By Martha Rosenberg
March 9, 2010

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 entire article:  http://www.alternet.org/world/145892/are_veterans_being_given_deadly_cocktails_to_treat_ptsd

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Before psychiatrists start vying for more $ to drug troops ask: Was Fort Hood, Texas shooter part of our medicated army?

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Mark Thompson
TIME
June 5, 2008

Seven months after Sergeant Christopher LeJeune started scouting Baghdad’s dangerous roads — acting as bait to lure insurgents into the open so his Army unit could kill them — he found himself growing increasingly despondent. “We’d been doing some heavy missions, and things were starting to bother me,” LeJeune says. His unit had been protecting Iraqi police stations targeted by rocket-propelled grenades, hunting down mortars hidden in dark Baghdad basements and cleaning up its own messes. He recalls the order his unit got after a nighttime firefight to roll back out and collect the enemy dead. When LeJeune and his buddies arrived, they discovered that some of the bodies were still alive. “You don’t always know who the bad guys are,” he says. “When you search someone’s house, you have it built up in your mind that these guys are terrorists, but when you go in, there’s little bitty tiny shoes and toys on the floor — things like that started affecting me a lot more than I thought they would.”

So LeJeune visited a military doctor in Iraq, who, after a quick session, diagnosed depression. The doctor sent him back to war armed with the antidepressant Zoloft and the antianxiety drug clonazepam. “It’s not easy for soldiers to admit the problems that they’re having over there for a variety of reasons,” LeJeune says. “If they do admit it, then the only solution given is pills.”

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