Antipsychotic drug deaths in California tie into nationwide abuse: FDA estimates antipsychotics kill 15,000 per year

When residents at the Kern Valley Nursing Home complained or annoyed nursing director Gwen Hughes, prosecutors say she chemically restrained them with powerful anti-psychotic drugs. Her methods were so severe, three residents died. A Food and Drug Administration official estimates that unnecessary anti-psychotics kill 15,000 nursing home patients each year.

John Hendren
ABC World News
January 5, 2010

What happened in a bucolic nursing home nestled in the California mountains starting in 2003 shocked investigators. When residents at the Kern Valley Nursing Home complained or annoyed nursing director Gwen Hughes, prosecutors say she chemically restrained them with powerful anti-psychotic drugs. Her methods were so severe, three residents died.

Phyllis Peters’ mother Fannie Mae Brinkley was a feisty 97-year-old who suddenly lost energy. “I’d say, ‘I can’t get my mom awake,'” Peters remembers. “She just won’t rouse, she’s lethargic.”

No one told Peters that her mother had been given a powerful anti-seizure drug that prosecutors say killed her.

Peters says of her mother today, “I’m absolutely convinced she would have lived to be 100. Absolutely.”

Read entire article: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/abc-world-news-deadly-chemical-restraints-kill-california/story?id=9483981

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