Hundreds of commercial and private U.S. pilots have been diagnosed and treated for a broad array of serious psychiatric and medical conditions, including schizophrenia, attempted suicide, sexual deviance, alcoholism and drug abuse, a Herald review has found.
Forest Laboratories Inc. (FRX) will pay $313 million to settle criminal and civil charges that it improperly marketed antidepressants for use in children and distributed an unapproved thyroid drug, the Justice Department announced Wednesday….The settlement also covers civil charges that Forest improperly promoted Celexa and another antidepressant, Lexapro, for pediatric use, which had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Forest’s improper promotion campaign took place from 1998 until at least 2005, the department alleged.
A recent 12-year Canadian study has found a possible link between medications used to treat anxiety or insomnia and an increased risk of death.”These medications aren’t candy, and taking them is far from harmless,” said researcher Geneviève Belleville, a professor at Laval University School of Psychology.
Dr. Joan Luby, the preschool depression researcher at the center of a New York Times article that failed to mention her past research was funded by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Shire (SHPGY) and AstraZeneca (AZN), is currently testing the antipsychotic Risperdal on autistic children aged 30 months to 5 years old, according to the ClinicalTrials.gov database. Although the study is not funded by Janssen, the unit of J&J that makes Risperdal, it nonetheless typifies a new field of drug research: The use of mood-altering pharmaceuticals on the very, very young.
Today, the use of psychoactive drugs by children (6-17) is all too common, relied on far too much and growing at an alarming rate. It all started in the ’70s. Memorialized in 1966 by the Rolling Stones’ “Mothers Little Helpers,” it was at that time that our society took the first steps at becoming “Pill Crazy.”