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…
Psychiatric drugs sales generate $80 billion per year with Big Pharma spending $4.7 billion per year on TV and print ads, and $1 billion per year on internet advertising.
As a result the number of people worldwide taking psychiatric drugs has skyrocketed to 100 million (20 million of them children) with documented side effects of worsening depression, mania, psychosis, violence, suicidal and homicidal ideation, diabetes, birth defects, heart attack, stroke and sudden death – to name but a few.
International drug regulatory warnings have increased by 400% in the last 10 years, yet the general public has nowhere to go to find this information online in an easy to search, concise format. Until now.
The twin murder trials of the parents of Rebecca Riley, who died at age 4 of an overdose of the psychiatric drug, clonidine, have cast a spotlight on the beliefs and practices of the doctor who prescribed the drug. Kayoko Kifuji was granted immunity in both trials in exchange for her cooperation for testifying. Reactions from jurors, comments online and letters to the editor based on newspaper accounts of Kifuji’s testimony range from confusion, shock, and outrage directed at the doctor’s role in the tragedy.
Children as young as two are being given powerful antipsychotic medications, raising concerns use of the drugs are not being properly monitored and could be putting children at risk of serious side effects. Figures from the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing show 559 WA children were given at least one antipsychotic drug subsidised on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in 2007-08.
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.