Tag Archives: bipolar

Seroquel Marketing Undeterred by Deceptive-Marketing Settlement

Google the word “depression” and the first search result you’ll get will be for the antipsychotic drug Seroquel XR.

Visit WebMD and you’ll find the home page hosts similar ads for Seroquel XR, above and adjacent to the lead news story.

Who would know that AstraZeneca inked the largest multi-state consumer-protection settlement on record relating to deceptive Seroquel marketing on March 14 for $68.5 million? And only a year after inking a similar settlement related to burying side effect and safety information for $520 million with the government!

Who would know AstraZeneca has already settled nearly 25,000 personal-injury lawsuits pertaining to Seroquel, with more to come, says ABC News?

Shrinks on the couch as they ponder who is and is not crazy

SOME psychiatrists — the ones who don’t believe they are godlike creatures — are in a bit of a tizz these days. They are worried about all the damage they might have unwittingly done by misdiagnosing mental illness. Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could help to ease their furrowed brows. Some background, before I explain that apparent non-sequitur: In a soul-searching analysis of his profession in Wired magazine recently, US psychiatrist Dr Allen Frances declares that mental disorders “can’t be defined”, and it’s “bull—-” to suggest otherwise. Frances is lead editor of the DSM-IV, the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It’s a publication that has been described as “the bible” and “the imperial doctrine” of psychiatrists.

It’s what shrinks use, in their godlike wisdom, to decide whether or not you are mentally ill — and then to prescribe powerful, dangerous drugs, and other treatments that can turn you into a shadow of your former self. In the gut-wrenching Wired article, Frances says: “We psychiatrists have made mistakes that had terrible consequences.”

Profiting from mental ill-health

There’s a reason psychiatrists prescribe drugs rather than talking therapy: the latter makes no money for pharmaceutical firms. The New York Times recently led with a front-page splash about psychiatry’s propensity to prescribe pills, “Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy”. That news is already widely known in the mental health field, but it has vast ramifications for Americans trying to maintain their sanity in our market-driven and medical system for delivering mental healthcare. What does the turn to drug therapy mean for the mass of Americans?

Dangerous doctors slipping through the cracks

It took the discovery of guns and grenades to suspend the license of a psychiatrist who some say should have come under scrutiny years earlier. One night a Crestwood police sergeant doing a routine building check noticed an open door to the office of psychiatrist Joel Carroll. Stepping inside the cluttered office, he discovered roaming cats, a Colt AR-15 assault rifle and other guns, ammunition, military-grade smoke grenades, sex toys, and pornography. “Well, for the lack of better terminology, we considered it a pigsty,” Sgt. Thomas Kaniewski testified about his April 2009 discovery. “It looked in complete disarray. We couldn’t believe that someone could actually conduct business in an office like that because of the conditions it was in.”

Campaign to “Stop the Stigma” of Mental Illness—Is a Pharmaceutical Marketing Campaign

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights, (CCHR) has launched a new video to expose the hypocracy of the pharmaceutically driven campaign to “Stop the Stigma” of mental illness. With its seemingly altruistic sounding agenda to eliminate “stigma” the fact is the real “stigmatization” is coming from those behind this campaign—pharma, psychiatry and pharma-funded front groups such as NAMI and CHADD to name but a few.