Tag Archives: FDA

New Study Links ADHD Drugs, Antidepressants, Hypnotics & Anti-Smoking Drug to 1,527 Acts of Violence

For years, there were contentious debates about links between certain prescription meds, notably antidepressants, and suicidal behavior. Now, the focus is turning to violent behavior directed toward others. And a new study is linking 31 widely prescribed drugs – most notably, the Chantix anti-smoking pill – with 1,527 serious acts of violence, such as physical abuse, physical assault and homicide. The study, which was published in PLoS One, identified 484 drugs that accounted for 780,169 serious adverse event reports of all kinds, including 1,937 cases meeting the violence criteria determined by the researchers. There were 387 reports of homicide, 404 physical assaults, 27 cases indicating physical abuse, 896 homicidal ideation reports and 223 cases described as violence-related symptoms.

Besides Pfizer’s Chantix, 11 antidepressants, three ADHD meds and five hypnotics or sedatives were linked to 79 percent of the violence cases. Looked at another way, no cases of violence were reported for 324 of the 484 drugs evaluated. And so an association with violence appeared “highly unlikely” for nearly 85 percent of all evaluated drugs in widespread clinical use.

Texas Doctors Prescribe $47 Million Worth of Antipsychotic & Anti-Anixety Drugs, Primarily for Kids—One Child Psychiatrist Alone Wrote 27,000 Prescriptions For Xanax

With little oversight and apparent carte blanche, a relative handful of Texas physicians wrote $47 million worth of Medicaid prescriptions for powerful antipsychotic and anti-anxiety drugs over the past two years, according to a Star-Telegram analysis. The top five doctors alone wrote $18 million worth. Grassley asked Texas and other states for the top 10 prescribers who billed Medicaid for certain drugs. The Star-Telegram used prescriber numbers to identify the doctors, then sorted and tallied the drugs they were prescribing. Also reviewed was information on other mental-health drugs that have cost taxpayers about $1.3 billion during the past five years.

Most of the drugs have gone to children and adolescents, although prescribing the drugs to children, such as a toddler, is considered “off-label” — uses not approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Now the state’s Medicaid program is among others under scrutiny, after Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, began investigating the use of mental-health drugs this year.

Psychiatrist Asks, “Why Are People So Divided When It Comes To Children’s Mental Health?” We’ve Got the Answer…

Today’s Huffington Post features an article from psychiatrist Harold Koplewicz, frequently seen in the press leading the cheer for more psychiatric diagnosing and drugging of children. In today’s article, Koplewicz makes a plea to ‘Stop the Stigma’ which is preventing children from being diagnosed mentally ill. Pretty catchy slogan isn’t it? “Stop the Stigma.” It ought to be, it’s a brilliant marketing campaign, brought to you by Big Pharma, via the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a group that masquerades as a “patient’s rights group for the mentally ill” but receives tens of millions in funding from Pharma.

Psychiatrist on Payroll of Glaxo Pleads Guilty to Research Fraud

A psychiatrist on the payroll of GlaxoSmithKline has been sentenced to 13 months in prison after pleading guilty to committing research fraud in trials of the company’s antidepressant Paxil on children. GlaxoSmithKline, manufacturer of Paxil, paid Palazzo $5,000 for every child she enrolled in the study. The case’s significance goes beyond simple research fraud, as Glaxo is now defending itself against charges that for 15 years it deliberately concealed evidence that Paxil increases the risk of suicide in children. Maria Carmen Palazzo is already serving a sentence of 87 months for defrauding Medicare and Medicaid.

Parents Warn of Possible Psychiatric Drug Dangers

Darkness hung over Charleston Harbor as Matthew Steubing parked his Ford pickup truck on the aging bridge and left a note on the seat beside his Bible. He put on a life jacket and began to climb — up, up, into the span’s superstructure. Then, he jumped.

His parents were waiting for Matthew to arrive home in Winchester, Va., when they received the news on July 18, 2003. Their 18-year-old son plunged more than 160 feet from the Silas Pearman Bridge before slamming into the Cooper River. He was gone. “Our world blew apart,” his mother, Celeste Steubing, said. “We couldn’t imagine this happening because this wasn’t Matthew. … It made no sense.” Matthew, the youngest of six children, had been a vibrant kid, happy and full of life. But after a rough patch in his senior year of high school left him feeling down, a psychologist suggested he would benefit from the antidepressant drug Lexapro. He soon became withdrawn and anxious, his parents recalled during a recent visit to Charleston. Matthew committed suicide just nine weeks after starting on the drug. Only later did his family learn that antidepressants carry a heightened risk of suicide in children, the Steubings said. The Steubings have made it their mission to warn other parents about the hidden dangers of psychiatric drugs. To that end, Celeste Steubing was featured in the recently released documentary, “Dead Wrong,” produced by the Los Angeles-based Citizens Commission on Human Rights.