Tag Archives: FDA

How FDA and Big Pharma mislead millions into taking dangerous anti-depressants

Here in the States, where pharmaceuticals are advertised in newspapers and magazines, radio, and especially TV, anyone seeing happy actors proclaiming how and an anti-depressant changed their lives can almost demand that drug from even a primary care physician, and usually get it.

A limited hangout is intelligence spook speak for letting out just enough information to appease investigations or grass roots suspicions. But only part of the picture is revealed, not the whole big picture…CBS did not reveal the horrible side effects from anti-depressants and psychotropic drugs. They did interview a British medical official who was part of a UK commission that banned anti-depressant use on mild to moderately depressed patients.Even Medscape lists these side effects from SSRI and SNRI anti-depressants: Abnormal bleeding, hepatitis, headache, hyponatrenia (potentially deadly low sodium), toxic epidermal necrolysis (potentially deadly skin death), impotence, abnormal sensations, mania and suicide.

The Psychiatric Drugging of America’s Foster Children by Psychiatrist Peter Breggin

The most vulnerable among us are the littlest victims. Young children, torn from their birth families through various, often unspeakable tragedies. These children end up in state supervised foster care and too often are passed from hand to hand, house to house. There were approximately 662,000 children in foster care in the United States in 2010.

Now there is a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report confirming that foster children in five states — Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Texas — are receiving shocking amounts of psychiatric drugs. In the words of ABC News, they are “being prescribed psychiatric medications at doses higher than the maximum levels approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in these five states alone. And hundreds of foster children received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time despite absolutely no evidence supporting the simultaneous use or safety of this number of psychiatric drugs taken together.” The ABC News report shows one 7-year-old holding a bag filled with 13 psychiatric medications that she had taken.

ABC World News: Study Shows U.S. Government Fails to Oversee Treatment of Foster Children With Mind-Altering Drugs

The federal government has not done enough to oversee the treatment of America’s foster children with powerful mind-altering drugs, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to be released Thursday.

ABC News was given exclusive access to the GAO report, which capped off a nationwide yearlong investigation by ABC News on the overuse of the most powerful mind-altering drugs on many of the country’s nearly 425,000 foster children.

The GAO’s report, based on a two-year-long investigation, looked at five states — Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Texas. Thousands of foster children were being prescribed psychiatric medications at doses higher than the maximum levels approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in these five states alone. And hundreds of foster children received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time despite absolutely no evidence supporting the simultaneous use or safety of this number of psychiatric drugs taken together.

Time Magazine: Why Are So Many Foster Care Children Taking Antipsychotics?

All of the major manufacturers of these drugs have been fined by the Food and Drug Administration for illegal marketing practices — in part, for marketing the drugs for unapproved use in children — with some convicted of criminal charges.

Eli Lilly, which manufactures the atypical antipsychotic Zyprexa, paid out $1.42 billion in 2009 — $615 million of that to settle criminal charges. The charges against Lilly involved selling Zyprexa to doctors for use in children, despite the fact that it was not approved for this age group.

Addiction Specialist Says It’s Easier to Withdraw Patients from Heroin than from Xanax

Between 2004 and 2008 the Centers for Disease Control reported an 89 percent increase in the number of emergency room visits nationwide related to the non-medical use of Xanax and other drugs in its class. According to drug site which reviews the FDA’s adverse events data base, people using Xanax reported more than 11,000 adverse events between 2004 and march of this year. They include 83 deaths, 107 completed suicides and 100 comas. “It’s so much easier to take people off heroin. I’d rather take 100 people off heroin than one person of Xanax because I know they’ll have a year of withdrawal,” says addiction specialist Dr. Jerry Callaway.