Tag Archives: FDA

FDA Needs to Ban Antipsychotic Drug Use on Kids

While the FDA and its Pediatric advisory panel sit around pondering if one antipsychotic drug is more likely to cause diabetes in children than another while continuing their stall tactic of “let’s study it some more ” routine, we’d like to point out the simple solution: Considering that antipsychotic drugs are already documented by international drug regulatory agencies to cause not only diabetes but obesity, psychosis, blood clots, heart problems, cardiac events, seizures, toxicity, confusion, coma and stroke (and that’s just in kids) as well as brain atrophy (meaning they actually shrink brains); considering there is no medical test to prove any child has a brain malfunction, chemical imbalance or any physical condition requiring the administration of these lethal drugs—and considering these drugs are literally killing kids that have nothing medically wrong with them in the first place— Do the job you are paid by U.S. taxpayers to do and BAN their use on children. Period.

New Study Confirms: Millions of kids misdiagnosed with ADHD and drugged

by CCHR Int—A new study published today in the American Journal of Family Therapy has found that millions of children have been misdiagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and wrongly prescribed amphetamine-like drugs categorized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the same class of highly addictive drugs as cocaine, opium and morphine.

The study conducted by researchers at the New England Center for Pediatric Psychology and the Rhode Island College Department of Special Education found that of the “over 5 million children who are now being treated with ADHD medication, a majority may be suffering from Faux-ADHD, a disorder linked to irregular bedtimes” and that a majority of the children diagnosed ADHD may be unnecessarily medicated. Now while we at CCHR applaud any study on the issue of “ADHD” which is not ghost written by Big Pharma or those with a vested interest in drugging kids, we would like to pose two simple questions regarding this latest study…

Antidepressant tied to heart risk

High doses of the popular antidepressant Celexa (known as Cipramil in South Africa) can cause potentially fatal abnormal heart rhythms and should no longer be prescribed to patients, the US Food and Drug Administration has said.

Why Drug Companies Are Shy About Sharing On Facebook

People love how Facebook lets them comment on and share other people’s posts. But the idea of sharing on social media has got drug companies scared. When Facebook told drugmakers that they had to start allowing comments on their Facebook pages, some of those pages started disappearing.

“Take On Depression” suddenly disappeared. “ADHD Moms” vanished, too. So did “Epilepsy Advocate.” In the past, drug companies had been reluctant to create Facebook pages without a guarantee that they’d be closed to public comments — a unique accommodation on Facebook’s part. But that accommodation ended last week.

Two High Ranking Senators – Grassley & Kohl – Question Use of Psych Drugs in Nursing Homes

WASHINGTON — Two high-ranking senators have urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to take a closer look at potential over-prescribing of atypical antipsychotics to nursing home residents. Atypical antipsychotics are not approved to treat dementia, and must carry black box warnings that elderly people who take atypical antipsychotics have an increased risk of death, compared with those who take placebo pills for dementia. Still, it’s clear that these drugs are being used in nursing homes to control behavioral problems related to dementia. A 2011 report from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that 14% of all nursing home residents with Medicare had claims for antipsychotics and 88% of the atypical antipsychotics prescribed off-label were for dementia.

And in 2009 Elli Lilly, the makers of olanzapine (Zyprexa), pled guilty and paid $1.4 billion to the federal government for allegedly targeting doctors who worked in nursing homes and assisted living facilities to prescribe olanzapine off-label to elderly patients with dementia. In their letter, Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), urged CMS administrator Donald Berwick, MD, to examine the issue of overuse of antipsychotics in nursing homes more closely. The letter is a follow-up to one the senators sent in May after the release of the OIG report, which the senators themselves requested.