Tag Archives: methadone

Heart Warning Added to Label on Popular Antipsychotic Drug Seroquel

Today the New York Times has reported, “AstraZeneca is adding a new heart warning to the labels of Seroquel, its blockbuster antipsychotic drug, at the request of the Food and Drug Administration, company and agency officials said on Monday.” And that “Seroquel is one of the top-selling drugs in the world, at $5.3 billion last year, including $3.7 billion in the United States. Introduced in 1997, it has been approved for schizophrenia, bipolar disorrder and severe depression. Seroquel has caused legal problems for AstraZeneca, including a $520 million payment in 2009 to settle government charges of illegal marketing. Thousands of lawsuits are pending over side effects like diabetes.”

While this is seemingly good news, look a little deeper in today’s article from Paul Thacker, an investigator for Project on Government Oversight…

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.”

Prescription Drug Epidemic Spreads to Babies

Dr. Mary Newport sees the symptoms more and more in the babies she treats: oddly stiff limbs, severe tremors, vomiting, diarrhea, insomnia, crying that never stops. The common denominator: Their mothers were taking prescription drugs, mostly painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin, and antianxiety drugs like Xanax during pregnancy. Some of the moms had no idea these medications would hurt their developing babies — after all, it’s not like it’s heroin or cocaine, many think.

Anna Nicole Smith’s psychiatrist prescribed “pharmaceutical suicide” according to court records

Anna Nicole Smith’s psychiatrist Khristine Eroshevich prescribed the equivalent of “pharmaceutical suicide” in the days after the death of her son, according to court records. Eroshevich tried to prescribe two sedatives, 300 tablets of methadone, a muscle relaxer, an anti-inflammatory drug and 4 bottles of a painkiller called “hospital heroin.” “They are going to kill her with this,” one of the pharmacists told himself at the time.