Tag Archives: Risperdal

J&J to Agree to $1B Accord in Risperdal Probe

Johnson & Johnson will pay more than $1 billion to the U.S. and most states to resolve a civil investigation into marketing of the antipsychotic Risperdal, according to people familiar with the matter.

J&J, the world’s largest health products company, reached an accord last week with the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, according to the people, who weren’t authorized to speak about the matter. It doesn’t resolve negotiations over a possible criminal plea, they said.

The U.S. government has been investigating Risperdal sales practices since 2004, including allegations the company marketed the drug for unapproved uses, J&J has said in Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The company said it has been in negotiations with the U.S. to settle this investigation.

J&J, based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, disclosed in August that it reached an agreement to settle a misdemeanor criminal charge related to Risperdal marketing. The company is in negotiations to pay about $400 million more to settle this portion of the investigation, one of the people said.

“No Mandatory Mental Health Screening For Children!” by Ron Paul

There has been a persistent lobbying effort, funded by pharmaceutical companies, to increase the number of these prescriptions to even more children. A universal screening program is the stated goal of these lobbyists. I would not be at all surprised to see the recent attention to the issue of schoolyard bullying used as a tool towards these ends.

Imagine the potential ramifications of a universal, mandatory psychiatric health screening program in a public school, considering how some bureaucrats are wont to behave! The diagnostic criteria for many mental illnesses remain vague and subjective. Therefore it is all too easy for a bureaucrat in a white coat to label a child with some sort of psychiatric syndrome simply because they were having a bad day, or behaving as a typical rambunctious child. That label could follow them around the rest of their school career and come with a number of prescriptions attached, which the state, as in the Godboldo case, may try to force the parents to administer, whether they want to or not.

Vindicated—Detroit Mom gets daughter back & all charges dropped following police stand off over refusing to drug daughter

Two courts gave Maryanne Godboldo early Christmas presents Monday — her child and dismissal of multiple felonies from an eight-hour standoff with police last spring.

“Thank you for just doing your job and following the law,” a weeping Godboldo said in the morning after Wayne County Circuit Judge Gregory Bill ruled that a lower court judge was correct in tossing out the criminal charges from the March incident.

Godboldo had held off child welfare workers and police who were try to remove her teenage daughter because Godboldo would not give the child Risperdal, a drug prescribed for an undisclosed psychiatric condition. Godboldo insisted that the drug, also used to stem aggressive behavior, was harming her daughter.

Huffington Post – “Foster Teen: I Was Put In A Psych Ward. I Wasn’t Crazy”

It all started when I said something stupid in school. A girl was ignoring me, and I got mad and said, “F-ck this sh-t. I’m gonna do some Virginia Tech sh-t.” I only said it so the girl would pay attention to me. But I shocked all my classmates and teachers, and the school said I’d made a “terrorist threat.”

I was in the 9th grade, and I had recently moved out of an abusive situation with my mom and into a foster home I knew nothing about. I needed someone to listen so I could get my feelings out. But there was no one I could really trust.

My caseworker came to my foster mom’s house and told me that he would take me to KFC and then to a “nice place to get help.” I thought, “OK, that sounds cool. I get my favorite food and I go to a center to feel better.”

The next stop we made was a psychiatric hospital for kids. We went through door after door, and it dawned on me that every door had a lock. Once the door shut you couldn’t open it. The doors locked you in. They intended to keep me here. That realization gave me a panic attack. I started running and the security tackled me. I was forcibly dragged in.