There’s no mystery, but people talk as though there is. Some leaders in the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as some psychotherapists and other citizens, express puzzlement about why, in the last 11 years, the rates of suicides, family breakdown, substance abuse, and homelessness among war veterans have steadily risen.
Left hand, we’d like to introduce you to the right.
For two years while the state of Texas was suing Johnson & Johnson for fraudulently inflating the cost and effectiveness of the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal, taxpayers picked up a $247,666.87 bill for the Texas Youth Commission to continue prescribing the drug to young inmates.
Johnson & Johnson and a subsidiary, Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., agreed in January to pay the state $158 million to settle the lawsuit. The state had been seeking $579 million.
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 jury verdict in the case of State of South Carolina versus Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Johnson & Johnson, Inc. has been upheld and requests for a new trial denied, affirming groundbreaking $327 million in civil penalties against the manufacturers of the drug Risperdal.
A Winnipeg judge’s ruling that a teenage boy murdered his friend because of the effects of Prozac will not be appealed, confirming an apparent North American first and reviving debate around the widespread prescription of anti-depressants to young people. Justice Robert Heinrichs concluded the 15-year-old boy was under the influence of the medication when he thrust a nine-inch kitchen knife into the chest of Seth Ottenbreit, a close friend.
Justice Robert Heinrichs concluded the 15-year-old boy was under the influence of the medication when he thrust a nine-inch kitchen knife into the chest of Seth Ottenbreit, a close friend.