Daytona Beach News Journal
By M.C. MOEWE
Staff Writer
A panel named this month to discuss changing state guidelines on paying for antipsychotic drugs for children will meet for the first time June 25.
At stake is the future treatment of more than 18,000 children in Florida currently receiving atypical antipsychotics medication for conditions ranging from ADHD [...]
Entries from May 2008
May 30, 2008
Panel to review Medicaid guidelines for antipsychotic drugs
May 29, 2008
Unwanted consequences of antipsychotic drugs
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Tom Avril
Antipsychotic drugs are often prescribed to treat agitation and other symptoms of dementia, but a new study suggests they may have unwanted consequences.
Among patients living in a community (non-nursing home) setting, those taking one of the drugs were more than three times as likely to suffer a “serious event” within 30 days [...]
May 26, 2008
Antipsychotics given for dementia pose risks-study
The Guardian
By Andrew Stern
Elderly dementia patients prescribed antipsychotic drugs are at three times the risk of a serious health problem or dying within a month of treatment, compared to those not given the drugs, Canadian researchers said on Monday.
The medications have been used by doctors to treat aggression in people who are not psychotic or [...]
May 24, 2008
Vets taking PTSD drugs die in sleep – Hurricane man’s death the 4th in West Virginia
Charleston Gazette
By Julie Robinson
A Putnam County veteran who was taking medication prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder died in his sleep earlier this month, in circumstances similar to the deaths of three other area veterans earlier this year.
Derek Johnson, 22, of Hurricane, served in the infantry in the Middle East in 2005, where he was wounded [...]
May 23, 2008
Psychiatry Makes War on “Bipolar Children”
Huffington Post
Dr. Peter Breggin
The front cover of the May 26, 2008 Newsweek has a banner headline, “Growing Up Bipolar” with a split-face photograph of a ten-year-old boy. The headline should have read, “Victim of Psychiatric Assault.”
Dr. Peter Breggin
In daycare 18-month old Max kicked, bit and spat on his larger peers. Apparently before he was two [...]
May 21, 2008
State suit targets AstraZeneca over antipsychotic medicine
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
BY CAROLYNE PARK
LITTLE ROCK — Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel filed suit Tuesday against drug manufacturer AstraZeneca claiming the company encouraged doctors to prescribe a dangerous drug to children and the elderly for uses beyond its federal approval, harming patients and costing the state millions of dollars.
The suit filed in Pulaski County Circuit [...]
May 19, 2008
What they spend: A look at drug company spending in Minnesota — on top specialties and select psychiatrists. Critics say drug firms’ payments to doctors are conflict of interest
St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota)
By Jeremy Olson and Paul Tosto
Drug companies have given $88 million in gifts, grants and fees to Minnesota doctors and caregivers since 2002, according to state payment records, including $782,000 to the two University of Minnesota psychiatrists who oversaw Dan Markingson’s participation in a clinical drug trial.
A lawsuit over [...]
May 19, 2008
The safety net that didn’t save him – Patient’s suicide raises questions about psychiatrist’s ethics
St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota)
By Paul Tosto and Jeremy Olson
Markingson center and Tamar Bekmedzjian, right, when Dan’s mother Mary
Weiss, left, visited him in Los Angeles in August 2001. (Photo courtesy of Mary Weiss)
When people enter drug studies at the University of Minnesota, they’re supposed to be protected by a safety net keeping watch that the [...]
May 18, 2008
The death of Subject 13
St. Paul Pioneer Press (Minnesota)
By Jeremy Olson and Paul Tosto Pioneer Press
Subject 13 was dead.
Enrolled in a clinical trial testing the effects of anti-psychotic drugs at the University of Minnesota, the schizophrenic had killed himself May 8, 2004, in a grisly suicide.
Tragic, a U official wrote in a “serious adverse event” memo to the U.S. [...]
May 16, 2008
MP speaks out on treatment of dementia patients
Loughborough News
By P. Klein
David Taylor MP [Member of Parliament] has introduced a Ten Minute Rule Bill in the House of Commons which aims to end the ‘chemical cosh’ approach to the prescription of anti-psychotic drugs for people with dementia in care homes.
The Bill seeks to implement the recommendations of a report Always a [...]
