The number of children taking neuroleptic drugs, called "antipsychotics," doubled from 2000-2010

"The scientific endeavor is based on vigilance, not trust." 
Jonathan King, Professor of Molecular Biology, M.I.T. Science and Engineering Ethics, 5:215-217.

The number of deaths from all prescription drugs more than quadrupled.

How many of the deaths were children prescribed psychiatric drugs off-label?

I wonder if experimental use of prescription drugs, called "off-label" prescriptions, would be so prevalent if the raw data from federally funded research, and the data used to gain a drug's FDA approval were available for public examination; instead of being hidden? People are dying at an alarming rate--including children from taking FDA approved prescription drugs as directed. How many of the deaths are a direct result of inappropriate, unsupported experimental use? Consensus based standards of care that recommend prescribing FDA approved neuroleptic, or other psychotropic drug "off-label" to children that are are without robust evidence to support using the drugs in this manner, are surely part of the problem. Have medical professionals allowed exaggerated claims of drug safety and efficacy and the minimizing of drug risks to cloud their professional judgement? Exaggerated claims of a drug's effectiveness coupled with a denial of or minimizing of the actual risks is unethical; publishing inaccuracies in professional journal articles has undermined the integrity of the evidence base, and the medical profession.  Worse, published inaccuracies put physicians and patients at a distinct disadvantage: misinformed doctors misinform and mistreat patients.

via Department of Health and Human Services Office of Rearch Integrity:

‎"in all these efforts the criteria for professional scientific integrity were similar; even if the individual was your best friend, you asked to see the data; and if the data was in summary form, you asked to see the raw data. It was common to challenge a colleague's claim that he had carried out some procedure very carefully or precisely." Jonathan King, Professor of Molecular Biology, M.I.T. Science and Engineering Ethics 5:215, 1999.

"Though the subjective and social components of science are real and often critical, the striving to determine the truths about nature independently of these variables is one of the most enduring values of science. This is not based on trust, but on evidence, rigor, and honesty. The honesty is established by not calling upon trust, but demonstrating that one did what one said one did." Jonathan King, Professor of Molecular Biology, M.I.T. Science and Engineering Ethics 5:216, 1999. here

Direct to consumer marketing of FDA approved drugs does not comply with truth in advertising and consumer protection laws; the drugs are killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. But FDA enforcement resources are focused on advertisements for vitamins, nutritional supplements, and organic foods that are not killing people. Failure of the FDA to be accountable for the drugs the FDA approves is a failure to protect the American people who are dying at an alarming rate from "safe and effective" FDA approved drugs.

via The FDA:

AERS Patient Outcomes by Year 2000-2010

2000     19,445    153,818

2010     82,724    471,291

                    Deaths    Adverse Event

via RT.com

Pharmageddon: America’s bitter pill

The United States has a passion for pills, being the world's biggest users of psychotropic drugs, consuming 60 per cent of them. And pharmaceutical firms are keen to keep cashing in on the multibillion-dollar market, even if it costs people's health.

America is regarded as a country with a prodigious appetite for consumption. Today, a widespread fondness for pharmaceuticals has turned the US into a nation of pill-poppers.

With over $14 billion in annual sales, antipsychotics remain the top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the US.

Dr. Harriet Fraad believes Big Pharma has manufactured a climate of insanity by manipulating and even creating illness for capital gain.

“One of the things that drives Big Pharma is to find a diagnosis that is very vague, so that everybody can fall into that,” she told RT. “Everybody is sad sometimes. There are good reasons. The point is to market pharmaceuticals. And the advertising strategy is to have vague diagnosis and then find wiggle room so that they apply to everyone.” read here.

ASK YOUR DOCTOR
 if dry mouth, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, diarrhea,
nausea and sleepiness might be right for you!

"I'm looking for an end to giving kids who are sad or distressed, drugs that double their risk 

of suicide. I'm looking for the appalling rate of child suicide in my country to be reduced. I 

want my son, my only child, to have a legacy and I need to feel I'm still his mother and 

promoting his best interests and this is the only way I know how to parent a dead child."

Maria Bradshaw, the mother of Toran Henry and co-founder of Casper

Casper Suicide Prevention Strategy

vintage ad found here.


bs meter and rfk pic found here.
first posted Dec 29, 2011

Plan to monitor ongoing harm done to foster children

DSM-1, 1952: 106 disorders
DSM-II , 1968: 185 disorders
DSM-III, 1980: 265 disorders
DSM-IV, 1994: 357 disorders

It appears that the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, 'ACYF' plans to continue allowing children in foster care to be drugged with psychiatric drugs even though there is ample evidence that this Standard Practice is not 'effectively treating' the psychiatric diagnoses the drugs are prescribed for.  The standard clinical practice of using teratogenic psychiatric drugs is not based on sound ethical medical principles, and is not supported with definitive empirical data showing the drugs to be safe or efficacious for use on children.  Using drugs which are not efficacious, that are known to be dangerous teratogens with fatal risks, without scientific evidence to validate the practice,  is Human Experimentation.  The plan to 'monitor' and provide 'oversight' of psychiatric drugs being used in what is essentially Human Experimentation on vulnerable foster children does not protect the children from further harm; this is a poor plan to say the very least...

This is not something that needs Federal 'oversight,' nor does it need to be 'monitored.' 

IT NEEDS TO BE STOPPED!

via The Policy Lab at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

April 30, 2012

New PolicyLab Research Expands Understanding of Psychoactive Medication Use Among Children in Foster Care

A few months after the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report on the use of psychoactive drugs by children in foster care in five states, a national study from PolicyLab at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia describes prescription patterns over time in 48 states. The updated findings show the percentage of foster children taking antipsychotics--a class of psychoactive drugs associated with serious side effects for children-- continued to climb in the last decade. At the same time, a slight decline was seen in other psychoactive medication use, including the percentage of children receiving three or more classes of these medications at once (polypharmacy). here

via PR Newswire:

PRESS RELEASE

New research expands understanding of psychoactive medication use among children in foster care

a few excerpts:

"We're not saying these medications should never be used for children, but the high rate at which they're used by children in foster care indicates that other interventions and supports, such as trauma-based counseling, may not be in place for them. In other words, health care providers may not have other, non-medication, tools to offer families dealing with mental health concerns," said Rubin. "Responding to high and growing levels of antipsychotic use will not simply require efforts to restrict their use, but calls for larger investments in mental health programs that help these children cope with trauma psychologically."

"Prescription rates for both antipsychotic use and polypharmacy varied widely from state to state. Over the six-year period, antipsychotic use increased in all but three states. Conversely, 18 states showed an increase in polypharmacy, while 19 states showed decline and 11 no change. In 2007, states reported prescriptions of antipsychotics ranging from 2.8 percent to 21.7 percent of the foster care population, and from 0.5 percent to 13.6 percent for children receiving multiple classes of psychoactive drugs. The authors note, however, that it's not possible to use this study to compare states against one another.

"In illustrating both the national and state-specific trends in the use of psychoactive medications over time, we hope to provide a resource to officials at both the federal and state levels to help identify progress and prioritize intervention areas," noted Meredith Matone, MHS, a research scientist at PolicyLab who co-authored the study currently published online in the journal Children and Youth Services Review.

"Bryan Samuels, Commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), said "the study's findings contribute to ongoing Federal efforts to improve the oversight and monitoring of psychoactive medications by providing a new snapshot in time on how these drugs were used in almost every state in the nation." ACYF, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, works across federal agencies and with the States to use the latest data and research to design and deliver the best health care services for vulnerable children.(emphasis mine)

"In August, ACYF will bring child welfare, mental health, and Medicaid leaders from all 50 States, DC, and Puerto Rico together to address the appropriate use of psychoactive medications in state foster care programs." read here

Big Bucks Big Pharma

picture bonkersinstitute.org

People Die from Constipation

Everyone, should know the truth about Clozapine, and all psychiatric drugs.  Drugs are approved by the FDA, and the FDA does not require medical professionals to report negative effects, adverse events, including fatalities, that people experience--not even from  the professional who prescribed the drug!  This is not acceptable.  The failure to require  adverse event reporting means  some of the most important information needed to assess the safety and effectiveness of FDA approved drugs in real world practice is purposely not being collected.

Two additional major failings of the FDA are the utter failure to regulate the marketing of prescription drugs so-called "truth in advertising" consumer protection laws are not applicable to prescription drugs--even those that are illegally marketed... Just "Ask your doctor if ___is right for you." 

People have died from chronic constipation caused by Clozapine, but as the following stories demonstrate, it also takes medical negligence. The adverse effect of chronic constipation is  well-documented in the professional literature; as is the cognitive damage Clozapine also causes which that can limit the patient's ability to articulate, or even know where the pain is coming from when they are in pain due to constipation. 

via Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network:
Sarah Crider was among 115 patients in the state's care who might have lived 

Alone in the darkness of a state mental hospital, Sarah Crider, 14, lay slowly dying.

She complained of stomach pain at 4:30 p.m. She vomited about 8:30. When the only physician on call at Georgia Regional Hospital/Atlanta came at 9:20, Sarah had vomited again, but the doctor did not examine her, medical records suggest. She threw up around midnight and once more about 2 a.m., this time a bloody substance that resembled coffee grounds. But hospital workers did not enter Sarah's room again until 6:15 a.m. By then, it was too late.

A few hours later, two hospital employees drove to Cobb County to tell Joyce Dobson, Sarah's grandmother. Dobson adored Sarah for all her complexities: artistic but troubled, challenging but comic. Now she could think only of two nights earlier, when she had last visited Sarah and heard another patient's haunting scream.

I hope nobody killed her, Dobson blurted out.

In fact, what happened to Sarah was beyond anything Dobson could have imagined. here 

via: ISEPP

Florida plaintiff Deidra Sanbourne: Was her death caused by Clozapine-Induced Bowel Obstruction? Readers of the book Crazy deserve to know about the harm psychiatric drugs can cause.

an couple of excerpts:

Although The Miami Herald investigation does reveal many deaths that can be attributed to the neglect in Florida’s ALFs, Diedra Sanbourne’s death, as reported in the book Crazy, occurred from a bowel obstruction while being treated in  a psychiatric unit at Westchester General Hospital and not from neglect in a boarding home.

"A quick search on Medline revealed the medication Clozapine is used to treat severe cases of schizophrenia.  Clinical research suggests Clozapine has caused bowel  obstructions leading to death in schizophrenic patients."  read it here.