Only if one assumes that the FDA sees the drug industry as its client can some sense be made of December 13th meeting of the FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee in Silver Springs, Maryland.
"Most off-label use occurs without scientific support."
"The drugs most commonly used to soothe agitation and aggression in people with Alzheimer’s disease are no more effective than placebos for most patients, and put them at risk of serious side effects, including confusion, sleepiness and Parkinson’s disease-like symptoms, researchers are reporting
today."
Evidence of an association between violence and widely prescribed antidepressant drugs is the focus of this Infomail.
The New York Times reports (below) that after months of foot dragging, the FDA has finally issued additional warnings on the labels of widely
prescribed psychostimulant drugs–Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta.
Dr. David Healy, a formidable critic of the iron grip pharmaceutical corporations wield on the practice of psychiatry as well as on psychiatry’s deficient journal reports, directs his criticism at drug regulators in an article in the current British Medical Journal (BMJ).
A front page report in The New York Times describes a psychotropic drug-induced catastrophe that has befallen patients who obeyed their
psychiatrists, and swallowed the antipsychotic drugs prescribed by psychiatrists who insisted the drugs were for the patients own good.
Health Canada has taken constructive step to warn people with high blood pressure, heart disease and other medical ailments NOT to take psychostimulant drugs–which are essentially amphetamines.
“Medication-Free Research in Early Episode Schizophrenia: Evidence of Long-Term Harm?” An article in the Schizophrenia Bulletin, by Dr. John Bola that dares to question the validity of the unexamined treatment paradigm in schizophrenia:
A report by the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), reveals some sobering facts about teenage suicide attempts that involve drugs.
"That thing I’m worried about…where the MedGuide would help, where it might even warrant a black box, if this is common, where somebody hallucinates and then gets put on an anti-psychotic drug. That would really be something worth making sure it doesn’t happen,"
The Associated Press reports that a just released study that found that a staggering, two and half million children in the U.S. are being prescribed antipsychotics annually–that’s 40 out of every 1,000 children.
