WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley is asking the drug maker, Eli Lilly and Company, for information related to the risks and marketing of the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa.
Grassley made this request in response to allegations that the company downplayed safety risks and engaged in other improper marketing practices that may be jeopardizing patients’ health. The text [...]
Grassley Seeks Marketing and Safety Documents From Major Drug Maker
February 14th, 2007
Showdown Looms in Congress Over Drug Advertising on TV
January 22nd, 2007By Milt Freudenheim, The New York Times.
Drug advertising aimed at consumers, a fast-growing category that reached $4.5 billion last year, will face hard scrutiny in the new Congress, according to industry critics in both the House and Senate.
The consumer ads will be on the griddle early in this session at hearings on the user fees [...]
Alaska Supreme Court Strikes Down Forced Psychiatric Drugging Procedures
July 1st, 2006In a resounding affirmation of personal liberty and freedom, the Alaska Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Myers v. Alaska Psychiatric Institute today. The court found Alaska’s forced psychiatric drugging regime to be unconstitutional when the state forces someone to take psychiatric medications without proving it to be in their best interests or when [...]
Study: ADHD Drugs Send Thousands to ERs
May 25th, 2006By LINDA A. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Accidental overdoses and side effects from attention deficit drugs likely send thousands of children and adults to emergency rooms, according to the first national estimates of the problem.
Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated problems with the stimulant drugs drive nearly 3,100 people to ERs [...]
Tots Used as Human Guinea Pigs?
May 17th, 2006Joseph Rhee Reports:
ABC News has learned that a Massachusetts hospital is currently recruiting pre-schoolers to test the safety and effectiveness of a powerful antipsychotic drug called Quetiapine. (SEROQUEL AstraZeneca – Vince)
The study, conducted by the Department of Pediatric Psychopharmacology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is testing subjects from four to six years of age with Bipolar [...]
ADHD Children ‘Suffer Strokes’
March 27th, 2006CHILDREN as young as five have suffered strokes, heart attacks and hallucinations after taking drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Almost 400 serious adverse reactions to the two most used ADHD drugs, Ritalin and Dexamphetamine, had been reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), The Australian reported today.
Almost 60 of the adverse reaction reports [...]
Warning Urged on Stimulants Like Ritalin
February 10th, 2006By Gardiner Harris
GAITHERSBURG, Md., Feb. 9 — Stimulants like Ritalin could have dangerous effects on the heart, and federal regulators should require manufacturers to provide written guides to patients and place prominent warnings on drug labels describing these risks, a federal advisory panel voted on Thursday.
The panel’s recommendation promises to intensify a long-running debate about [...]
FDA Reports 51 Deaths of Attention Drug Patients
February 9th, 2006(Reuters) WASHINGTON – Deaths of 51 U.S. patients who took widely prescribed drugs to treat attention deficit disorder prompted regulators to start watching for heart attacks, high blood pressure and other problems in 2004, a report released on Wednesday said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration staff did not say the drugs were responsible for the [...]
Prozac Backlash: Trouble in Prozac
November 28th, 2005Fortune Magazine, by David Stipp
Can Prozac make you want to die? The idea seems strange, given that the drug and similar antidepressants are supposed to do just the opposite. Yet that is what Kimberly Witczak believes happened to her husband. Two years ago Tim “Woody” Witczak killed himself at age 37, soon after going on [...]
Third Grader Is Handcuffed, Medicated At School
November 18th, 2005School officials in Phoenix are in trouble and parents are seething after a third-grade girl was reportedly brought to school by police in handcuffs, and then forced to take pills.
“This never should have happened. This child never should have been brought into a classroom full of kids,” said one parent at a PTA meeting.
Parents at [...]
Television Adverts for Antidepressants Cause Anxiety
November 12th, 2005From New Scientist Print Edition
ADVERTS that claim depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, and that antidepressants correct it, are false and should be banned, say two mental health specialists.
Popular antidepressants such as Prozac and Celexa block the uptake of the neurotransmitter serotonin and have been shown to be slightly better than placebo in treating [...]
Drug Industry Human Testing Masks Death, Injury, Compliant FDA
November 2nd, 2005Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) — Oscar Cabanerio has been waiting in an experimental drug testing center in Miami since 7:30 a.m. The 41- year-old undocumented immigrant says he’s desperate for cash to send his wife and four children in Venezuela.
More than 70 people have crowded into reception rooms furnished with rows of attached blue plastic seats. [...]
A Pragmatic Approach for Troubled Kids
November 1st, 2005By Leila Abboud, The Wall Street Journal
With persistent concerns about using powerful psychiatric drugs on children, there is growing interest in counseling techniques for troubled kids that aim to change destructive behavior.
These therapies are getting a push because they have been shown in numerous clinical trials over the past decade to be effective on kids [...]
Report: Teen Left Suicidal Messages on Website Before Rampage
November 1st, 2005‘19-year-old vowed ‘to hurt those that have hurt me’
CNN.com
ALISO VIEJO, California (AP) — A 19-year-old man who authorities say killed two neighbors then himself posted suicidal messages on a Web site before the rampage, according to a report published Tuesday.
William Freund posted an Internet message October 16 that threatened a “Terror Campaign to hurt those [...]
Computer: Your Kid Has “Disorders”
October 8th, 2005Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning:
Imagine your teenager comes home from school looking depressed. You ask what’s wrong. She says, “Oh, it’s just my social anxiety disorder.”
What?
Yes, she tells you, she has social anxiety disorder. And also obsessive compulsive disorder.
What are you talking about, you ask? Who [...]
Generation Ritalin
September 19th, 2005Doctors are at odds over the treatment of children affected by ADHD … to drug them or not to drug them?
Michelle Wiese Bockmann reports.
At the age of 10, Brandon Frances screamed for hours on end, suffered psychotic episodes and daily beat his mother.
A pediatrician in Perth diagnosed Brandon with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder when he [...]
Rutherford Institute Attorneys Sue Indiana School for Conducting Mental Health Screening Exam on Teenager Without Parental Consent
September 19th, 2005South Bend, IN—Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana on behalf of an Indiana family whose 15-year-old daughter, Chelsea Rhoades, was subjected to a mental health screening examination at school without her parents’ knowledge or consent.
Fierce Opposition Arises to Mental Health Screening in Schools
September 18th, 2005By Karen MacPherson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
WASHINGTON — Back in 2003, a federal commission created by President Bush recommended improving and expanding mental health programs in schools to provide help as early as possible to students with learning problems or those who might turn violent or disruptive.
The commission highlighted one means of early diagnosis, the Columbia University [...]
Are ADHD Drugs Safe? Report Finds Little Proof
September 13th, 2005M. ALEXANDER OTTO; The News Tribune
At a time when millions of children and adults are taking drugs for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, the most comprehensive scientific analysis of the drugs to date has found little evidence that they are safe, that one drug is more effective than another or that they help school performance. The [...]
Antidepressant Protest in Front of White House
September 4th, 2005by James Torlakson
I flew back to Washington, DC to participate in a protest focused on the often-lethal nature of SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) and other atypical antidepressants, which took place in front of the White House on August 24th, 25th, and 26th. My twenty-one year old daughter, Elizabeth, committed “suicide” as a direct result [...]