Antipsychotic Drugs Called Hazardous for the Elderly

Nearly one in seven elderly nursing home residents, nearly all of them with dementia, are given powerful atypical antipsychotic drugs even though the medicines increase the risks of death and are not approved for such treatments, a government audit found. More than half of the antipsychotics paid for by the federal Medicare program in the first half of 2007 were “erroneous,” the audit found, costing the program $116 million for those six months. “Government, taxpayers, nursing home residents as well as their families and caregivers should be outraged and seek solutions,” Daniel R. Levinson, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in announcing the audit results.

Survivors and supporters push for a ban on electroshock therapy in Ontario

When Dorothy Washburn Dundas was 19 years old she became sad, felt lonely and attempted suicide by swallowing a half a bottle of aspirin. Her parents took her to the Massachusetts General Hospital where Dundas began what she called her “three-year hellish odyssey as a prisoner of the mental-health system.” She was transferred to Balpate Hospital, a drug treatment centre in Georgetown, MA, diagnosed with schizophrenia and, in spite of her opposition, given 50 shock treatments. Fourty insulin and ten superimposed electric shocks.

Brooklyn’s Kingsboro Psychiatric Center a ‘violent’ madhouse with deaths linked to paperwork snafus

A Brooklyn mental hospital is a violence-wracked, dangerous place, rife with assaults and at least two deaths linked to paperwork snafus, the Daily News has learned. Federal surveys and court documents paint a disturbing portrait at the state’s problem-plagued Kingsboro Psychiatric Center. “Violence has become a way of life at KPC,” an independent mental health expert wrote in a Kingsboro-commissioned 2009 report after the hospital was sued in federal court.

Wellbutrin – To Promote or Not Promote… That is the Question

Lauren Stevens, the Glaxo associate general counsel, who is charged with one count of obstructing an official proceeding, one count of falsifying documents before a federal agency and four counts of making false statements to the FDA, has heard evidence given to a jury by James Millar, GSK vice president of strategic pricing, contracting and marketing. Millar had originally refused to testify but prosecutors persuaded the US District Judge [Roger W. Titus] to order him to give his testimony.

Another Prescription Drug Abuse Problem: The Overmedication of Foster Kids

A recent study by the Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute found that over that past decade the use of psychotropic medications — those used for the treatment of behavioral and mental health issues — for children between the ages of 2 and 21 has risen significantly. Moreover, while during the same period an estimated 4 percent of the general youth population was prescribed these medications, the figure for kids in foster care was much higher — anywhere from 13 to 52 percent. Recent studies in Texas and Georgia arrive at similar findings.

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