New Study Links ADHD Drugs, Antidepressants, Hypnotics & Anti-Smoking Drug to 1,527 Acts of Violence

For years, there were contentious debates about links between certain prescription meds, notably antidepressants, and suicidal behavior. Now, the focus is turning to violent behavior directed toward others. And a new study is linking 31 widely prescribed drugs – most notably, the Chantix anti-smoking pill – with 1,527 serious acts of violence, such as physical abuse, physical assault and homicide. The study, which was published in PLoS One, identified 484 drugs that accounted for 780,169 serious adverse event reports of all kinds, including 1,937 cases meeting the violence criteria determined by the researchers. There were 387 reports of homicide, 404 physical assaults, 27 cases indicating physical abuse, 896 homicidal ideation reports and 223 cases described as violence-related symptoms.

Besides Pfizer’s Chantix, 11 antidepressants, three ADHD meds and five hypnotics or sedatives were linked to 79 percent of the violence cases. Looked at another way, no cases of violence were reported for 324 of the 484 drugs evaluated. And so an association with violence appeared “highly unlikely” for nearly 85 percent of all evaluated drugs in widespread clinical use.

Will we ever wake up to the deadly risks of happy pills?

Just as David Cameron launches his campaign to boost national happiness, along comes grim news for the 12 million Britons taking happy pills. London-based researchers have just announced that antidepressants raise the risk of fatal heart attacks. This research is only the latest wake-up call for a nation hooked on happy pills. Might we finally heed the warnings and shake ­ourselves out of our pharmaceutical stupor?

It is high time we did: a small mountain of studies shows that antidepressant drugs are largely ineffective. But more than that, they can ruin lives by creating chronic dependency and a grinding ­hopelessness that ­sometimes leads to self-neglect and death.

The Way Antipsychotics Are Used in Nursing Homes Called “A form of elder abuse” by Patient Advocates

Patricia McGinnis, executive director of the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said nursing homes must be “accountable” for the drugs they administer. “The way anti-psychotic drugs are used in nursing homes is a form of elder abuse,” McGinnis told the forum. “Instead of providing individualized care, many homes indiscriminately use these drugs to sedate and subdue residents.”

Texas Doctors Prescribe $47 Million Worth of Antipsychotic & Anti-Anixety Drugs, Primarily for Kids—One Child Psychiatrist Alone Wrote 27,000 Prescriptions For Xanax

With little oversight and apparent carte blanche, a relative handful of Texas physicians wrote $47 million worth of Medicaid prescriptions for powerful antipsychotic and anti-anxiety drugs over the past two years, according to a Star-Telegram analysis. The top five doctors alone wrote $18 million worth. Grassley asked Texas and other states for the top 10 prescribers who billed Medicaid for certain drugs. The Star-Telegram used prescriber numbers to identify the doctors, then sorted and tallied the drugs they were prescribing. Also reviewed was information on other mental-health drugs that have cost taxpayers about $1.3 billion during the past five years.

Most of the drugs have gone to children and adolescents, although prescribing the drugs to children, such as a toddler, is considered “off-label” — uses not approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Now the state’s Medicaid program is among others under scrutiny, after Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, began investigating the use of mental-health drugs this year.

Girl, 2, had twice the amount of anti-psychotic drug in her system as adult dosage

Awtumn Minnema, the 2-year-old who died Nov 15 from a prescription drug overdose, had twice the amount of an anti-psychotic drug in her system as a single adult dose, a pathologist said today. Dr. Stephen Cohle, who performed the autopsy on Awtumn, said toxicology reports showed the girl died from too much haloperidol, sold as Haldol, in her system. Haldol is anti-psychotic drug most often used to treat schizophrenia.

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