U.S.Infants Prescribed Antipsychotics; Drugsters Fined Billions

SEPTEMBER 2, 2012

U.S.Infants Prescribed Antipsychotics; Drugsters Fined Billions

Thedoctors—WHAT were they thinking? And the parents? They weren’t. Was it a caseof, “please make my baby stop crying so I can sleep?” I guess the marketingworks.Why have AntipsychoticPrescriptions in Children Skyrocketed?
By Dr. Mercola
Thanks to aggressive marketingtechniques, pharmaceutical companies are raking in profits from atypicalantipsychotic medications – drugs originally approved for mental illnesses thatare as serious as they are rare.
It’s no surprise then that amajor portion of the sales of these types of “hard-core” psychiatric drugs comefrom off-label uses. Drugs such as Seroquel, Zyprexa, Risperdal and Abilify arenow increasingly prescribed by psychiatrists and primary-care doctors to treatconditions they were never intended or approved for, such as:

•  
• Anxiety
• Attention-deficit disorder (ADD)
• Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• Behavioral problems, and
• Insomnia
•  

Illegal Marketing LargelyResponsible for Skyrocketing Misuse of Dangerous Antipsychotics in Children
Most of the atypicalantipsychotics were approved in the 1990′s, at which time they were reservedfor a very small minority of serious mental illnesses; primarily schizophreniaand bipolar disorder – diseases afflicting an estimated three percent ofAmericans. More recently, some atypical antipsychotics have also been approvedfor the treatment of severe depression. Shockingly, children as young as 18months are now receiving antipsychotic drugs, despite the fact that thediseases they’re designed to treat rarely develop before adolescence.

Drug makers are increasinglygetting caught in the act of illegal marketing of this class of drugs:

• In July, GlaxoSmithKline was found guilty of the largest health fraud in US history, and was fined $3 billion after pleading guilty to three counts of criminal misdemeanor and other civil liabilities relating to a number of different drugs, including Paxil and Wellbutrin
• In June, Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $2.2 billion for illegally marketing its drug Risperdal
• In 2009 Eli Lilly was fined $1.4 billion for the illegal marketing of its antipsychotic drug Zyprexa
• Bristol Myers Squibb was fined $515 million in 2007 to settle charges of illegal marketing of Abilify to child psychiatrists
• Pfizer paid $301 million for illegal marketing of its drug Geodon, and
• AstraZeneca has paid out $520 million to settle illegal marketing charges of Seroquel

In each of these cases, the drugmanufacturers were targeting children, despite the fact that none of the drugsin question were approved for use in that age group. To understand howeffective these illegal marketing schemes are, consider that sales ofantipsychotic drugs to children have increased eight-fold since 1993. Sales toteens have quintupled, while adult sales doubled in the same time frame. In2008 alone, an estimated $6 billion was spent on off-label antipsychotics inthe US, of which $5.4 billion was for uses based on uncertain evidence!
According to the featuredarticle in Time:
“There is much evidence that thevast increases in atypical antipsychotic prescribing in recent decades werefueled by the aggressive marketing tactics of drug companies. In recent years,every major manufacturer of atypical antipsychotics has been involved in theillegal marketing of the drugs (while doctors can prescribe drugs off label, itis against the law for drug makers to market them for off-label uses), eachultimately paying hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in fines fortheir sales and marketing tactics. The settlements with the U.S. governmentwere among the largest in history.”
“Trends Signal Need toRe-Evaluate Clinical Practice Patterns”
A recently publishedstudy found that nearly two-thirds of all antipsychotic drugs prescribedto children between 2005 and 2009 were for the treatment of ADHD and otherdisruptive behavior disorders. In teens, 34 percent of all antipsychoticprescriptions were for these conditions. These are astounding statistics whenyou consider the fact that there’s virtually no data supporting the use ofthese kinds of drugs in children, or for those conditions. The authors seem toagree, concluding:
“In light of known safetyconcerns and uncertainty over long term risks and benefits, these trends maysignal a need to re-evaluate clinical practice patterns.”
According to Time:
“‘As the actual evidence basethat would support [such off-label prescriptions of antipsychotics] is scant tonon-existent, and the evidence of permeating undue influence of pharma on prescribingpractices in psychiatry is abundant, one is led to the conclusion that this isanother example of irrational prescribing that can be traced to both the overtand tacit influence of [drug companies] on practitioners,’ says Dr. BrucePerry, a senior fellow at the ChildTrauma Academy…
Perry testified for the state ofTexas in a case that resulted in a $158 million settlement with Johnson andJohnson in January to resolve claims that it fraudulently marketed Risperdaland swindled the state’s Medicaid program. One aspect of the case involvedmisleading claims about the drug’s effectiveness for behavior disorders inchildren.”
The Hidden Cause of PsychiatricDisorders Almost No One Considers
American children are the mostmedicated children in the world. For example, they get three timesmore prescriptions for antidepressants and stimulants, and up to double theamount of antipsychotic drugs than kids from Germany and the Netherlands.
How can we, as a society,continue to allow corporate profits to come before lives, and even beforechildren’s lives?
It’s just not right. I don’teven advocate giving children cough syrup, Tylenol or antibiotics, as thesealone can be harmful. But when you’re talking about powerful psychotropic,mind-altering drugs that in no way shape or form even begin to address theunderlying cause of the disease. You’re entering an entirely different ballgamewith these dangerous drugs. Unfortunately, psychiatric conditions are primarilybelieved to be the result of chemical dysfunction in your brain, or in somecases hereditary and therefore out of your control. Many fail to realize that:

1. Your lifestyle can override genetic predispositions, and
2. Your lifestyle can be a major underlying cause of that chemical imbalance or dysfunction.

If you or your child issuffering from an emotional or mental challenge, please seek help, but do sofrom someone who does not regard psychotropic drugs as a first line of defense.It will be very helpful if you first optimize your or your child’s diet andlifestyle as this will significantly improve the likelihood of any successfulnatural intervention.
Read the rest…
http://soundofheart.org/galacticfreepress/content/us-infants-prescribed-antipsychotics-drugsters-fined-billions