NIH Awards $1.2M to Study Side Effects of Antipsychotics

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The U.S. National Institute of Health, noting the rise of antipsychotic prescriptions for children, often for “off-label” uses, has awarded $1.2 million to a researcher at the University of New England to study “the potentially serious and lasting side effects”, and their underlying mechanisms, of antipsychotics.

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Of further interest:
Side Effects of Widely Prescribed Antipsychotic Drugs the Focus of $1.2M NIH Grant Awarded to University of New England Researcher Karen Houseknecht (Digital Journal)

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Kermit Cole
Kermit Cole, MFT, founding editor of Mad in America, works in Santa Fe, New Mexico as a couples and family therapist. Inspired by Open Dialogue, he works as part of a team and consults with couples and families that have members identified as patients. His work in residential treatment — largely with severely traumatized and/or "psychotic" clients — led to an appreciation of the power and beauty of systemic philosophy and practice, as the alternative to the prevailing focus on individual pathology. A former film-maker, he has undergraduate and master's degrees in psychology from Harvard University, as well as an MFT degree from the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia. He is a doctoral candidate with the Taos Institute and the Free University of Brussels. You can reach him at [email protected].

6 COMMENTS

  1. Hundreds of millions of dollars, and billions over all, are spent on researching new drugs and ways they can be used. And then, some time about 20 years after they come out, 1.2 million is spent on studying their “side effects” in children.

    In a perfect world the drug companies would have to put three times as much money into researching a drugs potential for harm as what was put into developing it in the first place. It’s absolutely reckless and psychotic that doctors prescribe drugs to millions of people while having little to no idea of what harms it is causing to their brains and bodies. Even more so when they know that it is actually causing harm as evidenced by the most obvious of “side effects” which any reasonable person would conclude is a persons body telling them that it is suffering harm and is in danger. If the future of the species is saner and more intelligent than us, they will surely look back at history and say that we were so dumb for thinking that drugs that we knew were hurting us could somehow be considered medicine.

    So called lesser species don’t have this problem. Give them something that makes them sick and they wont take it again. Our ability to rationalize, to think of harm as “side effects”, is an ongoing catastrophe.

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  2. Oh For God’s Sake.

    This is kicking the can down the road rather than dealing with the already voluminous evidence that these drugs don’t belong in a dead snake, much less a living human being of any age.

    Until the FDA at least, gets Congressionally Divorced from its PDUFA addiction which has them continually issuing releases about better serving Industry to speed new drug approvals, we are not going to see anything But, “THE TAX PAYERS NEED TO BE CHEATED YET AGAIN, This time for another $1.2 Million, to DELAY TAKING THIS KILLER CRAP OFF THE MARKET.

    http://pharma.about.com/od/FDA/a/2012-Renewal-Of-The-Prescription-Drug-User-Fee-Act-Pdufa.htm

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    • “She states, “Though effective for the treatment of serious mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, ”

      http://psychroaches.blogspot.com/2013/03/risperdal-haldol-zyprexa-neurocognitive.html

      http://www.madinamerica.com/2012/12/a-recent-study-of-atypical-neuroleptics-the-results-of-our-study-are-sobering/

      Dr Houseknect: Take up your “Effective” with the Veterans Administration.

      http://www.mirecc.va.gov/visn3/education.asp

      “Algorithms:

      A review of existing algorithms, including VA National Guidelines, APA, the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), and PORT was conducted. After careful consideration, a modified version of TMAP was selected, and named the New Jersey Algorithm.

      The sequence includes two trials of atypical antipsychotics followed by a Clozaril trial. If no favorable response is observed, a third atypical neuroleptic is tried, followed by a typical neuroleptic, followed by a combination of antipsychotic medications. The consensus of the internal advisory committee was to provide a flexible algorithm that will allow for minor modifications as new research is disseminated. Though a positive outcome has not been observed with the NJ Algorithm to date, researchers suspect that a larger sample size might generate significant findings in the future.”

      VA Serves 5.3 Million Vets and Active Duty personnel, at the widely disseminated 1% of everyone has Schiz stuff, that’s 53,000 people the VA has hosed with SGAs and 1st gen antipsychotics too.

      53,000 people for NO positive Outcome with Any of these drugs.

      But then “Effective” to someone scamming $1.2 Million of other people’s money, which we Don’t have, is obviously a different “Effective” than the “Effective” the people Paying for that “Effective” and the people being Poisoned by that “Effective”, along with Any decent English Language Dictionary, understand the word “Effective” to mean.

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  3. This is fine if real research is done. But am I the only one to notice that “research” done through the feds’ “Office of Complementary Medicine” (not sure I have that name right)finds without fail that virtually any treatments or substances not controlled by Big Pharma are worthless? This is in the face, in many cases, of lots of research done in Europe and elsewhere. For example, saw palmetto berry extract has been shown over and over to reduce the symptoms of enlarged prostates, but this phony “alternative medicine” project denies it. One wonders whether they even carry out ANY research at all.

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