More than half of the prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs in the UK are being issued “off-label” to treat conditions other than those for which the drugs are approved, according to a large study published in the British Medical Journal Open. Researchers also found significantly higher levels of prescribing of the medications to poorer people.
The team of University College London researchers examined instances of nearly 48,000 people in the UK receiving antipsychotics between 2007 and 2011. Most of these people were not being given the drugs as treatments for schizophrenia, psychosis or bipolar disorders for which the drugs have been studied and approved by the government, the researchers found, but for other conditions, such as anxiety, depression, dementia, sleep and personality disorders.
“The prescribing rate was significantly higher in women than in men, and people aged 80 and above were more than twice as likely to be treated with an antipsychotic as those aged 40-49,” stated a press release about the study. “Those living in areas of deprivation were more than three times as likely to be prescribed one of these drugs as those living in areas of affluence.”
Less than half of UK prescriptions for antipsychotics issued for main licensed conditions (BMJ-British Medical Journal press release on ScienceDaily, December 18, 2014)
(Abstract) (Full text) (Marston, L. et al. Prescribing of antipsychotics in UK primary care: a cohort study. BMJ Open. December 18, 2014. DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006135)
Though after reading “Anatomy of an Epidemic” It doesn’t seem like these drugs are a great idea for people with Schizophrenia, Bipolar, or Psychosis either!
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So basicly this is evidence that the psychiatric practitioners are merely utilizing the neuroleptics / “antipsychotics” / major tranquilizers to unnecessarily tranquilize lots of women, elderly, and poor. Isn’t this more evidence the doctors are not ethical or intelligent enough to handle these drugs?
And the US psychiatrists are so stupid that they believe the major tranquilizers cure adverse effects of the antidepressants and ADHD drugs, they don’t. But the “antipsychotics” can and do cause psychosis and drug withdrawal induced super sensitivity manic psychosis in people wrongly put on them, like the million plus innocent children (and no doubt, millions of adults) misdiagnosed according to the DSM-IV as “bipolar” due to adverse effects of the antidepressants and ADHD drugs.
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“Second only to God,” Dr. Beiderman? I think you’re confusing God with the devil.
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The prescription of neuroleptics for every imaginary disease is the norm. Whatever your diagnostic, if there is one, you get your brain – health destroying antipsychotics, so that you will be good you will conform and stay quiet.
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Maybe because they are unspecifically acting sedatives and narcotics?
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