Antipsychotics

Lawyers for a Texas teenager whose lawsuit, one of 400 Johnson & Johnson faces over personal injuries caused by Risperdal, is set to begin...

The results of epidemiological studies of the prevalence of hallucinations strongly imply that psychosis exists on a spectrum, according to the Scientific American. This suggests “that the standard treatment for a psychotic episode might be due for an overhaul.”

Over the past twenty years, the number of prescriptions for atypical antipsychotics written to children and young adults between four and eighteen has increased...

From The Chronicle: The practice of pharmaceutical industry payments to academic researchers to help promote their drugs remains widespread. Requiring scientists to disclose their ties...

Questions have been circulating about whether Adam Lanza had been taking psychotropic medications. We hope that the inquiry into the mass murder will determine what psychotropic medications he may have been on. Meanwhile, Catherine Clarke and Jan Evans research paper "Neuroleptic Drugs and Violence" is archived on Madinamerica, and may shed further light on why this question arises in the context of these terrible events.

While most of the sting is gone, even now — almost sixty years on — I can’t get through a single day without thinking about shock treatment and the state hospital. I regularly have dreams or nightmares about being lost in a strange place and someone making me feel like dirt.

Treating one disease by causing another is actually a pretty mainstream therapeutic strategy in medicine - and especially psychiatry. The idea is to use a milder or temporary disease to treat a more severe or permanent one. In a recent development neuroleptic/antipsychotic drugs are being given to tens/hundreds of thousands of over-active children (aka 'bipolar'). Parkinson's disease certainly puts a stop to hyperactivity!

Thirty years ago, the prescription of neuroleptic drugs to children under 14 years of age was almost unheard of. It was rare in adolescents, and even in adults was largely confined to individuals who had been given the label schizophrenic or bipolar. By 1993 about a quarter of 1% of the national childhood population were receiving antipsychotic prescriptions during office visits. The percentage for adolescents was about three quarters of 1%. By 2009, these figures had increased to 1.83% and 3.76% respectively. The devastating effects of these neurotoxic drugs are well known, and it is natural to wonder what forces might be driving this trend.

Study finds that reduced cortical thickness and brain surface area associated with 'schizophrenia' may result from antipsychotic drug use.

Benedict Carey of the New York Times reports on the success of new schizophrenia and psychosis programs that provide family counseling and job and...

The percentage of seniors in the United States prescribed potentially deadly antipsychotic drugs increases with age. A new study reveals that in the face of serious risks of strokes, fractures, kidney injuries, and death, over seventy-five percent of seniors given antipsychotics do not have a diagnosis for a mental disorder.

Amid growing criticism about the over-prescription of psychotropic medication in foster care, Pennsylvania commissioned PolicyLab to conduct an analysis of the use of psychiatric drugs among all of the state’s Medicaid-enrolled children. The report, released in June, found that the rate of psychotropic prescriptions among youth in Medicaid and foster care was higher than previously reported.

Researchers point to the risks of using antipsychotics with youth and caution against the practice.

In one day at a psychiatric hospital in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, of the 201 patients admitted 172 were prescribed antipsychotic drugs and 47% of those were...

An Office of the Inspector General report says that nearly nine out of 10 prescriptions for antipsychotics given to Medicare beneficiaries are for unapproved uses....

The researchers found that while antipsychotic drugs may be slightly more effective than alternative antidepressants, they come with a much higher side effect burden.

New research published in the August issue of Psychiatric Annals evaluates the results of randomized control trials on the use of various psychotropic drugs for patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Despite the “American Psychiatric Association’s practice guidelines endorsement of SSRIs as first-line therapies for BPD,” the results of the meta-analysis reveal that pharmacotherapy in BPD is “not supported by the current literature,” and “should be avoided whenever possible.”

A new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, investigates the effects of anticholinergic medications, such as antidepressants and antipsychotics, on cognition in older adults diagnosed with schizophrenia.

No placebo controlled trials provide evidence of antipsychotics in first-episode psychosis.

For the New York Times, Cornell psychiatrist Richard Friedman proposes new regulations to make direct-to-consumer drug ads reveal the relative price and effectiveness information that...

"CNN's Carol Costello explores Operation Tohidu, an experimental rehabilitation program to help veterans with PTSD." Operation Tohidu founder, Dr. Mary Vieten claims PTSD is not a mental illness and "there is no reason to medicate someone who has been traumatized by their war experience." When asked what percentage of soldiers returning with PTSD do not need drugs she responds, "100%."

The average rate of female prisoners in Canada's prison system who receive psychiatric medication has jumped from 42% in 2001 to over 60% today,...

From Reuters: Two youth legal advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit against Missouri for over-exposing foster children to psychotropic drugs. The lawsuit seeks a court...

Use of second-generation antipsychotics (SGA) alongside other medications is growing rapidly among youth who are less impaired, according to a study published online in...

In a well-researched, comprehensive article in today's Huffington Post Art Levine has brought to the attention of the mainstream media the government's complicity in the illegal psychiatric drugging of poor children, especially foster children, through Medicaid.  The article, Feds Pay for Drug Fraud: 92 Percent of Foster Care, Poor Kids Prescribed Antipsychotics Get Them for Unaccepted Uses is the only mainstream article I know about that has really pressed the federal government over its refusal to enforce Medicaid's coverage restrictions to "medically accepted indications."