The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said October 29, 2009 that it had reached a $520 million agreement to settle two federal investigations and two whistle-blower lawsuits over the sale and marketing of its psychiatric drug Seroquel, which has been increasingly used for children and elderly people for indications not approved by the FDA.
AstraZeneca’s third quarter operating profit was $3.6 billion. There are currently 14,444 civil lawsuits over the damaging side effects and misleading marketing of Seroquel. Does this suggest anything to you about the rising cost of health care?
Seroquel (generic name quetiapine) is a newer atypical antipsychotic or major tranquilizer with side effects such as depression, liver failure, diabetes, impotence, heart failure, hostility, and suicidal thoughts. This class of drugs are also called neuroleptics, which means nerve seizing.
In 2001 the Journal of Toxicology reported that the newer antipsychotics “will soon account for the majority of poisonings from antipsychotic agents that get presented to health care facilities in the U.S.â€
In 2006 an analysis of FDA data showed at least 45 children died between 2000 and 2004 from the side effects of this type of antipsychotic drug. Despite an adults-only FDA approval for these drugs, up to 2.5 million children were prescribed them. As the FDA’s Adverse Drug Reactions reporting database only collects 1% to 10% of drug-induced side effects and reported deaths, the true child death rate could be between 450 and several thousand.
In April 2009 the Irish Medicines Board published in their Drug Safety Newsletter a warning about antipsychotics causing a risk of stroke.
Do you want your friends and family to play Russian Roulette with these drugs, when there are many effective non-drug alternatives?
For more information about alternatives, go to http://cchrstl.org/alternatives.shtml.
For more information about the causes of mental symptoms and how drugs work, go to http://cchrstl.org/causes.shtml.
For more information about psychiatric drug side effects, go to http://cchrstl.org/sideeffects.shtml.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/business/30drug.html?_r=4]