Posts Tagged ‘Elderly Abuse’

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No Clear Benefit, But Serious Side Effects Common for Older People Taking Antidepressants, Study Finds

Monday, August 21st, 2023

Adverse effects from taking antidepressants are more common and serious for the elderly because they have more fragile health and take more medications.

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Citizens Commission on Human Rights, National Affairs Office

WASHINGTON, DC, August 9, 2023 — A new review of recent medical literature on antidepressant use by older people with depression revealed no clear evidence of benefit, while adverse effects were found to be especially common and problematic. Alternative treatments for depression were advised.

The review was conducted to provide an overview of studies from the past decade of the benefit and harms of treatment of older persons with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants. The studies under review comprised depressed patients aged 55 and older who were taking SSRI antidepressants in comparison to control groups receiving placebos.

As reported in Mental Health Science, the evidence indicated that antidepressants have little, if any, benefit over placebos in this age group. There was even less evidence of depression remission.

“The evidence of the benefits of antidepressants in the elderly was weak and alternative treatments are advised,” wrote study author Michael Hvidberg, Ph.D., of the psychology department at the University of York in the U.K.

In the U.S., 15.6 million Americans aged 60 and older are prescribed antidepressants –
that’s one of every five (19%), with one in four (24%) of them women.

Adverse effects from taking the drugs are common and more serious among the elderly because they have more fragile health, deal with more medical issues, and take more medications. “Treatment with antidepressants may lead to more [adverse events] due to polypharmacy and age-related physiological changes,” Hvidberg writes, advising other treatment instead of the drugs.

Side effects of taking antidepressants include weight gain, nausea, insomnia, agitation, emotional blunting, sexual dysfunction, and even deepening depression. Psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., describes antidepressants as neurotoxic because they harm and disrupt the functions of the brain and can cause abnormal thinking and behaviors, including anxiety, aggressiveness, loss of judgment, impulsivity, and mania, which can lead to violence and suicide.

Discontinuing antidepressants can bring on withdrawal symptoms, including electric shock-like sensations (“brain zaps” and “body zaps”), muscle spasms and tremors, hallucinations, confusion, irritability, and mania. One study found that more than half (56%) of people attempting to come off antidepressants experience withdrawal symptoms, with nearly half (46%) of them describing those symptoms as severe.

The new study’s finding of no clear benefit to patients from antidepressants is consistent with the results of a 2022 study, which found no clinically significant difference in measures of depression symptoms between adults treated with antidepressants and those taking placebos, whether over a shorter or longer time frame and regardless of the depression severity of the study participants.

Because the drugs have no strong evidence of benefit to patients, but carry the risks of significant side effects, researchers in another recent study advised primary care physicians not to prescribe antidepressants to depressed patients initially, but instead to recommend alternative approaches for treatment.  Similar guidance was issued in 2021 by the London-based National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the organization that develops standards for health care practices in England.

One alternative approach to depression that has been repeatedly validated as effective in research studies is exercise. The results of one new study found that even exercise below levels of physical activity commonly recommended in health guidelines resulted in significant antidepressant benefits for older adults.

More fundamentally, a landmark 2022 study questioned the prescribing of antidepressants at all, after finding the common reason for taking them – to correct a chemical imbalance in the brain – had no scientific basis.  The study investigated whether evidence supported the theory that a low level of the brain chemical serotonin causes depression.

“The serotonin theory of depression has been one of the most influential and extensively researched biological theories of the origins of depression,” the researchers wrote. “Our study shows that this view is not supported by scientific evidence. It also calls into question the basis for the use of antidepressants.”

WARNING: Anyone wishing to discontinue or change the dose of an antidepressant or other psychiatric drug is cautioned to do so only under the supervision of a physician because of potentially dangerous withdrawal symptoms.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) continues to raise public awareness of the risks of serious side effects and withdrawal symptoms from antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs, so that consumers and their physicians can make fully informed decisions about starting or stopping the drugs.

CCHR also recommends a complete physical examination with lab tests, nutritional and allergy screenings, and a review of all current medications to identify any physical causes of depression or other unwanted mental and behavioral symptoms, which might otherwise be misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated as a psychiatric disorder.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was co-founded in 1969 by members of the Church of Scientology and the late psychiatrist and humanitarian Thomas Szasz, M.D., recognized by many academics as modern psychiatry’s most authoritative critic, to eradicate abuses and restore human rights and dignity to the field of mental health. CCHR has been instrumental in obtaining 228 laws against psychiatric abuse and violations of human rights worldwide.

The CCHR National Affairs Office in Washington, DC, has advocated for mental health rights and protections at the state and federal level. The CCHR traveling exhibit, which has toured 441 major cities worldwide and educated over 800,000 people on the history to the present day of abusive and racist psychiatric practices, has been displayed at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, DC, and at other locations.

Anne Goedeke
Citizens Commission on Human Rights, National Affairs Office

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Many Common Psychiatric Drugs Can Increase Patients’ Risk of Heat-Related Illness

Monday, July 10th, 2023

NEWS PROVIDED BY

Citizens Commission on Human Rights, National Affairs Office

WASHINGTON, DC, June 28, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ — Extreme heat, like the heat wave currently gripping the U.S. South, is especially dangerous for those prescribed many common psychiatric drugs, particularly antipsychotic drugs, that increase the risk of heat-related illness, ranging from the mild discomfort of heat cramps to the more serious symptoms of heat exhaustion and life-threatening heat stroke.

Many common psychiatric drugs can impair the body’s cooling mechanism or cause the people taking them to be less sensitive to signs of overheating, thus predisposing them to heat-related illness. Medical emergencies occur when the body’s temperature rises to dangerous levels and the body becomes unable to lower its temperature. Bodily damage, which can be fatal, occurs if steps are not taken to lower body temperature. One study found that taking psychiatric drugs nearly doubled the risk of death during a heat wave.

The elderly are even more susceptible to the risk of heat-related illness. The body’s temperature regulation is generally slower in older adults. Compared to young people, older adults also sweat less and radiate less heat, so the core body temperature rises more easily. The rate of hospitalization for heat stroke is significantly higher for older adults and their hospital stays are longer.

“In special risk situations such as heat waves, the risk/benefit ratio of psychotropic drugs which could interfere with body temperature regulation has to be carefully assessed, particularly in the elderly,” concluded French researchers, led by Karin Martin-Latry, PharmD, PhD, in a study published in European Psychiatry.

How many people taking psychiatric drugs end up with heat-related medical emergencies? Nobody knows.

“Due to the lack of research in the field, it is impossible to estimate the scale of the problem” of the interaction between drugs and heat, Ying Zhang, senior lecturer at the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health, told the Washington Post.

During periods of extreme heat, those taking antipsychotic drugs are at particular risk of heat stroke. Antipsychotics reduce sweating, the body’s natural means of cooling, as well as reduce the users’ behavior to cool themselves, like drinking more water or removing extra clothing. Even a short time in very hot weather can cause a rapid rise in body temperature for people on these drugs.

“Patients who are prescribed antipsychotics should be aware of the potentially fatal adverse events that can occur from these medications,” warned doctors in a recently published case report on antipsychotic drug-induced hyperthermia.

Stimulant drugs, like ADHD drugs, are known to raise body temperature, as well as interfere with the body’s ability to cool itself down. High summer temperatures can cause body temperatures that are already elevated by these drugs to go higher still.

Tricyclic antidepressants decrease sweating, along with inhibiting the body’s ability to regulate temperature, which can result in body temperature rising to dangerous levels during summer heat waves.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants can increase sweating while at the same time reducing thirst, which can lead to dehydration and heat illness in very hot weather.

Those taking psychiatric drugs should limit their exposure to summer heat and strenuous activity and drink plenty of water. Seek immediate medical attention for anyone showing signs of heat stroke, including confusion, unconsciousness, a rapid pulse, a high temperature, or red, hot, dry skin.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) continues to raise public awareness of the risks of serious side effects from psychiatric drugs, so that consumers and their physicians can make fully informed decisions about starting or stopping the drugs.

CCHR recommends a complete physical examination with lab tests, nutritional and allergy screenings, and a review of all current medications to identify any physical causes of unwanted mental or behavioral symptoms, which might otherwise be misdiagnosed as a psychiatric disorder and incorrectly treated.

WARNING: Anyone wishing to discontinue or change the dose of a psychiatric drug is cautioned to do so only under the supervision of a physician because of potentially dangerous withdrawal symptoms.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights was co-founded in 1969 by members of the Church of Scientology and the late psychiatrist and humanitarian Thomas Szasz, M.D., recognized by many academics as modern psychiatry’s most authoritative critic, to eradicate abuses and restore human rights and dignity to the field of mental health. CCHR has been instrumental in obtaining 228 laws against psychiatric abuse and violations of human rights worldwide.

The CCHR National Affairs Office in Washington, DC, has advocated for mental health rights and protections at the state and federal level. The CCHR traveling exhibit, which has toured 441 major cities worldwide and educated over 800,000 people on the history to the present day of abusive and racist psychiatric practices, has been displayed at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, DC, and at other locations.

Anne Goedeke
Citizens Commission on Human Rights, National Affairs Office

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Nursing Home Psychiatric Abuse of the Elderly

Monday, December 13th, 2021

Almost 300,000 nursing home residents are given harmful antipsychotic drugs each week, even though most have no psychosis to justify it. In 2019 only about 2% had qualifying conditions for such drugs.

The FDA only approves antipsychotics for people who have serious mental diagnoses, such as so-called schizophrenia. The danger of these drugs to older adults can be profound. They come with black box warnings from the FDA, saying they can increase the risk of death in older people, especially those with dementia.

“The high rate of antipsychotics use across our nation’s nursing homes shows that many facilities continue to resort to the use of these potentially dangerous drugs as a chemical restraint — in lieu of proper staffing — which has the potential to harm hundreds of thousands of patients.”

The extensive off-label use of antipsychotics in nursing homes was found in one study to be associated with a 50% increased risk of experiencing a serious fall-related bone fracture.

Some evidence suggests that some nursing homes may be falsifying psychosis diagnoses to avoid citations for inappropriate antipsychotic prescriptions. In 2018 in Missouri, data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services show there were 108 citations for unnecessary use of antipsychotics in skilled nursing facilities (SNF). This involved 20% of all SNFs in Missouri which received at least one citation; and this had been increasing for at least four years.

“It is reasonable to conclude that the overuse and misuse of antipsychotics is pervasive and continues to occur at unacceptably high rates.”

Such extensive abuse of the elderly is not the result of medical incompetence. The abuse is the result of psychiatry maneuvering itself into an authoritative position over aged care. From there, psychiatry has broadly perpetrated the tragic but lucrative hoax that aging is a mental disorder requiring extensive and expensive psychiatric services.

Recommendation

Insist that any nursing home where an elderly person is to be admitted has a policy of respecting the resident’s wishes not to undergo any form of psychiatric treatment, including psychoactive drugs. Sign a “Psychiatric Living Will” to prepare for this and give a copy to the nursing home staff.

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Nursing Homes Abusing Dementia Patients with Antipsychotics

Monday, October 14th, 2019

A Human Rights Watch report found that many nursing homes are sedating their dementia residents by misusing antipsychotic drugs.

Former nursing home administrators admitted doling out drugs without having appropriate diagnoses, securing informed consent or divulging risks.

Having observed this personally for myself in a local St. Louis elder care facility, it is no surprise.

The report estimates that each week more than 179,000 elderly people living in U.S. nursing homes are fraudulently given antipsychotic drugs, without an approved psychiatric diagnosis, to suppress difficult behaviors and ease the load on overwhelmed staff.

This abusive practice benefits drugmakers to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, largely at the expense of the U.S. government.

Furthermore, the FDA has not deemed antipsychotic drugs an effective or safe way to treat symptoms associated with dementia. In fact, the FDA cautions that these drugs pose dangers for elderly patients with dementia, even doubling the risk of death.

Missouri’s antipsychotic use rate has remained around 18.5% or higher since 2016, and at 18.6 percent it’s now fifth worst in the nation.

Current research indicates that the fewer nurses available per patient, the more likely antipsychotics are to be improperly prescribed.

The shocking truth is that one in five seniors in the U.S. suffers from abusively prescribed psychoactive drugs. The psychiatric industry gets away with this abuse because they have fraudulently redefined old age as a “mental illness” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).

Examples of diagnoses that could be age-related

DSM-5: Phase of life problem, Problem related to living in a residential institution, Insufficient social insurance or welfare support, Alzheimer’s disease; and of course the catch-all Unspecified mental disorder

ICD-11: Various categories of Dementia; and in contrast to the DSM, the ICD just names it outright as Old age

A For-Profit Disease

To psychiatrists old age is a “mental disorder,” a for-profit disease for which they have no cure, but for which they will happily supply endless prescriptions of psychoactive drugs or electro-convulsive therapy. In most cases, the elderly are merely suffering from physical problems related to their age; for which psychiatry’s answer is to label them “depressed” or having “dementia.”

Through these fraudulent diagnoses, psychiatrists can involuntarily commit the elderly to a psychiatric facility, take control of their finances, override their wishes regarding their business, property or health care needs, and defraud their health insurance.

If an elderly person in your environment is displaying symptoms of mental trauma or unusual behavior, ensure that they get competent medical care from a non-psychiatric doctor. Insist upon a thorough physical examination to determine whether an underlying, undiagnosed physical problem is causing the condition.

For more information, download and read the CCHR booklet “Elderly Abuse – Cruel Mental Health Programs – Report and recommendations on psychiatry abusing seniors.”

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1 in 4 Elderly Americans Hooked on Xanax

Saturday, February 9th, 2019

One in four older Americans who use prescribed benzodiazepine drugs such as Xanax (generic alprazolam) for sleep issues, anxiety and depression end up becoming addicted, according to a recent study.

The study, published 10 September 2018 in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that for every 10 additional days of prescribed drugs, the patient’s risk for long-term usage nearly doubled over the next year.
[doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.2413]

This abusive assault on the elderly is the result of psychiatry maneuvering itself into an authoritative position over aged care. From there, psychiatry has broadly perpetrated the tragic but lucrative hoax that aging is a mental disorder requiring extensive and expensive psychiatric services.

Long-term benzodiazepine users are more likely to develop anxiety or have sleep problems, the very things the drug was supposed to treat. The FDA recommends reporting adverse psychiatric drug reactions to the MedWatch program. It could be dangerous to immediately cease taking psychiatric drugs because of potential significant withdrawal side effects. No one should stop taking any psychiatric drug without the advice and assistance of a competent medical doctor.

The exact mechanism of action of benzodiazepines is not known, but they play Russian Roulette with neurotransmitters in the brain.

Daily use of benzodiazepines has always been associated with physical dependence. Addiction can occur after just 14 days of regular use. Withdrawal and addiction to benzodiazepines can be as traumatic as with heroin.

The typical consequences of withdrawal are anxiety, depression, sweating, cramps, nausea, psychotic reactions and seizures. There is also a “rebound effect” where the individual experiences even worse symptoms than they started with as a result of this chemical dependency.

Xanax is particularly obnoxious. After a patient stops taking Xanax, it takes the brain six to eighteen months to recover. Extreme anger, hostile behavior, violence and suicide are potential side effects.

Once they are taking the drug and have side effects they can be diagnosed with a fraudulent mental illness called “Sedative-, hypnotic-, or anxiolytic-induced anxiety disorder” and prescribed additional psychiatric drugs for the side effects. [Anxiolytic just means anti-anxiety drug.]

Then, once they are addicted and try to withdraw from the drug, they can be diagnosed with a fraudulent mental illness called “Sedative, hypnotic, or anxiolytic withdrawal” and prescribed additional psychiatric drugs for the withdrawal symptoms.

The real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior as  “diseases.” Psychiatry’s stigmatizing labels, programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of “mental disorders” are a hoax – unscientific, fraudulent and harmful.

CCHR recommends that everyone watch the video documentary “Making A Killing – The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging“. Containing more than 175 interviews with lawyers, mental health experts, the families of psychiatric abuse victims and the survivors themselves, this riveting documentary rips the mask off psychotropic drugging and exposes a brutal but well-entrenched money-making machine. The facts are hard to believe, but fatal to ignore. Watch the video online here.

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The Manufactured Crisis of Prescription Drug Prices

Friday, April 27th, 2018

“Manufactured Crisis – How Devastating Drug Price Increases Are Harming America’s Seniors”

This report was prepared in 2018 by the U.S. Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee Minority Office as requested by Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri.

It examines the history of rising drug prices between 2012 and 2017 for the twenty brand-name drugs most commonly prescribed for seniors.

Drugs were identified using data from Medicare Part D, and average prices were statistically calculated to come up with annual weighted average wholesale acquisition costs.

Of the twenty drugs in the report, two are used off-label for psychiatric purposes:
§ Lyrica (pregabalin), approved for controlling epileptic seizures and neuropathic pain, is also used off-label as an anti-anxiety drug; it carries a warning that it may cause suicidal thoughts or actions.

§ Synthroid (levothyroxine), a synthetic thyroid hormone approved for hypothyroidism, is also used off-label as an antidepressant, although a specific, causally significant hormonal deficiency has not been identified for depression; it has potential side effects of hair loss, mental and mood changes such as depression, easily broken bones, heart problems, and seizures.

A Lyrica prescription rose in average cost between 2012 and 2017 from $264 to $600 (a 127% increase), while the number of prescriptions rose from 9.1 million to 10.3 million (a 14% increase).

A Synthroid prescription rose in average cost between 2012 and 2017 from $96 to $153 (a 60% increase), while the number of prescriptions dropped from 23.0 million to 18.4 million (a 20% drop).

The report concludes, “Soaring pharmaceutical drug prices remain a critical concern for patients and policymakers alike. Over the last decade, these significant price increases have emerged as a dominant driver of U.S. health care costs.”

Frankly, we do not have a particular bone to pick about the cost of prescription drugs; what does concern us more is the off-label use of medical drugs for fraudulent psychiatric conditions, and the seriousness of their potential side effects. If this concerns you as well, please let Senator McCaskill know your thoughts about this.

We recommend informed consent for any treatment plan. Protect yourself, your family and friends, with full informed consent. Courts have determined that informed consent for people who receive prescriptions for psychotropic (mood-altering) drugs must include the doctor providing information about possible side effects and benefits, ways to treat side effects, and risks of other conditions, as well as information about alternative treatments.

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Psychiatry’s Reign of Terror

Monday, November 13th, 2017

Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926), known as the “father of modern psychiatry” and original architect of what became the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), established the basic suppressive fundamentals of the Holocaust. The pattern was: Label someone with a false psychiatric diagnosis; Remove them from society; Put them into special camps or institutions; Destroy them.

Suppress: to put down by force or authority; to squash any attempt at betterment; an antisocial expression of antagonism toward life, living or attempts to do better in life.

Psychiatrists today, all over the world, use and apply the same basic suppressive fundamentals of Kraepelin in the mental health industry. Label someone with a false psychiatric diagnosis; Involuntarily commit them to a psychiatric facility, or put children into foster care, or put the elderly into a nursing home, or enforce psychiatric treatment on those incarcerated in prison; Forcibly give them harmful “treatments” such as psychiatric drugs, electric shock, or brain surgery which either cripples them or kills them.

A recently published article in the journal History of Psychiatry by three psychiatrists chronicles the Nazi’s use of electroshock treatment to eliminate mental patients and other “undesirables” from the population. The authors detail that in 1944 Dr. Emil Gelny, working at psychiatric hospitals in Gugging and Mauer-Öhling, Austria, began systematically killing patients with an ECT machine. Today, ECT is a big money-maker for the psychiatric industry.

The origin of psychiatric false data
In 1879, German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) of Leipzig University provided the ultimate scientific “proof” for eugenics and racism, by arrogantly declaring that as man’s soul could not be measured with scientific instruments, it did not exist.

Kraepelin was a student of Wundt; in 1917 he founded the German Research Institute for Psychiatry in Munich (funded by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1924), which became the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Psychiatry during World War II, and after the War was renamed as the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. This institute’s mission was, and is, to prove that mental disorders are just biological, genetic brain disorders. German psychiatrist Alfred Erich Hoche (1865-1943) in 1920 endorsed exterminating “life unworthy of living.” Swiss psychiatrist Ernst Rüdin (1874-1952) worked under Kraepelin for 18 years, and was instrumental in designing The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring in 1933 (the “sterilization law”) which provided the legal basis for compulsory sterilization, which ultimately led to the euthanasia (killing) of six million Jews during World War II.

There were hundreds of psychiatrists in Germany directing and carrying out the atrocities prior to and during the Holocaust. Dr. Schmuhl said, “In my opinion, you cannot say that there are only a few bad apples within psychiatry who did National Socialism’s groundwork, but it is a problem with the entire profession.”

It wasn’t just during the War that these atrocities were perpetrated. Long before in 1905, psychiatrist Rüdin and eugenicist Alfred Ploetz were among the founders of the German Society for Racial Hygiene, a euphemism for eradicating undesirable traits in the population by removing those “undesirables” with sterilization or murder. Starting in 1934 under the sterilization Law, the number of people who were involuntarily sterilized may be as high as 400,000, with up to 5,000 who died as a consequence. Another 275,000 psychiatric patients were murdered, including an estimated 100,000 who starved to death in German mental hospitals. Starting in 1938 the “child euthanasia” program killed over 5,000 babies and children in 31 “pediatric wards” by the psychiatrists in various psychiatric hospitals.

Then in 1939 the first gas chamber killings began in Fort VII concentration camp in Posen, Poland. In 1940-1941, over 70,000 mental patients were killed by poison gas in six psychiatric centers. From 1942-1945 another 250,000 mental patients in psychiatric hospitals were killed. This was only the beginning of the psychiatric atrocities.

For more information, watch the CCHR Documentary The Age of Fear – Psychiatry’s Reign of Terror, which contains shocking personal testimony and revealing inside footage that tell the true story of psychiatry, whose reliance on brutality and coercion has not changed since the moment it was born in Germany.

The Age of Fear education package is also provided free of charge to historians, professors and human rights activists who give lectures and group instruction, teach school or university classes or run community learning programs.

Previous CCHR STL blogs on this subject
https://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2017/06/11/the-racism-of-psychiatry/
https://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2017/05/22/racism-how-psychiatry-creates-and-perpetuates-it/
https://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2016/12/10/nazis-on-drugs/
https://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2016/03/25/holocaust-commemoration-in-london-details-hitlers-use-of-psychiatric-genocide-program/
https://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2012/11/10/the-age-of-fear-psychiatrys-reign-of-terror/
https://www.cchrstl.org/wordpress/2017/03/19/washington-university-in-st-louis-shocks-pregnant-women/

References
1. Psychiatrists-the Men Behind Hitler, by Dr. Thomas Röder and etc., Freedom Publishing, 1999.

2. Die Gesellschaft Deutscher Neurologen und Psychiater im Nationalsozialismus (The Society of German Neurologists and Psychiatrists in National Socialism), by Hans-Walter Schmuhl, Springer, 2015. Professor Schmuhl is a German historian who has published numerous history books, especially the history of euthanasia.

3. G Gazdag, GS Ungvari, and H Czech, “Mass killing under the guise of ECT: the darkest chapter in the history of biological psychiatry,” In History of Psychiatry, Sage Publications, 2017.

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Johnson & Johnson Will Pay $2.2 Billion

Wednesday, November 27th, 2013

Johnson & Johnson Will Pay $2.2 Billion to Settle Charges of Illegally Promoting Antipsychotic Drug

This past month Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay more than $2.2 billion in fines to settle accusations that it improperly promoted the antipsychotic drug Risperdal to older adults and children.

It is the third-largest pharmaceutical settlement ever in the U.S. and the largest in a string of cases involving the marketing of antipsychotic drugs. It also reflects a decade-long effort by U.S. authorities to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for illegally marketing drugs to older patients with dementia as well as children, despite the grave health risks of the drugs.

The U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, recently announced that the rate of mass shootings in the U.S. is increasing. Although the information could hardly come as a surprise to most Americans, what is interesting is that the nation’s top cop provided no clues as to what may be causing this severe increase in deadly violent acts.

A beginning point might be to ask if there is a common denominator among the shooters. For instance, at the same time that mass-shootings have increased in the U.S., so has the use of prescription psychiatric drugs.

Psychiatrists prescribe antipsychotic drugs to children in one third of all visits, which is three times higher than during the 1990’s, and nearly 90 percent of those prescriptions written between 2005 and 2009 were prescribed for something other than what the Food and Drug Administration approved them for. Antipsychotics such as the Risperdal improperly promoted by J&J have been described as a chemical lobotomy because of their ability to disable normal brain function.

Click here to read more information about this.

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Nursing Home Abuses

Thursday, July 25th, 2013

Nursing Home Abuses

The June 2013 issue of Consumer Reports magazine had this to say about antipsychotic drugs given to nursing home patients:

“These and related drugs are supposed to be used only for patients with diagnosed psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia and not for disciplinary reasons such as quelling agitation in patients with Alzheimer’s dementia. In a large 2010 study, almost 30 percent of nursing-home residents had received an antipsychotic; of them, almost one-third had no identified indication for use. The drugs don’t help dementia and have been linked to other risks, including less functional improvement, longer nursing-home stays, and a greater chance of dying. A review published in March by the Cochrane Collaboration concluded that most older adults with dementia can successfully be taken off antipsychotic drugs.”

Nursing-home residents have human rights protected by law. The Consumer Reports article goes on to say that “some nursing homes disregard the law, and often they get away with it. One reason is that residents or their families might be reluctant to make a formal complaint because they fear the staff will retaliate.”

In Missouri the Long Term Care Ombudsman Program provides support and assistance with any problems or complaints regarding residents of nursing homes and residential care facilities. Complaints concerning abuse, neglect and financial exploitation should be reported to the Missouri Division of Senior Services Elder Abuse Hotline, 800-392-0210, email address LTCOmbudsman@health.mo.gov.

In the U.S., 65-year-olds receive 360% more shock treatments that 64-year-olds because at age 65 government Medicare insurance coverage for shock typically takes effect.

Indiscriminate use of psychiatric drugs, electric shock, and violent restraints on the elderly are responsible for much needless suffering.

This abuse is the result of psychiatry maneuvering itself into an authoritative position over aged care. From there, psychiatry has broadly perpetrated the tragic but lucrative hoax that aging is a mental disorder requiring extensive and expensive psychiatric services. For example, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) labels Alzheimer’s Dementia as a mental disorder, even though this is a physical illness and the proper domain of neurologists. Medical experts say that 99% of Alzheimer’s cases do not belong in psychiatric “care.”

In most cases, the elderly are merely suffering from physical problems related to their age, but psychiatry claims that they are manifesting symptoms of dementia which necessitates “treatment” in a nursing home or psychiatric hospital. This is then used to involuntarily commit the elderly to a psychiatric facility, take control of their finances, override their wishes regarding their business, property or health care needs and defraud their health insurance.

If an elderly person in your environment is displaying symptoms of mental trauma or unusual behavior, ensure that he or she gets competent medical care from a non-psychiatric doctor. Insist upon a thorough physical examination to determine whether an underlying undiagnosed physical problem is causing the condition.

Contact your local, state and federal representatives and let them know what you think about this. Forward this newsletter to your family, friends and associates and recommend they subscribe.

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Depression drugs causing falls in elderly

Sunday, March 4th, 2012

Depression drugs ‘causing falls’

Elderly people with dementia are more likely to suffer falls if they are given anti-depressants

The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology reports that the risk of injuries from falls was tripled when elderly patients are given SSRI anti-depressants.

“Even at low doses, SSRIs are associated with increased risk of an injurious fall in nursing home residents with dementia. Higher doses increase the risk further with a threefold risk…”

Elderly Abuse is a common psychiatric human rights violation. For more information about the way the psychiatric industry harms the elderly, download and read the free CCHR booklet, “Elderly Abuse — Cruel Mental Health Programs — Report and recommendations on psychiatry abusing seniors.”

The reality of nursing home and aged–care center life today is often far from the stylized image of communicative, interactive and interested elderly residents living in an idyllic environment. By contrast, more often than not, the institutionalized elderly of today appear submissive, quiet, somehow vacant, a sort of lifelessness about them, perhaps blankly staring or deeply introspective and withdrawn.

If not by drugs, these conditions can also be brought on by the use of electroconvulsive or shock treatment (ECT) or simply the threat of painful and demeaning restraints.

Rather than this being the failure of nursing hospital and aged care staff generally, this is the legacy of the widespread introduction of psychiatric treatment into the care of the elderly over the last few decades.

In the United States, 65–year–olds receive 360% more shock treatment than 64–vear–olds because at age 65 government insurance coverage for shock typically takes effect.

Such extensive abuse of the elderly is not the result of medical incompetence. In fact, medical literature clearly cautions against prescribing tranquilizers to the elderly because of the numerous dangerous side effects. Studies show ECT shortens the lives of elderly people significantly. Specific figures are not kept as causes of death are usually listed as heart attacks or other conditions.

The abuse is the result of psychiatry maneuvering itself into an authoritative position over aged care. From there, psychiatry has broadly perpetrated the tragic but lucrative hoax that aging is a mental disorder requiring extensive and expensive psychiatric services.

The end result is that, rather than being cherished and respected, too often our senior citizens suffer the extreme indignity of having their power of mind heartlessly nullified by psychiatric treatments or their lives simply brought to a tragic and premature end.

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