{"id":48,"date":"2008-01-27T09:27:37","date_gmt":"2008-01-27T16:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/?p=48"},"modified":"2024-07-14T05:43:54","modified_gmt":"2024-07-14T10:43:54","slug":"watchdog-says-deadly-chemical-restraint-of-elderly-must-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/27\/watchdog-says-deadly-chemical-restraint-of-elderly-must-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Watchdog Says Deadly Chemical Restraint of Elderly Must End"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\" align=\"center\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: 14pt\">US Falling Behind Britain in Addressing this Harmful Practice<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">SAINT LOUIS: With more than 25% of US seniors in the Medicare program being prescribed antipsychotic drugs documented to increase the risk of death, diabetes and weight gain, the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is demanding an end to the government funding of this harmful practice. CCHR says that Medicare, as well as Medicaid\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dwhich spent $5.4 billion on antipsychotics in 2005\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dshould adopt firm policies preventing financial reimbursement for the administration of these drugs to the elderly and follow the UK&#8217;s lead in launching an investigation into the widespread use of these drugs on the elderly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">In December 2007, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia (APGP) in the UK launched an inquiry into the use of antipsychotics in nursing homes due to serious concerns about the drugs\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 risks and complaints that the UK\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s National Health Service is wasting \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a380 million ($157 million) on prescribing these drugs to the elderly. The Alzheimer&#8217;s Society, run in partnership with the APGP, is calling for an end to what it calls \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cprescribing unnecessary sedative drug treatments.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d UK Member of Parliament Jeremy Wright stated,<strong> <\/strong>\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cIt is right to investigate a practice that may be putting some of the most vulnerable people in our communities at risk.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d The next month, the UK medical journal <em>The Lancet<\/em>, published a study reinforcing these concerns, which found that the drugs were less effective at lessening aggression than placebos.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">In the US, the drugs have increasingly come under fire:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">In 2003, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asked six antipsychotic manufacturers to add a caution to the labeling warning of the potential risk of diabetes and blood sugar abnormalities.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">In 2005, the FDA warned that the drugs increase the death rate in elderly.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0Beginning in Oct. 2004, states began to file lawsuits against antipsychotic makers to recoup money spent on these drugs, alleging that they were fraudulently marketed and caused damaging side effects. Arkansas became the most recent state to file such a lawsuit in November 2007.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-left: 0.25in\">As of the most recent settlements in June 2007, drug manufacturer Eli Lilly has paid out more than $1.2 billion in settlements to more than 30,000 individuals who suffered serious side effects from the antipsychotic Zyprexa.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">Despite these risks, through heavy marketing, antipsychotic sales raked in $11.5 billion in US sales in 2006, up from $6.6 billion in 2002.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">The \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cchemical abuse\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d of elderly with powerful, dangerous drugs has not escaped notice\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00e2\u20ac\u009dgenerating much controversy recently, including national expos\u00c3\u0192\u00c2\u00a9s in <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> (\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cNursing Homes Struggle to Kick Drug Habit,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d Dec. 20) and <em>BBC<\/em> <em>News<\/em> (\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cPlease Look After Dad,\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d Dec. 3). The <em>Wall Street Journal <\/em>reports, \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cThe widespread use of antipsychotics among the elderly has begun to draw criticism from regulators, researchers, lawmakers and some in the nursing-home industry. Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, this month asked several drug manufacturers for records on how they may have marketed these drugs for use in geriatric patients. He also has asked the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate use of the drugs in nursing homes.\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">Due to the life-threatening side effects of antipsychotics, CCHR says that the government must not continue to fund this dangerous chemical restraint of the elderly. According to CCHR, the public should also be warned that the drugs are prescribed based on subjective diagnoses, which are literally voted into existence by psychiatrists, many of whom have financial ties to drug companies. So-called \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cmental disorders\u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c2\u009d cannot be validated by any physical tests, such as blood tests, brain scans or X-rays, yet the diagnoses are used to create consumers for a multi-billion dollar psycho-pharmaceutical industry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\">For more information on the dangers of psychiatric drugs, read CCHR&#8217;s publication, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cchr.org\/media\/pdfs\/White_Paper_-_Information_Concerning_Antidepressants_2007.pdf\"><span style=\"color: windowtext\">The Report on the Escalating International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs<\/span><\/a>. <\/em>To learn more about financial ties between psychiatrists and drug manufacturers, read <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cchr.org\/images\/content\/DSM_paper.pdf\"><span style=\"color: windowtext\">Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual Link to Drug Manufacturers<\/span><\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-indent: 0.5in\"><em><span style=\"font-size: 9pt\">The Citizens Commission on Human Rights is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights. Contact CCHR St. Louis at 314-727-8307 or <u><a href=\"mailto:humanrights@cchr.org\"><span style=\"color: windowtext\">CCHRSTL@CCHRSTL.org<\/span><\/a><\/u>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US Falling Behind Britain in Addressing this Harmful Practice SAINT LOUIS: With more than 25% of US seniors in the Medicare program being prescribed antipsychotic drugs documented to increase the risk of death, diabetes and weight gain, the mental health &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2008\/01\/27\/watchdog-says-deadly-chemical-restraint-of-elderly-must-end\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-M","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}