Dangerous Drugs Used to Treat Veteran Soldiers

[unhappycamper]

unhappycamper note: Since the Pentagon has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, I’ve decided to give ya’ll an unhappycamper summary of the article and a link to the OP. To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.

To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.

I didn't realize that the Pentagon/MIC could restrict my First Amendment rights as well as morph the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 107 with zero, zip, nada Congressional approval. It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.[br />
unhappycamper summary of this article: I have seen many Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan vets zonked out on prescription drugs. If I didn't know better, I'd say someone in the Puzzle Palace is getting a kickback from the Pharmaceutical Industry.



But the drug’s potential side effects, including diabetes, weight gain and uncontrollable muscle spasms, have resulted in thousands of lawsuits. While on Seroquel, White gained 40 pounds and experienced slurred speech, disorientation and tremors — all known side effects.

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/08/ap-veterans-affairs-investigation-into-seroquel-083010/

[Fumesucker]

1. Eh...

In White’s case, the nightmares persisted. So doctors recommended progressively larger doses of Seroquel. At one point, the 23-year-old Army corporal was prescribed more than 1,600 milligrams per day — more than double the maximum dose recommended for schizophrenia patients.

A short time later, White died in his sleep.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. So, what's the problem?

Every time a disabled vet dies in his sleep, the taxpayers save money.

--Ex-Sp4 Jackpine
Late of the 1st Cav (1967-68)
(11B20)

[unhappycamper]

3. Ooooo, a grunt.

From this 31E40 REMF: Welcome Home, Brother. :hi:

[Jackpine Radical]

6. However, a REMF with a Bronze Star.

Is that with "V" device?

[unhappycamper]

7. Make that TWO Bronze Stars.

I got them for not fucking up too bad on each of my trips to a 'foreign and exotic' land in south-east Asia.

No Vs here. :(

[NJCher]

4. they can give them any drug in the Army

I'm not sure where I read this at the moment--if it comes back to me I'll post it on this thread--but in the armed services, they can give them any drug they want.

I was horrified when I read that but I recall it was a credible source. Maybe someone else can verify what I'm saying?


Cher

[another saigon]

5. this article seems to support that....

http://www.alternet.org/world/145892/are_veterans_being_given_deadly_cocktails_to_treat_ptsd

-snip-

But the U.S. Army's Warrior Care and Transition Office reports that soldiers are dying after coming home, many in Warrior Transition Units that were established in 2007 to prepare wounded soldiers for a return to duty or civilian life. According to the Army Times, between June 2007 and October 2008, 68 such veteran deaths were recorded -- nine were ruled suicides, six are pending investigation and six were from "combined lethal drug toxicity." Thirty-five were termed "natural causes."

The mysterious deaths -- and an alarming track record -- have cast renewed scrutiny on Seroquel. Although it has not been approved for treatment of PTSD, Pentagon purchases of Seroquel nearly doubled between 2003 and 2007. Elspeth Ritchie, medical director of the Army's Strategic Communications Office told the Denver Post the drug is "increasingly utilized as an adjunct for PTSD."

The Seroquel Scandals

It would be hard to find a drug with a wider fraud footprint than Seroquel -- at least one that's still on the market.

One of its first backers, Richard Borison, former chief of psychiatry at the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, lost his medical license, was fined $4.26 million and went to prison for a swindle involving Seroquel's original clinical studies.

AstraZeneca's U.S medical director for Seroquel, Dr. Wayne MacFadden, had sexual affairs with two different women doing research on Seroquel, a study investigator at London's Institute of Psychiatry and a Seroquel ghostwriter at the marketing firm, Parexel. According to court documents, MacFadden even joked about the conflicts of interest with one paramour.

Last year, the Chicago Tribune and ProPublica reported that Chicago psychiatrist Michael Reinstein, who wrote 41,000 prescriptions for Seroquel, received $500,000 from AstraZenenca. Meanwhile, a report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune discredited influential studies by AstraZeneca-funded Charles Schulz, MD, chief of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota.

[Shallah Kali]

8. drug companies are pushing to give this crap to pre-schoolers - link

http://www.bnet.com/blog/drug-business/meet-the-queen-of-8220preschool-depression-8221-8212-and-her-drug-company-backers/5595

The NYT Sunday magazine crowned Dr. Joan Luby as the queen of preschool depression this weekend, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29preschool-t.html?pagewanted=all but failed to mention that Luby has taken cash from Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Shire (SHPGY) and AstraZeneca (AZN) to study using atypical antipsychotics in young children. The article is significant because of the outsize role that the Times magazine plays in creating and naming new social trends. (Remember when you suddenly figured out that carbs make you fat but fatty meat doesn’t? That was the NYT mag.)

In this case, the phenomenon is depression in children as young as three years old, and the trend is to treat it with drugs such as Risperdal, Zyprexa, Adderall and Seroquel. The article, by Pamela Paul, provides a useful roadmap into how parenting will be medicalized by Big Pharma:

“The idea is very threatening,” says Joan Luby, a professor of child psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, … “In my 20 years of research, it’s been slowly eroding,” Luby says of that resistance. “But some hard-core scientists still brush the idea off as mushy or psychobabble, and laypeople think the idea is ridiculous.”

The “ridiculous” layperson who first pointed out that Luby had written medical journal articles urging the use of antipsychotics on preschool children http://www.bnet.com/blog/drug-business/updated-doc-who-urged-antipsychotics-for-3-year-olds-funded-by-j-j-az-and-shire/2712 without declaring her drug company payments was me. Luby was a paid speaker for AstraZeneca in 2003-2004 (AZ makes Seroquel); she received $2019 in a for a consultancy from Shire in 2004 (Shire makes Adderall and Vyvanse); and prior to 2006 she received grant/research support from Janssen, the unit of J&J that markets Risperdal. Luby is also a member of a group of scientists who want greater study of potential new uses for psychiatric drugs in young children http://i.bnet.com/blogs/2007-psychopharmacological-treatment-for-very-young.pdf . That group has ties to 16 different drug companies. Some of these drugs have dangerous sude effects. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/30/AR2010083001165.html