PRESS RELEASE
Nov. 7, 2011, 12:00 p.m. EST
Hundreds of Soldiers & Vets Dying From Antipsychotic--Seroquel
Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD & Stan White (Father of Deceased Veteran, Andrew White) disclose the following:
EL CAJON, Calif., Nov. 7, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- As a neurologist who has discovered and described medical diseases, I (FAB) read the May 24, 2008, Charleston (WV) Gazette article "Vets taking Post Traumatic Stress Disorder drugs die in sleep," and opened and financed my own investigation into these unexplained deaths.
Andrew White, Eric Layne, Nicholas Endicott and Derek Johnson, all in their twenties, were four West Virginia veterans who died in their sleep in early 2008. There were no signs of suicide or of a multi-drug "overdose" leading to coma, as claimed by the Inspector General of the VA. All had been diagnosed "PTSD"--a psychological diagnosis, not a disease (physical abnormality) of the brain. All were on the same prescribed drug cocktail, Seroquel (antipsychotic), Paxil (antidepressant) and Klonopin (benzodiazepine) and all appeared "normal" when they went to sleep.
On February 7, 2008, Surgeon General Eric B. Schoomaker, had announced there had been "a series, a sequence of deaths" in the military suggesting this was "often a consequence of the use of multiple prescription and nonprescription medicines and alcohol."
However, the deaths of the 'Charleston Four' were probable sudden cardiac deaths (SCD), a sudden, pulseless condition leading to brain death in 4-5 minutes, a survival rate or 3-4%, and not allowing time for transfer to a hospital. Conversely, drug-overdose coma is protracted, allowing time for discovery, diagnosis, transport, treatment, and frequently--survival.
Antipsychotics and antidepressants alone or in combination, are known to cause SCD. Sicouri and Antzelevitch (2008) concluded: (1) "A number of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs can increase the risk of ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death," (2)"Antipsychotics can increase cardiac risk even at low doses whereas antidepressants do it generally at high doses or in the setting of drug combinations."
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This is a terrible senseless tragedy. This is the way they push Veterans under the carpet so to speak.. now they are homeless, incarcerated dead or about to be homeless, incarcerated or dead.. and unfortunately all alone. The big corporations are raking in the dough for these RX. It changes veteran's psych and brain. It makes me angry because I feel in part it is responsible for my ex-husband's slow and steady decline.
ReplyDeleteA long time ago I did temp work for 6 psychiatrists. One of them just had medication appointments and the rest did a few therapy sessions. They discovered they made a lot more money doing med appointments seeing patients every 15 minutes instead of one an hour. Some of this is about the flow of money and you have to wonder who is getting kickbacks.
ReplyDeleteMedications were intended to get the chemicals of the brain back in balance so the brain can work the way it was supposed to. Sometimes they had to be given forever depending on what the illness was, but they were not supposed to be regarded as the only answer to healing.
With PTSD therapy works when done right but too many take the easy way out and handout drugs instead. All these medications do is mask the symptoms. Therapy heals but can't if they drug the patient into numbness.
It is pretty bad all the way around.