Pentagon to limit anti-psychotic drugs for PTSD
By Patricia Kime -
Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 3, 2012
The Pentagon is moving to limit off-label use of powerful anti-psychotic drugs for post-traumatic stress disorder — a practice some say may contribute to accidental drug overdoses among troops.
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Dr. Jonathan Woodson sent a letter to the services in February asking military treatment facilities to monitor prescriptions of atypical antipsychotics like risperidone and quetiapine, marketed under the brand name Seroquel.
The drugs, used to treat severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are sometimes prescribed to troops in lower doses to alleviate symptoms associated with PTSD and anxiety, including nightmares and irritability.
But when mixed with other prescriptions, they can be dangerous and sometimes fatal.
The Food and Drug Administration in 2011 added a warning label to quetiapine, saying its use with some synthetic opiates, including methadone, can increase the risk of a heart-stopping overdose.
In his letter, Woodson said the number of prescriptions for these antipsychotics jumped tenfold from 2002 to 2009, from 0.1 percent to 1 percent.
In fiscal 2010, 1.4 percent of all soldiers and 0.7 percent of Marines received prescriptions for Seroquel.
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Thursday, May 3, 2012
Prescriptions for antipsychotics jumped tenfold from 2002 to 2009
Medications like these numbs them and does not allow for healing. You can't heal what you can't feel.
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A patient,victim speaks.
ReplyDeleteThere are two kinds of antipsychotics the 50 year old tried and tested inexpensive *typical* antipsychotics like Thorazine,and the newer so-called *atypicals* like Risperdal,Seroquel,Zyprexa.
These drugs are lifesavers for those with delusional mental illness which is only 3 percent of the population.
The saga of the so called *atypical antipsychotics* is one of incredible profit.Eli Lilly made $65 BILLION on Zyprexa franchise.
Described as *the most successful drug in the history of neuroscience* the drugs at $12 pill are used by states to medicate deinstitutionalized mental patients to keep them out of the $500 day hospitals (*Viva Zyprexa* Lilly sales rep slogan).
There is a whole underclass block of our society,including children in foster care that are the market for these drugs,but have little voice of protest if harmed by them.I am an exception,I got diabetes from Zyprexa as an off-label treatment for PTSD and I am not a mentally challenged victim so I post.
--Daniel Haszard
Thank you for sharing that. It is amazing when you think about the fact these drugs were supposed to level off the chemicals in the brain and then people were supposed to come off of them. As you wrote, it is about money.
ReplyDeleteI did some temp work for a group of 6 psychiatrists. Most of them were doing appointments for just meds, so they had appointments booked every 10 minutes. They made a lot more money than they would have if they actually worked on the healing part.