Researchers question the ‘worrisome’ trend
By Jennifer Thomas, HealthDay Reporter
Source: BusinessWeek

MONDAY, Jan. 4 (HealthDay News) — The rate of children aged 2 to 5 who are given antipsychotic medications has doubled in recent years, a new study has found.
Yet little is known about either the effectiveness or the safety of these powerful psychiatric [...]

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By Gardiner Harris
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON — A majority of the donations made to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one of the nation’s most influential disease advocacy groups, have come from drug makers in recent years, according to Congressional investigators.
The alliance, known as NAMI, has long been criticized for coordinating [...]

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By Evelyn Pringle
Source: http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/blog/generation-of-kids-hooked-on-psych-drugs-0449.html
Campbell Brown anchors a daily prime-time news program on CNN. On June 17, 2009, in a segment of the program called the “Great Debate,” the question was, Ritalin, Prozac, Adderall, are we “pushing pills on our kids and raising a generation hooked on meds.”
Featured in the debate were, Kelly [...]

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Some Parents Believe New Study Reinforces Link Between Stimulants, Cardiac Death
Source: Article by Dan Childs and Todd Neale, ABC News
For Ann Hohmann, Oct. 21, 2004, began just about like any other day.
On that morning, the 54-year-old mother of two living in McAllen, Texas, was preparing to take her eldest son to school. [...]

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LA Times Opinion Page
By Stuart A. Kirk, STUART A. KIRK is a professor of social welfare at UCLA. He is the coauthor of “The Selling of DSM” and “Making Us Crazy.” His most recent book is “Mental Disorders in the Social Environment”.
PSYCHIATRIC researchers recently estimated that half of the American population has had or will [...]

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By Richard DeGrandpre, Ph.D.
On May 18, 1999, the New York Times reported that “social phobia ranks today as the third most prevalent psychiatric disorder in the United States……….affecting an estimated 19 million Americans, according to the Anxiety Disorders Association of America. Many are to bashful even to talk to therapists.” In the same week, the [...]

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By Debbie Thurman, Christian Communication Network
MONROE, Va., July 18 /Christian Wire Service/– “Shut up and pass the Prozac.” That is the consensus of the media in the most volatile round of psycho trash talk in recent memory. Since Tom Cruise kicked it up a notch on the “Today” show with Matt Lauer, all manner of “experts” have [...]

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By Kelly Preston
Kirstie Alley and I recently supported 20 doctors from various health care fields, including family physicians, pediatricians, psychiatrists, researchers, nutritionists and surgeons in a letter to the FDA calling on it to strengthen its warnings on stimulants and antidepressants, especially when prescribed to children.
This was in response to the FDA’s recent warning that [...]

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New York Times, by Gardiner Harris
WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — An influential Republican senator says he will propose legislation requiring drug makers to disclose the payments they make to doctors for services like consulting, lectures and attendance at seminars.
The lawmaker, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, cited as an [...]

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I am the mother of a 16-year-old autistic son. First, autism is not a mental illness. There are physical situations that precede the condition. The best definition I ever heard came from Bob Doman, the founder of the National Association for Child Development, when he told me he referred to autism as “brain toxicity.”

[...]

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The ‘atypical’ dilemma
By Robert Farley, Times Staff Writer
More and more, parents at wit’s end are begging doctors to help them calm their aggressive children or control their kids with ADHD. More and more, doctors are prescribing powerful antipsychotic drugs.
In the past seven years, the number of Florida children prescribed such drugs has increased some 250 [...]

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By Ed Silverman
For the past three years, the controversy over antidepressants has largely centered on exploring links between the pills and suicidal behavior, particularly in youngsters. But there has also been considerable chatter about homicidal thoughts.
Several killings around the country have prompted defense lawyers to blame an antidepressant for a killing. Most famously, this occurred [...]

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WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley is asking the drug maker, Eli Lilly and Company, for information related to the risks and marketing of the anti-psychotic drug Zyprexa.
Grassley made this request in response to allegations that the company downplayed safety risks and engaged in other improper marketing practices that may be jeopardizing patients’ health. The text [...]

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By Milt Freudenheim, The New York Times.
Drug advertising aimed at consumers, a fast-growing category that reached $4.5 billion last year, will face hard scrutiny in the new Congress, according to industry critics in both the House and Senate.
The consumer ads will be on the griddle early in this session at hearings on the user fees [...]

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In a resounding affirmation of personal liberty and freedom, the Alaska Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Myers v. Alaska Psychiatric Institute today. The court found Alaska’s forced psychiatric drugging regime to be unconstitutional when the state forces someone to take psychiatric medications without proving it to be in their best interests or when [...]

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By LINDA A. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Accidental overdoses and side effects from attention deficit drugs likely send thousands of children and adults to emergency rooms, according to the first national estimates of the problem.
Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated problems with the stimulant drugs drive nearly 3,100 people to ERs [...]

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Joseph Rhee Reports:
ABC News has learned that a Massachusetts hospital is currently recruiting pre-schoolers to test the safety and effectiveness of a powerful antipsychotic drug called Quetiapine. (SEROQUEL AstraZeneca – Vince)
The study, conducted by the Department of Pediatric Psychopharmacology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is testing subjects from four to six years of age with Bipolar [...]

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CHILDREN as young as five have suffered strokes, heart attacks and hallucinations after taking drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Almost 400 serious adverse reactions to the two most used ADHD drugs, Ritalin and Dexamphetamine, had been reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), The Australian reported today.
Almost 60 of the adverse reaction reports [...]

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