Novartis AG's Clozaril Thursday became the first and only drug approved to cut the risk of suicidal behavior in people with schizophrenia, a debilitating mental disease that often leads to suicidal thoughts and attempts.

The Food and Drug Administration made the announcement just six weeks after its panel of psychiatric experts recommended the drug for the novel approval after Novartis successfully compared the drug to Eli Lilly & Co.'s Zyprexa.

FDA said Clozaril should be used in patients who have had suicide attempts or who are repeatedly hospitalized for suicidal behavior.

Although Clozaril is viewed by the psychiatric community as a highly effective drug, its sales lag behind its competitors because patients taking Clozaril have to undergo weekly or biweekly blood tests to look out for a potentially life-threatening blood-related side effect. (source)

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. finally has some good news, in the form of a promising antipsychotic called aripiprazole.

The drug is a candidate to treat schizophrenia, apparently without some of the serious side effects of other antipsychotics. That advantage could translate into more than $1 billion in sales in the hot market for antipsychotics -- sales the New York-based company desperately needs as it struggles with some of its biggest-selling drugs coming off patent.  (source)

There are always terrible side effects from the use of any psychiatric drug.  Only a few of them are ever admitted -- and the excuse is always that the "side effect" is far better to have than the "mental disease" which is never cured, but is "managed."

"Management" is the motto of the mental health industry -- keep the patient sedated, or in a vegatative state with drugs until the effect of the drug is death, or until the patient's insurance gives out.

You may feel that I am just emotional about it?  True, I am very angry about these evils which are approved by the government, the FDA, and prescribed by thousands of doctors.

The sad truth is that many of the people who are taking these drugs would never be influenced by facts -- they are often the biggest defenders of "drugs cure mental problems."

Zyprexa is currently indicated for the treatment of schizophrenia, short-term treatment of acute manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder and for long-term therapy and maintenance of treatment response of schizophrenia.

The most common side effect of Zyprexa is drowsiness, with dizziness, weight gain, constipation, restlessness and postural hypotension also commonly occurring.  (Source)

When you look for adverse effects of some psychiatric drug, do not overlook the neutral and objective observers. The "friendy-to-drugs" media sources will give you a sugar-coated version of the harmful effects, as above.

Since they arrived on the market in the 1990s, the so-called 'atypicial' antipsychotic drugs have been wrapped in controversy and promotional hype by drug companies and their paid professional spin masters who made bald claims about their "favorable side effect profile" referring to them as "breakthrough" "miracle" drugs that "balance the chemistry" in the brain.

In his book, Mad in America, Robert Whitaker relied on data available to the FDA but not made known to most doctors who prescribe these drugs or to patients and families. In clinical trials prior to FDA approval: "One in every 145 patients who entered the trials --for risperidone, olanzapine, quetiapine, and a fourth atypical called sertindole--died, and yet those deaths were never mentioned in the scientific literature." (p. 269) (source)

 

 

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