FDA Panel Slams Rising Antipsychotic Use In Kids

After a steady stream of reports that antipsychotics are increasingly prescribed to children, often for unapproved uses, such as treating attention deficit disorders (back story), an FDA advisory committee yesterday chastised the FDA for not doing more to discourage such prescribing.

For instance, more than 389,000 youngsters last year were given Johnson & Johnson’s Risperdal, and 240,000 were 12 or younger, The New York Times writes. Often, the drug was prescribed to treat attention deficit disorders, but Risperdal is not approved for that use and its risks - weight gain, metabolic disorders and possibly permanent muscular tics - aren’t justified, panel members said.

“This committee is frustrated,” Leon Dure, a pediatric neurologist from the University of Alabama School of Medicine and panel member, told the meeting. “And we need to find a way to accommodate this concern of ours.”

However, Tom Laughren, director of the FDA’s division of psychiatry products, told the panel that the agency could do little to fix the problem and, instead, pointed the finger at medical specialty societies, which he insisted must do a better job educating doctors about side effects.

READ MORE @ PHARMALOT

Federal Court Upholds Drug Privacy Law

A federal appeals court in Boston on Tuesday dealt a setback to the pharmaceutical industry and companies that collect prescription data for use in drug marketing.

Ruling in support of a New Hampshire law, the court upheld the right of states to prohibit the sale of doctor-specific prescription drug data that is widely used in pharmaceutical marketing.

The case is a defeat for two large data-mining companies, IMS Health and Verispan. They sued in 2006 to block implementation of the New Hampshire law, which prohibited the sale of computerized data showing which doctors were prescribing what drugs.

The law was intended to cut down on state health care costs by eliminating the tool used by drug sales representatives in promoting brand name drugs. By purchasing the data describing which doctors prescribe what drugs, pharmaceutical sales forces are better able to identify which doctors might use their products and be receptive to their sales pitches. They can also focus on persuading doctors who do not write many prescriptions for their products to change their minds.

READ MORE @ NY TIMES

Half of Doctors Routinely Prescribe Placebos

Half of all doctors in the United States regularly prescribe placebos to patients despite clear professional rules that forbid the practice, according to a nationwide survey. The results troubled medical ethicists, who said that more research is needed to determine whether doctors must deceive patients for placebos to work.

In response to three separate questions included as part of the larger survey, about half of 679 internists and rheumatologists chosen randomly from a national list of doctors reported recommending placebos on a regular basis.

The most common placebos the doctors reported using were headache pills and vitamins, but a significant number also reported prescribing antibiotics and sedatives. Although these drugs are not all inert, the usual definition of placebos, doctors reported using them for their effect on patients’ psyches, not their bodies.

READ MORE @ NY TIMES