CCHRINT Announces FDA Reported Psychiatric Drug Side Effects Search Engine

Citizens Commission on Human Rights International Announces FDA Reported Psychiatric Drug Side Effects Search Engine: Decrypted FDA reports reveal 4,260 suicides, 2,452 additional deaths, 195 homicides from 2004-2006 alone.

For the first time the side effects of psychiatric drugs that have been reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by doctors, pharmacists, other health care providers and consumers have been decrypted from the FDA's MedWatch reporting system and been made available to the public in an easy to search psychiatric drug side effects database and search engine. The database is provided as a free public service by the mental health watchdog, Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR).

The report totals reveal that between 2004-2008 the FDA's MedWatch system received pregnancy-related psychiatric drug adverse reaction reports which included 2,442 babies born with heart disease, 3,372 other birth defects, as well as 1,072 miscarriages, abortions and other deaths.

The database also reveals that, between 2004-2008 there were reports submitted to MedWatch including 4,895 suicides, 3,908 cases of aggression, 309 homicides and 6,945 cases of diabetes from people taking psychiatric drugs. These numbers reflect only a small percentage of the actual side effects occurring in the consumer market, as the FDA has admitted that only 1-10% of side effects are ever reported to the FDA.

The database is searchable by individual reports (for the 2004-2006 period), type of drug, age of patient, the side effect reported (suicide, homicide, heart attack, stroke, mania, etc.), and whether the drug in question carries a black box warning (the agency's strongest warning--short of banning a drug).

It is searchable by drug name and age group and includes who reported the psychiatric drug reaction (doctor, pharmacist, consumer, etc.). It also includes the top 20 reported adverse reactions to all psychiatric drugs to the FDA and combined summaries of all psychiatric drug reactions for the years 2004-2006 and 2004-2008.

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Study: Medicaid patients get wrong drugs

Drugs designed to treat severe mental illnesses are being prescribed to Medicaid patients at inappropriately low doses, at considerable expense and for conditions where their benefits haven't been proven, a team of mostly Oregon researchers reports.

Scientists from the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy, Oregon Health and Science University and Columbia University's psychiatry department reviewed records for 830 Oregon Medicaid patients who had been given antipsychotic medications approved for conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The researchers found the majority of those patients did not have the underlying mental conditions for which the drugs were approved for prescription. Instead, they were given to patients to treat health concerns such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder or insomnia.

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Changing Rx Practices in the Treatment of Mental Illness: Impact on Forensic Evidence

"Off-label" prescription practices are increasingly used in the treatment of symptoms related to mental illness. In support of this conclusion, evidence is reviewed on the antidepressant treatment of numerous non-depressive disorders and on the antipsychotic drug treatment of non-psychotic disorders. The impact of this evidence is discussed in light of the Daubert decision rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is concluded that such practices challenge the application of the decision and increase the potential for testimonial error. Finally, a promising trend of identifying drugs by their neurochemical action is briefly discussed.

One trend that has revolutionized the face of Clinical Psychopharmacology is a breakdown in the disorder-specific nature of drug treatment (i.e., the use of antidepressant drugs to treat depression, antipsychotic drugs to treat psychosis, etc.). This "off-label" prescription practice has resulted in a clear broadening of the range of possible psychological symptoms that can be positively influenced by a specific class of drugs. The purpose of this article is to present examples of this practice in the published literature and suggest how this trend has impacted forensic considerations in the area of Clinical Psychopharmacology. Although no attempt has been made to exhaust coverage of this trend, an attempt has been made to present examples representative of different classes of drugs.

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How to Get Off Psychiatric Drugs Safely

Taper off antidepressants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines and ADHD Medication without withdrawal side. The new fourth edition book "How to Get Off Psychiatric Drugs Safely" by James Harper, researcher and founder of The Road Back Program, details a proven successful method for tapering off these medications with separate chapters covering each of several classes of drugs.

Millions suffering the myriad side effects caused by antidepressants, benzodiazepines, antipsychotics and ADHD medications - from extreme weight gain to a dulled life - want to stop taking the drugs, their doctors would like to have their patients off the drugs, but cannot endure the emotional and physical pain involved with withdrawal or by what is known as discontinuance syndrome. Drug companies now state in the drug descriptions the medications must be tapered off of slowly to help avoid this debilitating withdrawal syndrome. The common withdrawal side effects include; electric brain zaps, nausea, anxiety, strange behavior, insomnia even relapsing into conditions these drugs are supposed to address.

The new fourth edition book "How to Get Off Psychiatric Drugs Safely" by James Harper, researcher and founder of The Road Back Program, details a proven successful method for tapering off these medications with separate chapters covering each of several classes of drugs, from antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety medications to ADHD drugs and benzodiazepines. Employing specific vitamins and nutritional supplements, this exact tapering method has been successfully used by more than 30,000 people and is endorsed by doctors across the US, as well as the UK and Europe.

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