Watchdog Group Says Public Deserves to be Fully Informed about Life-Threatening Risks of Antipsychotics

Following the recent announcement that the first trial date relating to Zyprexa personal injury claims has been set for October 15, one watchdog group is pointing out that the heated debate over antipsychotics demonstrates how consumers' right to informed consent has been grossly violated. According to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health watchdog group, the fact that the risks of antipsychotics were downplayed—even while the drugs were aggressively promoted—shows that the public is unaware of the extent of the dangers of these drugs.

To date, drug manufacturer Eli Lilly has settled over 26,000 lawsuits and paid out more than $1 billion for Zyprexa claims. Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein announced that he planned to try approximately 30 out of the remaining 500 Zyprexa suits pending before him this Fall. Even while Lilly is juggling a plethora of class action and state lawsuits in the U.S., these class actions could expand to include claimants from overseas. Australian attorney Simon Harrison recently stated that his law firm, representing patients in New Zealand injured by Zyprexa, may "piggy-back" on a class action lawsuit in the U.S.

Antipsychotics, which increase the risk of diabetes, blood sugar abnormalities and death, are nonetheless widely prescribed to the most vulnerable members of society—children and the elderly:

• Nearly a quarter of all Medicare recipients in nursing homes are prescribed antipsychotics, despite an FDA warning that the drugs nearly double the rate of death in elderly diagnosed with "dementia."

• FDA adverse event reports link 45 child deaths to antipsychotics between 2000 and 2004, as well as 1,328 reports of other side effects, such as convulsions and low white blood cell count. Yet, in one state alone (Florida), 19,080 children on Medicaid, 4,556 five years old or younger, were given antipsychotics.

With global sales of antipsychotics raking in $18.2 billion last year, financial vested interests may be the reason the public has not been adequately informed of the risks of antipsychotics. In fact, on Wednesday, The New York Times revealed that psychiatrists receive more money from drug companies than any other specialty, and that the more pharmaceutical funding they receive, the more they prescribe powerful antipsychotics to children. According to CCHR, in addition to being warned about the adverse effects, the public should also be informed that psychiatric drugs are prescribed based on subjective diagnoses, which are literally voted into existence by psychiatrists, many of whom have financial ties to drug companies. So-called "mental disorders" cannot be validated by any physical tests, such as blood tests, brain scans or X-rays.

For more information on the dangers of psychiatric drugs, read CCHR's publication, The Report on the Escalating International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs. To learn more about financial ties between psychiatrists and drug manufacturers, read Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual Link to Drug Manufacturers.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is an international psychiatric watchdog group co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, to investigate and expose psychiatric violations of human rights.

For more information, contact CCHR at 800-869-2247 and ask for the Media Department.