What happens when the normal drive for sex and orgasm and romantic love is muted or altogether absent because the kids are on SSRI or SNRI antidepressants? My friend talked with a adolescent counselor and she’s noticed that these kids are strangely uninterested in romantic love and sometimes even appear to be asexual. That is ALARMING and it’s right in line with what my speculative fears suggested. I don’t have much more to say about the topic but would like to raise the issue that more people may start to think about this very serious problem a far to large percentage of our population is now facing.
Early death among those who take psych meds
Are you familiar with this oft-quoted statistic: “people with serious mental illness served by the public mental health system die, on average, 25 years earlier than the general population”? You see it everywhere...
Off-label marketing: the competition for “biggest corporate fine” gets juicy
It is so important to admit when you're wrong. So here goes... When I wrote that Astra-Zeneca paid the biggest corporate fine in American history ($520 million) for the off-label marketing of Seroquel, an atypical antipsychotic [I wrote that here]; I was wrong. (NOTE: off-label marketing is the promotion of a drug - whether amongst patients, doctors, or other... Continue Reading →
FDA safety alert — Antipsychotic drugs: Treatment During Pregnancy and Potential Risk to Newborns
FDA notified healthcare professionals that the Pregnancy section of drug labels for the entire class of antipsychotic drugs has been updated. The new drug labels now contain more and consistent information about the potential risk for abnormal muscle movements (extrapyramidal signs or EPS) and withdrawal symptoms in newborns whose mothers were treated with these drugs during the third trimester of pregnancy.
Antipsychotic drugs, thyroid, and cardiac death — by Grace Jackson MD
"There is evidence in the published medical literature which supports causal links between many psychiatric drugs and thyroid hormone disruption: most notably, SSRIs, TCAs (tricyclic antidepressants), lithium, and Seroquel >> all of which are linked to hypothyroidism; however, some lithium patients have experienced hyperthyroidism."
No mental health without physical health (from the Lancet)
In any other scenario, the responsible physician's response would be to seek an alternative. However, for mental health professionals, the mainstay of treatment for psychotic illness is—as it has been for over half a century—antipsychotic medication.
Antipsychotics increase risk of heart disease
This fact is of course obvious if one stops and thinks about the fact that antipsychotics, more appropriately called, neuroleptics (since they're used for all sorts of things and often do not stop psychosis), cause metabolic syndrome in a very large number of users. The fact that the drugs cause diabetes and obesity is widely... Continue Reading →
Antipsychotics often cause chronicity/long-term disability
Robert Whitaker has a page on his website that puts an entire history of the damning evidence of neuroleptics together on one page. This is only one class of psychotropic. Similar sorts of aggravating results can be found with the other classes of psychiatric drugs as well. Below is the introduction to the page. What... Continue Reading →
More evidence that antipsychotics cause brains to shrink
We should remember when we read this that antipsychotics are being used broadly for everything from sleeplessness to anxiety to depression these days. They've long been used in people diagnosed bipolar. They are also being used rampantly in young children sometimes even toddlers. These are most assuredly not safe drugs for a developing brain.
United States of Alienation…and some more pharma news
Another piece from War in Context that bears viewing: Mental health in the United States of Alienation -- War in Context (there is an)... assumption that it is easier and cheaper to physically or chemically restrain this society’s most troubled members than it would be to create the conditions in which their minds might heal....... Continue Reading →
The studies laid out: antipsychotics often cause chronicity/long-term disability
Robert Whitaker has a page on his website that puts an entire history of the damning evidence of neuroleptics together on one page. This is only one class of psychotropic. Similar sorts of aggravating results can be found with the other classes of psychiatric drugs as well. Below is the introduction to the page. What... Continue Reading →