I promise I won't sue

Here's most of a short article in today's Times:

Older patients with dementia who are given antipsychotic medicines are far more likely to die prematurely than those given dummy pills, federal drug regulators said Monday. The warning adds to growing worries about the safety of the widely prescribed drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration said that it would now require manufacturers of the medicines to place black-box warnings - the agency's most severe - on the labels of all the drugs. In 2003, the agency required manufacturers to add a warning about an increased risk of diabetes from antipsychotic medications.

Zyprexa and Symbyax from Eli Lilly, Risperdal from Johnson & Johnson, Seroquel from AstraZeneca, Abilify from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Clozaril from Novartis and Geodon from Pfizer are all affected by the warning.

The drugs belong to a class of medicines developed since 1989 that are supposed to be safer than the older class of medicines for psychosis, like Haldol. In high doses, Haldol and drugs like it can cause a debilitating condition called tardive dyskinesia, a lifelong affliction that can involve uncontrollable trembling, tics and jerky movements.

Doctors have become so comfortable with the safety of the newer medicines that they are now among the biggest selling in the world, with some physicians using them to treat a wide range of conditions, including schizophrenia, depression and dementia in the elderly. Indeed, some psychiatrists prescribe cocktails of antipsychotics to patients with persistent mental problems.

Zyprexa is the biggest drug expense for many state Medicaid programs, the health insurance for the poor.

But the safety of the pills has come under increasing scrutiny. Studies now suggest that the newer drugs are only slightly less likely to cause tardive dyskinesia, and worries about other side effects are mounting.

The Food and Drug Administration said that it had analyzed the results of 17 placebo-controlled trials involving the drugs, which are known as atypical antipsychotics. The agency found that elderly patients with dementia who were given the pills were 1.6 to 1.7 times as likely to die as those given placebos.

The causes of death varied, although most died of heart-related problems like heart failure or infections like pneumonia, the drug agency said.

My mother was on at least four of these during the last 7 years, and at least two of them most of her last year, although the antipsychotics had been stopped and restarted briefly shortly before her death—when they were getting very worried about her weight loss.

Her doctors were aware of the rising concerns about these drugs: her blood sugar was being monitored, for instance. Even on the newer antipsychotics she had odd neurological symptoms (e.g. her mouth "worked" almost all the time), but no one ever pinned down a cause. (I don't know why they didn't think it was tardive dykinesia, but they didn't.) They often gave her old-line drugs like Haldol, too, of course.

No autopsy, no cause of death.

Comments

[cecily]

Oh, honey, I'm sorry. This kind of information must hurt as much as it helps.

[Monica]

On Tuesday, I finished reading this NYT article with twinges of anxiety and guilt, wondering if I had hastened my mother's death by allowing her to be treated with Risperdal. Perhaps I'm only rationalizing, but I think that worrying about anti-psychotics given to relieve dementia-racked patients is like worrying about morphine given to relieve pain-wracked patients. It may be that anti-psychotics and morphine speed the processes of dying, but the alternatives are too horrifying to ponder. I remain grateful, tardive dyskinesia notwithstanding, for the psychological relief, the lucid moments, and the calm that Risperdal provided my mother in her last months. I sure hope Emma Jane comes to feel the same way.

[Melissa]

Man, I am sorry to hear/read this regarding your mother.

[Seroquel Side Effects]

My name is Kim Collar and i would like to show you my personal experience with Seroquel.

I am 40 years old. Have been on Seroquel for 9 months now. I would love to know how people sleep after having huge insomnia before seroquel as it is the most potent sleep inducer known to mankind.

I have experienced some of these side effects-
lack of motivation, extreme depression, headaches, hypotension, increased pulse, dizziness, weight gain, dry mouth, constipation, personality change, puffy gums, no interest in activities other than sleeping.

I hope this information will be useful to others,
Kim Collar