Posted on 03/24/2010 1:43:42 PM PDT by MestaMachine
A potentially deadly drug manufactured by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has been linked to the deaths of soldiers returning from war. Yet the FDA continues to approve it.
Sgt. Eric Layne's death was not pretty.
A few months after being prescribed a drug cocktail with the antidepressant Paxil, the mood stabilizer Klonopin and AstraZeneca's controversial antipsychotic drug Seroquel, the Iraq war veteran was "suffering from incontinence, severe depression [and] continuous headaches," according to his widow, Janette Layne, at FDA hearings for new Seroquel approvals last year.
Soon he had tremors. " ... [H]is breathing was labored [and] he had developed sleep apnea," said Janette Layne, who served in the National Guard during Operation Iraqi Freedom along with her husband. On the last day of his life, she testified, Eric stayed in the bathroom nearly all night battling acute urinary retention. He died while his family slept.
Sgt. Layne had just returned from a seven-week inpatient program at the VA Medical Center in Cincinnati where he was being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A video shot during that time, played by his wife at the FDA hearings, shows a dangerously sedated figure barely able to talk.
Sgt. Layne was not the first healthy veteran to die after being prescribed medical cocktails including Seroquel for PTSD.
In the last two years, Pfc. Derek Johnson, 22, of Hurricane, West Virginia; Cpl. Andrew White, 23, of Cross Lanes, West Virginia; Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger, 21, of Roundrock, Texas; Cpl. Nicholas Endicott, 24, of Pecks Mill, West Virginia; and Spc. Ken Jacobs, 21, of Walworth, New York have all died suddenly while taking Seroquel cocktails.
Death certificates and other records collected by veteran family members suggest more than 100 similar deaths among Iraq and Afghanistan combat vets and other military personnel, many on PTSD cocktails with Seroquel and other antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, sleep inducers and pain and seizure medications.
Since the 2008 publication of "The Battle Within," the Denver Post's expose of a "pharmaco-battlefield" in Iraq, in which troops were found to be routinely propped up on antidepressants, the Department of Defense has sought to curb the deployment of troops with mental health problems to combat zones. The DOD has also stepped up monitoring of soldiers who have been medicated, according to the Hartford Courant. Thirty-four percent of the 935 active-duty soldiers who made suicide attempts in 2007 were on psychoactive drugs.
But the U.S. Army's Warrior Care and Transition Office reports that soldiers are dying after coming home, many in Warrior Transition Units that were established in 2007 to prepare wounded soldiers for a return to duty or civilian life. According to the Army Times, between June 2007 and October 2008, 68 such veteran deaths were recorded - nine were ruled suicides, six are pending investigation and six were from "combined lethal drug toxicity." Thirty-five were termed "natural causes."
More to this story....
Are you saying that this is an appropriate pharmaceutical protocol?
What makes you think he is the only “other” professional posting on this thread?
Psychology and psychiatry are at best fringe psuedo-science. NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE can claim to know how, let alone why, aberrant behaviour occurs in humans. Some of these drugs do work for a very short time, but what are they really doing? Long term, they are dangerous. And I don’t care how long you have been practicing. Very little is yet understood about brain functions. Synthetic drugs which the body does not have on its own, deposit themselves in receptors meant for other things and fundamentally repress and change natural responses. Instead of teaching an individual how to control and overcome out of sync responses that are often normal and fitting to a situation, these drugs mask them so that the responses are artificial, instantaneous, and often overwhelmingly OUT of control. These drugs do NOTHING to enhance self-control. In fact, they do the exact opposite.
Klonopin, which is most often used to reduce the effects and seizures of epilepsy and suppress involuntary nerve disorders like twitching and facial tics also has a tranquillizing effect. Given to a patient who has NONE of these symptoms and who doesn’t need it, it can, and does, create what it is supposed to control.
Taking it as an anti-anxiety drug while taking zanax and antidepressants is downright dangerous. Not to mention it is addictive.
So again. Is the above mentioned “cocktail” something YOU would prescribe for anyone, let alone someone who needs to adjust to the world as it is? NONE of these drugs can remove the causes of the anxiety or the depression and most people do not take themselves away from the causes. The drugs let them exist in a situation that should, but does not change. Instead, they stay in therapy and talk about the same things for literally years. No one gets better. So I ask you, as a “professional,” do you truly believe you are doing the best thing for a patient by introducing drugs like these?
After years on the battlefield or in the trenches, many American soldiers are showing signs of psychological distress. An increasing number of soldiers are turning to medication to alleviate their symptoms.
Some have unfortunately committed suicide, but ABC News has been told that an increasing number — at least 8 percent of the force — are now using pills to treat themselves. Some are turning to antidepressants, such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil, which are prescribed right on the front lines.
“We are sending soldiers into the field, into combat missions, who are suicidal,” said former Air Force psychologist Jason Prinster. “And we are prescribing medication that has significant side effects.”
He also told ABC News that the Army's culture of treating physical injuries as more serious than psychological ones can lead to bad operating procedure, in his opinion. “If your leg is broken, if you have a physical problem, you can stay inside the wire. If you are anxious, afraid, hopeless, it's not OK,” he said.
Soldiers say the side effects can affect their combat readiness; some medications cause sluggishness and disorientation. Army Sgt. Chuck Luther told ABC News that “some would make me more depressed, some would make me jittery.”
Soldier Said He Was Given Prescriptions, No Therapy
Luther was an Army sergeant based in Taji, Iraq. He told ABC News he didn't get therapy for his emotional problems, just drugs to help him make it through his deployment.
“Mortars would come in … suicide bombers. It was taking a toll on me … and then seeing fellow soldiers being killed in front of you.”
ABC News asked Col. John Looper, an Army psychologist stationed in Iraq, what he thought of the prescriptions. “If the treating clinician feels that a given service member might be restored to full functioning with a course of antidepressant medication or anti-anxiety medication, we have the wherewithal to do that,” he told us.
The military is making an effort to provide therapy to service members having mental health issues, but given the remoteness of some bases, it is not always possible, and remains a real concern.
Crickets.
Your rant suggests a personal agenda that is not compatible with professional behavior or scientific method. In what field are you a professional?
Professional enough to know that you have deliberately avoided answering a direct question by asking me a completely irrelevant question. THAT is called obfuscation.
I asked you for a professional opinion. Do you have one or not?
I think I gave my opinion in my earlier post. Perhaps you were not seeking an opinion but a validation of your ignorance. Sorry. I don't work for free.
What is this, playing games with our soldiers' lives so they can gain research in future--or just plain insanity??
Many doctors & especially psychologists are unstable, to put it lightly.
Do you prefer pot or prayer as an alternative?
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