"The most studied adverse effect of the newer generation of antipsychotics," he notes, "is their association with hyperglycemia, in some cases leading to ketoacidosis, coma, or death."
"Many of these drugs carry black box warning to alert MD's about the dangers of diabetes," according to Mr Sircus.
Psychiatrist, Dr Stefan Kruszewski, also says the atypicals substantially increase the risk of other serious physical illnesses such as heart attack, hypertension, and stroke.
For the past 30 years, Dr Breggin, has served as a medical expert in lawsuits involving psychiatric drugs and has testified in cases involving tardive dyskinesia.
All antipsychotics also now carry a warning about the extremely serious condition of tardive dyskinesia. According to Dr Breggin, the condition is a drug-induced movement disorder that is usually irreversible and there are no adequate treatments for the disorder.
"Tardive dyskinesia often looks so "strange" or "bizarre," Dr Breggin says, "that it is mistaken for a mental illness rather than a neurological disorder."
The abnormal movements, he says, can afflict any muscle group of the body and can impair the ability to walk, speak, breathe and swallow.
"It is highly variable in expression and severity," according to Dr Breggin. One variety involves painful spasms of muscles, he says, that can literally torture the victim, and another involves an agonizing inner agitation that drives people to move their arms or legs, or to pace.
"Some cases," he advises, "are painful, disfiguring, exhausting and ultimately disabling."
Dr Breggin has served as an expert in a half dozen tardive dyskinesia cases that resulted in verdicts for the plaintiffs including several cases in which Risperdal caused tardive dyskinesia in children, where the drug was prescribed to control behaviors that were in fact, he says, caused by stimulant ADHD drugs that the child was already taking.
According to Dr Breggin, tardive dyskinesia occurs at a cumulative rate of 4-7% per year in otherwise healthy patients treated with antipsychotics and after only a few years, 20% or more of patients will be afflicted. In older patients, he says, the rate is even higher.
Overall, according to estimates by a 20-year career FDA scientist and researcher, Dr David Graham, the use of atypicals antipsychotics increases the annual death rate in the US by more than 12,000 people a year.
They are approved for a very limited number of psychiatric disorders but once again, drug makers have found way to get doctors to prescribe them off-label for a multitude of unapproved illnesses for age groups that they were never intended..
The off-label prescribing of these drugs is so out of control that according to a July 7, 2006 report by Decision Resources, Inc, a leading research and advisory firm on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, antipsychotics represented the fourth-highest-ranking class of drugs in worldwide sales in 2005, and two of the top ten drugs in sales are atypicals.
But the icing on the cake as to the absurdity of their widespread use, come from a government study published in the September 22, 2005, New England Journal of Medicine, that determined that the new atypicals are only barely more effective than no drugs at all.
Another increasingly popular class of dangerous drugs being over-prescribed to children of all ages are the ADHD medications, commonly known as "speed" to addicts. Information released by the FDA in February 2006, showed that between 1999 and 2003, seventy-eight million prescriptions were written for ADHD drugs for children ranging in age from one to 18.
"Many of these drugs carry black box warning to alert MD's about the dangers of diabetes," according to Mr Sircus.
Psychiatrist, Dr Stefan Kruszewski, also says the atypicals substantially increase the risk of other serious physical illnesses such as heart attack, hypertension, and stroke.
For the past 30 years, Dr Breggin, has served as a medical expert in lawsuits involving psychiatric drugs and has testified in cases involving tardive dyskinesia.
"Tardive dyskinesia often looks so "strange" or "bizarre," Dr Breggin says, "that it is mistaken for a mental illness rather than a neurological disorder."
The abnormal movements, he says, can afflict any muscle group of the body and can impair the ability to walk, speak, breathe and swallow.
"It is highly variable in expression and severity," according to Dr Breggin. One variety involves painful spasms of muscles, he says, that can literally torture the victim, and another involves an agonizing inner agitation that drives people to move their arms or legs, or to pace.
"Some cases," he advises, "are painful, disfiguring, exhausting and ultimately disabling."
Dr Breggin has served as an expert in a half dozen tardive dyskinesia cases that resulted in verdicts for the plaintiffs including several cases in which Risperdal caused tardive dyskinesia in children, where the drug was prescribed to control behaviors that were in fact, he says, caused by stimulant ADHD drugs that the child was already taking.
According to Dr Breggin, tardive dyskinesia occurs at a cumulative rate of 4-7% per year in otherwise healthy patients treated with antipsychotics and after only a few years, 20% or more of patients will be afflicted. In older patients, he says, the rate is even higher.
Overall, according to estimates by a 20-year career FDA scientist and researcher, Dr David Graham, the use of atypicals antipsychotics increases the annual death rate in the US by more than 12,000 people a year.
They are approved for a very limited number of psychiatric disorders but once again, drug makers have found way to get doctors to prescribe them off-label for a multitude of unapproved illnesses for age groups that they were never intended..
The off-label prescribing of these drugs is so out of control that according to a July 7, 2006 report by Decision Resources, Inc, a leading research and advisory firm on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, antipsychotics represented the fourth-highest-ranking class of drugs in worldwide sales in 2005, and two of the top ten drugs in sales are atypicals.
But the icing on the cake as to the absurdity of their widespread use, come from a government study published in the September 22, 2005, New England Journal of Medicine, that determined that the new atypicals are only barely more effective than no drugs at all.
Another increasingly popular class of dangerous drugs being over-prescribed to children of all ages are the ADHD medications, commonly known as "speed" to addicts. Information released by the FDA in February 2006, showed that between 1999 and 2003, seventy-eight million prescriptions were written for ADHD drugs for children ranging in age from one to 18.
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