antipsychotic drugs news stories on Newser

Court: Loughner Can Refuse Meds

Rob Quinn — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 04:45:42 CDT

Jared Lee Loughner's right to refuse antipsychotic medication trumps the federal government's interest in making him sane enough to stand trial for the Tucson shootings in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was injured, an appeals court has decided. The court ruled that its injunction against forcibly medicating Loughner should stay in...

Loughner Appeals Forced Meds

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 07:46:34 CDT

Attorneys for Jared Lee Loughner yesterday appealed a federal judge's ruling that he can be forced to continue taking anti-psychotic drugs. Loughner's attorneys appealed to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in a one-paragraph filing. They say Loughner, accused in the Tucson shooting rampage that injured...

Judge Rules Jared Loughner Can Be Forcibly Medicated

Mark Russell — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 07:00:00 CDT

A judge ruled yesterday that accused Tucson gunman Jared Loughner can be forced to take antipsychotic drugs in an attempt to make him mentally fit to stand trial, reports the LA Times . Defense attorneys for the schizophrenic Loughner had tried to block him from being medicated without his consent , but...

Defense: Prison Will Force Drugs on Loughner

Evann Gastaldo — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 06:25:05 CDT

Prison officials will force Tucson shooting suspect Jared Loughner to take anti-psychotic drugs after finding earlier this month that he is a danger to himself, his lawyers say. The attorneys have filed an emergency motion asking the judge to put a stop to it, but US District Judge Larry Burns...

Nursing Homes, Big Pharma Overmedicating Seniors

Matt Cantor — Tue, 10 May 2011 16:38:13 CDT

Nursing homes are treating dementia sufferers with powerful antipsychotics despite FDA advice to the contrary, according to a Health and Human Services report spotted by Pro Publica . The FDA began requiring antipsychotics to carry warning labels in 2005 stating the increased death risk they pose for dementia patients. But 88%...

More and More Toddlers Prescribed Antipsychotics

Kevin Spak — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:17:32 CDT

Kyle Warren was given his first dose of antipsychotic drugs to deal with his temper tantrums at 18 months. By age three, he’d been diagnosed with autism, bipolar disorder, hyperactivity, insomnia, and oppositional defiant disorder, and was taking a fistful of psychiatric medicine each day. He was, his parents tell...

Medicaid Kids Given Antipsychotics 4X More

Polly Davis Doig — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:30:00 CST

Kids on Medicaid rolls are prescribed antipsychotic drugs at an eye-popping rate four times that of kids with private insurance, federal data show, underlining how pills rather than counseling are often seen as the most efficient way to deal with underprivileged children. And not only are Medicaid kids receiving more...

Insane Asylums Weren't So Bad: Oliver Sacks

Neal Colgrass — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:35:45 CDT

Mental health experts have lost touch with the benefits of old-fashioned insane asylums, where patients once enjoyed a sense of community and jobs like cleaning and farming, Oliver Sacks writes in the New York Review of Books . Touching on a new book of Christopher Payne photographs called Asylum —which offers...

Antipsychotic Drugs Triple Health Risks in Elderly

Rob Quinn — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:53:33 CDT

Elderly dementia patients given antipsychotic drugs, even briefly, are three times as likely to end up hospitalized or dead within a month, new research has found. The study looked at 40,000 elderly Canadians, half of them in nursing homes, and found that the drugs increased the risk of heart...