So this morning we left Oahu for Maui and I grabbed a copy of the Honolulu Star Advertiser and there was an article – "Patients and Taxpayers will enjoy big savings as drug patents expire." It had a table with some of the drugs we’ve all been talking about:
| Drug | Patent Ends | Made By: |
|
|
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| Zyprexa | October 2011 | Eli Lilly |
| Lexapro | March 2012 | Forest Labs |
| Seroquel | March 2012 | AstraZeneca |
| Provigil | April 2012 | Cephalon |
| Geodon | September 2012 | Pfizer |
Then I end my day of touristing and the television has an ad for a law firm advertising for women who took Zoloft or Paxil while pregnant – birth defects. I remember when Charlie Nemeroff and Zach Stowe were presenting the safety of SSRIs [Paxil] in pregnancy to anyone who would listen.
I guess this stuff follows no matter where one goes. An extraordinary twenty-five years – this rise of mass psychopharmacology. When I was watching that ad, I wondered if it will be generally known that the problems aren’t just isolated instances, but a sign of a pervasive widespread corruption that involved many prominent academic psychiatrists and universities and most of the major pharmaceutical companies. At times, I stand back and see how big it all is – and have to swallow hard…
TELL ME ABOUT IT, Mickey! I actually have to bite my tongue hard when talking with mixed company and one of them casually admits they’re taking a psych med. ‘Whoo boy. If they only knew the heinous, widespread corruption that spawned that pill they take every day. If they only knew…
SG, love your comment! I, too, have that “mixed company” experience where you don’t dare mention your serious reservations about the use of ANY psychotropic drug in a society drowning in them…and the “if they only knew” part. Even if some of those meds might have some “efficacy”, given what I know about the corruption that spawned them…the illegal marketing, the unethical clinical trials, the corrupt KOLs,on and on and on…how could I take such medication knowing all that?? And, I’m not even very sure about all the other medication out there, including cholesterol lowering drugs.