{"id":4617,"date":"2011-01-13T00:07:52","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T05:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4617"},"modified":"2011-01-13T00:11:33","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T05:11:33","slug":"treating-symptoms-and-causing-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2011\/01\/13\/treating-symptoms-and-causing-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"treating symptoms and causing diseases…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Atypical Antipsychotics Overprescribed by U.S. Doctors: Study<\/a>
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January 10th, 2011<\/div>\n

More than half of all prescriptions for newer, atypical antipsychotics, such as Seroquel, Zyprexa and Risperdal, are given without evidence that the powerful drugs will actually help the patient, according to new research.  A study conducted by the Stanford Prevention Research Center, which was recently published in the medical journal Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety<\/em><\/a><\/strong>, indicates that Americans are spending billions of dollars on prescriptions for atypical antipsychotics for uses that have not been approved by the FDA, or established as safe and effective… <\/p>\n

After gathering data through a survey of about 1,800 physicians, the researchers found that the prescription of antipsychotics almost tripled from 6.2 million in 1995 to 16.7 million in 2008. They also found that prescriptions of antipsychotics for uses that were not approved by the FDA went from 4.4 million prescriptions in 1995 to 9 million in 2008. Known as off-label prescriptions, those unapproved uses generated about $6 billion for drug companies, and the researchers say $5.4 billion of that was for prescriptions that were given by doctors who lacked solid evidence that the drugs would actually help their patients. “Most people think, ‘If my doctor prescribed this, the FDA must have evaluated whether this drug was safe and effective for this use.’ That’s not true,” Stafford said. “Physicians want to prescribe and use the latest therapies – and even when those latest therapies doesn’t necessarily offer a big advantage, there’s still a tendency to think that the newest drugs must be better.”<\/p>\n

Atypical antipsychotics generate more than $12 billion in sales every year, with Seroquel leading the pack with nearly $4.45 billion in sales last year. A number of drug companies have gotten into legal trouble over their aggressive promotion of the drugs for a variety of uses unapproved by the FDA.<\/div>\n