Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Who Is Not Fit To Practice Medicine?

Subject:     Who Is Not Fit To Practice Medicine?
Date:     Wed, 09 May 2012 13:24:54 -0400
From:     Veracare <veracare@ahrp.org>
To:     Infomail1@ahrp.org


Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP)
Advancing Honest and Ethical Medical Research
www.ahrp.org

FYI

A British Parliamentary Committee Report deemed Rupert Murdoch "not a fit person" to run a major news reporting company based on his organizations illegal phone hacking activities.

Here is a compelling reason why psychiatrists who prescribe antipsychotic drugs are "not fit" to practice medicine.

At a minimum, the practice of responsible medicine requires that physicians who prescribe drugs whose  known severe adverse side effects are likely to cause their patients irreversible harm, requires that those physicians follow monitoring guidelines to ensure their patients' safety. 

The second generation neuroleptics (antipsychotics such as Clozaril, Zyprexa, Risperdal, Guiedon, Seroquel, Abilify) are known to cause severe, potentially lethal adverse effects.  These include rapid metabolic changes, including acute weight gain, and interference with normal glucose metabolism. These changes lead to increased rates of cardiovascular disease and premature deaths.

In 2003, the FDA required a warning label about the diabetes risk for people prescribed second-generation antipsychotic drugs. The American Diabetes Association and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recommended glucose and lipid screening and monitoring for all patients starting these drugs. 

The drugs are widely misprescribed even for young children, whose safety is at high risk from those drug-induced metabolic changes.

Yet, studies examining monitoring rates for patients--young and old--who are prescribed these drugs, have consistently shown that psychiatrists fail to screen or monitor for either glucose or lipid levels in patients for whom they prescribe these drugs.  In 2008, Dr. Dan Haupt of Washington University, St. Louis, found that only 20% of patients prescribed antipsychotics were monitored for glucose levels, and only 10% had their lipids monitored.

The latest such study (Abstract NR7-51) was presented by Dr. Christina Mangurian, a University of California at San Francisco psychiatrist,  at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, May 7, 2012.  Her findings confirm the lack of metabolic screening and monitoring of patients prescribed antipsychotic drugs by psychiatrists--even as psychiatrists acknowledged that they should be doing the monitoring.
See: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/763468

Dr. Haupt suggested that psychiatry suffers from an "identity crisis," noting that:
  "Historically these are people who have gone to medical school but have not viewed themselves as physicians in the same way as an internist would."
See: http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/ADAMeeting/9746

Vera Sharav

1 comment:

  1. Yours is a well done blog.
    I appreciate the points you made.Schizophrenia affects 1 percent of the world population yet I found that Zyprexa sales far exceeded that range.

    The saga of the schizophrenia drugs is one of incredible profit.Eli Lilly made $65 BILLION on Zyprexa franchise.
    Described as *the most successful drug in the history of neuroscience* the drugs at $12 pill are used by states to medicate deinstitutionalized mental patients to keep them out of the $500-$1000 day hospitals (*Viva Zyprexa* Lilly sales rep slogan).

    There is a whole underclass block of our society,including children in foster care that are the market for these drugs,but have little voice of protest if harmed by them.I am an exception,I got diabetes from Zyprexa as an off-label treatment for PTSD and I am not a mentally challenged victim so I post.--Daniel Haszard - FMI
    zyprexa-victims(dot)com

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