30 Million Americans On Antidepressants And 21 Other Facts About America's Endless Pharmaceutical Nightmare

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 09/03/2014
New York Times
Reality

inSha

Submitted by Michael Snyder of End of The American Dream blog,

Has there ever been a nation more hooked on drugs than the United States?  And I am not just talking about illegal drugs – the truth is that the number of Americans addicted to legal drugs is far greater than the number of Americans addicted to illegal drugs.  As you will read about below, more than 30 million Americans are currently on antidepressants and doctors in the U.S. wrote more than 250 million prescriptions for painkillers last year.  Sadly, most people got hooked on these drugs very innocently.  They trusted that their doctors would never prescribe something for them that would be harmful, and they trusted that the federal government would never approve any drugs that were not safe.  And once the drug companies get you hooked, they often have you for life.  

You see, the reality of the matter is that some of these “legal drugs” are actually some of the most addictive substances on the entire planet.  And when they start raising the prices on those drugs, there isn’t much that the addicts can do about it.  It is a brutally efficient business model, and the pharmaceutical industry guards their territory fiercely.  Very powerful people will often do some really crazy things when there are hundreds of billions of dollars at stake.  The following are 22 facts about America’s endless pharmaceutical nightmare that everyone should know…

#1 According to the New York Times, more than 30 million Americans are currently taking antidepressants.
#2 The rate of antidepressant use among middle aged women is far higher than for the population as a whole.  At this point, one out of every four women in their 40s and 50s is taking an antidepressant medication.
#3 Americans account for about five percent of the global population, but we buy more than 50 percent of the pharmaceutical drugs.
#4 Americans also consume a whopping 80 percent of all prescription painkillers.
#5 It is hard to believe, but doctors in the United States write 259 million prescriptions for painkillers each year.  Prescription painkillers are some of the most addictive legal drugs, and our doctors are serving as enablers for millions up0n millions of Americans that find themselves hooked on drugs that they cannot kick.
#6 Overall, pharmaceutical drug use in America is at an all-time high.  According to a study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, nearly 70 percent of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and 20 percent of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs.
#7 According to the CDC, approximately 9 out of every 10 Americans that are at least 60 years old say that they have taken at least one prescription drug within the last month.
#8 In 2010, the average teen in the United States was taking 1.2 central nervous system drugs.  Those are the kinds of drugs which treat conditions such as ADHD and depression.
#9 A very disturbing Government Accountability Office report found that approximately one-third of all foster children in the United States are on at least one psychiatric drug.
#10 An astounding 95 percent of the “experimental medicines” that the pharmaceutical industry produces are found not to be safe and are never approved.  Of the remaining 5 percent that are approved, we often do not find out that they are deadly to us until decades later.
#11 One study discovered that mothers that took antidepressants during pregnancy were four times more likely to have a baby that developed an autism spectrum disorder.
#12 It has been estimated that prescription drugs kill approximately 200,000 people in the United States every single year.
#13 An American dies from an unintentional prescription drug overdose every 19 minutes.  According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, accidental prescription drug overdose is “the leading cause of acute preventable death for Americans”.
#14 In the United States today, prescription painkillers kill more Americans than heroin and cocaine combined.
#15 According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.
#16 The number of prescription drug overdose deaths in the United States is five times higher than it was back in 1980.
#17 A survey conducted for the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that more than 15 percent of all U.S. high school seniors abuse prescription drugs.
#18 More than 26 million women over the age of 25 say that they are “using prescription medications for unintended uses“.
#19 If all of these antidepressants are helping, then why are more Americans killing themselves?  The suicide rate for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 increased by nearly 30 percent between 1999 and 2010.  The number of Americans that die by suicide is now greater than the number of Americans that die as a result of car accidents every year.
#20 Antidepressant use has been linked to mass shootings in America over and over and over again, and yet the mainstream media is eerily quiet about this. Is it because they don’t want to threaten one of their greatest sources of advertising revenue?
#21 The amount of money that the pharmaceutical industry is raking in is astronomical.  It has been reported that Americans spent more than 280 billion dollars on prescription drugs during 2013.

If many of these drugs were not so addictive, the pharmaceutical companies would make a lot less money.  And pharmaceutical drug addicts often don’t fit the profile of what we think a “drug addict” would look like.  For example, CNN shared the story of a 55-year-old grandmother named Cynthia Scudo that become addicted to prescription painkillers…

For Scudo, her addiction began — as they all do — innocently enough.

She sought relief from hip pain, possibly caused by scarring from cesarean sections she had delivering several of her children.

Her then-husband recommended a physician.

“There was no physical therapy offered,” she said of the doctor’s visit. “The first reaction was, let’s give you some drugs.”

He put her on OxyContin.

By the second week, she was physically addicted.

She was popping so much of the painkiller and other drugs such as anti-anxiety Valium that they equated to a dosage for three men.

There is lots and lots of money to be made from addiction.  In fact, if the U.S. health care system was a totally separate nation it would actually be the 6th largest economy on the entire globe.  We are talking about piles of money larger than most people would ever dare to imagine.

And with so much money floating around, it is quite easy for the pharmaceutical industry to buy the cooperation of our politicians and of the media.

Some time when you are watching television in the evening, consciously take note of how often a pharmaceutical commercial comes on.

It has gotten to the point where we are literally being inundated with these ads.

They are already making hundreds of billions of dollars, and they think that there is room for even more growth.

Depression Chemical Imbalance Doesn’t Exist

Depression Chemical Imbalance Doesn’t Exist, Experts Say
by Elizabeth Renter
04/18/2013

What if you went to a crime ridden street corner, suffering from depression, and were told that a certain drug could change how you felt about things? What if you went to your doctor and were told the same thing? While the corner drug dealer and your physician might have different drugs in mind, they are essentially offering a similar solution—putting you in a “drug-induced” state to minimize your negative symptoms. Doctors, the media, and society say there is a chemical imbalance which causes depression, but a depression chemical imbalance doesn’t exist, experts say.

Dr. Joanna Moncrieff, a mental health expert from the department of mental health services at University College in London is taking a quite non-politically-correct approach in characterizing anti-depressants and other mental health drugs as just another dependency.

She says that although doctors, the media, and society in general has latched on to the idea that depression and anxiety, for example, are just evidence of a “chemical imbalance” in the brain, there is no hard evidence to support this.

“Scientific research has not detected any reliable abnormalities of the serotonin system in people who are depressed.”

While many people are convinced this is indeed their problem and therefore are okay with being offered a drug to solve the “problem”, she says the problem is that we are minimizing the seriousness of taking drugs to solve a “mental disorder.”

It is frequently overlooked that drugs used in psychiatry are psychoactive drugs, like alcohol and cannabis. Psychoactive drugs make people feel different; they put people into an altered mental and physical state. They affect everyone, regardless of whether they have a mental disorder or not. Therefore, an alternative way of understanding how psychiatric drugs affect people is to look at the psychoactive effects they produce

She says that these drugs, like anti-depressants, often produce symptoms of other, illegal drugs. The difference—these are prescribed by medical professionals and marketed to the masses in a more acceptable way.

In decades past, there was a stigma associated with mental health drugs. While it’s debatable whether this stigma was justified, there’s little doubt that it did make people think twice about taking medication for depression.

Now, however, we are convinced that these drugs are correcting a defect in the brain. The drugs are correcting an “imbalance.” But the problem is, that imbalance has never been proven.

Sure, you can argue that your medication makes you feel better, but wouldn’t other psychoactive drugs make you feel better too?

Dr. Moncrieff isn’t suggesting that people take cheaper illegal drugs, since they may have similar effects, but instead wants people to really get real about their anti-depression or anti-anxiety medications– what are they really doing to themselves when they rise each morning and pop the same pill, occasionally having to up their dosage because their body has developed a tolerance.

And with the number of Americans on antidepressant medication estimated to be 1 in 10, perhaps a critical look at this drug trade is warranted.

25 disturbing facts about psych drugs, soldiers and suicides

Thursday, March 14, 2013
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) We are living in an age of upside-downs, where right is wrong, fiction is truth and war is peace. Those who fight the wars are subjected to their own house of mirrors via pharmaceutical "treatments." Instead of providing U.S. soldiers and veterans with actual health care, the government throws pills at them and calls it "therapy."

Stimulants, antidepressants, anti-psychotics, sedatives and pain meds are the new "fuel" for America's front-line forces. While the idea of sending medicated soldiers into battle was unthinkable just three decades ago, today it's the status quo. And the cost in human lives has never been more tragic.

Here are 25 disturbing facts about psych drugs, soldiers and suicides. They are disturbing because everybody seems to be pretending there is no link between psychiatric drugs and soldier suicides. So soldiers and veterans keep dying while the Pentagon (and the VA) keep pretending they don't know why. (Sources are listed at the bottom of this article.)

1) 33% of the U.S. Army is on prescription medications, and nearly a quarter of those are on psychotropic drugs

2) In 2010, the Pentagon spent $280 million on psychiatric drugs. That number has since risen.

3) There are now over 8,000 suicides each year by U.S. soldiers and veterans; that's over 22 a day

4) 33% of those suicides are attributed to medication side effects

5) That means medications are killing more U.S. soldiers and veterans than Al-Qaeda

6) 500% more soldiers abuse prescription drugs than illegal street drugs

7) Under the Obama administration, the number of veterans waiting for VA care has risen from 11,000 in 2009 to 245,000 today

8) More active duty soldiers die from suicide than from combat: 349 dead last year

9) The number of prescriptions for Ritalin and Adderall written for active-duty soldiers has increased 1,000% in the last five years

10) For every active-duty service member who dies in battle, 25 veterans die by suicide

11) Only 1 percent of Americans have served in the Middle East, but veterans of combat there make up 20% of all suicides in the United States

12) The suicide rate of active-duty soldiers in the Civil War was only 9 - 15 per 100,000 soldiers. The suicide rate of active-duty U.S. soldiers in the Middle East is 23 per 100,000. And casualty rates were far higher in the Civil War, meaning the Civil War was more psychologically traumatic.

13) In the Korean War, the suicide rate among active-duty military soldiers was only 11 per 100,000

14) To date, the Pentagon has spent more than a billion dollars on psychiatric drugs, making it one of the largest customers of Big Pharma

15) In 2010, over 213,000 active-duty military personnel were taking medications considered "high risk" by the Pentagon

16) In the years since the Iraq War began, twice as many soldiers of the Texas Army National Guard have died of suicide than in combat

17) Defense Secretary Leon Panetta calls military suicides an "epidemic"

18) Of all the branches of the military, the Army has the highest number of suicides each year, almost 400% more than the Marines

19) Most active-duty soldiers who take psychiatric medications consume a combination of three to five prescriptions

20) The use of prescription medications by active-duty soldiers is largely unregulated. Soldiers are given a bottle of meds and sent into combat. If they run out of meds, they are given a refill, no questions asked.

21) The mainstream media says the answer to lowing suicides of veterans is to take away their guns so that they cannot shoot themselves. This is the logical equivalent to trying to fix your car's engine by removing the "check engine" light.

22) The Pentagon is initiating new research (in 2013) to try to figure out why psychiatric medications cause soldiers to commit suicide. The research involves tracking brain activity by attaching electrodes to the skull.

23) One-third of military suicides are committed by soldiers who have never seen combat

24) In the last year, the military wrote over 54,000 prescriptions for Seroquel to soldiers, and all those prescriptions were "off label," meaning the intended use has never been approved by the FDA as safe or effective.

25) Dr. Bart Billings, a retired Army Colonel and former military psychologist, refers to psychiatric drugs as a "chemical lobotomy" for soldiers.

Are Drug-Pushing Shrinks Manufacturing a Generation of Spree-Shooters?

Another Killer on Anti-Depressants
by JOE GIAMBRONE


Well, you probably don’t want to look at more than 60 different documented school shooters and stabbers who were on antidepressant drugs when they attacked innocent children in suicidal, violent outbursts. Not if your mind is already made up that “it’s the guns” and that yet another “gun control” law will suddenly fix things. It won’t. Nor will the congressional testimony of Dr. Peter Breggin on the dangers of SSRIs and the proven links to suicide and violent ideation interest you, as long as there is one factor, and one solution, and this sort of information doesn’t fit into your preconception.

If this latest psycho-killer boy, Adam Lanza, had stolen a car and run over 26 people, would the most glaring problem be not enough car regulations?

Or if he had chosen to run around with a chainsaw instead, would the call now be for more chainsaw control? Or would the focus have turned to just banning the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films?

Why do they do it?

More than a little evidence suggests that antidepressant medications, prescribed by psychiatrists – who have a vested stake in the public perception of this issue – are a contributing factor in the majority of such spree massacres. The drug corporations, which produce these medications and which pay for massive advertising campaigns on TV, in newspapers, on the radio and in magazines, certainly want their friendly press outlets to come up with a different culprit. However, the lengthy list of warnings, right on the labels of these drugs, is an indication that the links are real, not very well understood, and potentially catastrophic.

Even Time Magazine reported on links between prescription drugs and violence:

Desvenlafaxine (Pristiq) … 7.9 times more likely to be associated with violence than other drugs. 
Venlafaxine (Effexor) … 8.3 times…
Fluvoxamine (Luvox) … 8.4 times…
Triazolam (Halcion) … 8.7 times…
Atomoxetine (Strattera) … 9 times…
Mefoquine (Lariam) … 9.5 times…
Amphetamines: (Various) … 9.6 times…
Paroxetine (Paxil) … 10.3 times…
Fluoxetine (Prozac) … 10.9 times…
Varenicline (Chantix) … 18 times… (Time)

As Dr. Breggin calls it on his website:

“Antidepressants cause emotional anesthesia and numbing or sometimes euphoria, providing a fleeting, artificial relief from emotional suffering. … In the long run, all psychiatric drugs tend to disrupt the normal processes of feeling and thinking, rendering the individual less able to deal effectively with personal problems and with life’s challenges. They worsen the individual’s overall mental condition and produce potentially irreversible harm to the brain.”

Breggin provided expert testimony and dire warnings to a congressional committee and cautioned against dispensing antidepressants to military personnel out of a very real fear of resulting violence by well-armed troops.
Even the FDA has had to impose stronger warnings on these “medicines” over the years, in response to the real world data. The 2007 update to the “Black Box” warnings, which are mandatory and included with all antidepressants says:

“Clinical Worsening and Suicide Risk: Patients, their families, and their caregivers should be encouraged to be alert to the emergence of anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, mania, other unusual changes in behavior, worsening of depression, and suicidal ideation, especially early during antidepressant treatment and when the dose is adjusted up or down. Families and caregivers of patients should be advised to look for the emergence of such symptoms on a day-to-day basis, since changes may be abrupt. … Symptoms such as these may be associated with an increased risk for suicidal thinking and behavior and indicate a need for very close monitoring and possibly changes in the medication.” (FDA, emphasis added)

The United States abandoned its mentally ill citizens back in the 1980s. Now they live under bridges. I see them with their tent city near my favorite Chinese restaurant. The great shining city on the hill doesn’t give a damn who’s living outdoors now. The stigma about mental illness has worked its way through the rest of society, but not in the obvious way.

People don’t reject “treatment” as long as it’s a pill you can take, a brain fix-all. This convenience culture idea of the quick fix is what has lived on, and now psychiatric “treatment” consists primarily of trying various drugs on patients, having them report the way the drugs affected them, and then trying other drugs. Repeat ad infinitum. This guinea pig approach to psychiatry is what I have witnessed for many years, and with a variety of different psychiatrists. They no longer seek out the underlying traumas of patients, as in the old quaint days. It is all about the drugs today, and nothing else is even discussed.

Psychiatrists are corporate America’s drug pushers.

Banning Guns For Citizens?

Now I’m going to get a lot of hostile responses for bucking the knee-jerk hysteria about banning assault rifles that’s going around. It seems to me like this issue was custom-tailored to distract the nation from the “fiscal cliff” backroom betrayals currently gutting your Social Security and Medicare inside the centers of power. There are numerous massacres, unfortunately. The media volume generated by this particular one is like a tsunami and changes the top story away from the machinations of the White House and Congress, where their long-planned deal-making could potentially kill many, many more people than the occasional shooting spree. They actually do kill many, many more children in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere… but that’s a different article.

I see no problem clamping down on high-capacity assault rifles. But I don’t for a second believe that’s going to change anything. What exactly can you do with an assault rifle, that you can’t do with a thousand other different kinds of guns? Reloading isn’t really that time-consuming or difficult. Multiple weapons are easy to obtain, especially if one is motivated enough and doesn’t care if they make it out alive. So how does that solve the problem?

Similarly, the “background checks” don’t catch spree shooters who don’t have criminal records and just one day snap. There’s nothing to check, and future-crime has not been wiped out yet.

Ah, the nuclear option – ban all the guns. That’s next.

There’s an interesting idea. With 300,000,000 guns in America, it should be no problem to just collect them all. Criminals would be first to line up at the weapon depository and rape scan center. Once the criminals are disarmed, things will go smoothly.

Some suggest that the population doesn’t need to be armed, as an armed rebellion against a tyrannical regime is futile. That’s a selective reading of history (and of the Bill of Rights), but even granted it was true, weapons are useful for self-defense from whomever. They can be indispensable in times of chaos or collapse. We do retain the right to defend ourselves, but apparently a lot of liberal/left types would make that technically impossible, by forcibly disarming everyone who complies.

Oh, no doubt, you could be re-armed by enlisting in some civilian human-drone force, as Obama first proposed back in 2008. Selective service in some organized policing force or military unit in order to graduate from high school was a wet dream proposal of the current president’s. There explains the “450 million rounds of 40 caliber” hollow-point ammunition that the Department of Homeland Security just ordered. Perhaps forced teenage DHS police labor can replace professional local police forces, which can be laid off in order to enact even more budget cuts around the nation. There’s a great idea.

But guns are here to stay. They aren’t going anywhere. America is an “armed madhouse” as Greg Palast phrased it, so perhaps it’s time to take a closer look at the “mad” part of the equation.

Depressing Statistics about Anti-Depressants

List of School Shootings Linked To Antidepressants

As of October 2015 the links in this story are dead. sorry.

List of school shootings linked to SSRI use.
What	Drug	Date	Where	Additional
School Shooting	Prozac WITHDRAWAL	2008-02-15	Illinois	** 6 Dead: 15 Wounded: Perpetrator Was in Withdrawal from Med & Acting Erratically
School Shooting	Prozac Antidepressant	2005-03-24	Minnesota	**10 Dead: 7 Wounded: Dosage Increased One Week before Rampage
School Shooting	Paxil [Seroxat] Antidepressant	2001-03-10	Pennsylvania	**14 Year Old GIRL Shoots & Wounds Classmate at Catholic School
School Shooting	Zoloft Antidepressant & ADHD Med	2011-07-11	Alabama	**14 Year Old Kills Fellow Middle School Student
School Shooting	Zoloft Antidepressant	1995-10-12	South Carolina	**15 Year Old Shoots Two Teachers, Killing One: Then Kills Himself
School Shooting	Med For Depression	2009-03-13	Germany	**16 Dead Including Shooter: Antidepressant Use: Shooter in Treatment For Depression
School Hostage Situation	Med For Depression	2010-12-15	France	**17 Year Old with Sword Holds 20 Children & Teacher Hostage
School Shooting Plot	Med For Depression WITHDRAWAL	2008-08-28	Texas	**18 Year Old Plots a Columbine School Attack
School Shooting	Anafranil Antidepressant	1988-05-20	Illinois	**29 Year Old WOMAN Kills One Child: Wounds Five: Kills Self
School Shooting	Luvox/Zoloft Antidepressants	1999-04-20	Colorado	**COLUMBINE: 15 Dead: 24 Wounded
School Stabbings	Antidepressants	2001-06-09	Japan	**Eight Dead: 15 Wounded: Assailant Had Taken 10 Times his Normal Dose of Depression Med
School Shooting	Prozac Antidepressant WITHDRAWAL	1998-05-21	Oregon	**Four Dead: Twenty Injured
School Stabbing	Med For Depression	2011-10-25	Washington	**Girl, 15, Stabs Two Girls in School Restroom: 1 Is In Critical Condition
School Shooting	Antidepressant	2006-09-30	Colorado	**Man Assaults Girls: Kills One & Self
School Machete Attack	Med for Depression	2001-09-26	Pennsylvania	**Man Attacks 11 Children & 3 Teachers at Elementary School
School Shooting Related	Luvox	1993-07-23	Florida	**Man Commits Murder During Clinical Trial for Luvox: Same Drug as in COLUMBINE: Never Reported
School Hostage Situation	Cymbalta Antidepressant WITHDRAWAL	2009-11-09	New York	**Man With Gun Inside School Holds Principal Hostage
School Shooting	Antidepressants	1992-09-20	Texas	**Man, Angry Over Daughter's Report Card, Shoots 14 Rounds inside Elementary School
School Shooting	SSRI	2010-02-19	Finland	**On Sept. 23, 2008 a Finnish Student Shot & Killed 9 Students Before Killing Himself
School Shooting Threat	Med for Depression*	2004-10-19	New Jersey	**Over-Medicated Teen Brings Loaded Handguns to School
School Shooting	Antidepressant?	2007-04-18	Virginia	**Possible SSRI Use: 33 Dead at Virginia Tech
School Shooting	Antidepressant?	2002-01-17	Virginia	**Possible SSRI Withdrawal Mania: 3 Dead at Law School
School Incident/Bizarre	Zoloft*	2010-08-22	Australia	**School Counselor Exhibits Bizarre Behavior: Became Manic On Zoloft
School/Assault	Antidepressant	2009-11-04	California	**School Custodian Assaults Student & Principal: Had Manic Reaction From Depression Med
School Shooting	Prozac Antidepressant	1992-01-30	Michigan	**School Teacher Shoots & Kills His Superintendent at School
School Shooting Threats	Celexa Antidepressant	2010-01-25	Virginia	**Senior in High School Theatens to Kill 4 Classmates: Facebook Involved: Bail Denied
School Violence/Murder	Antidepressants*	1998-05-04	New York	**Sheriff's Deputy Shoots his Wife in an Elementary School
School Knifing/Murder	Meds For Depression & ADHD	2010-04-28	Massachusetts	**Sixteen Year Old Kills 15 Year Old in High School Bathroom in Sept. 2009
School Stabbing	Wellbutrin	2006-12-04	Indiana	**Stabbing by 17 Year Old At High School: Charged with Attempted Murder
School Threat	Antidepressants	2007-04-23	Mississippi	**Student Arrested for Making School Threat Over Internet
School Suspension	Lexapro Antidepressant	2007-07-28	Arkansas	**Student Has 11 Incidents with Police During his 16 Months on Lexapro
School Shooting	Antidepressant WITHDRAWAL	2007-11-07	Finland	**Student Kills 8: Wounds 10: Kills Self: High School in Finland
School Shooting	Paxil [Seroxat] Antidepressant	2004-02-09	New York	**Student Shoots Teacher in Leg at School
School Threat	Prozac Antidepressant	2008-01-25	Washington	**Student Takes Loaded Shotgun & 3 Rifles to School Parking Lot: Plans Suicide
School Shooting Plot	Med For Depression	1998-12-01	Wisconsin	**Teen Accused of Plotting to Gun Down Students at School
School/Assault	Zoloft Antidepressant	2006-02-15	Tennessee	**Teen Attacks Teacher at School
School Shooting Threat	Antidepressant	1999-04-16	Idaho	**Teen Fires Gun in School
School Hostage Situation	Paxil & Effexor Antidepressants	2001-04-15	Washington	**Teen Holds Classmates Hostage with a Gun
School Hostage Situation	Antidepressant WITHDRAWAL	2006-11-28	North Carolina	**Teen Holds Teacher & Student Hostage with Gun
School Knife Attack	Med for Depression	2006-12-06	Indiana	**Teen Knife Attacks Fellow Student
School Massacre Plot	Prozac Withdrawal	2011-02-23	Virginia	**Teen Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison For Columbine Style Plot
School Shooting	Celexa & Effexor Antidepressants	2001-04-19	California	**Teen Shoots at Classmates in School
School Shooting	Celexa Antidepressant	2006-08-30	North Carolina	**Teen Shoots at Two Students: Kills his Father: Celexa Found Among his Personal Effects
School Shooting	Meds For Depression & ADHD	2011-03-18	South Carolina	**Teen Shoots School Official: Pipe Bombs Found in Backpack
School Shooting Threat	Antidepressant	2003-05-31	Michigan	**Teen Threatens School Shooting: Charge is Terrorism
School Stand-Off	Zoloft Antidepressant	1998-04-13	Idaho	**Teen [14 Years Old] in School Holds Police At Bay: Fires Shots
School Shooting	Antidepressant WITHDRAWAL	2007-10-12	Ohio	**Teen [14 Years Old] School Shooter Possibly on Antidepressants or In Withdrawal
School Threat	Antidepressants	2008-03-20	Indiana	**Teen [16 Years Old] Brings Gun to School: There Is a Lockdown
School Suicide/Lockdown	Med For Depression	2008-02-20	Idaho	**Teen [16 Years Old] Kills Self at High School: Lockdown by Police
School Threats	Prozac Antidepressant	1999-10-19	Florida	**Teen [16 Years Old] Threatens Classmates With Knife & Fake Explosives
School Stabbing	Med For Depression	2008-02-29	Texas	**Teen [17 Year Old GIRL] Stabs Friend & Principal at High School
School Hostage Situation	Prozac/ Paxil Antidepressants	2001-01-18	California	**Teen [17 Years Old] Takes Girl Hostage at School: He is Killed by Police
School Knife Attack	Treatment For Depression & Strattera	2009-03-10	Belgium	**Three Dead in School Day Care: Two Children & a Caregiver: Happened Jan 23, 2009
School Shooting Plot	Antidepressants	2009-09-22	England	**Two English School Boys Plot to Blow Up High School
School Arson Incidents	Paxil	2002-04-12	Michigan	**Unusual Personality Change on Paxil Caused 15 Year Old to Set Fires inside High School
School Bomb Threat	Med For Depression	2009-06-29	Australia	**Vexed Father Makes Bomb Threat Against Elementary School
School Violence	Antidepressant	2005-11-19	Arizona	**Violent 8 Year Old GIRL Handcuffed by Police at School
School Violence	Celexa Antidepressant	2002-01-23	Florida	**Violent 8 Year-Old Boy Arrested At School
School Threat/Lockdown	Lexapro*	2008-04-18	California	**Violent High School Student Shot to Death on Campus by Police
School / Child Endangerment	Antidepressants	2008-02-27	Canada	**Wacky School Bus Driver Goes Berserk: Also Involved Painkillers
School Violence	Paxil	2004-10-23	Washington DC	**Young Boy, 10 Year Old, Has Violent Incidents at School
School Threat	Wellbutrin Antidepressant	2007-04-24	Tennessee	**Young Boy, 12, Threatens to Shoot Others at School
School Hostage Situation	Med for Depression	2006-03-09	France	**Young Ex-Teacher Holds 21 Students Hostage
School Shooting/Suicide	Celexa	2002-10-07	Texas	**Young Girl [13 Years Old] Kills Self at School With a Gun
School Hostage Situation	Paxil	2001-10-12	North Carolina	**Young Man Holds Three People Hostage in Duke University President's Office
School Murder Attempt	Med For Depression	1995-03-04	California	**Young Woman Deliberately Hits 3 Kids with Her Car at Elementary School: Laughed During Attack

**	Indicates a school shooting or school incident.
*	Indicates a legal case won using SSRI defense.
--	Indicates an important journal article.
-	Indicates a highly publicized case.
num	An age < 25 covered by FDA black box for suicide.

Warning: Anti-Depressants Causing Birth Defects, Miscarriages

Friday, November 2, 2012

Lisa Garber | Activist Post

Pharmaceutical companies regularly embellish the benefits and downplay the dangers of anti-depressants, and all medications for that matter—but this time, their profits could be inadvertently endangering and even killing unborn infants. Senior doctors know it and are finally raising their voices.

Tufts University School of Medicine’s Dr. Adam Urato decries the practice of prescribing SSRIs to pregnant women. “Study after study shows increased rates of newborn complications in those babies who were exposed to SSRIs in-utero,” he says. These complications include greater risk of autism, lung and bowel diseases, and more.

Doctors Failing to Properly Warn of Risks

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the most common form of anti-depressants, many of which are prescribed to pregnant mothers by “general practitioners, not psychiatrists,” according to Dr. Alice Domar of Harvard Medical School. “You come in and you say I’m not feeling very well, I’m feeling lethargic so the physician writes a prescription.”

Urato says that although not proven, the outcomes of over 40 studies linking SSRIs to the endangerment of an unborn child are troubling enough to warrant further research. Family doctors must also properly caution pregnant women about the risks involved in taking SSRIs during pregnancy. (Many doctors prescribe them anyway because, if the SSRI works to improve the mother’s mood, it would lead to “a better pregnancy result.”)

Urato says “there really is not a shred of evidence” supporting the benefits of anti-depressants for pregnant women.

Big Pharma Just Wants to Get Paid

Urato unapologetically points to Big Pharma. “It is a fact that these antidepressants have been very lucrative for the pharmaceutical industry…. It stands to reason to me that the drug makers would rather that the risks of these agents in pregnancy not receive widespread attention as that would be a reason for many women to not take the drugs in the first place or to stop taking them—both of which are not good for sales of the product.”

Downplaying the risks of drugs is hardly a new game for Big Pharma. In the name of profit, GlaxoSmithKline paid celebrity doctors—like Dr. Drew—to push and make off-label claims of drugs. It’s also been found that 70 percent of advisors to the newest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) have financial ties to pharmaceutical companies.

Not even the government is immune to funding. Although the Food and Drug Administration admits that antidepressants can worsen depression and increase risk of suicide, the public and private sectors alike push ineffective and harmful antidepressants on patients. This will likely continue despite an increasing number of studies linking SSRIs to pulmonary hypertension and cardiovascular malformations in newborns.

Be wary of taking medication during pregnancy, especially anti-depressants. “If you add up all the potential risks,” Domar says, “a lot of people would say they are unacceptable.”

Additional Sources:
The Telegraph
PubMed

Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked on for Life

Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s, the number of people on prescription drugs for life has ballooned.

By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet
Posted on April 26, 2012


Why has Big Pharma failed to produce new antibiotics for deadly infections like MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci), C. Difficile and Acinetobacter baumannii even as they leap from hospital to community settings? Because there is no money in it.

Pharma executives "have shown less interest in medicines like antibiotics that actually cure disease than in those that only treat symptoms," writes Melody Petersen, author of Our Daily Meds. "Most blockbusters are pills for conditions such as anxiety, high cholesterol or constipation that must be taken daily, often for months or years. They are designed for rich Americans who can afford to buy them." Nor are medicines for tropical diseases like malaria, which kills a child every 30 seconds, a priority, notes Petersen. They also lack ka-ching.

Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s, the number of people on prescription drugs -- especially prescription drugs for life -- has ballooned. Between 2001 to 2007 the percentage of adults and children on one or more prescriptions for chronic conditions rose by more than 12 million, reports the Associated Press and 25 percent of US children now take a medication for a chronic condition. Seven percent of kids take two or more daily drugs. Who says advertising doesn't work?

Of the top-selling drugs in 2011, led by Lipitor, Nexium, Plavix, Advair Diskus, Abilify, Seroquel, Singulair and Crestor, none is taken occasionally, or "as needed" and the treatment goal is never to get off the drug, like an antibiotic. Why would Pharma deal itself out of the game?

There are two ways Pharma hooks the US public on prescriptions for life. First, prescriptions that used to be taken as needed for pain, anxiety, GERD (gastroesophageal reflux), asthma, mood problems, migraines and even erectile dysfunction, gout and retroviruses (in some cases) are now full-time medicines. Instead of having a bad day or heartburn, you have a disease like anxiety or GERD which calls for full pharmaceutical artillery. Instead of having body pain to be treated transiently, you are put on an antidepressant like Cymbalta or seizure drug like Lyrica or Neurontin indefinitely.

Secondly, many of the top-selling drugs today are to prevent chronic conditions like high cholesterol, high blood pressure and osteoporosis that people are said to be "at risk" for. Needless to say, in both cases, people never know if the drugs are working or whether they would have had symptoms without them. This creates a loyal customer who is afraid to quit a prescription because it might be working. And why should they quit anyway when a third party is probably paying?

Here are some drugs -- not all -- that are marketed for perpetuity.

1. ADHD and Drugs for Pediatric 'Psychopathologies'

Thanks to Pharma's "diagnose early" and screening campaigns, millions of children are treated with stimulants for ADHD and antipsychotics for bipolar disorder and assorted conduct, oppositional defiant, development disorders and "spectrums" today. No wonder Michael Bandick, brand manager for Eli Lilly's popular antipsychotic Zyprexa, called it "the molecule that keeps on giving" at a national sales meeting.

But giving kids daily drugs creates two problems. First, parents will never know if their kids would have outgrown their conditions, and second, it's unlikely they'll ever get "clean." In fact, Pharma marketers worry about the revenue threat of kids going off their meds when they leave home and even run an ad campaigns in college newspapers to keep them on. One ad shows the lead singer of Maroon 5, declaring, "I remember being the kid with ADHD. Truth is, I still have it." The ad's tag line reads, "It's Your ADHD. Own It."

2. Hormone Replacement Therapy

When the popular HRT pill Prempro was launched by Wyeth, now Pfizer, in the 1980s, then-CEO Bob Essner told sales associates, “We can make real the full promise of HRT to create in the near future a world where the majority of women will start HRT at menopause and continue on it for the rest of their lives,” reports Philadelphia magazine. The scheme of treating estrogen "deficiency" for 30 or 40 years worked until 2002 when HRT was found to cause breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, blood clots and dementia. They were some of the conditions it was supposed to prevent. Oops. But Pharma has not abandoned the billion-dollar franchise and news about estrogen benefits is creeping back into the news, predicated on the public's short memory. People don't lose hormones because they age; they age because they lose hormones, say Pharma hormone sellers. Even men now "suffer from" testosterone deficiencies or Low T.

3. Happy Pills 

Pharma's success in convincing people with anxiety or the "blues" that they need an antidepressant was a Wall Street coup. Instead of taking the occasional Xanax, people agreed to alter their entire body chemistry with a drug they took for months, years or decades.

But as antidepressants fall in popularity, because of their many side effects, including alarming "discontinuation symptoms" when people try to stop, WebMD is conducting damage control to keep people on them. Don’t believe that antidepressants turn “you into a zombie,” make you gain weight, ruin your sex life, make you "forget your problems rather than dealing with them" or cost too much, says the huge pro-pill Web site in one article. Depression is linked to heart disease, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and cancer says a second WebMD article. Stay on your meds.

4. Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) 

Some say gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is just lowly "heartburn" whipped up by Pharma into a profitable disease. But over 110 million prescriptions were written for proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) like Nexium and Prevacid in 2009, making it the third most prescribed class of drugs. Long-term use of PPIs increases the risk of hip, wrist and spine fractures, the FDA warns and the drugs can cause potentially lethal C. difficile-caused diarrhea and community-acquired pneumonia says national health advocacy group, Public Citizen. But Pharma has a different message. GERD can lead to esophageal inflammation, scar tissue and cancer, if untreated, it tells patients and symptoms won't go away on their own. No wonder doctors call PPIs "Purple Crack."

5. Statins 

The best-selling statin drugs like Lipitor and Crestor that lower their cholesterol risks are pretty much the definition of "lifer medications," taken in perpetuity. Who would dare to go off of them and risk cardiovascular events?

One patient on a cholesterol drug site writes that despite feeling "miserable" on statins, "What do you do? Go off the statins and let your arteries clog up?" But medical professionals say it is not safe to stay on statins indefinitely. Patients are at risk of liver dysfunction, acute kidney failure, cataracts and muscle damage known as myopathy, reports British Medical Journal. And statins can also cause memory loss and increase the risk of developing of Type 2 diabetes and muscle damage,FDA warns.

Still the appeal of a drug that lowers the risk of cardiovascular events without a change in diet or lifestyle made Lipitor the top-selling drug in the world, until recently, when its patent expired. Statins are now prescribed for kids, for the same reason.

6. Asthma-Control Medicines 

Like ADHD and "pediatric psychopathology" drugs, Pharma conducts aggressive early treatment campaigns for asthma drugs, recommending that children as young as one year be treated when "symptoms" first emerge. ("Before they go away,” says one cynical doctor.)  

It has also marketed daily asthma "control" medicines like Advair and Symbicort so aggressively (prescription drugs added onto patients' regular asthma medicine -- ka-ching) that nearly two-thirds of the nation's millions of asthma sufferers take them. Despite the expense of adding an additional drug to rescue inhalers or inhaled corticosteroids when asthma is a lifelong disease, there are no clinical benefits to the upsell, says the research institute of Medco, the nation's largest pharmacy benefit manager. Neither trips to the ER or hospitalizations are reduced with control drugs. And there's another mark against the daily drugs that don't work: they may make asthma worse says some published reports.

Chemical Warfare: The US Military's Pill Addiction

Thursday, April 12, 2012 by Common Dreams
by Robert C. Koehler

To fight our insane wars, we’re wrecking our soldiers’ ability to live with themselves and function in society, then regulating what’s left of them with chemicals, which often make things immeasurably worse.

In the pursuit of order, could we possibly be creating more chaos, not simply externally — in the shattered countries we’re leaving in our wake — but internally, in the minds of those soldiers?

The Los Angeles Times noted that Air Force pilot Patrick Burke was recently acquitted in a court-marital hearing on charges of auto theft, drunk driving and two counts of assault — due to “polysubstance-induced delirium.” This was, the Times explained, a turning point: the first official acknowledgement, by military psychiatrists and a court-martial judge, that the drugs that have become a routine part of military service — in Burke’s case, the prescribed amphetamine Dexedrine (“go pills”) — can contribute to temporary insanity.

Better living through chemistry!

The chemical fix pervades the whole culture, of course, and while drugs can produce astounding results, they are demonically seductive and always have a down side. And nowhere, it seems, is their misuse more dramatic than in the modern military.

“After two long-running wars with escalating levels of combat stress, more than 110,000 active-duty Army troops last year were taking prescribed antidepressants, narcotics, sedatives, antipsychotics and anti-anxiety drugs, according to figures recently disclosed to The Times by the U.S. Army surgeon general,” Kim Murphy writes in the Times article. “Nearly 8 percent of the active-duty Army is now on sedatives and more than 6 percent is on antidepressants — an eightfold increase since 2005.”

Murphy quotes psychiatrist Peter Breggin, who has written on the correlation between drug use and violence: “Prior to the Iraq war, soldiers could not go into combat on psychiatric drugs, period. Not very long ago . . . you couldn’t even go into the armed services if you used any of these drugs, in particular stimulants.”

“Nearly 8 percent of the active-duty Army is now on sedatives and more than 6 percent is on antidepressants — an eightfold increase since 2005.”

Now he’s hearing from soldiers who tell him “the psychiatrist won’t approve their deployment unless they take psychiatric drugs.”

Uh, this sounds like addiction, and not on the part of the soldiers. The military itself is addicted to . . . well, as Murphy explains, “the modern Army psychiatrist’s deployment kit is likely to include nine kinds ofantidepressants, benzodiazepines for anxiety, four antipsychotics, two kinds of sleep aids, and drugs for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, according to a 2007 review in the journal Military Medicine.”

And the attorneys for Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the alleged lone killer of 17 Afghans last month, have asked for a list of all the medications he was taking. There’s a great deal of speculation about whether he was on one drug in particular, the anti-malarial drug mefloquine, which has been linked to bizarre and violent behavior and induces what’s known in the ranks as “mefloquine rage.”

All of which makes me think of the out-of-control use of chemicals in global agribusiness, in its for-profit zeal to turn the planet’s arable land into endless acres of monoculture, in utter defiance of, and war against, the diversity of nature. This is our war against “pests” and “weeds,” and, like our war against “evil,” a.k.a., terrorism, or whatever, and our determination to impose an economic and political monoculture on the whole planet, we’re not simply losing, we’re destroying ourselves.

“‘Farmers need technology right now to help them with issues such as weed resistance,’ a Dow official said last month. Translation? Farmers need technology right now to help them with issues created by . . . technology introduced 15 years ago,” Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote recently in Yale Environment 360 (reprinted at Common Dreams).

“Instead of urging farmers away from uniformity and toward greater diversity,” he went on, “the USDA is helping them do the same old wrong thing faster. When an idea goes bad, the USDA seems to think, the way to fix it is to speed up the introduction of ideas that will go bad for exactly the same reason. And it’s always, somehow, the same bad idea: the uniform application of an anti-biological agent, whether it’s a pesticide in crops or an antibiotic on factory farms. The result is always the same. Nature finds a way around it, and quickly.”

This is the domination mindset: As we seek dominion over nature and dominion over the nations of the world, we whack at our perceived enemies with an endless barrage of same old, same old, in increasingly lethal dosages. And when the war backs up into our psyches, we turn the chemical barrage on our own minds, on our own souls.

What will it take to transform institutionalized rage and fear into something that doesn’t emanate from the reptile brain? How do we put love into collective motion? Until we do, the world will keep looking more and more like a sci-fi techno-dystopia.

The Creepy Ways Big Pharma Peddles its Drugs

Big Pharma uses ads that sow hypochondria, raise health fears and sell diseases to adults and their children. 

By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet
Posted on January 9, 2012

(Editor's Note: You can view the ads throughout the story and can click on the ad to enlarge it.)

It's no secret that advertising works. Big Pharma wouldn't spend over $4 billion a year on direct-to-consumer advertising if it didn't mean massive profits.

What is more unknown is why drug ads that sow hypochondria, raise health fears and "sell" diseases are often the most common--and effective--even when the drugs themselves are of questionable safety.

The nation's fourth most frequent drug ads in 2009 for were Cymbalta, making Eli Lilly $3.1 billion in one year, despite the antidepressant's links to liver problems and suicide. Pfizer spent $157 million advertising Lyrica for fibromyalgia in 2009, despite the seizure pill's links to life-threatening allergic reactions. The same year, it spent $107 million advertising the antidepressant Pristiq, even though it also had links to liver problems.

So, how does Pharma dupe us into using unsafe drugs? Today's drug ads, targeted directly to consumers since 1999, seem like they sell diseases and often cast women, children, the elderly and mentally ill in a bad light. But a quick look at ads before direct-to-consumer advertising (DTC) in medical journals shows that drug ads have always done so. It's just that patients didn't used to see them.

Here are some of Pharma's most offensive ad campaigns, then and now.

1. You're Sicker Than You Think

When psychiatric drugs first became popular for use in the general population, in the late 1960s, everyday personality problems became imbued with psychiatric labels. "Lady, your anxiety is showing (over a coexisting depression)," says a 1970 ad, showing an older, wrinkly woman in a bouffant wig with gigantic sunglasses and garish jewelry. "On the visible level, this middle-aged patient dresses to look too young, exhibits a tense, continuous smile and may have bitten nails or overplucked eyebrows," says the ad copy. "What doesn't show as clearly is the coexisting depression."

The ad, both sexist and ageist, suggests the woman needs the antidepressant and tranquillizer Triavil.

Another ad from 1968 shows a bored, upper-middle-class couple whose hauteur is also said to really be depression. "Do you have patients who try to hide frustration behind conformity?" says the ad for the antidepressant Aventyl HCl.

You'd think such demeaning ads would vanish with DTC advertising because people would be offended. But You're Sicker-Than-You-Think ads are alive and well since DTC advertising and even flowering.

A three-page consumer ad in the late 2000s similarly conveys that everyday psychological traits could actually be dire mental problems that require medication. If you are "talking too fast," "spending out of control," "sleeping less," "flying off the handle" and "buying things you don't need," you could be suffering from bipolar disorder said the ads, which appeared in magazines like People. And here you thought it was the coffee. Accompanying photos of a woman screaming into a phone and contorting her face are so extreme they could come out of the movie Halloween Part II, if the woman were holding a knife.

Psychiatric drugs are not just advertised for everyday personality problems. Pharma is pushing them for everyday pain conditions. Eli Lilly's original depression campaign for the antidepressant Cymbalta, "Depression Hurts," seems to anticipate its subsequent approval for pain conditions including back problems. Now ads tout Cymbalta as a "non-narcotic, once daily analgesic FDA approved for three indications across four different chronic pain conditions," as if it does not have severe controversial psychiatric risks including the suicide of volunteers who tested it.

And seizure and epilepsy drugs, known for major allergic and psychiatric reactions, are also becoming pain franchises. "What's causing your chronic widespread muscle pain?" asks an ad for the seizure and epilepsy drug Lyrica. "The answer may be overactive nerves," says the ad, even though "widespread muscle pain" and "over-active nerves," are not mentioned in the approved labeling for Lyrica, says pharmaceutical reporter John Mack. The military spent $35 million on seizure and epilepsy drugs in 2009 alone, including for migraines, headaches and pain.

And speaking of overkill, ads for genetically engineered injected drugs like Humira, approved to treat serious diseases like Crohn's disease, psoriatic arthritis and chronic plaque psoriasis look like they are designed to sell beer or beauty treatments, not immune suppressing drugs that invite cancers and lethal infections.

DTC ads don't just escalate everyday problems into psychiatric problems, they also escalate real psychiatric problems into irresponsible, sensationalistic stereotypes. Ads for the best-selling antipsychotic Risperdal, widely used in children, and in soldiers with PTSD, suggest that people with mental illness have hallucinatory fears about "boiling rain" and "dog women." The "dog woman" ad, showing a half-dog, half-woman crouched on her elbows, her eyes blackened, furthers the sensationalizing of mental illness with the tagline, "Because relapses are a living nightmare."

2. Your Kid Is Sick 

DTC ads don't just convince people they're in need of new drugs, but also that their kids may be, too. And it's been going on for decades.

Long before Pharma convinced parents, teachers and clinicians that millions of US kids had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), kids were said to suffer from "minimal brain dysfunction" (MBD) and "hyperkinesis," two conditions that were essentially the same as ADHD. In fact, so many kids had MBD by 1976 that an ad for the drug Cylert hailed the "Importance of single daily dose to the child, the parents and the teacher," because kids wouldn't have to be singled out anymore at pill time at school. (ADHD has been so huckstered, a YMCA ad spoofs it with the headline, "Before video games, before Facebook, before Ritalin, there was basketball.")

Yet neither Cylert--whose approval the FDA withdrew in 2005 because of liver failure and deaths--or the current ADHD drugs are safe. In 2009, researchers reported that kids are more likely to die sudden deaths while taking them and the American Heart Association recommends electrocardiograms (ECGs) before kids take them. And yet, combined sales of ADHD drugs continue to grow from $4.05 billion to $7.42 billion in 2010.

Thirty years ago, it certainly looked like kids were being overmedicated. They were given the antipsychotic Thorazine for their "hyperactivity," "hostility," sleep problems and even for vomiting. Picky eaters and kids who wet the bed were given tranquillizers. Kids with tics, stuttering and school phobia were given the tranquillizer Miltown.  

But today, ads promoting drugs for kids continue, and now they are aimed at parents. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference between ads for drugs or ads for sugary cereals! Pharma tells moms to give their kids the bubble gum-flavored ADHD med, LiquADD and the grape-flavored ADHD med, Methylin. The latter campaign, to parents, is "Give 'em the GRAPE!"

DTC advertising has also convinced parents their kids suffer from GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) otherwise known as acid reflux disease, which was barely a disease in adults much less kids, before consumer advertising. "GERD Can Be a Big Problem for Little Kids," say award-winning ads for Prevacid, which won a "RX Club" Silver award in 2004. In Europe, kids are treated for another "adult disease" and given chewable Liptitor to lower their cholesterol.

Some of Pharma's most aggressive advertising has been designed to convince parents their children's minor sniffles or wheezing are imminent asthma and require immediate and expensive drugs. To make the asthma drug Singulair (which also comes in a yummy chewable), the seventh most popular drug in 2010, Merck inked partnerships with the American Academy of Pediatrics and Scholastic, both of which parents consider neutral organizations and not Pharma mouthpieces. Merck also partnered with Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Peter Vanderkaay and NBA kid clubs to sell the asthma drug.

"A kid who's got what your kid's got is out doing what your kid's not," says one Singulair ad campaign. "Find out how you can help your child breathe a little easier."

If Singulair were not harmful, the huckstering would simply be a case of wasting money and overmedicating kids. But Singulair has been linked to both pediatric suicide and to emotional, behavioral and ADHD-like symptoms in kids, the latter likely inspiring parents to give their kids "the grape."

Of course, another kid-targeted campaign is for the vaccine against the sexually transmitted Papillomavirus or HPV, immortalized by Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann in hot exchanges this fall. Many object to the sexualizing of 9-year-olds, to government lining Pharma's pockets by promoting the vaccine (including overseas) and to the risks of the vaccines themselves. But the ads for Gardasil and Cervarix are also offensive.

Last spring, poster-sized ads for Gardasil on Chicago's commuter trains pretended to sell real estate in sought-after neighborhoods. A closer look revealed descriptions of women in those neighborhoods who thought they didn't need the HPV vaccine but did, positioning HPV not only as a general risk to the population, like flu, rather than an STD but as "hip."

HPV vaccine ads got even cooler when GSK rolled out Cervarix extravaganza TV ads and its "armed against cervical cancer" campaign with an Angelina Jolie-like model displaying a skinny arm with a Cervarix tattoo.

3. Be Like Me, and Can Your Beer Do This?

Prescription drugs may affect health, but they are still consumer products sold with the same marketing principles as toothpaste or beer. In fact, the wacky, "Can Your Beer Do This?" Miller Lite campaign of the 1990s, came back to life to sell the antidepressant Wellbutrin XR. In a glossy, color magazine ad, a young man rows his girlfriend on a scenic lake and lists the benefits of his Wellbutrin XR. "Can your medicine do all that?" he asks.

What does it say about the success of DTC advertising that people are assumed to have an antidepressant?

Experiential ads also sell prescription drugs like vintage ads for the "Kodak Moment," "Maalox Moment" and the old cigarette ads for the "L&M Moment" did. "Lunesta Sleep. Have You Tried it?" asks a 2007 ad in Parade magazine, elevating the experience to something akin to "designer sleep."

And just as celebrities move other consumer products, they have been deployed to sell prescription drugs. TV personality Joan Lunden and former baseball star Mike Piazza stumped for the allergy pill Claritin, ice skater Dorothy Hamill and track star Bruce Jenner for the pain pill Vioxx, and Sen. Bob Dole for Viagra. NASCAR figure Bobby Labonte also endorsed the antidepressant Wellbutrin XL in 2004. Yes, his medicine could "do all that."

But there has been a problem with celebrity drug endorsements, unlike product endorsements in which a celebrity like Tiger Woods or Martha Stewart could taint a product, a prescription drug can taint a celebrity! Did Dorothy Hamill know that Vioxx doubled the risk of heart attacks in users when she stumped for it? Did the model Lauren Hutton know that hormone replacement therapy causes a 26 percent higher incidence of breast cancer, a 29 percent increase in heart attacks, a 41 percent increase in strokes, and a doubling of the rate of blood clots when she shilled for it? Does actress Sally Field know that bone drugs like Boniva are linked to esophageal cancer, jaw bone death and the very fractures they are supposed to prevent as she pushes them?

Of course, good product marketing includes public relations. When Pharma sells a disease with no mention of the drug it is really selling, it's called "unbranded" advertising. Since DTC advertising, Pharma has invaded public service announcements (PSAs) that TV and radio stations confer for free, pretending their take-a-drug messages serve the public good, like messages to change smoke detector batteries or put kids in car seats.

One such "educational" "awareness" campaign called "Depression Is Real" saturated the radio air waves in 2011, funded by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which was investigated by Congress for its Pharma funding from Wyeth, part of Pfizer, and other groups. The high-budget ads, running for free, compare depression to diabetes because it doesn't go away and to cancer because it can be fatal.

4. One Kind of Ad You Won't See Anymore

Animal research at drug companies and the National Institutes of Health is a great scientific iceberg of which people only see a tip. In drug development, millions of animals die to prove a drug's "safety." At academic and medical centers, animal study grants from NIH provide millions to researchers and labs.

As sentiment grows against animal experiments and the government's gigantic National Primate Research Centers (new rules will limit the use of chimpanzees), the research is downplayed and even hidden. But there was a time when Pharma actually flaunted animal research.

"More than a decade of animal research on various animal species has suggested that Librium (chlordiazepozxide HCI) exerts its principal effects on certain key areas of the limbic system," says an ad from the 1970s, showing three monkeys crouching and dangling in cages as assorted experiments are conducted.

An ad for the diet pill Pre-Sate is even worse. It says, "one of the most sophisticated comparative animal studies ever conducted demonstrates direct action on the satiety centers," and shows five photos of cats in experiments. One shows a life-size white cat looking at the camera with a chain around its neck and invasive instrumentation embedded in its skull.

Today's consumers, it seems, wouldn't tolerate ads like these. (Or the experiments behind them.) Why do they tolerate derisive ads about "dog women" and ploys to market pharmaceuticals to kids as if it were candy?