JUST SAY NO, HAS BECOME YES, YES, YES

An unprecedented 1 in 66 Americans is a diagnosed psychotic

By Robert Johnson

Outselling even common drugs to treat high blood pressure and acid reflux, antipsychotic medications are the single top-selling prescription drug in the United States.



Once reserved for hard-core, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest type of mental illnesses to treat hallucinations, delusions or major thought disorders; today, the drugs are handed out to unruly kids and absent minded elderly.

A recent story in Al Jazeera by James Ridgeway of Mother Jones illuminates the efforts by major pharmaceutical companies to get doctors prescribing medicines like Zyprexa, Seroquel, and Abilify to patients for whom the drugs were never intended.

Focusing on psychiatrists because they rely on subjective diagnoses, the drug reps have been so successful that they've changed the criteria for mental illness and disability payments. Ridgeway quotes former New England Journal of Medicine editor Marcia Angell.
"[T]he tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders that they qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007 - from one in 184 Americans to one in seventy-six. For children, the rise is even more startling - a thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades. Mental illness is now the leading cause of disability in children." Under the tutelage of Big Pharma, we are "simply expanding the criteria for mental illness so that nearly everyone has one." Fugh-Berman agrees: In the age of aggressive drug marketing, she says, "Psychiatric diagnoses have expanded to include many perfectly normal people."
Particularly vulnerable because medication decisions are often out of their hands the old and the young suffer most.
For kids: the number diagnosed with bi-polar disorder rose 40-fold between 1994 and 2003 and one in five comes away from a psychiatrist with a prescription for an antipsychotic.

Dosing the elderly at nursing homes has become so common that sales reps have coined the term "five at five" -- meaning 5 milligrams of Zyprexa at 5 pm to sedate difficult residents.

For all their nefarious wrangling, in 2009, Lily agreed to pay $1.4 billion, including a $515 million criminal fine. The largest ever in a health care case and the largest criminal fine on any corporation in the U.S.


That year, Lilly sold $1.8 billion of Zyprexa alone.
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The 15 highest grossing prescription drugs in the U.S.
($9 billion of the total for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, plus $3.2 billion for depression and anxiety.)

15. Oxycontin.
Made by Purdue Pharma. Used as a painkiller for moderate to severe pain .
Gross: $3.0 billion
One-year growth: 6.9%
Five-year growth: 287.5%

14. Avastin
Made by Genentech. Used by cancer patients as part of "tumor-starving" therapy.
Gross: $3.1 billion
One-year growth: 3.3%
Five-year growth: 82.4%

13. Cymbalta
Made by Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY). Used to treat depression and anxiety disorders.
Gross: $3.2 billion
One-year growth: 14.2%
Five-year growth: 166.7%

12. Enbrel
Made by Amgen (AMGN) and Pfizer (PFE). Used to treat inflammatory diseases including arthritis.
Gross: $3.3 billion
One-year growth: 0%
Five-year growth: 6.5%

11. Remicade
Made by Centocor. Used to treat Crohn's Disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
Gross: $3.3 billion
One-year growth: 3.1%
Five-year growth: 32%

10. Epogen
Made by Amgen (AMGN). Used by patients with chronic kidney failure to treat anemia.
Gross: $3.3 billion
One-year growth: 3.1%
Five-year growth: 3.1%

9. Actos
Made by Takeda. Used to treat Type 2 diabetes.
Gross: $3.5 billion
One-year growth: 2.9%
Five-year growth: 34.6%

8. Crestor
Made by AstraZeneca (AZN). Used to reduce cholesterol.
Gross: $3.8 billion
One-year growth: 26.7%
Five-year growth: 192.3%

7. Singulair
Made by Merck. Used to treat asthma.
Gross: $4.1 billion
One-year growth: 10.8%
Five-year growth: 36.7%

6. Seroquel
Made by AstraZeneca (AZN). Used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder .
Gross: $4.4 billion
One-year growth: 4.8%
Five-year growth: 46.7%

5. Abilify
Made by Otsuka and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY). Used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Gross: $4.6 billion
One-year growth: 15%
Five-year growth: 142.1%

4. Advair Diskus
Made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Used to treat asthma symptoms.
Gross: $4.7 billion
One-year growth: 0%
Five-year growth: 20.5%

3. Plavix
Made by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) and Sanofi Pharmaceuticals. Used to prevent blood clots by patients at risk for strokes and heart attacks.
Gross: $6.1 billion
One-year growth: 8.9%
Five-year growth: 110.3%

2. Nexium
Made by AstraZeneca (AZN). Used by patients with acid reflux to treat heart burn.
Gross: $6.3 billion
One-year growth: 0%
Five-year growth: 23.5%

1. Lipitor
Made by Pfizer (PFE). Used to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Gross: $7.2 billion
One-year growth: -5.3%
Five-year growth: -16%

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resposted by kate mcconn- lnglewood/antebellum corespondent