AstraZeneca Pays to settle 17,500 of the outstanding Seroquel Suits

AstraZeneca is moving closer to resolving the large number of lawsuits filed in the US over claims that the risks of its Seroquel antipsychotic were not properly disclosed. In this disclosure, AstraZeneca has agreed to pay about $198 million to settle 17,500, or roughly two-thirds of the outstanding lawsuits, according to a statement.
Read article at pharmalot.com

AstraZenica, its drug, Seroquel, its illegal marketing of antipsychotic drugs,

and its misleading of doctors and patients, and the serious harm Seroquel does to the unfortunate patients/victims who take or have taken it, reported here by the New York Times.

I urge you to read the article in full. It contains a resumé of other pharmaceutical companies who have similarly poisoned the people who have taken their dangerous antipsychotic and painkiller junk. Some of the damaged people are children, their lives and health now permanently blighted by massive weight gain, diabetes and other attendant ill-health. Some victims have actually died from the adverse effects.

Yes, the evil pharmaceutical industry pays out huge sums of money in a sort of system of fines, though these huge sums are insignificant set against their colossal profits, but they don't seem to go to prison for these crimes against humanity, including what many would regard as torture and murder, do they? Why? Why don't they go to prison? They knowingly lie about the results of drug trials. They knowingly supply products they know will do grave harm. - Why does the judicial system not protect the citizens? Should the members of the judiciary be held to account? Should they themselves go to prison?

In a fierce and deadly irony, I see that on the same webpage as the report to which I refer, there is an advertisement to recruit volunteers to take part in drug trials! - Not me, guv!

If you, or anyone you know - maybe one of those poor, damaged children - gained weight from taking any of these ghastly drugs, or gained weight from taking any other prescription drugs, please be aware that that weight gain can be reduced by cutting down on salt and salty food. - It makes a great difference, believe me. Please tell these victims. Do not have it on your conscience that you failed to tell them about this safe, fast, effective way to lose excess weight and improve their health and happiness. Don't pass by on the other side and leave them to suffer needlessly.

See Sodium in foods.

Lose weight

vulnerable groups

Fat Retention

Radio 4's File on 4 tonight deals with how AstraZeneca 'suppressed' Seroquel drug test data re massive weight gain and diabetes side-effects

Radio 4's File on 4 tonight (26/01/2010) deals with how AstraZeneca 'suppressed' Seroquel drug test data about its side-effects of massive weight gain and diabetes. See article on BBC News. "The marketing team sued over a drug's alleged side effects tried to suppress key data, an ex-employee has claimed. Seroquel's former UK medical adviser told the BBC he was pressured to approve promotional material which said weight gain was not an issue."

The British Medical Journal editor, Dr Fiona Godlee, sensibly urges that the medicine licensing system be reviewed. She says the pharmaceutical industry should no longer provide the evaluations of its own drugs for the licensing body to consider.

See also File on 4 itself: "A British drug company is being sued by more than 15,000 people in the United States who claim its bestselling antipsychotic drug caused severe weight gain, diabetes and other serious medical conditions. Ann Alexander investigates concerns about the way it was marketed and asks how much the public should be told about the drugs they take."

Actually there are dozens of commonly prescribed drugs that have these side-effects and these are obviously a major cause of the continuing rise in the incidence and severity of obesity and type 2 diabetes and a host of other degenerative illnesses that are co-morbidities of obesity. The drugs include cortico-steroids, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen - like some birth control medication (contraceptives), tricyclic anti-depressants, especially amitriptyline, some SSRI anti-depressants, anti-psychotics (notoriously Zyprexa,aka olanzapine), some anti-epileptics/anticonvulsants, e.g. Epilim (sodium valproate). This is by no means an exhaustive list. See my webpage about steroids and HRT et al.

So the NHS (and all other purchasers of pharmaceutical drugs the world over), as well as paying for the drugs that its doctors prescribe, incurs the astronomical costs of the vast spectrum of disabling chronic health problems they cause. - ALL of this avoidable ill-health and suffering results from the primary adverse side-effect, which is sodium retention, and all of the innocent patients who are its victims become sensitive to salt/sodium, and should have been warned strictly to avoid salt and salty food while taking the medication, because for them, salt intake causes them weight gain. I have been researching this subject intensively for well over ten years now, and I have not heard of even one doctor who gives and stresses this vital message to his/her victims/patients. Inadequate knowledge of drug side-effects is lamentably widespread in the medical profession. Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, osteomalacia, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Sodium in foods

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

Patients should be given facts about pharmaceutical drugs

Pharmaceutical companies spend millions each year to market drugs to doctors and potential patients. That makes it all the more outrageous that AstraZeneca is asking an Orlando court to keep information about the performance of its lucrative antipsychotic drug Seroquel secret. The company is claiming public safety, saying it shouldn't be required to release information about the drug that could cause a panic among "a vulnerable patient population" that might stop taking the drug without a doctor's oversight. But the real public safety issue is one of public health and whether the company hid findings that Seroquel causes weight gain and diabetes. The legal system must put public health — and a patient's right to know — above a company's interest in secrecy.
Read editorial in the St. Petersburg Times (Florida/USA)

Lose weight, by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Rebecca Riley - a four year old - has died because of medication prescribed for "a bipolar personality"...)o:

Bipolar children - is the US overdiagnosing? - New Scientist

Extract:

"Rebecca Riley seemed a normal, playful young child, if at times a little boisterous. Then, aged 2, she was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and at 3 as having a bipolar personality. By the age of 4, Rebecca was dead, killed by an overdose of the drug clonidine, which was being used to treat her condition. She was also taking the anti-convulsant Depakote (valproate) and the anti-psychotic Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate) to stabilise her mood."

I believe it is foolhardy and indefensible to give psychotropic drugs to children, especially to such a young child as this. Children should be protected BY LAW from being prescribed these drugs. Prescription drugs are potentially very harmful, particularly to children. And attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is not a real disease, of course, only a putative disease. - This poor child was given THREE dangerous drugs, apparently all at the same time. - Giving more than one dangerous drug at the same time potentiates the risk...)o: