A blog about the intersection of medicine and business, produced by the members of the Medical Consumerism seminar at the University of Minnesota.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Medicating Children with Antipsychotics
2 comments:
Anonymous
said...
This story is eerily similar to one published a few years back, also by the New York Times. That piece enlightened the readers about George Realmuto, a psychiatry professor at the University of Minnesota and the severe side effects a poor young girl was experiencing from the risperdal Realmuto was giving her in a clinical study. Realmuto response at the time of being interviewed ran along the lines of something like "as a celebrity I could make a whole lot more money" Follow the money with these quacks and it almost always shows a paper trail that doesn't have 'patients best interest' as the first entry.
Unfortunately, a physician is allowed to prescribe these medications off label, but often with dire consequences. For instance, in Florida Dr. Sohail Punjwani prescribed a cocktail of psychiatric meds to 7-yr. old Gabriel Myers who subsequently hung himself. This 'doc' also prescribed these drugs to 16-yr. old Emilio Villamar. Check the internet to see what happened to Emilio. Dr. Stephen L. Kaplan, also in Florida, prescribed antipsychotics to Denis Maltez. After Denis died, Kaplan said, "I never had any suspicion he was being overmedicated." Not surprising, others did.
These so-called doctors must be named, and must be held acountable. Our children are not expendable!
2 comments:
This story is eerily similar to one published a few years back, also by the New York Times. That piece enlightened the readers about George Realmuto, a psychiatry professor at the University of Minnesota and the severe side effects a poor young girl was experiencing from the risperdal Realmuto was giving her in a clinical study. Realmuto response at the time of being interviewed ran along the lines of something like "as a celebrity I could make a whole lot more money" Follow the money with these quacks and it almost always shows a paper trail that doesn't have 'patients best interest' as the first entry.
Unfortunately, a physician is allowed to prescribe these medications off label, but often with dire consequences. For instance, in Florida Dr. Sohail Punjwani prescribed a cocktail of psychiatric meds to 7-yr. old Gabriel Myers who subsequently hung himself. This 'doc' also prescribed these drugs to 16-yr. old Emilio Villamar. Check the internet to see what happened to Emilio. Dr. Stephen L. Kaplan, also in Florida, prescribed antipsychotics to Denis Maltez. After Denis died, Kaplan said, "I never had any suspicion he was being overmedicated." Not surprising, others did.
These so-called doctors must be named, and must be held acountable. Our children are not expendable!
Mary Weiss
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