U.S. Troops Reportedly Taking More Medication Than Ever

In 2010 a US Army study revealed how 14 percent of soldiers have been prescribed an opiate painkiller. 95 percent of those prescriptions were for oxycodone, a notoriously-addictive pharmaceutical best known by the brand name OxyContin. And since 2001, military spending on prescription medication has skyrocketed. Orders for antipsychotics like Seroquel are up 200 percent, and demand for anti-anxiety drugs like Valium has increased by 170 percent, according to Defense Logistics Agency records. Many of the antidepressants, antipsychotic drugs and anti-anxiety drugs prescribed are highly addictive. Potential side effects include dulled reaction times, irritability and a heightened risk of suicide. “The medications they use shouldn’t be so heavily prescribed in combat,” said Dr. Judith Broder, a psychiatrist and founder of the Soldiers Project, a nonprofit counseling service.

52% of foster kids are prescribed psych drugs—One of them is fighting back

At just 6 years of age, still grieving over the death of the only mother he had ever known, his foster mother, Giovan Bazan would receive the first of many psychiatric ‘diagnoses’ and drugs that would plague him for the next twelve years of his life. Moved from foster home to foster home, orphanages and other modes of state care, Giovan was stigmatized with a plethora of psychiatric diagnoses and drugs until the age of 18, when he could finally make his own medical decisions and quit. Now a child advocate working part time at the Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) in Georgia, Giovan is on a mission: To get a full-time job with DFCS and help enact laws to combat the wholesale labeling and drugging of foster children. In the video below, Giovan tells his story and why he decided to fight back against the abuse of kids in foster care.

US Troops Heavily Medicated on Prescription Drugs, Report Warns

Men and women in the US military are more medicated than ever — and their doctors do not even know who takes what, The Daily reported Wednesday.

The Department of Defense does not keep track of medical prescriptions doled out to service members in combat, despite ongoing pleas from federal officials to do just that.

Antipsychotics Have Dramatic Consequences in Kids, Study Shows

Doling out antipsychotic to kids for the first time can be a case of the cure being worse than the disease. Researchers found children can experience dramatic weight gain and insulin resistance just weeks after taking the drugs for the first time, Medscape.com reports. Lead researcher, John W. Newcomer, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Miami, tells Medscape that prescribing antipsychotics has become trendy in the past 15 years or so — even though there is no sudden epidemic of schizophrenia in children. “The increase was due to the rising use of antipsychotics for disruptive behavior disorders,” he says.

Selling Depression—Adding New Spin and Urgency to Depression Drug Sales

The discovery that many people with life problem or occasional bad moods would willingly dose themselves with antidepressants sailed the drug industry through the 2000s. A good chunk of the $4.5 billion a year direct-to-consumer advertising has been devoted to convincing people they don’t have problems with their job, the economy and their family, they have depression. Especially because depression can’t be diagnosed from a blood test.

Unfortunately, three things dried up the depression gravy train for the drug industry. Blockbusters went off patent and generics took off, antidepressants were linked with gory and unpredictable violence, especially in young users and — they didn’t even work, according to medical articles!

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