Use of chemical restraints in nursing homes called an epidemic

Nearly 25 percent of the residents in California’s nursing homes are placed on antipsychotic drugs, often used as sort of a chemical leash to control behavior in a trend a watchdog called an epidemic Thursday at a symposium. The drugs can double the risk of death for seniors with dementia and cause side effects ranging from stroke to delirium, according to speakers at an Oxnard conference called “Toxic Medicine.”

Adderall’s on First, Ritalin’s on Second: The Ongoing Saga of PEDs in Baseball

It seems like an eternity since Major League Baseball finally got around to admitting it had a problem of the performance enhancing variety, but in reality it has barely been a half a decade. Players once thought to be first-ballot Hall of Famers are struggling to garner more than a pittance of support from sports writers and fans alike as the sport carries on the best it can. Attendance remains high—despite an ongoing quasi-recession—television revenue is streaming in and it appears that many of the measures taken by commissioner Bud Selig and his merry band of nitwits salvaged what little dignity this great sport had left in the wake of all that ugliness. But alas, as always, looks can be deceiving. I, for one, was more than a little bit surprised when MLB decided to include a ban on stimulants in its new drug program a few years back….When the league banned these drugs, an amazing thing happened. The number of players claiming and obtaining “therapeutic use” exemptions for stimulants nearly quadrupled from 28 to 103…I mean how the hell can ADHD multiply fourfold in a sport in a single year? How can it become three times as prevalent in that sport as in the adult population? Is it contagious? Can Derek Jeter give it to Dustin Pedroia if he coughs on him as he slides into second base? Of course not.

J&J Duped South Carolina Doctors Over Risperdal, Lawyer Says

Johnson & Johnson executives deceived South Carolina doctors about the safety of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, and the drugmaker should be held liable for that deception, a lawyer said.

J&J made misleading claims about Risperdal’s health risks and effectiveness in a letter to more than 7,000 South Carolina doctors and that violated consumer protection laws, John Simmons, a lawyer for the state, said in closing arguments of the trial of a lawsuit seeking at least $360 million in penalties.