Reported by: Patrick Fraser
Producer: Patrick Fraser
Contact: pfraser@wsvn.com

7 News Investigation reports

WSVN — When I first met Anthony he was not the child who had been described to me.

Hope Estrada, Anthony’s Mother: “I’ve been told by some doctors in Key West that I’m raising the next Charles Manson, OK?”

One doctor said he was mentally retarded, another said he was bi-polar. He has been sent to psychiatric hospitals, slapped in straight jackets and given mind altering drugs. The affect of it all on an 8-year-old is not surprising.

Hope Estrada: “The other day when he was Baker Acted and they restrained him, he told me, ‘Mom, I want to kill myself, I don’t want to live like this, I can’t control myself.’”

Hope says she was told a few weeks ago, by the State of Florida the best solution is to give up on Anthony.

Hope Estrada: “Basically I’ve been told, you know, move on with your life, and give Anthony to the state and let him become a ward of the state. I’m not going to do that, I refuse to give in.”

And so, after contacting dozens of people from the president on down she called Help Me Howard and we knew this case required an expert.

Howard Finkelstein: “I knew that Anthony needed a lawyer that was an expert in both DCF how kids were treated medications, mental health issues and the only person that came to mind was the best person was Andrea Moore.”

Andrea Moore, a noted child advocate, agreed to take Anthony’s case for free. It took weeks of her time, but as she met with Hope and Anthony, interviewed specialists and dug through his medical records, many things bothered her.

Andrea Moore, Child Advocate: “They didn’t know his IQ. This is the place he’s been three times in three years, they didn’t know his IQ, and he’s very smart, yet some of the paperwork that I saw, said he was mentally retarded. The conflicting information in the records tells me that people didn’t really carefully read the records.”

The heavy doses of three mind altering drugs used on adults troubled Andrea, even more frightening she believes Anthony may not have even needed those drugs.

Andrea Moore: “I started to wonder if we were dealing with a head injury, as opposed to a psychiatric, purely psychiatric situation.”

Turns out Andrea was right, Anthony did have a prior head injury. He fell and fractured his skull when he was eight months old, but he had never had a brain scan, instead private doctors hired by the state concluded he had psychiatric problems.

Patrick Fraser: “Why did it take you to notice this, when he is under the care of a psychiatrist, and has seen more doctors then you and I have probably seen in our lives combined? Why did it take you coming in from the outside to see that?”

Andrea Moore: “This is a terrible question Patrick.”

Andrea is modest and polite, Howard is blunt.

Howard Finkelstein: “They had diagnosed him wrong, they treated him wrong, and as a result of the misdiagnosis and mistreatment, I believe they were making him worse.”

With DCF’s help, Andrea got Anthony off the powerful drugs and moved from the psychiatric hospital. To Jackson Memorial’s highly touted brain injury center.

Patrick Fraser: “Good to see you my man.”

Today Anthony is getting the evaluations Andrea thinks he needs, and our investigation is bringing changes. When he was put in one psychiatric hospital Hope was forced to sign this letter that says if Hope has complaints about treatment or abuse she would not report it to DCF.

Jacqui Colyer, DCF Regional Director: “That I think is what keeps DCF on its feet.”

When DCF saw the document they moved quickly.

Jacqui Colyer: “We have spoken with all of our provider agencies just to let them know that they can not tell families when to call or not to call us, because that is a part of their rights.”

DCF also applauded Hope for fighting so hard for her son, but they say she did misunderstand one thing, that the state would have only taken custody of Anthony temporarily, not permanently, but thing is indisputable without Hope, Anthony was doomed.

And of course Hope and Anthony could not have done it without Andrea Moore.

Howard Finkelstein: “Andrea gave us her time her energy and her expertise and she fought along with Hope to save Anthony, you and I, we were just along for the ride.”

Got to see a little boy get a chance to just be a normal little boy.

Hope to Patrick: “Thank you. God bless you, because if it wasn’t for you, or Andrea, or Howard, my son would not get the help he needs Patrick, you are my guardian angel. I swear to God you are Anthony’s guardian angel and I owe you so much for this, I really really do.”

Finally Hope is wrong, Anthony has hope because of his mother’s hope

Patrick told me Anthony called him the other day and said he would really like to get a dog to make sure Patrick didn’t forget Anthony. faxed a picture of the kind of dog he wants he is getting better all right.

URL with Video: http://www.wsvn.com/features/articles/investigations/MI132922

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Richard Lemus interviewed the atrocious Psychiatrist, Dr. Scott Segal the owner of the Segal Institute for Clinical Research and has said:

Dr. Scott Segal, Psychiatrist, Segal Institute for Clinical Research: “It’s definitely making adults depressed, and therefore the children depressed, as well. However, they have less money to spend on treatments, and these days insurance companies have higher co-payments and it’s very difficult for people to come in.”

Even scarier, it’s hard for patients or their families to pay for the medications they so desperately need.

Dr. Scott Segal: “They get their visits and their evaluations and whatever is needed in the study for free, as well as medications. In fact, in research studies, the treatment is above the normal level of care.”

Patients will often try out new drugs that aren’t on the market yet and many times they can stay on that medication after the study is over.

Dr. Scott Segal: “In many studies, after the study is over, the pharmaceutical company will give them a compassionate care and allow them take the medications for a period of time.”

David is on a new medication and sees a doctor weekly. He and his mom have high hopes for the future.

What Richard Lemus and the Channel 7 News Fox WSVN-TV fail to revel to the public is that theirs other ways to defeat depression without the usage of the dangerous drugs. It’s called proper diet, exercise and proper outdoor activities like going to the beach or going to a park. In the whole segment of the story reported by Richard Lemus nowhere did it mention natural ways to deal with depression.

Transcript from this story can be seen on: URL: http://www.wsvn.com/features/articles/medicalreports/MI131332

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3JQ8OVHVWA[/youtube]

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Meanwhile, federal inspectors were at both facilities Thursday and today reviewing new complaints of patient abuse and neglect.

The loss of Medicaid and Medicare money at Central Regional Hospital, which includes a new $130 million building in Butner and the Dorothea Dix Hospital campus in Raleigh, comes at a critical time for a state Department of Health and Human Services already facing deep budget cuts. It cost about $10 million a month to operate the two hospitals.

DHHS spokesman Brad Deen reiterated Friday that the funding loss could still be averted if state mental health officials can convince regulators they can fix the problems, but the latest visit is at least the fifth by investigators since the new hospital in Butner opened last summer.

Each time previously, the inspectors found new problems.

A team arrived Thursday to review complaints regarding a potentially fatal medical error involving a patient on a children’s ward in Butner and two separate incidents of alleged physical abuse of patients by staff at Dix.

The state merged Dix with Central Regional last year in preparation for closing the aging Raleigh hospital. But ongoing deficiencies in patient safety at the new, half-occupied hospital in Butner has stalled the move — leaving both facilities in legal limbo.

A letter sent to Central Regional director Mike Hennike by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Wednesday is similar in tone to those the federal agency sent to Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro and Broughton Hospital in Morganton before those facilities were cut off from funding.

“When a hospital is found to be out of compliance, a determination must be made that the facility no longer meets the requirements for participation as a provider of services in the Medicare program,” the letter said. “Such a determination has been made in the case of Central Regional Hospital.”

Since Dix is now considered part of Central Regional for administrative purposes, the problems in Butner could result in both hospitals losing federal money.

A 45-page report issued with Wednesday’s letter shows inspectors found the staff at the Butner campus had repeatedly failed to follow new rules aimed at preventing patients from falling. The rules were implemented late last year after a paraplegic man fell getting into a wheelchair, breaking both legs.

The report recounts about a dozen incidents in January where patients known to be a risk for falls were allowed to fall again because the staff failed to take proper precautions.

In one example cited in the report, a 59-year old woman with bipolar disorder, a brain tumor and a history of falls was observed by the inspectors wandering a ward while wearing a hospital gown so oversized it dragged the floor around her feet, potentially causing her to trip.

The woman was wearing slip-resistant socks, as required, but it was found that the health care technician who had dressed the patient that morning had put them on inside-out, making the non-skid bottoms ineffective.

Vicki Smith, the executive director of Disability Rights North Carolina, was incredulous at the report. The advocacy group sought and received an injunction from a Wake County judge in September to stop the closing of Dix until the new hospital in Butner could be proven safe.

She recounted how administrators in the state Division of Mental Health have repeatedly downplayed the severity of problems at Central Regional, focusing in their public remarks on relatively mild issues the inspectors had noted, such as burnt-out light bulbs in an emergency stairwell.

“This is not light bulbs,” Smith said. “This is about how people are being treated. Losing federal money [at Central Regional and Dix] would be a horrible blow for for the state mental health system. It couldn’t come at a worse time, as far as the fiscal impact.”

URL: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1396542.html

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Fri, Jan 16, 2009 (2 a.m.)
Sun Archives  * Mental hospital criticized (11-30-2005)

State investigators have fined the state’s psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas for not protecting a female patient who was reportedly raped by a male patient with known violent tendencies.

The staff at Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital knew the man had bipolar and antisocial personality disorders and was prone to violence but failed to put protections in place to prevent him from harming others, according to the state’s investigation of the incident, released Thursday. It was one of three alleged rapes at the state’s two mental hospitals since 2005.

The medical records of the male patient, who was referred to only as “Pedro,” age 33, revealed he had “many incidents in which he was aggressive and threatening to staff and peers,” investigators from the Nevada Health Division’s Licensure and Certification Bureau wrote in their report.

Five weeks before the alleged rape, a psychological assessment concluded that Pedro was “a violent risk and care should be exercised in dealing with him. He is not amendable to behavioral interventions and will likely become agitated in reaction to any denial of what he feels entitled to.”

In October, Pedro threw a cup of orange juice at a female patient because she would not talk to him, the investigation found.

About a month later, he allegedly raped a different woman.

According to the state’s investigation, a mental health technician making a routine room check Nov. 14 saw Pedro leaving the 45-year-old woman’s room. The female patient told the facility’s staff that she had kissed Pedro willingly, but that even though she told him to stop he “forced himself into me.” Pedro claimed it was consensual sex.

Patients are closely monitored at Rawson-Neal, but patients are not locked in their rooms. They have been admitted because they are considered a danger to themselves or others. Many have violent or unstable tendencies, officials said.

The hospital’s director of nursing told state investigators that the facility’s policy is to have a staffing ratio of five patients per employee. At the time of the incident, there were nine patients — including the alleged perpetrator and victim — and two staff in the unit, the director of nursing told investigators.

The state Licensure and Certification Bureau, which licenses the hospital, fined Rawson-Neal $1,000 for failing to protect the female patient — the amount that’s designated by Nevada law for such an infraction.

The alleged rape was reported immediately to the state and to Metro Police, which is still investigating. Pedro has not been arrested, police officials said. It has also been reported to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Joint Commission, which monitors hospital quality, officials said.

Harold Cook, administrator of the state’s Mental Health and Developmental Services Division, the state agency responsible for the hospitals, said his internal investigation concluded that the 234-bed Rawson-Neal lacked the internal systems to protect the patient. Everyone who comes into the facility is assessed for risk, Cook said, and in this case staff saw the risk presented by Pedro.

“The difficulty is when you don’t have a protocol in place to translate that recognition of risk into preventive action,” Cook said. “If you don’t have a formal protocol then it gets forgotten or overlooked sometimes.”

Cook said the state has now put processes in place to protect patients when it’s determined that other patients are high risk.

Less than a week after the rape, on Nov. 20, there was another sexual assault at Rawson-Neal. A male patient who was known to be aggressive, but had no known history of sexual abuse, allegedly raped his male roommate, the Licensure and Certification Bureau reported. But in this case investigators determined there were no deficiencies by the hospital.

Cook said every patient shares a room and that there was no prior warning that the man would attack his roommate. But he added that the hospital should have done a better risk assessment to alert staff of potential danger.

Rapes are rare occurrences in mental hospitals, according to Cook and other local mental health experts. In April 2005 Cook was the administrator at the other state-run facility, Dini-Townsend Mental Hospital in Sparks, when a sexual assault took place that resembled the alleged incident Nov. 14.

In that case, a female patient was lying in bed heavily sedated when she was raped by a male patient who had a history of physical assault and uncooperative behavior with staff, the Licensure and Certification Bureau’s investigation showed. There was no documentation that the hospital’s staff had performed a mandatory room check just before the woman was raped, and it’s estimated the man may have been alone in her room for as long as 30 minutes, the investigation found.

At that time, Cook submitted a corrective action plan to ensure that the proper systems were in place to prevent such incidents.

Recalling the April 2005 incident, Cook said that even though the state runs both agencies he does not know how many of the lessons learned in Northern Nevada in 2005 were applied to the Southern Nevada mental hospital.

“In hindsight when you take a look at it there were things that could have been done to prevent it,” Cook said of the sexual assault allegations against Pedro. “I’m sorry we didn’t, but we’ll learn from this and move on.”

URL:  http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jan/16/psychiatric-hospital-ned-absence-precautions-alleg/

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By Anne Harding

Susan Craig’s brother Roger died of a pulmonary embolism in 2007, at age 38. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in high school, he had been on antipsychotic drugs for years. At the time of his death, he was carrying 280 pounds on his 6-foot-4-inch frame.

Craig, a public relations specialist who works at Columbia University in New York City, knew that Roger’s medications could cause weight gain. But she had never been told that the drugs he was taking might be harming his heart.

“We were never counseled by his psychiatrist or his primary care provider to watch for symptoms of heart disease or any risk of sudden death at all,” Craig says. There’s no evidence that Roger’s medications caused his death, but his family might have been able to get him help sooner if they had known about the risks, Craig explains.
New research published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that antipsychotic drugs are not risk free, and the study’s authors are urging much more caution in their use. The drugs are associated with a risk of sudden cardiac death, particularly at higher doses. Health.com 10 best foods for your heart

Craig’s brother was taking haloperidol, which belongs to an older class of drugs called typical antipsychotics, which have long been known to increase the risk of sudden death due to cardiac causes. He was also on risperidone, a member of a newer class of drugs called atypical antipsychotics, which had been considered safer.

Doctors prescribe these newer medications, originally developed to treat schizophrenia, for a wide variety of problems — from conduct disorder in kids to aggressive behavior in Alzheimer’s patients. In fact, they’ve become so popular that three of them — olanzapine, risperidone, and quetiapine — are among the 10 top-selling drugs worldwide, with $14.5 billion in sales in 2007.

The new study suggests that among patients taking high doses of atypical antipsychotics, there are about 3.3 cases of sudden cardiac death per 1,000 patients per year, which an editorial characterizes as a risk that’s “between ‘moderate’ and ‘low,’ but not ‘rare.’” Health.com: Heart drug may be a cancer fighter

About 325,000 people in the United States each year die of sudden cardiac death, which has an incidence of 0.1 to 0.2 percent per year in adults.

“[The drugs] have potentially very serious side effects,” says Wayne A. Ray, Ph.D., the director of the division of pharmacoepidemiology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, in Nashville. “So whenever a decision is made to use one, consideration of potential side effects needs to be made.” Ray and his colleagues found that atypical antipsychotics doubled the risk of sudden death from heart-related causes, most likely by causing disturbances in heart rhythms.

First introduced in the mid-nineties, atypical antipsychotics were praised for having none of the troublesome side effects of their predecessors, including frequent, involuntary movements of the face and mouth that were in some cases irreversible.

But the new study shows that the increased risk of sudden cardiac death seen with the older drugs is nearly identical to that of the newer medications. There had been suspicions that the drugs were risky, especially when used in older patients, but the current study is the first to systematically investigate their association with sudden cardiac death.

Ray and his colleagues reviewed data on Tennessee Medicaid patients, comparing 44,218 people using older typical antipsychotics and 46,089 taking the newer atypical antipsychotics to 186,600 people who had never used the drugs. People with schizophrenia may have a higher rate of cardiac problems, due to smoking and other factors. To account for this, researchers also compared antipsychotic drug users without schizophrenia to non-drug users who had characteristics (in most cases, mood disorders) that made them likely candidates for the drugs.

Overall, people taking typical antipsychotics were at 1.99-times greater risk of sudden cardiac death, while the risk for those on atypical antipsychotics was increased 2.26 times. The increased risk was greater for people on higher doses of the drugs. People who had used the drugs in the past but stopped weren’t at greater risk of sudden cardiac death.

“The drugs are still very effective for conditions that there’s proven evidence for,” says Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D., a professor and chair of psychiatry at Columbia University, in New York City, and the director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, who was not involved with Ray’s research. “They clearly need to still be able to be used. I think this [study] really underscores the need to be very judicious about how these medications are used and whom they’re given to.”

While atypical antipsychotics have been used to ease aggressive behavior for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, for example, they are not approved for this purpose by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; in fact, in 2005, the FDA issued a warning that these drugs increased the risk of death among elderly people, extending the warning to all antipsychotic drugs last year, notes Sebastian Schneeweiss, M.D., Sc.D., an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, in Boston, who coauthored an editorial accompanying the current study. Health.com: How is depression in the elderly different from dementia?

Given the lack of better alternatives, these drugs are still widely used in patients with dementia despite the warnings, he adds. But while there’s anecdotal evidence that they will “cool these patients down” and reduce their aggressive behaviors, there’s no scientific evidence that they really help patients or their caregivers, Dr. Schneeweiss says.

In his editorial, Dr. Schneeweiss and coauthor Jerry Avorn, M.D., also of Harvard, call for patients to undergo an electrocardiogram before and shortly after being placed on atypical antipsychotics, to determine if the drugs are causing any heart rhythm disturbances.

For people who must be on these medications, Ray says, it’s essential for their doctors to treat any other conditions, such as high blood pressure, that can harm the heart. “Sudden cardiac death usually occurs when multiple risk factors are present,” he explains. “When you add one, it’s kind of like the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Absolutely the lowest dose that works should be used, because we found a strong dose response,” Ray says.

Jamaison Schuler, a spokesperson for Eli Lilly and Company, the maker of Zyprexa, says, “Although the study appears to have important limitations, it provides additional information for practicing physicians to consider as they decide how to treat very complex diseases such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.”

The FDA has approved atypical antipsychotics for treating bipolar disorder, Ray adds. But the researcher recommends that physicians first try safer alternatives, such as the mood stabilizer lithium. “That’s a very serious illness, and it has important consequences for patients’ quality of life and relationships,” Ray notes. “If the mood stabilizer doesn’t work, I think it’s very reasonable to consider an antipsychotic, but…other drugs should be considered first.”

Finally, he says, a patient should never stop taking any drug without consulting his or her physician. Nevertheless, anyone taking an atypical antipsychotic for a non-FDA-approved use should consult his physician. “I think off-label use should be undertaken very cautiously, and its frequency should be much less than it is currently,” Ray says. Health.com: Superfoods that can save your health

For Susan Craig, the new research makes it clear that treating serious mental illness must go far beyond just prescribing pills. “We need to be supporting these people in a better, more systematic way,” she says. “There’s no magic pill. It’s treating the whole person.”

URL: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/15/healthmag.antipsychotic.sudden.death/

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The study conducted at the Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Veterans Affairs Medical Center analyzed Medicaid records (from 1990 to 2005) of nearly 277,000 people aged between 30 and 74 years. While one-third of the people were taking either a newer or an older version of the antipsychotics, two-thirds were nonusers.

For each antipsychotic drug user, two age and sex matched non-users were assessed. During follow-up period, 478 sudden cardiacdefine deaths occurred among those taking the drugs – twice the rate that occurred in the control group, researchers report.

While the results reaffirmed the long held notion that charged older antipsychotic drugs to double the risk of sudden cardiac death
as compared to non-users, a graver result was put forth by the newer medications. The newer versions more than doubled the risk of sudden cardiac deaths, results confirmed.

Moreover, the risk of sudden cardiac death increased as the dosage of antipsychotic medications increased. However, the adverse effects faded once the prescription drugs were withdrawn.

However, the results do not entail that people should stop taking such drugs. “Any prescription is a balancing of risks and benefits. In some cases, there are no good alternative treatments” Dr Wayne A Raya, a Professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt and the Nashville veterans’ hospital marked.

“The implication of this study is that physicians need to do a very careful cardiovascular evaluation prior to prescribing these drugs” he added. The drugs should not be used in children and elderly for treating bipolar disorders like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Alzheimer’s disease.

Olanzapine (Zyprexa, Eli Lilly), risperidone (Risperdal, Janssen) and quetiapine (Seroquel, AstraZeneca) – the newer atypical drugs are among the 10 top-selling drugs worldwide. The three together, account for about 90 percent of the market.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is mulling over slapping a black-box warning — the strongest warning possible — informing about the heightened risk of death in elderly patients.

URL: http://www.themedguru.com/articles/newer_antipsychotics_just_as_risky_as_old-86120080.html

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RALEIGH — Three fired Cherry Hospital employees accused of severely beating a patient in 2006 have been arrested on felony charges after a special prosecutor re-examined the evidence against them.

| James A. Smith| Billy Gerald Wynn Jr | Eric Jerrod Isler |

Nearly two years ago, an assistant district attorney in Wayne County dismissed misdemeanor charges against the men — Billy Gerald Wynn Jr., Eric Jerrod Isler and James A. Smith.

The new patient-abuse charges were filed Jan. 5 by Doug Thoren, a special prosecutor with the N.C. Attorney General’s Office who won guilty verdicts in November against two other Cherry employees who beat a patient.

Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for Attorney General Roy Cooper, said the latest charges are the result of a review of the old evidence and new information turned up by SBI agents.

Dean G. Smith, the patient assaulted at Cherry, said Wednesday that he is excited he might finally get to testify against the men he says abused him.

“They beat me to a pulp,” said Smith, whose bludgeoned face was documented in photos taken by the hospital’s internal police department. “You don’t forget something like that.”

Smith’s ordeal was detailed last year in The News & Observer series “Mental Disorder: The Failure of Reform.” The newspaper found that internal hospital investigations had determined that 192 state employees had abused, neglected or stolen from patients in government-run institutions since 2001.

Though most lost their jobs, less than 13 percent were charged with a crime. Convictions were rarer still, with the employees often denying the accusations and the only other available witnesses being victims whose mental illness could be used to undermine their credibility on the witness stand.

Cooper’s office is now pursuing several cases involving state mental hospitals, Talley said. Among them is that of Jo’Van Dixon, a former employee of the now-closed John Umstead Hospital in Butner, who was charged Monday with assault on a handicapped person, a felony, stemming from an incident in June.

Dean G. Smith

Patient recalls beating

Smith’s ordeal was detailed last year in The News & Observer series “Mental Disorder: The Failure of Reform.” The newspaper found that internal hospital investigations had determined that 192 state employees had abused, neglected or stolen from patients in government-run institutions since 2001.

Though most lost their jobs, less than 13 percent were charged with a crime. Convictions were rarer still, with the employees often denying the accusations and the only other available witnesses being victims whose mental illness could be used to undermine their credibility on the witness stand.

Cooper’s office is now pursuing several cases involving state mental hospitals, Talley said. Among them is that of Jo’Van Dixon, a former employee of the now-closed John Umstead Hospital in Butner, who was charged Monday with assault on a handicapped person, a felony, stemming from an incident in June.

Patient recalls beating

Smith, who lives in Roanoke Rapids, has bipolar disorder, a condition that does not impair his ability to accurately remember or describe events.

He was involuntarily committed in October 2006 to Cherry, a sprawling campus of brick buildings in Goldsboro that is the state psychiatric hospital serving 33 Eastern North Carolina counties.

Smith, 45, admits he wasn’t well-behaved during his stay, making fun of the health-care technicians and complaining when they refused to give him medication he requested. Shortly after he was involved in an argument with another patient, Smith said, he was walking to the bathroom when he was struck from behind and knocked to the floor.

Smith said he was then “swooped up” by three health-care technicians, one of whom he said he kicked in the groin while trying to get free. That sparked a beating, with the staff members punching and kicking him.

The assault continued as he was dragged down a hall and into a secluded room. As he sat on the floor bleeding, Smith said, the employees coached him to say he had injured himself in a fall and threatened him with further violence if he reported what happened.

He said his attackers then forced him to take off his blood-soaked clothes, clean up pools of his own blood and take a shower before he was allowed to get medical treatment from a nurse for injuries that included a broken nose and rib.

A psychiatrist who later saw Smith’s injuries took him — still bleeding and with dark bruises emerging — to the hospital’s police department. In an incident report, an officer described Smith’s face as looking like “hamburger meat.”

In a lineup, Dean Smith identified health-care technicians Wynn, Isler and James Smith as the employees who beat him. Investigators later matched the tread on Isler’s shoes to purple bruises left on Dean Smith’s arms and chest.

In interviews with police, James Smith and Isler said Wynn beat the patient. Wynn, who had several past complaints against him for violence, told investigators that he was not present during the beating but that he later walked in on the other two employees while they were making Dean Smith clean up his blood.

All three were fired and charged by hospital police with misdemeanor patient abuse and neglect.

Wynn, who worked at Cherry 13 years, on Wednesday repeated claims that he is innocent before referring further questions to his attorney.

Efforts to reach James Smith and Isler were not successful.

Case dropped in 2007

In 2006, the case was assigned to Thomas H. Perlungher, then an assistant district attorney. In May 2007, Perlungher dropped the misdemeanor counts and indicated in court papers he planned to file more serious charges at a later time.

That never happened. Perlungher last year said the conflicting accounts given by the accused workers and a primary witness with a mental illness would have made it difficult to win convictions.

Branson Vickory, the district attorney for the three-county district that includes Goldsboro, said Wednesday that he is pleased a special prosecutor is pursuing charges. With 27 homicide cases pending in Wayne County, Vickory said he was happy to have the help.

michael.biesecker@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4698

CRIMINAL CASES INVOLVING WORKERS FROM STATE MENTAL HOSPITALS

CHERRY HOSPITAL, GOLDSBORO

Eric Jerrod Isler, James A. Smith and Billy G. Wynn Jr.: Charged Jan. 5 with felony patient abuse.

Perry Butler: Charged Dec. 3 with felony sexual offense.

Sheila Lane: Charged Dec. 3 with misdemeanor assault on a handicapped person.

Taniko Dominique Upton and William Kenneth Johnson: Convicted Nov. 25 of assault on a handicapped person, a misdemeanor. Both have appealed the verdict.

JOHN UMSTEAD HOSPITAL, BUTNER (NOW CLOSED)

URL:  http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1368003.html

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Right after its number one pill, the Purple Performer Nexium?

Can anyone say disease mongering?

For years, AstraZeneca has tried to convince depressed people they are really bipolar and need to take the atypical antipsychotic Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate) which is only approved for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

“Is It Really Depression or Could It Be Bipolar Disorder?”  trumpet the ads, urging unaware victims to take a Symptom Quiz and find out how sick they really are.

Full color spreads run in general interest magazines showing a rampaging woman her mouth contorted – think female Dark Knight – asking readers is this you?

“Are there periods of time when you have racing thoughts? Fly off the handle at little things? Spend out of control? Need less sleep? Feel irritable? You may need treatment for bipolar disorder.”

Now the FDA says AstraZeneca can not – repeat not – market Seroquel for depression.

In December the FDA denied approval of Seroquel for major depressive disorder and asked the company instead for more information in a complete response letter (CRL).

Oops.

Of course to be AstraZeneca’s number two pill, Seroquel must be used by more than the nation’s schizophrenia and bipolar disorder patients who number only 8 million.

Almost half of Seroquel’s 2006 sales were for off label uses says Bloomberg news including depression, autism and hyperactivity in adolescents and dementia, insomnia and Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly.

Which wouldn’t be so bad if Seroquel were safe.

But AstraZeneca faces nine thousand lawsuits – 15,026 plaintiffs – alleging the company failed to adequately warn patients about Seroquel side effects like severe weight gain, diabetes and pancreatitis.

Even as AstraZeneca vowed to defend the suits on their merits and not capitulate like Lilly with its $1.48 billion settlement with 32 states over similar drug Zyprexa this year, more bad ink spilled.

Documents surfaced in December that showed AstraZeneca knew as far back as 2000 about Seroquel’s dangerous side effects at a pretrial hearing in a Tampa, Florida federal court for an upcoming Seroquel trial.

There was “reasonable evidence to suggest Seroquel therapy can cause” diabetes and related conditions documents show Wayne Geller, AstraZeneca’s Global Safety Officer wrote after analyzing available studies and internal trials says Bloomberg news.

Created in 1988 and approved for schizophrenia in 1997, Seroquel had an “efficient” journey from R&D to sales.

But in 2005 an article in the New England Journal of Medicine found Seroquel and other atypical antipsychotics except one had no advantage over the older antipsychotics like Haldol and Thorazine. Including the reduction in rigidity and tremors which was sold as their advantage over the old drugs!

The same year, an article in the British Medical Journal found Seroquel and a similar atypical antipsychotic were ineffective in reducing agitation among Alzheimer’s patients and actually made cognitive functioning worse.

And in AstraZeneca’s own clinical trials, 2.4 percent of people who began treatment with normal blood sugar became technically diabetic after 52 weeks on Seroquel plaintiff lawyer Paul Pennock testified at the Tampa pretrial hearing – almost a 70 percent increase over those not taking the drug.

Nor can AstraZeneca claim it has marketed Seroquel legally and for approved uses only.

On Thursday, January 3, 2008, an AstraZeneca sales rep “made an unsolicited sales call to a physician at his office” and “stated that Seroquel was approved for treatment of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD),” charges a letter sent to James L. Gaskil, Pharm.D., Director of AstraZeneca’s Promotional Regulatory Affairs from FDA Regulatory Review Officer Amy Toscano, Pharm.D. in December.

When the physician asked for written information, the rep sent a mailing with “information about Seroquel and Seroquel XR’s use for MDD, and included summaries of eight clinical trials with referenced citations. This mailing was not the result of an unsolicited request by the physician, but rather was prompted by the sales representative’s statements,” charges the FDA.

AstraZeneca reps were even coached to sell product using the Winnie the Pooh figures Tigger – bipolar! – and Eeyore – depressed! – reports the pharma site Pharmalot.

The characterizations could come in handy.

In December AstraZeneca sought approval from the FDA for its ulcer drug Nexium for the “overlooked GERD population” of “patients ages 0 to 1 year old.”

Yes, infants!

“While some reflux and regurgitation are normal in infants and may not require medical treatment,” says Marta Illueca, MD, AstraZeneca’s Nexium Brand Medical Director, “Close medical supervision is key in the appropriate diagnosis and choice of treatment for these infants.”

They may have bipolar disorder too.

Martha Rosenberg is a columnist and cartoonist, who writes about public health

To comment on this story, email to comment@newsblaze.com

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Eli Lilly sells a drug that can cause diabetes and then turn a profit on the drugs that treat the condition that they may have caused in the first place! Zyprexa is the product name for Olanzapine,it is Lilly’s top selling drug.It was approved by the FDA in 1996 ,an ‘atypical’ antipsychotic a newer class of drugs without the motor side effects of the older Thorazine.

Zyprexa has been linked to causing diabetes and pancreatitis. Zyprexa, which is used for the treatment of psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, accounted for 32% of Eli Lilly’s $14.6 billion revenue last year.Did you know that Lilly made nearly $3 billion last year on diabetic meds, Actos,Humulin and Byetta? Yes! They sell a drug that can cause diabetes and then turn a profit on the drugs that treat the condition that they may have caused in the first place!

Where Eli Lilly’s negligence comes in,is their KNOWING and not informing consumers (black box warning) until the FDA demanded it. Lilly’s incentive not to readily disclose is they had billions coming in from state medicaid scripts.

Daniel Haszard http://www.zyprexa-victims.com

URL: http://www2.islandpacket.com/blogs/post/33276

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