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Psych Drugs Drove Kid Crazy

Careless prescriptions turned shy chess nerd into into belligerent hulk

By Dustin Lushing, Newser Staff

Posted May 18, 2007 9:44 PM CDT

(Newser) – The careless prescription of anti-psychotic drugs, often by psychiatrists who draw pay checks from the companies who make them, has drawn attention in the New York Times recently. Now Ann Bauer, writing in Salon, draws an intimate portrait of the effects of such carelessness on one autistic teenager, who turned from shy chess nerd to psychotic bruiser.

Bauer's son, depressed after the loss of a girlfriend, was prescribed atypical antipsychotics Abilify and Geodon after being misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. The result was a disaster, not corrected until Bauer did her own research, and finally enlisted the help of the drug-company-insulated Mayo clinic, where her son's condition improved.

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Psych Drugs Drove Kid Crazy

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medicine • health • drugs • psychiatry • schizophrenia • pharmaceutical companies • drug companies • antipsychotic drugs • pharma • doctor

MOST POPULAR STORIES

[ By Views ]

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More Newser Stories

Generics Curb Rise in Drug Costs

Cheap alternatives to brand-name meds appear as patents expire

Big Pharma Loses Generic Drug Fight

Deal for developing nations first blow by Dems in Congress

Doctors Paid Millions To Use Anemia Drugs

Among the world's top-selling medicines, the FDA now says they may be unsafe

Schizophrenia Drug Offers New Hope

Works on different brain chemical than its predecessors

Diabetes Drug Ups Heart Risk

New study documents dangers of Avandia, but company nixes recall

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Newser By Users

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