Sunday, August 2, 2009

Increase in Fatal Heart Attacks Found with use of Antidepressants, Creating a Lethal Pharmadrug Cocktail

A recent study in Finland indicates fatal cardiac arrest was more likely attributed to antidepressants. Just this past May 2009 a study at the University of Oulu, Finland Jussi Honkola MD concluded that people who suffered fatal cardiac arrest were more likely to have taken antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs than those who survived.
The study shows that antidepressants adversely impact the survival of people with coronary heart disease. This can severely impact older people on heart medication and antidepressants. It creates a potential lethal prescription cocktail of multiple drugs with a fatal counter reaction.
Some high profile celebrities have shown a penchant for such a cocktail. Michael Jackson may be a victim of the deadly combination of heart medication and psychotropic drugs. The coroners report is still under review. Police found Xanax, Vicodin, Oxycontin, Valium and other medications in a raid on Jackson’s home. The same drugs as well as Restoril were found at Heath Ledger's hotel room. Anna Nicole Smith was found with over ten different combinations of prescription pills.
In a report from AARP in 2003 the average senior pays $1400/year in prescription drug costs with the drugs ranging from $570-$2200 per year depending on the drug and its use. In a separate report, the average number of prescriptions per person in the US in 1993 was seven. It has increased every year to fourteen prescriptions per person per year as of 2004. The US has clearly become a pill dependent society with the design that a drug cures all. A book by Greg Critser: Generation RX “How Prescription Drugs are Altering American lives, Minds and Bodies” outlines more on this story.
Prescriptions for seniors have been an enormous cash cow for the Pharmaceutical industry with hundreds of billions of dollars being spent annually. The Obama administration is pushing more psychotropic drugs in the upcoming health care bill. Most of this information you have not and will not hear via the media. President Obama has voted in favor of the pharmaceutical lobby in virtually all bills since he was a senator. If this health bill passes with the potential of increasing the insurance cost allowances of prescription drugs then more pharmdrug cocktails are in America’s future. The hope of the Health Care Bill “Healthy Americans Act” can shorten the life for many seniors, and could have a sobering effect on one's lifespan. Be careful what you vote for.

No comments: