Pharma Drugs Killing and Intoxicated While Driving

From CBS Los Angeles-Margo Julie Bronstein, 56, is charged with four felony counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and one felony count of driving under the influence of a drug causing injury.
Police say Bronstein ran a red light around 8 p.m. Dec. 17 and plowed into a group of pedestrians who had just attended a Christmas concert at St. James Catholic School and Parish near Pacific Coast Highway and Vincent Street in Redondo Beach.

The group was crossing PCH when they were struck by the white Saturn. The Saturn continued through the intersection, swerved into the southbound lanes and slammed into another vehicle – all while dragging 6-year-old Samuel Gaza, a kindergartener at the church school. He wound up pinned under a front tire of the car.
Also killed were Samuel’s mother, 36-year-old Martha Gaza, Mary Wilson, 81, and Saeko Matsumura, 87, all of Torrance.
Police said 11 pedestrians were struck, although the criminal complaint names a total of nine victims.

She has said she had taken two pills that afternoon the pain medication Norco and the muscle relaxant Soma with a small amount of bread and some water as she had the day before.
Bronstein told police that she had taken the prescription drugs for about five years and didn’t feel side effects from them that night, according to the officer.

Bronstein, who is jailed in lieu of $500,000 bail, is due back in Los Angeles Superior Court April 7 for a pretrial hearing. She faces up to 40 years in state prison if convicted, according to the District Attorney’s Office. End CBS report

Psych drugs impair people in different ways. In this case there were no antidepressants, but pain medication and muscle relaxants. Pharma drugs kill in different ways.

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.