Is Seroquel Worth Side Effects Such as Diabetes, Pancreatitis, and Death?

Seroquel ( Quetiapine fumarate ) is prescribed and cleared to treat mental imbalances such as mania and schizophrenia in adults only. Their research studies only applied to mental illness, that's it.

Seroquel's 'off-label' treatment was criminal and life threatening: It is illegal for a drug to be promoted to medical facilities and doctors for non-approved uses that were not been cleared by the F.D.A. Seroquel was being promoted to treat children and dementia in the elderly. It was also prescribed for less serious conditions including insomnia and anxiety. This unapproved usage has led to premature deaths, heart attacks, and diabetes. Your child and mom were made into guinea pigs for their corporate profits.

Seroquel was passed through with fraudulent research studies : AstraZeneca, the company who manufactures Seroquel has been indicted for misleading doctors and patients with enhanced reports of its effectiveness and covering up its effect of increasing diabetes and pancreas problems. There were implications that the doctors involved in the research studies were not playing by ethical, non-biased rules. They weighted the research to give Seroquel glowing research conclusions. The company's sales staff also was involved in unethical sales promotion or lying to the medical facilities. This is another drug that got through the system for years under fraud and deception. 25,000 lawsuits later and a fine of $520 million and they are still in business.

Let's look at this drug and its dark side of nasty long term health side effects.

Seroquel has been around since 1997. When the drug first appeared, its side effects also quickly surfaced: weight gain, muscle tics, drooling, muscle stiffness, and irregular gaits. It was then reformulated in the goal to stop those problems.

The New Seroquel has even worse side effects, which among them in the increased risk of diabetes, tremors, coma, ketoacidosis, weight gain, and death. Seroquel is considered the worst in this class of drugs to increase the risk of diabetes. It is believed to increase the risk of diabetes by three fold. Pancreatitis increase is associated with this drug as well.

The impact of diabetes on patients and the healthcare system: Diabetes is one of the most pressing problems in the United States today. Complications of diabetes run from blindness, renal failure, nerve damage, gangrene in the feet due to circulation problems, amputations of toes, feet, and legs, heart problems, erectile dysfunction, and a significant lowering of the patients quality of life and early death.

Diabetes costs our health care system $174 billion dollars in 2007 according to The American Diabetes Association. Costs include $116 billion for direct medical costs and $58 billion in disability, loss of work, and in early deaths. There is another 25 billion for 57 million American adults with pre-diabetes and $623 million for the 180,000 women with gestational diabetes. Do we need Seroquel that increases that risk by three fold? There is no cost analysis of Seroquel's role in the above figures but it is making the situation worse, by three fold.

Increased Risk of Death: 17 independent studies have shown it increases the death rate in elderly patients who were prescribed the drug for senile dementia. They had increased risk of heart failure and lung infections leading to their death.

Increased Risk of Pancreatitis? Pancreatitis is Inflammation of your pancreas causing symptoms including fever, stomach pain, vomiting, diarrhea, shock, diabetic coma, and ketoacidosis. This drug can lead to long term disability that is permanent even when the drug is withdrawn.

Increased Risk of Diabetic Ketoacidosis? The drug impacts the glucose level in your body impairing its ability to process sugar. Sugar builds up in your bloodstream causing dehydration and sugar starvation which results in coma and death.

Billions Of Profits Made on Your Health: This drug has made the company $4.7 billion a year with $2.9 billion in prescriptions in the U.S. AstraZeneca has raked in $17 billion of profit off sales of Seroquel just since 2004. $520 million in fines is nothing. Does lawsuit money awarded to these patients really cover the loss of a limb due to diabetes? Does it cover the cost to your child from diabetes in lowered quality of health? Does lawsuit money really help when your loved one is dead? Money paid to these patients helps but they are sick the rest of their lives in many cases. Many died a premature death.

What you can do as a patient? We need to stop these pharmaceutical companies from getting these drugs through the system with fraud and remaining in the market for years. These drugs are sold for years until the deaths and problems become so overwhelming that the F.D.A. finally does something. People trust their doctors to do them no harm. This is not the case since the pharmaceutical companies have bought out the medical establishment for their gain. All of us need to put pressure on the F.D.A. to shut these companies and their destructive drugs down. You need to research all drugs before you take them. If you experience side effects, you need to report them to the doctor and authorities. It's your life they are compromising. What is the cost to our health care system to treat the diabetes and heart problems that this drug has caused? What has it cost your life and quality of living? You make that choice in taking this drug.

References:

www.medicinenet.com/pancreatitis/article.htm

www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000320.htm

http://www.bobgoldwaterattorney-seroquel.com/

http://www.resource4seroquelinfo.com/topics/seroquel-sideeffects.html

http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-statistics/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/business/27drug.html