Attention women in childbearing years:[Topomax and Depakote are used for treatment of bipolar disorder]
Topomax and birth defects.-Fierce Pharma
"Johnson & Johnson's Topamax, may increase the risk of birth defects. In a small study--203 patients--scientists found a 14-fold increase in the risk of birth defects. The risk appeared to be higher among patients who took Topamax in combination with valproate (Depakote) or other epilepsy meds."
[Let's highlight this next sentence]
"They didn't mention off-label use of Topamax--sometimes in combination with valproate--for bipolar disorder, but presumably those patients ought to discuss with their doctors, too."
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Off-label use and psychiatric medications? really? what a shock.
Topomax is a popular psych med as an add-on to Depakote as well as Lamictal, and often referenced with popularity by users due to weight loss benefits. Women, take note, that Depakote has a black box warning for Polycystic ovary syndrome.
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LA Times:
Epilepsy drug Topamax linked to birth defects.
"Of the 203 pregnancies, 18 ended in spontaneous abortions, two in stillbirths and five in induced abortions.
Of the 178 babies born, 16 had major birth defects. In three of those cases, the mothers had taken only topiramate, and in the other 13, the mothers had taken it in combination with other drugs.
Four of the babies had cleft palates or lips, a rate 11 times the normal rate of 1 in 500 expected among women not taking epilepsy drugs. Four male babies had genital birth defects, which is 14 times the normal rate of 1 in 300."
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6 comments:
If the epileptic drug industry is like the psychiatry drug industry then Epilepsy will be re-written so that the side effects of epileptic drugs are now listed as symptoms of the disease itself!
Witness how the psychiatric drug industry lists diabetes as a symptom of psychosis, rather than a lethal adverse reaction to anti-psychotic drugs.
How dishonest is that?!
Diabetes was never previously linked to psychosis, at least not before the development of atypical neuroleptic drugs.
But today, according to BigPharma and its cut-outs like the British mental health charity Re-Think, diabetes is now a recognised symptom of schizophrenia and manic depression!
So I won't be surprised to find BigPharma and the epilepsy charities listing birth defects as a symptom of epilepsy!
Typically, BigPharma doesn't tell its own lies. It tells lies by proxy. BigPharma pays corrupt medical charities like Re-Think or NAMI to lie for it.
That lying-by-proxy allows the drug industry to circumvent various laws and community directives intended to protect the consumer.
Prima facie, any medical charity which accepts "donations" from the drug industry is corrupt. Donations are simply the means to buy Editorial Control.
Just as that famous maxim has it: "He who pays the piper calls the tune".
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P.S. I just fished out the latest accounts lodged at the Charity Commission by Britain's biggest epilepsy charity, the British Epilepsy Association (BEA).
The BEA operates under a host of trading names. These bring in an annual income that is comfortably into seven figures.
Much of that cash comes from BigPharma donations from Pfizer, UCB Pharma and others.
Medical charities are Big Business where the boardroom pay is comparable to the salaries paid to directors of multinational corporations.
In 2006, the most recent year for which accounts are available, the British Epilepsy Association swallowed up a staggering £1.4m in "staff costs". (See p.24 of the accounts See here).
Nice work if you can get it!
Even the cost of running the Association's membership list is put at an astonishing £100,000 a year!
By contrast, in the same year, the Association coughed up a pathetic £86,426 in grants for research into epilepsy.
Research into treatments and cures for epilepsy is ostensibly one of the Association's main raison d'etres!
Research funding is probably the main reason people donate to the Association. How little they know!
Neverthless, many people have rumbled the charity industry in the West as being one big scam, a hugely expensive marketing fraud.
There are far better homes for spare cash than medical charities which so often serve as little more than cut-outs of BigPharma.
Rant over and out!
How nice that they keep people informed hmmmm? Good thing this has come out.
Today take a look at the finance page where it says "blog posts".
Johnson and Johnson have already read this post from that page.
Maybe it's time they heard from patients/consumers!
Amazing Stephany!
How many times have you done that now - hit the top spot on the Google Finance page of a BigPharma player?!
How embarrassing you must be Johnson and Johnson.
When they read your blog, I bet the J&J boardroom wishes you would just go away!
Thanks for the information on this epilepsy drug, Stephany. Those are some very good points you bring up.
We recently wrote an article on epeliptic drugs at Brain Blogger. The FDA has recently examined anti-epileptic drugs and their connection with suicide. They found that there is a connection and they're working with the manufacturers of the drugs to add additional safety warnings to their medicines. But is it worth the risk?
We would like to read your comments on our article. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Kelly
Is it worth what risk? btw the FDA is not adding warnings, or working with manufacturer's to do so.
FDA Panel Rejects Black Box Warning On Epilepsy Drugs.
"A panel of experts that advises the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted last week to reject the Agency's proposal to make manufacturers of 11 epilepsy drugs put the strongest level of warning label on their products (the Black Box warning). The FDA had recommended the Black Box warning because studies showed the drugs had nearly double the risk of suicide compared to placebo, although in absolute terms it was still quite small. The panel did however, recommend the warning should be increased, but not to the Black Box level."
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