Drugs and violence at Western State Hospital, Pfizer says "it's where our customers are"

THIS MAY 2007 article from the News Tribune in Tacoma, WA. discusses the pharmaceutical company drug reps visiting Western State Hospital on a regular basis, until they were banned, in March 2007.

The violence I witnessed in March 2006 is one reason my daughter was discharged after 21 days there. "Code Green" alarm was sounded so many times, I lost count. One male nurse was injured, returning to work with stitches over his eye. The same male nurse that warned of the danger of "sexual predators" on the ward. Of course, besides drugs having agitation as side effects, being in a locked up facility with little space to move around during the day could be a culprit as well.

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The end of the article quotes an anonymous source:

"Drug companies, however, still buy lunches and dinners and host lectures at local restaurants for Western doctors and nurses, according to one physician, who did not want his name in the paper for fear of losing his job."

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FROM the article:

"A News Tribune analysis of drug-prescribing trends at Western since 1999 finds another possible factor: Western is giving more patients psychiatric drugs with side effects that can include extreme agitation and aggression.

The drugs include newer antidepressants and newer anti-psychotics dubbed atypical anti-psychotics.

The newer drugs, which are expensive compared with older, generic alternatives, have been heavily promoted at the hospital by the pharmaceutical companies that make them. Sales representatives for those companies have logged about 1,200 visits to Western since late 2003, when administrators began tracking their activity.

Concerned about their influence on prescribing patterns, the hospital in March banned all drug company representatives from visiting the campus to meet with doctors."

AND

"The vast majority of the visits were by representatives from companies with new antidepressants and atypicals on the market. More than half of the visits were from companies that make atypicals and antidepressants linked to higher rates of akathisia, records show.

Representatives often visited the same doctors repeatedly.

Asked why Pfizer representatives has made almost 200 visits to Western since December 2003, company spokesman Bryant Haskins said, “That’s where our customers are.” Pfizer makes the atypical drug Geodon, one of those linked to agitation."