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Antipsychotic Medications Are Spelling Legal Trouble for Drugmakers
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2993073/#:~:text=In%20addition%20to%20these%20federal,violations%20of%20consumer%20protection%20laws.&text=Patients%20have%20also%20sued%20claiming%20harm%20from%20the%20drugs
Eli Lilly paid a $1.4-billion settlement for a suit involving Zyprexa, including a $515 million criminal assessment. Beyond these block-buster settlements, Bristol-Myers Squibb paid $515 million in 2007 to settle charges concerning the promotion of Abilify. More recently, Novartis agreed in 2010 to pay $422.5 million in an enforcement action involving the epilepsy drug oxcarbazepine (Trileptal, Novartis).6 Also in 2010, AstraZeneca paid $520 million to settle charges related to the marketing of Seroquel.
Dr. Charles Sell, a St. Louis dentist, was charged in 1997 with Medicaid and insurance fraud. He has been diagnosed with “delusional disorder, persecutory type,” a mental illness that rendered him incompetent to stand trial. Prosecutors sought a court order to medicate him against his will with antipsychotic drugs in the hope that it would make him competent to stand trial. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis affirmed the lower court’s ruling that Sell could be medicated against his will — even though he is non-dangerous — solely to promote the government’s interest in trying him on the charges against him.