Sgt. Eric Layne's death was not pretty.
A few months after being prescribed a drug cocktail with the antidepressant Paxil, the mood stabilizer Klonopin and AstraZeneca's controversial antipsychotic drug, Seroquel, the Iraq war veteran was "suffering from incontinence, severe depression [and] continuous headaches," according to his widow, Janette Layne, at FDA hearings for new Seroquel approvals last year.
Soon he had tremors. " … [H]is breathing was labored [and] he had developed sleep apnea," said Janette Layne, who served in the National Guard during Operation Iraqi Freedom along with her husband. On the last day of his life, she testified, Eric stayed in the bathroom nearly all night battling acute urinary retention. He died while his family slept.
Sgt. Layne had just returned from a seven-week inpatient program at the VA Medical Center in Cincinnati where he was being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A video shot during that time, played by his wife at the FDA hearings, shows a dangerously sedated figure barely able to talk.
Sgt. Layne was not the first healthy veteran to die after being prescribed medical cocktails, including Seroquel, for PTSD.
In the last two years, Pfc. Derek Johnson, 22, of Hurricane, West Virginia; Cpl. Andrew White, 23, of Cross Lanes, West Virginia; Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger, 21, of Roundrock, Texas; Cpl. Nicholas Endicott, 24, of Pecks Mill, West Virginia; and Spc. Ken Jacobs, 21, of Walworth, New York have all died suddenly while taking Seroquel cocktails.
The above is from Martha Rosenberg's "Are Veterans Being Given Deadly Cocktails to Treat PTSD?"(Dissident Voice). A lot of people make a lot of money off PTSD. It's really amazing to watch some of the 'new' 'treatments' emerge. For example, a quack was promoted by several regional newspapers this week for his 'new' treatment: Shock therapy. An illness garners headlines and 'new' treatments come rushing up. And all it takes it a diploma -- from a real school or a diploma mill -- and a number in the press will run with it. As a general rule, 'treatments' hailed as miracle workers only to be exposed as anything but as they are repeatedly utilized should not resurface because some quack needs some attention. Certainly, the ship sailed on shock therapy long, long ago. What's next in the 'new' developments? "Lobotomy cures PTSD!"?
At present, it appears -- despite the quack's claim this week (which four regional papers ran with) -- that PTSD is not something that will be "cured" but something that will be treated. New developments may emerge (not likely when the government keeps doing 'research' on whether or not there's a problem and finding the 'answer' is "Further study is needed") and a cure may be discovered. But for most suffering, PTSD is something that they will be managing because it won't go away. (As with any disease, for some the symptoms will just vanish for reasons unknown.)
A rule of thumb should be that 'treatments' which didn't work in the past for traumas aren't going to work today so just because you're a quack looking to make a quick buck doesn't mean the press should rush to 'report' on your 'new' 'discovery.' As a rule of thumb, over medicating those suffering from grief or suicidal ideations has not resulted in anything resembling or adjacent to "healthy" so the thought that you can over-medicate away PTSD should have been ruled out long, long ago.
(In many cases, over-medication isn't about health, it's about shutting up the patient and making your own life a little easier.)
Max Jacobson, were he treating people today as he did JFK, Eddie Fisher and countless others, would lose his license. (His 'vitamin shots' were laced with amphetamines.) And that shouldn't have been an issue that surprised the medical community. By the same token, those over-medicating patients today should result in peer outcry and professional reprimand. We know the dangers of over-medication and we knew them before PTSD began garnering press attention in the last few years.
