Top-Selling Antipsychotic Medications Triple the Risk of a Fatal Heart Attack

It is a very sad commentary on health care in America that the top selling class of drugs, atypical anti-psychotic medications, is routinely prescribed by doctors for uses that have no valid science of benefit or FDA approval.  It is even more disturbing to understand the consequence of this situation is death by heart attack.  Australian researchers¹ have now pinpointed the mechanism involved, and not surprisingly, many drugs increase the risk based on the reason identified.

“Just like a set of metal wires that carry electricity to light up our streets, our body has a series of channels that carry tiny charged particles called ions, into and out of cells, to trigger a heartbeat,” said Professor Jamie Vandenberg, Head of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratory at the Victor Chang Institute.
“Depending on the position of these gates, many common drugs bind, or attach themselves to these channels, blocking the ions from passing through. This causes what we call Long QT syndrome, where the length of the heart beat is longer than usual, which greatly increases the risk of arrhythmia.”

The worst drug in this category is the top selling drug in America; tripling the risk of a death from a heart attack while taking it (it is often given to seniors to control their behavior in nursing homes).  Where is the FDA?  Have doctors gone mad? This is a major scandal.

The problem does not stop with antipsychotics, some antibiotics and antihistamines are also major problems. The failure to ensure drug safety by the FDA has resulted in nine drugs being pulled from the market or their use severely restricted in the past 15 years. However, up to 50% of new drugs and drugs currently under review by the FDA affect these ion channels in an adverse way that inadvertently can cause a fatal heart attack.

Consumers beware. Doctors pretend not to know what is going on. The FDA hides safety data from you. Big Pharma already has the cost of damage-claim lawsuits built into the toxic poisons it knowingly pushes on an unsuspecting public. Sadly, most of the costs are funded by taxpayers.