Bloomberg:

Eli Lilly & Co. urged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for elderly patients with dementia, an unapproved use for the antipsychotic, even though the drugmaker had evidence the medicine didn’t work for such patients, according to unsealed internal company documents.

In 1999, four years after Lilly sent study results to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration showing Zyprexa didn’t alleviate dementia symptoms in older patients, it began marketing the drug to those very people, according to documents unsealed in insurer suits against the company for overpaymen

Guess what one of the increased side effects of this drug is: death. Other side effects:

• fever, stiff muscles, sweating, fast or uneven heartbeats;
• jerky muscle movements you cannot control;
• sudden numbness or weakness, especially on one side of the body;
• sudden headache, confusion, problems with vision, speech, or balance;
• increased thirst, frequent urination, excessive hunger, or weakness;
• feeling light-headed, fainting;
• unusual thoughts or behavior, hallucinations, or thoughts about hurting yourself; or
• nausea, stomach pain, low fever, loss of appetite, dark urine, clay-colored stools, jaundice (yellowing of the skin or eyes).

It's so bad we have a class action lawsuit website.

In 1999, when Lilly began its marketing push, Zyprexa’s only approved use was for patients suffering from schizophrenia, according to the FDA. In 2008, Zyprexa was Lilly’s best-selling drug, with $4.7 billion in sales, while antipsychotics as a group topped U.S. drug sales last year, with $14.6 billion.

So, there is a growing consumer market (ahem) of old people. Frail, vulnerable and needing medical care as assistance. Instead, they are being loaded up on anti-psychotics as if they are a bunch of dangerous, psychotic raving lunatics out to commit some violent crime.

Beyond the obvious chemical straight jacket properties of Zyprexa (and many other anti-psychotics) as well as warnings these should not be given to older people, these for profit pharmaceutical companies are getting nursing homes, MDs and other complicit health Professionals to load these vulnerable older people up with useless, horrific side effect bad drugs.

Shouldn't this be a crime? Abuse of the aged?

I'm glad Bloomberg covered it but anyone who has any aging relatives or someone they care about should be made highly aware of this drug class and the practice of prescribing it to older Americans as a way to make profits and, well, frankly, it's easier to control a walking Zombie.

That is basically what many of these drugs do, in fact the anti-psychotic drug Haloperidol (Haldal) was used to torture U.S.S.R. dissidents.

Public Citizen has an online database worst pills.