| The Intersection of Antipsychotics, Psychiatry & the Law |
|
Antipsychotic drugs have emerged as the blockbusters of the pharmaceutical industry- and Seroquel leads the pack. This year's $500 million settlement between AstraZeneca and the Department of Justice marks the third historic settlement in less than a year and a half. Will fines over $4 billion decrease the illegal marketing of antipsychotics? What role does psychiatry play in this scenario?
Tonight 7:00 p.m. on the Philadelphia CNN-News affiliate WFMZ-TV, The American Law Journal presents "Antipsychotics: The Intersection of the Law, Psychiatry & Big Pharma." A panel of lawyers and doctors join host and former New Jersey prosecutor Christopher Naughton.
Joseph DiGiacomo, M.D., internist, cardiologist, psychiatrist and clinical professor with the University of Pennsylvania's School of Psychiatry, says "These drugs initially were miracle drugs. People poured out of hospitals [where] before... they had no chance. The second generation antipsychotics also had fewer side effects, which has lead to their use on a larger scale today."
"We have no problem with the right people getting this drug," says plaintiff's lawyer Brian McCormick of Sheller, P.C., the firm representing whistleblowers in the three largest pharma settlements in U.S. history in the past eighteen months. "But the drug doesn't reach the [financial] level that it has just by being sold to cases where there are no other options. They are being marketed to a much wider market."
 In addition to McCormick and DiGiacomo, guest appearances include Joseph Goldberg, corporate defense counsel and partner with Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby and Daniel Edmunds, Ed.D., psychotherapist, author and founder of the International Center for Humane Psychiatry.
The American Law Journal is the weekly talk-feature program on the CNN News Affiliate for Philadelphia, WFMZ-TV 69. View programs, schedules, lawyer profiles and more on the new American Law Journal website, www.LawJournalTV.com. Next week on The American Law Journal: "Workers Comp and Pennsylvania's New Independent Contractor Law." |
| The American Law Journal
Law Journal Television/Eagle Vision Inc. |
| 999 Waterside Drive, #1527
Norfolk, VA 23510
757-627-8200
757-627-7300 fax
888-78-LAW TV |
