Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
I know a few people here take Seroquel, so I thought you might want to see this. The programme was on Sunday, but you can still listen to it on the BBC website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8480000/8480303.stm
British pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is facing thousands of legal cases in the United States over claims it failed to adequately warn patients about possible side effects associated with one of its biggest selling drugs to treat mental illness, Seroquel.
The legal action has raised questions about the way drug companies operate. Ann Alexander, reporter on Radio 4's File on 4 explains the law-suit.
In brief, the legal action is because AstraZeneca concealed the fact that Seroquel often causes serious weight gain (by interfering with the appetite mechanism in the brain, so that people feel hungry all the time). Frequently it gets so bad that the patients develop diabetes. AstraZeneca have been making something of a selling point of the claim that, unlike other antipsychotics, Seroquel doesn't cause weight gain. Apparently even the doctors prescribing it don't know that this is a side effect of Seroquel - some people have gone to their doctors about it and been told that it couldn't be anything to do with the medication! Sorry to be alarming, but I thought it might be as well for people to know, since you apparently won't hear this from your doctor. That way, if you start having real problems with weight gain, you'll know what to stop taking.
Just an odd fact: 70% of Seroquel prescriptions are "off-label", that is, for conditions other than the ones it was officially approved for (schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder). It seems to be used more often than not just as a drug of last resort, for more or less any mental condition.
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