Few drugs boast the rap sheet of Seroquel (quetiapine). After the pharmaceutical industry marketed atypical antipsychotics like Seroquel as amazingly superior to older antipsychotics like Thorazine and Haldol (pay no attention to their same tardive dyskinesia side effects), Seroquel became its manufacturer’s second-best-selling drug globally, behind only Nexium and netting $5.3 billion in 2011. Many have forgotten Seroquel’s contested past, including how an early proponent went to prison in a research funding fraud case, how unsealed litigation documents raised conflict-of-interest questions about the drug’s science, and how the drug’s heavy use in the military drew belated scrutiny.
The rap sheet and danger cascade continue. In April, research in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society linked quetiapine to next-day impaired alertness and impaired driving. Last year, a warning about elevated prolactin and a possible association with breast cancer was added to the quetiapine label. Also last year, the drug’s manufacturer resolved a lawsuit over alleged generic-delaying maneuvers with a $51 million settlement that included no admission of wrongdoing. Here is a quick Seroquel history:
- Richard Borison, MD, former chief of psychiatry at the Augusta Veterans Affairs (VA) medical center and the Medical College of Georgia, and his research partner ran industry-funded drug trials that enrolled patients at the VA hospital and at other sites. Both were accused of diverting more than $10 million from the Medical College of Georgia into privately held companies. Borison pleaded guilty to counts including theft and racketeering and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. His 1996 U.S. Seroquel Study Group research has never been retracted and stands today.
- Charles Schulz, MD, a prominent early Seroquel proponent, received $112,000 in consulting fees and university grants from the drug’s manufacturer between 2002 and 2007, according to state records.
- Unsealed litigation documents reported in 2009 showed that Wayne Macfadden, MD, then the U.S. medical director for Seroquel at the manufacturer, acknowledged sexual relationships with women involved in the drug’s research and publications. Plaintiffs’ lawyers argued that the relationships were conflicts of interest that biased the company’s science. The documents did not establish what effect, if any, the relationships had on published results.
- More than 15 years ago, a West Virginia father whose son died compiled a list of nearly 300 soldiers and veterans who were taking Seroquel and antidepressants and who died suddenly or whose deaths the military ruled suicides. Families identified Pfc. Derek Johnson, 22, of Hurricane, West Virginia; Cpl. Andrew White, 23, of Cross Lanes, West Virginia; Cpl. Chad Oligschlaeger, 21, of Round Rock, Texas; Cpl. Nicholas Endicott, 24, of Pecks Mill, West Virginia; and Spc. Ken Jacobs, 21, of Walworth, New York among those who died suddenly while taking drug combinations that included Seroquel. A warning about cardiac side effects was later added to the label.
Conclusion
In my view, the commercial success and financial tenacity of drugs like Seroquel owe a great deal to “ask your doctor” direct-to-consumer advertising. That advertising encourages fear, hypochondria, self-diagnosis, and uncritical acceptance of pharmaceutical marketing.
Martha Rosenberg is an investigative reporter whose work has appeared in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Consumer Reports, Public Citizen, the Center for Health Journalism at USC Annenberg, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, and other outlets. She studied at Rush Medical School and writes on health care, food, medicine, and public policy.
Rosenberg’s reporting has been cited by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Public Library of Science Biology, ScienceDirect, the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy, the Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, Britannica, National Geographic, Hastings Law Journal, and Wikipedia. She is the author of several books, including Multidisciplinary Management of Chronic Pain: A Practical Guide for Clinicians, Born With a Junk Food Deficiency, Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Lies, and Food, Clothes, Men, Gas and Other Problems. She publishes on Substack, OpEdNews, and her Amazon author page.
