Are The Second Generation Neuroleptics Good For the Brain?
There’s an editorial by Henry Nasrallah, MD, in last month’s edition of Current Psychiatry. Dr. Nasrallah is the journal’s editor-in-chief. The title of the article is Haloperidol clearly is neurotoxic. Should it be banned? Haloperidol is marketed under the brand name Haldol, but its patent has long expired, and a generic version is available and inexpensive. Here’s a quote from Dr. Nasrallah’s article: "If clinicians who use these decades old drugs were to keep up with medical research and advances in knowledge, we would realize what a travesty it is to use a brain-unfriendly drug such as haloperidol when we have many safer alternatives. A massive volume of knowledge has emerged over the past 15 years about the neurotoxicity of older neuroleptics, especially haloperidol—knowledge that was completely unknown before. Second-generation antipsychotics have been shown to be much safer for the brain than their older-generation counterparts (although they are not more efficacious)." ...