Four key studies are helpful in understanding the damage caused by Abilify. Knowledge that a similar “sister drug” Nefazodone/Serzone was removed from the market “in some countries” for liver damage and related deaths and that the US FDA did not remove the drug from the market but rather Bristol Myers Squibb removed the drug from the market once it became generic in the United States, thereby putting finances above patient safety. Health Canada removed the drug the Canadian market, and unlike the US FDA, Health Canada is mandated for patient safety.
In addition, the knowledge of the invention of Abilify My Cite, a pill form of Abilify that can remotely track its ingestion suggests the need to monitor that Abilify is not discontinued by a patient. Why invent a pill that has to be monitored if it is taken unless you are very concerned about what may happen if it is not taken? Medication should be beneficial to patients and they should want to take it. Coupled with the knowledge that the Bristol Myers Squibb website used to say 30 days in detox as an instruction for ceasing the medication. It can be construed that there is a more rigorous need to assure that this drug is not ceased than is the case with other like medication.
A summary of the four studies is as follows:
Gene Targets. Receptors and Organs
A Circadian Gene Expression Atlas in Mammals: Implications for Biology and Medicine from PNAS.org– this listed Abilify as the number one drug in the world by revenue and indicates that the organs that Abilify targets include: lungs, heart, brainstem, white fat, adrenal glands, liver, brown fat, kidneys, skeletal muscle and cerebellum.
Human Studies Show Drug Related Deaths Due to Abilify
Aripiprazole for Schizophrenia, British Journal of Psychiatry 2006
In the study there were deaths, including one man who died 30 days after ceasing the drug. This is the timetable for when the now known anesthesia is likely to leave the body, according to the drug’s half-life.
You can read a summary of this study at Cochrane review on Abilify .
How Abilify Breaks Down in the Body
Identification of degradation products in Aripiprazole Tablets by LC-QToF Mass Spectometry, 2013 Journal of Chemistry 1 (1) 2010
This article identifies two impurities from the Aripiprazole tablets that did not break down. A physician said this means there is a stray molecule.
Detailed Findings that Call into Question Abilfy’s Supposed Advantages
ADA: Psych Drugs Take Toll on Insulin Before Weight Gain, by Crystal Phend of MedPage Today , June 23, 2013
This is important as there is something in the drug that changes the body to increase the chance of diabetes not just the weight gain and the diabetes resulting from that. “”The metabolic abnormalities seen with the administration of atypical antipsychotics are generally assumed a consequence of increased body adiposity secondary to CNS-mediated changes in appetite,” Teff explained. But these findings suggest a possible class effect of the second-generation antipsychotics that can’t be entirely blamed on the weight gain they cause or the psychiatric disease they are prescribed to treat, noted Teff, who now works for the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
Clinically, treating the actively psychotic episode takes precedence over long-term cardiovascular and diabetes risk, Teff told MedPage Today.
But those risks have influenced the choice among agents, she noted, as many psychiatrists try other agents before olanzapine, which has been associated with the most weight gain among the atypical antipsychotics.”
It is important to realize that when Abilify was first introduced it was stated that one of its benefits was that it did not cause weight gain. This has been shown to be false. It was originally assumed and tauted that Abilify was safer and less likely to cause diabetes due to its lack of weight gain.
Abilify Survivors' Guide 