ANTIPSYCHOTICS

The original, or typical, antipsychotic drugs came with a heavy load of side effects, and often caused Parkinson-like reactions in the unfortunate patient. So the drug companies came up with a new generation of drugs, which with characteristic flair they called atypical antipsychotics.
The first atypical, introduced in the early 1990s, was Clozaril (clozapine), and this was quickly followed by Risperdal (risperidone), Zypreza (olanzapine), Seroquel (quetiapine), and, most recently, Geodon (ziprasidone).
Although they were supposed to be just as effective as the typicals, they didn't cause tardive dyskinesia, characterized by muscular spasms and involuntary movements.
But, as researchers put it, this claim was not 'well documented' - in other words, there was absolutely no evidence to support it.
So a team of researchers set out to find the evidence in a major trial that involved 25,769 patients who were taking antipsychotics. Unfortunately, not only could they find no evidence whatsoever to support the health benefit, they also discovered that the atypical antipsychotics were just as likely as the previous generation to cause tardive dyskinesia.
This, of course, is far from a calamity for the drug companies. Having had a good 15-year run with drugs that are no better than those they replaced, they now have a fresh marketing challenge to produce an even newer generation of antipsychotics, possibly called a-atypicals, that also will cause tardive dyskinesia.