Report says older drugs just as good

A British study says schizophrenia patients do as well, if not better, on older psychiatric drugs as on newer and far costlier ones.

The study was led by Peter Jones, a psychiatrist at the University of Cambridge, reports The Washington Post.

The Post said the findings refute conventional wisdom about antipsychotic drugs, which cost U.S consumers $10 billion a year. The report said the researchers themselves were so surprised they went back to ensure their research data had not been recorded backward.

The pioneering study, funded by the British government, compared results from a broad range of older antipsychotic drugs with those from newer ones, some of which cost 10 times more, the newspaper said.

The study's findings are published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The maker of one of the new drugs questioned the findings, telling the Post it is problematic to compare large groups of medications because of differences among them. Individual patients need different medication options, a spokeswoman said.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International