Inquiry says depot injections can kill. (death of psychiatric patient caused by forcible injection of antipsychotic drug)

A clear link exists between sudden death in psychiatric patients and depot injections of antipsychotic drugs, said an inquiry last week into the death of Orville Blackwood, a young Afro-Caribbean man. Mr Blackwood died immediately after he was forcibly injected with a mixture of long and short acting phenothiazines in a seclusion room in Broadmoor Hospital in 1991. The inquiry's report, Big, Black and Dangerous?, published by the Special Hospitals Service Authority, criticises almost every aspect of Mr Blackwood's care. It urges the Department of Health to research the effects of drugs used in forensic psychiatry--in particular the drug concentrations in the blood after the injection of depot formulations.

The report, which also looked for links between Mr Blackwood's case and …