In the News
Robert Whitaker & Allen Frances on Al Jazeera TV:
“Redefining Mental Illness”
May 23, 2013
Categorized in: DSM, Featured News, In the News, Videos
“DSM-5: Caught between Mental Illness Stigma and Anti-Psychiatry Prejudice”
May 21, 2013
Jeffrey Lieberman, incoming president of the APA, responds to criticism of the DSM and psychiatry, saying “it’s important to understand the difference between thoughtful, legitimate debate, and the inevitable outcry from a small group of critics – made louder by social media and support from dubious sources — who have relentlessly sought to undermine the credibility of psychiatric medicine and question the validity of mental illness.” Discuss →
Categorized in: DSM, Featured News, In the News, Industry
Obesity in Men Diagnosed With ADHD as Children
May 20, 2013
A 33-year controlled, prospective study conducted as a collaboration by researchers in New York, Mexico, and Verona, Italy found that men diagnosed with ADHD as children had significantly higher rates of obesity as adults. The causal link, however – whether a common neurobiological dysfunction underlies both ADHD and obesity, or a tendency toward impulsiveness, or an effect of ADHD medication – is unclear.
Categorized in: ADHD, Adult, Children and Adolescents, Disorders, Featured News, In the News, Obesity/Metabolic Syndrome, Psychiatric Drugs, Research, Stimulants
Schizophrenia Subtypes Disappearing From the Literature
May 20, 2013
Schizophrenia Bulletin publishes a review of published articles that finds the use of schizophrenia subtypes (Catatonic, Disorganized, Paranoid, Residual & Undifferentiated), “while widely used in the past,” has declined over the last 20 years to the point that they should be eliminated from research and “evolving knowledge” on the topic.
Categorized in: Adult, Disorders, DSM, Featured News, In the News, Research, Schizophrenia/Psychotic Disorders
APA President-Elect Proclaims “Our Time is Now”
May 20, 2013
As demonstrators outside the Moscone Center in San Francisco protested the invalidity of the just-released DSM-5, and the harm they assert has been done in its name, the APA’s incoming president proclaimed psychiatry’s imminent legitimacy as a medical specialty, saying (paraphrasing John F. Kennedy), “‘On this day let the word go forth from this time and place,’ to consumers to clinicians, to policymakers and providers, to advocates and stakeholders, and to all the members of the APA, that for the field of psychiatry and for the patients that we serve, ‘our time has come.’”
Categorized in: DSM, Featured News, In the News
NPR’s Marketplace on DSM-5′s Problematic Rollout
May 18, 2013
NPR’s Marketplace covers the DSM-5′s rollout, with Allen Frances noting that “financial pressures – like dwindling membership – are forcing the APA to treat the DSM like a cash cow, not a public trust”, and psychiatrist (and MIA blogger) Sandra Steingard commenting that she has advised her agency against buying it. Regardless, Marketplace notes, the APA already has more than $150 million in pre-orders.
Categorized in: DSM, Featured News, In the News
Depression Screening Lacks Strong Evidence, Say Canadians
May 17, 2013
The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care has reversed its 2005 recommendations, finding methodological flaws, possible bias, and uncertain generalizability in a review of the literature. “In the absence of a demonstrated benefit of screening, and in consideration of the potential harms, we recommend not routinely screening for depression in primary care settings, either in adults at average risk or in those with characteristics that may increase their risk of depression,” the task force writes in a forthcoming edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Categorized in: Adult, Antidepressants, Depression, Disorders, Featured News, In the News, Psychiatric Drugs, Research
A Critical Analysis of the Validity, Utility & Effects of the Biomedical Model
May 17, 2013
MIA reader/commenter Brett Deacon’s article in the prominent Clinical Psychology Review says that despite “widespread faith in the potential of neuroscience”, the biomedical era has produced poor mental health outcomes. He calls for an open and critical dialogue of the model, asking whether it is ethical to propound the “chemical imbalance story” in order to increase the credibility of antidepressant medication, when there isn’t “even one instance in which neurobiology alone can explain a psychological experience,” and when the model has failed to produce two of its prime objectives; the reduction of stigma, and good long-term outcomes. He calls for critical examination of the biomedical model’s effects, and mentions the vigorous dialogue taking place on madinamerica.com, among other venues.
Categorized in: Featured News, In the News, Research
The Economist Unwraps the DSM
May 16, 2013
The Economist, in its upcoming edition, says of the DSM “No other major branch of medicine has such a single text, with so much power over people’s lives. And that is worrying. Because in no other branch of medicine is the scientific reality underpinning the pronouncements of doctors so uncertain… the current over-reliance on one point of view in this extremely uncertain science is healthy neither for psychiatry, nor for those it treats.”
Categorized in: DSM, Featured News, In the News, Industry
Rise in Suicides Baffles Military
May 16, 2013
The New York Times reports that the “baffling” rise in suicide rates in the U.S. military is not correlated to deployment, as is often assumed. “Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the Pentagon is simply getting suicidal service members into treatment,” the article states, adding that “despite campaigns to reduce stigma, many service members continue to believe that treatment will be ineffective or hurt their careers.” However, nearly every example given in the article mentions that the person was taking antidepressants – evidence that the person was “not in a good place.”
Categorized in: Antidepressants, Featured News, In the News, Psychiatric Drugs, Suicide
A Review of Drug-Company Funded Mental Health Websites
May 15, 2013
A meta-analysis of studies of mental health websites by John Read found that 42% are either drug company owned or receive funding from drug companies, and that sites funded by drug companies are significantly more biased toward biogenetic causes and medication than sites that are financially independent of the industry.
Categorized in: Featured News, In the News, Research
NIMH’s Insel Doubles Back on
Backing Away from DSM-5
May 14, 2013
Two weeks ago NIMH director Thomas Insel issued a statement in which he said that the DSM “weakness is its lack of validity” and that “Patients with mental disorders deserve better.” On May 6 Chairman of the DSM05 Task Force David Kupfer wrote “We’ve been telling patients for several decades that we are waiting for biomarkers. We’re still waiting.” Today Insel and APA president-elect Jeffrey Lieberman released a joint statement, saying that the DSM “represents the best information currently available for clinical diagnosis of mental disorders. Patients, families, and insurers can be confident that effective treatments are available and that the DSM is the key resource for delivering the best available care.”
Categorized in: DSM, Featured News, In the News
Psychiatry Under Fire:
“Does Mental Illness Really Exist?”
May 13, 2013
U.K. newspaper The Observer, in a front-page story and two-page spread, covers today’s position statement of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology, calling for the abandonment of psychiatric diagnosis and the disease model. “Medicine’s Big New Battleground: Does Mental Illness Really Exist?” covers the controversy surrounding the forthcoming DSM-5, and “Psychiatrists Under Fire in Mental Health Battle” examines the DCP’s position that “there is no scientific evidence that psychiatric diagnoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are valid or useful.”
Categorized in: Adult, Bipolar, Disorders, DSM, Featured News, In the News, Schizophrenia/Psychotic Disorders
J&J Fighting Federal Risperdal Deal Over Language Regarding Breasts
May 10, 2013
Johnson & Johnson is negotiating with federal authorities over language that might be used in dozens of civil lawsuits regarding abnormal breast development and milk production, sometimes in boys, resulting from its antipsychotic Risperdal. The Wall Street Journal says the feds want J&J to acknowledge it downplayed relevant data.
Categorized in: Antipsychotics, Featured News, In the News, Psychiatric Drugs
Chair of DSM-5 Task Force
Responds to NIMH
May 6, 2013
David Kupfer, Chair of the DSM-5 Task Force, while defending the DSM as a useful diagnostic tool in a press release, concedes that ”biological and genetic markers that provide precise diagnoses that can be delivered with complete reliability and validity” are still “disappointingly distant. We’ve been telling patients for several decades that we are waiting for biomarkers. We’re still waiting.”
Categorized in: Featured News, In the News
NIMH Backing Away From DSM
May 3, 2013
Calling for a complete overhaul of research into psychiatric diagnosis, Director of the NIMH Thomas Insel writes that “Over the past 18 months, we have tried to define several major categories for a new nosology… It became immediately clear that we cannot design a system based on biomarkers or cognitive performance because we lack the data.” Insel cites the current paradigm’s “lack of validity”, saying that “symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment.”
Categorized in: DSM, Featured News, In the News
“Occupy the APA” Protest
Planned for San Francisco
May 2, 2013
Occupy Psychiatry is sponsoring a protest of the American Psychiatric Association’s 2013 annual conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
Categorized in: Featured News, In the News
SSRIs Increase Post-Surgical Complications
May 1, 2013
A study of 530,000 patients who underwent surgery at 375 U.S. hospitals found a 10% increased risk of post-operative complications including bleeding, transfusion, hospital readmission and death. However, the authors note that patients on SSRIs are also more likely to have conditions that increase surgical risk such as obesity, chronic pulmonary disease and depression. Results appear in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Categorized in: Antidepressants, Featured News, In the News, Psychiatric Drugs
Study to Look at Ketamine to Reduce ECT Side Effects
May 1, 2013
The largest trial to look into Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT in the UK in more than 30 years will look into how ketamine may reduce the unwanted side effects of ECT and speed its antidepressant effect. Though ketamine is not approved for use as an antidepressant, the University of Manchester study will look at the anesthetic’s ability to reduce the memory loss associated with ECT, and to reduce the number of ECT treatments needed.
Categorized in: Featured News, In the News
60% of Depression Diagnoses
Do Not Meet Criteria
May 1, 2013
More than 60% of a sample of 5,639 participants with clinician-identified depression (drawn from the 2009-10 US National Survey of Drug Use and Health) did not actually meet criteria for major depression, a study from the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins University found.
Categorized in: Adult, Depression, Disorders, Featured News, In the News
Vatican to Hear Debate About Psychotropic Meds for Children
April 30, 2013
Robert Whitaker, Irving Kirsch, Joanna Moncrieff, Pat Bracken, Giovanni Fava, Jaakko Seikkula and others are to participate in a June 14-15 conference, hosted by the Vatican, that will examine the evidence for (and against) the rise of psychiatric medication and fall of psychosocial treatment for children.
Categorized in: Featured News, In the News
Medicaid Fraud Argued Before
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
April 30, 2013
MIA blogger (and lawyer) Jim Gottstein presented a 20-minute Oral Argument in ex rel Watson v. King-Vassel in front of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago last Thursday. ”The technical issue on appeal is a lawyer nerd question about whether expert testimony is required,” said Gottstein, “but I like to think it contains a succinct and clear explanation of why even though a doctor can prescribe a drug for anything, if they prescribe one off-label to a child they are causing a False Claim (committing Medicaid Fraud) unless the use has support in at least one of the specified drug references called Compendia.”
Categorized in: Featured News, In the News, Industry
Grandmother Murders old Friend: Court Accepts SSRI as a Cause
April 23, 2013
Based on a psychiatrist’s recommendation that the effects of citalopram (Celexa) had contributed to a 61 year-old grandmother’s lethal bludgeoning of her friend of over 20 years as they had tea, the High Court in Edinburgh accepted a reduced plea of ‘culpable homicide.’ The psychiatrist indicated that she had been prescribed a dosage “far in excess of what she should have been prescribed.”
Categorized in: Antidepressants, Featured News, In the News, Psychiatric Drugs, Violence
SSRIs Implicated in Drinking Problems
April 23, 2013
The U.K.’s Mail reports of an effect of SSRIs that, though rare, has shown up in significant numbers of people according to David Healy’s RxISK website; unusual aggressiveness and recklessness associated with relatively minor drinking. “Once I started drinking I found it hard to stop. I also found I was becoming confused after drinking alcohol… I got banned from restaurants and bars in my local town and became an embarrassment to my friends. Once I climbed onto my roof. I was not trying to kill myself. I felt as if I was in a dream.”
Categorized in: Antidepressants, Featured News, In the News, Psychiatric Drugs
Long-Term Benzos do not Help Schizophrenia
April 23, 2013
Researchers in Germany, China and Australia teamed up to find, through a meta-analysis of research pertaining to 1045 patients receiving antipsychotics, that augmentation with benzodiazepines did not improve outcomes. The authors recommend that benzodiazepines should be considered only for “ultra short-term sedation of acutely agitated patients but not for augmentation of antipsychotics in the medium- and long-term pharmacotherapy of schizophrenia and related disorders.”
Categorized in: Adult, Antipsychotics, Disorders, Featured News, In the News, Psychiatric Drugs, Research, Schizophrenia/Psychotic Disorders
