Yearly Archives: 2013
Don’t Go Back to Sleep
You may think I’m slow on the uptake when I say this. And maybe I am. But I recently came to the realization that products or lifestyles that are vigorously marketed and promoted are bad for you.
That Naughty Little Pill
When patients come to me with complaints of low libido, low or flat mood, weight gain, hair loss, and cloudy thinking, one of my first questions is “Are you on the Pill?”. When they come complaining about premenstrual irritability, insomnia, tearfulness, bloating, and breast tenderness, requesting that I sanction beginning a course of oral contraceptives and perhaps an antidepressant, the one-size-fits-all-cure-all of psychiatrists and gynecologists nationwide, my first comment is “There’s a better way.”
Redemption Songs: Music and Madness
The road was dark and I only half knew where I was going. East. I couldn’t see through the rearview mirror, because the backseat was piled high with boxes. It didn't matter, there were no other cars on the highway. It was just me, in the middle of the night, driving and crying.
Violence, Depression in Parents Linked to Kids’ ADHD, Depression
A prospective study of 2,422 children from 2004 to 2012 found that children whose parents reported Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and depressive symptoms were...
“Special K” as Antidepressant: Short-term Gain; Long-term ?
Ketamine (known in social circles as "Special K") has been touted as a rapid-acting and "profound" treatment for depression. The Journal of Psychosocial Nursing...
Rethinking Psychiatry in Asheville, North Carolina
"Asheville psychiatrist Daniel Johnson didn't set out to transform his profession," says an article in North Carolina's Mountain Xpress, "But he’s now part of...
A New Film Called ‘Beyond the Medical Model’
I am writing this post primarily to share a trailer for a new film. ‘Beyond the Medical Model’ is a product of our community in many ways. It grows collaboratively out of our hurts, our anger, our passion, our discoveries and our insistence that we be heard. Our collective wisdom and exploration drives its very purpose. It would be hollow without our stories.
Tension Over Clinical Trial Data Disclosure Escalates
Pharmalot reviews the escalating tension over clinical trial data disclosure. The PhRMA trade group has come out in opposition to AllTrials, a petition drive...
Ben Goldacre in the NY Times
Ben Goldacre writes that big pharma's history of publishing favorable data - like flipping a coin and hiding the result when it comes up...
DSM-5 Boycott Launched!
Our objectives are to convince professionals neither to buy nor use the new DSM, encourage patients to urge their psychotherapists and psychiatrists to neither buy nor use the DSM-5, and to ask the survivors to reach out to those they know still caught in the system and support their efforts to press those who treat them to neither buy nor use the DSM-5.
“People with schizophrenia are significantly more likely to die from heart disease and cancer”
The Mental Elf reviews two years of studies on the health inequalities faced by people with severe mental illness, and a new one in...
The SSRIs and Ten Years of Misleading Advertising: Who is Responsible?
In the BMJ this week there is a debate about the antidepressants. On the “Yes, The antidepressants are overprescribed” side is Des Spence. This is hardly a new debate and Des Spence makes a good case for the overuse of the antidepressants, but what caught our eye was the response by Adrian Preda, and his discussion about the findings of Irving Kirsch.
The DSM as a Sacred Text for a Secular Community
The journal "Mental Health, Religion & Culture" offers "The diagnostic and statistical manual: sacred text for a secular community?", a paper by Elizabeth Ann...
It’s Time to Wake Up and Stop the Violence
Usually when the acts of violence that are all too common in the United States occur I choose to try not to think about it, to focus on the positives, to move on quickly. I suppose I am not too different in that respect from many of my fellow Americans. Maybe it's because I am a parent of young children that the recent shooting in Newtown, Connecticut has finally woken me up. The violence has to end.
Conflict of Interest Disclosure Far Less Likely in Psychiatric Journals
A review of 285 review articles from 10 top psychiatric and 2 general medicine journals finds that reviews in psychiatric journals were far less...
“You Keep Giving Adderall to my Son, You’re Going to Kill Him”
The New York Times, in an extraordinarily lengthy front-page article, chronicles the descent of popular college class president, athlete, and aspiring medical student into...
Pharma Says Its Antidepressant Fails to Beat Placebo
Vanda Pharmaceuticals, Inc., announced this week that its new antidepressant Tasimelteon failed to beat placebo in trials, and that it has hence ended its...
Antidepressants Linked to Heart Arrhythmias
Researchers from the Mass General and Brigham & Women's Hospitals and the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine find, using data from electronic health records...
“Too Much Coercion in Mental Health Services”
Richard Bentall writes in The Guardian on the "routine" coercion in the U.K. mental health services, and on patients who are "voluntary in name...
Pfizer Sued Over Zoloft’s Failure to Beat Placebo
A lawsuit filed Wednesday in San Jose, California seeks federal approval for two class-action lawsuits representing all U.S. users of the antidepressant Zoloft, accusing...
Sunshine Rule Making Progress
Pharmalot reports that the Sunshine Act, which is meant to make the financial connections between physicians, researchers and the pharmaceutical industry public, is coming...
The Antidepressant Era: the Movie
"The Antidepressant Era" was written in 1995, and first published in 1997. A paperback came out in 1999. It was close to universally welcomed. It was favorably received by reviewers from the pharmaceutical industry, perhaps because it made clear that this branch of medical history had not been shaped by great men or great institutions but that other players, company people, had been at least as important.
Published Clinical Trials are Misleading, PLoS Says
Research from the Center for Clinical Trials at Johns Hopkins finds troubling differences between publicly available information on medications and the information that pharmaceutical...
Effects of Stress Can Cross Generations
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have found, for the first time, that genes affected by stress during life can be passed to the...
Why Do the Stories Psychiatrists Tell Their Patients Matter?
Why do stories matter? Why is it that what a psychiatrist says to a patient about their experiences can have such a powerful effect - for good or for ill? This is something that has puzzled me for many years. It still does.
