Yearly Archives: 2017
Ban on Mentally ill People Buying Guns Wasn’t Evidence Based
From The Washington Post: Republicans are moving to reverse a ban instituted by the Obama administration that prevented certain people from buying guns based on...
FDA Approved Drugs may Become Riskier
From the Center for Health Journalism: President Trump's plans to speed up the process of FDA drug approvals, in combination with the increase of off-label...
Why I Resigned From The Mighty
The apprehensions I'd initially had about joining the team returned to my mind. I'd allowed my original cautious disposition to be overtaken by optimism when I had accepted a position of contributing editor with The Mighty, but my hopes were about to be dashed.
Karen Pence Picks a Cause, and Art Therapists Feel Angst
From the New York Times:Â On Inauguration Day, Karen Pence announced her support for the mental health profession of art therapy. While many art therapists...
Psychiatrists Must Face Possibility That Medications Harm
From Scientific American: Recent studies confirm the thesis of Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic - although prescriptions for psychiatric drugs continue to increase, mental health...
Study Links Working Long Hours With Poorer Mental Health
From MinnPost: A recent study found that working more than 39 hours per week can lead to significant mental health risks.
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An Eminent Psychiatrist Demurs on Trump’s Mental State
In this opinion piece for the New York Times, Allen Frances, chairman of the task force that wrote the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental...
Sharp Rise in Older Americans’ use of Multiple Psychiatric Drugs
From the New York Times: The number of U.S. older adults prescribed at least three psychiatric drugs more than doubled between 2004 and 2013, even...
You Might be in a Medical Experiment and not Even Know it
From Aeon: Medical experiments are increasingly being conducted without the informed consent of participants.
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How big Pharma’s Lust for Profit Harms Their Customers
From AlterNet: The increasing pace at which the FDA is approving new drugs can lead to significant risks to patient safety. Drugs that once would have...
I do Hate to Tell you This, but…
In this commentary for In the Pipeline, Derek Lowe highlights the results from a recent FDA report showing that the vast majority of all drugs...
Trials Comparing Treatments for Depression Favor Pharmacotherapy when Statisticians Involved
A meta-analysis looks at the effects of researcher background on study findings for trials comparing pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy for depression.
“Active Minds” — What Conversation Are We Changing?
Active Minds allows college students to start conversations on some of the most difficult struggles we face in life, but I urge the organization to lead the conversation away from bad science and towards the common struggles that we endure as human beings.
Why Upgrading Your Brain Could Make you Less Human
In this essay for Aeon, Michael Bess presents some of the ways future brain-enhancing technologies could be dehumanizing.Â
"But if we’re not careful, we ignore the...
Cancer Drug Offers a Cautionary Tale of Deregulating the FDA
To illustrate the dangers of Trump's plans to deregulate the FDA, Susan Perry from MinnPost provides a cautionary tale about Tarceva, a drug approved by the...
Research Shows Mindfulness can Decrease Anxiety
A new study explores the impact of a Mindfulness-Based intervention on stress-related biomarkers in individuals diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).
The Reasons why Some of us Just Can’t Stop Worrying
From The British Psychological Society: A new review in Biological Psychiatry highlights the cognitive and emotional factors that contribute to prolonged bouts of worry.
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Trump Wants to Blow up the FDA
From STAT: President Trump plans to decrease regulations on the Food and Drug Administration. Medical experts and healthcare professionals have expressed concerns that this could expose...
New Medications Fail to Show Efficacy for Alzheimer’s Disease
Three phase III clinical trials assessing the efficacy of Lundbeck’s investigational drug idalopirdine for Alzheimer’s disease have failed
7 Years Off Psych Drugs: A Message to Those Labeled by Psychiatry (video)
Seven years ago, I completed a six-year process of withdrawing from six psychiatric drugs. That process was the impetus to start speaking up about what is happening in psychiatry with far too many of us being gravely harmed.
Trump and the Diagnosis Free-for-All
It would seem that who is 'mentally ill' is a movable target (much more so than, say, the cancer or diabetes to which it is often compared), sometimes based on convenience and strategy. If you hold enough power, you can decide who's sick, provided they don't have enough leverage to outdo you at your own game.
Alternative Therapies for Adolescent Depression as Effective as CBT, Study Finds
Brief psychodynamic and psychosocial interventions help maintain reduced depressive symptoms
Southern Vapors: A Comeback Story Not Born of Chemistry
Imagine my excitement, the hope that relief from the sucking tar of misery that dogged too many of my days was within my reach. From that moment and for thirty years to follow, I was the willing guinea pig for any number of drugs. Nothing helped for long.
Youngest Children in Class More Likely to get ‘ADHD’ Drugs
The researchers suggest that developmental immaturity is mislabelled as a mental disorder and unnecessarily treated with stimulant medication
Researchers Push to ID Anxiety and Depression at Birth
"Factors such as genetics, environment, and experiences all have an influence on a person's likelihood of exhibiting signs of mental illness, but the study,...
