Adverse Effects

-A fired government health economist says that his research was showing that 60,000 Americans now taking antipsychotic medications will die prematurely.

Stronger warnings on the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors are being incorporated into the prescribing information for ADHD drugs in Canada.

The US Food and Drug Administration is still unsure whether a long-acting, injectable antipsychotic killed two people days after they received it.

-Peter Hitchens argues that the public discussion about the Germanwings crash has to start distinguishing between whether depressed people should be flying and whether people taking antidepressants should be.

The vast majority of veterans who are taking opioids for pain are also being prescribed one or more psychiatric medications.

With the current focus on the possible contribution of psychoactive drugs to the crash of GermanWings flight A320 on Tuesday, March 24, it is useful to identify potential links between the effect of the antidepressants and the events.  In all 47 cases listed on SSRIstories, the pilots were taking antidepressant medications, mostly SSRIs, often in combination with other medications and sometimes with alcohol.

A third of patients who have taken the common psychiatric medication lithium for over ten years have developed "chronic renal failure" from the drug.

-Pharma Guy reports on the new FDA app that helps monitor drug shortages, and searches for an app to report on adverse side effects.

A literature review found that the extensive off-label use of antipsychotic medications in nursing homes is causing many adverse effects and providing limited benefits.

Pneumonia cases in the elderly are strongly associated with use of anticholinergic medications, including benzodiazepines and tricyclic antidepressants.

-New York Magazine discusses two recent studies that looked at the long-term relationships between use of psychedelics and the development of mental illnesses.

I have written this story, a story of Exodus to Freedom, a thousand times. I retell it to myself late at night while I lie on my air mattress. In the mornings I may recall these amazing events while running along the beach straight into the sunrise. I walk my dog and tell the story again, hoping passers-by don’t think I’m talking to myself, lest I be called “loco.” But that has never happened. The one aim I had when coming to Uruguay has come true: Not one person here considers me crazy.

Increasing numbers of children with sleep disorders are being treated with the hormone melatonin, but the medication has not been approved for such use.

A jury decided Johnson & Johnson must pay a Philadelphia man $2.5 million in damages "for failing to warn that its Risperdal antipsychotic could cause gynecomastia."

Common scientific beliefs about serotonin levels in depression and how antidepressants act on the brain appear to be completely backwards.

In the first systematic review of withdrawal problems that patients experience when trying to get off SSRI antidepressant medications, researchers found that withdrawing from SSRIs was comparable to trying to quit addictive benzodiazepines.

People who take antipsychotic medications experience many side effects which have "major disruptive impact on their lives," according to research in the Journal of Mental Health Nursing.

Back in 2006, when my son Franklin was in his late twenties and living in a group home in the Boston area, he refused to take Clozaril any more because of the required bi-weekly blood draws. His doctor prescribed Zyprexa as a substitute, and Frank suddenly began to gain weight ... a lot of weight. Later, I would learn that UCLA psychiatrist Dr. William Wirshing had said of Zyprexa prior to its 1996 approval by the FDA: “It is just un-stinkin’-believable. It is the best drug for gaining weight I’ve ever seen.” The doctor indicated that taking ten milligrams of the medication was equivalent to ingesting 1,500 extra calories per day. My outrage knew no bounds.

The system that the US FDA is using to gather and report on information about dangerous side effects from medications is extremely unreliable and...

According to an ex-chief of the FDA, Johnson & Johnson knew long before it started warning people that Risperdal could cause boys to grow breasts.

Greater cumulative doses of drugs that are anticholinergic or block the neurotransmitter acetylcholine are associated with significant increases in dementia and Alzheimer's.

Three independent studies in two journals reported strong links between antipsychotics and falls and fractures.

Food and Drug Administration-approved information and public advertisements are misleading the public about the actual neurodegenerative risks from second-generation antipsychotics.

Researchers believe they have found "the smoking gun" that links common contaminants leaching from plastics to "adverse brain development and hyperactivity."

A scientific review says we need to know much more about the risks of nursing mothers taking SSRIs.