Lancet Study Questions Safety of Locked Psychiatric Wards
A new study published in Lancet Psychiatry challenges the common practice of locking psychiatric wards to prevent patients from attempting suicide or leaving against...
Scientists Clarify Risks of Augmenting with Antipsychotic Medications for Depression
The researchers found that while antipsychotic drugs may be slightly more effective than alternative antidepressants, they come with a much higher side effect burden.
“Largely Ineffective and Potentially Harmful”
In this interview for SciLogs, Dr. Michael P. Hengartner critiques the current research on antidepressant drugs and the state of biological psychiatry.
"One has to realize...
Withdrawal Symptoms Routinely Confound Findings of Psychiatric Drug Studies
Researchers examine how rapid discontinuation can mimic the relapse of mental health symptoms and confound psychiatric drug studies.
Review of Pediatric Antidepressant Studies Finds Evidence of Benefit Lacking
Review of pediatric antidepressant studies finds the vast majority are negative on primary outcomes and an increased risk for suicidality.
Study Reduces Over-prescription of Antipsychotics in Older Adults
New intervention shows promise in reducing over-prescription of off-label antipsychotics in older adults.
Antidepressant-Induced Mania: When My Mind Became a Literal Hell
The amount of anxiety I felt on these medications — and for a couple of years after — was unfathomable. I felt as though I was trapped in an air-tight vat, constantly gasping for breath. And my thoughts were guided by my state of constant worry and panic.
SSRIs in Pregnancy Linked to Early Depression in Children
A new study finds that prenatal exposure to antidepressant drugs, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs, is associated with higher rates of...
Rethinking Brain Research In Psychiatry
The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA is one of the premier centers for brain research in the country, and so when the...
Having Abortion Does Not Increase Risk of Developing Mental Disorder
A new study conducted in the Netherlands, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, investigates the effect of terminating an unwanted pregnancy on the...
Fire In The Belly
What goes wrong for the 10-15% of women who feel like hiding under the covers instead of gazing blissfully into their newborns peaceful face? Is it expectations unmet? Is it hormones? Is it the brain? Having spent several years treating these women, I believe that what we are calling postpartum depression and anxiety is in fact postpartum immune dysfunction, and its attendant inflammation.
Randomized Controlled Trials of Psychiatric Drugs Tell of Harm Done
The most important data in an RCT is not whether the drug provides a statistically significant benefit over placebo. The most important data is the “number needed to treat” calculation (NNT). For the person considering taking an antidepressant or an antipsychotic, the NNT data provides the “math” needed to weigh the potential benefit of taking the drug against the potential harm of doing so.
Intensive Care Patients at High Risk for PTSD, Psychiatric Symptoms
People who survive life-threatening illnesses in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a hospital are at high risk for depression and anxiety and nearly...
Smoking Cessation and Psychiatric Drugs Cause the Most Suicidal and Homicidal Reactions
The popular smoking cessation drug Chantix is the medication that most frequently makes people feel suicidal or homicidal, according to figures gathered by the...
My Drug Dealer Was a Doctor: A Story of Withdrawal
In this piece for Medium, Michael E. Lee tells his story of experiencing the horrific withdrawal effects of Effexor, and how he healed from his...
Popular Drug Reveals the Issue of “Off-Label” Use
From The Washington Post: Despite major lawsuits and detailed reports pertaining to severe health risks associated with the antipsychotic Seroquel, the drug remains one of...
CEP Members Publish New Book: ‘The Sedated Society’
The Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry announces the release of a new book called 'The Sedated Society: The Causes and Harms of our Psychiatric Prescribing Epidemic.'...
Members of FDA Advisory Committee Offer Perspectives on Flibanserin Approval in JAMA
In the September issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) three FDA advisory committee members describe the convergence of factors that made the committee’s recommendation to approve flibanserin especially challenging and politically charged.
Exposure to Antidepressants in the Womb Linked to Autism
Researchers, publishing in Toxicology Research, review the evidence that antidepressant exposure in the womb is linked to autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in humans.
Nineteen New Zoloft Birth Defect Lawsuits Filed
Nineteen defective drug product liability cases against Prizer have been filed in West Virginia state court by mothers alleging that their children suffered from...
How my Experience With Psychiatry Traumatized me
In this piece for Youth Ki Awaaz, Nibu Augustine recounts his traumatic experiences with psychiatry and the mental health system, including forced drugging and adverse...
FDA Pans Depression Patch For Children and Teens
The FDA released a report in July of a trial on children and adolescents of the selegiline (Emsam) transdermal patch for treatment of depression,...
Rising Rates of Suicide: When Do We Acknowledge That Something Isn’t Working?!
Scapegoating a purported unseen "illness" may provide temporary comfort from acknowledging the horrors and injustice of the world, but it is a delusion — and one with fatal consequences for many. When 45,000 people a year would rather die than live in this world any longer, it might behoove us all to consider what is happening in the world to cause this.
German Psychologists Declare “the Drugs Don’t Work”
JĂĽrgen Margraf and Silvia Schneider, both well-known psychologists at the University of Bochum in Germany, claim that psychotropic drugs are no solution to mental...
Antidepressant Anarchy in the UK
In this blog, I want to give some personal reflections on the events of the last few weeks in relation to the Lancet antidepressant meta-analysis and the lodging of a formal complaint with the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists. The issue of antidepressant withdrawal has been brought into the public eye in the UK like never before. What happens next will be very interesting.
