Antipsychotics Increase Mortality Risk in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease
A new study in JAMA Neurology finds that the use of antipsychotic drugs more than doubled the risk of death in patients with Parkinson’s...
GSK to Face Class Action over Antidepressants for Children
A Sydney, Australia law firm has launched a class action on behalf of people who as children and adolescents were prescribed Glaxosmithkline's drug Paroxetine. Despite...
Video: “Antidepressants Made Things Worse”
BBC news conducts a video interview with a young man named George. He was prescribed antidepressants when he was 15, after only a five-minute...
“Deciding on Assisted Death in Context of Mental Illness Highly Complex, Experts Say”
“One of the most contentious issues sparked by Canada's upcoming right-to-die legislation is whether people with mental illness should be eligible to seek a...
“Reducing Future Suicide Attempts by Forging Connection”
A new study published Tuesday in PLOS Medicine may offer evidence for an intervention for people who have already been hospitalized for a suicide attempt. The...
“Opioids and Benzos Not a Good Combination, Health Directors Say”
“Health Commissioner Leana Wen will join other health directors across the country today in asking the federal government to require a ‘black box warning’...
Benzodiazepine Prescriptions Increase with Overdose Deaths
A recent article in the American Journal of Public Health calls for policy level interventions to reduce the use of benzodiazepines, drugs commonly prescribed...
In Case You Missed This
On November 12th, 2015, the third anniversary of the day that I abruptly stopped taking benzodiazepines, my dear friend, J. Doe, published a two-part article here on Mad in America examining the language that is commonly used to describe benzodiazepine (benzo) iatrogenesis. I wanted a summary of these articles captured in a Youtube video so that those in the thick of benzo neurotoxicity could tune into these ideas in a way that might be more easily digestible. I hoped more benzo sufferers would begin to question how they describe (and allow others to describe) an illness that remains decades behind in understanding and recognition. I also wanted to draw attention to the content again in hopes that more medical professionals would read and understand the crucial distinctions in language surrounding this problem.
“Protect California Foster Youth from Dangerous Psychiatric Drugs”
The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports on legislation being passed in California to go after physicians who overprescribe psychiatric drugs to foster youth. The proposed legislation also targets government agencies that fail to offer nondrug alternative therapies to help foster youth recover from traumatic childhoods.
CNN: “Benzodiazepine Overdose Deaths Soared in Recent Years”
“The use of benzodiazepines, such as Xanax and Valium, is on the rise, and the number of overdose deaths related to them soared in...
“Misuse Of ADHD Drugs By Young Adults Drives Rise In ER Visits”
"It's no secret that stimulant medications such as Adderall that are prescribed to treat symptoms of ADHD are sometimes used as 'study drugs' aimed...
Researchers Call for Reappraisal of Adverse Mental Effects of Antipsychotics, NIDS
In a study published yesterday, researchers from the Nippon Medical School in Tokyo bring attention to a condition known as neuroleptic-induced deficit syndrome (NIDS)...
“FDA Forced to Release Adverse Event Reports on Psychiatric Drugs”
Following a lawsuit brought by Andrew Thibault of Parents Against Pharmaceutical Abuse (PAPA), the FDA has produced adverse event and severe adverse event reports...
“Expert Reaction to Antidepressant Use and Suicidality”
Last week a study in BMJ linked antidepressants to the risk of suicide and aggressive behaviors. The Science Media Centre has compiled responses to...
“Woman Can Sue Study Sponsor for Suicide Try”
A woman in Texas attempted suicide while in the active group of a clinical trial for smoking-cassation drugs Chantix and Zyban, both known to...
“Lawsuits Link Abilify with Compulsive Gambling”
Plaintiffs allege that Bristol-Myers Squibb and Otsuka Pharmaceutical failed to warn doctors and patients about the risk for compulsive behaviors when taking the atypical...
“6 Prescription Drugs That Aren’t as Safe as the Government Claims”
“A quick look at drugs or drug uses that later turned out to be risky shows a disturbing trail of ‘bought’ science in major medical...
“More on the Clinical Trial Disaster in France”
Just last week one person was declared brain dead and five more were hospitalized after taking a psychiatric drug in a clinical trial. Writing for Science, Martin Enserink provides more information about the drug as new details emerge.
Study Finds Long-Term Opioid Use Increases Depression Risk
A study published this week in the Annals of Family Medicine reveals that opioid painkillers, when used long-term, can lead to the onset of depression. The researchers found that the link was independent of the contribution of pain to depression.
“Federal Judge Declines to Toss Paxil Suicide Case, Setting GSK up for September Trial”
Wendy Dolin sued GSK after her husband committed suicide after taking a generic version of Paxil. The US District Court has declined GSK’s motions...
Duty to Warn – 14 Lies That Our Psychiatry Professors in Medical School Taught...
Revealing the false information provided about psychiatry should cause any thinking person, patient, thought-leader or politician to wonder: “how many otherwise normal or potentially curable people over the last half century of psych drug propaganda have actually been mis-labeled as mentally ill (and then mis-treated) and sent down the convoluted path of therapeutic misadventures – heading toward oblivion?”
“Psychiatric Medications Kill More Americans than Heroin”
“In 2014, 10,574 people died of heroin overdose while 15,778 died from an overdose of psychiatric medications, nearly 50% more,” writes addiction specialist Kenneth...
“How Open Data Can Improve Medicine”
“Those who possess the data control the story.” In the wake of the reanalysis of the infamous Study 329, where scientific data claiming the antidepressant Paxil was safe and effective for teens was egregiously manipulated, researchers are pushing for open access to raw data. “The issue here, scientists argue, is that without independent confirmation, it becomes too easy to manipulate data.”
“Attacks on Hoffman Report From Military Psychologists Obfuscate Detainee Abuse”
Steven Reisner and Stephen Soldz, writing for Counter Punch, take on those who have criticized the Hoffman Report, which found that the APA had actively colluded in the US Torture program. “They have not credibly refuted these core findings of Hoffman’s seven-month investigation, nor have they even attempted to do so.”
“Martyrs to Science? When Research Participants Die”
Neuroskeptic covers a short article by Susan Lederer that appeared in the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics discussing what happens when research participants die.
