Around The Web

Johnson & Johnson is exposed to personal injury and product liability lawsuits over the failure to warn about Risperdal gynecomastia side effects in boys.

Writing for the Huffington Post, Caroline Beaton looks into how drugs continue to make billions in sales even after they lose lawsuits for fraud and misconduct. “The persistence of Big Pharma's fraud despite ubiquitous legal action suggests that our present efforts to hold the industry accountable are ineffective,” Beaton writes. “New polices in motion will make potentially unsafe drugs even easier to bring to market and promote.”

Writing for CounterPunch, Paris Williams writes that when an individual is experiencing what has been termed “psychosis,” it is important to recognize that this may also be the manifestation of a breakdown in their larger social groups, the family, society, and even the species.

Matthew Cooper, writing for Newsweek, reports that despite the preponderance of political rhetoric about “mental illness” after mass shootings, a review of the research suggests that the connection between mental health and gun violence is dubious.

A former Navy pilot claims that a VA doctor misdiagnosed him with a mental disorder that prevented him from flying and ended his career. William Royster was told in 2004 that he was bipolar, that it was a permanent condition, and that he could no longer work in any capacity, according to the Navy Times. A different psychiatrist, however, later told Royster that he never met the criteria for diagnosis.

Dr. Vincent Felitti details the connection between childhood trauma and negative mental health outcomes in adulthood in a powerful video.

The BBC reports that the number of people in Scotland taking antidepressants has increased by 5% in the past year with most of the patients being women and those in the poorest parts of the country. “We are now looking at the flabbergasting statistic of more than one in seven people in Scotland being prescribed antidepressants this year,” Conservative health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said. “We urgently have to look at better alternatives than simply parking people on medication in the hope things don't get any worse, with no aspiration for complete recovery."

On Tuesday morning, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of three former detainees against the psychologists who collaborated with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to oversee the torture program. According to the Intercept, psychologists James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen and their employees collected over $85 million dollars for designing and implementing techniques, based off of the work of Martin Seligman, that combatted torture-resistance techniques by creating a state of “learned helplessness.” There is, however, no evidence that these techniques gleaned any useful intelligence.

“Although there is no established connection between autism and murder, some eagerly leapt to causality and scapegoating,” Andrew Solomon writes in the New York Times. “Tarring the autistic community in this manner — like presuming that most black people are thieves or that most Muslims are terrorists — is an insidious form of profiling. It exacerbates the tendency for people with autism to be excluded, teased and assaulted in childhood and adulthood.”

The satirical news site the Onion took aim at psychiatrists and overprescribing to children and adolescents last week with this headline.  “A lot of...

Journalist Emma Reynolds profiles Amanda Waegeli, Ron Coleman, Nathan Grixli and Lyn Mahboub about their experiences coming to the Hearing Voices Network (HVN). HVN was established 10 years ago in Australia and provided a support group that encouraged people to listen to their voices rather than trying to block them out. The group now operates in 25 countries.

This morning, TransformingMadScience.com released thirteen 20-30 minute video presentations from the 2014 International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP) conference at UCLA. The videos include presentations by Bonnie Burstow, Laura Delano, Allen Frances , David Healy, Peter Gøtzsche, Pascal-Henri Keller, John Read, Tomi Gomory, Shannon Hughes, Jeffrey Lacasse, David Cohen, François Gonon, Jonathan Leo, Peter Whitehouse, Robert Whitaker, and Keith Hoeller.

“Underscoring the incredible momentum to legalize marijuana is the misconception that the drug can’t hurt anybody,” Dr. Sushrut Jangi writes in the Boston Globe. “It can, especially young people.” He suggests that the biochemistry of marijuana effects "systems ordinarily involved in healthy behaviors like eating, learning and forming relationships” and “throws the finely tuned system off balance.”

The University of Minnesota recently announced that it is ending the controversial practice of recruiting study participants from patients involuntarily being held in their psychiatric unit. In a commentary for Minnesota’s Star Tribune, bioethicist and MIA contributor Carl Elliot reports that the university has still not apologized to the patient who spoke out against this practice. Instead, “the university has done its best to discredit him.”

A number of news outlets have been reporting on a review of modafinil, labeled the new "smart drug," this week. The review in question summarized the recent literature on the drug but others have claimed that the authors underestimated potential side-effects.

On his weekly HBO show, Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver argues that the tendency to discuss mental health in the wake of a mass shooting is "deeply misleading."

New research is investigating how “poverty reduction promotes cognitive and brain development.”

Medscape Psychiatry reports that the “man-made epidemic” of opioid abuse in the United States is the result of over-prescription and poor research.

The UK’s Independent reports on the Belgium city of Geel, where local families have welcomed people with mental health issues into their homes as boarders since the 14th century.

NBC News reports that "Genetic tests to identify the most effective psychiatry drugs are the hot new thing in the race to create personalized treatments based on people's DNA.” An investigation by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, however, found that these new tests are based on small studies conducted by device manufacturers, and those with financial conflicts on interest.

The Guardian reports on the Recovery Bag Project, set up, “to provide solace and comfort to people experiencing mental health crises,” by self-described “mental health warrior” Polly Rogers.

Nunavut, Canada’s largest and northernmost territory, is suffering from a suicide rate that is 10 times the national average. “In the case of Inuit boys 15 to 19,” CBC News reports, “the suicide rate is 40 times higher than those of their peers in the rest of Canada.”

The Psychiatric Advisor reports on new research from King’s College London that suggests that antipsychotics can cause serious harm to people with Parkinson’s.

Writing in The Atlantic, James Hamblin reports that research continues to show that physical exercise is integral to “childhood cognition and brain health,” especially for children who exhibit symptoms associated with ADHD. These findings, Hamblin comments, have been discussed with a “phenomenal degree of reservation compared to the haste with which millions of kids have been introduced to amphetamines and other stimulants to address said ADHD.”

NPR reports on how ketamine is being used off-label to treat depression.