Around The Web

Rob Wipond takes HealthNewsReview.org to task for its coverage of a Philadelphia Inquirer article about a medical device designed for people experiencing panic. He writes that “hyperbolic psychiatric and psychological claims frequently get free passes from otherwise thoughtful medical critics.”

The Rutland Herald uses a recent study about online "mental illness peer support" as an opening to interview people in Vermont concerning what they...

From Salon magazine: "Despite the 500 changes made in pediatric drug-labeling updates since 2002, doctors still must rely only on clinical experience and existing scientific literature...

"Every year since 2006 in the U.S., the amount of new medical research in humans that’s funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has gone down, while the number of industry-funded trials has gone up, a new study shows.”

An article in Truthout asserts that "Since all human occurrences take place in society, it is obviously a truism that all insanity must, in...

-Newsweek visits the Hearing Voices Network.

Last week, reports circulated about a system through which drug companies used charitable giving for profit. Now, three drug manufacturers, Gilead Sciences Inc., Biogen...

Brian Merchant, writing for Vice, tracks the history of stories about drugs. Beginning as early as the Epic of Gilgamesh “humans have been taking...

An article in HRHero, a legal resource for human resource professionals, expresses concern about the expanding diagnostic categories in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual...

NPR Shots explores a nursing home where "residents can always find something to do," and where use of antipsychotic drugs has dropped dramatically. This Nursing...

The UK Independent reports that Ireland is moving toward a policy of decriminalizing small amount of drugs like heroin, cocaine, and cannabis in what amounts to a “radical cultural shift.” While it would remain a crime to profit from the sale of these substances, users will have specially designated areas for safe use. The chief of Ireland’s National Drugs Strategy told the paper: “I am firmly of the view that there needs to be a cultural shift in how we regard substance misuse if we are to break this cycle and make a serious attempt to tackle drug and alcohol addiction.”

Monica Cassani reviews an article in the Wilson Quarterly about the changing paradigm of mental illness and the failure of the psychopharmacological era. Beyond Meds...

Beyond Meds offers a collection of posts that look at the "mental illness" system from a variety of perspectives. Article →  

The Atlantic writes "Aerobic activity has shown to be an effective treatment for many forms of depression. So why are so many people still...

In an interview with Pharmalot, former FDA associate chief counsel Arnie Friede discusses the impact of last month's $181 million Risperdal settlement on pharmaceuticals'...

Behaviorism and Mental Health takes note of a new blog by Jeffrey Lieberman, the president of the APA, in which he claims both that...

Felice J. Freyer for the Boston Globe reports on a new study of chronic pain treatment. “More than 90 percent of people who survived...

Since many more Americans now have mental health coverage as a result of the US Affordable Care Act, mental health services will soon begin...

Day 3 of WNYC Only Human’s radio show, called Listen Up, focuses on the importance of listening with empathy. They interview Ken Feinberg, a mediator who met with victims after the September 11th attacks, the Sandy Hook shootings, and the Boston marathon bombing.

Mind Hacks looks at a number of unusual cases, such as a woman missing a cerebellum and a man who had a tapeworm eat its way through his brain over four years, and asks what these kinds of cases are telling us about what we do -- and don't -- know about the human brain.

FiercePharma and 1 Boring Old Man peer into the Glaxo glasnost campaign, and find it in need of a little... revisioning.  1 Boring Old...

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Tom Burns recants. Burns is described as a psychiatrist who was long one of the strongest...

The Council for Evidence Based Psychiatry presents this interview with Dr Joanna Moncrieff, a psychiatrist and senior lecturer at University College, London.

“In 2014, the number of people who died from drug overdoses in the United States reached 47,055 — an all-time high, according to a disturbing report published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),” but “the effort to get physicians to curb their prescribing of these drugs may be faltering amid stiff resistance from drugmakers, industry-funded groups and, now, even other public health officials.”

-People from Scotland's most deprived areas are more than three times as likely to be treated for mental illness than those in more affluent communities.