“Medicare Drug Program Fails to Monitor Prescribers, Putting Seniors and Disabled at Risk”
ProPublica and The Washington Post have performed an investigation revealing that Medicare has failed to monitor the safety of the large quantities of drugs...
Tailoring Teaching for Temperament Improves Engagement
"A classroom program that helps teachers adapt their interactions with students based on individuals' temperaments may lead to more student engagement in kindergarten, more...
“Too Many PA Foster Children are on Psychiatric Meds”
For Philly.com, staff writer Stacey Burling reports on the PolicyLab analysis of psychiatric drug use among Pennsylvania children on Medicaid. “Many children in foster...
Critics Push WHO to Remove Transgender from List of Mental Illnesses
The World Health Organization (WHO) currently lists being transgender as a medical condition and mental illness. Critics argue that the world’s leading health organization...
You are not Mentally Ill
In this piece for Medium, Brendan O'Neill critiques campaigns that aim to de-stigmatize "mental illness" and the trend toward identifying as "mentally ill."
"The problem here...
“High-volume Care, Not Good Care”
WSJ Live interviews cardiologist Dr. Sandeep Jauhar about his new book, Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician. Jauhar describes "the perverse incentives of...
“Choosing Wisely: Changing Clinicians, Patients, or Policies?”
In the JAMA Forum, Diana Mason, President of the American Academy of Nursing, discusses the "Choosing Wisely" campaign and its efforts to get physicians...
“ADHD treatment market value to reach $9.9 bn by 2020”
According to business intelligence firm GBI Research, the ADHD medication market will rise in value from $6.9 billion in 2013 to $9.9 billion by...
Interview with Gary Greenberg: The DSM is the Key to the Health Care Treasury
BrainBlogger has an interview with Gary Greenberg, psychotherapist and author of The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry. "The (Diagnostic...
“The Curious Case of the Antidepressant, Anti-Anxiety Backyard Garden”
“My vegetable beds have even buoyed me through more acute stressors, such as my medical internship, my daughter’s departure for college, and a loved one’s cancer treatment,” writes Dr. Daphne Miller. Now neuroscientists are attempting to study the antidepressant effects of soil microbes in hopes of unlocking the secrets of a powerful mood enhancer.
“The United States of Adderall (Part III)”
Lawrence Diller continues his series on the uses and abuses of Adderall. "You take some Adderall, go through withdrawal, build up tolerance, take some...
Consumption of Psychiatric Drugs in UK Continues to Climb
-The Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry reports that antidepressant use in the UK has increased 7.5% since 2013, and over 500% since 1992.
“Robert Neugeboren, Survivor of Psychiatric Abuses, Dies at 72”
Robert Neugeboren, who “spent most of his adult life in institutions, often subject to isolation, physical punishment and numbing medication,” was “a celebrity of sorts in the world of the mentally ill: a survivor of the horrors of mistreatment, a case history for those who point to the positive effects of kindness and talk therapy, and, perhaps most of all, the embodiment of the bottomless mystery of the human mind.”
“When Medical Apps Do More Harm Than Good”
-The industry of mobile apps that diagnose users' physical and mental ailments is already worth some $4 billion.
In Praise of Defiance
From Aeon: Throughout history, psychiatry has pathologized defiance and continues to label individuals who resist authority and stand up for their rights as mentally ill....
“’Disease Awareness’—How Big Pharma Preps You to Buy Drugs You Probably Don’t Need”
The latest from Martha Rosenberg: “Pharma companies love disease awareness advertising because, unlike direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, risks and warnings of possible drug treatments do...
“Bad Science and Such Big Portions–Drug-Company Funded CMEs Fall Out of Favor”
For the USC Center for Health Journalism, Martha Rosenberg points out the absurdity of allowing industry funded doctors to teach classes to practitioners about psychiatric drugs. "What if the written road test drivers take were sponsored by BP or Shell and had marketing messages interspersed?"
6-Year-old Boy Committed to a Psych Ward
From BuzzFeed News: A six-year-old boy in Jacksonville, Florida was recently committed to a psychiatric institution for throwing a temper tantrum in school. There, he...
“The FDA Is Basically Approving Everything. Here’s The Data To Prove It”
Writing for Forbes, Matthew Herper documents the FDA’s increasing drug approval rates. “In 2008, BioMedTracker says the FDA approved 20 new molecular entities (NMEs) and rejected 20, for an approval rate of 50%.” So far this year, he writes, “the FDA approval rate is more like 96%.”
Novelist on ADHD: “Being Different is Not an Illness”
On Sunday, the front page of the UK’s Independent ran a story entitled, “Thousands of children are being medicated for ADHD – when the condition may not even exist.” Fiction novelist and author of the upcoming “Concentr8,” William Sutcliffe, writes, “The pharmaceutical/medical industry teaches us that whatever the problem, a pill is the answer.” “This notion is becoming so all-powerful, and so locked together with a pressurised, exam-centred, conformist educational system, that every parent who has a misbehaving or inattentive child may now find themselves pushed towards a diagnosis of ADHD.”
“Suicide, Mental Illness Risks Increase During Recessions”
The latest economic recession led to a spike in diagnoses for mental illnesses, suicide attempts, and suicide, according to report out of the University...
The ONION: “New Antidepressant Makes Friends’ Problems Seem Worse”
“This drug allows depressed patients to concentrate exclusively on their friends’ troubles and mentally magnify them, enabling them to, for example, construe an insignificant...
“Emotional Child Abuse May be Just as Bad as Physical Harm”
Reuters covers a new study in JAMA Psychiatry that suggests that children exposed to physical abuse and emotional abuse suffer from similar psychological and behavioral problems. “Even though doctors and parents often believe physical or sexual abuse is more harmful than emotional mistreatment or neglect, the study found children suffered similar problems regardless of the type of maltreatment endured.”
“Tasty and Easy to Take, A New ADHD Drug Alarms Some Psychiatrists”
For STAT, Meghana Kashavan reports on a new, candy-flavored, chewable, fruity, amphetamine drug on the market for children diagnosed with ADHD. “It’s a move...
“How Too Much Medicine Can Kill You”
In an op-ed for the Guardian, cardiologist Aseem Malhotra writes: “Corporate greed and systematic political failure have brought healthcare to its knees. There are too many misinformed doctors and misinformed patients. It’s time for greater transparency and stronger accountability, so that doctors and nurses can provide the best quality care for the most important person in the consultation room – the patient.”
