What Animal Research Says About Sexual Side-effects of SSRIs
A group of researchers in Denmark examines what existing animal studies can tell us about the sexual side-effects of SSRI antidepressants.
Antidepressant Use Linked to Dementia
A new study finds that elderly individuals using antidepressants are at significantly higher risk for dementia compared to depressed individuals who did not take the drugs.
Study Finds Antidepressants in Pregnancy Increase Risk for Speech Disorders
A new study published this week in JAMA Psychiatry indicates that infants are more likely to develop speech or language disorders if they are exposed to antidepressants during pregnancy.
Hypnotic Medications Linked to Suicide Risk
A recent review found that hypnotic medications are associated with risks of suicide and suicidal ideation.
Systematic Review Finds Antidepressants Double the Risk for Agitation and Violence in Healthy Volunteers
The Nordic Cochrane Center conducted a systematic review of existing research trials on antidepressants and found that the drugs doubled the risk of feelings...
Policies to Reduce Antipsychotic use Among Elderly are Failing
Research reveals that rates of antipsychotic prescribing to the elderly in the UK have not dropped despite national recommendations.
Use of Antidepressants Linked to Diabetes
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (such as Prozac and Zoloft) are the most commonly prescribed medication for depression. SSRIs have long been associated with an...
Clinical Trials Underreport Harms of Antidepressant Medications
A group of researchers recently found serious bias in the reporting of harm due to adverse events in antidepressant medication clinical trials. They report...
iPad Use Before Surgery as Effective as Sedatives for Children
A group of French doctors presented a new study in the area of pediatric anesthesiology at this year’s World Congress of Anaesthesiologists in Hong...
New Study Casts Doubt on Efficacy of Ketamine for Depression
A new study, published this month in the Journal of Affective Disorders, investigated the effectiveness of weekly intravenous ketamine injections as a treatment for...
How Do Antidepressants Really ‘Work’?
A recent review, published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, challenges the dominant assumptions about the neurochemical and therapeutic effects of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors...
Antidepressant Effects Thwarted by Stressful Environments
A new study, about to be published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, investigates the role a stressful environment plays in antidepressant effectiveness....
German Psychologists Declare “the Drugs Don’t Work”
Jürgen Margraf and Silvia Schneider, both well-known psychologists at the University of Bochum in Germany, claim that psychotropic drugs are no solution to mental...
STOP or GO? Tapering Pregnant Women off of Antidepressants
A team in the Netherlands is currently investigating the effects of tapering off of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) during pregnancy....
Ghostwriting has a New Name but Same Problems
A new paper, published in the British Medical Journal, explains how the pharmaceutical industry has publicly denounced ghostwriting while still finding ways to engage...
CDC Advises Nonopioid Treatments for Chronic Pain
Primary care clinicians and mental health providers face a particular set of challenges when treating individuals with chronic pain. These problems are compounded by...
The ADHD Drug Epidemic: Addiction, Abuse, and Death
A new analysis of FDA data, published on September 10th by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/MedPage Today, reveals the dangers of the common prescription of...
Psychiatric Drug Ads Lead to More Prescriptions and Worse Treatment
A new analysis published in the The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry investigates the public health effects of direct-to-consumer advertisements for psychiatric drugs. The researchers...
“Patients Unwilling to Consent to ECT”
More than one-in-10 forms authorising ECT received by the Mental Health Commission (MHC) between 2013 and 2015 reported that the patient was unwilling to consent...
“FDA Panel Votes to Remove Serious Warning from Pfizer’s Smoking Cessation Pill”
This week an FDA advisory panel decided to remove warnings of serious psychiatric side effects from the Chantix product label. “In making its recommendation,...
“FDA questions Pfizer Study of Chantix Psychiatric Effects”
Pfizer is petitioning the FDA to remove the black box warning for Chantix which focuses on neuropsychiatric side-effects like suicidality and depression. The regulators...
“Overprescribing of Drugs for Adult ADHD Causing ‘Trail of Misuse, Addiction and Death'”
An investigative report finds that the over-prescription of ADHD drugs is causing “a trail of misuse, addiction, and death.” “At morgues in Florida, a...
Garbage In–Garbage Out: Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses can tell us a Flawed Story
Well known Stanford University researcher John Ioannidis published a new paper this week criticizing the use and production of systematic reviews and meta-analyses, often...
Review Calls for Critical look at Prescribing Antidepressant Drugs
The August issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics published a review conducted by André F. Carvalho and colleagues regarding the literature around the long-term use...
Confessions of a Trespasser
In a recently published commentary in Psychiatric Times, Ronald Pies and Joseph Pierre made this assertion: Only clinicians, with an expertise in assessing the research literature, should be weighing in on the topic of the efficacy of psychiatric drugs. They wrote their commentary shortly after I had published on madinamerica “The Case Against Antipsychotics,” and it was clear they had me in their crosshairs.
