Drug Page

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...

Writing for the Harvard Health Blog, Dr. Nandinia Mani reconsiders the use of antidepressants in teens in light of the reanalysis of Study 329. ...

“The rising death rates for those young white adults, ages 25 to 34, make them the first generation since the Vietnam War years of the mid-1960s to experience higher death rates in early adulthood than the generation that preceded it,” the ‘Times reports.

Bloomberg reports that the FDA asked Pfizer in August “to modify safety warnings for its antidepressant Zoloft (sertraline) and acknowledge for the first time that some studies linked the mood-altering medication to heart defects in newborns.”

In a bellwether case, plaintiffs allege that Pfizer did not adequately warn patients that Zoloft (sertraline) would cause birth defects. The case is scheduled in Federal Court in March, and the verdict will have significant implications for future suits.

Despite concerns about the drug’s necessity, effectiveness, and side-effects, Flibanserin (Addyi) has come to market as the first drug designed to increase sexual desire in women

Pharmalot’s Ed Silverman reports that a number of generic drugs, sold by Novartis and Teva Pharmaceuticals, may be pulled off of the shelves after...

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

In an open letter to all US presidential candidates published Thursday in the BMJ, a group of global health care experts assert that current research regulations allow drug companies to publish incomplete and misleading results. They ask the candidates to declare whether they support improved transparency measures that would make data on drug studies publically available and open to scrutiny.

Researchers from the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB) found that antidepressants weaken bone growth which can disrupt procedures like tooth implants....

New research finds that brain matter loss in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia is correlated with antipsychotic use, according to Psych Central. The analysis suggests that the continued use of antipsychotics is linked with progressive cortical gray matter loss.

In exchange for pleading guilty to murder, a young soldier received a 45-year sentence with the possibility of parole. The plea resulted from evidence that Chantix, a smoking cessation drug manufactured by Pfizer, can increase hostility and agitation, according to the SunHerald. “Several experts provided some evidence that Chantix affected (the soldier’s) ability to appreciate the nature and quality or wrongfulness of his acts,” the SunHerald noted.

For the Huffington Post, David Freeman asks “By tamping down anxious feelings, could it be that these so-called “anxiolytic” drugs are blunting our empathy and...

The antidepressant Paxil has been linked to birth defects. "An Ohio federal judge on Wednesday ruled that GlaxoSmithKline must face a product liability suit brought by a woman whose child was born with heart defects after she took the antidepressant Paxil during her pregnancy, ruling that she had successfully pled fraud."

For the Conversation, Binghamton University researcher Lina Begdache tackles the issue of the growing use of 'Study Drugs' in the student population. “Animal studies show...

Writing on his 1 Boring Old Man blog, Dr. Mickey Nardo reflects on the media frenzy around the RAISE study and asks why the prescription data has not been released. He adds skepticism about the political motives of the potentially overblown results, which he sees as a clear push for increased mental health funding.

"A Pfizer Inc. report shows a scientist warned executives last year about a potential link between the anti-depressant drug Zoloft and birth defects."

The UK Times reports that pharmaceutical companies are actively lobbying to limit the release of clinical trial data to the public. Rather than limiting results and data to medical journals, new transparency initiatives are pushing for making the information publically available. The push for transparency comes in the wake of the reanalysis of the Study 329 data on paroxetine (marketed as Seroxat and Paxil), which found that the industry study had misconstrued its results.

Accumulating evidence points to serious risks associated with antidepressant use during pregnancy, yet data suggests that prescriptions continue to rise in the US. "Given...

New data reveals that the majority of care homes in British Columbia, Canada are giving out prescriptions for antidepressants and antipsychotics without a diagnosis....

A new review finds that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) can help stave off recurring depression as effectively as antidepressants. People suffering from depression who...

The International Business Times covers a new study showing “trials for new antidepressant medications may not be applicable to the population at large.” “The finding, published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, shows recent trials are less generalizable than the prior studies, as researchers excluded most depressed patients from drug company-sponsored treatment studies.”

Ed Silverman reports for STAT’s Pharmalot that high-ranking congressmen are accusing the Department of Health and Human Services of deliberately delaying new guidelines on...

Charles Ornstein at ProPublica reports on how long it took regulators to take action against the top prescriber of antipsychotic drugs in Florida’s Medicaid...

In a series of experiments in mice, researchers found that the drug risperidone alters gut microbes, which in turn profoundly influence metabolism, weight, and overall health.