Appeals Court States Psychiatrists May Commit Medicaid Fraud by Prescribing Drugs Off-Label
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday rejected a lower court's dismissal of  Watson v. King-Vassel, saying that a jury is in fact sufficiently able...
Negative Symptoms Are Key to Recovery From Psychosis
Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark find from a 10-year follow-up of participants in a randomized controlled study of brief antipsychotic medication (the OPUS...
U.S Behavioral Research Studies Skew Toward Positive Results
Researchers from the Universities of Stanford and Edinburgh found, in a comparison of 1,174 primary outcomes from 82 meta-anlyses of biological and behavioral research,...
The Future of Evidence-Based Psychotherapy
Researchers from the Brown University School of Medicine, writing in Clinical Psychology Review November special issue on the future of evidence-based psychotherapy, report that psychotherapy...
2X Risk of Postpartum Hemorrhage Antidepressants
A study of 106,000 pregnant women with a diagnosis of mood or anxiety disorder, by researchers from Harvard, Duke, Michigan State and the university...
Antipsychotics Triple the Risk of Diabetes in Children and Youth
Researchers from Vanderbilt and Columbia Universities and the FDA find that, through a retrospective cohort study of 28,858 patients of the Tennessee Medicaid program...
Shooting the ADHD Messenger
A paper in the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy chronicles the history of MiA blogger Gretchen LeFever Watson's effort to improve ADHD treatment in southeastern...
Perspectives on Neuroimaging
A study in BMC Psychiatry explores a range of perspectives on the value of neuroimaging studies for disorders of mental health. The study concludes...
“A Glut of Antidepressants”
The New York Times reflects on various explanations for the skyrocketing use of antidepressants (the economy, pharmaceutical advertising, the effect of insurance), then reports...
Feds Probe Overuse of Antipsychotics in Children
Amid concern about side effects as well as the growing off-label use of antipsychotics to treat violent and aggressive behavior, the inspector general's office...
Turmeric as Effective as Prozac, With no Side-Effects
A randomized, controlled study by the Department of Pharmacology of Government Medical College in Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India found that in a study of 60...
Pfizer Settling Chantix Lawsuits
Pfizer is in the final stages of settling 660 lawsuits filed between 2009 and 2012 by people who complained of of psychological problems, including...
CBT More Cost-Effective Than SSRI for Panic Disorder
A two-year study of 150 panic-disorder patients found that the societal cost of cognitive-behavioral was less than that of CBT plus SSRI or SSRI...
ADHD Drug Studies Find Little Change in Academic Performance
According to the Wall Street Journal's, story on a June study of 4000 Qubequois students, "a growing body of research finds that in the...
Supreme Court Blocks Generic Drug Liability Lawsuits
In a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that drug makers cannot be sued under state law for adverse reactions to...
Lawyers Review Claims for SSRI Birth Defects
As the number of SSRI birth defect lawsuits climbs to the point that hundreds are being consolidated in a massive class action in the...
Reduction/Discontinuation of Antipsychotics Produces Higher Long-Term Recovery
A study published today in the American Medical Association's journal JAMA Psychiatry reports that patients whose antipsychotic treatment was reduced or discontinued (DR) experienced a recovery...
Antipsychotics and Drug Addiction
Dopamine supersensitivity as a result of sustained antipsychotic treatment can lead to compulsive drug seeking and drug-taking behavior, according to the theory offered by...
FDA Investigates Deaths Associated With Zyprexa Injections
The Food and Drug Administration is investigating the deaths of two individuals who died three to four days after injections of "an appropriate dose"...
Reading the RIAT Act: A Call to Publish Unpublished Data
The Restoring Invisible and Abandoned Trials (RIAT) proposal, backed by the British Medical Journal and PLoS ONE last week, calls for the "responsible publication and...
Industry Influences Distort Healthcare Research, Strategy, Expenditure and Practice
Researchers from London, Sydney and Stanford examine the literature related to the expanded expenditure on healthcare-related drugs and devices over the last 15 years,...
DSM-5 Creates New Off-Label Prescription Opportunities
In the film Avatar scientists are keen to exploit the moon planet Pandora, which is inhabited by 10-foot-tall blue humanoids called Na'vi. To do so they create Na'vi human hybrids called “Avatars” which are controlled from afar by genetically matched humans. When the scientists decide to destroy the eco-system of the planet to gain access to valuable minerals, war breaks out between the humans and the Na'vi. At this point the main character, Jake, who operates an Avatar, has to choose whose side he is on. Eventually Jake's life is saved and transformed by the Tree of Souls, which the humans are trying to destroy. Why are Avatars in the news again? The latest innovation from psychiatric research is using computer generated avatars to help people who hear aggressive voices.
SSRIs Can Impair New Learning About Anxiety
Researchers from Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute test the behavioral effects of SSRIs on Pavlovian fear conditioning in rats, and...
Abilify Can Worsen Psychosis & Aggression
In a systematic literature review, researchers from Canada and Japan found that the antipsychotic aripiprazole (Abilify) was significantly and causally related to increased increased...
David Oaks Comes Home: “My Whole Life I Have Been Preparing for This Time”
David Oaks, whose 1998 challenge to "check out the research for yourself" led Robert Whitaker to write Mad in America and create this website,...
