Bipartisan Agreement on Mental Health Treatment
The New York Times on Obama's $235 million initiative: "Mental health unites lawmakers Republican and Democrat, urban and rural, even those with safe seats...
Why Do Better Health Care Systems Make People Feel Less Healthy?
The more a country's system of medical care expands, the sicker people feel -- and much of that effect seems related to psychiatry.
āCDC Warns that Americans May be Overmedicating Youngest Children with ADHDā
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new data indicating that as many as 75% of young children who are diagnosed with...
Psychotropics During Pregnancy Raise Risk of Babies with Low Birth Weight, Hospitalizations
The use by mothers of any of four major classes of psychiatric medications during pregnancy significantly raises the risk that their babies will be born with low birth weights and will need to be hospitalized.
Experts Call on Presidential Candidates to Improve Study Transparency
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.
Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome Linked to Polypharmacy, Benzos, and Race
Research from London and Taipei finds that neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) is associated withĀ the number of different antipsychotics used (polypharmacy), rather than the overall...
AARP Wins Class Action Against Over-drugging of Seniors
A California nursing home has settled with AARP in an unprecedented class-action lawsuit against the facility for using inappropriate kinds and amounts of psychiatric...
Teen Brain Develops Differently in Bipolar Disorder, When Medicated
The brains of adolescents diagnosed with bipolar disorder develop differently than the brains of teens without the disorder, according to a study in Biological...
Rethinking Psychiatry in Asheville, North Carolina
"Asheville psychiatrist Daniel Johnson didn't set out to transform his profession," says an article in North Carolina's Mountain Xpress, "But heās now part of...
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...
PA Court Affirms Dismissal of Paxil Wrongful Death Suit
A Pennsylvania Superior Court has affirmed a lower court's ruling that GlaxoSmithKline is not responsible for the congenital heart defect that lead Joanne Thomas...
Child Abuse/Psychosis Link Not Genetic
Although psychosis is more common in the parents of people with psychosis than those without, the difference cannot be attributed to genetics, research from...
UK NHS Adopts Lifestyle Program for Antipsychotic Users
Britain's National Health Service is adopting a "lifestyle medicine program" that was developed in Australia for young people taking antipsychotics, according to The Guardian....
FDA: Abilify Promotions Are Misleading Physicians and the Public
The US FDA has requested that Otsuka "immediately cease" distributing some of its educational materials for its top-selling antipsychotic Abilify.
J&J Fighting Federal Risperdal Deal Over Language Regarding Breasts
Johnson & Johnson is negotiating with federal authorities over language that might be used in dozens of civil lawsuits regarding abnormal breast development and...
Pharma Prosecutions Begin to Pay for Themselves
In what may prove to be a tipping point for prosecutions against pharmaceutical companies, states are beginning to see their "enforcement efforts pay for...
Jury Awards $3M to Family of 5-Year-Old With Topamax-Related Birth Defects
A Pennsylvania jury awarded $3 million to the family of a 5-year-old born with cleft palate and lip as a result of the mother...
Sickness Absence From Work: More Anxiety Than Otherwise
Norwegian, Australian and U.K. researchers find, in a study of 13,436 community members, linked with official records of sickness absence from work (SA), that...
New Research on Insomnia & Depression
The New York Times reports on new research from multiple sources that finds focused attention on insomnia is proving to be a "cheap, relatively...
ADHD Medication Does Not Improve School Achievement
The journal Science reviews the current state of research on ADHD medication, finding that the drugs do not improve school performance or achievement in...
GSK to Face Lawsuits Over Antidepressant Paxil and Birth Defects
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."
Why Journals Resist Drug Trial Registration
Although publication bias is known to be a serious problem that public drug trial registration is meant to address, only a fraction of journals...
Sleep Sweeps Toxic Metabolites Out of the Brain
Adding to our knowledge about the connection between sleep and mental health, researchers from the University of Rochester and N.Y.U. find that sleep creates...
J&J Fraud Plea Prompts Academics to Regret Participation
Following Johnson & Johnson's record $2.2 billion settlement for criminal marketingĀ āĀ including $1.4 billion related to its marketing of Risperdal, making it one of the...
“Alarm and Disbelief” as New EU President Moves Regulation of Medicines to Industry Ministry
The new President-elect of the European Union Jean-Claude Juncker has removed key responsibilities relating to health and medicines from the government Commissioner in charge...
