Pharma Execs Barred from Federal Programs
Three former executives from Purdue Pharma have been barred by a federal appeals court from doing business with federal healthcare programs such as Medicare...
Autism Linked to Antidepressants During Pregancy
A study of the Swedish medical birth registry, conducted by researchers from Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S.A., found a 3.3X greater risk of...
NE Journal of Medicine Backs Congressional Call for Research Transparency
Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced the Trial and Experimental Studies Transparency (TEST) Act into congress on August 2, 2012; a bill aimed at closing...
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...
A History of Rapid Tranquilization
A paper by Joanna Moncrieff and Laura Allison in the journal History of Psychiatry reviews "the theory and practice of emergency sedation for behavioural...
Therapy More Effective than Medications for Anxiety — Placebos Also Effective
One-on-one Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is better than psychiatric medications or other common psychotherapeutic interventions for severe anxiety disorders in adults, according to a large...
Hospital Website Health Care Information May Not Be Reliable
An investigation found that many US hospital websites were more like advertising outlets than educational portals.
ADHD Prescribing Differs Substantially in UK vs. US
An article in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry finds that the UK's new guidelines for treating attention and depression problems in children recommend a...
Robert Reich Blogs on the Glaxo Penalty
Robert Reich, professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, analyzes the impact of the $3 billion...
Director Tony Scott had Antidepressant – Not Cancer – at Time of Suicide
The Los Angeles County coroner's department reported yesterday that Tony Scott, the  director of films such as "Top Gun" and "Beverly Hills Cop II,"...
J&J Whistleblowers to Collect Record $168 million
The whistleblowers who helped to build the case for prosecuting Johnson & Johnson for illegal marketing of Risperdal will take home nearly $168 million...
Teva to Pay $27.6M to Settle Clozapine False Claims Lawsuit
Teva Pharmaceuticals has agreed to pay $27 million to settle federal and state accusation of false claims regarding the antipsychotic Clozapine, and payments made...
ADHD Medication Risks Outweigh Benefits in Most Cases
A systematic review of studies of stimulant medications for ADHD has concluded that the drugs should be used as a last resort, in rare...
FDA Releases New Guidelines on Scientific Literature Used for Promotional Purposes
The FDA has released a new checklist meant to clarify the ways a pharmaceutical manufacturer may use scientific and medical literature to promote products....
American Psychological Association Begins Inquiry into Torture Allegations
"The American Psychological Association (APA) last week named a former federal prosecutor to lead an investigation into its role in supporting the U.S. governmentâs...
Childhood Trauma Predicts Lack of Response to Antidepressants
Research in Translational Psychiatry finds that childhood maltreatment and trauma predict a greater likelihood of developing chronic depression, and a reduced likelihood of responding to treatment...
Louisiana Sues Pfizer Over Fraudulent Zoloft Marketing
The Attorney General of Louisiana has filed suit against Pfizer, Inc. for concealing "serious issues" regarding Zoloft's efficacy. Citing a "deliberate, systematic practice" of...
Serious Warnings on Drugs Paradoxically Increase Sales
Researchers from Tel Aviv, Singapore and New York find that  although "Warnings that a promoted product can have adverse side effects (e.g., smoking cigarettes...
Self-Esteem Deficits Predict Paranoia & Positive Symptoms
Researchers from Indiana University find, in a study of 57 individuals with schizophrenia diagnoses, that "decreases in self-esteem at any given time point were...
Color of Light Affects Mood
In research that may have implications for depression in humans, researchers at Ohio State find that hamsters exposed to blue and white light rather...
Prescriber of Huge Amounts of Antipsychotic Drug Was Taking Kickbacks
ProPublica has provided an update on their investigation of Dr. Michael Reinstein. "A former Chicago psychiatrist who was the nation's top prescriber of the...
The Putative Neurobiology of SSRIs and Aggression
âItâs hapÂpening," said researchers at Northeastern University, "Kids are becoming irriÂtated, aggresÂsive, impulÂsive, agiÂtated, hosÂtile. So you ask the quesÂtion: Why?â They found (through study...
Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews Finds Systematic Under-Reporting of Adverse Events
A systematic review by researchers from Canada, the U.K., and China finds that the 4,644 systematic reviews studied "compounded the poor reporting of harms...
Epidemiologists Decry Major Problems in US Psychiatric Practice
In an exchange published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, researchers take turns highlighting major problems in the way psychiatry is currently practiced in the United States. In response to an article by Vinay Prasad calling for an insistence on randomized control trials in âevidence-basedâ medicine, Jose de Leon, from the Mental Health Research Center at the University of Kentucky begins the back-and-forth by pointing out that this type of evidence has been detrimental to the field of mental health.
“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...
