Legislation & Regulation

Writing for the Huffington Post, Caroline Beaton looks into how drugs continue to make billions in sales even after they lose lawsuits for fraud and misconduct. “The persistence of Big Pharma's fraud despite ubiquitous legal action suggests that our present efforts to hold the industry accountable are ineffective,” Beaton writes. “New polices in motion will make potentially unsafe drugs even easier to bring to market and promote.”

To what extent are healthcare providers equipped to assess nuance in the experiences of pain among nonverbal children?

Alterations in gray matter and white matter development found in infants of mothers taking SSRI antidepressants during pregnancy.

In a new study, researchers found that bright light therapy was an effective treatment for nonseasonal major depressive disorder (MDD) while Prozac (Fluoxetine) alone...

The University of Minnesota recently announced that it is ending the controversial practice of recruiting study participants from patients involuntarily being held in their psychiatric unit. In a commentary for Minnesota’s Star Tribune, bioethicist and MIA contributor Carl Elliot reports that the university has still not apologized to the patient who spoke out against this practice. Instead, “the university has done its best to discredit him.”

Over at CounterPunch, Carl Boggs takes on the knee-jerk mental illness response that pervades the airwaves after every mass shooting. He writes: “What the mental-health fixation lacks is any semblance of historical or social context. Given the persistence of U.S. imperialism and militarism — and mounting fascination with combat and guns in a society transfigured by its warfare state — Washington remains a thriving center of global violence: repeated armed interventions abroad have found their domestic parallel in the world’s largest prison system, a deepening gun culture, home-bred terrorism, police atrocities, and a media culture filled with spectacles of warfare and bloodshed.”

Results of a new study reveal that sixty-nine percent, or more than two-thirds, of patients prescribed antidepressant drugs have never, in their medical history, met the criteria for major depression. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry this month, also found that several demographic factors, like race and gender, were associated with the prescription of antidepressants.

Three out of four users of the sedative, zolpidem (brand name Ambien), do not follow FDA recommendations to reduce risk.

Last Thursday, the FDA agreed to review a “digital pill,” combining a sensor with the antipsychotic Abilify, in order to track patients’ compliance with drug treatment. Patients taking the tracker pill would also wear a patch, which would receive information and relay it to a mobile device, according to a brief report by BioPharmaDIVE.

I thought I would begin my blogging career with a description of how I see three elements that reinforce each other in ways that...

In this podcast from the BMJ talk medicine series, researchers discuss their finding that medical error is the third leading cause of death in...

(Speech delivered by Daniel Fisher at the rally in front of the Boston State House, June 2,2012) How can residents of Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC)...

Children diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are much more likely to be prescribed a psychotropic medication.

A study published in this month’s issue of Stroke found that antidepressants may increase the risk of microbleeds in the brain. Both SSRI and SNRI antidepressants can disrupt natural clotting mechanisms and lead to increased adverse bleeding incidents and prolonged bleeding times.

A systematic review of the limited research available on the long-term effects of antipsychotics finds fewer symptoms in those off of the drugs.

A change.org petition out of the United Kingdom is addressing the extreme difficulty faced by people who attempt to taper off of antidepressants and...

The Irish Times reports that a judge has ordered ECT for a 16-year-old with depression and an eating disorder. The doctor asked the court...

An analysis of medical records in the UK reveals that the use of certain antidepressants for depression is linked to a heightened risk for mania and bipolar disorder. The research, published this week in BMJ Open, found the strongest effect for serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and the antidepressant venlafaxine.

“Do they make people less aggressive? Yes, sometimes they do. Will they sedate people? Absolutely. Will they make kids easier to manage? They will,” Robert Whitaker tells Liz Spikol for Philadelphia Magazine. “But I know of no study that shows that medicating these kids long-term will help them grow up and thrive. The developing brain is a very delicate thing. The narrative is that these side effects are mild, and that’s just not true, and that the benefits are well-established, and so often they’re not.”

While an estimated 74-percent of patients diagnosed with major depression receive a prescription for an antidepressant, new research reveals that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)...

From Courthouse News Service: Three years ago, the U.S. government revealed only a heavily abridged, 524-page summary of a study on the CIA's enhanced interrogation program; until...

A new study tracks the approval of the latest antidepressant, vortioxetine, by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The...

A new study published in Lancet Psychiatry challenges the common practice of locking psychiatric wards to prevent patients from attempting suicide or leaving against...

-A recent report from the Union of Concerned Scientists graded the level of employee freedom of speech at 17 US federal agencies.

In a large review study published this week in The Lancet, researchers assessed the effectiveness and potential harms of fourteen different antidepressants for their use in children and adolescents. The negative results, familiar to MIA readers, are now making major headlines.