Is Long-term Use of Benzodiazepines a Risk for Cancer?
A large study of the population in Taiwan reveals that long-term use of benzodiazepine drugs, commonly prescribed for anxiety, significantly increases the risk for brain, colorectal, and lung cancers. The research, published open-access in the journal Medicine, also identifies the types of benzodiazepines that carry the greatest cancer risk.
Chinese Psychiatric Patient Wins Long Battle for Freedom
From South China Morning Post: A middle-aged Chinese man diagnosed with mild schizophrenia has won a four-year, high-profile legal battle to be released from a...
“Why Does Psychiatry So Often Get a Free Pass on Standards of Evidence?”
Rob Wipond takes HealthNewsReview.org to task for its coverage of a Philadelphia Inquirer article about a medical device designed for people experiencing panic. He writes that “hyperbolic psychiatric and psychological claims frequently get free passes from otherwise thoughtful medical critics.”
Pharma Backing of Advocacy Groups: A Call for Transparency
From HealthNewsReview.org: In light of the opioid crisis, lawmakers are growing increasingly concerned about financial conflicts of interest in patient advocacy groups. Ontario has enacted...
Why Disclosure Policies Don’t Discourage Drug Salesmen
From The Chronicle: The practice of pharmaceutical industry payments to academic researchers to help promote their drugs remains widespread. Requiring scientists to disclose their ties...
“California Courts Step Up Oversight of Psychotropic Medication Use in Foster Care”
The Mercury News reports that California’s judicial council is taking major steps to address the rampant use of psychiatric drugs in foster care. The...
When Legal Drugs Harm and Illegal Drugs Help
From Scientific American: In a day and age when people are increasingly becoming addicted to prescription drugs, and increasingly helped by the therapeutic effects of illicit...
Less Than Half of Clinical Trials Comply with Legislation to Accurately Report Results
A new study finds that sponsors of clinical trials in the EU continue to fail at reporting their results as required by recent legislation.
Systematic Review Finds Antidepressant Withdrawal Common and Potentially Long-lasting
Prominent researchers conduct a review of antidepressant withdrawal incidence, duration, and severity. Results lead to call for new clinical guidelines.
When Switching Antipsychotics, No Difference Between Immediate and Gradual Discontinuation
Review study compares outcomes of gradual vs. immediate antipsychotic discontinuation when switching from one drug to another.
How do we Know if a Drug Actually Works?
From Scientific American: The effectiveness of a particular medical treatment is often highly subjective and dependent on each individual's definition of the term "effective." Many...
I’m Reinventing Mental Health Care by Putting Patients in Charge
In this piece for The Guardian, Joy Hibbins describes how her experiences of powerlessness as a mental health service user led her to start Suicide...
Bill to Force Pharma to Disclose Payments to Advocacy Groups
From STAT: Last month, Senator Claire McCaskill released a report showing that opioid manufacturers had funneled nearly $9 million to patient advocacy groups between 2012...
Silicon Valley Courts Brand-Name Teachers, Raising Ethics Issues
From The New York Times: Tech companies are increasingly recruiting school teachers to help improve and promote their education tools in exchange for perks, including...
Light Therapy Outperforms Prozac for Depression
In a new study, researchers found that bright light therapy was an effective treatment for nonseasonal major depressive disorder (MDD) while Prozac (Fluoxetine) alone...
Has Evidence Based Medicine Been Hijacked?
John Ioannidis claims that the idea of evidence based medicine has been “hijacked to serve agendas different from what it was originally aimed for,” in a newly published critical essay in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. Ioannidis frames the essay as a continuation of a conversation with David Sackett, widely considered the founder of evidence based medicine.
“Privacy Not Included: Federal Law Lags Way Behind New Health-Care Technology”
“The federal privacy law known as HIPAA doesn’t cover home paternity tests, fitness trackers, or health apps. When a Florida woman complained after seeing...
Swiss Giant Novartis Likely Bribed Thousands in Greece
From Medical Xpress: According to Greece's justice minister Stavros Kontonis, it is likely that the pharmaceutical company Novartis has bribed thousands of medical professionals and state officials...
“Opioids and Benzos Not a Good Combination, Health Directors Say”
“Health Commissioner Leana Wen will join other health directors across the country today in asking the federal government to require a ‘black box warning’...
GlaxoSmithKline Accused of Hiding Paroxetine Results
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.
Seeking Justice
My life flashed before my eyes as my entire medical history over the last decade was rewritten from having a genetic brain disease to being a victim of a medical scam. It was bittersweet, for I realized that I was not sick and dying, but I had been robbed of so many years of my life due to the psychiatrist’s lies. Now I am suing my former psychiatrist for damages.
SNRIs Added to the List of Drugs with Potential Withdrawal Symptoms
New research suggests that clinicians should exercise caution prescribing SNRIs as first-line treatment for mood and anxiety disorders.
“World Benzo Awareness Day, First Step To End Global Dependency Woes”
“In a bid to raise awareness towards the global epidemic of abuse on Benzodiazepine or ‘benzos’ abuse, a global campaign dubbed as World Benzo Awareness...
“Public Wary of Faster Approvals of New Drugs, STAT-Harvard Poll Finds”
According to a new STAT-Harvard poll, the majority of Americans oppose new legislation that would speed up the approval of new drugs and medical...
Doctors Too Reliant on Pfizer’s Depression Questionnaire
From The Telegraph: Depression is being overdiagnosed due to doctors' reliance on a nine-question form designed by pharmaceutical company Pfizer to assess patients for depression.
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