âLawmakers Accuse HHS of Delaying FDA Guidelines for Off-Label Marketingâ
Ed Silverman reports for STATâs Pharmalot that high-ranking congressmen are accusing the Department of Health and Human Services of deliberately delaying new guidelines on...
Rising Prescriptions, Rising Disability: Video from the UK Parliament
Mental health campaigner Chrys Muirheadâs blog features video from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence event on 11 May 2016 at Westminster....
ââDisease AwarenessââHow Big Pharma Preps You to Buy Drugs You Probably Don’t Need”
The latest from Martha Rosenberg: âPharma companies love disease awareness advertising because, unlike direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, risks and warnings of possible drug treatments do...
Mindfulness Therapy May Be More Effective Without Antidepressants
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)...
âThe Hidden Harms of Antidepressantsâ
In a new article for Scientific American, Diana Kwon reports on how the true risks for suicide and aggression in children and teens taking...
âWorld Benzodiazepine Awareness Day Set for July 11thâ
The 11 July 2016 will be the inaugural World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day, part of a campaign to raise global awareness about the issue of doctor-induced benzodiazepine dependency, which affects...
Antidepressants Not a âOne Size Fits Allâ Solution, Researchers Find
The largest ever study of the thoughts and reactions of antidepressant users reveals that many people have vastly different understandings and experiences of the...
Coyne Covers Citalopram Controversy
In his âMind the Brainâ blog for PLOS, well-known researcher James Coyne reviews the controversy surrounding the latest case of a fraudulently reported study...
Review Links Antipsychotics with Risk for Heart Attacks
A systematic review published this week in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found that patients taking antipsychotic drugs were at nearly twice the risk...
âWhy We Shouldnât Trade a Weakened FDA for More Medical Research Fundsâ
Ed Silverman at STAT reports that Congress has linked increased research funding to âfast-trackâ approval procedures. âBy linking the extra funds to speedier approvals,...
âReport From APPG for Prescribed Drug Dependenceâ
James Davies, of the Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry, issues his report from last weekâs meeting in the UK Parliament concerning the connection between increased...
Interview: Researchers Deconstruct Ghostwritten Industry Trial for Antidepressant
Researchers, Jon Jureidini, Jay Amsterdam and Leemon McHenry, have taken a closer look at the data from a randomized control trial of citalopram (Celexa) that was ghostwritten and then used by the manufacturers to support claims of the drugâs efficacy and safety in the treatment of child and adolescent depression. To get the background on this story, we connected with Dr. Leemon McHenry, an investigator in this study and a lecturer in philosophy at California State University, Northridge.
Report from the Parliament: Can Psychiatry At Least Be Curious?
In the past six years, I have had the opportunity to speak at several conferences or meetings that I felt had particular potential to stir some political activity that would challenge current psychiatric practices, and one of those events was the meeting convened in the U.K.âs Parliament on May 11th, which had this title for the day: Rising Prescriptions, Rising Mental Health Disability: Is There a Link?
Antidepressants Do Not Prevent Suicides, May Increase Risk
When the CDC released data revealing an increasing suicide rate in the US, some experts, speaking to major media outlets, speculated that the increase...
NIH Hospital Made Patient Safety âSubservient to Researchâ
A Washington-Post exclusive reveals that that the leadership of the flagship hospital of the National Institute of Health (NIH) is being restructured after a...
âPublic Wary of Faster Approvals of New Drugs, STAT-Harvard Poll Findsâ
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...
Olanzapine Can Cause Serious Skin Reaction, FDA Warns
The US FDA has issued a new warning for the atypical antipsychotic Olanzapine, also known by the brand names Zyprexa and Symbyax. The agency...
âPoliticians and Experts Meet at Parliament to Explore Record Antidepressant Prescribing and Disabilityâ
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence is meeting today, May 11th, to discuss evidence of the link between the rise in disability...
âAnother Study Finds Link Between Pharma Money and Brand-name Prescribingâ
New findings from Harvard Medical School reveal that Pharma industry payments to physicians in Massachusetts are associated with higher rates of prescribing brand-name drugs that treat...
The FDA Is Hiding Reports Linking Psych Drugs to Homicides
In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined being drawn into a story of intrigue involving my own governmentâs efforts to hide, from the public, reports of psychiatric drugs associated with cases of murder, including homicides committed by youth on the drugs. But that is precisely the intrigue I now find myself enmeshed in.
âCDC Warns that Americans May be Overmedicating Youngest Children with ADHDâ
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new data indicating that as many as 75% of young children who are diagnosed with...
Feral Psychiatry: The Case of Garth Daniels
Garth Daniels, a 39-year-old Melbourne man, has been shackled for 110 days and forced to undergo ECT 94 times at three times a week against his will. Last year, his family asked me to provide a second opinion on Garthâs case. As predicted, my recommendations against continued ECT were quickly dismissed by the hospital. There are critically important issues at stake in this case.
ââYou Want a Description of Hell?â OxyContinâs 12-Hour Problemâ
A new LA Times investigation finds that Purdue Pharmaâs claims that OxyContin, a chemical cousin of heroin, could relieve pain for twelve hours led some...
âMedical ErrorâThe Third Leading Cause of Death in the USâ
In this podcast from the BMJ talk medicine series, researchers discuss their finding that medical error is the third leading cause of death in...
FDA Warns About New Impulse-Control Problems Associated With Abilify
Yesterday, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a warning that the antipsychotic drug aripiprazole or Abilify is associated with compulsive and uncontrollable...
