Informed Consent

From STAT: Concerned about the potential adverse effects of ADHD medications, some parents are addressing their children's ADHD through nutrition-based approaches. Article →­

New study finds that antidepressants may negatively impact recovery after psychiatric hospitalization.

This Sunday, June 12 at 7pm (EDT) on NBCs Dateline will cover MIA author Steve Francesco's book, Overmedicated and Undertreated: How I Lost My...

A recent article in the American Journal of Public Health calls for policy level interventions to reduce the use of benzodiazepines, drugs commonly prescribed...

Until recently the history of psychiatry was a neglected backwater whose murky depths were explored largely by psychiatrist. The impression conveyed by books such as Tuke’s Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles, Macalpine and Hunter's Three Hundred Years of Psychiatry: 1535 - 1860, Berrios and Freemen's 150 Years of British Psychiatry 1841 - 1991, or Fuller Torrey and Miller's The Invisible Plague, is one that sees psychiatry and modern systems of mental health care as the inevitable outcome of progress through scientific thought, a (white European male-led) narrative from darkness and ignorance to enlightenment and knowledge.

From National Post: Many physicians are prescribing a low dose of Seroquel, an atypical antipsychotic, to patients with insomnia. Experts warn that even a low...

In the third major verdict of its kind, drug giant Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay a Maryland man who grew female breasts while taking the antipsychotic Risperdal. The company failed to warn doctors, patients, and regulators of the risk of abnormal breast development in young males and now faces about 5,400 lawsuits involving the drug.

A new analysis published in the The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry investigates the public health effects of direct-to-consumer advertisements for psychiatric drugs. The researchers...

Today on Radio Times, U.S. Representative Tim Murphy (R-PA), Mark Salzer, professor and chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences at Temple University, and Leah...

Dr. Madhukar Trivedi and colleagues find that the SSRI sertraline does not reduce depressive symptoms any more than placebo in people with Chronic Kidney Disease.

Researchers interviewed doctors about the barriers that prevent them from being able to decrease excess medications.

From ABC: A Queensland Coroner has found that the anti-smoking drug Champix played a role in the suicide of a 22-year-old man, Timothy John, who...

In this piece for TIME, Mandy Oaklander provides a comprehensive review of the current status of and potential future directions for the depression treatment industry. The...

In this piece for The BMJ, Richard Smith emphasizes the need for clear, understandable academic writing that is accessible to general audiences. "Almost everything, I believe,...

Dan Markingson was a 26-year-old mentally ill young man who violently killed himself in 2004 while enrolled in a drug-sponsored study of atypical antipsychotics among persons experiencing psychosis for the first time. Highly vulnerable individuals like Markingson should not be taken advantage of in the name of scientific research, and inability to protect such vulnerable subjects compromises the integrity of research.

A former Navy pilot claims that a VA doctor misdiagnosed him with a mental disorder that prevented him from flying and ended his career. William Royster was told in 2004 that he was bipolar, that it was a permanent condition, and that he could no longer work in any capacity, according to the Navy Times. A different psychiatrist, however, later told Royster that he never met the criteria for diagnosis.

False beliefs about biological differences between races are associated with a failure to provide recommended pain treatments to Black people.

Evidence of duplicate publishing in articles analyzing data from clinical trials testing second-generation antipsychotics for depression

A new study analyzed over 13,000 doctors and found that physicians had a poor understanding of risks and benefits in every field, including psychopharmaceutical prescription, to CT scans, and cancer screening.

In this blog post for Critical Psychiatry, Duncan Double highlights three main areas of disagreement among critical psychiatrists: whether psychiatry should be seen as a medical...

In July of 2010, Stewart Dolin, a partner at the mega law firm Reed Smith, jumped in front of a subway train in Chicago, apparently suffering from akathisia caused by paroxetine. His widow sued, and the jury found GSK negligent in not informing doctors of the suicide risk

A group of researchers in Denmark examines what existing animal studies can tell us about the sexual side-effects of SSRI antidepressants.

School aged children exposed prenatally to psychotropic medication show poorer outcomes in cognitive ability.

From STAT: A new documentary, "The Painful Truth," chronicles the plight of several patients struggling to find treatment for their chronic pain, suggesting that physicians...

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.