Antipsychotics

Recently, I have been the target of much wooing by my local Sunovion rep. I think he leaves messages for me almost weekly and he sends me missives - glossy brochures and reprints from major psychiatric journal. What is the subject of this attention? The drug - lurasidone (Latuda).

Writing in Neuron that antipsychotics' "functional consequences and the subcellular sites of their accumulation in nervous tissue have remained elusive," researchers from Germany and...

An editorial in the Guardian discusses the fact that the number of people with intellectual or learning disabilities “who are being treated with psychotropic drugs far exceeds those with mental illness.” The authors of a new study examining the overuse of psychotropic drugs on people with learning disabilities, published this month in BMJ, argue: “If people without mental illness are given psychotropic drugs… it is probably to control their behavior.”

NPR Shots discusses the plethora of new programs for early intervention for psychosis, with a focus on Ventura Early Intervention Prevention Services, operated by...

A Hong Kong study links short "Duration of Untreated Psychosis" (DUP) to better long-term outcome.  The authors propose that factors linked to long DUP...

From The Guardian: According to a new Human Rights Watch report, U.S. nursing homes are inappropriately prescribing antipsychotics to an estimated 179,000 residents with dementia each...

The recent research scandals out of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Psychiatry may be alarming, but they are not new. Back in the 1990s, when the university was working its way towards a crippling probation by the National Institutes of Health (for yet another episode of misconduct (this time in the Department of Surgery), the Department of Psychiatry hosted two spectacular cases of research wrongdoing, both of which resulted in faculty members being disqualified from conducting research by the FDA.

The percentage of seniors in the United States prescribed potentially deadly antipsychotic drugs increases with age. A new study reveals that in the face of serious risks of strokes, fractures, kidney injuries, and death, over seventy-five percent of seniors given antipsychotics do not have a diagnosis for a mental disorder.

Writing in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, researchers from the Health Economics Resource Center studied the effects of long-acting injectable risperidone (Consta) on 369 patients...

Australian researchers have uncovered an alarming increase of Seroquel-related ambulances calls. Rising prescriptions of of the drug along with its developing use as a drug...

The US FDA has requested that Otsuka "immediately cease" distributing some of its educational materials for its top-selling antipsychotic Abilify.

A new study in JAMA Neurology finds that the use of antipsychotic drugs more than doubled the risk of death in patients with Parkinson’s...

The US Food and Drug Administration is still unsure whether a long-acting, injectable antipsychotic killed two people days after they received it.

My name is Leah Harris and I'm a survivor. I am a survivor of psychiatric abuse and trauma. My parents died largely as a result of terrible psychiatric practice. Psychiatric practice that took them when they were young adults and struggling with experiences they didn’t understand. Experiences that were labeled as schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder. My parents were turned from people into permanent patients. They suffered the indignities of forced treatment. Seclusion and restraint. Forced electroshock. Involuntary outpatient commitment. And a shocking amount of disabling heavy-duty psychiatric drugs. And they died young, from a combination of the toxic effects of overmedication, and broken spirits.

This is the third time in less than two years that I’m writing an article about young men walking into public venues and shooting a dozen or more people at a time --- first Tucson, then Aurora, now Newtown. The Newtown killer, Adam Lanza, didn’t just walk into the Sandy Hook elementary school where he shot and killed 26 persons, he broke in, determined to carry out the plan he had. “Why?” and “Where Next?” seem to be the questions we are always left with, along with “How can we prevent this from happening again?” Many Americans are also asking, finally, “What is happening to this country?”

Ruling that health care providers, while important, "are not entitled to an elevated status in tort law that would categorically immunize them from liability...

A new study finds that clinicians’ disregard for mental health patients’ insight into their own condition may be detrimental to treatment.

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.”

The Wall Street Journal highlights a new study that found that off-label medications represent about 12% of drug prescriptions and are resulting in negative...

From the Chicago Tribune: Former drug sales representative Allison Zayas became a whistleblower against her old company, AstraZeneca, after learning that a combination of Seroquel...

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

From The Sydney Morning Herald: A new review found that mental health patients' decision-making capacity is very rarely considered in court rulings on involuntary treatment. "The...

Fox 5 Atlanta featured a back to school story about the growing percentage of preteens and teens being prescribed antipsychotic medication for ADHD.  They report:...