Xanax: Children As Young As 11 Taking Anxiety Drug

1
From BBC: The abuse of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax is becoming widespread among children and adolescents as young as 11 years old. "To gain an idea of the...

Outcome of Mood Disorders Before Psychopharmacology

1
A "systematic review" of all outcome studies of patients with mood disorders, in the March issue of the Australia & New Zealand Journal of...

Psychologist Rethinks Psychotropic Medications, Calls for Renewed Dialogue

9
Psychologist and Professor Amber Gum has published the story of her personal journey of rethinking psychotropic medication in a special issue on "The Politics of Mental Health" in The Journal of Medicine and the Person. Influenced by Mad in America and the work of Robert Whitaker, Gum became aware of evidence that “suggests that psychotropic medications are less effective and more harmful than most believe” and now hopes to encourage other mental health professionals and researchers to engage in open-minded, critical self-assessment of standard practices.

“World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day Set for July 11th”

0
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...

Benzodiazepines Linked to Treatment Resistant Depression

8
Prior use of benzodiazepines, such as Xanax, Librium, or Ativan, may increase the risk of treatment-resistant depression (TRD), according to a new study published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.
life unarmed

Life, Unarmed

14
When I was born, everyone was expecting me to have arms. The doctor's mind raced; how am I going to tell this mother and the father that their son has hands but not arms? If he's missing so much in his extremities, mustn’t he also be missing a mind? My mom looked into my eyes and knew - in a way that only mothers know - that I had a mind, and spirit.

Anxiety Medication Associated With Significant Increase in Mortality Long-Term

0
A study of data from over 11 million patient records in the General Practice Research Database, "the largest anonymized, longitudinal primary care database in...

Some Common Psychiatric Medications Associated With Pneumonia

3
Pneumonia cases in the elderly are strongly associated with use of anticholinergic medications, including benzodiazepines and tricyclic antidepressants.

Common Benzodiazepine Sedatives May Induce Aggression

4
Benzodiazepine medications that are commonly used for calming or sedating people can sometimes apparently cause violent or aggressive responses in some people, according to...

Prescription Drugs in Great Lakes Don’t Dilute as Expected

0
Concentrations of pharmaceuticals in Lake Michigan are undiluted two miles from treated sewage outfalls, according to research published in Chemosphere. Research has linked pharmaceuticals...

“Are Anxiety Drugs Making Us Less Eager To Lend A Helping Hand?”

0
For the Huffington Post, David Freeman asks “By tamping down anxious feelings, could it be that these so-called “anxiolytic” drugs are blunting our empathy and...

The 99th Mile: When Benzo Withdrawal Meets Parenthood

16
This is how it started: Pregnancy. Now, you may guess that a hormonal tsunami could turn my body into wreckage and you’d be right. I’m not the first woman to get pummeled by the swift waters of pregnancy and I won’t be the last. What you might not guess is that despite knowing this, a doctor specializing in these particular imbalances would proffer benzodiazepines as a cure for hormone induced insomnia. You might also be surprised that my first script would be written for an amount usually reserved for those having grand mal seizures.

Benzos in 30% of NYC’s Overdose Deaths; ER Visits Soar

1
The NYC Department of Health reports that 30% of the city's 2009 overdose deaths were tied to benzodiazepines, and that benzo-related emergency room visits...

Bereaved Parents Prescribed Meds Quickly, Stay on Meds Long-Term

0
MiA blogger Jeffrey Lacasse's study of psychiatric prescribing in response to perinatal/neonatal death (co-authored with Joanne Cacciatore) finds that 37% of participants in an...

A Quiet Drug Problem Among the Elderly

0
From The New York Times: Use of benzodiazepines has risen among seniors despite their increased vulnerability to the drugs' adverse effects. "'Set aside the opioid issue,'...

UK Woman Speaks Out About 22 Year Addiction With Prescribed Ativan

3
ITV features and article and video today about the widespread problem of addiction and withdrawal from benzodiazepine drugs used to treat anxiety, including Ativan, Librium, Diazepam and Temazepam. Mother of three Sandra Minshull shares her story and discusses how Ativan “robbed her of her life.”

Update: ABC World News Wants to Know About Benzos

19
Note: The episode did not air as expected. ABC indicates it will air Tuesday, January 21. Six weeks ago a producer from ABC World News with Diane Sawyer contacted me. “ABC wants to do a piece on addiction and prescription drugs,” she told me. “Would I agree to an interview?” I was not without reservations. I have a healthy disregard for much of mainstream news, but I also realize their reach and potency. The proposition was risky, but one which I decided to take. It’s a cliché, but one with truth: If one person can benefit, then it’s worth it. I said “yes.”

PTSD in Withdrawal

20
Can withdrawal from psychiatric drugging be so terrible as to leave you with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) — to somehow rearrange your psyche for the worse even once time and hard work have undone the damage caused by the chemicals? To so profoundly alter your core self that you acquire a new diagnosis meriting special considerations or further treatment in order to resume a normal life again? If the real definition of insanity is “repeating the same mistake over and over and expecting a different result,” then embracing a psychiatric diagnosis of PTSD as a result of psychiatric damage would surely make you “insane”.

Cognitive Impairment from Long-Term Benzodiazepine Use Remains Even After Drug Withdrawal

15
Long-term benzodiazepine use shown to effect cognitive function during current use and for years after drug discontinuation.

Latest World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day (W-BAD) Video

0
“We asked people from all over the world to share about the iatrogenic injury they sustained from taking benzodiazepines as prescribed and why they...

Assessing the Cost of Psychiatric Drugs to the Elderly and Disabled Citizens of the...

3
ProPublica is well known for creating interesting data bases that allow anyone hooked up to a computer to see by name whether a physician is accepting Big Pharma payments — from dinners to speaking engagements to consulting services. What may be lesser known is that occasionally ProPublica will publish other data that when carefully mined can reveal even more about the use of psychiatric drugs especially when there is a public funding source available.

Do Benzos Deserve a Major Role in the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders?

2
Researchers at the University of Milan and King's College, London thoroughly reviewed the literature available on Medline and Cochrane regarding the use of benzodiazepines...

In Case You Missed This

69
On November 12th, 2015, the third anniversary of the day that I abruptly stopped taking benzodiazepines, my dear friend, J. Doe, published a two-part article here on Mad in America examining the language that is commonly used to describe benzodiazepine (benzo) iatrogenesis. I wanted a summary of these articles captured in a Youtube video so that those in the thick of benzo neurotoxicity could tune into these ideas in a way that might be more easily digestible. I hoped more benzo sufferers would begin to question how they describe (and allow others to describe) an illness that remains decades behind in understanding and recognition. I also wanted to draw attention to the content again in hopes that more medical professionals would read and understand the crucial distinctions in language surrounding this problem.

An Overlooked Factor in the Opioid Crisis

1
From It's Not Just an Opioid Crisis: The media are saturated with coverage of the familial and community devastation that has resulted from the opioid...

Pushing for an Informed Consent Benzo Bill in Texas

24
Dr. Raymond Armstrong and I are currently working together to push Texas lawmakers to adopt restrictions on the prescription of benzodiazepines and sleep drugs. We feel fortunate to be able to draw from the experience of the benzo movement in Massachusetts, and we are grateful for the information that long time advocates like Geraldine Burns have provided us.