Benzodiazepines

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

Researchers from Tufts and Harvard find in a review of 233 medical charts of psychiatrically hospitalized youth at three points in time (1991, 1998...

Norwegian researchers found that 14.6% (27,861) of patients who were prescribed benzodiazepines used two simultaneously, despite the fact that all benzodiazepines have essentially the...

In this piece for The New Inquiry, Sophie Putka chronicles the mental health profession's long history of pathologizing, diagnosing, and medicating women's emotions. "With Freud’s claims...

Researchers from the Cochrane Center and University of Copenhagen in Denmark, publishing in the May issue of Addiction, "explore the rationale for claiming that...

In 1980, the British Medical Journal published a “Systematic Review of the Benzodiazepines” by the Committee on the Review of Medicines. The committee denied the addictive potential of Benzodiazepines and limited their suggestions to short term use. The results have been devastating.

In this video from Business Insider, psychopharmacologist and psychiatrist Dr. Samoon Ahmad explains the impact of Xanax on the brain and discusses some of...

The other day I talked to a friend who I hadn’t seen for quite a while. She told me that she had been prescribed Seroquel for sleep problems about a year ago. But when she started to read about it a couple months ago she got really nervous that it was causing her long term health complications and she stopped taking it - cold turkey - without tapering. I wondered about our conversation afterwards and thought about the countless amount of people who don’t tolerate their psychiatric meds and quit cold turkey.

An anti-anti-stigma campaign The whole anti-stigma campaign is something of a joke. Google the word “stigma,” see for yourself. Mental health labels are inherently stigmatizing,...

From The New York Times: Overprescription is becoming an increasingly prevalent public health issue, especially for older adults with multiple chronic conditions. "Though studies have found...

When my son was born six years ago, the word “disabled” was suddenly all around me. It came from everywhere – the nurses, the doctors, the physical and occupational therapists, friends and family. I remember looking into his ice blue eyes and so marveling at the lines of white that extended so symmetrically from his irises that I began calling him Star Boy. I felt a new mother’s sense of protection. The label surrounding my Star Boy was a smoke so thick I felt I could barely breathe.

In a new video for World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day (W-BAD) people from all over the world share about the iatrogenic harm they sustained from taking...

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...

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

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...

Research examines the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) on experiences of chronic pain among low-income patients.

Research presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine finds that 12.6% of primary care visits in the U.S. involved...

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.

A group of French doctors presented a new study in the area of pediatric anesthesiology at this year’s World Congress of Anaesthesiologists in Hong...

In a review of the evidence regarding benzodiazepines, researchers from the University of Michigan find that benzodiazepines used in the treatment of PTSD are...

The authors of an article in Journal of Psychosocial Nursing reviewed the literature on psychotropic PRN medications in order to respond to a request to...

I’ve wondered for a long time how I managed to get caught in the razor wire of benzodiazepines. I didn’t sleep for long enough to have me hovering around psychosis — true. My doctor had a dizzy insistence that benzos would resolve the problem — also true. The benzo wire was so low and sharp that I was caught before I realized I’d fallen. How could I have known? But still, the question lingers.

Protocol for the Treatment of Benzodiazepine Withdrawal, written by Dr. C. Heather Ashton ("The Ashton Manual"), published and available free of charge on Benzo.org. This...

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

Members of the group Benzodiazepine Recovery have created a video to raise awareness for benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome. It is estimated that 30 percent of people...