Psychiatric Drugs

The article “Special K, a Hallucinogen, Raises Hopes and Concerns as a Treatment for Depression,” by Andrew Pollack in the New York Times, December 9, 2014, tells how far afield my field, psychiatry, has really gone - that it is even a consideration to use an hallucinogen for the treatment of depression.

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.

Writing under the pseudonym Will Barrett, a person who has been continually on various psychiatric drugs since age 10 philosophically reflects in Salon. "But...

The US Food and Drug Administration is warning the public that the antipsychotic medication ziprasidone "is associated with a rare but serious skin reaction...

The Chicago Tribune revisits the issues raised in the 2007 study led by Martin Harrow which found that many people diagnosed with schizophrenia fare...

"Many patients with first-episode psychosis receive medications that do not comply with recommended guidelines for first-episode treatment," states a National Institute of Mental Health...

A strong placebo response is apparently more often caused by people's expectations coming into a randomized, blinded clinical trial, than it is caused by...

Depression during pregnancy is an important issue. Depression should not be ignored and depressed pregnant women deserve good treatment and care. Part of that good care, though, is providing them with full and correct information. I care for pregnant women taking antidepressants on a daily basis and too often they tell me that the only counseling they received about the medication was, “my doctor told me it’s safe in pregnancy.” This post will review the evidence in this area and address the counterarguments.

Patient Drug News advises avoiding use of the antidepressant Vortioxetine (also called Brintellix or Trintellix), because the most recent evidence from the FDA shows...

In a review of the scientific evidence about sexual dysfunction caused by antidepressants, Australian researchers determined that some of the medications are worse than...

This week we launch Mad In America Continuing Education. It is an enormous privilege to be a part of this project and to proudly announce that the first course offering is a series of lectures by me on neuroleptic drugs. I review the history of the development of these drugs as well as their short and long term effects. I discuss what conclusions I have drawn from the data; I recommend that we need to work harder to keep people off these drugs or – if we use them – to minimize the dose and stop them as soon as possible. But there remain other pressing concerns for those individuals who are currently taking these drugs.

It was the first time in my Klonopin journey it occurred to me the problem might not be inherent in me. The problem might actually be the Klonopin. Convinced my very life was at stake, I made the firm decision to get off the stuff once and for all.

Two South African researchers review scientific understanding of the brain changes that lead to antidepressant discontinuation syndrome (ADS) in Human Psycho-pharmacology: Clinical and Experimental....

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

The Washington Post explores some of the history of research into the therapeutic potentials of even just one session with a psychedelic drug, and...

Robert Heinssen and Thomas Insel of the National Institute of Mental Health argue in Schizophrenia Bulletin that the balance of evidence does not support...

A short article in Scientific American Mind reviews the rapidly expanding array of diverse ailments and conditions for which antidepressant drugs are being prescribed. "As...

Common psychiatric medications double the risk of heart attack and triple the risk of stroke, according to research presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress...

A group of influential organizations are beginning an effort to change the entire way that psychiatric medications are named, according to a press release...

In the Daily Beast, Jay Michaelson struggles to make sense of the fact that the antipsychotic Abilify is America's top-selling drug, even while its...

Robin Williams had "therapeutic" levels of the tetra-cyclic antidepressant mirtazapine in his blood at the time of his suicide, according to the coroner's report...

In the New England Journal of Medicine, Richard Friedman and Marc Stone present very different arguments about the reliability of the body of research...

Ever higher levels of pharmaceutical drugs are turning up in drinking water supplies, and an op-ed in the UK Mirror discusses a study that...

Bioethics professor and formal medical doctor Paul Biegler discusses the ongoing battles for effectiveness-supremacy between antidepressants and placebos in The Conversation. "Some think advertising...

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.