Psychiatric Drugs

On Monday April 14th, an important new study from Harrington et al was published in the journal Pediatrics (the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.)  The study was designed to examine prenatal use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and the risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and other developmental delays (DDs).  Nine hundred sixty-six mother child pairs were studied and the researchers found that in boys, the association between maternal SSRI use in the first trimester and autism was very strong (OR 3.22).  The association between third-trimester maternal SSRI use and developmental delay was even stronger, with an odds ratio of 4.98.

A new article by Peter Breggin, in the journal Children & Society, outlines The Rights of Children and Parents In Regard to Children Receiving...

In former times, children who were routinely inattentive and impulsive were considered to be in need of training and discipline. By and large, school teachers and parents provided this. In fact, the training was usually provided before the matter even became an issue. Today these children are spuriously and arbitrarily labeled as ill, and are given pills. At the present time the pharma-psychiatric system is being widely exposed as the spurious, destructive, disempowering fraud that it is. Organized psychiatry is responding to these criticisms not by cleaning up its act, but instead by increasing its lobbying activity in the political arena.

The Telegraph provides a forum for Joanna Moncrieff: "The use of antidepressants continues its inexorable rise. Since the early 1990s the number of prescriptions...

On Monday a new study was published with the finding that there is a three- to four-fold increase in the rates of Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Delay in children, especially boys, born to mothers who have been on antidepressants through pregnancy. There are further studies with comparable findings in the offing. Not only this but it looks as though the SSRIs may redefine what it means to be a teratogen. Other teratogens produce their effects in the first trimester of pregnancy when organs are first being formed. But it looks like antidepressants used in the third trimester can lead to autistic spectrum disorder and developmental delay.

The death toll among Japanese citizens who have taken Johnson & Johnson's subsidiary Janssen's schizophrenia drug Xeplion has climbed to 21, from 17 on...

Doris Iarovici, a psychiatrist from Duke University, asks in the New York Times "Are we using good scientific evidence to make decisions about keeping...

Concentrations of Prozac as low as 1 microgram per liter (μg/L), a concentration that has been found in many freshwater environments, were found to significantly...

Author and clinical psychologist Bruce Levine discusses society's relationship to drugs, psychiatry's increasing credibility issue, and the cultural response to incidents of mass violence.

"Looking back, Pam Herrera wishes she had asked more questions and been more forceful with her son's therapists," says the Denver Post. "The list...

The Ohio-based Legal Examiner reviews the history of Johnson & Johnson's allegedly inappropriate - perhaps criminal - marketing of Risperdal, including pushing the drug...

The average rate of female prisoners in Canada's prison system who receive psychiatric medication has jumped from 42% in 2001 to over 60% today,...

Research on 966 mother-child pairs from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) Study finds that prenatal SSRI exposure was nearly 3...

According to a report prepared by Colorado University and released to the Denver Post, half of the children on government insurance in Colorado who...

The Denver Post writes "Colorado officials have known since at least 2007 that prescriptions and dosage levels of psychotropic drugs — which also include antidepressants, mood...

Seeking to rectify the fact that "no meta-analysis has included measures of quality of life, global mental health, self-esteem, or autonomy" (or self-reports of...

The Guardian writes that "Use of antidepressant drugs has become more common than ever before. Perhaps it's time that we looked at the wider causes...

A very gifted and compassionate friend recently said that she feels enslaved to Abilify - that she has tried to taper off it several times but always ends up slipping into an extreme state, no matter how slow she tapers. She said this repeated experience makes her feel like a slave, because she has to go back on the drug to stop the very intense extreme state induced whenever she tries to stop taking it.

"Some powerful figures in mental health," according to today's New York Times, "are claiming to have identified a new disorder that could vastly expand the...

A first-of-its-kind hearing in Texas will determine how future court cases linking SSRIs with congenital malformation will be handled. Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft,...

Patient advocates and bioethicists have launched a call-in campaign demanding action on psychiatric research abuse at the University of Minnesota.

The Japanese unit of Johnson & Johnson affiliate Janssen Pharmaceuticals reports that 17 people have died since the launch of its new antipsychotic, Xeplion,...

Saying that the Arkansas supreme court had departed from 170 years of precedent by deciding in favor of Johnson & Johnson on grounds not...

Salon.com points out that "While data point to at least some over diagnosis (of ADHD), at least in boys, the extent of this problem...