Psychiatric Drugs

Research in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology finds that "Over the last two decades, the increased use of atypical antipsychotic medications, often...

Antidepressants may be effective over the short term, but research is showing that treatment resistant depression has risen dramatically in the past 30 years; evidence that the drugs may be inducing chronic depression.

From Wednesday's Brown Daily Herald: "Two weeks ago, Edmund Levin and George Stewart, members of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, sent...

Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel announced yesterday he will ask the state Supreme Court to reconsider its decision to toss out the $q.2 billion...

Specialist Ivan Lopez, who is accused of killing three people and wounding 16 others at Ford Hood army base yesterday, had been examined by...

The Daily Beast dives into the debate over SeaWorld's use of benzoiazepines to stop their killer whales from "acting aggressively toward each other in...

From Scientific American: "A commercial sponsored by Pfizer, the drug company that manufactures the antidepressant Zoloft, asserts, “While the cause is unknown, depression...

My new book, Debunking ADHD: 10 Reasons to Stop Drugging Kids for Acting Like Kids, is scheduled to be released tomorrow, on April 1st. Really, no joke. To be honest, when my editor informed me of this unique release date, it didn't strike me as the most complimentary day to publish research that has been years in the making and is ultimately a very serious subject. As time passed and the big day has slowly approached, however, the release date has come to feel completely serendipitous! April Fool's Day is indeed the perfect day to re-energize a powerful movement to put an end to the drugging of kids for acting like kids. Like an unkind April Fool's Day prank, ADHD is a complete joke.

In his latest paper, Martin Harrow focuses psychiatry's attention on a very specific question: Do antipsychotic drugs provide a long-term benefit as a treatment for psychotic symptoms? His findings are consistent with a larger body of evidence that all point to the same conclusion, which is that antipsychotics fail that efficacy test. And thus, I think it is fair to say that on this issue, the Fat Lady Has Sung, Psychiatry needs to rethink its use of these drugs.

Martin Harrow along with his colleagues T.H. Jobe and R. N. Faull has published another paper on the long term outcome of people who experienced a psychotic episode. Funded by a grant from the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care, this paper adds to our knowledge of an extremely important and valuable study.

An important new research paper was published this week on the topic of antidepressant use during pregnancy and preterm birth.  The issue is a crucial one as preterm birth (i.e. birth at less than 37 weeks gestational age) is one of the most challenging problems facing the obstetrical community today.  Rates of preterm birth have been increasing over the past two decades.  Babies born early have increased risks of morbidity and mortality.  At the same time, rates of antidepressant use during pregnancy have increased dramatically.

Esquire discovers that "By the time they reach high school, nearly 20 percent of all American boys will be diagnosed with ADHD. Millions of...

A recent paper argues that prescribing antidepressants shortly after the death of a loved one is problematic . . . and a few days later, a Harvard academic publicly suggests prescribing antidepressants FOR bereavement. Wait, what?

I recently read an article by Fredric Neuman, MD, titled The Use of the Minor Tranquilizers: Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, and Valium.  Dr. Neuman opens by telling us that benzodiazepines are "Very commonly prescribed for any sort of discomfort . . . They are called anxiolytics, and they are prescribed for any level of anxiety and more or less to anyone who asks for them." Dr. Neuman has been working at the Anxiety and Phobia Center for 41 years, first as Associate Director and then as Director. So when he says that benzos are routinely given to "anyone who asks for them," it's probably safe to say that he's being accurate.

Martin Harrow's study tracing the effects of antipsychotics on 139 schizophrenia (SZ) and mood-disordered patients over 20 years, just published in Psychological Medicine, finds...

A detailed meta-analysis of the published research on women taking antidepressants during pregnancy finds that the rate of preterm birth is nearly doubled in the third...

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

The Sunday Times of London reports on Peter Gotzsche's efforts to obtain pharmaceutical licensing data before the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)...

What do you do when the media reports stories of children who have killed themselves on SSRIs? Position the stories of these children, not the drugs they were taking, as a suicide risk. Warn that more children will die if mouthy parents are allowed to speak and upstart journalists are allowed to report. And then position psychiatrists as the only people who can talk about suicide without producing an epidemic of self inflicted deaths.

A study in Urology found that men receiving Zoloft for treatment of premature ejaculation had a significant reduction in sperm concentration and significant increase...

The Oregon Supreme Court ruled yesterday that judges can force criminal defendants to take antipsychotic medication in an effort to make them competent for...

MedicalXpress and Science 2.0 interview MiA blogger Jeffrey Lacasse about his recent paper, "Prescribing of Psychiatric Medication to Bereaved Parents Following Perinatal/Neonatal Death: An Observational Study." Article →

The Arkansas Supreme Court today overturned a $1.2 billion judgment against Johnson & Johnson, ruling that laws requiring companies to properly communicate risks and...

What is informed consent? Informed consent obviously means if you are being given drugs you should know the common and potential adverse affects, drug interactions, risk of dependency and addiction, and counter-indications with other substances, health conditions or health concerns. This is the baseline of informed consent (which many people don't receive) but there is an incredible amount more that is included in what you deserve to know about any drug you are prescribed or medical system you are advised to subscribe to.

When police came to enforce a 2011 court order to remove her 13-year-old daughter Arianna, and medicate her, Maryann Golboldo stood her ground -...