Stimulants

Miriam Stoppard writes an opinion piece on the lack of good research on Ritalin, a drug often used for ADHD, and discusses the latest Cochrane review which found a high percentage of side-effects in children. Despite the lack of quality evidence, “NHS figures show that nearly one million ADHD prescriptions were handed out last year in England – a number that has more than doubled in 10 years.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new data indicating that as many as 75% of young children who are diagnosed with...

A systematic review of studies of stimulant medications for ADHD has concluded that the drugs should be used as a last resort, in rare...

Consumer Reports, looking at an analysis of more than 400 studies of ADHD medications, concludes that the apparent benefits of the drugs wear off...

The New Republic assays into the the ripe fields of debate over the ADHD diagnosis. Article →

Following a fourfold-increase in antidepressant use in Scotland over the last two decades, one in seven Scots are taking the drugs.  Prescriptions for antipsychotics...

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

With drugs for ADHD increasing 17%, and an "unprecedented increase in patients taking antidepressants and antipsychotics," overall prescription drug sales in the United States...

New research questions whether the diagnosis of ADHD even meets the criteria for a disorder, as set out in the manuals used by the medical and psychiatric fields.

Following a lawsuit brought by Andrew Thibault of Parents Against Pharmaceutical Abuse (PAPA), the FDA has produced adverse event and severe adverse event reports...

Twice as many teenagers with ADHD experienced severe psychosis when taking Adderall, as compared to Ritalin, according to a new study.

About 65% of preschool children who were diagnosed with ADHD and given stimulant drugs were still taking those drugs six years later.

In the Boston Globe, Sarah Schweitzer tells the story of a young boy brutally abused by his parents then given to his grandparents who struggled with extreme poverty and homelessness. “Researchers now understood that trauma could alter the chemistry of developing brains and disrupt the systems that help a person handle stress, propelling a perpetual state of high alert. The consequences could be lifelong. As an adult, he’d be more likely to suffer anxiety and depression and heart disease and stroke. His ability to hold a job, manage money, and make good decisions could be compromised. And there was evidence, controversial but mounting, that he could pass on these traits to his children.”

From Neuroskeptic: A new paper examines the often arbitrary distinction between "hard" and "soft" drugs, recommending that scientists avoid using these classifications in research publications. Article →­

The mother of a man charged with trespassing for leaping from a monorail into a tiger's den at the Bronx Zoo, where he was...

A number of news outlets have been reporting on a review of modafinil, labeled the new "smart drug," this week. The review in question summarized the recent literature on the drug but others have claimed that the authors underestimated potential side-effects.

In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined being drawn into a story of intrigue involving my own government’s efforts to hide, from the public, reports of psychiatric drugs associated with cases of murder, including homicides committed by youth on the drugs. But that is precisely the intrigue I now find myself enmeshed in.

A new study published in the journal Neuroscience finds that rats given regular doses of amphetamines during adolescence have brain and behavioral changes in adulthood....

A review of "potential neurobiological ramifications of the popular cognitive enhancers," in Frontiers of Systems Neuroscience, finds that stimulants reduce performance at higher dosages, and...

The FDA recently approved lisdexamfetamine (LDF) for the treatment of the newly minted DSM-5 diagnosis of Binge Eating Disorder. This caused me some consternation and this blog will be as much about my reaction to this news as to the news itself.

-The New York Times looks at the rising campaign to "educate" the public and physicians about "binge eating disorder" and how to "treat" it with an amphetamine.

Authors of a 1999 paper that promoted medication over behavioral therapy for A.D.H.D.,  in fact dismissing behavioral therapy as unnecessary in light of the apparent...

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.

My name is Leah Harris and I'm a survivor. I am a survivor of psychiatric abuse and trauma. My parents died largely as a result of terrible psychiatric practice. Psychiatric practice that took them when they were young adults and struggling with experiences they didn’t understand. Experiences that were labeled as schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder. My parents were turned from people into permanent patients. They suffered the indignities of forced treatment. Seclusion and restraint. Forced electroshock. Involuntary outpatient commitment. And a shocking amount of disabling heavy-duty psychiatric drugs. And they died young, from a combination of the toxic effects of overmedication, and broken spirits.

Writing for Huffpost, medical doctor Lawrence Diller looks at the effects of the ever increasing diagnoses for ADHD and the addiction and abuse issues...