Class Action Lawsuit Granted Over Pfizer Antidepressant’s Effects on Heart, Liver and Profits
Pfizer will face a class action lawsuit by investors who claim that the drugmaker's Wyeth unit failed to disclose information about its antidepressant Pristiq's...
J&J CEO Avoids Testimony in Philadelphia Risperdal Case
Chief executive Alex Gorsky was once proud enough of Risperdal to put its sales numbers on his resume, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer today,...
Risperdal Whistle-Blower Honored in Texas, Fired in Pennsylvania
Allen Jones, the whistle blower whose testimony resulted in a $158 million settlement by Johnson & Johnson for fraudulent marketing of Risperdal in Texas,...
Active Engagement More Important Than Type of Treatment
Researchers (including Irving Kirsch) in the U.S., Israel and the U.K. find that a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressants may provide a slight benefit...
Death of a Child Linked to Onset of Psychosis
Using data from the National Comorbidity Survey, researchers found that individuals with a psychotic disorder who had lost a child had a significantly later...
Benzodiazepines Associated With 3.5x Greater Dementia Risk
Researchers in the U.K. find in a 22-year prospective study of 1134 men, 103 of whom took benzodiazepines regularly for one or more period...
Why Most Biomedical Findings Echoed by Newspapers Turn Out to be False
Researches in France and the United States found that seven of the top ten most reported-upon studies on ADHD in newspapers in the 1990s...
Misrepresentation of Research in the News
French researchers, publishing in PLoS Medicine, find that the mismatch between perceived and real beneficial effects of new treatments is related to the presence...
Is the GSK Settlement Sufficient
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine asks whether settlements such as the $3 billion GlaxoSmithKline agreed to last July regarding off-label...
Antidepressants Associated With Increased Driving Risk
Researchers from the Taiwan and the United States find through a study of 5,183 subjects with motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) and 31,093 matched controls...
Psychotropics Drive Record 4.02 Billion U.S. Prescriptions in 2011
With drugs for ADHD increasing 17%, and an "unprecedented increase in patients taking antidepressants and antipsychotics," overall prescription drug sales in the United States...
Thomas Szasz, April 15, 1920 – September 8, 2012
Thomas Szasz, relentless "critic of coercive psychiatry, the 'therapeutic state,' and the war on drugs," died at his home in Manlius, N.Y. over the...
Off-Label Antipsychotic Use Among Children Soaring
Researchers from Philadelphia and Baltimore find, in a study of Medicaid records for 50 states and the District of Columbia, that antipsychotic prescribing to...
J&J Settles Risperdal Lawsuit on Opening Day
Johnson & Johnson settled one of about 420 Risperdal-related lawsuits on the trial's opening day. "The case is resolved and the client is satisfied,"...
Link Between Childhood Adversity and Psychosis Withstands Scrutiny
Researchers from Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands find, in a study of 226 monozygotic twins, that where there is a correlation between childhood adversity...
Louisiana Court Rejects J&J’s Bid to Throw Out $258 million Risperdal Award
The state appeals court of Lake Charles, Louisiana found that "the trial court was not manifestly erroneous in casting (Johnson & Johnson owner) Janssen...
Eli Lilly is Overvalued
The investment newsletter Seeking Alpha reports that Eli Lilly's research woes, including the halting of research into a new antipsychotic, mean that Lilly's stock...
More Evidence That Antipsychotics Shrink the Brain
European researchers who reviewed 43 imaging studies of first-episode psychosis found evidence that antipsychotics cause a decrease in gray matter volumes in the brain....
ProPublica Offers Searchable Database of Nursing Home Inspection Reports
ProPublica now offers a searchable database of 20,000 nursing home inspection reports, a service which may assist in determining homes that have violated guidelines...
Cortisol Levels Increased in Youth at Risk for Psychosis
Researchers from Columbia University and the Institute of Neurosciences in Barcelona assessed cortisol levels in 33 patients at clinical high risk of psychosis. Cortisol...
Type of Treatment for Depression is Less Important than Engagement
An international team of researchers (including Irving Kirsch) found in a review "of 62 pivotal antidepressant trials consisting of data from 13,802 depressed patients"...
Pediatric Drugs: More Illness, But Less Research
An international team of researchers identified all drug trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov between 2006 and 2011 and tracked the resulting publications, finding that although...
Happiness and First-Episode Schizophrenia
Canadian researchers find that 31 people with first-episode schizophrenia diagnoses were as happy as 29 controls, according to a self-reported questionnaire measuring happiness, life...
“Grief is Good News for Pharmaceutical Companies”
The U.K.'s Guardian writes today that "the proposal by the American Psychiatric Association to create a new illness – prolonged grief disorder – and...
Top Docs Call Psych Diagnoses by Brain Scans “Modern Phrenology”
The Washington Post profiles Daniel Amen, "the most popular psychiatrist in America," who claims in copious books, DVDs, television and speaking engagements to be...
