Accused Trayvon Martin Killer was Previously Prescribed Adderall
George Zimmerman, accused of killing unarmed Trayvon Martin while communicating with police dispatchers who tried to restrain him, was prescribed Adderall (a stimulant) and...
Locus of Control Less Associated with Anxiety in Collective Societies
Locus of Control (LOC), a measure of the degree to which one perceives control of one's life to be internally- vs. externally-determined, was reviewed...
Diagnosis Dispute Traps Teenager in Boston Children’s Hospital
Justina Pelletier, a 15-year-old Connecticut teenager who had been diagnosed with mitochondrial disease, remains trapped in Boston Children's Hospital 9 months after a team...
Short “DUP” Predicts Better Outcome
A Hong Kong study links short "Duration of Untreated Psychosis" (DUP) to better long-term outcome. The authors propose that factors linked to long DUP...
FDA to Review Chantix’ Psychiatric Side Effects
The Food & Drug Administration announced today it will convene a public meeting in October to review the psychiatric and behavioral side effects of...
Antipsychotics Safe During Pregnancy, After Corrective Algorithm
There were some differences between the study, the abstract, the press release and the media coverage about the risks of taking antipsychotics during pregnancy.
Popularity of Off-Label Antipsychotic Use Grows
Fueled by aggressive marketing that hyped atypical antipsychotics as safe and effective for off-label uses, states an article in The Washington Post yesterday, sales of the drugs...
Closing Arguments Begin in Arkansas Risperdal Trial
Arkansas is asking for a minimum of $1.2 billion in fines for the 250,000 Risperdal prescriptions issued under its medicaid program. Fletch Trammel, lawyer...
Childhood Maltreatment Alters Neurobiology of Emotion Perception and Regulation
Martin Teicher, noted researcher of the neurobiology of child abuse, finds in an MRI study of 265 maltreated 18-25 year-olds that "Maltreatment was associated...
FDA Investigator: “The Clinical Trial System is Broken”
A featured article in the British Medical Journal relates the perspective of FDA investigator Thomas Marciniak, who says “Drug companies have turned into marketing machines. They’ve kind of...
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...
Therapy More Effective than Medications for Anxiety — Placebos Also Effective
One-on-one Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is better than psychiatric medications or other common psychotherapeutic interventions for severe anxiety disorders in adults, according to a large...
Hospital Website Health Care Information May Not Be Reliable
An investigation found that many US hospital websites were more like advertising outlets than educational portals.
Nursing Homes Shift Tactics on Dementia
As part of a series on the inappropriate use of antipsychotics in nursing homes, the Boston Globe explores alternative approaches, such as llama therapy,...
“How One Flawed Study Spawned a Decade of Lies”
Forbes magazine dives into the controversy swirling around former DSM task force chairman Robert Spitzer, and his recanted study of "reparative therapy," with an...
Global Survey: Do Antidepressants Work?
The Guardian and its partners in Europe - Le Monde, El Pais, La Stampa, Gazeta Wyborcza and Suddeutsche Zeitung - are conducting a global...
Drug Detailing More Influential than FDA Approval
FDA approvals are less influential on prescribing patterns than pharmaceutical sales marketers are, according to a study in Health Affairs. University of California and...
Migrants and Refugees Significantly More Likely to be Diagnosed as Psychotic
A team from Sweden's Karolinska Institute and Britain's University College of London found, in a study of 1.3 million people in Sweden's national register,...
Antipsychotics are Common for the Mechanically Ventilated
Annals of Pharmacotherapy reports in a study of patients undergoing mechanical ventilation that 39% were given antipsychotic medication to prevent or treat delirium despite...
Childhood Stress Alters Memory and Brain Structure
Researchers from the universities of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New Orleans collected MRI scans and assessments of executive functioning and stress exposure from 61...
FDA Adds Warnings to Celexa’s Label
Following up on last August's warning that high doses of Celexa can cause potentially fatal heart rhythm abnormalities, the FDA has added clarification to...
Stress Reduces Gene Activity Thought to Protect Against Depression
Researchers at Yale University found that stress in rats blocks the activity of a gene that promotes healthy neural connections in the brain. The...
FDA System for Recording Adverse Drug Effects Perilously Deficient
The system that the US FDA is using to gather and report on information about dangerous side effects from medications is extremely unreliable and...
Environmental Factors Drive Mania
Harvard researchers investigated 6,214 cases of major depression for factors that would predict transition to bipolar disorder. Clinical characteristics such as age of onset...
Call For Psych Beds Surges
Debate abounds about the factors driving a nationwide "shortage" of psychiatric hospital beds.
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