Fast-Food and Commercial Baked Goods Cause Depression
Researchers in Spain followed 8.964 subjects who had never been diagnosed with depression followed for over six years, finding that consumers of fast food...
Congressman to Propose “Parental Protection Act” to Congress
Inspired by the plight of Justina Pelletier's family, Representative Steve Stockman (R-TX) will introduce a bill to Congress that proposes to cut off funds...
Psychotic Symptoms/Childhood Trauma Common in Primary as Well as Psychiatric Care
Researchers in Finland reviewed questionnaires filled out by 911 primary and psychiatric care patients over 16 years of age. They found that more than...
Medicaid Fraud Argued Before 7th Circuit Court of Appeals
MIA blogger (and lawyer) Jim Gottstein presented a 20-minute Oral Argument in ex rel Watson v. King-Vassel in front of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago last Thursday. "The technical issue on appeal is a lawyer nerd question about whether expert testimony is required," said Gottstein, "but I like to think it contains a succinct and clear explanation of why even though a doctor can prescribe a drug for anything, if they prescribe one off-label to a child they are causing a False Claim (committing Medicaid Fraud) unless the use has support in at least one of the specified drug references called Compendia."
Childhood Social Function & Schizophrenia
A 48-year longitudinal study of 244 subjects, published in Schizophrenia Research, finds that those with schizophrenia-spectrum diagnoses had had the worst social functioning scores at...
Blood Test for Depression Announced
Researchers testing the blood of 14 teenage subjects with major depressive disorder and 14 with no disorder for a set of candidate biomarkers from...
U.K. Antidepressant Prescriptions Rise 9% in 2011
Almost 50 million prescriptions for antidepressants were issued in the U.K. in 2011, a rise of 9% over 2010. The increase is attributed, at...
NIH Defends Nemeroff Grant, Issues Talking Points
When it awarded yet another multimillion-dollar grant to Charles Nemeroff, a key figure in the controversy over conflicts of interest involving pharmaceutical research, U.S....
Body of Missing Man Found; Paxil Withdrawal Blamed
The body of 78 year-old Bob Farthing, who had been missing since Wednesday, was found in the back seat of his car Friday evening.  "He...
Pfizer Settles First of 2,600 Claims Regarding Chantix and Suicide
After failing to win a postponement earlier this week, Pfizer settled with the widow of Minnesota man who suicided while using the stop-smoking drug...
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...
Vermont Moves to Community Care After Hurricane Destroys State Hospital
Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin "is going to use this tragedy of losing our State Hospital during (hurricane) Irene as an opportunity to deliver the...
Only One in Seven Authors Disclose Conflict of Interest
Researchers from Harvard and the University of Melbourne identified physicians and scientists who had financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies named as defendants in U.S....
Recovery-Oriented Services Benefit Providers As Well
In a study of 114 case managers in Ohio, researchers from Bowling Green State University found that those working at a recovery-oriented center reported...
Antidepressants Keep GIs Fighting
MIA Blogger Bruce Levine talks with American Free Press about the increasing use of psychotropic medications in today's military.
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Australians to Get More Info on Doctor-Pharma Relationships
Drug companies must start publicly releasing information about different types of payments to Australia's physicians.
Published Clinical Trials are Misleading, PLoS Says
Research from the Center for Clinical Trials at Johns Hopkins finds troubling differences between publicly available information on medications and the information that pharmaceutical...
Cognitive Remediation with Functional Skills Training Effective in Schizophrenia
Researchers from Canada and the U.S. report, in findings published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, that cognitive remediation robustly improved neurocognition after 12...
Pennsylvania Court to Hear Appeal of Dismissed Risperdal Lawsuit
In 2002, Pennsylvania state investigator Allen Jones discovered improprieties that lead to a succession of multi-billion dollar awards and settlements against Johnson & Johnson...
Effort to Curb Antipsychotics for Dementia Announced
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is launching an initiative to curb the use of antipsychotic medications for nursing home residents with dementia....
Six Years of Re-education and Restrictions Sufficient to Change Inappropriate Prescribing Habits
A six-year program run by the NHS Foundation Trust aimed at reducing high rates of inappropriate polypharmacy and overprescribing by physicians and psychiatrists to mental health patients in UK inner cities was successful.
Writing Reduces Depression in Seniors
A study of 45 participants in the "Share Your Life Story" writing program in four senior residences in New York City found that depression...
Exposure to Violence Alters Children’s DNA, Life-Long Health
In a sample of 236 children recruited from the Environmental-Risk Longitudinal Twin Study, researchers from Duke University and King's College London found that children...
A Father Grievesa Rush to Medicate
"Diagnosis: Human", a New York Times op-ed, deftly and stirringly captures the paradoxes of the ADHD medication explosion: "My son was no angel (though...
Psychiatrists Took Undisclosed Payments While Promoting Antipsychotic to Government
Two psychiatrists took money from a pharmaceutical company, and then did not disclose it when they lobbied state legislators about the company's drug.
