Bias, Corruption & Accountability

The Roanoke Times medical column takes on the question, “Can antidepressants lead to suicidal thoughts and actions?” concluding that “it is crucial for patients...

From STAT: “Imagine that someone offers to give you a guard dog. When the wretched creature arrives, you find out that she is calf-high,...

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently issued a controversial recommendation that all adolescent and adult patients undergo depression screening in primary care. The...

A new analysis of the information that the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) publishes for parents about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) concludes that the children’s experiences and contexts are ignored and that medication is presented, misleadingly, as the only solution supported by research evidence.

Students from Harvard Medical School joined students from Tufts University to protest Joseph DiMasi, who recently published a study that the students claim is...

The New York Post reprints an excerpt on antidepressants from the latest book by MIA contributor, Kelly Brogan, MD, “A Mind of Your Own:...

“Pharmaceutical industry influence can harm the social and moral character of medical students. In medicine, the traditional virtues of benevolence, compassion, integrity, respectfulness, honesty...

“Adolescents whose mothers took certain antidepressants while pregnant with them are more than four times as likely to become depressed by age 15, compared with...

The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has come under intense scrutiny for delayed corrections and controversial editorials and articles. “The Journal and its...

In an exchange published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, researchers take turns highlighting major problems in the way psychiatry is currently practiced in the United States. In response to an article by Vinay Prasad calling for an insistence on randomized control trials in “evidence-based” medicine, Jose de Leon, from the Mental Health Research Center at the University of Kentucky begins the back-and-forth by pointing out that this type of evidence has been detrimental to the field of mental health.

John Ioannidis claims that the idea of evidence based medicine has been “hijacked to serve agendas different from what it was originally aimed for,” in a newly published critical essay in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. Ioannidis frames the essay as a continuation of a conversation with David Sackett, widely considered the founder of evidence based medicine.

The FDA has received reports of over 544 suicides and 1,869 attempted suicides connected to the smoking cessation drug Chantix, according to a new...

According to psychologists, “mental illness is largely caused by social crises such as unemployment or childhood abuse.” If this is so, why are we...

Over the past two months, Ronald Pies and Allen Frances, in response to a post I had written, wrote several blogs that were meant to serve as an “evidence-based” defense of the long-term use of antipsychotics. As I read their pieces, I initially focused on that core argument they were presenting, but second time through, the aha moment arrived for me. Their blogs, when carefully parsed, make a compelling case that their profession, in their use of antipsychotics as a treatment for multiple psychotic disorders, has done great harm, and continues to do so today.

Chicago Psychiatrist Michael Reinstein received a sentence of nine months in prison for taking an estimated $600,000 in kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies in exchange...

Two recent court rulings argue that pharmaceutical companies have a first amendment right to market drugs “off-label” with a lack of scientific evidence, threatening...

Despite concerns about the risk to benefit ratio, the FDA approved flibanserin (Addyi) to treat low female sexual desire in August. In a new...

In spite of constantly increasing opportunities to tell different stories to the canonical story of bio-psychiatry, it can be risky for academics to voice a different perspective than the mainstream model of mental illness. In this conversation, a communication professor and a psychology professor discuss their challenges and personal experiences with going against the grain, such as what it means to be labeled “anti-psychiatry” by colleagues and responding to students upset to learn their medications may not be all they thought they were.

Vermont Governor Shumlin recently suggested a change to state law that would accelerate the process under which a person could be forced to take antipsychotic drugs against her will. The House Human Services Committee reviewed this proposal and I was asked to testify. What follows are my comments.

“The drug industry spent $272,000 in campaign donations per member of Congress last year,” Martha Rosenberg writes for Alternet. As a result, Pharma is taking...

The Center for Public Integrity reports that two scientific journals known for their industry ties have become go-to publications for researchers who minimize risks...

“Children with attention-deficit problems improve faster when the first treatment they receive is behavioral therapy — like instruction in basic social skills — than...

Breitbart reports that dozens of NHS officials with the power to decide which drugs the agency uses are also being paid by Big Pharma....

“Decisions about the effectiveness of drugs are being made with incomplete information because results of almost three-quarters of clinical trials are still not published...

“Two prominent women in the biotech community were so appalled by reports about a party at J.P. Morgan featuring scantily clad models that they've...