Monday, March 27, 2023

1BoringOldMan on Misusing the Tools of Clinical Neuroscience

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1BoringOldMan picks up where he left off two years ago - critiquing Robert Gibbons' misuse of statistical analysis to claim that antidepressants were both...

And That’s the News from the Department of Psychiatry

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In the business of clinical trials, the most valuable commodities are the research subjects. Filling clinical trials is hard, and filling them quickly is even harder. That’s why in 2000 a clinical investigator told the HHS Office of the Inspector General that research sponsors were looking for three things from research sites: “No. 1—rapid enrollment. No. 2 — rapid enrollment. No. 3 — rapid enrollment.”

Keris Myrick: Associate Director of Consumer Affairs for SAMHSA

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Keris Myrick, MIA blogger and, as of today, the former chair of the board of the National Alliance for Mental Illness, will be the...

Benzos Fail to Prevent, May Increase PTSD

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In a review of the evidence regarding benzodiazepines, researchers from the University of Michigan find that benzodiazepines used in the treatment of PTSD are...

Senator Pursues Antipsychotic Prescription Practices

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Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) "inappropriate prescriptions." Finds "shocking" that medicaid prescribers write "more prescriptions than seems humanly possible." Read more            ...

The Changing Role of the Pharmaceutical Representative

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From the Center for Health Journalism: Due to drug safety scandals and rising drug prices, pharmaceutical representatives are increasingly being criticized by physicians, medical schools, and...

Drug Company Sales Reps Should be Banned From Hospitals

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From STAT: Despite evidence that drug company sales reps skew prescribing habits, relatively few hospitals have taken the step of barring them. This is a...

Nonprofit Organization Pushes Big Pharma’s Agenda

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From HealthNewsReview.org: The Alliance for Patient Access (AfPA), a nonprofit organization that claims to advocate for patients to have access to FDA-approved treatments, has consistently worked...

Community Treatment Orders Don’t Work

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Legislation in the U.K. that empowers psychiatrists to impose treatment  on patients has lost the support of one of its key advocates. "The evidence is...

Glaxo Paid Dr. Drew $275k to Promote Wellbutrin

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Part of the case against GlaxoSmithKline settled yesterday involved the company's use of paid experts to promote non-FDA approved uses of its drugs. One...

U.N. Calls for Investigation of Shocks at U.S. School for Autism

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The U.N. special rapporteur on torture has opened discussions with the U.S. mission in Geneva as a first step toward investigating the Judge Rotenberg...

Mother Sues Pfizer for Alleged Zoloft-Related Birth Defects

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The latest in a series of Zoloft-related birth defect lawsuits was filed in St. Louis yesterday, by a firm that claims to represent hundreds...

ADHD Drugs Linked to Psychotic Symptoms in Children

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Stimulant medications like Ritalin and Adderall, often prescribed to treat children diagnosed with ADHD, are known to cause hallucinations and psychotic symptoms. Until recently these adverse effects were considered to be rare. A new study to be published in the January issue of Pediatrics challenges this belief, however, and finds that many more children may be experiencing psychotic symptoms as a result of these drugs than previously acknowledged.

Vikas Saini: Protecting Patients From Excessive Medicine

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In this piece for the BMJ, Jeanne Lenzer profiles Vikas Saini, a cardiologist who is working to fight against excessive medical treatment. His work with...

Mediated Realities

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In this editorial for Tidsskriftet, Ketil Slagstad discusses how the Norwegian media's uncritical coverage of the Lancet antidepressant study points to deeper underlying issues within the...

Better Outcomes Off Medication for Those Recovered from First-Episode Schizophrenia

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A new study has found that of 10 people who were fully recovered from their first episode of schizophrenia (FES), those not taking antipsychotics did better in terms of cognitive, social, and role functioning—and reached full recovery more quickly.

“Why Our Peer Review System is a Toothless Watchdog”

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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,...

Journalists Should Report Their Sources’ Conflicts of Interest

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From HealthNewsReview.org: While researchers are usually required to disclose their conflicts of interest in medical journals, media outlets do not often require journalists to disclose...

Review of Pediatric Antidepressant Studies Finds Evidence of Benefit Lacking

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Review of pediatric antidepressant studies finds the vast majority are negative on primary outcomes and an increased risk for suicidality.

Paying Doctors to Diagnose More Depression is Unethical

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It is "unethical" for the British government to establish expected rates of depression and to pay doctors per diagnosis to increase the diagnosing of...

Disclosure Does Not Prevent Bias

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A study from Lisa Cosgrove at Harvard's Safra Center for Ethics of potential conflicts of interest among DSM-5 committee members, investigators of new DSM-5 diagnoses,...

Nonwhites Twice as Likely to Receive Injectable Antipsychotics

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Research published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry shows that of all 901 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia from July 2009 to June 2010 at a...

Appeals Court States Psychiatrists May Commit Medicaid Fraud by Prescribing Drugs Off-Label

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The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday rejected a lower court's dismissal of  Watson v. King-Vassel, saying that a jury is in fact sufficiently able...

Flibanserin’s ‘Effects’ Do Not Outweigh Harms, Review Finds

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

Biotech Exploits a Loophole in a Federal Transparency Law

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From STAT: A small biotech company, AveXis, recently offered a $3,000 honorarium along with paid airfare and lodging to several experts to attend a so-called...